AP News in Brief at 9:04 p.m. EST

Georgia counting votes in runoffs that decide Senate control

ATLANTA (AP) — Georgia officials began counting the final votes of the nation's turbulent 2020 election season on Tuesday night as polls closed 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.

The two Senate runoff elections are leftovers from the November general election, when none of the candidates hit the 50% threshold. Democrats need to win both races to seize the Senate majority — and, with it, control of the new Congress when Biden takes office in two weeks.

President Donald Trump encouraged his loyalists to turn out in force even as he undermined the integrity of the electoral system by pressing unfounded claims of voter fraud to explain away his own defeat in Georgia.

Around 9 p.m. Tuesday, the race was too early to call.

Both Democrats had a small lead in votes counted, but much of that vote came from ballots cast before Election Day, which generally favor Democratic candidates. That left room for the Republicans to catch up as more votes cast on Election Day, which tend to favor the GOP, were added to the count.

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AP VoteCast: GOP voters in Georgia back Trump's false claims

WASHINGTON (AP) — About three-quarters of voters who backed Republican candidates in Georgia's Senate runoffs say President-elect Joe Biden was not legitimately elected in November, according to AP VoteCast, a survey of voters in Tuesday's high-stakes Senate contests.

The poll of voters measured how deeply President Donald Trump's false claims of fraud and misconduct have resonated with Republicans in the state. It comes as more than 1 00 Republicans in Congress have said they will mount an extraordinary challenge to Biden's victory on Wednesday, a decision that is sharply dividing the party.

Despite the courts, state officials and the Justice Department finding no evidence of widespread voter fraud, roughly 9 in 10 of the Republicans' backers said they lacked high confidence that votes in November's presidential contest were accurately counted. Half said they have no confidence at all in the vote count. That's roughly five times as many Republicans who said in November they had no confidence that votes would be counted accurately.

AP VoteCast surveyed more than 3,600 voters in the runoff elections that will determine which party will control the U.S. Senate. The poll points to a partisan divergence that has only worsened since November and suggests Biden may find it difficult to stitch the nation back together as it battles a resurgent pandemic and weakened economy.

While about 8 in 10 Republican voters approve of how Trump has handled the results of the election, Democratic voters almost universally disapprove. Most Democrats are very confident that votes were counted accurately.

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No charges against Wisconsin officer who shot Jacob Blake

KENOSHA, Wis. (AP) — A Wisconsin prosecutor declined Tuesday to file charges against a white police officer who shot a Black man in the back in Kenosha, concluding he couldn't disprove the officer's contention that he acted in self-defense because he feared the man would stab him.

The decision, widely criticized by many public officials and civil rights advocates across the state, threatened to reignite protests that rocked the city after the Aug. 23 shooting that left Jacob Blake paralyzed. Gov. Tony Evers called the decision “further evidence that our work is not done” and called for people to work together for equity. Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, who is Black, was more pointed on Twitter: “I wish I could say that I’m shocked. It’s another instance in a string of misapplications of justice.”

Kenosha County District Attorney Michael Graveley said investigators concluded Blake was carrying a knife when police responded to a report he was trying to steal a car. Officer Rusten Sheskey said he “feared Jacob Blake was going to stab him with the knife" as he tried to stop Blake from fleeing the scene.

“I do not believe the state ... would be able to prove that the privilege of self-defense is not available,” Graveley said.

The shooting of Blake, 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 during protests in the days that followed, including then-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.

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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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Dividing party, Republicans poised to challenge Biden win

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republicans mounting an unprecedented challenge to Joe Biden’s election win are setting up a congressional showdown on Wednesday that threatens to divide their party and the country for years to come.

With protestors already gathering in Washington to support President Donald Trump, the House and the Senate will convene a joint session to count the electoral votes cast in November's election. Trump has repeatedly said there was widespread fraud, but his claims have been roundly rejected by Republican and Democratic election officials in state after state and by judges, including at the Supreme Court, further cementing Biden's victory.

Trump sees the joint session of Congress as one of his final attempts to overturn the results, even though there is no credible path for that to happen. Echoing Trump's baseless claims, some of his Republican allies in Congress plan to formally object to the results, focusing on six battleground states — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. But a growing number of their GOP colleagues, especially in the Senate, said they would not sign on.

If an objection has support from both a House member and a senator in writing, then both chambers will vote on it. That could happen three or more times on Wednesday as Republican Sens. Josh Hawley of Missouri, Ted Cruz of Texas, and Kelly Loeffler of Georgia, along with at least ten other GOP senators, have indicated they will support at least some of the House challenges. It is unclear just what the Republican senators will do, but the process could drag into the night as the two chambers will have to consider each objection individually.

There could be more than 100 Republicans in the House willing to object.

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Hundreds of Trump supporters flock to DC ahead of vote

WASHINGTON (AP) — Hundreds of supporters of President Donald Trump descended on the nation’s capital Tuesday to cheer his baseless claims of election fraud a day before a congressional vote to affirm Joe Biden’s victory.

Just blocks from the White House, protesters — many without masks — gathered in Freedom Plaza to decry the vote in the Electoral College. As temperatures dropped to the low 40s and a steady rain swept onto the streets, hundreds remained in the plaza into nightfall.

“I’m just here to support the president,” said David Wideman, a 45-year-old firefighter who traveled from Memphis, Tennessee.

Wideman acknowledged he was “confused” by a string of losses from the president’s legal team in their attempt to overturn the results of the election and didn’t know what options Trump had left.

“I not sure what he can do at this point, but I want to hear what he has to say," Wideman said.

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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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Reports: Dozens of Hong Kong pro-democracy figures arrested

HONG KONG (AP) — About 50 Hong Kong pro-democracy figures were arrested by police on Wednesday under a national security law, following their involvement in an unofficial primary election last year held to increase their chances of controlling the legislature, according to local media reports.

Those arrested included former lawmakers and pro-democracy activists, and the group were arrested on suspicion of subversion under the city’s national security law, according to reports by local newspaper South China Morning Post and online news platform Now News.

At least seven members of Hong Kong’s Democratic Party — the city’s largest opposition party — were arrested, including former party chairman Wu Chi-wai. Former lawmakers, including Helena Wong, Lam Cheuk-ting, and James To, were also arrested, according to a post on the party’s Facebook page.

Benny Tai, a key figure in Hong Kong's 2014 Occupy Central protests and a former law professor, was also arrested by the police, according to local media reports. Tai was one of the main organizers of the primaries.

The home of Joshua Wong, a prominent pro-democracy activist who is currently serving a 13 1/2-month prison sentence for organizing and participating in an unauthorized protest last year, was also raided this morning, according to a tweet posted from Wong's account.

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North Korea holds its biggest political event amid crises

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea has opened the first full congress of its ruling party in five years, with leader Kim Jong Un admitting his previous economic development plans have failed. The congress could be crucial, coming as it does amid what some experts see as the most fraught moment of Kim's nine-year rule.

The Workers' Party congress, which was revived by Kim in 2016 after a 36-year hiatus, began on Tuesday as North Korea, one of the world’s poorest countries, faces what Kim has called “huge challenges and difficulties” brought on by an economy hammered by pandemic-related border closings, a spate of natural disasters and harsh U.S.-led sanctions meant to stop the country from putting the finishing touches on its illicit nuclear-tipped missile program.

The meeting will also be closely watched by, and may be meant to send a message to, President-elect Joe Biden, who will be inaugurated later this month. Biden has called Kim a “thug” and criticized his nuclear summitry with President Donald Trump.

Here are a few things to know about an event last staged in 2016:

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Alabama's Smith becomes 1st WR to win Heisman in 29 years

NEW YORK (AP) — On an Alabama team stacked with stars, DeVonta Smith emerged as the best player in college football.

Smith became the first wide receiver to win the Heisman Trophy in 29 seasons Tuesday night, breaking the monopoly quarterbacks have had on college football's most prestigious award by beating out three of them.

“I want to thank my teammates,” Smith said during his acceptance speech. “With team success comes individual success so without you all, I wouldn't be where I'm at today, winning this award.”

Smith finished with 447 first-place votes and 1,856 points to easily outdistance Clemson’s Trevor Lawrence (222, 1,187), Alabama teammate Mac Jones (138, 1,130) and Florida’s Kyle Trask (61, 737).

Crimson Tide running back Najee Harris finished fifth in the voting, making No. 1 Alabama the second team in the 95-year history of the Heisman to have three of the top five vote-getters. Army did it in 1946 with Glenn Davis (first), Doc Blanchard (fourth) and Arnold Tucker (fifth).