AP News in Brief at 6:04 p.m. EST
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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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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GA election officials reject Trump call to 'find' more votes
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump pressured Georgia's Republican secretary of state to “find” enough votes to overturn Joe Biden's win in the state's presidential election, repeatedly citing disproven claims of fraud and raising the prospect of a “criminal offense" if officials did not change the vote count, according to a recording of the conversation.
The phone call with Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger on Saturday was the latest step in an unprecedented effort by a sitting president to press a state official to reverse the outcome of a free and fair election that he lost. The Republican president, who has refused to accept his loss to Democratic President-elect Biden, repeatedly argued that Raffensperger could change the certified results.
“I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have. Because we won the state," said Trump, who is scheduled to be at a rally in Georgia Monday evening.
In an interview Monday, Raffensperger told The Associated Press that he is confident in Georgia’s general election outcome, despite an electoral college challenge supported by some Republicans in Congress.
“If they support a challenge of the electors for Georgia, they’re wrong, dead wrong,” Raffensperger said. Members of Congress will have to make a decision about the other states, he added, “but in Georgia, we did get it right. I’m not happy with the result, as a Republican, but it is the right result based on the numbers that we saw cast.”
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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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Pence, Biden warn of high stakes of Georgia Senate runoffs
ATLANTA, Ga. (AP) — President-elect Joe Biden thanked voters on Monday for making him the first Democratic presidential candidate to win Georgia in three decades and urged his supporters to show up one more time for Senate runoffs that will determine the balance of power on Capitol Hill and the reach of his administration.
“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 in downtown Atlanta. “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 president-elect, campaigning with Democrats Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, was one of a number of political leaders who descended on Georgia on Monday for an eleventh-hour turnout push. Vice President Mike Pence campaigned at a Georgia megachurch earlier in the day, while President Donald Trump was due to hold a nighttime rally in north Georgia.
Trump, who has refused to concede his defeat to Biden, has sought to galvanize Republicans around his efforts to subvert the will of the voters and keep himself in power for a second term. Biden joked on Monday that he had won Georgia “three times” because of two statewide recounts, and he alluded to Trump's maneuvering by declaring that “politicians cannot assert, take or seize power” by undermining legitimate elections.
Biden said he needs a Senate majority to pass legislation to combat the coronavirus, and he blasted Republicans David Perdue and Sen. Kelly Loeffler as obstructionist Trump sycophants.
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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 kilometers) 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 was in the midst of divorcing his wife, 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.
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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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VIRUS TODAY: Vaccination efforts to end COVID-19 accelerate
Here’s what’s happening Monday with the pandemic in the U.S.:
THREE THINGS TO KNOW TODAY
— The campaign to vanquish the coronavirus is picking up speed. Britain has begun dispensing the second vaccine in its arsenal. And India, the world’s second-most populous country, has authorized its first shots. In the U.S., meanwhile, government officials say that the pace of vaccinations has accelerated markedly after a disappointingly slow start. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious-disease expert, said over the weekend that 1.5 million shots were dispensed over 72 hours, bringing the running total to about 4 million.
— As states brace for a coronavirus surge following holiday gatherings, one surprising place stands out as a potential super-spreader — the statehouses where lawmakers will help shape the response to the pandemic. Many legislatures will start the year meeting remotely, but numerous Republican-controlled statehouses are planning to hold their sessions at least partially in-person without requiring or enforcing mask-wearing. Public health officials say those decisions endanger the safety of other lawmakers, staffers, lobbyists, the public and journalists. Associated Press data shows more than 230 state lawmakers across the country have contracted COVID-19 and at least seven have died.
— New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio says the city will set up 250 city-run COVID-19 vaccination sites this month in a push to administer 1 million vaccine doses by the end of January. Just over 100,000 people have been vaccinated in the city since the inoculations began on Dec. 14. But de Blasio said Monday that immunizations will speed up now that people see that the two vaccines that have been approved for emergency use in the U.S. are safe. De Blasio said he is pushing for the shots to be available to essential workers including police officers, firefighters and teachers.
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Trump, allies in desperate bid to undo Biden win at Congress
WASHINGTON (AP) — With mounting desperation, President Donald Trump called on Republican lawmakers Monday to reverse his election loss to Joe Biden when Congress convenes for a joint session this week to confirm the Electoral College vote.
Trump's unprecedented attempt to overturn the presidential election i s splitting the Republican Party. Some GOP lawmakers backing Trump 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 defense secretaries wrote in an op-ed article 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.
Trump's allies are taking up his unfounded claims of voter fraud. But according to a consensus of election officials in the states he's disputing — as well his former Attorney General William Barr — there is no evidence of fraud that could change the election outcome. Officials who have control over elections in their states, including battlegrounds Biden won, have certified those results as valid.
Of the more than 50 lawsuits the president and his allies have filed challenging results, nearly all have been dismissed or dropped. He’s also lost twice at the U.S. Supreme Court.
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Google workers form new labor union, a tech industry rarity
A group of Google engineers and other workers announced Monday they have formed a union, creating a rare foothold for the labor movement in the tech industry.
About 225 employees at Google and its parent company Alphabet are the first dues-paying members of the Alphabet Workers Union. They represent a fraction of Alphabet's workforce, far short of the threshold needed to get formal recognition as a collective bargaining group in the U.S.
But the new union, which will be affiliated with the larger Communication Workers of America, says it will serve as a “structure that ensures Google workers can actively push for real changes at the company." Its members say they want more of a voice not just on wages, benefits and protections against discrimination and harassment but also broader ethical questions about how Google pursues its business ventures.
The unionization campaign is the latest signal from employees who don't believe the company is living up to its professed ideals, as expressed in its original “Don’t be evil” slogan.
Google said Monday that it's tried to create a supportive and rewarding workplace but suggested it won't be negotiating directly with the union.