USA

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The top U.S. cybersecurity official fired by Republican President Donald Trump for saying the Nov. 3 election was the most secure in American history said on Friday voter fraud allegations made by Trump and his allies are “farcical”.

Chris Krebs, the former director of the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, told the CBS 60 Minutes program that allegations of U.S. voting machines being manipulated by foreign countries were baseless.

UNITED NATIONS, Nov. 27 (Xinhua) -- A United Nations spokesman on Friday called for exercising restraint and avoiding escalation in the Middle East region following the assassination of top Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh.

NEW YORK, Nov. 27 (Xinhua) -- The total number of COVID-19 cases in the United States topped 13 million on Friday, according to the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University.

U.S. COVID-19 case count rose to 13,047,202, with a total of 264,624 deaths, as of 4:26 p.m. local time (2126 GMT), according to the CSSE tally.

Texas reported the country's most cases, standing at 1,206,248, followed by California with 1,179,857 cases, and Florida with 979,020 cases. Illinois registered 705,063 cases and New York confirmed 628,375 cases.

(AP) --- The Pentagon’s acting defense secretary has made a rare visit to Somalia, a conflict-plagued nation in the Horn of Africa where American forces have been assisting in the fight against al-Qaida affiliate al-Shabab.

In a brief statement, the Pentagon said Christopher Miller, who was installed as acting defense secretary Nov. 9 when President Donald Trump fired Mark Esper, met Friday with U.S. troops in Mogadishu, the capital, to express appreciation for their work and to reiterate the U.S. commitment to combating extremist groups.

ATLANTA (AP) — A panel of U.S. advisers will meet Tuesday to vote on how scarce, initial supplies of a COVID-19 vaccine will be given out once one has been approved.

Experts have proposed giving the vaccine to health workers first. High priority also may be given to workers in essential industries, people with certain medical conditions and people age 65 and older.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama-Biden administration was a charmed era for America’s tech companies — a moment when they were lionized as innovators, hailed as job creators and largely left alone.

Now Joe Biden is coming back, this time as president. But times have changed. The halcyon days of an adoring Washington are unlikely to return when Biden takes the oath of office in January, with mounting legislative and regulatory challenges to the industry — including stronger enforcement of antitrust laws — nearly certain to outlast the tenure of President Donald Trump.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department is quietly amending its execution protocols, no longer requiring federal death sentences to be carried out by lethal injection and clearing the way to use other methods like firing squads and poison gas.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — President Donald Trump’s legal team suffered yet another defeat in court Friday as a federal appeals court in Philadelphia roundly rejected the campaign’s latest effort to challenge the state’s election results.

Trump’s lawyers vowed to appeal to the Supreme Court despite the judges’ assessment that the “campaign’s claims have no merit.”

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Los Angeles County announced a new stay-home order Friday as coronavirus cases surged out of control in the nation’s most populous county, banning most gatherings but stopping short of a full shutdown on retail stores and other non-essential businesses.

The three-week “safer at home” order takes effect Monday. It came as the county of 10 million residents confirmed 24 new deaths and 4,544 new confirmed cases of COVID-19.

MILWAUKEE (AP) — The coronavirus testing numbers that have guided much of the nation’s response to the pandemic are likely to be erratic over the next week or so, experts said Friday, as fewer people get tested during the Thanksgiving holiday weekend and testing sites observe shorter hours.