AP News in Brief at 6:04 p.m. EST
Trump supporters storm US Capitol, lawmakers evacuated
WASHINGTON (AP) — Violent protesters loyal to President Donald Trump stormed the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday and forced lawmakers into hiding, in a stunning attempt to overturn America’s presidential election, undercut the nation’s democracy and keep Democrat Joe Biden from replacing Trump in the White House.
The National Guard and state and federal police were called in for control, and the mayor of Washington imposed a rare evening curfew. One person was reported to have been shot.
The protesters were egged on for weeks by Trump, who since the November presidential election had launched a barrage of false attacks on the integrity of the results. While rallying his supporters outside the White House Wednesday morning, he urged them to march to the Capitol. But later — hours after they fought police and breached the building — he told them in a video that although they were "very special people” and he backed their cause, they should “go home in peace.”
Other than a pair of tweets and that minute-long video, Trump was largely disengaged from the occupation of a main seat of the nation’s government. It was Vice President Mike Pence, not Trump, who spoke with senior defense leaders about calling up the National Guard.
President-elect Biden, two weeks away from being inaugurated, had declared in Wilmington, Delaware: "I call on President Trump to go on national television now to fulfill his oath and defend the Constitution and demand an end to this siege,”
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The Latest: Capitol complex secure after violent occupation
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Latest on Congress’ tally of the Electoral College vote won by Joe Biden (all times local):
5:50 p.m.
Officials have declared the U.S. Capitol complex “secure” after heavily armed police moved to end a nearly four-hour violent occupation by supporters of President Donald Trump.
An announcement saying “the Capitol is secure” rang out Wednesday evening inside a secure location for officials of the House. Lawmakers applauded.
The occupation interrupted Congress’ Electoral College count that will formalize President-elect Joe Biden’s upcoming inauguration on Jan. 20.
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AP PHOTOS: Scenes of violence at U.S. Capitol shock world
A mob invading the U.S. Capitol. Police officers with guns drawn inside the House of Representatives. Lawmakers hiding from intruders seeking to overturn a national election.
These and other scenes from Capitol Hill shocked the world Wednesday as violent protesters loyal to President Donald Trump stormed the nation's halls of power in a brazen attempt to undercut democracy and keep Democrat Joe Biden from replacing Trump in the White House in two weeks.
The chaos halted Congress’ constitutionally mandated counting of the Electoral College results, which showed Biden defeated Trump, 306-232.
In the morning, Trump rallied his supporters outside the White House and urged them to march to the Capitol. Hours later, after they fought police and breached the building, he told them to "go home in peace.” He described them as “very special people” whose cause he supported.
Biden, speaking from Wilmington, Delaware, called on Trump to go on national television to demand "an end to this siege.”
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Warnock, Ossoff win in Georgia, handing Dems Senate control
ATLANTA (AP) — Democrats won both Georgia Senate seats — and with them, the U.S. Senate majority — as final votes were counted Wednesday, serving President Donald Trump a stunning defeat in his turbulent final days in office while dramatically improving the fate of President-elect Joe Biden’s progressive agenda.
Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, Democratic challengers who represented the diversity of their party’s evolving coalition, defeated Republicans David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler two months after Biden became the first Democratic presidential candidate to carry the state since 1992.
Warnock, who served as pastor for the same Atlanta church where civil rights leader the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. preached, becomes the first African American from Georgia elected to the Senate. And Ossoff becomes the state’s first Jewish senator and, at 33 years old, the Senate’s youngest member.
This week’s elections were expected to mark the formal finale to the tempestuous 2020 election season, although the Democrats' resounding success was overshadowed by chaos and violence in Washington, where angry Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol to stop Congress from certifying Biden's victory.
Wednesday's unprecedented siege drew fierce criticism of Trump's leadership from within his own party, and combined with the bad day in Georgia, marked one of the darkest days of his divisive presidency.
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Biden calls on mob to 'pull back,' urges restoring decency
WILMINGTON, Del. (AP) — President-elect Joe Biden called Wednesday for the restoration of “simple decency” as a mob incited by his predecessor stormed the U.S. Capitol and delayed Congress from certifying the results of November's election.
Biden had planned to deliver a speech focused on how to revive the economy and provide financial relief for small-business owners reeling from the coronavirus pandemic, in remarks from a theater stage in his native Delaware. But shortly before he was to begin speaking, demonstrators broke into the Capitol building, reaching as far as the House floor.
“At this hour, our democracy is under unprecedented assault unlike anything we’ve seen in modern times,” Biden said. He called it “an assault on the rule of law like few times we have ever seen it.”
The Capitol building was locked down and police with guns drawn moved in as Vice President Mike Pence and lawmakers were evacuated to secure locations. National Guard troops were deployed and a citywide curfew called for shortly after dusk, as rioters continued to occupy the seat of Congress for hours.
“I call on this mob to pull back and allow democracy to go forward,” the president-elect said.
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Biden to name judge Merrick Garland as attorney general
WASHINGTON (AP) — President-elect Joe Biden has selected Merrick Garland, a federal appeals court judge who in 2016 was snubbed by Republicans for a seat on the Supreme Court, as his attorney general, two people familiar with the selection process said Wednesday.
In picking Garland, Biden is turning to an experienced judge who held senior positions at the Justice Department decades ago, including as a supervisor of the prosecution of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. The pick will force Senate Republicans to contend with the nomination of someone they spurned in 2016 — refusing even to hold hearings when a Supreme Court vacancy arose — but Biden may be banking on Garland's credentials and reputation for moderation to ensure confirmation.
Biden is expected to announce Garland’s appointment on Thursday, along with other senior leaders of the department, including former homeland security adviser Lisa Monaco as deputy attorney general and former Justice Department civil rights chief Vanita Gupta as associate attorney general. He will also name an assistant attorney general for civil rights, Kristen Clarke, the president of Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, an advocacy group.
Garland was selected over other finalists including Alabama Sen. Doug Jones and former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates. The people familiar with the process spoke on condition of anonymity. One said Biden regards Garland as an attorney general who can restore integrity to the Justice Department and as someone who, having served in the Justice Department under presidents of both political parties, will be respected by nonpartisan career staff.
If confirmed, Garland would confront immediate challenges, including an ongoing criminal tax investigation into Biden’s son, Hunter, as well as calls from many Democrats to pursue inquiries into Trump after he leaves office. A special counsel investigation into the origins of the Russia probe also remains open, forcing a new attorney general to decide how to handle it and what to make public.
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Statehouses evacuate amid protests in support of Trump
Protesters who back President Donald Trump massed outside statehouses from Georgia to New Mexico on Wednesday, leading to some evacuations as cheers rang out in reaction to the news that pro-Trump demonstrators had stormed the U.S. Capitol.
Hundreds of people gathered in state capitals across the country to oppose President-elect Joe Biden's win, waving signs saying “Stop the Steal” and “Four more years,” most of them not wearing masks during the coronavirus pandemic and a few carrying long guns in places like Oklahoma and Georgia.
New Mexico state police evacuated staff from a Statehouse building that includes the governor’s office and the secretary of state’s office as a precaution shortly after hundreds of flag-waving supporters arrived in a vehicle caravan and on horseback.
“It's the first time in the history of the United States that the peaceful transfer of power has been slowed by an act of violence,¨ Democratic House Speaker Brian Egolf said. “It is a shameful moment, and I hope that the Congress can recover soon.”
Chaotic demonstrations in Washington, D.C., came as Congress tried to affirm the Biden’s Electoral College victory.
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AP FACT CHECK: Trump's false claims, fuel on a day of chaos
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump pressed his hopeless case for overturning the election to a crowd of supporters Wednesday, fueling the grievances of a mob that then stormed the Capitol and disrupted the confirmation of President-elect Joe Biden’s victory.
Drawing on baseless conspiracies, Trump unleashed a torrent of misinformation to supporters already convinced that his defeat was unfair, unswayed by the sweeping verdict of election officials, judges and justices and Trump’s own officials in the departments of Justice and Homeland Security that the Nov. 3 election was cleanly run and fairly counted.
Pro-Trump protesters then marched to the Capitol and some bulled their way inside, making for a scene of violent clashes with law enforcement and lawmakers huddling in lockdown.
Trump has been telling wildly false tales about the election outcome for two months in a flailing effort to upend Biden’s win. Trump didn’t pull back now, in a moment of reckoning that is sure to seal his defeat despite the chaos and moves by some of his allies in Congress to drag out the certification of the Electoral College results.
He also floated baseless theories about the two Senate elections Tuesday in Georgia, where Democrats picked up both seats and seized back control of the chamber.
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Governors scramble to speed vaccine effort after slow start
New York’s governor threatened to fine hospitals if they don't use their allotment of COVID-19 vaccine fast enough. His South Carolina counterpart warned health care workers they have until Jan. 15 to get a shot or move to the back of the line. California’s governor wants to use dentists to vaccinate people.
With frustration rising over the sluggish rollout of the vaccine, state leaders and other politicians around the U.S. are turning up the pressure, improvising and seeking to bend the rules to get shots in arms more quickly.
Meanwhile, U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said Wednesday that the government will allow more drugstores to start giving vaccinations to speed up the process. If health workers aren’t lining up fast enough, he said, it is OK to expand eligibility to lower-priority groups.
“We need to not be overly prescriptive in that, especially as we see governors who are leaving vaccines sitting in freezers rather than getting it out into people’s arms,” he said.
As of Wednesday, more than three weeks into the U.S. vaccination campaign, 5.3 million people had gotten their first shot out of the 17 million doses distributed so far, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. While that is believed to an undercount because of a lag in reporting, health officials are still well behind where they wanted to be.
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EU commission greenlights Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine
AMSTERDAM (AP) — The European Union’s executive commission gave the green light Wednesday to Moderna Inc.’s COVID-19 vaccine, providing the 27-nation bloc with a second vaccine to use in the desperate battle to tame the virus rampaging across the continent.
The European Commission granted conditional marketing authorization for the vaccine. The decision came against a backdrop of high infection rates in many EU countries and strong criticism of the slow pace of vaccinations across the region of some 450 million people.
“We are providing more COVID-19 vaccines for Europeans. With the Moderna vaccine, the second one now authorized in the EU, we will have a further 160 million doses. And more vaccines will come," European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in a statement.
The EMA recommended the conditional authorization following a meeting earlier Wednesday.
“This vaccine provides us with another tool to overcome the current emergency,” said EMA Executive Director Emer Cooke. “It is a testament to the efforts and commitment of all involved that we have this second positive vaccine recommendation just short of a year since the pandemic was declared by WHO.”