By DAVID BAUDER AP Media Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — Joe Biden and Donald Trump won’t be alone at Thursday’s debate. Moderators Dana Bash and Jake Tapper of CNN will be on camera, too, and there’s a lot on the line for their network as it fights for relevance in a changing media environment.

CNN has hosted dozens of town halls and political forums through the years, but never a general election presidential debate, let alone one so early in a campaign. No network has.

“This is a huge moment for CNN,” said former CNN Washington bureau chief Frank Sesno, now a media and public affairs professor at George Washington University. “CNN has to reassert itself. It has to show that it led a revolution in news before and can do it again.”

As a television network, CNN is struggling at a time many consumers are cutting off cable and most news outlets wonder if the campaign will ignite consumer interest.

Those that remain have expressed a clear preference for opinion programming. Fox News Channel has averaged 2.14 million viewers in prime time this month, with MSNBC at 1.22 million and CNN at 525,000, according to the Nielsen company. That’s down 17% from last June for CNN.

CNN’s chairman and CEO, Mark Thompson, has been with the company for less than a year and has spoken more about the internet than television as an opportunity for growth. Yet it means something that both campaigns chose CNN for the first debate. A well-run, illuminating event can open some eyes and remind people of CNN’s legacy as the first all-news television network. If it goes off the rails, that’s a stain that could take years to wash away.

“This is a hugely consequential moment in this campaign,” said David Chalian, CNN’s vice president and political director. “It’s the earliest presidential debate ever. It’s obviously a huge privilege and a huge responsibility for CNN to host it.”

Looking hard for more viewers

It’s possible — even likely — that CNN won’t even have the biggest American audience on Thursday.

Choosing public service over pure profit, CNN offered to let other networks carry the debate feed; ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox News Channel, MSNBC, PBS and C-SPAN will all do so. The other networks also have the right to sell their own ad time during the two commercial breaks.

The networks had to agree to CNN’s rules — they must keep CNN’s insignia onscreen and can’t interrupt with their own commentators while the debate airs. Internationally, only CNN is carrying it.

The event, in an Atlanta studio, won’t have a live audience. That was important to the Biden campaign but also to CNN. The network’s town hall with Trump in 2023 was panned in large part because of the presence of Trump partisans.

CNN will also control a mute button, to turn a candidate’s microphone off when his opponent is talking. That’s also reactive; Biden and many viewers were frustrated by Trump’s frequent interruptions during the first of two debates between them in 2020.

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When he conducted an unscientific poll among listeners to his SiriusXM radio show, Michael Smerconish said that 90% were in favor of the “mute” button. But Smerconish, who also hosts a weekend show on CNN, counts himself among the 10% who don’t like the idea.

“You run the risk that the debate will become an antiseptic experience,” missing some good give-and-take, Smerconish said in an interview with The Associated Press.

Stay tuned, though. Chalian, who would not say who would be in control of the mute button, said an opponent’s voice may still be picked up if he pipes up. It just won’t be the dominant voice.

The network will not attempt to fact-check the candidates in real time, he said.

“Obviously, if there is some egregious fact that needs to be checked or the record needs to be made clear, Jake and Dana can do that,” he said. “But that’s not their role. They are not here to participate in this debate. They are here to facilitate a debate between Trump and Biden.”

Will CNN offer a fair forum?

Well before the debate, Trump and his supporters have been putting forward the notion that because of CNN’s presence, it won’t be a fair fight. At a campaign rally where he denounced “fake Tapper,” Trump said that he would be debating three people instead of one — even though his campaign agreed in advance to the rules and moderators.

On CNN Monday, the network’s Kasie Hunt cut off an interview with Trump press aide Karoline Leavitt after she repeatedly attacked the moderators.

“Our side has zero expectations that this is going to be a fair debate,” said Tim Graham, director of media analysis at the conservative Media Research Center. “When you watch Tapper and Bash anchor, you get the distinct impression that you’re not going to get a fair debate.”

What Graham will be watching for: How many times will the moderators interrupt Trump and how many times do they stop Biden?

To a large extent, the attitude speaks to how CNN is boxed in commercially. Egged on by Trump, many of his supporters perceive CNN as biased against them, not as a network that follows the facts. And if you oppose Trump and want to see your view reflected, MSNBC is a more satisfying destination.

“Our job is simply to make sure that we are best prepared to facilitate and moderate the debate between the candidates,” Chalian said. “That is our focus. I really try not to pay too much attention to the pre-spin or post-spin. I’m really focused on the debate itself.”

Days before the event, a keep-your-head-down-and-work attitude seems to be how he’s dealing with a pressure-filled event that could choke you if you let it.

“Let’s be clear,” he said. “The stakes are highest for Donald Trump and Joe Biden. They’re the participants in this debate.”

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — An Oklahoma board’s approval of what would be the nation’s first publicly funded religious school is unconstitutional and must be rescinded, the state Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday.

The high court determined the Statewide Virtual Charter School Board’s 3-2 vote last year to approve the application by the Catholic Archdiocese of Oklahoma for the St. Isidore of Seville Virtual Charter School violates both the Oklahoma and U.S. constitutions, as well as state law.

“Under Oklahoma law, a charter school is a public school,” the court wrote. “As such, a charter school must be nonsectarian.

“However, St. Isidore will evangelize the Catholic school curriculum while sponsored by the state.”

The online public charter school would have been open to students across the state in kindergarten through grade 12, and part of its mission would have been to evangelize its students in the Catholic faith.

The case is being closely watched because supporters of the school believe recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions have indicated the court is more open to public funds going to religious entities.

A group of parents, faith leaders and a public education nonprofit sued to stop the establishment of the school.

Oklahoma’s Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt and State Superintendent Ryan Walters supported the board’s approval of the school.

By KAREEM CHEHAYEB The Associated Press

BEIRUT (AP) — After more than eight months of low-scale conflict, Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah are threatening all-out war.

The United States and the international community are lobbying for calm and hopeful for a diplomatic solution. They have not been successful so far and time for a political settlement could be expiring.

Should war break out, Israel would face a much more formidable foe in Lebanon than it faced in Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallahwarned Israel last week that his group has new weapons and capabilities, and it has published surveillance drone footage taken deep inside northern Israel that showed the port of Haifa and other sites far from the Lebanon-Israel border.

A look at how Hezbollah became what many call the strongest non-state force in the region.

What is Hezbollah?

Founded in 1982 during Lebanon’s civil war, Hezbollah’s initial objective was ending Israel’s occupation of southern Lebanon. It achieved that in 2000.

Shiite Muslim Hezbollah is part of a collection of Iranian-backed factions and governments known as the Axis of Resistance. It was the first group that Iran backed and used as a way to export its brand of political Islamism.

In its early days the group attacked U.S. targets, causing Washington to designate it a terrorist organization.

“Iran’s support has helped Hezbollah consolidate its position as Lebanon’s most powerful political actor as well as the most-equipped military actor supported by Iran in the whole of the Middle East,” said Lina Khatib, the director of the SOAS Middle East Institute in London.

Hezbollah fighters ambushed an Israeli patrol in 2006 and took two Israeli soldiers hostage. Hezbollah and Israel fought a monthlong war that ended in a draw but Israeli bombardment wreaked widespread destruction in southern Lebanon.

Israel’s objective was eliminating Hezbollah but the Lebanese group came out stronger and became a key military and political power on Israel’s northern border.

Domestic opponents have criticized Hezbollah for maintaining its arsenal and for coming to dominate the government. Hezbollah’s reputation also suffered when it briefly seized a section of Beirut in May 2008 after the Lebanese government took measures against its private telecommunications network.

Hezbollah’s military capabilities have also surged, and it has played a key role in the Syrian civil war, keeping President Bashar al-Assad in power. And it has helped train Iran-backed militias in Syria and Iraq, as well as Yemen’s Houthi rebels.

What are Hezbollah’s military capabilities?

Throughout its latest conflict with Israel, Hezbollah has gradually introduced new weapons to its arsenal, especially after Israel began its ground invasion of the southern city of Rafah in Gaza in early May.

While Hezbollah initially began launching Cornet anti-tank missiles and salvos of Katyusha rockets, it later started using rockets with heavy warheads, and eventually introduced explosive drones and surface-to-air missiles for the first time. Nasrallah said the drones are locally manufactured, with many at their disposal.

The group notably released the two videos of footage from drones over Haifa and other sites in northern Israel, showing critical civilian and military infrastructure in a move intended to showcase new access and capabilities and deter Israeli attack.

In a televised address last week, Nasrallah said that the group will continue resorting to this tactic.

“We now have new weapons. But I won’t say what they are,” he said. “When the decision is made, they will be seen on the front lines.”

How does Hezbollah compare to other Iranian-backed groups?

Hezbollah is the Arab world’s most significant paramilitary force with a robust internal structure as well as a sizeable arsenal. Israel sees it as its most direct threat, and estimates that it has an arsenal of 150,000 rockets and missiles, including precision-guided missiles.

In recent years, Hezbollah sent forces to Syria to help fellow Iranian ally President Bashar Assad against armed opposition groups. It also supported the growth of Iranian-backed militias in Iraq, Yemen and Syria.

Khatib of the SOAS Middle East Institute in London likened Hezbollah to a “big brother” of fledgling Iranian-backed groups that “do not enjoy the same level of infrastructure or discipline.”

Hezbollah is bound to Iran by doctrine. However, its relationship with Hamas, an offshoot of the Sunni Muslim Brotherhood movement, is based on pragmatism. Hamas has been designated as a terrorist organization by the United States, Canada and the European Union.

In recent years, some Hamas officials, including its former second-in-command, Saleh al-Arouri, have since moved to Lebanon, where they have Hezbollah’s protection and a presence across Lebanon’s multiple Palestinian refugee camps. Arouri was killed in an Israeli drone strike in a southern Beirut suburb in January.

Who Is Hassan Nasrallah?

Born in 1960 into a poor Shiite family in the Beirut suburb of Bourj Hammoud and later displaced to south Lebanon, Nasrallah studied theology and joined the Amal movement, a Shiite political and paramilitary organization, before becoming one of Hezbollah’s founders.

He became Hezbollah’s leader in 1992 after his predecessor was killed in an Israeli strike.

Idolized by many for presiding over Israel’s withdrawal from the south and leading the 2006 war, his image appears on billboards and on gadgets in souvenir shops in Lebanon, Syria and other countries across the Arab world. But he also faces opposition among Lebanese who accuse him of tying their country’s fate to Iran.

Nasrallah is also considered to be pragmatic, able to make political compromises.

He has lived in hiding for years, fearing Israeli assassination, and delivers his speeches from undisclosed locations.