In interviews with POLITICO, more than a dozen top Democrats involved in the Virginia campaign — from strategists on the ground to House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.) — expressed concern that Black support for McAuliffe is weaker and less enthusiastic than it could be in a razor-thin race in a blue-trending state. Against that backdrop, McAuliffe and Black Democratic surrogates are racing across Virginia before Tuesday’s election to drive up Black turnout and support.

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The focus on Black voters in the final stretch of the campaign illustrates the critical role they’ll play on Tuesday. Not only did McAuliffe win a prior term as governor with the overwhelming support of Black voters, especially Black women, every national election since then has proved how critical they are to Democratic chances of victory in close races. While some involved in Virginia have taken heart in a late upswing in energy, others stressed that Black voters are exhausted from the fight against Donald Trump and frustrated with a lack of progress in Washington.

“We have seen an uptick in the last couple of weeks, but I’ve had some concerns about what has felt like a real lag” among Black voters in Virginia, said Adrianne Shropshire, executive director of BlackPAC, which invested $1.6 million into turning out voters of color through field operations and digital ads. “People are still struggling with all kinds of things right now — burying family members because of Covid, getting back to work, getting back to school. It shouldn’t come as a surprise, but it’s still anxiety-producing that there’s this feeling that people aren’t paying attention, aren’t as engaged as we’d hope.”

David Aldridge, executive director of the Virginia Coalition for Progressive Values, an umbrella organization that coordinates field efforts across several Democratic groups, described the survey responses they collect from knocking on doors of likely Democratic voters. “When you look at them in aggregate, you see some softness among communities of color, especially with Black women,” he said.

Japan’s ruling conservative party defied expectations in Sunday’s general election, with a comfortable victory that will boost the prime minister, Fumio Kishida, as he attempts to steer the economy out of the coronavirus pandemic.

Kishida’s Liberal Democratic party secured 261 seats in the 465-member lower house – the more powerful of Japan’s two-chamber Diet – slightly down on its pre-election 276 seats.

The party and its junior coalition partner, Komeito, together won 293 seats, more than the 261 required for an “absolute stable majority” that gives them command of parliamentary committees, making it easier to pass bills.

Kishida said his administration would attempt to compile an extra budget this year that would support for people hit by the pandemic, including those who lost their jobs and students struggling to pay tuition fees.

The Cop26 climate summit is at serious risk of failure because countries are still not promising enough to restrict global temperature rises to below 1.5C, Boris Johnson has warned.

In a blunt admission after two days of preliminary talks at the G20 meeting of world leaders, the prime minister conceded little progress had been made – and the conference is not on track to achieve a deal that keeps the goal alive. He put the chances of success as “six out of 10”.

“Currently, let’s be in no doubt, we are not going to hit it and we have to be honest with ourselves,” he said. The commitments being made so far were a “drop in the rapidly warming ocean”.

Johnson will set out the scale of the challenge facing humanity as he opens the Cop26 leaders summit on Monday attended by almost 200 national representatives, including US president Joe Biden and India’s Narendra Modi, but missing key players such as China’s Xi Jinping and Russia’s Vladimir Putin.

MANASSAS PARK, Va. — The high-stakes race for governor of Virginia entered its final stretch with Glenn Youngkin and Terry McAuliffe trading accusations of sowing division, as voters appeared closely divided over returning a Democrat to office or electing a Republican to lead their state for the first time in more than a decade.

The size and atmosphere of dueling events during the last weekend of campaigning before Election Day on Tuesday reflected the trends in the most recent polls. Mr. Youngkin, the Republican candidate, greeted crowds of more than 1,000, while Mr. McAuliffe, the Democrat, hustled through sparsely attended events from morning to night.

Mr. McAuliffe, who served one term as governor from 2014 to 2018, has displayed a rising sense of urgency lately, dispatching some of the Democratic Party’s biggest stars to campaign for him and push people to vote early. In 11 hours on Saturday, Mr. McAuliffe traveled more than 120 miles, making eight stops in six cities amid a whirlwind day of campaigning in which he urged supporters not to be complacent.

“We are substantially leading on the early vote, but we cannot take our foot off the gas,” Mr. McAuliffe told a crowd on Saturday in Norfolk, where he met with labor leaders who were planning to spend the day knocking on doors.

Members of a military jury condemned the brutal abuse of a Guantánamo Bay detainee at the hands of the CIA and urged a Pentagon official overseeing the court to grant clemency, in a letter obtained by the New York Times.

Why it matters: At his sentencing hearing last week, Majid Khan became the first detainee to testify about the abuse he experienced as part of the U.S. government's interrogation program at CIA black sites.

The jury sentenced Khan, a Pakistani citizen and former Baltimore resident who joined al-Qaeda as a courier, to 26 years in prison Friday. He could be released as early as next year due to his cooperation with U.S. authorities in other investigations.

Khan detailed his treatment, including sexual assault, sleep deprivation, beatings, solitary confinement, starvations and forced enemas.