President Donald Trump's coronavirus diagnosis was a moment of reckoning for his Republican Party, whose leaders largely adopted his strategy of playing down the disease but are now confronted with a stark political nightmare a month from Election Day. The president's infection thrust the pandemic front and center when Republicans would rather be talking about Trump's Supreme Court nominee, law enforcement or the economy as early voting is underway in most states. They include Iowa and North Carolina, states that Republicans must win to maintain their three-vote edge in the Senate.

Nine people, including six secondary school students, were arrested in Hong Kong on Tuesday for allegedly plotting to set off homemade bombs in courts, tunnels and trash cans as political tensions rise in the city where China is tightening its grip. Police said they were detained on suspicion of engaging in terrorist activity under a harsh national security law that Beijing imposed a year ago as part of a crackdown on dissent in the former British colony that has long enjoyed freedoms not seen on the Chinese mainland.

The postponed vote in Parliament on Britain's Brexit agreement with the European Union will be held the week of Jan. 14 — more than a month after it was originally scheduled and just 10 weeks before Britain leaves the EU. "I know this is not everyone's perfect deal," Prime Minister Theresa May said. "It is a compromise. But if we let the perfect be the enemy of the good then we risk leaving the EU with no deal."