>> stay with u>> stay with us f morning america." right now on "america this morning," history in washington. >> i, amy coney barrett, do sole solemnly swear. >> sworn in as supreme court justice. her message to america, the impact she could have and how some democrats are vowing to fight back. one week to go before election day. this morning joe biden responds to critics who say he's not being aggressive enough campaigning. melania trump hits the trail as her husband's campaign faces hit for what jared kushner said about black americans complaining. now a surge in coronavirus hospitalizations. another big city imposing a curfew. sentencing day for the leader of an alleged sex cult accused of branding and brainwashing women. his jailhouse interview.

why he says he's not the predat predator they say he is. the shopping scams on the rise. how to protect yourself. caught on camera on video, explosive evidence of just how dangerous batteries could be after you throw them out. later, a real-life game of pac-man. good tuesday morning, everyone. i'm mona kosar abdi. >> aim andrew dymburt. kenneth is off. we begin with the historic white house event last night to swear in the new supreme court justice, amy coney barrett. a large crowd gathered but this time most people were wearing a mask and were socially distanced. >> it comes as the presidential campaign enters the final stretch. both candidates announcing more trips to swing states. joe biden is defending his smaller events saying he's being responsible in the age of covid. but the trump campaign claims biden could never get the crowds

the president gets. >> a record shattering 64 million votes have been cast and melania trump hits the campaign trail today. >> we begin with history at the white house last night. this morning, a political win for president trump one week before the election. judge amy coney barrett will replace ruth bader ginsburg on the supreme court after taking the constitutional oath from justice clarence thomas during a rare evening ceremony at the white house. >> so help me god. [ applause ] >> reporter: with most other people at the event wearing a mask, barrett tried to distance herself from the politics swirling around the nomination. >> it is the job of a judge to resist her policy preferences. it would be a dereliction of duty for her to give in to them. >> reporter: the ceremony comes hours after the republican led senate confirmed barrett cementing a 6-3 conservative majority on the bench. at 48 years old barrett will be the youngest member of the court and will likely be there for

generations. >> what we've done over the last four years would be your honor done sooner or later by the next election. they won't be able to do much about this. for a long time to come. >> reporter: democrats argue barrett's confirmation is too close to the election and they claim it threatens the future of obamacare as well as civil and abortion rights. >> the american people will suffer the consequences of judge barrett's far right out of the mainstream views for generations. >> reporter: some democrats taking to social media overnight with three words, expand the court. joe biden has been pressed on whether he would increase the number of justices on the court if he's elected. biden has only said he would appoint a commission to study judicial reform. >> i think we may now have the most conservative supreme court in maybe 100 years and if the democrats aren't in a position to actually implement or at least consider structural reform and potential court expansion, we may see really dramatic

changes to the kind of body of american law constitutional and statutory. >> reporter: in the meantime, this morning, twitter is flagging another post from president trump as misleading after he claimed there were, quote, problems and discrepancies with mail-in ballots all over the usa, must have final total on november 3rd. it comes as both candidates announce an aggressive final push in battleground states. first lady melania trump heading to pennsylvania today, her first solo campaign event this cycle and president trump visits three states today alone, michigan, wisconsin and nebraska. overnight biden's team announcing stops this week in six states and now the white house is defending senior adviser jared kushner after kushner said this about black americans. >> again, one thing we've seen in a lot of the black community which is mostly democrat is that president trump's policies are the policies that can help people break out of the problems that they're complaining about but he can't want them to be successful more than they want to be successful. >> reporter: congresswoman

barbara lee saying he doesn't want to change a racist broken system because he benefits from it. kaleigh mcenany writing that it's, quote, disgusting to see internet trolls taking senior adviser jared kushner out of context as they try to distract from president trump's undeniable record of accomplishments for the black community. and now appears the president is planning to host an election night party at his washington hotel. his campaign has invited donors to, quote, join team trump at the election night party in my favorite hotel. a new decision from the supreme court affecting the battleground state of wisconsin. the court will not allow their deadline for mail-in ballots to be extended. it is a win for republicans. the justices rejected a lower court ruling that would have allowed them to be counted six days after as long as they were postmarked election day. hospitalizations have risen.

el paso continues to break records with hospitals at capacity. some patients have been airlifted to other cities. hospitals in utah also reaching capacity. the mayor of salt lake city says they've never been this vulnerable and this morning, idaho is rolling back its re-opening plan because of a surge in patients. meanwhile in the northeast, newark, new jersey, is ordering n nonessential businesses to close at 8:00 p.m. beginning tonight and in ohio friends are remembering michael lang, a freshman at the university of dayton who died from covid complications. his mom says he was a healthy 18-year-old. >> he had no pre-existing conditions. he had never even been to the hospital. he had his yearly physical, sports physicals. hug your kid, tell your kid every day how much you love them and i have to say that was something i was happy i did as a parent with mine. >> a new study emphasizes the importance of wearing a mask. the university of kansas found

counties in their state that required them had half the number of those that didn't. the world health organization says europe is the epicenter of covid cases. officials in belgium says their system is near collapse. health workers are urged to keep working it asymptomatic. protests erupted in italy after restrictions were imposed. demonstrators set fires and vandalized stores. we turn to the major fires burning in southern california. fueled by the worst wind emergency of the season, one fire has doubled in size overnight. thousands of people have evacuated. abc's megan tevrizian has more. >> reporter: this morning, multiple fires ravaging parts of southern california. howling winds and dry conditions fanning this rapidly growing blaze in orange county. the so-called silverardo fire exploding monday growing more than 7,000 acres in hours with

0% containment but fueled by powerful santa ana winds gusting up to 70 miles per hour, firefighters say they're helpless to stop the spread until the wind dies down. >> the best thing we can do is try to forecast where it's going. >> reporter: abc's kaylee hartung bass on the front lines when conditions quickly worsened. >> these tropical storm-force winds are making the flames here uncontrollable. right here on the 133 freeway this roadway is the only thing separating these hot flames from thousands of homes. >> reporter: the chaotic conditions proving dangerous late monday. two firefighters were critically burned on the front lines. so far more than 150,000 people across the region have been forced to flee their homes. >> please leave your homes immediately. >> reporter: families grabbing what they can. >> our priority is getting people evacuated and out of the path of the fire. >> reporter: the nearby blue ridge fire also rapidly spreading.

the fire gutting this home and getting dangerously close to others. overnight california's governor securing assistance from fema for more resources in hopes of gaining the upper hand in the coming days. a power line may be to blame for causing the silverardo fire. the power company says it's investigating. andrew, mona. >> megan, thank you. let's take a look at your tuesday morning forecast. hurricane zeta made landfall along the yucatan peninsula with 80-mile-per-hour winds. louisiana has declared a state of emergency ahead of stazeta's expected arrival. elsewhere looking at the radar, an ice storm in oklahoma and northern texas is causing widespread power outages. dallas only gets to 43 today. 50s for the northeast and northwest. chilly across the midwest.

coming up, the sharp increase in online shopping scams. how to protect yourself. also the dramatic moment crews tried to save this cat. sentencing day for the in california, we're the only state where wealthy trust fund heirs get their own tax loophole. these tax cheats avoid millions in taxes on vacation homes and coastal mansions

depriving our schools. prop 19 closes this unfair loophole that's been exploited by an elite few and helps our schools, firefighters, and seniors. vote 'yes' on prop 19. tell them [record scratch] the party's over.

hd 8. we are back with a cat saving one of its own nine lives. it jumped out of this burning second story apartment in new york. police brought the brave feline to a shelter. the cat suffered smoke inhalation. some smoke inhalation but otherwise is okay. with more people shopping online because of the pandemic, consumer advocates are reporting a surge in online shopping scams. the better business bureau says nearly 38% of scams reported

this year came from online shopping and most were traced to facebook. experts say to protect yourself watch out for bad grammar and check how long the website of the product has been active. many scammers create and take down websites quickly. we turn now to sentencing day for alleged sex cult leader keith raniere convicted of sex trafficking and extortion. abc's elizabeth schulze has his latest message from behind bars. >> reporter: this morning the founder of an alleged sex cult preparing to learn his fate. >> i'm an interesting person. i'm a controversial person, but most importantly i'm an unconventional person. >> reporter: keith raniere leader of the highly controversial company nxivm faces a possible life sentence for sex trafficking, racketeering and conspiracy. all charges linked to his secretive sect. >> in this particular case i'm given a spotlight that is far greater than my personhood. >> reporter: prosecutors say raniere known as vanguard to his followers was a con man and predator who used blackmail to force women into sexual

relationships and act as his slaves. one former victim claiming the charismatic leader brainwashed her saying she was coerced into a relationship with him and branded with his initials during her time with the group. >> this call is from -- >> keith raniere. >> an inmate at a federal prison. >> reporter: but just before his sentencing, raniere speaking out from behind bars insisting he's not the menace he's been made out to be. >> women have been treated terribly this this country and in the world, but in particular in this country by people of power, by people like me, but that doesn't mean that i did those things and it certainly doesn't mean that i'm guilty of these charges. >> reporter: raniere's victims are expected to speak before today's sentencing. elizabeth schulze, abc news. >> our thanks to elizabeth. coming up, explosive evidence of just how dangerous batteries can be after you throw them out. also ahead, what thiefs were targeting inside this truck and

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border but they did not get rid of the queen, so there's concern another colony of hornets could pop up. the hornets can be deadly to humans. returning now to the coronavirus, the fbi is helping investigate the sheft of about $1 million in personal protective equipment. surveillance cameras caught the thieves getting away with a shipping container full of ppe at a warehouse near miami. the gloves inside were for hospitals. a new study is out this morning on the the potential benefits of aspirin in fighting coronavirus. also hospitals in more states are voicing concerns about an influx of covid patients, and some are taking drastic action. earlier i spoke to dr. laleh gharahbaghian about these headlines. we're now seeing hospitals in part of texas and utah and potentially in other states considering transferring patients to other facilities due to overcapacity. some doctors are even concerned about needing to ration care. how much of a concern is that given where we are in the season, it's not even november yet, and what are your biggest concerns going forward in the

next few weeks? >> it's a huge concern, and as we know, covid is extremely contagious. and when you have a lot of people that get infected in a short amount of time, especially in states that are already having an increasing number of cases, hospitals will get to be at capacity. >> and when it comes to treatment, there's a new study on how aspirin could help in the fight against covid-19. what are you learning? >> we know that aspirin is an anti-inflammatory medication, and we also know that it thins blood. it prevents people who have heart disease from getting heart attacks. we know that covid increases your clotting capability, so by keeping other factors constant in their study like age and gender and any patient's history of diabetes and things of that sort, they found that those in the aspirin group had a decrease in icu admission, a decrease in ventilator need and a decrease in death rate, and if true, then aspirin is the cheapest and most available method to decrease mortality risk in the covid

admitted patients. >> astrazeneca now says its experimental covid vaccine has cause an immune response in younger and older patients. how important is that, and where are we in the race for a final vaccine? >> well, a safe and effective vaccine is of the utmost importance, and it must work for all ages especially those who are in the most vulnerable in the highest risk, especially in the elderly. i don't think we're going to have a vaccine that will be mass disseminated until mid-2021 with the impact of the vaccine not really known for months to a year later. >> our thanks there to dr. gharahbaghian. a major off-field victory for nfl coach ron rivera. he's officially completed his chemotherapy for skin cancer. he received cheers and a confetti shower while leaving a treatment center in virginia. rivera didn't miss a game during his entire treatment. coming up, a different football coach in the news. he had to play defense against some hot sauce. also ahead, a real-life

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time now to check "the pulse" and begin with whitney houston now part of an exclusive club. >> her single "i will always love you" just hit 1 billion views on youtube. ♪ i will always love you >> she hit all those notes and now a milestone. the 1992 hit was featured in the film "the bodyguard." it's the fourth song from the '90s to reach the 1 billion mark, the first from a solo artist. a dallas cowboys assistant coach had the wrong type of fire in his eye. >> defensive coordinator mike nolan had to stop a

zoom meeting with the media whether he used a finger coated with tabasco sauce to rub his eye. ouch. take a look. >> just had some tabasco on my finger, and it went in my eye. that wasn't good. oh. >> never good. >> one twitter user wrote, that's the same pain cowboy fans feel watching them play. ouch. >> burn. next a classic video game has entered the real world. >> check this out. this larger-than-life model of pac-man, a virtual board sits on a 200-square-foot maze in illinois that was carved out to look like the arcade game. front loaders are driven by players in color- coded hats. >> and just like the actual game they can gobble up dots and fruit. finally some halloween decoration disagreement. >> a new jersey family is taking down their zombies. they've been moved to the backyard because of traffic complaints. police say they never actually ordered the display's removal but it certainly scared up some controversy. and a homeowner near houston has been told to remove her strip club themed skeleton

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area. mike is tracking the red flag warning, plus the timeline for when the power may be back on. also, a fast moving fire threatening thousands of homes in southern california. the investigation into what may have sparked that. and an alert for voters. the recommendation about something you should do today to make sure your voice gets counted. good morning, everybody. it is tuesday, october 27th. i voted yesterday. it was exciting. so, i'm excited to tell people about that because it was a great experience. >> i'm so glad to hear it. i know you went in person at city hall. >> you know it. >> where is the sticker, though? >> where is your sticker? >> i wore it all day yesterday with pride. >> okay, good. check the gram, everyone. >> wanted to make sure everybody knew. i didn't follow you on social