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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
World
Lois Beckett (now), Lauren Aratani and Martin Belam (earlier)

Covid deaths at highest level since April as 100,000 Americans are hospitalized - as it happened

Dr Shane Wilson puts on personal protective equipment before performing rounds on Covid-19 patients at a hospital in Memphis, Missouri.
Dr Shane Wilson puts on personal protective equipment before performing rounds on Covid-19 patients at a hospital in Memphis, Missouri. Photograph: Jeff Roberson/AP

Evening summary

We’re closing out live US politics blog for this evening, but you can continue following along with breaking news on our global coronavirus blog.

An updated summary of today’s key events:

  • More than 100,000 Americans are now hospitalized with Covid-19, the highest number yet during the pandemic, and nearly double the number during earlier waves of the pandemic in April and July.
  • The months of December, January and February will be “the most difficult in the public health history of the nation”, Dr Robert Redfield, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned.
  • In Michigan, Rudy Giuliani, the president’s personal lawyer, urged Republican activists to pressure the states Republican legislators to award the state’s electoral votes to Trump, even though Biden won the state by 154,000 votes.

From earlier:

  • Joe Biden said that his priority when he enters office is to get the economy back on track. He suggested that he is open to compromise with Republicans in Congress, but emphasized the consequences the party will face if relief is not given to Americans. He also noted that recovery will have to involve “America first” investment.
  • Congress is still struggling to agree on a new coronavirus stimulus package. Democratic leaders Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi urged Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell to agree to start negotiations with a $908bn bipartisan plan, but McConnell said the amount is too high.
  • Donald Trump is doing all he can to propel his debunked claims of voter fraud in the presidential election, posting a 46-minute video on social media detailing his thoughts on the matter. As the 8 December deadline for states to certify their election results approaches, Trump is quickly running out of options to contest the election.

Updated

100,000 Americans are currently hospitalized with Covid-19

As of today, 100,226 Americans are currently hospitalized with Covid-19, according to data from the Covid Tracking Project.

This is the highest number yet recorded, and nearly twice as many people as were hospitalized at the peak of earlier coronavirus waves in April and July.

Nearly 20,000 of those hospitalized patients are in the ICU, and at least 6,855 are on ventilators.

Updated

Coming months will be the 'most difficult in the public health history'

The coming winter months will be “the most difficult in the public health history of this nation,” said Dr Robert Redfield, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, today, citing the “stress that’s going to be put on our health-care system” as the numbers of coronavirus cases rise.

He also said that 90% of hospitals in the United States are currently in “hot zones and the red zones,” CNBC reported.

Updated

Iowa Democrat who lost by 6 votes is still fighting for another recount

A Democratic congressional candidate who trailed by just six votes after a recount said Wednesday she will appeal directly to the US House for additional recount proceedings, rather than continue to pursue legal challenges in Iowa, where her Republican opponent was certified as the winner of the election this week, the Associated Press reported.

It’s the closest House race the US has seen in decades.

Updated

In Michigan, Giuliani tells Republicans to pressure legislature to overturn Biden win

New from the Associated Press:

President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer urged Michigan Republican activists on Wednesday to pressure the GOP-controlled legislature to “step up” and award the state’s 16 electoral votes to Trump despite Democrat Joe Biden’s 154,000-vote victory.

Giuliani said the US constitution empowers legislatures to appoint electors directly, even though the legislature long ago passed a law allotting them to the popular vote winner. Biden won the state by 2.8 percentage points.

GOP legislative leaders have said they will not try to replace Michigan’s electors.

Updated

The impetus of Trump’s pardon talk? ‘Fear of prosecution,’ CNN reporter says

CNN White House correspondent Kaitlan Collins highlighted a key line in Trump’s long video address today: his fear of the investigations into him and his businesses that are currently underway in New York state.

Manhattan district attorney Cyrus Vance Jr.’s investigation “is particularly troublesome for Trump,” the Associated Press reported, “because it involves possible state-level charges that could not be wiped away with a presidential pardon.”

Updated

Full text of Trump’s 46-minute video repeating debunked election claims

Should you wish to read the full text of Trump’s long recorded speech today, there is a transcript here, originally shared with journalists by today’s White House pool reporter.

Austin mayor urged residents to stay at home, while on vacation in Mexico

This is Lois Beckett picking up our live politics coverage from our West Coast bureau in Los Angeles.

It’s the second day of December, and ‘tis the season for … bad choices.

Yet another big-city mayor has been found to have been advocating careful public health measures for citizens while indulging in a risky behavior in a luxe environment.

This time, it’s Austin mayor Steve Adler, who told Austin residents in a video address in November, “We need to stay home if you can” and “This is not the time to relax,” while not disclosing that he himself was speaking to them from a vacation home in Mexico.

The Austin-American Statesman had the scoop, which followed revelations about risky indoor dinner parties at an exclusive restaurant attended by California’s governor and San Francisco’s mayor, and risky personal Thanksgiving choices by the mayors of Denver and San Jose.

Updated

Afternoon summary

Here’s everything that’s happened so far today.

  • Joe Biden said that his priority when he enters office is to get the economy back on track. He suggested that he is open to compromise with Republicans in Congress, but emphasized the consequences the party will face if relief is not given to Americans. He also noted that recovery will have to involve “America first” investment.
  • Congress is still struggling to agree on a new coronavirus stimulus package. Democratic leaders Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi urged Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell to agree to start negotiations with a $908bn bipartisan plan, but McConnell said the amount is too high.
  • Donald Trump is doing all he can to propel his debunked claims of voter fraud in the presidential election, posting a 46-minute video on social media detailing his thoughts on the matter. As the 8 December deadline for states to certify their election results approaches, Trump is quickly running out of options to contest the election.
  • The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released new quarantine guidelines that said if a person has been exposed to Covid-19, they can shorten their quarantine period from 14 days to seven if they receive a negative Covid-19 test. The change in guidelines is meant to acknowledge the burden a 14-day quarantine may have on individuals.

I’m passing the blog over to my Guardian colleague Lois Beckett. Stay tuned for more live updates.

Updated

At a press conference dedicated to a new coronavirus stimulus package, top Democrats indicated that they would be willing to use a $908bn bipartisan stimulus plan as the starting point for negotiations over a new relief package.

Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer and House speaker Nancy Pelosi said they are now considering a slimmer package, which is over $2tr less than the HEROES Act that was passed by the Democrat-controlled House in May.

“While we made a new offer to leader [Mitch] McConnell and leader [Kevin] McCarthy on Monday, in the spirit of compromise we believe the bipartisan framework introduced by senators yesterday should be used as the basis for immediate bipartisan, bicameral negotiations,” the leaders said in a joint statement.

But McConnell has already rejected the plan, saying that he now endorses about $500bn in spending, which is worth half the amount that Republicans had originally set in the HEALS Act in July. McConnell has indicated that he wants to tie aid to Congress’ spending bill, which needs to pass by 11 December to prevent funding for nearly all government agencies from expiring.

Updated

Donald Trump just posted a video on social media of him talking about the election, repeating debunked claims he has made on social media in the last few weeks following his loss to Joe Biden.

Standing at a podium stamped with the presidential seal, Trump started the video by saying, “This may be the most important speech I’ve ever made …” – all while hundreds of Americans die of Covid-19 each day – and said it is an “update on the efforts to expose the tremendous voter fraud and irregularities” during the election, which he noted (in the 46-minute video) was “ridiculously long”. Trump repeated his claims that the election was under “coordinated assault and siege”.

Election officials have made clear that the election was one of the most safe and secure in US history, and there has been no evidence of widespread voter fraud. Trump’s battle to hold onto his place in the White House is quickly coming to an end as 8 December approaches, which is the last day states have to resolve any disputes and certify their results, at which point the results of the election will be nearly impossible to overturn.

Updated

Senator David Perdue of Georgia, who is up against Democrat Jon Ossoff in the special election for his seat in January, trades the most stock of any member of the US Senate, according to a New York Times analysis of Perdue’s stock trading.

Not only does Perdue trade stocks in high amounts, he also trades in companies that are directly affected by the policies he sets in the committees and subcommittees in which he serves. The Times noted that Perdue denies that his trading sets up a conflict between his personal financial matters and his job as a Senator, saying that he trading is handled by outside advisers without his input.

Here’s more from the Times’ story:

An examination of Mr. Perdue’s stock trading during his six years in office reveals that he has been the Senate’s most prolific stock trader by far, sometimes reporting 20 or more transactions in a single day.

The Times analyzed data compiled by Senate Stock Watcher, a nonpartisan website that aggregates publicly available information on lawmakers’ trading, and found that Mr. Perdue’s transactions accounted for nearly a third of all Senate trades reported in the past six years. His 2,596 trades, mostly in stocks but also in bonds and funds, roughly equal the combined trading volume of the next five most active traders in the Senate.

The data also shows the breadth of trades Mr. Perdue made in companies that stood to benefit from policy and spending matters that came not just before the Senate as a whole, but before the committees and subcommittees on which he served.

The Republican National Committee is hosting a “Victory Rally” with Donald Trump and Senators David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler before their January runoff elections. The rally will take place in Valdosta, Georgia, on Saturday.

This will be Trump’s first rally since election day. Trump is still refusing to accept the official results of the election and has not formally conceded to Joe Biden. The rally is an indicator that the RNC is hoping support for Trump will motivate voters to support the Republican candidates in January’s runoff.

Notably absent from the event is Georgia governor Brian Kemp, who is a supporter of Trump but has, in recent days, been the target of attacks from the president calling on Kemp to use his powers as governor to rig the election in favor of himself. In response, Kemp said that the state’s law “prohibits the Governor from interfering in elections” and that “he will continue to follow the law”.

Updated

Donald Trump’s threats to veto Congress’s annual defense bill unless legal protections for social media companies are removed fell flat on Capitol Hill today, including with Republicans.

Jim Inhofe, the chair of the Senate armed services committee, which is charge of creating the bill, said that he plans to move forward with the bill without provisions that will repeal protections for social media companies, teeing up a potential veto from Trump.

Trump tweeted last night that he would veto the bill if it does not include a provision that revokes Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act, which provides a legal shield to technology companies for any content from third parties and users. Trump has made largely unsuccessful efforts to curb social media companies, particularly Twitter, which has been flagging his tweets about the election as misinformation drawing the president’s ire.

Inhofe said that he agrees with Trump about Section 230, but it has “nothing to do with the military.”

The bill is wide-ranging, setting defense policies for the country and offering raises to troops. An amendment that would remove the names of Confederates from military bases within three years has also been included.

When asked at a press conference earlier this afternoon whether Trump is serious about his threats to veto the bill, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said: “The president is serious about it.”

Updated

Mark Kelly, a former US Navy captain and astronaut, was just sworn into his seat as a US Senator for Arizona after ousting Republican Martha McSally from her seat with a margin of just over 2 points. Kelly was sworn in by Mike Pence, with his fellow Democratic senator from Arizona, Kyrsten Sinema, holding the Bible he took his oath.

McSally was appointed to replace the late John McCain in 2018 after she lost the race for the other Arizona US Senate seat to Sinema. Kelly is also the husband of Gabby Giffords, who was severely injured during an assassination attempt and mass shooting in 2011. Kelly and Giffords have since become staunch gun control advocates.

Kelly was one of two Democrats, the other being Colorado’s John Hickenlooper, who successfully took a Senate seat away from a sitting Republican.

Updated

Is the president going to skip Biden’s inauguration?

All common sense guesstimates point to yes, in what would be a phenomenal and astonishing snub, obviously, but clearly one which wouldn’t be surprising as a mark of the character of the current lame duck.

But that doesn’t mean one shouldn’t ask, and press sec Kayleigh McEnany was duly asked during a press briefing earlier today.

“Is the president seriously considering skipping the inauguration?” she was asked by the press of the official handover ritual that takes place January 20.

No surprise that she skipped answering properly, saying she’d leave that Q to Trump to answer.

Early afternoon summary

It’s been a lively morning in US politics and we’ll continue to cover all the news developments of the day as they occur, so do stay tuned.

Here are the main events so far today:

  • The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) updated its guidelines today to say that those who have been exposed to Covid-19 can cut their time in quarantine in half if they test negative for the virus and report no symptoms.
  • In an interview with the New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman published today, president-elect Joe Biden said that economic relief, including fighting “like hell by investing in America First”, is his top priority as he enters office at a time when over 100,000 people are testing positive for Covid-19 a day.
  • There are reports that Donald Trump may try to upstage Joe Biden on the day the Democrat is inaugurated as America’s 46th president, January 20, by announcing that he will run for the Republican nomination again in 2024.
  • More from that interview - and how it is being seen across the Pond. Britain’s hopes of securing an early trade deal with the US have been dashed by a warning from Biden that America will not sign a trade deal with anyone until the US has sorted out its competitiveness.
  • The US is bracing for a further surge in coronavirus cases that will stem from infections acquired over the late-November Thanksgiving break and overlap dangerously with the start of people traveling, against official advice, to gather for Hanukkah, Christmas and other celebrations over the winter holiday period.

Joe Biden is planning to keep Christopher Wray, who was appointed by Donald Trump in 2017 after the president fired James Comey, as FBI director, the New York Times is reporting.

Citing an anonymous official on Biden’s team, Biden is planning on “not removing the FBI director unless Trump fired him.”

Biden keeping Wray as director would be a return to norms as FBI directors tend to serve for 10-year terms. The firing of Comey was an exception and eventually led to the investigation of possible conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia in the 2016 election.

Wray is a Republican who was the assistant attorney general overseeing the criminal division under George W. Bush and was specifically in charge of corporate fraud. Before becoming FBI director, Wray was a litigation partner at a private law firm.

Christopher Wray
Christopher Wray Photograph: Reuters

CDC reduces quarantine period for asymptomatic Covid-19 exposures

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention updated its guidelines today to say that those who have been exposed to Covid-19 can cut their time in quarantine in half if they test negative for the virus and report no symptoms.

A person can also end quarantine after 10 days if no symptoms have developed. A test should be taken within 48 hours before someone plans to exit quarantine.

Previously, the CDC had a broad recommendation that quarantine after being exposed to Covid-19 should last 14 days.

In a call with reporters, Dr Henry Walke, the CDC’s incident manager, said that the 14-day quarantine is still the most effective way to stop the virus’ spread, but added that the change was due to the burden that a long quarantine period has on people. Some people become impatient and end quarantine early without taking precautionary steps like getting tested.

“We believe that if we can reduce the burden a little bit, accepting that it comes at a small cost, we make greater compliance overall with people,” Walke said, according to CNBC.

Updated

A rare interview with Robert Mueller, former FBI director and special counsel to the investigation into Russia’s intervention in the 2016, is set to premier today on NBC’s “The Oath” podcast with Chuck Rosenberg.

Rosenberg is a former federal prosecutor who worked for Mueller as an FBI counsel. Rosenberg told the Associated Press that he knew not to ask any questions about his time on the special counsel. “I knew he wouldn’t talk about it and I had really no intention of asking about it,” he said.

Mueller has kept an impressively under-the-radar profile since his time as special prosecutor, only coming out with a public statement in September when he pushed back on a claim from Andrew Weissmann, a former top federal prosecutor who worked on the counsel with Mueller, who said in his memoir that the special counsel “could have down more” to hold Donald Trump accountable.

“It is not surprising that members of the special counsel’s office did not always agree,” he said. “But it is disappointing to hear criticism of our team based on incomplete information.”

Several properties owned by the Trump Organization, and by Kushner Companies, owned by the family of Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, received millions of dollars in Paycheck Protection Program loans, NBC News reports.

Data from the program were released last night after several news organizations sued the federal government to release the data from the PPP and Economist Injury Disaster Loans.

Congress earmarked $700bn for forgivable loans to businesses, mainly to keep employees on payroll, but also to cover expenses like rent, utilities and mortgage payments.

Data around the loans that were granted to the Trump and Kushner family businesses reveal that their loans did not end up going toward keeping jobs, as the loan was created to do.

More than two dozen PPP loans worth over $3.65m were used for rent by tenants of the Trump and Kushner companies. One loan went to the Triomphe Restaurant Corp., located in the Trump International Hotel & Tower in New York. The company reported that the money did not go to keeping jobs, and it later closed permanently.

Updated

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger stood by comments one of his officials made to Donald Trump yesterday, saying that the president is “inspiring people to commit potential acts of violence” by continuing to call the results of the election into question despite multiple recounts.

Gabriel Sterling, a Republican who helped to oversee the implementation of the state’s new voting system, pleaded with Trump during a press conference yesterday that the president stop his rhetoric for fear of violence.

“Someone is going to get hurt, someone is going to get short, someone is going to get killed, and it’s not right. It’s not right,” Sterling said.

In a press conference Wednesday morning, Raffensperger said that Sterling has his office’s “full support” when speaking yesterday.

“He spoke it with passion and spoke it with truth. It’s about time more people out there started speaking the truth,” Raffensperger said.

But instead of backing down, Trump doubled down on his claims on Twitter, retweeting a video of Sterling speaking with a Tweet that said “rigged election”.

Updated

Joe Biden, in his interview with New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, was also asked about his plans for Iran and China after Donald Trump cracked down on the US’s relationship with the two countries.

Biden said that he plans on taking steps to reinstating the Iran nuclear deal, saying that if Iran agrees to strict compliance with the nuclear deal, the US would rejoin the agreement as a starting point for future negotiations.

Friedman noted the argument that Biden should utilize the leverage from the Trump-imposed oil sanctions instead of restarting the nuclear deal as it was. Biden emphasized his belief that reinstating the nuclear deal as soon as possible is “the best way to achieve some stability in the region”.

Biden said he would not immediately touch the 25% tariffs that Trump imposed on Chinese exports, saying that he plans on consultings allies in Asia and Europe to “develop a coherent strategy” and also work on building the US’s leverage over China by focusing on American investment. Biden said he will not enter any new trade agreements “until we have made major investments here at home”.

“I want to make sure we’re going to fight like hell by investing in America first,” he said, including by improving investment in US manufacturing and protecting American workers.

Updated

Biden: 'We’re going to fight like hell' for US investment

In an interview with the New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman published today, president-elect Joe Biden said that economic relief, including fighting “like hell by investing in America First”, is his top priority as he enters office at a time when over 100,000 people are testing positive for Covid-19 a day.

Friedman asked Biden about the fight he expects to put up with Republicans in Congress, particularly Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell if Republicans maintain their majority in the Senate.

Biden hinted at potential compromise with McConnell, saying “not all compromise is walking away from principle” and “he knows me. I know him. I don’t ask him to embarrass himself to make a deal.”

Of course, the Senate that Biden is poised to work with is way more polarized than the Senate he worked with during his years in Congress, with some calling his belief in an ability to compromise “delusional”.

But Biden also referenced the fact that Republicans may be undergoing self-harm if they push back against significant relief.

“When you have cops and firefighters and first responders across the board being laid off, when you’re not getting the kind of distribution of vaccines out to rural America, it has to have some consequences,” he said.

Updated

Christopher Krebs, the former director of the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (Cisa) who was fired by Donald Trump last month after pushing back on the president’s claims of voter fraud, wrote in a Washington Post op-ed responding to comments from a Trump lawyer who said that Krebs should be “taken out at dawn and shot”.

“I am not going to be intimidated by these threats from telling the truth to the American people,” he wrote.

Krebs explained how he left a “comfortable private-sector job” to take work at the Department of Homeland Security “in the spirit of public service”. He said Cisa worked to ensure that foreign threats did not interfere with the election, as they did in the 2016 election.

He emphasized the changes that were made to ensure Cisa had relationships with state officials, who are responsible for administering elections, and to offer services that monitor for vulnerable software or equipment. Even as many people voted by mail this year, Krebs noted that he has noticed “no significant discrepancies attributed to manipulation”.

“The 2020 election was the most secure in US history. This success should be celebrated by all Americans, not undermined in the service of a profoundly un-American goal,” he wrote.

Updated

Private ambulance companies across the country are facing financial struggles in the wake of rising costs and declining revenue, all while providing essential services during the pandemic.

According to NBC News, private EMS services received $350 million in federal assistance to help them respond to the pandemic, but companies said the money is not enough for them to stay afloat. For many companies, the 911 calls and transfer to hospitals that made up the bulk of their revenue before the pandemic have dropped as people delay surgeries and other elective medical procedures.

Meanwhile, responding to Covid-19 cases means that companies have had to spend more on PPE. And the federal government is not reimbursing companies for treating people at the scene of the emergency, which has become a standard during the pandemic to avoid unnecessary trips to the hospital, as the government only reimburses companies when they transport patients to a hospital.

“The 911 emergency medical system throughout the United States is at a breaking point. Without additional relief, it seems likely to break,” said the American Ambulance Association, an advocacy group for private EMS companies, in a letter to the Department of Health and Human Services obtained by NBC News.

Good morning, this is Lauren Aratani taking over for Martin Belam. As Congress continues to be at a standstill with a new coronavirus stimulus package, cities are starting efforts to bring direct relief to their residents.

Houston, Texas is preparing to launch a program that would give $1,200 checks to residents of the city this month, payments similar to the stimulus checks that were sent out by the federal government in the spring.

The program would be open to residents who demonstrate a need for assistance in an application. The city is allocating a maximum of $30 million for the program, which could help as many as 23,750 families, according to the Houston Chronicle.

Unlike other forms of government assistance, the checks can be used however struggling residents see fit.

“People can utilize that on whatever – utility, rent, you name it,” said Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner. “We’re doing everything we can with the dollars we’ve been given to meet those needs or people where they are.”

Teen Vogue has in recent years gained itself a reputation for doing more hard-hitting journalism than you’d expect from the title, and it has a very strong piece today by Lindsey Beth Meyers, titled Working at a nursing home during the Covid-19 pandemic is a daily heartbreak. She says “I work with the grandparents we’re leaving to die.”

I work at an assisted-living facility and nursing home in Buffalo, New York. I’m a wellness leader, which means I run fitness classes, make presentations, host games, and help create a monthly schedule. I also kick butt at Bingo. During Covid times, a large part of my job has been helping the residents fend off loneliness.

Sixty residents live at the nursing home. Since March, none of them have been able to visit with their families. Group activities are limited to eight people, all spaced six feet apart, with masks on and hand sanitizer at the ready. They eat meals in their rooms and watch TV all night long. Most days, they see and speak to almost no one. It’s exhaustingly solitary, and many of them have deteriorated health-wise as a result. Try as I might, there are some voids I simply cannot fill.

Read more here: Teen Vogue – Working at a nursing home during the Covid-19 pandemic is a daily heartbreak

Do you ever sometimes look at social media and start wondering if something has gone wrong in your brain, and are you really actually seeing this?

This morning I’ve had to do double-takes over Young Americans for Biden tweeting out an ‘advent calendar’ of the president-elect eating ice cream.

And earlier Trump campaign strategy manager Steve Cortes interuppted his usual Twitter service of claims of voter fraud to wish Britney Spears a happy birthday…

A leader of the Trump administration’s effort to produce and distribute a coronavirus vaccine says he expects the Food and Drug Administration to soon authorize the use of a vaccine.

Operation Warp Speed chief science adviser Moncef Slaoui says he hopes by 10 December or 11 December the Pfizer vaccine will be approved in the US.

Slaoui told ABC’s Good Morning America he “would expect the FDA to reach a similar conclusion” as British authorities did this morning by approving emergency use of a vaccine developed by American drugmaker Pfizer and Germany’s BioNTech.

Slaoui is urging people to listen to the experts about taking the vaccine, look at the data and keep their minds open. He says “great science” allowed researchers to do discovery work “in weeks rather than in years.”

Slaoui calls the vaccine “an insurance against this virus” and says it’s “what will get us out of this pandemic.”

In a move absolutely guaranteed to delight outgoing president Donald Trump, People magazine has today announced that Dr Anthony Fauci is one of their people of the year, and he gets his own front cover.

Dr Anthony Fauci on the cover of People magazine
Dr Anthony Fauci on the cover of People magazine Photograph: People magazine

They write:

Dr. Anthony Fauci stepped up to be the doctor America needed in 2020, providing steady guidance during the pandemic. Even though he and his family were getting death threats, he continued to be out front, reassuring us during turbulent times with his devoted public service, unflappable common sense, and life-saving leadership.

George Clooney, Selena Gomez and Regina King were also named.

Donald Trump is heading to rally in Georgia on Saturday ahead of the crucial Senate runoff races there in January. Aaron Blake for the Washington Post here suggests that move is not without its risks for the Republican party:

Late last week, concern was building among Republicans that President Trump’s baseless attacks on the legitimacy of the 2020 election might lead their voters to sit out Georgia’s all-important Senate runoffs, which will determine control of the chamber. If elections are rigged, the logic goes, why bother? And why reward people who supposedly haven’t stood up enough for Trump’s specious claims?

Trump retweeted a user who suggested that it was pointless to elect Republicans like Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey and Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, who had just certified their states for Joe Biden.

“Watching the Arizona hearings and then watching Gov. Ducey sign those papers, why bother voting for Republicans if what you get is Ducey and Kemp?” the user said. Trump also retweeted another user who asked rhetorically, “Who needs Democrats when you have Republicans like Brian Kemp and Doug Ducey?”

The tweets weren’t about the senators, but the message dovetails with the GOP’s nightmare scenario in Georgia, with some Republicans worrying that Trump will focus more on himself than on the senators and deliver a message that could be counterproductive.

Then-Trump attorney Sidney Powell alluded at a news conference last week — and not subtly — to the idea that Loeffler might have participated in rigging the election to earn herself a spot in the runoff. Powell’s claim that even Republicans might have rigged their own elections was thought to be part of the reason she was swiftly removed from Trump’s legal team a week ago.

Another Trump-adjacent lawyer has been even more explicit. L. Lin Wood, a Powell ally who has spearheaded challenges on behalf of Trump in Georgia, has repeatedly tweeted that Republicans should at least consider sitting out the runoffs.

Read more here: Washington Post – The Trump-fueled peril for the GOP in Georgia

Thomas Fuller and Manny Fernandez have this for the New York Times this morning on the state of the coronavirus outbreak in California.

For all its size and economic might, California has long had one of America’s lowest number of hospital beds relative to its population. Now state officials warn that this shortfall, combined with acute staffing shortages, may prove catastrophic.

In the spring, California had some of the earliest outbreaks and was the first state to issue a stay-at-home order. By summer, many Californians thought the worst was behind them, only to see an explosion of cases at the end of June. The number of cases dropped, then plateaued, before skyrocketing again this fall.

On Sunday, California became the first state to record more than 100,000 cases in a week. The state government estimates that about 12 percent of its confirmed cases end up in a hospital.

Complicating the situation for hospitals is the fact that cases are now exploding in nearly all parts of the country, meaning that healthcare workers cannot be brought from other states as an emergency stopgap like they were in the spring, when the pandemic was mostly concentrated in a few coastal states, experts say.

The shortage of nursing staff will make handling the surge of virus cases “extraordinarily difficult for us in California,” said Carmela Coyle, the head of the California Hospital Association, which represents 400 hospitals across the state.

“This pandemic is a story of shortage,” Ms. Coyle said. “It’s what has made this pandemic unique and different from other disasters.”

Read more here: New York Times – With cases on the rise, California faces a severe shortage of hospital staff and beds

In among a flurry of other tweets yesterday, Donald Trump appeared to endorse a view that coronavirus – or at least one of the measures to combat it – is a scam. He quote-tweeted an image of a doctor in a medical facility in Reno which had the message “Here is the fake Nevada parking garage hospital picture that our moron governor tweeted, proving it’s all a scam.”

The president added his own message “Fake election results in Nevada, also!”

The Los Angeles Times morning has a breakdown on why that assertion is not true.

Renown Regional Medical Center has been the primary target of renewed conspiracy theories online suggesting that hospitals are empty and the coronavirus is not as dangerous as top medical experts say it is. The hospital opened an alternative care site with two floors of supplemental hospital beds inside a parking structure 12 November to accommodate an overflow of Covid-19 cases if needed.

A selfie by Dr. Jacob Keeperman, who works for the medical center, shows him standing in front of empty hospital beds at the auxiliary facility in Reno. The photo was taken the day the site was opened, before patients began arriving.

According to Renown, the facility currently has 42 patients and has served 198 since it opened last month. The site, which was set up for patients who do not require long-term care, can house more than 1,400 patients.

Keeperman, medical director for Renown’s Transfer and Operations Center, shared the photo of himself on Twitter in hopes of conveying the gravity of the situation at the hospital. But his tweet was quickly picked up and misrepresented online.

“It is really demoralizing to everybody who is out working so hard to have this politicized and polarized so much,” he said. “I am holding patients’ hands when they take their very last breath because their loved ones can’t be with them.”

The Nevada Hospital Association reported that a record-high 1,589 patients were hospitalized with confirmed or suspected cases of Covid-19 in the state on Tuesday.

Read more here: Los Angeles Times – This doctor took a selfie to show the gravity of the pandemic. Now it’s being used to deny it

Updated

It’s a big day up in Congress for former astronaut Mark Kelly, who will be sworn in as a Senator for Arizona after defeating Sen. Martha McSally last month. CNN report:

While other senators-elect will have to wait until January to be sworn in for the new Congress, Kelly is able to take the oath of office right away since he won a special election. The swearing-in is slated to take place Wednesday afternoon.

The special election victory marks a moment of triumph for Kelly, a retired Navy captain and NASA astronaut, that comes in the aftermath of tragedy.

Kelly was thrust into the national spotlight in 2011 when his wife, Arizona’s then-Rep. Gabby Giffords, was shot in the head and nearly killed, an event that sent shock waves throughout the nation.

He later turned into a political activist, launching a group called Americans for Responsible Solutions alongside his wife and fighting for gun control policies like universal background checks and so-called red flag laws.

“I learned a lot from being an astronaut. I learned a lot from being a pilot in the Navy, “ Kelly said in his campaign announcement video. “But what I learned from my wife is how you use policy to improve people’s lives.”

Read more here: CNN – Mark Kelly to be sworn in as US senator, flipping Arizona seat from red to blue

Politico have been labelling this as a scoop on their social media about president-elect Joe Biden’s cunning plan to place mid- to lower-level officials across the federal government, particularly in national security roles, to ensure his administration can begin to enact his agenda immediately, in the anticipation that a Mitch McConnell-led Senate will be obstructive over confirming the senior roles. They write:

By quickly selecting candidates for slots that don’t require Senate confirmation, such as deputy assistant secretaries, the transition team also can try to ensure that many of those hired can obtain security clearances by the time Biden takes office.

The shift in focus to filling positions that do not require confirmation reflects the urgency with which the Biden team sees its staffing conundrum — especially in the realm of national security, where there’s little room for error. It also signals Biden’s anxiousness to replace Trump appointees and fill long-empty positions as soon as possible so he can enact his agenda.

The Biden transition team is also considering asking former government officials, such as retired diplomats, to come in and fill key positions on an acting basis until the nominees for those jobs are confirmed by the Senate, according to a fourth person familiar with the situation. That could prove legally complicated, but it’s not impossible

Read more here: Politico – Anticipating Senate bottlenecks, Biden plans a nomination workaround

An alleged “bribery for pardon” scheme at the White House is under investigation by the justice department, according to a court filing unsealed yesterday.

The heavily redacted document does not name Donald Trump or other individuals and leaves many unanswered questions, but comes amid media reports that the US president is considering sweeping pardons before he leaves office next month.

It shows that the justice department investigation alleges that an individual offered “a substantial political contribution in exchange for a presidential pardon or reprieve of sentence”.

Two individuals acted improperly as lobbyists to secure the pardon in the “bribery-for-pardon schemes”, as the document puts it. All three names are blacked out.

On Tuesday night, a justice department official told Reuters that no US government official is the “subject or target” of investigation into whether money was funnelled to the White House in exchange for a presidential pardon.

Trump issued a brief response on Tuesday night, resorting to one of his favourite phrases to criticise the media even though the details were contained in official court papers. “Pardon investigation is Fake News!” he tweeted.

The watchdog Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (Crew) tweeted in response: “It’s hard to overstate how big a deal the phrase ‘bribery-for-pardon schemes’ is.”

Read more of David Smith’s report here: US justice department investigates alleged ‘bribery for pardon’ scheme at White House

“This is the federal government admitting that climate change is killing off a widely distributed tree, and we know that’s just the tip of the iceberg. There are many species threatened.”

That’s Rebecca Riley, who is legal director for the Natural Resources Defense council, talking about the fate of Whitebark pine trees, which are dying across the US west.

The climate crisis, voracious beetles and disease are imperiling the long-term survival of the high-elevation pine tree that’s a key source of food for some grizzly bears across the US west.

Whitebark pine trees can live up to 1,000 years and are found at elevations up to 12,000 feet (3,600 meters), conditions too harsh for most trees to survive. The trees grow in Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada and western Canada, but have been all but wiped out in some areas.

That includes parts of the eastern edge of Yellowstone national park, where they are a source of food for threatened grizzly bears. Grizzlies raid squirrel caches of whitebark pine cones and devour the seeds within the cones to fatten up for winter.

Environmentalists had petitioned the government in 2008 to protect the trees, and a US Fish and Wildlife Service proposal scheduled to be published on Wednesday would indeed protect the tree as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act.

However, the agency said it doesn’t plan to designate which forested areas are critical to the tree’s survival, stopping short of what some environmentalists argue is needed.

Read more here: Whitebark pine trees are dying across the US west. Could a federal proposal protect them?

Trump to announce 2024 presidential run on Joe Biden's Inauguration Day – reports

NBC News had this take last night on Trump’s plans for a 2024 run, and how he may be intending to use them to upstage Joe Biden on Inauguration Day.

President Donald Trump is discussing the possibility of announcing a campaign to retake the White House in 2024 on Inauguration Day and skipping the swearing-in of his successor, according to three people familiar with the discussions.

There is “preliminary planning” underway for a 20 January event to kick off a new Trump bid, the people familiar with the discussions said, though it’s possible the president could make the announcement earlier as no final decisions have been made.

Regardless of the timing of a campaign announcement, Trump is not expected to attend the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden, according to the people familiar with the discussions. He also does not plan to invite Biden to the White House or even call him, they said.

Biden transition officials said Trump’s attendance at the inauguration, or lack thereof, won’t affect their plans.

Read more here: NBC News – Trump considers 2024 campaign kickoff on Inauguration Day

Is a Trump 2024 campaign a real possibility? The outgoing president appeared to float the idea yesterday.

“It’s been an amazing four years,” Trump told the crowd at a holiday reception at the White House, which included many Republican National Committee members. “We’re trying to do another four years. Otherwise, I’ll see you in four years.”

Trump’s comments appeared to acknowledge that he thought he could have lost the election. While speculation about a presidential run in 2024 has been rife, and many US politics watchers expect him to declare a bid soon, he has not spoken publicly about it before.

There’s one very good motivation for Trump to keep the idea he might run again in 2024 alive. It will guarantee that the media won’t be able to look away from him as the Biden-Harris administration gets into gear, and also opens up a fund-raising avenue. Trump has raised over $150m in the month since the election on the basis of disputing his defeat.

Read more here: Donald Trump suggests 2024 presidential bid: ‘I’ll see you in four years’

Updated

In a somewhat predictable development, Republican Senators who have said not a peep while the commander-in-chief goes around calling people “Sleepy Joe”, “Crooked Hilary”, dubs vice president-elect Kamala Harris a “nasty woman” and insults all and sundry, are now seemingly upset that president-elect Joe Biden isn’t playing nicely enough with them. That’s according to this report from the Hill anyway, where Jordain Carney explains that Republican frustration is building over Biden’s Cabinet picks.

Tensions are building on various fronts, from complaints that Biden’s team isn’t coordinating with Senate Republicans to warnings that he should expect a slower pace of confirmation after years-long frustrations from GOP senators about the treatment of President Trump’s nominees.

“I really am a little surprised ... that there hadn’t been at least some consultation. I mean, some of these problems can be avoided and people, you know, saved from the embarrassment if there would simply be some consultation on who they’re thinking about,” said Sen. John Cornyn.

Asked about consulting with Republicans, Sen. Kevin Cramer said, “Unless you’re putting all your eggs in the ‘We’re going to win them both in Georgia’ basket, that would be a wise thing to do.”

Sen. Mike Rounds added that while there was still time for Biden to do outreach, he should keep in mind the views of Republicans who will be wary of anything that will “obliterate” work done under the Trump administration.

As Biden is “attempting to lay out people that he thinks should be part of his Cabinet, we hope that he takes that into consideration,” Rounds said.

It feels churlish to point this out, but given that senior Senate Republicans like Mitch McConnell are still yet to acknowledge that Joe Biden has won the election in public, it seems a bit rich for Republicans to also be complaining that the Biden team isn’t reaching out enough.

Read more here: The Hill – Republican frustration builds over Cabinet picks

Yesterday Senate Republican majority leader Mitch McConnell said he’s largely sticking with a partisan, scaled-back Covid-19 relief bill that has already failed to pass Congress twice. The Kentucky Republican made the announcement after president-elect Joe Biden called upon lawmakers to pass a down payment relief bill now with more to come next year.

Associated Press report that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi resumed talks with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin about a year-end spending package that could include Covid-19 relief provisions. Mnuchin told reporters as he arrived at a Senate Banking Committee hearing that he and Pelosi are focused primarily on the unfinished appropriations bills, however.

“On Covid relief, we acknowledged the recent positive developments on vaccine development and the belief that it is essential to significantly fund distribution efforts to get us from vaccine to vaccination,” Pelosi said afterward.

It’s unclear whether the flurry of activity will lead to progress. Time is running out on Congress’ lame-duck session and Donald Trump’s single term presidency, but many Republicans still won’t even acknowledge that Trump has lost the election leaving good faith between the two parties in short supply.

McConnell said that his bill, which only modestly tweaks an earlier plan blocked by Democrats, would be signed by Trump and that additional legislation could pass next year.

“We don’t have time for messaging games. We don’t have time for lengthy negotiations,” McConnell said. “I would hope that this is something that could be signed into law by the president, be done quickly, deal with the things we can agree on now.”

But his initiative fell flat with Democrats and a key GOP moderate.

“If it’s identical to what (McConnell) brought forth this summer then it’s going to be a partisan bill that is not going to become law,” said Republican Sen. Susan Collins, who joined others in unveiling a $908 billion bipartisan package only hours earlier. “And I want a bill that will become law.”

Also on the trade front, Reuters have this today on the increasing levels of scrutiny being applied to Chinese companies operating in the US. The House of Representatives is expected to pass legislation this week that could prevent some Chinese companies from listing their shares on US exchanges unless they adhere to US auditing standards.

The bill would give Chinese companies like Alibaba, Pinduoduo and oil giant PetroChina three years to comply with US rules before being removed from US markets.

The House is scheduled to vote on Wednesday evening on “The Holding Foreign Companies Accountable Act,” which bars securities of foreign companies from being listed on any US exchange if they have failed to comply with the US Public Accounting Oversight Board’s audits for three years in a row. Aides said there is bipartisan backing for the measure.

Chinese authorities have long been reluctant to allow overseas regulators to inspect local accounting firms, citing national security concerns. Officials at China’s securities regulator indicated earlier this year that they were willing to allow inspection of audit documents in some circumstances, but past agreements aimed at solving the long standing dispute have failed to work in practice.

The bill, sponsored by Republican Senator John Kennedy and Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen, passed the Senate in May by unanimous consent, so House passage would send it to the White House for US President Donald Trump to veto or sign into law.

Trump, a strong critic of China’s business practices, is expected to sign the bill if it is approved, a person familiar with the matter told Reuters.

UK's hopes of early US trade deal dashed by Biden warning

Britain’s hopes of securing an early trade deal with the US have been dashed by a warning from Joe Biden, the president-elect, that America will not sign a trade deal with anyone until the US has sorted out its competitiveness.

Britain had been closing in on a trade deal with the administration of Donald Trump, a fierce opponent of the European Union, but Biden has said in a New York Times interview that his priority will be to improve investment in US manufacturing and the protection of Amerian workers.

“I’m not going to enter any new trade agreement with anybody until we have made major investments here at home and in our workers and in education,” he said.

Some supporters of Brexit had touted a US trade deal as one of the early benefits of leaving the EU and its customs union, although the economic value of such a deal had been questioned.

Biden told the New York Times: “I want to make sure we’re going to fight like hell by investing in America first.” He named energy, biotech, advanced materials and artificial intelligence as areas ripe for large-scale government investment in research.

The remarks underline the extent to which leading Democrats have retreated from a wholesale embrace of globalisation, and insist US foreign policy must give greater priority to America’s domestic interests.

Read more of Patrick Wintour’s report here: UK’s hopes of early US trade deal dashed by Biden warning

Benjamin Mueller for the New York Times this morning notes that “The specter of Britain beating the United States to a Covid vaccine approval had already angered the White House in recent days, heaping additional pressure on American regulators to match Britain’s pace.”

President Trump will host a “Covid-19 Vaccine Summit” next week, the White House said on Tuesday. The meeting will come just two days before a panel of outside advisers to the FDA meets to decide whether the agency should grant emergency approval to the Pfizer vaccine.

Britain and the United States vet vaccine candidates differently: American regulators pore over raw data from vaccine makers to validate their results, while regulators in Britain and elsewhere in Europe lean more heavily on companies’ own analyses.

According to the Johns Hopkins University figures, the US has now seen 13.7m coronavirus cases and exceeded 270,000 deaths. There were 180,083 new cases of the coronavirus in the US recorded yesterday, and 2,597 more deaths. It is only the fifth time the US has recorded more than 2,500 Covid deaths in a day, and is the first time this has happened since April.

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Over at CNN, Madeline Holcombe has this report on the worsening Covid situation in the US.

Over the course of December, if no policies or use of masks change, the US is projected to have more than double the number of new coronavirus deaths that were reported in November, according to a model from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. That would bring the death toll to more than 336,000 by the end of this year.

The new high in coronavirus deaths coincides with the highest day in hospitalizations the US. The Covid Tracking Project recorded 47,531 people in the hospital battling the coronavirus on 1 November, but by yesterday that number more than doubled to 98,691. Within days, that number could exceed 100,000.

Oregon reported its highest number of single day deaths, Texas set its record for single day increases in cases with more than 15,000, and Mississippi had the highest level of hospitalizations so far.

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear called Tuesday the state’s “worst day ever” for the coronavirus by “virtually every measure.””It is the deadliest day that we have had,” Beshear said. “If we don’t all do our part, if we try to be the exception, then slowing down this thing won’t work, and we will lose a lot more Kentuckians we love and care about.”

Read more here: CNN – Daily coronavirus deaths near 2,600, their highest since April, and are expected to get worse

US braces for Covid surge in the aftermath of the Thanksgiving holiday

While the average for new coronavirus cases has seemed to plateau since the middle of November, public health experts warn that an uptick in cases is likely imminent after Thanksgiving as millions of people ignored pleas to stay home and avoid mixed family or social gatherings.

The Transportation Security Administration reported that 1.17 million people were screened at security checkpoints at airports on Sunday – the highest since the start of the pandemic. In comparison, about 2.8 million people were screened on the same Sunday in 2019.

In an interview with NBC on Sunday, Dr Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, outlined what the increase in traveling and gathering could mean for case numbers.

“What we expect, unfortunately, as we go for the next couple of weeks into December, is that we might see a surge superimposed on the surge we are already in,” Fauci said.

Ellie Murray, an epidemiologist at Boston University, said that while many people across the country took precautions, many others were probably exposed to the virus during the holiday.

“What everyone’s expecting is this week and next week, those cases from Thanksgiving will start to be reported,” Murray said. “Any hospitalizations that will result from that will be seen around mid-December, and then we’ll start to see people dying from the Covid they acquired around Thanksgiving by Christmas, the end of December.”

The nature of Covid-19’s incubation period means that it could take up to two weeks to fully realize how much spread occurred over Thanksgiving. That delay coupled with the short timeframe between Thanksgiving and Christmas, with New Year’s followed closely after, could mean that people may not realize the danger that gathering on Thanksgiving posed.

Read more of Lauren Aratani’s report here: US braces for Covid surge in the aftermath of the Thanksgiving holiday

Whatever Joe Biden has up his sleeve as an economic plan, or regardless of whether Congress can agree a Covid relief soon, it will come too late for some people. Michael Sainato reports for us on the layoffs at Walt Disney – even while the company reinstates executive pay and salaries to pre-pandemic levels.

Walt Disney recently announced an additional layoff of 4,000 employees by the end of March 2021, in addition to the 28,000 employees who began receiving separation notices in October 2020. The majority of the layoffs will take effect at the end of 2020, as the firm cites limited attendance and continued closure of Disneyland in California per state coronavirus restrictions.

Now thousand of workers who received separation notices are grappling with what to do next, trying to survive on unemployment benefits after expanded federal unemployment benefits expired in July and holding out hope they will be able to return to work at Disney sometime in the future.

Laura Cave Braunston worked as a server at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida, for more than 12 years before she received her separation notice which takes effect at the end of this year.

“It’s been absolutely hard to pay bills and put food on the table. We’ve had to go to food drives, and those started out with a few hundred people, now the lines are over a thousand,” said Braunston.

Her union, Unite Here Local 737, fought for her and coworkers to receive recall rights until the end of 2022, but in the meantime Braunston has struggled to find another job and recently started an Etsy shop to try to provide her family with some income. Her husband’s hours were recently reduced, and after they both tested positive for coronavirus in June 2020, which hospitalized her husband, he is suffering from chronic fatigue issues.

Meanwhile, Disney reinstated executive pay and salaries in August 2020 after enacting temporary pay cuts for executive employees on 6 April due to the coronavirus pandemic

Read more here: Walt Disney layoffs leave thousands of workers in ‘an awful lot of pain’

US president-elect Joe Biden has formally introduced his choices for top economic advisers. ‘Our message to everybody struggling right now is this: help is on the way,’ Biden said. Biden’s nominations would put several women in top economic roles, including Janet Yellen, who if confirmed by the Senate would be the first woman to lead the US treasury in its 231-year history. Yellen said the economic impact of the pandemic was ‘an American tragedy’

One person who may face a tougher route to confirmation is Neera Tanden, the president of the Center for American Progress (CAP) think tank who Biden has nominated to lead the federal Office of Management and Budget. It emerged yesterday that she had deleted 1,000 tweets, some of which were critical of senators who now hold her fate in their hands.

Kwanza Hall wins special runoff election to briefly represent Atlanta in Congress

Former Atlanta City Council member Kwanza Hall won a special runoff election yesterday for a brief term in Congress which will see him succeed the late civil rights legend John Lewis.

The 49-year-old Hall defeated fellow Democrat Robert Franklin, 66, in the Atlanta area district, but will only hold the seat for a few weeks through to 3 January.

Hall and Franklin were the top two in a September special election after Lewis, a civil rights icon, died in July following 34 years in Congress. Neither candidate won a majority, though, forcing a runoff that leaves the winner with only about a month to serve in Congress.

Lewis’ long-term replacement will be state senator and state Democratic Party chair Nikema Williams, who easily defeated Republican Angela Stanton King in November for a full two-year-term starting in January. Williams and King didn’t run in the special election.

The 5th Congressional District includes most of the city of Atlanta, as well as some suburban areas of Fulton, DeKalb and Clayton counties. About 22,000 people voted, less than 5% of the district’s registered voters.

Lewis died at age 80 from pancreatic cancer. He was the youngest and last surviving speaker from the 1963 March on Washington, when Lewis led the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. He was best known for leading protesters in the 1965 “Bloody Sunday” march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, where he was beaten by state troopers.

The late Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., stands on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma in 2015. He had been beaten by police on the bridge fifty years earlier.
The late Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., stands on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma in 2015. He had been beaten by police on the bridge fifty years earlier. Photograph: Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc/Getty Images

Hall touted his experience on the Atlanta City Council and the Atlanta school board, saying he would make the most of his limited time working on COVID-19 relief and other issues. He linked his effort to Lewis in a statement after his win, noting that his father and Lewis had both worked with Martin Luther King Jr.

“This win tonight allows me to continue that fight and to work every day of this term,” Hall said in a statement.

“Although not the outcome we had wanted, I am pleased that our district will have voice and vote in the critical days ahead,” Franklin said in a statement texted to the Associated Press.

Welcome to our live coverage of US politics for Wednesday. Here’s a catch-up on where we are, and what we can expect from today…

  • There were 180,083 new cases of the coronavirus in the US recorded yesterday, and 2,597 deaths. It is only the fifth time the US has recorded more than 2,500 Covid deaths in a day, and is the first time this has happened since April.
  • President-elect Joe Biden announced his economic team, including former Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen for treasury secretary and Neera Tanden for Office of Management and Budget director.
  • It turned out that Tanden has pre-emptively deleted 1,000 tweets ahead of what may be a tricky path to getting her appointment confirmed by the Senate.
  • Biden will participate in a virtual roundtable today with workers and small business owners impacted by the economic crisis.
  • US attorney general William Barr said the justice department has not uncovered widespread voting fraud in an interview with the Associated Press. “To date, we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have effected a different outcome in the election,” Barr told the AP.
  • The justice department is investigating a potentially criminal scheme to lobby and bribe unnamed officials in exchange for a presidential pardon.
  • One of Georgia’s top election officials, Gabriel Sterling, made an impassioned plea to the president to tone down his rhetoric disputing the election results because of fears he was inciting violence.
  • Donald Trump’s only engagement today is lunch with secretary of state Mike Pompeo. Overnight the outgoing one-term president has continued to push baseless claims of voter fraud on his social media.
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