Thursday, November 12 top stories briefs
It is Thursday, November 12. Here are today’s top news briefs.
President-elect Joe Biden has not been able to view daily classified briefings that are usually provided to the president and the president-elect. The purpose is to prepare the president-elect to take over the White House in January. But because President Trump refuses to accept that he lost the election, he has been preventing Biden from access. Republican Senator James Lankford (Oklahoma) said he would step in to push for Biden to have access if nothing changes by Friday. Several other Republican senators said they think Biden should have access.
Many foreign leaders have congratulated Biden on winning the election. The prime ministers of Australia, Japan, Canada, Britain, Ireland, the presidents of Turkey, France, South Korea, and the chancellor of Germany either called Biden to congratulate him and/or issued statements recognizing Biden as the next American president.
Axios pointed out that more foreign leaders have called to congratulate Biden than Republican senators.
Biden had a phone conversation with Pope Francis this morning.
President Trump tweeted today a claim from OANN that a voting system called Dominion deleted 2.7 million Trump votes nationwide and that there were 221,000 votes in Pennsylvania switched from Trump to Biden. Trump did not provide what evidence he saw to prove this.
News reports said there was simply no evidence that Dominion voting systems caused widespread problems. An expert on election technologies told the Chicago Tribune that many of the claims about voting problems is disinformation.
The Tribune reported that there were two instances in Michigan where Dominion systems had incorrect results that favored Democrats, but election workers were able to figure out and correct it. This may have caused people to become extremely suspicious.
Here is an update on one of the Trump campaign lawsuits challenging election results. In Pennsylvania, a judge ordered that ballots cannot be counted for voters who did not provide proof of identification by a November 9 deadline to “cure” their ballots. The Pennsylvania secretary of state moved the deadline to November 12, but a judge said she didn’t have the authority to do so. The ballots are already segregated so it seems like they will not count. Will this affect the outcome of Biden’s projected win? It is doubtful because he leads by over 55,000 votes.
Biden is moving full steam ahead to prepare for his presidency. He has appointed a chief of staff — Ron Klain. He was his longtime aide and has experience in the White House during the Clinton and Obama administrations.
Biden has given speeches and posted on social media with the seal of the “Office of the President Elect.” He said he would protect the Affordable Care Act and make it one of his focuses when he takes office.
America is going through another Covid-19 peak, and it’s the worst we’ve ever seen, because Covid-19 hospitalizations is at 65,368 people, the highest ever. The previous two highs were in July and April with about 59,000 hospitalizations.
On Wednesday, there was over 140,000 new cases of Covid-19, which is a new record. It is the ninth day of over 100k cases in the U.S.
Dr. Anthony Fauci said in an interview that Americans need to get back to the basics — by wearing masks and practicing social distancing. He said he believes we can get the numbers down without going through another lockdown. Fauci said help is on the way with vaccines, but it’s not here yet.
That is all the top news briefs for today. See you tomorrow and stay with the light.
https://www.axios.com/gop-senator-pushes-biden-transition-ee164fed-bf19-4ebe-8843-a24e24a1c075.html
https://www.axios.com/biden-congratulated-by-more-foreign-leaders-than-gop-senators-ff8909b2-d820-46db-a32c-0cea95ed2ad7.html
https://thehill.com/regulation/international/525285-turkeys-erdogan-congratulates-biden-on-winning-election
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1326926226888544256
https://www.chicagotribune.com/election-2020/ct-nw-nyt-dominion-voting-machines-problems-20201112-dfhvga5uzjatdah2azb3fytlaa-story.html
https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/11/politics/biden-chief-of-staff/index.html
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/pennsylvania-court-secretary-of-state-changed-deadline
https://www.vox.com/2020/11/12/21560902/covid-19-risk-hospitalizations-chart-texas-illinois