In the final stretch of an already contentious election, Trump and Biden supporters are making a last push to show their backing and convert any undecided voters. But not everyone is thrilled with the choice on offer.

With less than two months to go, both major parties have touted the November contest as “the most important election of our lifetime” and have delivered record-breaking fundraising hauls in recent weeks.

Political observers predict a major surge in overall participation, but many voters are still unsure of whether they will vote for incumbent president Donald Trump, Democratic nominee Joe Biden or anybody at all.

“I feel disillusioned by this election,” said Samian Quazi, a 32-year-old psychiatric nurse from Houston. “We don’t really have any good choices. Neither candidate is really addressing any issues or offering any hope for this country to really make people’s lives better.”

Quazi has voted regularly in election years and said he voted for Democratic Party candidates up and down the ballot in both the 2016 presidential election and the 2018 midterm elections, but he has grown cynical after seeing his preferred candidate, the left-wing Bernie Sanders lose the Democratic Party primary election earlier this year.

“It was an example of the powers that be that control media access in this country not wanting to see their economic interest threatened,” he said.

“I wonder if America is still trying to be a democracy, when it’s really a plutocracy. When it comes to actual economic and structural changes that could possibly threaten their hold on our country, that’s a hard no-go and they will push out anybody who materially can change our lives.”

Political disengagement in the United States has led to low voter turnout rates relative to the rest of the world, with participation in recent elections hovering in the 50-60% range. Overall voter turnout amongst OECD countries is about 70% and even many developing countries tend to see turnout rates higher than those seen in most US elections.

About 64% voted in the 2008 election between Barack Obama and John McCain, but turnout slipped to a 20-year-low during the 2016 election to only 55%.

Science Third-party presidential candidates in 2020

• Jo Jorgensen, Libertarian Party
• Howie Hawkins, Green Party
• Kanye West, Birthday Party
• Rocky De La Fuente, Alliance and Reform Parties
• Don Blankenship, Constitution Party

According to a study released in February by the left-leaning Knight Foundation non-profit, nearly half of eligible voters – or close to 100 million people – consistently sit out elections.

“It’s a very large group and it’s half the country, so it’s a diverse group,” said Eitan Hersh, an associate professor of political science at Tufts University and an academic advisor on the Knight Foundation report.

“The lack of engagement has to do with people not feeling connected to the election system and not thinking it matters.”

Some countries with higher turnout, like Belgium and Chile, have instituted some form of compulsory voting, which has had dramatic impacts on turnout. Others, like Australia and Germany, have courted new voters either through automatic voter registration or aggressive voter registration initiatives.

In the US, however, voting and registering to vote are more of an individual responsibility. Over the past few decades, many states have placed a premium on improving access to the ballot box, including allowing same-day voter registration, keeping polling places open longer and expanding early or mail voting options.

According to Hersh, the outsized importance placed on improving voter access and bringing down other structural barriers to participation do not have a significant impact on voter participation: “If you want a big picture story of why we have low rates of engagement, it’s much more about what people care about and what motivates people.”

He predicts that, as politics in America becomes more nationalised and partisan, more people may disengage from the political process.

“It used to be that your votes for a state legislature were not very highly correlated with your votes for president, because they’re different issues,” he said. “In this era, a vote for someone running for city council could be a referendum on Trump in people’s heads.”

Making politics like a fight of good and evil is detached from the reality of running a government, he says. “A lot of people are just not interested in that. Just like in any sport, the more it’s focused on a rivalry, the more it is fun for people who like that sport, but the more it seems to other people like a weird domain of life that is not for them.”

Hrant Papazian, 52, is one such person.

An Armenian immigrant who grew up in Lebanon during a civil war that spanned three decades, Papazian turned 18 in California and has lived there since, but he never votes.

Voting might make you feel good and powerful, he said, but the status quo will always remain intact: “I don’t feel like playing along. I don’t believe that we will ever be offered candidates that are interested in societal health. I can’t imagine the system producing politicians that I could vote for in good faith.”

A middle-school computer science teacher by trade, Papazian knows his approach to voting sounds radical, but he is steadfast in his resistance to a political system he argues is in decline.

“Democracy is supposed to get better, but I think it’s the opposite – it gets worse over time. And the bigger the country, the more heterogeneous the country, the less tenable it is. We’re breaking up into smaller tribes and that makes us easier to control and makes it easier to keep us on this path that’s going downhill slowly.

“The only way for real change is for us to boycott.”

Some first-time voters are already disillusioned with the system.

Grace Link, 20, is a college student from the crucial swing state of Wisconsin. She wants to vote in her first ever presidential election, but is unhappy with her options.

“It’s very easy to see when money and power within a party come into play to suppress young people,” she said. “We’re essentially being guilted into voting for Joe Biden and for whomever the Democratic Party chooses when, throughout the primary season, young people were overwhelmingly ignored.”

Link argues the nomination of Joe Biden reflects poorly on a system that prioritises the needs of the white upper-class voters over others, including young voters with mounting student loan debt like her.

“A lot of their argument, especially with young people, is that he can be pushed farther left, whereas Trump can’t be. The next four years in the short term may be better, but in the long term, there won’t be any big changes.”

Science Get in touch

The voices in this story – Grace, Hrant and Samian – are part of the BBC’s voter database for the 2020 US election. Are you an American voting (or not voting) in November’s election? What issues matter to you and why? The BBC wants to hear your stories and perspectives – join our database by filling out the form below.

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Use this form to get in touch.

A former Extinction Rebellion (XR) spokeswoman left the environmental group to campaign for nuclear power because she says it is the only way to deal with the climate crisis.

Zion Lights, writing in the Daily Mail, also said that she had become unable to defend some of the group’s claims.

XR “peddle messages of doomsday gloom that alienate” and offer “little in the way of positive solutions”, she added.

The group calls on governments to take immediate action on climate change.

It describes itself as an international “non-violent civil disobedience activist movement” and has been involved in a number of high-profile protests since it was formed in 2018.

Last week it targeted UK newspapers – which it has accused of failing to report on climate change – by blocking printing presses and delaying distribution.

Ms Lights wrote articles for both the Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph on Thursday explaining her decision to leave behind XR and support nuclear power.

She told the Mail she initially joined XR because its message was “listen to the scientists” and the role of spokesperson gave her a platform “to talk about what I truly felt mattered”.

However, she says she began to rethink her support for the group after an appearance on the BBC’s Andrew Neil Show last October.

She was asked about co-founder Roger Hallam’s claim that science predicts six billion people will die this century due to climate change – a claim that he made to BBC’s HARDtalk.

Ms Lights said: “It’s a headline-grabbing assertion – but unfortunately, it’s also not true, or certainly not backed up by any evidence. As was obvious to anyone who knows me – and even to the casual viewer – I was plunged into a PR nightmare.

“I could not defend the number, but as the official spokesperson nor could I be seen to condemn it. All I could do, instead, was flounder under the hot glare of the studio lights for what felt like an eternity.”

Ms Lights, who began campaigning about the environment as a student in the early 2000s, said she also had doubts about XR’s approach of telling people “what not to do” and “peddling the notion that the solution to the climate crisis was to turn back the clock to a simpler time”.

Writing in the Telegraph, she said the campaigners who argued that we needed to all live with less – as she once did – had to accept this was not going to happen “and look to solutions instead”.

She said that “many within XR argue in favour of replacing fossil fuels entirely with renewables” but this was not a realistic option and she favoured “a pragmatic approach, rather than peer-group tribal pressure to stick to an outdated mainstream green line”.

Much of the green movement was “steeped in an anti-nuclear mindset”, she said, “when any rational, evidence-based approach shows that a strategy including nuclear energy is the only realistic solution to driving down emissions at the scale and speed required”.

She denied she was making a U-turn, instead saying it was a “logical next step” in looking for solutions rather than “shouting ever more loudly about the problem”.

Ms Lights said she has since taken a role at campaign group Environmental Progress UK, whose campaigns include supporting the building of the Sizewell C nuclear power station in Suffolk.

Nuclear power is planned to be a key part of the UK’s future energy strategy.

BBC environment analyst Roger Harrabin said its key benefit is it helps keep the lights on while producing hardly any of the CO2 emissions that are heating the climate.

However, he said a big environmental problem is what happens to nuclear waste.

A spokesperson for XR said: “In a high stakes scenario you look at the worst-case and plan based on that, because the risks are high enough to warrant taking the risk seriously. It’s an approach employed across the board in all industries. Scientific uncertainty has always been twisted to prevent risk-based analysis.

“Extinction Rebellion has always taken the view that the public deserve to know what credible scientists believe is the worst-case scenario for the development of the climate and ecological crisis over the coming decades.”

Boris Johnson has hired personal trainer Harry Jameson to lose weight, after acknowledging he was “too fat” when he caught coronavirus.

The prime minister was admitted to hospital with the virus in April but says he has since “been steadily building up my fitness”.

Mr Jameson says his training “considers the mind as much as the body”.

The coach has also helped Love Island host Laura Whitmore train and has a regular slot on her BBC radio show.

Mr Johnson’s time in intensive care is thought to have prompted a change in his views on tackling obesity.

He has previously criticised levies on foods high in salt, fat and sugar – and characterised his stance as “libertarian”.

In July he said that while he was not normally one for “nannying or bossying”, the country did need to lose weight to protect from a second spike.

Science ‘Struggled’

“Obesity is one of the real co-morbidity factors. Losing weight, frankly, is one of the ways you can reduce your own risk from coronavirus,” he said.

As part of a drive to tackle the problem, the government said it would ban TV junk food adverts before 21:00.

On a personal level, Mr Johnson has said he had “wanted to lose weight for ages” adding that he “struggled” to keep fat off.

He said that since leaving hospital he had lost “at least a stone” by going for a run with the dog.

Speaking to the BBC’s Fit & Fearless podcast, the prime minister’s new trainer, Mr Jameson, said he seeks to help his clients “in ways beyond pumping weights in the gym”.

He says his approach has “always been based on a foundation of mind and body together and ultimately happiness”.

He studied sports science and psychology at Liverpool Hope University and has worked as a personal trainer for 15 years.

Like the prime minister, Mr Jameson also appears to be a fan of the classics having quoted the Roman philosopher Seneca (“as long as you live, keep learning how to live”) in a speech to the Balance Festival in 2018.

Brazilian scientists often stay away from politics but they should be more involved, especially during pandemics, the microbiologist and president of the Question of Science Institute Natalia Pasternak has said.

“I’m a scientist but I’m also a citizen and I see what the current government is doing to my country, especially because the federal government ignores science and ignores the scientific community and it doesn’t look to science for advice as it should during a sanitary crisis, a health crisis,” she said.

President Jair Bolsonaro has been criticised for minimising the risk posed by the coronavirus, calling it “a little cold” at the start of the pandemic.

The country has the second highest number of coronavirus cases in the world with more than 3.7m cases according to Johns Hopkins University.

Watch the full interview on Friday 28 August 2020 on BBC World or watch again on BBC iPlayer (UK only)

Jerusalem’s Hadassah hospital has been recruiting recovered Covid-19 patients to volunteer inside its coronavirus wards to help patients there.

Under the pilot scheme, they visit patients in moderate or serious condition, who would otherwise be in isolation. The volunteers help the patients eat or just lend a listening ear.

The hospital believes the project to be the first of its kind in the world. And it is likely to be closely watched, given the still unclear science on how much antibody immunity recovered Covid-19 patients have.

BBC’s Middle East correspondent Tom Bateman reports.

Black, Polish and Italian contributions to Wales must be taught to all children in schools, the head of a curriculum review has said.

Almost 35,000 people have signed a petition for Britain’s colonial past to be taught in Welsh schools.

Charlotte Williams said it was important “to get away from a black narrative of disadvantage”.

She said the contributions of musicians, artists and academics from all communities must be celebrated.

“There are large parts of Wales where children will not have seen black people except for on TV – and sometimes this can be in very negative ways,” she said.

Following worldwide protests after the death of George Floyd in US police custody, there have been calls for greater recognition of Wales’ role in colonialism and slavery to be taught in schools.

The new working group led by Prof Williams has been set up by the Welsh Government to see how the new curriculum could be changed.

She said it was essential slavery and injustices faced particularly by black people were taught in schools – but that also more had to be done to showcase role models and cultural diversity.

“If we miss out on this, we are doing a disservice to our own history,” she said.

“But I don’t want to send out the message that we are all terribly disadvantaged and victims.

“This is an appeal to schools and teachers to engage with the positive contribution of black and minority ethnic groups, the richness and vibrancy of it.”

Wales’ new curriculum, set to be introduced in 2022, is based on six “areas of learning and experience” and does not set out exactly what schools should be teaching.

But Prof Williams said it would be challenging due to the lack of staff diversity and said teachers needed to be given support to “be bold and brave”.

Fewer than 1% of teachers in Wales say they are black, Asian, or from other or mixed minority ethnic backgrounds, according to the 2019-2020 school workforce census.

Forty of the 1,065 students who began training to become teachers in Wales in 2018-2019 said they were from a minority ethnic group.

Prof Williams said some teachers may be scared of exploring certain issues due to a fear of sounding racist, a lack of knowledge, or not being “politically correct”.

“There’s this awful thing about fear of saying or doing the wrong thing,” she said.

“It’s about being bold and being brave, and not stigmatising, and to use examples that will turn people’s thinking around to a kind of normal thinking.”

Growing up in Llandudno, Prof Williams said her family was the only black one in the town.

“I cannot think of examples from my own education that were pertinent to me and my identity and my heritage,” she said.

“I grew up not understanding my place and my identity and how I fitted in Wales. I think that’s what happening to children, they can’t necessarily connect.”

According to the most recent school census in January 2019, more than 33,000 pupils over the age of five had a black, Asian, minority ethnic or mixed background, making up 8.3% of students in Wales.

But this varied widely by area, from 2% in Blaenau Gwent, to 28% in Cardiff.

“We used to go away to West Africa and we would come back, we’d had this fantastic experience, but no-one would ask us about it,” Prof Williams said.

“Children are not asked and then they don’t expect, which is even sadder, when they don’t think their knowledge and their experience has anything to do with where they are.”

She said making sure children in seemingly “all-white, monocultural” communities learnt about Wales’ multicultural heritage would be challenging, but it was important all children did so and saw themselves reflected in lessons they were taught.

This could mean encouraging schools to showcase more literature, music and art by minority ethnic artists or teaching traditional recipes in lessons, as well as learning about how different groups had influenced and shaped their community.

“I’m not afraid to say that I think it will take time, I think there are challenges,” she said.

“I’m very enthusiastic about Wales and it’s propensity to be progressive and forward thinking in what it does and how it approaches these issues.”

Science ‘I felt like an alien’

Going to school in a mainly white school, as a teenager Asha Fletcher-Peters says she felt “isolated” and “like an alien”.

Having moved from London to the Vale of Glamorgan when she was nine, she went from being in a multicultural school where they celebrated Eid and Diwali, to one where she felt like an outsider.

“So many people had never seen anyone like me before,” said Asha, now 25. “Everyone wanted to be skinny, blonde and rich”.

“I just wanted to be like all the other girls. I used to get people using the n-word around me, thinking it was a fun thing to say.”

Asha, who is now a professional musician and actress, said teachers did not cast her as lead roles in shows, as there was no “black part”, and she was faced with white faces in history books and text books.

“No-one told me that black women did these different things, that there were women in hijabs, and not just white men – we didn’t see ourselves in those spaces,” said Asha.

“I felt so isolated my whole life. If I had seen women like me in my science books, I might have chosen differently, I might have ended up in a career in science.”

Asha said one pupil wrote an essay about her, because they had never met a black person before, and she remembers trying to stay out of the sun so her skin would not get darker.

“People do not realise how damaging these things are,” she said.

“I want the next generation to be themselves, to have their goals and their dreams, not to feel like they have to fit in this cookie-cutter shape.”