October 20, 2020 - PBS NewsHour full episode

The coronavirus relief package Congress and the White House are negotiating over has a dual purpose of easing financial hardship for the unemployed and putting more money into the hands of consumers to keep the economy running. What happens when that aid doesn’t materialize? The Brookings Institution’s David Wessel joins Judy Woodruff to discuss why years of economic growth are at stake.

In our news wrap Tuesday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a stronger recommendation for passengers and employees to wear face masks on buses, planes and trains. The guidance, more specific than previous statements, comes as infections are surging. Also, a NASA robotic spacecraft called OSIRIS-REx swooped down on an asteroid 200 million miles from Earth to collect samples.

The Justice Department is suing Google for allegedly leveraging its market power to block competition illegally. In the most significant challenge to a big tech company in decades, prosecutors say Google pays phone manufacturers to make its search engine users' default, among other charges. Amna Nawaz talks to Dipayan Ghosh of the Harvard Kennedy School’s Digital Platforms & Democracy Project.

The U.S. and Russia say they're close to a major agreement on arms control. The world’s largest nuclear powers are discussing extending the last remaining nuclear treaty, which is currently scheduled to expire in February, and freezing the total number of nuclear warheads. Nick Schifrin reports and talks to Marshall Billingslea, special presidential envoy for arms control, about the negotiations.

With only two weeks before the election, the rules around voting in some states are still being determined. On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court couldn’t agree whether to stop Pennsylvania from counting mail-in ballots postmarked by November 3rd but that arrive after Election Day. William Brangham talks to Nate Persily of Stanford Law School about this important decision and other looming cases.

When outbreaks of COVID-19 at meat processing plants in the U.S. slowed production, American wholesalers and grocery chains turned to foreign beef suppliers. Producers in the small country of Nicaragua were happy to fulfill U.S. demand -- but doing so has come at a high cost for local communities. Nate Halverson of the Center for Investigative Reporting’s Reveal has the story.

Four of America’s first five presidents were born and raised within a 60-mile radius in the state of Virginia. Those men -- George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and James Monroe -- and their sometimes complicated relationships are the focus of a new book by former second lady Lynne Cheney. Cheney joins Judy Woodruff to discuss insights from “The Virginia Dynasty.”