US sees highest level of daily Covid deaths since April as over 180,000 new cases are recorded
- Barr: no evidence of voter fraud that would change election outcome
- Georgia Republican warns Trump is inciting violence over election
- Justice department investigates alleged ‘bribery for pardon’ scheme
- ‘Help is on the way’: Biden introduces economic team
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11.03am GMT
Britain’s hopes of securing an early trade deal with the US have been dashed by a warning from Joe Biden, the president-elect, that America will not sign a trade deal with anyone until the US has sorted out its competitiveness.
Britain had been closing in on a trade deal with the administration of Donald Trump, a fierce opponent of the European Union, but Biden has said in a New York Times interview that his priority will be to improve investment in US manufacturing and the protection of Amerian workers.
Related: UK’s hopes of early US trade deal dashed by Biden warning
10.53am GMT
Benjamin Mueller for the New York Times this morning notes that “The specter of Britain beating the United States to a Covid vaccine approval had already angered the White House in recent days, heaping additional pressure on American regulators to match Britain’s pace.”
President Trump will host a “Covid-19 Vaccine Summit” next week, the White House said on Tuesday. The meeting will come just two days before a panel of outside advisers to the FDA meets to decide whether the agency should grant emergency approval to the Pfizer vaccine.
Britain and the United States vet vaccine candidates differently: American regulators pore over raw data from vaccine makers to validate their results, while regulators in Britain and elsewhere in Europe lean more heavily on companies’ own analyses.
10.40am GMT
Over at CNN, Madeline Holcombe has this report on the worsening Covid situation in the US.
Over the course of December, if no policies or use of masks change, the US is projected to have more than double the number of new coronavirus deaths that were reported in November, according to a model from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. That would bring the death toll to more than 336,000 by the end of this year.
The new high in coronavirus deaths coincides with the highest day in hospitalizations the US. The Covid Tracking Project recorded 47,531 people in the hospital battling the coronavirus on 1 November, but by yesterday that number more than doubled to 98,691. Within days, that number could exceed 100,000.
10.34am GMT
While the average for new coronavirus cases has seemed to plateau since the middle of November, public health experts warn that an uptick in cases is likely imminent after Thanksgiving as millions of people ignored pleas to stay home and avoid mixed family or social gatherings.
The Transportation Security Administration reported that 1.17 million people were screened at security checkpoints at airports on Sunday – the highest since the start of the pandemic. In comparison, about 2.8 million people were screened on the same Sunday in 2019.
Related: US braces for Covid surge in the aftermath of the Thanksgiving holiday
10.20am GMT
Whatever Joe Biden has up his sleeve as an economic plan, or regardless of whether Congress can agree a Covid relief soon, it will come too late for some people. Michael Sainato reports for us on the layoffs at Walt Disney – even while the company reinstates executive pay and salaries to pre-pandemic levels.
Walt Disney recently announced an additional layoff of 4,000 employees by the end of March 2021, in addition to the 28,000 employees who began receiving separation notices in October 2020. The majority of the layoffs will take effect at the end of 2020, as the firm cites limited attendance and continued closure of Disneyland in California per state coronavirus restrictions.
Now thousand of workers who received separation notices are grappling with what to do next, trying to survive on unemployment benefits after expanded federal unemployment benefits expired in July and holding out hope they will be able to return to work at Disney sometime in the future.
Related: Walt Disney layoffs leave thousands of workers in ‘an awful lot of pain’
10.14am GMT
US president-elect Joe Biden has formally introduced his choices for top economic advisers. ‘Our message to everybody struggling right now is this: help is on the way,’ Biden said. Biden’s nominations would put several women in top economic roles, including Janet Yellen, who if confirmed by the Senate would be the first woman to lead the US treasury in its 231-year history. Yellen said the economic impact of the pandemic was ‘an American tragedy’
Related: ‘Help is on the way’: Biden introduces economic team as pandemic rages
10.05am GMT
Former Atlanta City Council member Kwanza Hall won a special runoff election yesterday for a brief term in Congress which will see him succeed the late civil rights legend John Lewis.
The 49-year-old Hall defeated fellow Democrat Robert Franklin, 66, in the Atlanta area district, but will only hold the seat for a few weeks through to 3 January.
9.59am GMT
Welcome to our live coverage of US politics for Wednesday. Here’s a catch-up on where we are, and what we can expect from today…
Related: William Barr: no evidence of voter fraud that would change election outcome