A look ahead at the key events leading the news agenda next week, from the team at Foresight News. Delivered to your inbox on Fridays.
Covering the election? Check out our state-by-state guide on the races to watch so you can plan your coverage and follow along on the night as polls close.
Leading the week
Tomorrow (October 5) marks one month until election day (November 5), with voting already underway some states. The campaign kicks off next week on our television screens, as Vice President Kamala Harris sits down for the traditional pre-election grilling on 60 Minutes on Monday (October 7). Former President Donald Trump has opted to skip 60 Minutes, despite initially agreeing to an interview, and will instead spend Monday at an event at his Miami golf resort marking the anniversary of the Hamas attacks.
Trump will then be up first for a Univision town hall on Tuesday (October 8), with Harris following on Thursday (October 10). Both candidates are looking to win over Latino voters amid signs of declining support for Democratic candidates this cycle, particularly among Latino men. Trump will also address the Detroit Economic Club on Thursday.
Ahead of his travel to Germany (more on that below), President Joe Biden is scheduled to hold a campaign event in Philadelphia on Tuesday (October 8), with Pennsylvania increasingly looking to be a must-win state for Democrats if recent polling from Georgia and North Carolina holds up. The party looks to be doubling down on the Keystone State, with reports that former President Barack Obama will return to the campaign trail in Pittsburgh on Thursday (October 10) to kick off a swing state ‘blitz’ as the race enters its final weeks.
The US Supreme Court begins its new term on Monday (October 7) after rounding off the last term with its bombshell ruling in Donald Trump’s immunity appeal, which Special Counsel Jack Smith has forcefully argued should not prevent his federal election case from proceeding. While the cases being heard on Monday aren’t of particular note, unless jurisdictional disputes over prescription dog food are your thing, the court’s first week does include two high-profile cases. On Tuesday (October 8), arguments are scheduled in a challenge to an ATF rule regulating so-called ‘ghost guns’, firearms without serial numbers that are assembled from parts and often purchased in a kit.
Then on Wednesday (October 9) the court will hear arguments in the case of Oklahoma death row inmate Richard Glossip, which revolves around a challenge to Oklahoma courts’ refusal to grant him a new trial despite Attorney General Gentner Drummond recommending his conviction be reversed. Glossip’s case comes before the court just two weeks after it rejected last-ditch appeals in the controversial case of Missouri inmate Marcellus Williams, who had always maintained his innocence.
Looking abroad
Amid a series of recent developments ratcheting up already sky-high tensions in the Middle East, Israel and the world will on Monday (October 7) mark the anniversary of Hamas’s devastating attack, which saw some 1,200 people killed and 250 people kidnapped and taken to Gaza, with over 100 still held hostage.
Events marking the anniversary, which falls just days ahead of the start of Yom Kippur on Friday (October 11), include an event organized by victims’ families in Tel Aviv’s Yarkon Park that aims to honor victims in a depoliticized fashion, as well a broadcast of a pre-recorded state-organized event in the southern town of Ofakim, which was attacked on October 7. A state memorial is scheduled to take place at Mount Herzl in Jerusalem on October 27, though at least one of the Kibbutz communities attacked last year, Yad Mordechai, is planning to commemorate the Jewish calendar anniversary of the attacks on Tishrei 22 (October 24), coinciding with the start of the holiday of Simchat Torah.
The anniversary also means it’s the one year mark for Israel’s operations in Gaza, with protests planned this weekend to commemorate the over 40,000 Palestinians believed to have been killed since the war began. Israeli airstrikes on Gaza began in the immediate aftermath of the October 7 attack, and the Israeli government formally declared war on October 8. Sunday (October 13) marks the anniversary of the first evacuation warning, which saw tens of thousands of Gazans flee south amid rumors of an impending Israeli ground invasion.
President Joe Biden heads to Germany on Thursday (October 10) as part of a trip that will also see him visit Angola before returning home on October 15. In addition to bilateral talks with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, likely to take place on Friday (October 11), the conflict in Ukraine is set to be a major focus of the visit. On Saturday (October 12), Biden hosts a meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group at Ramstein Air Force Base, with some 50 leaders expected to attend. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who attended a defense ministers’ gathering of the grouping last month, is likely to take part as he seeks to ensure support for his country’s fight against Russia regardless of the outcome of the US election in November.
The winner of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize is announced on Friday (October 11) to round off Nobel Week, which sees daily announcements of the big prizes in science, economics and literature. The deliberative process is extremely secretive, though we do know that there are 285 candidates for this year’s peace prize, of which 196 are individuals and 89 are organizations – slightly down on last year’s numbers. Henrik Urdal, the head of the Peace Research Institute Oslo who puts together an annual list of potential winners, has this year included UNRWA and its Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini. If this does turn out to be the Norwegian Nobel Committee’s pick, it would provoke quite the reaction from leaders in Israel.