A Combative Trump and a Deliberate Biden Spar From Afar at Town Halls
source: 20 Minutes
The former vice president noted his own consultations with medical experts and emphasized his deference to scientific judgment on confronting the virus. He said that if scientists signed off on a vaccine, he would get one and encourage state and local authorities to promote it, even as he acknowledged the limitations of a vaccine mandate. And he jabbed at some of Mr. Trump’s more outlandish commentary on the virus, such as his suggestion that injecting disinfectant could help combat it.
“Crazy stuff,” Mr. Biden said. “I’m not being facetious, though, I mean he actually said these things.”
Even as the coronavirus continues to tear through the country, Mr. Trump insisted that the United States was “rounding the corner” in the health crisis and urged people to “use the word ‘cure’” in reference to emerging therapies to treat the virus, even though no treatment has emerged that meets that description.
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The president again criticized state leaders for ordering lockdowns and singled out Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, who was recently the target of a kidnapping plot by anti-government militants, for personal attack. And despite briefly expressing support for mask-wearing, Mr. Trump quickly equivocated.
“On the masks, you have two stories,” Mr. Trump said, claiming falsely that most people who wear masks contract the virus.
Arguing that the United States had fared well enough in the coronavirus pandemic, Mr. Trump brandished several sheets of paper as he cited figures showing rising case counts in Europe, including at least one document that appeared to show a screen shot of a graphic shown on Fox News.
Perhaps notably, Mr. Trump said he would commit to a peaceful transfer of power after the election — a promise he declined to make in the first debate — though he quickly added the qualification that he would insist on an “honest election” and raised unsubstantiated theories about voter fraud. When Ms. Guthrie pointed out that the F.B.I. director, Christopher A. Wray, had said there was no sign of such widespread voter misconduct, the president shot back, “Then he’s not doing a very good job.”
Mr. Biden had less to lose from this relatively muted evening, since he is consistently ahead of Mr. Trump in national and swing-state polls while millions of Americans are already casting their ballots through early and mail-in balloting.
Mr. Biden concluded many of his lengthy responses by expressing hope that he had answered the voters’ questions.
Mr. Biden concluded many of his lengthy responses by expressing hope that he had answered the voters’ questions.Credit...Jeenah Moon for The New York Times
The dueling town hall events came during Mr. Trump’s first week back on the campaign trail after his three-night hospitalization in early October and his recovery the next week. The president has been determined to return to campaigning as usual despite the apparent severity of the health issues he confronted, aware that time is running short and perhaps eager to dispel any perception among voters that he might be physically frail.
Little Bursts of Fright: The Horror Anthology Is Having a Heyday
source: Universal Pictures International France
When Mary Laws set out to create “Monsterland,” her new socially conscious horror anthology series on Hulu, she drew inspiration from the concise, unnerving fables of the British playwright Caryl Churchill. “She knows how to tell a scary story,” said Laws, who has a playwriting background. “She refuses to give the audience a break.” But Laws also looked within. “As a woman, part of why I’m interested in horror is that I’ve been put in horrific situations and have experienced something like real terror,” she said. “My womanness has led me into those action-packed two minutes of tense terror that you feel when you’re facing some kind of dreaded situation. That’s the way that I think horror has to work.”
Accelerated terror in a fleeting time frame: that’s the revved-up engine that drives “Monsterland” and other new horror anthologies out this spooky season. Hulu’s “Books of Blood” assembles three tales inspired by Clive Barker’s short stories. “The Mortuary Collection,” on Shudder, is a compilation of darkly antic narratives. Quibi’s blood-and-guts series “50 States of Fright” recently released several new episodes, each set in a different state. Sam Raimi, an executive producer of “50 States of Fright,” said the best short-form horror is “designed like a great campfire tale.” “It’s something you can really get goose bumps from in a brief amount of time,” said Raimi, known to horror fans as the director of the “Evil Dead” movies. “I like the precision that it takes for a filmmaker to hold the audience in its grip.” ImageFrom left, Josh Ruben, Chris Redd and Aya Cash in Scare Me. From left, Josh Ruben, Chris Redd and Aya Cash in “Scare Me.”Credit...Shudder
Anthologies come in a variety of forms. In horror there are episodic series, like HBO’s “Room 104”; seasonal anthologies like FX’s “American Horror Story” and films-within-a-feature film, like John Carpenter and Tobe Hooper’s “Body Bags” (1993). The stories often are tied together by a framing device or narrator, like the Crypt Keeper, the cackling puppet host of the “Tales From the Crypt” franchise.
For makers and watchers, the anthology — the storytelling equivalent of a box of chocolates — nicely squares with pandemic-era home viewing habits, like binge marathons.
“Over the last several months a lot of us have evaluated what we find scary, but also how we want to scare people,” said Greg Nicotero, the creator and showrunner of Shudder’s anthology series “Creepshow,” based on George A. Romero’s 1982 horror-comedy anthology film.
Mexico’s Former Defense Minister Is Arrested in Los Angeles
source: Daniel Becerril
Gen. Salvador Cienfuegos Zepeda, who was detained at the airport, is the first high-ranking Mexican military official to be taken into custody in the U.S. in connection with drug-related corruption. MEXICO CITY — A former Mexican defense minister was arrested on Thursday night after arriving at Los Angeles International Airport with his family, according to the Mexican government, becoming the first high-ranking military official to be taken into custody in the United States in connection with drug-related corruption in his country.
The former official, Gen. Salvador Cienfuegos Zepeda, who was Mexico’s defense minister from 2012 to 2018, was arrested by American officials at the request of the Drug Enforcement Administration and will face drug and money-laundering charges in the United States, according to a federal law enforcement official in New York.
The news not only casts a pall over Mexico’s fight against organized crime, but also underscores the forces of corruption that touch the highest levels of the government. General Cienfuegos was defense minister throughout the administration of President Enrique Peña Nieto, who left office two years ago.
General Cienfuegos’s arrest comes 10 months after the retired police official who once led the Mexican equivalent of the F.B.I. was indicted in New York on charges of taking bribes while in office to protect the Sinaloa drug cartel, one of Mexico’s most powerful criminal mafias.
Both Mr. García Luna and General Cienfuegos served at the highest reaches of the Mexican government at a time when homicides spiked to historic levels, drug cartels waged war, and under Mr. Peña Nieto, military operations were expanded.
“There has never been a minister of defense in Mexico arrested,” said Jorge Castañeda, a former Mexican foreign minister. “The minister of defense in Mexico is a guy that not only runs the army and is a military man, but he reports directly to the president. There is no one above him except the president.”
Mexico’s foreign minister, Marcelo Ebrard, confirmed the arrest in a Twitter post. He said he had been told only on Thursday night by the United States ambassador to Mexico, Christopher Landau, that General Cienfuegos had been taken into custody.