AP News in Brief at 6:04 p.m. EST
No charges against Wisconsin officer who shot Jacob Blake
KENOSHA, Wis. (AP) — A Wisconsin prosecutor announced Tuesday that he will not file criminal charges against a white police officer who shot a Black man in the back in Kenosha last summer, leaving him paralyzed and setting off sometimes violent protests in the city.
Officer Rusten Sheskey’s shooting of Jacob Blake on Aug. 23, captured on bystander video, turned the nation’s spotlight on Wisconsin during a summer marked by protests over police brutality and racism. More than 250 people were arrested in the days that followed, including 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse, a self-styled medic with an assault rifle who is charged in the fatal shootings of two men and the wounding of a third.
Kenosha County District Attorney Michael Graveley said Tuesday that he wouldn't charge either Sheskey or two other officers at the scene, saying he would have to "disprove the clear expression of these officers that they had to fire a weapon to defend themselves.”
He added: “I do not believe the state ... would be able to prove that the privilege of self-defense is not available.”
Graveley said he had informed Blake of the news before a news conference to announce the decision.
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Fauci: US could soon give 1 million vaccinations a day
The U.S. could soon be giving at least a million COVID-19 vaccinations a day despite the sluggish start, Dr. Anthony Fauci said Tuesday, even as he warned of a dangerous next few weeks as the coronavirus surges.
The slow pace is frustrating health officials and a desperate public alike, with only about a third of the first supplies shipped to states used as of Tuesday morning, just over three weeks into the vaccination campaign.
“Any time you start a big program, there’s always glitches. I think the glitches have been worked out,” the nation's top infectious disease expert told The Associated Press.
Vaccinations have already begun speeding up, reaching roughly half a million injections a day, he pointed out.
Now, with the holidays over, “once you get rolling and get some momentum, I think we can achieve 1 million a day or even more,” Fauci said. He called President-elect Joe Biden’s goal of 100 million vaccinations in his first 100 days “a very realistic, important, achievable goal.”
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Pandemic haunts new year as virus growth outpaces vaccines
LONDON (AP) — Despite growing vaccine access, January is looking grim around the globe as the coronavirus resurges and reshapes itself from Britain to Japan to California, filling hospitals and threatening livelihoods anew as governments lock down businesses and race to find solutions.
England headed back into lockdown. Mexico City’s hospitals hold more virus patients than ever. Germany reported one of its highest daily death tolls to date Tuesday. South Africa and Brazil are struggling to find space for the dead. Even pandemic success story Thailand is fighting an unexpected wave of infections.
And as doctors face or brace for rising numbers of COVID-19 patients after end-of-year holiday gatherings, more and more countries are reporting cases of a new, more contagious variant that has already swept across Britain.
January is going to be “a tough one,” said Dr. Margaret Harris, a spokeswoman for the World Health Organization. “This idea that seems to be ‘Ah, we’re all sick of it. We want to look at something else. Oh, this doesn’t apply to me' ... that’s got to go away. It really is all hands on deck.”
While Britain rolled out a second vaccine this week and some U.S. states are starting to give the second round of shots, access to inoculations globally is sharply unequal. The supply isn’t remotely close to meeting the epic demand needed to vanquish a foe that has already killed over 1.85 million people.
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Georgia deciding US Senate control in election's final day
ATLANTA (AP) — Georgians cast their ballots Tuesday in two critical races that will determine control of the U.S. Senate and, in turn, the fate of President-elect Joe Biden’s legislative agenda. Two months after Election Day 2020, the voting will also impact Donald Trump's final days in the White House.
Even with the high stakes, state election officials reported light turnout early in the day, including across the deeply conservative region where Trump held a rally Monday night to encourage GOP voters to turn out in force.
At issue were two Senate runoff elections, leftovers from the November general election when none of the candidates hit the 50% threshold. Democrats needed to win both races to seize Senate control — and with it control of the new Congress when Biden takes office in two weeks.
In one contest, Republican Kelly Loeffler, a 50-year-old former businesswoman who was appointed to the Senate less than a year ago by the state’s governor, faced Democrat Raphael Warnock, 51, who serves as the senior pastor of the Atlanta church where Martin Luther King Jr. grew up and preached.
The other election pitted 71-year-old former business executive David Perdue, a Republican who held his Senate seat until his term expired on Sunday, against Democrat Jon Ossoff, a former congressional aide and journalist. At just 33 years old, Ossoff would be the Senate’s youngest member.
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US: Hack of federal agencies 'likely Russian in origin'
WASHINGTON (AP) — Top national security agencies in a rare joint statement Tuesday confirmed that Russia was likely responsible for a massive hack of U.S. government departments and corporations, rejecting President Donald Trump's claim that China might be to blame.
The statement represented the U.S. government's first formal attempt to assign responsibility for the breaches at multiple agencies and to assign a possible motive for the operation. It said the hacks appeared to be intended for “intelligence-gathering," suggesting the evidence so far pointed to a Russian spying effort rather than an attempt to damage or disrupt U.S. government operations.
“This is a serious compromise that will require a sustained and dedicated effort to remediate,” said the statement, distributed by a cyber working group comprised of the FBI and other investigative agencies.
The hacking campaign amounts to Washington’s worst cyberespionage failure to date. The intruders had been stalking through government agencies, defense contractors and telecommunications companies for at least seven months when it was discovered. Experts say that gave the foreign agents ample time to collect data that could be highly damaging to U.S. national security, though the scope of the breaches and exactly what information was sought is unknown.
The hacking campaign was extraordinary in its scale — 18,000 organizations were infected earlier this year by malicious code that piggybacked on popular network-management software from an Austin, Texas, company called SolarWinds. Of those 18,000 customers, the statement said, “a much smaller number have been compromised by follow-on activity on their systems,” with fewer than 10 federal government agencies falling into that category.
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Trump allies scrambling for strategy to overturn Biden win
WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican lawmakers who are orchestrating a last-gasp attempt to overturn Joe Biden's election win over President Donald Trump have not settled on a full strategy ahead of Wednesday's joint session of Congress to confirm the Electoral College vote.
With mounting desperation, Trump declared at a campaign rally in Georgia Monday that he would “fight like hell” to hold on to the presidency and he appealed to Republican lawmakers to reverse his election loss.
But those Republicans leading the longshot effort in Congress are still deciding the details of their strategy. A late-night meeting convened by Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, reached few conclusions, according to two Republicans familiar with the situation and granted anonymity to discuss it. Cruz will object to electoral results from Arizona, another Republican said. That’s likely to be the first objection considered, in a state Biden won.
Trump's attempt to enlist his allies to overturn Biden's 306-232 election win is unlike anything ever attempted in modern times, and it is all but certain to fail. Biden is set to be inaugurated Jan. 20.
Still, the days ahead will be defining for his presidency. Trump is whipping up crowds and people are gathering in Washington, where security is on alert. Lawmakers are being told to arrive early at the Capitol and some are considering sleeping overnight in their offices to ensure they can safely access the building.
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EXPLAINER: Why Georgia won't affect Electoral College count
WASHINGTON (AP) — Two high-stakes runoff elections in Georgia are poised to determine which party controls the Senate over the next two years. What the contests won't do is affect the certification of Electoral College results by Congress.
Republicans allied with President Donald Trump are pledging Wednesday to try to undo Democrat Joe Biden’s victory by mounting a challenge to the election results during a joint session of Congress, a last-ditch effort that is almost certain to fail. Lawmakers who were sworn into office this week will vote on the objections.
HOW DID WE GET HERE?
Ever since Trump lost to President-elect Biden, he has made repeated and false claims that widespread voter fraud cost him the presidency. Yet almost every single legal challenge filed on his behalf has been rejected by the courts, including the Supreme Court. His own attorney general said there was no evidence of widespread fraud.
That hasn't swayed some of Trump's allies in Congress, who are launching their hail-Mary attempt during the Electoral College certification to subvert the will of voters on Trump's behalf.
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If I’ve already had the coronavirus, can I get it again?
If I’ve already had the coronavirus, can I get it again?
It’s possible, but such cases seem to be rare.
It’s not unusual to develop some immunity to a virus after an infection, since our bodies are generally better at recognizing and fighting off bugs they’ve encountered before. And that seems to be the case with the coronavirus as well, though scientists are still trying to figure out how long any protection might last.
Some reinfections have been confirmed, but two new studies suggest that’s very unusual.
In one, only two out of 1,265 health workers in the United Kingdom who were previously infected ended up testing positive again for the coronavirus in the following six months. In another study of people in the U.S., only 0.3% of people who had been infected tested positive for the virus over the next several months – around the same rate of positivity as the U.K study.
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Grammy Awards shift to March due to pandemic conditions
NEW YORK (AP) — The 2021 Grammy Awards will no longer take place this month in Los Angeles and will broadcast in March due to a recent surge in coronavirus cases and deaths.
The Recording Academy told The Associated Press on Tuesday that the annual show would shift from its original Jan. 31 broadcast to an unspecified date in March.
The Grammys will be held in Los Angeles at the Staples Center. Los Angeles County, the epicenter of the crisis in California, has surpassed 10,000 COVID-19 deaths and has had 40% of the deaths in California. It is the third state to reach the 25,000 death count.
An average of six people die every hour from COVID-19 in Los Angeles County, which has a quarter of the state’s 40 million residents. County health officials fear the incoming Christmas and New Year’s surge.
“The Daily Show” host and comedian Trevor Noah is set to host the 2021 Grammys, where Beyoncé is leading contender with nine nominations. She scored nominations for song and record of the year with “Black Parade,” which she released on Juneteenth, while “Savage" — her No. 1 collaboration with Megan Thee Stallion — picked up bids for record of the year, best rap song and best rap performance.
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Cleveland rocked: Browns lose Stefanski vs Steelers to virus
CLEVELAND (AP) — Two days after celebrating their return to the NFL playoffs, the Cleveland Browns were knocked flat.
COVID-19 will keep coach Kevin Stefanski and at least two players, one a Pro Bowler, out of the team's first playoff game since the 2002 season.
The Browns announced Tuesday — 18 years to the day since their last playoff game — that Stefanski tested positive for the coronavirus, which has plagued the team in recent weeks and now is causing a major disruption as Cleveland prepares to play Pittsburgh on Sunday for the second straight week.
Just 48 hours ago, the Browns and their fans were overjoyed when the team ended the league's longest playoff drought with a 24-22 win over the Steelers, who rested quarterback Ben Roethlisberger and others to be fresh for the playoffs.
Now, the Browns are launching contingency plans that have been in place since the pandemic began.