Actor Sean Connery dies aged 90

A US hostage in Nigeria has been rescued by SEAL Team 6 in a daring raid. Philip Walton had been abducted on Monday from a village near the border with Nigeria. Walton had been living with his wife and child in the village of Massalata for two years. It’s unclear why Walton was targeted and who the armed group were. President Trump tweeted out a show of support, calling the operation a ’big win’.

The Guardian, claiming access to leaked moderation guidelines, alleges that Facebook moderators had to manually intervene to suppress a New York Post story about Hunter Biden. As per the documents, Facebook fact-checkers manually added the article to its queue (rather than the AI fact-checking), and reduced distribution of the article for a short period while reviewing its contents.

President Trump, speaking at a rally in Michigan on Friday, claimed that doctors are inflating the COVID-19 death count for monetary gain. ’Our doctors get more money if someone dies from Covid. So what they do is they say ’I’m sorry but everybody dies of Covid,’’ Trump said. The AMA, while not naming Trump, said such claims were ’malicious, outrageous, and completely misguided.’

A Greek Orthodox priest has been shot and injured outside a church in Lyon, France, by an assailant who is on the run. The priest is being treated for life threatening injuries. According to police officials, the attacker was alone and fired from a hunting rifle. France is currently on high alert for terror attacks in response to the knifings that have taken place earlier on Thursday.

According to a new research, 2020 is the record year for Americans giving up their citizenship. 6,045 Americans gave up their citizenship in the first nine months of 2020, a 234% increase on the same 9 months to in 2019. This is the highest year on record, with the previous highest being 5,411 cases in 2016. Americans are required to pay a $2,350 fee to renounce their citizenship.

Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden has claimed that US President Donald Trump’s campaign rallies are spreading more than just COVID-19, and that they are responsible for spreading ’division and discord.’ In Iowa, Biden accused the US President of giving up on the fight against the coronavirus.

Philippine officials on Saturday ordered an evacuation of thousands of residents in the southern part of the main Luzon island as a category 5 storm approaches the country. Typhoon Goni, with 133 miles sustained winds and gusts of up to 164 mph, will make landfall on Sunday. This is expected to be the strongest typhoon to hit the Philippines since Haiyan that killed more than 6,300 people in 2014.

Kyle Rittenhouse, the 17 year old charged with fatally shooting two men and wounding a third during a protest in Kenosha, will be tried in Wisconsin, a judge ruled on Friday. He has been charged with attempted intentional homicide, underage possession of firearms and first degree intentional homicide - the most serious of the charges - which could land him in prison.

US President Donald Trump has taken the lead in Florida by over 2 percentage points according to a poll released by the Trafalgar Group. Of the respondents, 47.8% said they would vote for Trump if the election were held today and 45.7% said they would vote for Biden. Additionally, 1.8% said they are ’leaning Trump,’ while 1.2% said they are ’leaning Biden.’

A third person was taken into custody in France in connection with the knife attack which left three dead in Nice on Thursday. No details of the suspect were released. Besides, the third victim has been named as Nadine Devillers, 60. The other two victims of the attack were Simone Barreto-Silva, 44, and Vincent Loques, 55.

Tensions flared between left and right wing protesters following a vigil for Kevin Peterson Junior, a Black man who died after being shot by law enforcement officials in Vancouver. Hundreds of protesters proceeded to march through downtown Vancouver, shattering windows and burning flags. Authorities later ordered protesters to disperse.

Over 82 million Americans have cast their ballots in the presidential election, a US Elections Project tally shows. This represents nearly 60% of all the votes cast in the 2016 election. Democrats enjoy a huge advantage in mail ballot requests, and mail ballot return rates. However, voters still haven’t returned nearly 37 million mail ballots. Republicans have a lead in the in-person early vote.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is set to hold a press conference anticipated to be the announcement of a new lockdown within the country. With COVID-19 cases on the rise, reports suggest the new lockdown could be over a month long. The U.K. is recording more than 20,000 new coronavirus cases a day and is likely to surpass 1 million confirmed cases since the outbreak began.

With the US Presidential Elections drawing closer, a large number of Britons are betting on the likely outcomes of the election, with about $284 million already being wagered on the Betfair Exchange, the world’s largest online betting exchange. The amount of money bet on this year’s election has already shattered the previous record of the £199 million bet on the Trump-Clinton race four years ago.

Rescuers continued a desperate search for survivors from a powerful earthquake that levelled buildings across Greece and Turkey, killing at least 26 people. The quake caused a mini-tsunami on the island of Samos. The 7.0 magnitude tremor hit off the Greek town of Karlovasi. Felt both in Istanbul and Athens, it also lead to a rare call of support between the leaders of the two rival nations.

Filmmaker Michael Moore suggested that polls showing Joe Biden in a comfortable lead against President Donald Trump are inaccurate. During a TV appearance, he warned Trump’s votes are always undercounted. Moore – a well-known liberal – said, ’Trump has tightened virtually every one of these swing states to the point where – what are they saying this morning? ... Listen, don’t believe these polls.’

Upset over the Supreme Court ruling that officials in Pennsylvania and North Carolina could count mail-in ballots after Election Day, President Trump tweeted complaining that this could hand a ’ridiculous’ victory to Joe Biden. Trump also warned that Biden would pack the Supreme Court with more ’Radical Left’ justices, a move that would ’destroy’ the court.

US President Donald Trump called out Fox News host Laura Ingraham for wearing a mask at his campaign rally in Michigan. He then went on to tell the crowd that Ingraham was ’being very politically correct.’

Georgia GOP Sen. David Perdue has refused to participate in the final debate with Democratic challenger Jon Ossoff, after the two traded barbs during their debate Wednesday. The debate saw the two attack each other over issues including COVID-19 and the Affordable Care Act. Ossoff called Perdue a ’crook’ over his stock trades, while Perdue suggested Ossoff was endorsed by the Communist Party.

Exxon Mobil posted losses to the tune of $680mn in Q3 as pandemic curbed travel globally, cutting down demand for fuel. Revenue declined to $46.2bn, down from $65.05bn during the same quarter last year. The pandemic has hit the oil industry hard, which was already struggling with low prices and oversupply before the pandemic. The price of US crude has fallen 40% since beginning of the year.

After a court ruling further restricted Poland’s abortion laws, thousands of protesters in various cities from across the globe have gathered over the past days in support of Poles who have taken to the streets in protest against the court ruling. Protesters have gathered outside the Polish embassy in cities like Oslo, London, Chicago, Glasgow, Brussels and elsewhere.

The nation’s largest police union, the Fraternal Order of Police, has been accused of using a photo of a black toddler and an officer as ’propaganda.’ Attorneys representing the toddler’s family said that the officers removed the child from an SUV after throwing his mother, Rickia Young, and a 16-year-old relative out of the vehicle. The incident was filmed by people present in the nearby area.

Tesla’s ’Full Self-Driving’ option, which currently has autopilot features, like changing lanes on highways and automatic parking, will now cost $10,000. This is a hike of $2,000 over the $8,000 beta. Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced this in a tweet in response to the launch of the Full Self-Driving beta to select customers. He said he expects ’wide release’ of Full Self-Driving before the year-end.

Joe Biden attempted to raise attention towards the fact that he is Catholic, even as groups have knocked him on issues held near and dear to the faithful and opposed by the church. Issues surrounding religious freedom for nuns and abortion are particularly contentious topics. Biden wrote in an op-ed that his Catholic faith guides his policies around coronavirus, racism and ending poverty.