| Cash crunch | Trump's campaign has found it hard to raise money from small donors in the final months before the election, spending 77 cents of each dollar it received in the third quarter on future fundraising efforts, Bill Allison and Misyrlena Egkolfopoulou report. Campaign 2020 There are 14 days until the election. Here's the latest on the race for control of the White House and Congress. Trump and Biden will have their microphones muted during parts of the final presidential debate on Thursday, the Commission on Presidential Debates has said. Their previous face-to-face showdown was assailed as a chaotic free-for-all. 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. Stimulus D-Day | After months of on-again, off-again talks on an increasingly needed U.S. fiscal-stimulus package, today is shaping up as a do-or-die moment for Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to get a deal done before Election Day. With Mnuchin phoning in from a Middle East trip, he and Pelosi will make one more effort to patch up their differences. War gaming | The U.K. Conservative Party is working on a strategy to counter rising support for Scottish independence that may feature delaying and avoiding referendum after an expected majority win by the Scottish National Party in next May's elections. As Alberto Nardelli and Tim Ross report, measures could include giving the Edinburgh administration more power and pressuring the European Union to rule out Scotland rejoining the bloc as an independent country.  Protesters with Scottish flags in Glasgow on Jan. 11. Photographer: Andy Buchanan/AFP Russian undercount | Russia's coronavirus mortality figures may significantly understate the real toll from the disease in a country where excess deaths could soon be the highest in Europe. According to a former employee of the Kremlin's statistics agency, the publicly available data on daily fatalities "need to be multiplied by three," with excess deaths reaching about 115,000 from April to August, Anya Andrianova and Stepan Kravchenko report. - European governments are opting for a piecemeal approach to tackling the virus, but the shifting patchwork of rules and restrictions hasn't curbed its spread, suggesting that even more rules may be inevitable.
Diplomatic win | The U.S.'s decision to remove Sudan from its list of state sponsors of terrorism in return for a $355 million compensation payment gives Trump a foreign-policy victory and Khartoum's fragile government an opening to seek international aid and improved ties with Israel. Washington had censured the country for sheltering Islamist militants and allegedly being complicit in attacks on the USS Cole and U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. What to Watch - U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson's government set a deadline of noon today for political leaders in Manchester, northwest England, to agree to tighter coronavirus restrictions or face new rules being imposed against their will.
- India's government is considering formally starting talks on a trade deal with Taiwan as both democracies see relations with China deteriorate, in a move sure to anger Beijing.
- Zambia has until tomorrow to convince investors to accept a six-month standstill on its debt payments or it may become the first African nation to default since the onset of the coronavirus.
- Pakistan is bracing for more protests over the weekend as an alliance of opposition parties builds momentum for a nationwide series of rallies calling for the resignation of Prime Minister Imran Khan.
And finally ... What sort of science fiction does Xi Jinping like? How can China's weathermen use the president's political philosophy to improve their forecasts? In what ways can "Xi Thought" help prepare the country for the next big earthquake? These are the sorts of questions Communist Party cadres are now pondering as they prepare for the next big milestone in the president's effort to cement control: elevating Xi Thought alongside Maoism.  Xi at a primary school in Hunan Province in September. Source: Xinhua News Agency | 
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