VIRUS OUTBREAK-NORTH CAROLINA

N.C. maintains reopening guidance as COVID numbers worsen

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — North Carolina Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper says  the state will keep its reopening guidelines in place for three more weeks. The move comes as key metrics show a worsening of the coronavirus spread. The state on Wednesday eclipsed 4,000 deaths and 250,000 cases since the start of the coronavirus pandemic. Mandy Cohen, secretary of the state’s Department of Health and Human Services, noted that North Carolina saw its highest single-day increases in COVID-19 cases to date on two occasions last week. Current hospitalizations have also hit monthslong highs, with more than 1,200 patients being treated now for the virus. Daily deaths also have climbed.

BC-NC-VIRUS OUTBREAK-CHURCH

2 dead from COVID-19 cases tied to N Carolina church event

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — Health officials in North Carolina say a COVID-19 outbreak linked to a church has left at least two people dead. The Charlotte Observer reports Mecklenburg County authorities said Wednesday that there are now 68 cases since the local health department initially reported the outbreak on Saturday. That was one week after the multi-day event at the United House of Prayer for All People in Charlotte on Oct. 11. The county says four people have been hospitalized. County officials also have notified other local health departments in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, New Jersey and New York to monitor for cases connected to the church events.

ELECTION 2020-DEBATE

Face to face: Trump and Biden to meet for final debate

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — President Donald Trump and Democratic challenger Joe Biden are set to square off in their final debate Thursday. It’s one of the last high-profile opportunities for the trailing president to change the trajectory of an increasingly contentious campaign. Some Trump advisers are urging him to trade his aggressive demeanor for a lower-key style, hoping Biden will get himself in trouble with verbal gaffes. But it’s hardly clear that the president will listen. There were supposed to be three debates, but the second was canceled after Trump got COVID-19 and then objected to the resulting revised format.

ELECTION 2020-NORTH CAROLINA-BALLOTS

North Carolina scrambles to inform voters of absentee errors

DURHAM, N.C. (AP) — Time was dwindling for thousands of North Carolina voters to fix absentee voting errors as elections officials hustled out an updated process for handling mail-in ballot problems two weeks before Election Day. Court battles had halted processing of ballots mailed back with deficiencies from Oct. 4 until the state issued new guidance Monday. State and federal judges had frozen key parts of the process amid lawsuits over what to do with ballots that lacked a witness signature and other information. After the new rules were announced, some counties said they had all but cleared the backlog, but voters elsewhere said they hadn’t yet been contacted.

AP-US-ELECTION-2020-TRUMP-PATH-TO-270

Road to 270: Trump’s best path to victory hinges on FL, PA

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump still has a path to the 270 Electoral College votes he needs to win reelection. But it requires everything to break in his direction once again. His most likely route would be to win two crucial states: Pennsylvania and Florida. If he can win there and hold onto North Carolina and Arizona — while playing defense in Georgia and Ohio — he will win. Trump’s campaign is also continuing to pour time and money into Wisconsin and Michigan. And it is trying to defend Iowa and flip Nevada and Minnesota, two states his 2016 rival Hillary Clinton narrowly won.

ELECTION 2020-THE LATEST

The Latest: Trump tells rally about ’60 Minutes’ interview

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is keeping up a public feud with “60 Minutes” correspondent Lesley Stahl, who he says took him too seriously after he pleaded for suburban women to love him. Stahl interviewed Trump at the White House on Tuesday for Sunday’s edition of the news magazine. Trump abruptly ended the interview. Addressing a campaign rally Wednesday in Gastonia, North Carolina, Trump says Stahl pressed him on his plea for love from suburban women, some of whom have turned away from the president. Trump says although he was kidding, “I mean it.” He says Stahl told him: “You are begging for women to love you.”

ELECTION 2020

Trump tends to his electoral map, Biden eyes Obama boost

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is hopping from one must-win stop on his electoral map to the next in the leadup to a final presidential debate that may be his last, best chance to alter the trajectory of the 2020 campaign. Democrat Joe Biden is hoping for a boost from former President Barack Obama, who’ll be holding his first in-person campaign event for Biden on Wednesday in Philadelphia. Biden has been holed up for debate prep in advance of Thursday’s faceoff with Trump in Tennessee. Trump trails in polls in most battleground states. The Republican president stopped in Pennsylvania on Tuesday and was bound for North Carolina on Wednesday.

MISSING HIKER

Body of missing hiker found in North Carolina mountains

CANTON, N.C. (AP) — Officials say rescue crews have found the body of a young hiker who went missing in the North Carolina mountains. According to a statement from the Haywood County Emergency Management team, 27-year-old Chad Seger’s body was found in the Pisgah National Forest on Tuesday. Local news outlets report search teams found Seger’s body at approximately 3 p.m. in an off-trail area in the Shining Rock Wilderness area. He was last seen on Oct. 12. The statement said it was too early to determine his cause of death.