Florida

OPA-LOCKA, Fla. (AP) — President Donald Trump is suggesting that he will fire Dr. Anthony Fauci after Tuesday’s election, as his rift with the nation’s top infectious disease expert widens while the nation sees its most alarming outbreak of the coronavirus since the spring.

Speaking at a campaign rally in Opa-locka, Florida, Trump expressed frustration that the surging cases of the virus that has killed more than 231,000 people in the United States this year remains prominent in the news. That sparked his supporters to begin chanting “Fire Fauci.”

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — President Donald Trump and Democratic challenger Joe Biden each has a path to the 270 Electoral College votes needed to win the White House. Biden’s is appreciably wider.

The former vice president is competitive in all the battleground states Trump carried in 2016 and has put a handful of traditional Republican states, including Georgia and Arizona, in play. That has Trump scrambling to defend a wide swath of territory and putting the incumbent’s hopes for reelection on two of the most populous swing states, Florida and Pennsylvania.

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — President Donald Trump and Democratic rival Joe Biden are set to chase votes in Florida, a state all but essential to the Republican’s pathway to another term as both nominees turn their focus to encouraging voters to turn out on Election Day.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — The moon’s shadowed, frigid nooks and crannies may hold frozen water in more places and in larger quantities than previously suspected. And for the first time, the presence of water on the moon’s sunlit surface has been confirmed, scientists reported Monday.

That’s good news for astronauts at future lunar bases who could tap into these resources for drinking and making rocket fuel.

MIAMI (AP) — A strengthening Tropical Storm Zeta is expected to become a hurricane Monday as it heads toward the eastern end of Mexico’s resort-dotted Yucatan Peninsula and then likely move on for a possible landfall on the central U.S. Gulf Coast at midweek.

Zeta, which on Sunday became the earliest ever 27th named storm of the Atlantic season, was centered about 260 miles (420 kilometers) southeast of Cozumel island late Sunday, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said. It had maximum sustained winds of 60 mph (95 kph).

(AP) --- With nine days before Election Day, more people already have cast ballots in this year’s presidential election than voted early or absentee in the 2016 race as the start of in-person early voting in big states led to a surge in turnout in recent days.

The opening of early voting locations in Florida, Texas and elsewhere has piled millions of new votes on top of the mail ballots arriving at election offices as voters try to avoid crowded places on Nov. 3 during the coronavirus pandemic.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — A NASA spacecraft is stuffed with so much asteroid rubble from this week’s grab that it’s jammed open and precious particles are drifting away in space, scientists said Friday.

Scientists announced the news three days after the spacecraft named Osiris-Rex briefly touched asteroid Bennu, NASA’s first attempt at such a mission.

PENSACOLA, Fla. (AP) — President Donald Trump and his allies fought for support in pivotal battleground states Friday after a debate performance that gave new hope to anxious Republicans. Democrat Joe Biden, campaigning close to home, tried to clean up a debate misstep while urging voters to stay focused on the president’s inability to control the worsening pandemic.

(AP) --- More than 17 million Americans have already cast ballots in the 2020 election, a record-shattering avalanche of early votes driven both by Democratic enthusiasm and a pandemic that has transformed the way the nation votes.

SANFORD, Florida (AP) — Defiant as ever about the coronavirus, President Donald Trump on Monday turned his first campaign rally since contracting COVID-19 into a full-throated defense of his handling of the pandemic that has killed 215,000 Americans, joking that he was healthy enough to plunge into the crowd and give voters “a big fat kiss.”