USA

WASHINGTON, Jan. 18 (Xinhua) -- U.S. COVID-19 confirmed cases topped 24 million, with total deaths approaching 400,000 on Monday, two days ahead of President-elect Joe Biden's inauguration.

The country recorded over 24.04 million cases and more than 398,000 deaths as of 5:00 p.m. Monday, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University (JHU).

Just a little more than halfway into January, the United States has added a staggering 3.9 million new COVID-19 cases and more than 51,000 virus-related deaths, said a report by CNN on Monday.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Someday, perhaps, John Roberts will swear in a new president who doesn’t wish someone else was chief justice of the United States.

Wednesday won’t be that day.

When Roberts leads President-elect Joe Biden in the oath of office, security will be unusually tight following the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol, and inaugural events will be curtailed because of the coronavirus pandemic.

(AP) --- Facing criticism that he was acceding to President Donald Trump’s demand to produce citizenship information at the expense of data quality, U.S. Census Bureau director Steven Dillingham said Monday that he planned to resign with the change in presidential administrations.

Dillingham said in a statement that he would resign on Wednesday, the day Trump leaves the White House and President-elect Joseph Biden takes office. Dillingham’s term was supposed to be finished at the end of the year.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — California on Monday became the first state to record more than 3 million known coronavirus infections.

The grim milestone, as tallied by Johns Hopkins University, wasn’t entirely unexpected in a state with 40 million residents but its speed stunning. The state only reached 2 million reported cases on Dec. 24.

The first coronavirus case in California was confirmed last Jan. 25. It took 292 days to get to 1 million infections on Nov. 11 and 44 days to top 2 million.

NEW YORK (AP) — Coronavirus deaths are rising in nearly two-thirds of American states as a winter surge pushes the overall toll toward 400,000 amid warnings that a new, highly contagious variant is taking hold.

As Americans observed a national holiday Monday, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo pleaded with federal authorities to curtail travel from countries where new variants are spreading.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. Capitol complex temporarily locked down Monday during a rehearsal for President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration after a fire in a homeless encampment roughly a mile away sent a plume of smoke into the air and caused security concerns in an already jittery city.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President-elect Joe Biden’s national security Cabinet may be bare on Day One of his presidency, but an inauguration-eve spurt of Senate confirmation hearings suggests that won’t be the case for long.

While the nominees to head the State Department, the Pentagon, Homeland Security and the intelligence community are unlikely to be confirmed by the time Biden takes the oath of office at noon Wednesday, some could be in place within days.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris pitched in on Martin Luther King Jr. Day service projects as a militarized and jittery Washington prepared for a swearing-in that will play out under extraordinary security.

Biden and his wife, Jill, joined an assembly line in the parking lot of Philabundance, an organization that distributes food to people in need, and helped fill about 150 boxes with fresh fruit and nonperishables.

WASHINGTON (AP) — As the rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol, many of the police officers had to decide on their own how to fight them off. There was no direction. No plan. And no top leadership.

One cop ran from one side of the building to another, fighting hand-to-hand against rioters. Another decided to respond to any calls of officers in distress and spent three hours helping cops who had been immobilized by bear spray or other chemicals.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Back when the election was tightening and just a week away, Joe Biden went big.

He flew to Warm Springs, the Georgia town whose thermal waters once brought Franklin Delano Roosevelt comfort from polio, and pledged a restitching of America’s economic and policy fabric unseen since FDR’s New Deal.