According to the New York Police Department, police shot and killed an armed suspect who allegedly opened fire outside a Manhattan cathedral as carolers sang on the steps of the church. . ...Read Full Story
The CEO of the federal government’s vaccine initiative Operation Warp Speed said during a news conference held by the US Food and Drug Administration that the first COVID-19 vaccines will be distributed safely. . ...Read Full Story
On Thursday, the Food and Drug Administration’s regulatory vaccines committee voted to recommend the COVID-19 vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech for emergency use authorization. . ...Read Full Story
President-elect Joe Biden’s son Hunter said Wednesday that his “tax affairs” are under federal investigation. In a statement released by the president-elect’s transition office, the younger Biden said he learned about the investigation on Tuesday. He did not disclose details of the matter.. ...Read Full Story
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and a coalition of 48 states and districts have filed antitrust lawsuits against Facebook that accused the social media platform of anticompetitive behavior, potentially force its breakup.. ...Read Full Story
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and a coalition of 48 states and districts have filed antitrust lawsuits against Facebook that accused the social media platform of anticompetitive behavior, potentially force its breakup.. ...Read Full Story
The Biden transition team announced Tuesday that President-elect Biden has named retired Army Gen. Lloyd Austin as his nominee for secretary of defense. The former commander of the US Central Command would make history as the first Black person to lead the Pentagon if confirmed by the US Senate.. ...Read Full Story
President Donald Trump announced a decree Tuesday aimed at granting Americans priority access to vaccines. Trump’s executive order would “ensure that American citizens have first priority to receive American vaccines,” but it was unclear whether it would hold legal weight, since drugmakers have already signed deals with other countries.. ...Read Full Story
A 90-year-old grandmother became Patient A on Tuesday morning as she was the first person in the world to receive the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine outside a clinical trial.. ...Read Full Story
Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced Monday that New York is just days away from a second lockdown if coronavirus cases and hospitalizations continue to surge upward during the holiday season. Cuomo said during a Monday press conference in New York City, “If you overwhelm the hospital capacity, you will have to go back to shutdown. There are no options.”. ...Read Full Story
President Donald Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani has tested positive for COVID-19. Trump delivered the news by tweet, writing “Get better soon Rudy, we will carry on!!!”. ...Read Full Story
President-elect Joe Biden will nominate California Attorney General Xavier Becerra to lead the health and human services department. If confirmed by the Senate, the 62-year-old Becerra will be the first Latino to head the Department of Health and Human Services. Becerra has been one of the most outspokem opponents of the Trump administration having sponsored a wave of legal actions challenging environmental, immigration and Census policies.. ...Read Full Story
On Thursday, California Gov. Gavin Newsom introduced a new regional stay-at-home order, this coming just days after he said that most of the state’s intensive care beds could be over capacity within weeks amid a surge in coronavirus cases.. ...Read Full Story
A wind-driven brush fire in Orange County, CA forced mandatory evacuations in the area as it burned through 7,200 acres by Thursday afternoon– and officials expect the fires to continue to burn through the weekend.. ...Read Full Story
The CDC announced new quarantine guidelines for people who were exposed to coronavirus, reducing the length of time from 14 days to 10 days without symptoms or seven days with no symptoms and a negative test. Officials said the shorter time period is intended to encourage more people to quarantine. . ...Read Full Story
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer announced their support behind a $908 billion pandemic relief bill, seeking to end months of deadlock in congress. The $908 billion measure calls for $288 billion in small-business support and $180 billion for extended unemployment insurance, among other fiscal appropriations.. ...Read Full Story
On Tuesday, a bipartisan group of lawmakers unveiled legislation for a new coronavirus stimulus worth more than $900 billion, hoping to break months of deadlock between the House and Senate. The group specified their “COVID Emergency Relief Framework,” which calls for $288 billion in small-business support and $180 billion for extended unemployment insurance, among other fiscal appropriations. . ...Read Full Story
On Tuesday, an advisory committee to the Centers for Disease and Control and Prevention said that healthcare workers, and workers and residents at nursing homes should be the first to receive a COVID-19 vaccine when one becomes available. The committee held an emergency meeting in Atlanta to discuss the allocation of initial supplies of a vaccine, which could become available as soon as this month.. ...Read Full Story
On Monday, U.S. biotech firm Moderna said it will seek an emergency use authorization for its COVID-19 vaccine candidate after further clinical trials confirmed it is 94% effective. Moderna plans to request an “EUA” from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and conditional approval from the European Medicines Agency after the latest positive results.. ...Read Full Story
On Monday, election results in Arizona were certified in Phoenix by Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, making Joe Biden’s victory over President Donald Trump official in the state. The results marked the second time a Democrat has won the state of Arizona in a presidential contest in 70 years. Final vote totals showed Biden won by 10,457 votes, or 0.3% of the nearly 3.4 million ballots cast in Arizona. Eleven electors from the Democratic party will meet officially on Dec. 14 to pledge Arizona’s electoral votes to Biden. . ...Read Full Story
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced on Sunday that elementary schools in the city will re-open on December 7th, this despite the fact that cases throughout the United Sates continue to surge.. ...Read Full Story
On Sunday, President-elect Joe Biden announced an all-female White House senior communications team. In a statement, Biden’s transition team issued a statement declaring the team the “first senior White House communications team comprised entirely of women. These qualified, experienced communicators bring diverse perspectives to their work and a shared commitment to building this country back better.”. ...Read Full Story
President Donald Trump said on Thursday that he will leave the White House if the Electoral College votes for President-elect Joe Biden.. ...Read Full Story
The U.S. Supreme Court issued an injunction blocking New York’s governor from enforcing 10- and 25-person occupancy limits on religious institutions. . ...Read Full Story
Dow Jones Industrial Average traded above 30,000 for the first time as President-elect Joe Biden formally begins his transition.. ...Read Full Story
President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris formally announced their team of foreign policy and national security officials. Speaking in Wilmington, Delaware, Biden and Harris were joined on stage by their picks, including Secretary of State nominee Antony Blinken, Homeland Security Secretary nominee Alejando Mayorkas and Avril Haines, Biden’s pick for director of national intelligence.. ...Read Full Story
On Monday, President-elect Joe Biden was formally given the go-ahead by a federal agency to begin his transition to the White House, shortly after the battleground state of Michigan certified him as the winner there. With this news, President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn his Nov. 3 election defeat appear to be coming to a close.. ...Read Full Story
On Monday, Michigan election officials certified Democrat Joe Biden’s victory in the state, another setback for President Donald Trump’s efforts challenging the results of the Nov. 3 election through lawsuits and unsupported claims of fraud. The Board of State Canvassers, which has two Republicans and two Democrats, confirmed the results on a 3-0 vote with one abstention. Allies of Trump and losing GOP Senate candidate John James had urged the panel to delay voting for two weeks. Under Michigan law, Biden claims all 16 electoral votes. Biden won by 2.8 percentage points — a larger margin than in other states where Trump is contesting the results like Georgia, Arizona, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.. ...Read Full Story
Authorities said on Sunday that a 15-year-old boy has been arrested in a shooting that left eight people injured at a Wisconsin mall. Wauwatosa Police Chief Barry Weber said in a news conference that the teenager was arrested Saturday night with a gun allegedly used in the shooting. Weber did not identify the teen. A spokeswoman for the police department also said that several other people were arrested in connection with the shooting, but did not provide details.. ...Read Full Story
Two people were killed and two were injured after a shooting at a Bellevue, Nebraska, Sonic Drive-In over the weekend. Officers received a call on Saturday evening of a possible bomb inside a truck at the restaurant, police said in a press release. When police responded, they found the four gunshot wound victims, according to a statement released by the City of Bellevue Police Department.. ...Read Full Story
Democratic senators said on Thursday that the team working on vaccine distribution planning under President Donald Trump have no intention of briefing anyone on President-elect Joe Biden’s transition team.. ...Read Full Story
President Donald Trump has invited Michigan’s Republican legislative leaders to the White House for a meeting Friday, according to a report from The Associated Press.. ...Read Full Story
Officials announced on Wednesday that New York City Public Schools, the nation’s largest school district, will shut down after the city reached a 3% COVID-19 testing positivity rate.. ...Read Full Story
House Democrats re-elected Nancy Pelosi to lead the party as House speaker Wednesday. Pelosi ran unopposed as well as House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., and House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn, D.-S.C. The three Democrats have held their positions in the House for the last 14 years. In addition, Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., retained his spot as Senate minority leader while Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., won another term as the Senate majority leader.. ...Read Full Story
Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa announced on Tuesday that he has tested positive for COVID-19. The Republican, who is the second-oldest senator at 87 years old, learned of his diagnosis while he was already in quarantine after being exposed to the virus. . ...Read Full Story
The Department of Homeland Security’s cyber chief, Chris Krebs, was fired by President Donald Trump on Tuesday. Trump announced the dismissal in a tweet Tuesday night.. ...Read Full Story
President-elect Joe Biden along with Vice President-elect Kamala Harris spoke on Monday, saying they were eager to work on getting the economy back on track and tackle the ongoing COVID-19 crisis. Biden also said his team was moving forward with naming cabinet members and pulling together plans for the economy and the pandemic, despite the fact that President Donald Trump has refused to concede. Biden noted, “It would make it a lot easier if the president would cooperate. I’m hopeful that the president will be mildly more enlightened before we get to Jan. 20.” . ...Read Full Story
Moderna said preliminary phase three trial data shows its coronavirus vaccine is more than 94% effective in preventing Covid-19. The analysis evaluated 95 confirmed Covid-19 infections among the trial’s 30,000 participants. Moderna, which developed its vaccine in collaboration with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said 90 cases of Covid-19 were observed in the placebo group versus five cases observed in the group that received its two-dose vaccine. That resulted in an estimated vaccine efficacy of 94.5%, it said.. ...Read Full Story
SpaceX and NASA made history on Sunday when four astronauts launched successfully to the International Space Station from Florida. The Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon capsule Resilience lifted off at 7:27 p.m. EST from Kennedy Space Center. The launch began a 27½-hour journey through space to the orbiting platform, which passed over the launch site just before liftoff. The astronauts planned to sleep aboard the spacecraft, and did not plan to perform any navigation of the self-guided capsule unless necessary, according to NASA.. ...Read Full Story
On Sunday, Washington Governor Jay Inslee announced extensive new restrictions on gatherings and businesses to combat a recent surge in COVID-19 cases in the state.. ...Read Full Story
Five Americans were among seven international peacekeepers killed when their helicopter crashed in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula. All indications are that the crash, which also left one American peacekeeper injured, “appears to be mechanical in nature”. The peacekeepers are part of the international mission that oversees the enforcement of the 1978 peace treaty between Egypt and Israel. . ...Read Full Story
On Thursday, an increasing number of senate Republicans and former national security officials pushed to grant President-elect Biden access to presidential-level intelligence briefings, a key step in transitioning to the White House.. ...Read Full Story
U.S. Republican Senator Dan Sullivan of Alaska won re-election on Wednesday, leaving control of the Senate to be determined in January by two runoff elections in Georgia. Sullivan, 55, defeated Al Gross, an independent who ran as a Democrat. Earlier on Wednesday, Democrats clinched their hold on the U.S. House of Representatives, but with a slimmer majority.. ...Read Full Story
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine and Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb announced new restrictions as COVID-19 cases increased in their states. The United States set another daily record for new infections, with 136,300 new cases were added nationwide Tuesday, topping the previous mark by about 8,000. Tuesday also saw the most deaths nationwide, about 1,400, since mid-August.. ...Read Full Story
On Tuesday, during arguments in a landmark case challenging the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh suggested they were inclined to favor “severing” the individual mandate from the rest of the ACA. The ACA provides affordable medical coverage to tens of millions of Americans over the past decade.. ...Read Full Story
On Tuesday, democratic challenger Cal Cunningham conceded defeat to Sen. Thom Tillis in a highly contested U.S. Senate race in North Carolina. According to the North Carolina State Board of Elections, Tillis had 2,642,884 votes or 48.71% to Cunningham’s 2,547,594 votes or 46.95%The presidential vote in the state is close enough that many major media outlets have not called the race for either President Donald Trump (49.96%) or President-elect Joe Biden (48.59%).. ...Read Full Story
On Monday, President-elect Joe Biden announced a new COVID-19 advisory task force to work towards controlling the ongoing coronavirus pandemic in the United States.. ...Read Full Story
President Donald Trump will lose special Twitter privileges he has as a government official when President-elect Joe Biden is sworn into office on Jan. 20.” A Twitter spokesperson said, “A critical function of our service is providing a place where people can openly and publicly respond to their leaders and hold them accountable. With this in mind, there are certain cases where it may be in the public interest to have access to certain tweets, even if they would otherwise be in violation of our rules.”. ...Read Full Story
President-elect Joe Biden is keeping a campaign promise to make the resurgent coronavirus his immediate priority, and on Monday will announce a 12-member task force to deal with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.. ...Read Full Story
Tropical Storm Eta made landfall in the Florida Keys late Sunday, bringing with it strong winds, heavy rains and a dangerous storm surge. Eta made landfall at around 11 p.m. EST in Lower Matecumbe, Fla., as a strong tropical storm with maximum sustained winds of 65 mph, the National Hurricane Center said in a statement. The forecasters said Eta should pull away from the Florida Keys and South Florida later on Monday, heading towards southeastern Gulf of Mexico overnight through Wednesday.. ...Read Full Story
The United States has hit record highs in the coronavirus pandemic, surpassing 100,000 new daily cases of Covid-19.. ...Read Full Story
At least 30 people were arrested overnight in Portland, Ore., and New York City amid protests that erupted in response to the U.S. presidential election.. ...Read Full Story
Several dozen hospitals in Kansas reported on Wednesday that they expect to deal with staffing shortages over the next week as the state continues to report an average of well over 1,000 new coronavirus cases a day. The Wichita area’s two major health systems said Wednesday that almost 150 coronavirus patients were hospitalized, their highest numbers since the pandemic began. Additionally, they are trying to bring about 60 nurses from outside Kansas into the state to help with staffing, and it has converted space into two new units for COVID-19 patients.. ...Read Full Story
Due to a huge increase in mail-in voting, the face-off between President Donald Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden did not follow a traditional election night timeline, and it is possible that a projected winner may not be known for days. With many states too close to call, and particular key battleground states still counting ballots into Wednesday morning, a winner is yet to be declared in this year’s Presidential Election.. ...Read Full Story
Twitter Inc and Facebook Inc on Tuesday suspended several recently created right-leaning news accounts for spreading misinformation regarding the U.S. election, as well as for violating their policies.. ...Read Full Story
The three major U.S. indexes rose on Monday as markets prepared for Election Day and the potential effect of the result on long-awaited stimulus. The Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 423.45 points, or 1.6%, while the S&P 500 increased by 1.23%. The Nasdaq Composite gained 0.42% as its rise was limited by declining tech stocks.. ...Read Full Story
The U.S. Elections Project said on Monday that more than 96 million Americans have already voted ahead of Tuesday’s election — almost twice the number from four years ago.. ...Read Full Story
On Sunday, the Texas Supreme Court rejected a petition seeking to invalidate 127,000 votes cast at drive-thru polling stations in the state’s most populous county, Harris County. The court denied the challenge by a Republican activist and three Republican candidates in the state arguing that the drive-thru polling sites in the largely Democratic Harris County are unconstitutional. The court denied the request without an order or opinion. An emergency hearing will be held on Monday morning in Houston for a challenge by the same plaintiffs in federal court.. ...Read Full Story
As COVID-19 cases continue to surge in Illinois at an unprecedented rate, Gov. J.B. Pritzker announced on Sunday that new restrictions will be placed in all eleven regions of Illinois.. ...Read Full Story
