| Distant reality | With a booming U.S. economy at his back, Trump months ago could have expected to bask in the adulation of thousands of supporters as he contemplated a glide path to re-election at this week's national party convention. Instead he's set to address a crowd of only a few hundred socially distant Republican delegates gathered today to formally nominate him. As Justin Sink and Jennifer Jacobs write, the diminished event is practically its own metaphor for the pandemic's toll. Campaign 2020 There are 71 days until the election. Here's the latest on the race for control of the White House and Congress. Republicans say their four-day convention, culminating in Trump's acceptance speech Thursday from the White House, will contrast with the Democrats' largely taped gathering last week by featuring more live events with audiences from Washington and around the country. Today's theme is "Land of Promise." Click here for our viewers' guide. Other developments: Sign up to receive daily election updates as a direct mobile notification on Twitter. Simply click on this link and like the tweet. Promising plasma? | Trump said a coronavirus treatment that involves plasma donated by people who've recovered from Covid-19 will be expanded to more sick Americans, widening access to a promising therapy even before researchers fully understand how well it works. Trump, who on Saturday accused regulators of moving slowly in order to diminish his chances of re-election, later said the FDA had concluded the therapy is "safe" and "very effective." It has yet to undergo the full set of clinical trials usually required. Hot water | Top European Union trade negotiator Phil Hogan — who's helping chart future ties with the U.K. and leading talks with the U.S. — faces the possibility of ouster, even after he apologized for attending a golf-society dinner in his native Ireland during the pandemic. It now transpires Hogan traveled to and left his home outside Dublin while the area was under lockdown and non-essential travel banned, plus he stopped to pick up personal belongings and documents related to EU-U.S. talks. Where it hurts | Mexico's Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has found his anti-corruption credentials under fire after videos surfaced showing his brother taking packets of cash from a state political operator in 2015 — three years before the president was elected. As Michael O'Boyle reports, it's a headache for a populist leader who's used a graft probe of past administrations to boost his Morena party ahead of legislative and state elections next year. App fightback | TikTok said it plans to file a lawsuit against the Trump administration as soon as today over an executive order banning transactions with the Chinese app in America. WeChat users, meanwhile, have filed a complaint in federal court to try to stop the administration imposing a ban on its app. WeChat owner Tencent Holdings jumped in Hong Kong trading today after White House officials reassured U.S. businesses a ban won't be as broad as feared. - Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi will discuss efforts to bolster the global economy and fight the pandemic on a trip to Europe starting tomorrow.
 The TikTok logo is displayed on a smartphone in front of a Chinese flag in this arranged photograph in London on Aug. 3. Photographer: Hollie Adams/Bloomberg What to Watch This Week - Tension is building between Russia and the protest movement against Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, with Moscow accusing opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya of pursuing an anti-Russian agenda amid continuing protests in Minsk.
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U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson is urging parents to send their children back to the classroom when English schools reopen next week, even as teachers and union officials worry it's not safe. -
West African leaders are softening their demand that a military junta in Mali return President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita to office after weekend talks in the nation's capital. -
It may take days to determine whether Alexei Navalny, the Russian anti-corruption campaigner who's now in a German hospital after falling into a coma Aug. 20, was poisoned, his chief of staff said. - The U.S. Gulf Coast will be hammered by two storms this week, with more than half of offshore oil production already shut and states from Florida to Texas on watch.
Thanks to all who responded to our pop quiz Friday and congratulations to Bill Peterson, who was the first to correctly name Mali as the African nation where the president was overthrown last week in a military coup. And finally ... Even under the mildest global warming estimates, as many as 600,000 Bangladeshis will permanently lose their homes. In the worst-case scenario, that number rises to as many as 3 million. Home to the world's largest river delta system, Bangladesh is hoping the World Bank will approve $2 billion in loans to fund its ambitious adaptation plan — which includes land reclamation, as well as construction of embankments and safe navigation channels — with the first installment expected early next year.  Inundated village houses are seen in Savar, Bangladesh. Photographer: Munir Uz Zaman/AFP | 
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