Biden, Trump warn of high stakes of Georgia Senate runoffs

ATLANTA, Ga. (AP) — President-elect Joe Biden on Monday told Georgia Democrats they had the power to “chart the course” for a generation as President Donald Trump urged Republican voters to "swamp" the polls ahead of runoff elections that will determine control of the U.S. Senate.

Trump made his final-hours pitch to voters at a nighttime rally in north Georgia, where Republicans were banking on strong voter turnout Tuesday to reelect Sen. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue and hold control of the chamber.

Biden campaigned with Democrats Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock in Atlanta, hoping he could recreate the coalition that secured him a narrow victory in the presidential race in November.

“Folks, this is it. This is it. It’s a new year, and tomorrow can be a new day for Atlanta, for Georgia and for America,” Biden said at a drive-in rally. “Unlike any time in my career, one state — one state — can chart the course, not just for the four years but for the next generation.”

The stakes have drawn hundreds of millions of dollars in campaign spending to a once solidly Republican state that now finds itself as the nation’s premier battleground. Biden won Georgia’s 16 electoral votes by about 12,000 votes out of 5 million cast in November, though Trump continues pushing false assertions of widespread fraud that even his now-former attorney general and Georgia’s Republican secretary of state — along with a litany of state and federal judges — have said did not happen.

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Analysis: With call, Trump shows no limit to his power grab

ATLANTA (AP) — President Donald Trump’s ongoing efforts to overturn the 2020 election results — laid out in stark detail in an hourlong weekend phone call with a Georgia election official — are demonstrating his unrestrained determination to maintain a grip on power no matter the consequences for the nation’s democratic traditions.

Trump, in a Saturday phone call, pressed Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find” enough votes to overturn Joe Biden’s win in the state’s presidential election. The president repeatedly cited disproven claims of fraud and raised the prospect of a “criminal offence” if officials did not change the vote count, according to a recording of the conversation.

Trump has ventured into uncharted and dangerous territory since his Nov. 3 defeat, becoming the first president who lost an election to try to hang onto his office by rejecting the will of the voters and casting aside results of the Electoral College enshrined in the Constitution.

Trump's refusal to concede, undermining the democratic tradition of a peaceful transfer of power and hindering the transition to a Biden administration, is particularly risky for the nation when it is grappling with a surging pandemic that has killed more than 350,000 Americans. Paying little heed to the virus in recent weeks, the president has largely abdicated day-to-day governing to instead focus on his efforts to cling to power.

On the phone call, Trump peddled anew conspiracy theories, disinformation and outright lies, insisting that he won Georgia despite multiple recounts that show the contrary. He repeatedly argued that Raffensperger, a fellow Republican, could change the certified results.

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UK prime minister orders new virus lockdown for England

LONDON (AP) — Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced on Monday a new national lockdown for England until at least mid-February to combat a fast-spreading new variant of the coronavirus, even as Britain ramped up its vaccination program by becoming the first nation to start using the shot developed by Oxford University and drugmaker AstraZeneca.

Johnson said people must stay at home again, as they were ordered to do so in the first wave of the pandemic in March, this time because the new virus variant was spreading in a "frustrating and alarming” way.

“As I speak to you tonight, our hospitals are under more pressure from COVID than at any time since the start of the pandemic,” he said in a televised address.

From Tuesday, primary and secondary schools and colleges will be closed for face to face learning except for the children of key workers and vulnerable pupils. University students will not be returning until at least mid-February. People were told to work from home unless it's impossible to do so, and leave home only for essential trips.

All nonessential shops and personal care services like hairdressers will be closed, and restaurants can only operate takeout services.

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Attorney: Congressional seat data not ready until February

A Trump administration attorney said Monday that the numbers used for deciding how many congressional seats each state gets won’t be ready until February, putting in jeopardy an effort by President Donald Trump to exclude people in the country illegally from those figures.

The U.S. Census Bureau has found new irregularities in the head count data that determines congressional seat allocations and the distribution of $1.5 trillion in federal spending each year, John Coghlan, a deputy assistant Attorney General, said during a court hearing.

Not having the apportionment numbers finished before President-elect Joe Biden is sworn in on Jan. 20 will jeopardize an effort by Trump to exclude people in the country illegally from the apportionment count since the numbers will be delivered under the administration of Biden, who opposes the effort.

The numbers could be pushed back even later in February from the expected Feb. 9 date, Coghlan said.

“It’s a continuously moving target,” he said.

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Vaccination drive enters new phase in US and Britain

The first Americans inoculated against COVID-19 began rolling up their sleeves for their second and final dose Monday, while Britain introduced another vaccine on the same day it imposed a new nationwide lockdown against the rapidly surging virus.

New York State, meanwhile, announced its first known case of the new and seemingly more contagious variant, detected in a man in his 60s in Saratoga Springs. Colorado, California and Florida previously reported infections involving the mutant version that has been circulating in England.

The emergence of the variant has added even more urgency to the worldwide race to vaccinate people against the scourge.

In Southern California, intensive care nurse Helen Cordova got her second dose of the Pfizer vaccine at Kaiser Permanente Los Angeles Medical Center along with other doctors and nurses, who bared their arms the prescribed three weeks after they received their first shot. The second round of shots began in various locations around the country as the U.S. death toll surpassed 352,000.

“I'm really excited because that means I’m just that much closer to having the immunity and being a little safer when I come to work and, you know, just being around my family,” Cordova said.

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Trump says he'll 'fight like hell' to hold on to presidency

DALTON, Ga. (AP) — With mounting desperation, Donald Trump declared Monday night he would “fight like hell” to hold on to the presidency and appealed to Republican lawmakers to reverse his election loss to Joe Biden when they convene this week to confirm the Electoral College vote.

Electoral voters won by President-elect Biden are "not gonna take this White House!” he shouted as supporters cheered at an outdoor rally in Georgia. Trump's announced purpose for the trip was to boost Republican Senate candidates in Tuesday's runoff election, but he spent much of his speech complaining bitterly about his election loss — which he insists he won “by a lot.”

Earlier, in Washington, he pressed Republican lawmakers to formally object Wednesday at a joint session of Congress that is to confirm Biden's victory in the Electoral College, itself a confirmation of Biden's nationwide victory Nov. 3.

Though he got nothing but cheers Monday night, Trump's attempt to overturn the presidential election i s splitting the Republican Party. Some GOP lawmakers backing him are rushing ahead, despite an outpouring of condemnation from current and former party officials warning the effort is undermining Americans’ faith in democracy. All 10 living former defence secretaries wrote in an op-ed that "the time for questioning the results has passed."

It’s unclear the extent to which GOP leaders in Congress will be able to control Wednesday’s joint session, which could drag into the night, though the challenges to the election are all but certain to fail. Trump himself is whipping up crowds for a Wednesday rally near the White House.

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Statehouses could prove to be hothouses for virus infection

HELENA, Mont. (AP) — As lawmakers around the U.S. convene this winter to deal with the crisis created by the pandemic, statehouses themselves could prove to be hothouses for infection.

Many legislatures will start the year meeting remotely, but some Republican-controlled statehouses, from Montana to Pennsylvania, plan to hold at least part of their sessions in person, without requiring masks. Public health officials say that move endangers the safety of other lawmakers, staffers, lobbyists, the public and the journalists responsible for holding politicians accountable.

The risk is more than mere speculation: An ongoing tally by The Associated Press finds that more than 250 state lawmakers across the country have contracted COVID-19, and at least seven have died.

The Montana Legislature convened Monday without masking rules. The Republican majority shot down recent Democratic requests to hold the session remotely or delay it until vaccines are more widely available. Failing that, Democrats asked for requirements on masks and virus testing, which were also rejected.

Democratic lawmakers wore masks as they were sworn in. Few Republicans did the same.

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EXPLAINER: US regulator weighs in on vaccine dosing debate

The first Americans vaccinated against COVID-19 are getting their second dose, while Britain has decided to postpone boosters and focus instead on giving more people a first shot — international differences that are adding to public confusion.

There's growing debate about whether to change vaccine dosing methods — the time between shots or even the amount in each shot — to stretch scarce supplies and possibly get more people inoculated faster. But the U.S. made clear late Monday that none of those strategies are on the table — because there's no science backing them.

“Making such changes that are not supported by adequate scientific evidence may ultimately be counterproductive to public health,” concluded a strongly worded statement from the Food and Drug Administration.

And despite all the attention to stretching supplies, the U.S. and other countries are facing logjams in using the doses that already have been raced out. Here are some questions and answers about vaccine dosing:

WHAT VACCINES ARE AVAILABLE?

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Study: Warming already baked in will blow past climate goals

The amount of baked-in global warming, from carbon pollution already in the air, is enough to blow past international agreed upon goals to limit climate change, a new study finds.

But it’s not game over because, while that amount of warming may be inevitable, it can be delayed for centuries if the world quickly stops emitting extra greenhouse gases from the burning of coal, oil and natural gas, the study’s authors say.

For decades, scientists have talked about so-called “committed warming” or the increase in future temperature based on past carbon dioxide emissions that stay in the atmosphere for well over a century. It's like the distance a speeding car travels after the brakes are applied.

But Monday’s study in the journal Nature Climate Change calculates that a bit differently and now figures the carbon pollution already put in the air will push global temperatures to about 2.3 degrees Celsius (4.1 degrees Fahrenheit) of warming since pre-industrial times.

Previous estimates, including those accepted by international science panels, were about a degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) less than that amount of committed warming.

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Prosecutor: Wisconsin pharmacist thought vaccine was unsafe

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — A Wisconsin pharmacist convinced the world was “crashing down” told police he tried to ruin hundreds of doses of coronavirus vaccine because he believed the shots would mutate people’s DNA, according to court documents released Monday.

Police in Grafton, about 20 miles (32 kilometres) north of Milwaukee, arrested Advocate Aurora Health pharmacist Steven Brandenburg last week following an investigation into the 57 spoiled vials of the Moderna vaccine, which officials say contained enough doses to inoculate more than 500 people. Charges are pending.

“He’d formed this belief they were unsafe,” Ozaukee County District Attorney Adam Gerol said during a virtual hearing. He added that Brandenburg was upset because he and his wife are divorcing, and an Aurora employee said Brandenburg had taken a gun to work twice.

A detective wrote in a probable cause statement that Brandenburg, 46, is an admitted conspiracy theorist and that he told investigators he intentionally tried to ruin the vaccine because it could hurt people by changing their DNA.

Misinformation around the COVID-19 vaccines has surged online with false claims circulating on everything from the vaccines’ ingredients to its possible side effects.

News from © The Associated Press, 2021