AP News in Brief at 6:04 a.m. EST
Warnock makes history with Senate win as Dems near majority
ATLANTA (AP) — Democrat Raphael Warnock won one of Georgia’s two Senate runoffs Wednesday, becoming the first Black senator in his state’s history and putting the Senate majority within the party's reach.
A pastor who spent the past 15 years leading the Atlanta church where Martin Luther King Jr. preached, Warnock defeated Republican incumbent Kelly Loeffler. It was a stinging rebuke of outgoing President Donald Trump, who made one of his final trips in office to Georgia to rally his loyal base behind Loeffler and the Republican running for the other seat, David Perdue.
The focus now shifts to the second race between Perdue and Democrat Jon Ossoff. The candidates were locked in a tight race and it was too early to call a winner. Under Georgia law, a trailing candidate may request a recount when the margin of an election is less than or equal to 0.5 percentage points.
If Ossoff wins, Democrats will have complete control of Congress, strengthening President-elect Joe Biden’s standing as he prepares to take office on Jan. 20.
Warnock’s victory is a symbol of a striking shift in Georgia’s politics as the swelling number of diverse, college-educated voters flex their power in the heart of the Deep South. It follows Biden’s victory in November, when he became the first Democratic presidential candidate to carry the state since 1992.
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GEORGIA TAKEAWAYS: Black turnout fuels Warnock victory
ATLANTA (AP) — The Rev. Raphael Warnock, a Democrat, defeated Sen. Kelly Loeffler in Tuesday's special election for an unexpired term for a U.S. Senate seat in Georgia. Warnock will become the first Black senator in Georgia history. It remains too early to call the second race between Democrat Jon Ossoff and Republican David Perdue, who’s seeking a second term after his first term expired Sunday. Control of the Senate is in the balance.
Here are some key takeaways:
BLACK VOTERS TIP THE SCALE
Warnock, senior pastor of the church where Martin Luther King Jr. preached through the height of the Civil Rights movement until his assassination, made history with a surge in Black turnout.
To be sure, a narrow win out of 4.4 million votes involves plenty of variables. But Black voters were a force in the early vote and on Election Day. Notably, it wasn’t just in metro Atlanta, but also in rural and small-town counties across South Georgia, where Black turnout has historically lagged.
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Congress set to confirm Biden's electoral win over Trump
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s extraordinary effort to overturn the presidential election is going before Congress as lawmakers convene for a joint session to confirm the Electoral College vote won by Joe Biden.
The typically routine proceeding Wednesday will be anything but, a political confrontation unseen since the aftermath of the Civil War as Trump mounts a desperate effort stay in office. The president's Republican allies in the House and Senate plan to object to the election results, heeding supporters' plea to “fight for Trump” as he stages a rally outside the White House. It's tearing the party apart.
The longshot effort is all but certain to fail, defeated by bipartisan majorities in Congress prepared to accept the results. Biden, who won the Electoral College 306-232, is set to be inaugurated Jan. 20.
“The most important part is that, in the end, democracy will prevail here,” Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, among those managing the proceedings, said in an interview.
The joint session of Congress, required by law, will convene at 1 p.m. EST under a watchful, restless nation — months after the the Nov. 3 election, two weeks before the inauguration’s traditional peaceful transfer of power and against the backdrop of a surging COVID-19 pandemic.
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EXPLAINER: Hong Kong mass arrests chill democracy movement
HONG KONG (AP) — The sudden arrest of dozens of pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong, in the most sweeping use of a new national security law to date, is a clear sign of Beijing's determination to rein in political opposition in the former British colony.
The Wednesday morning roundup, widely condemned by Western government officials and human rights groups, will likely further chill an already dwindling protest movement in the semi-autonomous Chinese territory.
WHAT HAPPENED?
Police detained about 50 people, far more than in previous cases under the 6-month-old national security law. Those targeted appeared to include all candidates who had run in an unofficial opposition primary last year ahead of an expected election for Hong Kong’s legislature. City leader Carrie Lam later scrapped the election, citing the coronavirus pandemic. Activists called her move a thinly veiled attempt to thwart expected opposition gains.
HOW CAN A PRIMARY BE A THREAT TO NATIONAL SECURITY?
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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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Balkans feel abandoned as vaccinations kick off in Europe
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) — When thousands of people across the European Union began rolling up their sleeves last month to get a coronavirus vaccination shot, one corner of the continent was left behind, feeling isolated and abandoned: the Balkans.
Balkan nations have struggled to get access to COVID-19 vaccines from multiple companies and programs, but most of the nations on Europe's southeastern periphery are still waiting for their first vaccines to arrive, with no firm timeline for the start of their national inoculation drives.
What is already clear is that Albania, Bosnia, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia — home to some 20 million people — will lag far behind the EU's 27 nations and Britain in efforts to reach herd immunity by quickly vaccinating a large number of their people.
North Macedonian epidemiologist Dragan Danilovski compared the current vaccine situation in the Western Balkans to the inequalities seen during the 1911 sinking of the Titanic.
“The rich have grabbed all the available lifeboats, leaving the less fortunate behind,” Danilovski told broadcaster TV 24.
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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, met with swift criticism from civil rights advocates and some public officials, threatened to reignite protests that rocked the city after the Aug. 23 shooting that left Jacob Blake paralyzed. Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat, 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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More than a week later, FBI avoids terror label for bombing
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — The FBI investigation into whether the Nashville bombing was a terrorist act has sparked criticism about a possible racial double standard and drawn questions from downtown business owners whose insurance coverage could be affected by the bureau’s assessment.
More than a week after an explosion that struck at the heart of a major American city, the FBI has resisted labeling it an act of terrorism, an indication that evidence gathered so far does not conclusively establish that the bomber was motivated by political ideology — a key factor in any formal declaration of terrorism. The bureau is still examining evidence and has not announced any conclusions, but investigators are known to be reviewing whether Anthony Warner believed in conspiracy theories involving aliens and 5G cellphone technology.
Warner died in the Christmas Day explosion of a recreational vehicle that also wounded three other people.
“When we assess an event for domestic terrorism nexus, it has to be tied to an ideology. It’s the use of force or violence in the furtherance of a political or social ideology or event. We haven’t tied that yet," Doug Korneski, the FBI agent in charge of the agency’s Memphis office, told reporters last week at a news conference.
The FBI investigates two types of terrorism that are defined not by the ethnicity or background of the suspect but by the person’s motivation or ideology. International terrorism involves acts by people who are inspired by, or acting at the direction of, foreign terrorist organizations. Domestic terrorism generally involves politically motivated violence intended to further a particular cause or agenda.
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Kim opens North Korean congress by admitting policy failures
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un admitted that his economic development plans have failed as he opened the nation’s first full ruling party congress in five years, state media reported Wednesday.
In an opening speech at the congress that began Tuesday, Kim said that “almost all sectors fell a long way short of the set objectives” under a previous five-year development plan established at the 2016 congress, according to the North’s official Korean Central News Agency.
“We should further promote and expand the victories and successes we have gained at the cost of sweat and blood, and prevent the painful lessons from being repeated,” he was quoted as saying.
The Workers’ Party Congress, one of the North’s biggest propaganda spectacles, is meant to help Kim show a worried nation that he’s firmly in control and to boost unity behind his leadership in the face of COVID-19 and other growing economic challenges.
But some observers are skeptical that the stage-managed congress will find any fundamental solutions to North Korea’s difficulties, many of which stem from decades of economic mismanagement and Kim’s headlong pursuit of expensive nuclear weapons meant to target the U.S. mainland.
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Netanyahu re-election hopes hinge on vaccination campaign
JERUSALEM (AP) — For media-obsessed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the coronavirus vaccine has arrived just in time.
With elections approaching in March, Netanyahu has placed his world-leading vaccination drive at the center of his reelection campaign — launching an aggressive media blitz portraying him as almost singlehandedly leading the country out of the pandemic. He appears to be betting that a successful vaccination effort can persuade voters to forget about his corruption trial and the economic damage caused by the coronavirus crisis.
Netanyahu, like his good friend Donald Trump and other world leaders, frequently tries to use social media and tightly controlled press conferences to bypass the traditional media — and the scrutiny that has come along with it. While this strategy has often served Netanyahu well, his obsession with controlling the message also threatens to backfire.
It lies at the heart of a corruption case in which he is accused of granting favors to powerful media figures in exchange for positive coverage of him and his family. An expanded indictment released this week outlined 150 incidents showing detailed control he allegedly tried to exert over the media. This included pressure on a news site to drop critical coverage about a lacy dress worn by his wife, and pushing the site to publish photos of her meeting actor Leonardo DiCaprio.
Netanyahu's tactics have also contributed to a nascent uprising in his own party. Two prominent defectors accused him of creating a “personality cult” in their resignation speeches.