
Throughout the hard-hit states of the Upper Midwest and northern Plains — in Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, Montana, Wyoming and the Dakotas — coronavirus case counts have been falling for weeks. When case counts were skyrocketing across the Upper Midwest earlier this fall, the national media was all over the story. Part of that may have been a reluctance to find silver linings in states where infection rates still rank among the highest in the nation (even if they're slowing down) and where hospitalizations and deaths, which lag cases by weeks, still haven't peaked.

Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger on Friday criticized the Texas GOP for floating the idea of secession after the Supreme Court rejected a bid to overturn the results of the presidential election. In a statement, the Texas GOP chairman suggested that "law-abiding states should bond together and form a Union of states that will abide by the constitution." Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois said the statement should be immediately retracted and the people involved fired.

Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms (D) played a big advocacy role in President-elect Joe Biden's 2020 bid, no doubt helping him lock up the typically red state of Georgia. Bottoms was expected to be offered a White House role in return, perhaps as the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development or the head of the Small Business Administration, or even Biden's vice president. After the naming of Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) as Biden's running mate over the summer, and after Biden slotted Rep. Marcia Fudge (D-Ohio) into the HUD spot, Bottoms' choices seemed to be slimming.

A DoorDash driver has lost her job after a video of her confronting a customer went viral on Reddit. The driver accused the customer of lying about not receiving their delivery. According to the Daily Dot, the incident took place at a CVS Pharmacy in Garner, North Carolina.

The first woman detained under India's controversial new 'Love Jihad' laws has miscarried in custody, her family have told The Sunday Telegraph. Yesterday a distraught Muskan Jahan, 22, called her mother-in-law, from a government shelter where she is being held in the city of Moradabad in Uttar Pradesh, saying she had bled profusely and then lost her baby. Mrs Jahan believes her three-month-pregnant daughter-in-law was given an injection to abort the baby by staff because she converted from Hinduism to Islam and married a Muslim man.

"Since Election Night, a lot of people have been confusing voters by spinning Kenyan Birther-type, 'Chavez rigged the election from the grave' conspiracy theories," Sen. Ben Sasse said. Sasse's support for the Supreme Court's decision makes him one of the few Republicans to speak out so far. Republican Sen. Ben Sasse, of Nebraska, released a statement Friday which was highly supportive of the Supreme Court's decision to throw out the Texas Attorney General's baseless lawsuit attempting to overturn election results in favor of President Donald Trump.

Some Republican senators are using their unfounded election fraud claims as an excuse to muddy President-elect Joe Biden's transition. Biden has spent the past few weeks since the election filling out his Cabinet, hoping quick confirmations will help him get a quick start on reversing President Trump's policies. But "as long as there's litigation ongoing, and the election result is disputed, I do not think you will see the Senate act to confirm any nominee," Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) told Axios.

Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio said on Saturday that he had been invited to the White House, ostensibly while he was in Washington, D.C. to attend a series of rallies protesting the results of the 2020 election. His posts, which were made on the Trumpian social media site Parler, set off alarm bells over the possibility that a top figure with a far-right, neo-fascist movement had been granted an audience with top government officials. But the White House says that he was not, in fact, invited at all and was merely on a public Christmas tour of the complex.

A second death row inmate in the US has been executed in two days. Alfred Bourgeois was killed by lethal injection on Friday, after being convicted for the murder of his two-year-old daughter in 2002. Brandon Bernard was executed by lethal injection the day before, despite pleas from his lawyers and celebrities like Kim Kardashian West.
President Trump's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani provides insight into the strongest piece of evidence he will present for legal challenge.

TALLAHASSEE – Gov. Ron DeSantis lashed out Friday at a former Florida data scientist turned whistleblower whose home was raided by a state law enforcement team wielding a sledgehammer earlier this week. Just because you're a darling of some corners of the fever swamps, that does not exempt you from following the law,” DeSantis said during an appearance in Tampa. The video of law enforcement's arrival at the Tallahassee home of Rebekah Jones has gone viral and the former health department data scientist has denied allegations that she accessed a state emergency alert system to urge former co-workers to speak out about the DeSantis administration's handling of the coronavirus.

Sen. Mike Lee blocked two proposals that would establish new Smithsonian museums for American Latino and women's history. Both bipartisan bills passed the House of Representatives earlier this year, but the Republican senator said Americans didn't need "separate but equal" museums. Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez and GOP Sen. Susan Collins both pushed back against Lee during a dramatic Senate session on Thursday.

President-elect Joe Biden's transition team doesn't seem too worried about homeland security nominee Alejandro Mayorkas' chances of getting confirmed by the Senate, noting that the choice has received an "overwhelmingly positive reaction," but there does appear to be some skepticism among Republican lawmakers, The Associated Press reports. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), for instance, told AP that Mayorkas' "brand of leadership isn't good for agency culture or the security of our nation."

Few politicians have been both elevated and diminished by the vicissitudes of President Donald Trump like Brian Kemp, Georgia's Republican governor. Kemp rocketed from hard-right underdog candidate to the governor's mansion two years ago on the strength of a surprise endorsement from Trump, and an argument that the president was right about a lot of issues facing the country. In recent weeks, Kemp has infuriated the president for resisting his demands to help overturn the election results in Georgia, a state Trump lost by roughly 12,000 votes.

Costco, Walmart, and Kroger have reported an increased demand for cleaning supplies as COVID-19 cases spike in the US. But the CDC updated guidelines in May to say surface transmission "isn't thought to be the main way the virus spreads," and updated research suggests COVID-19 can spread through non-ventilated air. Public health experts say Americans are stockpiling household supplies because it provides a feeling of control over the situation.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is one of four candidates being considered for attorney general in President-elect Joe Biden's administration, a source told the Associated Press on Friday. The other three contenders include former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, outgoing Alabama Sen. Doug Jones, and Judge Merrick Garland. Cuomo has previously said he has "no interest in going to Washington" despite having previously served as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development under then-President Bill Clinton from 1997 to 2001.

Second, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who is under investigation for bribery and abuse of office, filed a baldly seditious lawsuit calling for the Supreme Court to overturn the election results in Georgia, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan, and hand their electoral votes to Trump. It was flatly an attempt to overturn the 2020 election, end constitutional government, and install Trump in power. Before the Supreme Court threw the suit out Friday night, 17 other Republican state attorneys general had joined him, along with 126 members of the Republican caucus in the House, while Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) has agreed to represent Trump.

In the hands of Pierre Yovanovitch, the Paris apartment that iconic designer Jean-Michel Frank once called home gets a spectacular new lease on life Originally Appeared on Architectural Digest

A tip from a concerned citizen provided a pivotal break Friday in the Dec. 3 slaying of 26-year-old nurse Caitlyn Kaufman, who worked in the intensive care unit at Saint Thomas West Hospital. At dawn, members of Metro Nashville Police Department's SWAT team descended on an East Nashville apartment complex and made an arrest in the fatal shooting of a Nashville nurse who was driving to work when police say someone opened fire on her SUV. Devaunte Lewis Hill, 21, was taken into custody at 6:15 a.m. in Kaufman's death.

The night after their immigration court hearing, Francisco Sical held his young daughter in his arms in a freezing Border Patrol cell. Melissa Sical — second-youngest of his seven children, with long brown hair and a shy smile — had glimpsed El Paso from the government van and wanted to see more of the houses with yards beyond the highways. Now she was trembling with cold, and Sical couldn't bear to tell her that they were detained.
Matt Gaetz, R-Fla. and Mike Waltz, R-Fla. , react to high court turning aside Texas election lawsuit on 'The Story'

President-elect Joe Biden's pledge to restore independence to the Justice Department is facing its biggest test as federal prosecutors scrutinize his son Hunter's financial dealings. "It's not just an associate of Joe Biden that we're talking about here," said one former federal prosecutor. Trumpworld seized on news of the Hunter Biden tax investigations to heap credibility on a widely discredited New York Post story about a mysterious laptop and the Bidens' Ukraine ties.

With the distribution of a COVID-19 vaccine seemingly days away, President Donald Trump has been stewing over what he perceives to be a lack of credit that he is getting for the breakthrough. The outgoing president recently ranted to several advisers and associates about how vaccine manufacturers were possibly working to deny him the chance to declare victory in the pandemic, according to three people familiar with his private grumblings. One adviser told The Daily Beast that this month, the president asked if the heads of Pfizer, one of the main vaccine manufacturers, were “Democrats.”

Mark Zuckerberg told Facebook employees in a company all-hands meeting on Thursday that they wouldn't need to get a COVID-19 vaccine to return to the office, The Daily Beast reported. A Facebook representative confirmed this to Business Insider and added that Zuckerberg told employees he was looking forward to getting a vaccine himself. Facebook employees won't be asked to return to the office until July at the earliest.

16 Michigan electors will travel to the state capitol in Lansing on Monday to cast their ballots for the next president. On the day of the Electoral College vote, right-wing protesters have announced that they will demonstrate outside of the Michigan Capitol. This follows protests on Saturday night outside of the home of Michigan's secretary of state.


“The prospect of a 2024 run is politically significant. It’s also a complete fiction.”
“His flirtation with a 2024 bid ensures he’ll remain the dominant force in the Republican Party.”
“He shouldn’t run for president again. There’s a better job and life for him on the horizon.”
“Trump is in for years of scandals and humiliations…He’ll have to devote much of his energy to trying to stay out of prison.”
“If Trump himself passes on the opportunity, his two very political children could also potentially pick up the mantle.”