USA

ATLANTA (AP) — The merchandise featured in Sen. Kelly Loeffler’s online campaign store includes T-shirts and bumper stickers bearing Donald Trump’s name and the message: “Still my president.”

The Georgia Republican is running television ads ahead of Tuesday’s Senate runoff elections that lambastes her opponent, the Rev. Raphael Warnock, as “dangerous” and “radical.”

Loeffler’s colleague, Sen. David Perdue, meanwhile, is warning Georgians that Democrats will enact a “socialist agenda” if his challenger, Jon Ossoff, wins on Tuesday.

ATLANTA (AP) — Usually it’s a president’s first midterm election that reorders a White House’s political approach and priorities. For President-elect Joe Biden, his most defining congressional election is coming before he takes office.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s extraordinary challenge of his election defeat by President-elect Joe Biden is becoming a defining moment for the Republican Party before next week’s joint session of Congress to confirm the Electoral College results.

San Diego, Jan 1 (AP-PTI) President Donald Trump on Thursday extended pandemic-related bans on green cards and work visas to large groups of applicants through March 31, while a federal appeals court sided with him on a rule that requires new immigrants to have their own health insurance.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - David Perdue, one of two Republican U.S. senators facing a runoff election next week, is quarantining after coming in contact with someone who tested positive for the coronavirus, his campaign said on Thursday.

Perdue was notified on Thursday he was in “close contact” with someone on his campaign who was infected with the virus, a campaign statement said, adding that Perdue and his wife tested negative.

(Reuters) - President-elect Joe Biden’s pick for Treasury secretary, Janet Yellen, earned at least $7 million from speaking engagements over the past two years, according to disclosures posted on Thursday.

Yellen, the former Federal Reserve chair, disclosed the more than 50 speaking gigs, including to government-regulated Goldman Sachs Group Inc, Barclays Plc and hedge fund Citadel LLC, as part of a set of documents that move her candidacy closer to consideration by the U.S. Senate.

UNITED NATIONS, Dec. 31 (Xinhua) -- The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) on Thursday approved 3.231 billion U.S. dollars to fund the world body's regular budget for 2021.

The UNGA's body dealing with UN administrative and budgetary matters, the Fifth Committee, discussed and approved the budget Thursday afternoon before the plenary voted in favor of the financial plan.

Back in October, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres proposed a program budget of 2.99 billion dollars - a net reduction of 2.8 percent from 2020.

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Terry Beth Hadler was so eager to get a lifesaving COVID-19 vaccination that the 69-year-old piano teacher stood in line overnight in a parking lot with hundreds of other senior citizens.

She wouldn’t do it again.

Hadler said she waited 14 hours and that a brawl nearly erupted before dawn on Tuesday when people cut in line outside the library in Bonita Springs, Florida, where officials were offering shots on a first-come, first-served basis to those 65 or older.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska has issued a pointed rebuke of GOP attempts to object Jan. 6 to the Electoral College tally of the presidential election, warning colleagues against a “dangerous ploy” that could damage the nation’s civic traditions.

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Police in Minneapolis on Thursday released body-camera video from a traffic stop one night earlier that ended with a man shot dead, an extraordinarily quick move aimed at stemming public anger over the city’s first police-involved death since George Floyd died while being restrained by officers in May.

The confrontation happened about 6:15 p.m. Wednesday in a gas station on the south side, about a mile from where Floyd died. Police said the man — identified by his father as Dolal Idd — was a suspect in a felony and that eyewitnesses said he had fired first.