October 13, 2020 - PBS NewsHour full episode

BARRETT HEARINGS 1

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., is a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which is conducting Amy Coney Barrett’s Supreme Court confirmation hearing this week. On Tuesday, lawmakers questioned Barrett about her judicial philosophy and legal opinions of cases on gun ownership, health care and abortion, among other topics. Durbin joins Judy Woodruff to discuss what he learned from the session.

Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, is a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, before which Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett appeared Tuesday to answer lawmakers’ questions. Grassley joins Judy Woodruff to discuss Barrett’s “outstanding credentials,” why he is satisfied with her hearing responses and whether he regrets voting not to confirm Justices Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor.

For a closer look at the legal questions raised during Tuesday’s confirmation hearing for Judge Amy Coney Barrett, Judy Woodruff talks to the University of Virginia’s Saikrishna Prakash, a former law clerk for Justice Clarence Thomas, and Georgetown University’s Victoria Nourse, who was chief counsel to Vice President Joe Biden in 2015 and 2016.

Florida is among the country's biggest prizes on Election Day, as well as one of the key swing states that has voted for the winning presidential candidate for more than 20 years. Its electoral importance explains why both President Trump and Democratic rival Joe Biden have been campaigning there in the past day. Yamiche Alcindor reports.

In our news wrap Tuesday, Virginia online voter registration was disrupted on its final day of availability. State officials blamed an accidental cut in a fiber optic cable for the outage, which could prevent thousands from registering to vote. Also, the FBI says anti-government groups from several states discussed kidnapping Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam, whose pandemic restrictions they opposed.

The world is struggling to slow a new surge in the number of COVID-19 infections. The problem is especially pronounced in Europe, where France, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom account for a large share of new cases. But the concerns about continuing spread are global. Amna Nawaz talks to global health expert Lawrence Gostin of Georgetown Law School about new hot spots and how to curb them.