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Today's edition of quick hits:
* It looks like there won't be a pre-election vaccine: "The drugmaker Pfizer said it will not apply for emergency use authorization for its Covid-19 vaccine candidate until at least the third week of November."
* We've been seeing reports like these for far too long: "The coronavirus is engulfing big city hospitals in states including Utah, Wisconsin and Indiana that are running low on nurses and beds and are being forced to set up overflow facilities."
* What happens when no one can trust the president: "A federal judge demanded on Friday that the White House counsel's office confirm directly with President Donald Trump whether he stands by a series public statements he made declaring that he'd declassified all information related to the probe of alleged Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election."
* The latest research: "Remdesivir, the only antiviral drug authorized for treatment of Covid-19 in the United States, fails to prevent deaths among patients, according to a study of more than 11,000 people in 30 countries sponsored by the World Health Organization."
* A case we've been following: "Elliott Broidy, a former top political fundraiser for President Donald Trump and the Republican Party, plans to plead guilty to participating in an illegal foreign lobbying scheme and cooperate with investigators in the matter, according to a person familiar with the situation."
* Brutal poverty statistics: "After an ambitious expansion of the safety net in the spring saved millions of people from poverty, the aid is now largely exhausted and poverty has returned to levels higher than before the coronavirus crisis, two new studies have found. The number of poor people has grown by eight million since May, according to researchers at Columbia University, after falling by four million at the pandemic's start as a result of a $2 trillion emergency package known as the Cares Act."
* CDC: "How the world's greatest public health organization was brought to its knees by a virus, the president and the capitulation of its own leaders, causing damage that could last much longer than the coronavirus."
* For those concerned about Facebook's Republican affiliations, this is a discouraging article: "For more than a decade as he built Facebook Inc. into a global force, Mark Zuckerberg made it clear he didn't care for politics. Early advisers strained to hold his attention in briefings about D.C. lawmakers, people familiar with the matter say, and he frequently said he would gladly leave the politics to others. No longer. Mr. Zuckerberg is now an active political operator."
* Oh my: "Police are cutting ties with domestic violence programs that support Black Lives Matter."
Have a safe weekend.