USA

WASHINGTON, Dec. 8 (Xinhua) -- The United States has set new world records for COVID-19 core metrics including hospitalizations, seven-day average case and death increases, as the total number of confirmed cases topped 15 million on Tuesday.

It took only five days for the country to add 1 million new infections, the highest growth rate since the outbreak of the pandemic in the country.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Alabama Sen. Doug Jones and federal appeals court judge Merrick Garland are emerging as the leading contenders to be nominated as President-elect Joe Biden’s attorney general, three people familiar with the matter told The Associated Press.

A decision hasn’t been finalized and the dynamics could shift in the coming days as Biden builds out his Cabinet with an eye to ensuring diverse leadership in the top ranks of his administration.

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Minneapolis City Council members who tried unsuccessfully to dismantle the police department in response to George Floyd’s death are voting Wednesday on whether to shrink it, a move that could imperil the entire city budget because the mayor is threatening to use his veto to protect public safety amid soaring crime rates.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court is hearing a case Wednesday that could make it easier for the president to fire the head of the agency that oversees government-controlled mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

The case could also mean undoing an agreement between the companies and the government that has sent about $246 billion in their profits to the Treasury. That was compensation for the taxpayer bailout they received after the 2007 housing market crash.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. cybersecurity official who was fired last month by President Donald Trump filed a lawsuit Tuesday over threatening remarks by a lawyer for the president that prompted a wave of death threats against him.

Christopher Krebs says in the suit that he has been “bombarded” with threats since attorney Joseph diGenova appeared on the pro-Trump TV network Newsmax and called for Krebs to be killed.

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Civil rights and FBI investigators will help look into the fatal shooting by an Ohio sheriff’s deputy of a Black man whose family says that he was holding not a gun, but a sandwich, and that he was shot in front of two toddlers and his grandmother while inside his home, not outside it, as authorities assert.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Democratic-controlled House on Tuesday easily approved a wide-ranging defense policy bill, defying a veto threat from President Donald Trump and setting up a possible showdown with the Republican president in the waning days of his administration.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration dove back into Capitol Hill’s confusing COVID-19 negotiations on Tuesday, offering a $916 billion package to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that would send a $600 direct payment to most Americans — but eliminate a $300 per week employment benefit favored by a bipartisan group of Senate negotiators.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump celebrated the expected approval of the first U.S. vaccine for the coronavirus Tuesday as the White House worked to instill confidence in the massive distribution effort that will largely be executed by President-elect Joe Biden

Trump said the expected approvals are coming before most people thought possible. “They say it’s somewhat of a miracle and I think that’s true,” he declared.

WILMINGTON, Del. (AP) — President-elect Joe Biden on Tuesday called for urgent action on the coronavirus pandemic as he introduced a health care team that will be tested at every turn while striving to restore the nation to normalcy.

Biden laid out three COVID-19 priorities for his first 100 days in office: a call for all Americans to voluntarily mask up during those 100 days, a commitment to administer 100 million vaccines and a pledge to try to reopen a majority of the nation’s schools.