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US President Donald Trump and his White House challenger Joe Biden are feuding over plans for their final TV debate.

The Republican president’s campaign accused organisers of Thursday’s showdown of helping the Democrat by leaving out foreign policy as a topic.

The Biden camp shot back that Mr Trump was trying to avoid questions about his response to the coronavirus pandemic.

With two weeks to go until the election, Mr Biden has a commanding lead nationally in opinion polls.

However, he has a smaller lead in the handful of key US states that will ultimately decide the outcome.

On Monday, the president’s camp sent a letter to the Commission on Presidential Debates calling for topics to be adjusted for the final primetime duel this Thursday.

Trump campaign manager Bill Stepien said in the letter that the campaigns had already agreed foreign policy would be the focus of the third debate.

The topics were announced by moderator and NBC News correspondent Kristen Welker last week: American families, race in America, climate change, national security, and leadership.

During a campaign rally on Monday afternoon in Prescott, Arizona, Mr Trump described Ms Welker as a “radical Democrat” and said she would be “no good”.

Mr Stepien accused Mr Biden of being “desperate to avoid conversations about his own foreign policy record” and the commission of trying to “insulate Biden from his own history”.

“The Commission’s pro-Biden antics have turned the entire debate season into a fiasco and it is little wonder why the public has lost faith in its objectivity,” he wrote.

He also accused Mr Biden of trying to avoid questions over reports about purported emails from his son, Hunter, and alleged conflicts of interest.

The Democrat’s camp hit back that it was actually Mr Trump who was trying to duck questions.

“The campaigns and the Commission agreed months ago that the debate moderator would choose the topics,” said national press secretary TJ Ducklo.

“The Trump campaign is lying about that now because Donald Trump is afraid to face more questions about his disastrous Covid response.

“As usual, the president is more concerned with the rules of a debate than he is getting a nation in crisis the help it needs.”

Following public criticism over the handling of the first debate, the commission has adopted a new rule to mute microphones in the final event.

The 90-minute debate structure will be divided into 15-minute segments. At the start of each new topic, each candidate will have two minutes of uninterrupted time – during which his opponent’s microphone will be off.

The rest of the time will be open discussion – and the microphones will not be muted.

In a statement announcing the decision, the Commission on Presidential Debates said it determined it was “appropriate to adopt measures intended to promote adherence to agreed-upon rules”.

The commission noted that “one [campaign] may think they go too far, and one may think they do not go far enough”, but that these actions provided the right balance in the interests of the public.

The Trump campaign chief noted on Monday that the moderator of the cancelled second debate on 15 October, Steve Scully, had been suspended after tweeting to a prominent Trump critic, then lying that his account had been hacked.

Mr Stepien also accused the moderator of the first debate, Fox News’ Chris Wallace, of having acted as “a third combatant” against Mr Trump.

The first Trump-Biden duel on 29 September descended into an exchange of insults, with the president interrupting many more times than his challenger, according to post-debate statistics from US media outlets.

The second debate was called off after Mr Trump refused to take part. The commission had ruled it would have to take place with the candidates in different locations because the president had tested positive for coronavirus.

Mr Trump dismissed the idea as a waste of time. He contracted coronavirus at the beginning of October but says he has since fully recovered.

Nearly 30 million early voters have already cast their ballots, compared with just six million at this point before the last presidential election in 2016.

Experts say the pandemic has spurred many to cast their ballot ahead of time to avoid crowding at polling stations on 3 November, though some early voters have faced long queues.

On Monday, Republicans were dealt a defeat by the US Supreme Court as it declined to take up a case on postal ballots in the critical swing-voting state of Pennsylvania.

Republicans had argued only ballots received by election day should be counted, and were contesting a state Supreme Court decision to allow late ballots to count.

Now that America’s highest court has refused to hear the case, any ballots received within three days of 3 November will be counted, even if they do not have a clear postmark.

Chief Justice John Roberts sided with the court’s three liberal justices in the case.

Greater Manchester leaders have been given a deadline of midday to reach a deal with the government over moving to tier three Covid restrictions.

If a deal is not reached, Communities Secretary Robert Jenrick said the PM would decide on the next steps.

In this situation, the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg said the “implication” was the top tier of rules would be imposed.

Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham said the region was seeking a “fair figure” of support from the government.

Mr Burnham told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme he would be meeting with local leaders this morning and would advise them to set out the request in a letter to the government.

The government and local leaders – including mayors and MPs – have been embroiled in 10 days of talks over tighter rules for Greater Manchester’s 2.8m population.

The “very high” alert level, also known as tier three, would mean closing pubs and bars which do not serve meals, and additional restrictions on households mixing.

Mr Jenrick said local leaders had been “so far unwilling to take the action that is required to get this situation under control”.

Speaking to Today, Mr Burnham described the government’s ultimatum as a “slightly provocative move”, but he said he was going to “try and find a way forward”.

He said local leaders had never been given a figure for additional financial support in return for further restrictions.

As well as setting out what a “fair figure” of support was, Mr Burnham said he wanted “full flexibility” to support people who will be affected by restrictions.

He said: “I think it is fair to recognise that if you put a place under restrictions for as long as we’ve been under restrictions it grinds people down. It pushes businesses closer to the brink.”

Sir Richard Leese, the Labour leader of Manchester City Council, told BBC Newsnight he hoped a deal could still be made, but added: “If government imposes tier three – and I hope that won’t happen – we will clearly need to comply with that.”

On Monday, Mr Burnham and Sir Richard accused the government of using “selective statistics” on hospital occupancy rates to bolster the case for tougher rules.

On Monday evening, the two sides couldn’t even agree on what they actually discussed earlier.

Believe the local leaders and on Monday morning there seemed to be hope in the air. Officials from central government had mooted the possibility of a hardship fund to help support low-paid workers who stand to lose out if businesses close their doors under tighter restrictions.

The message local leaders took from their meeting was that, while the Treasury is adamant they are not going to extend their national furlough scheme – nor increase the level of cash available from its replacement, the Job Support Scheme – Westminster might sign off extra money that could be spent that way, if local politicians saw fit.

There was no concrete agreement on the numbers, but sources in Greater Manchester suggest the cost of supporting those who need the extra help comes in at around £15m a month.

After that call, the consensus among North West leaders was moving in the direction of signing on the dotted line, with another call planned with Communities Secretary Robert Jenrick for the afternoon.

But rather than ushering in a new spirit of co-operation, that meeting went south.

A three-tier system of alerts was announced a week ago in an attempt to control rising coronavirus cases without a UK-wide lockdown.

So far, only the Liverpool City Region and Lancashire have been moved into tier three, the highest level.

Mr Jenrick said Greater Manchester hospitals now had more Covid-19 patients than the whole of south-west England and south-east England combined.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Friday that he might “need to intervene” if local leaders did not accept a move to tier three.

Local councillors, the mayor and MPs are concerned that tier three rules will devastate industries such as hospitality without more financial support for workers and businesses.

A key sticking point is that Mr Burnham wants the government to reintroduce the 80% furlough scheme used during the UK’s first lockdown, instead of the new Job Support Scheme which covers 67% of the wages (covered by employers and the government) of people affected by tier three closures.

Mr Burnham and Sir Richard Leese said the government had suggested the possibility of a hardship fund to top up furlough payments, but this idea was withdrawn by Mr Jenrick. The government said it was “incorrect” to say officials had made the proposal during Monday’s meeting.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock told the House of Commons further discussions were planned about South Yorkshire, West Yorkshire, Nottinghamshire, north-east England and Teesside moving to tier three, or very high alert.

In Wales, people will be told from Friday to stay at home, while pubs, restaurants and non-essential shops will shut, as part of a “short, sharp” national lockdown until 9 November.

It comes as a two-week school closure begins in Northern Ireland as part of a tightening of restrictions.

In Scotland, the tightest restrictions are in place in the central belt, and there are plans for a three-tier framework of measures, similar to England’s.

Monday’s figures show the UK recorded a further 18,804 coronavirus cases and 80 deaths.

Mr Hancock said the virus was “on the offensive” as winter approached, adding that he was concerned about the level of infections among over-60s in some northern areas.

But as the government tries to tackle the virus region by region, its claims about the impact on each area have been disputed.

On Monday, the prime minister’s official spokesman said government projections suggested coronavirus patients would take up the entire current intensive care capacity in Greater Manchester by 8 November, not including capacity in Nightingale hospitals.

But Prof Jane Eddleston, the region’s medical lead for the coronavirus response, said the situation was “serious” but Greater Manchester’s intensive care capacity was not at risk of being overwhelmed.

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