Reuters US Domestic News Summary

Following is a summary of current US domestic news briefs. Trump campaign challenges election results in Wisconsin Supreme Court

U.S. President Donald Trump's campaign filed a petition on Tuesday challenging Wisconsin's presidential vote results with the state's supreme court, the latest attempt to reverse Democrat Joe Biden's victory in the Nov. 3 election. The petition alleges that election officials were directed to fill in missing information on ballot envelopes, issued absentee ballots without receiving applications and allowed people to improperly claim a "confined" absentee voting status. Mnuchin, Powell hone in on need to aid U.S. small businesses

Top U.S. economic officials on Tuesday urged Congress to provide more help for small businesses amid a surging coronavirus pandemic and concern that relief from a vaccine may not arrive in time to keep them from failing. "These businesses cannot wait two or three months," Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said during a hearing before the Senate Banking Committee, urging lawmakers to put as much as $300 billion into grants for struggling businesses. U.S. plans for rapid vaccine rollout as COVID-19 surges to new heights

U.S. officials on Tuesday unveiled plans to begin vaccinating millions of Americans against COVID-19 as early as mid-December, as coronavirus infections and hospitalizations in the United States soared once more to unprecedented heights. With outgoing President Donald Trump's coronavirus strategy relying heavily on a vaccine, the chief adviser of his administration's Operation Warp Speed program said on Tuesday that 20 million people could be inoculated by the end of 2020, and that by the middle of 2021 most Americans will have access to highly effective vaccines. First U.S. COVID-19 shots could be given 24-to-48 hours after FDA nod, health official says

Healthcare workers and others recommended for the first COVID-19 inoculations could start getting shots within 24 hours after the vaccine receives regulatory authorization, the chief adviser for the U.S. government's Operation Warp Speed program said on Tuesday. Moncef Slaoui, a former GlaxoSmithKline executive overseeing the vaccine portion of the U.S. program, said he hopes 20 million people will have been vaccinated by the end of this year. Georgia election official implores Trump to stop fraud rhetoric, fears 'someone's going to get hurt'

A top election official in Georgia on Tuesday implored U.S. President Donald Trump to "stop inspiring people to commit potential acts of violence" by fanning baseless claims that the election he lost last month was rigged. Gabriel Sterling, manager for the state's voting systems, said threats since the election have become so intense that police officers are stationed outside his house. Biden shortlist for White House key environmental post shows focus on environmental justice

President-elect Joe Biden is vetting three environmental justice leaders to head up the White House agency that will take the lead in coordinating efforts to safeguard communities disproportionately affected by pollution, according to sources familiar with the process. The shortlist for head of the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) signals a focus by the incoming Biden administration on environmental policies that aim to ensure improved clean air and water for poor and minority communities that have historically taken the brunt of industrial pollution. Despite Trump's continued claims, Barr sees no sign of major U.S. vote fraud

U.S. Attorney General William Barr said on Tuesday the Justice Department had found no evidence of widespread voter fraud in last month's election, even as President Donald Trump kept up his flailing legal efforts to reverse his defeat. "To date, we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have affected a different outcome in the election," Barr, a Trump appointee widely seen as loyal to the Republican president, told the Associated Press. Scarce early vaccine supply should go to health workers, nursing homes: U.S. health advisers

A panel of advisers to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Tuesday voted 13-to-1 to recommend that healthcare workers and residents of long-term care facilities should be first in line to receive initial doses of COVID-19 vaccines when they become available. The vote occurred at an emergency meeting of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), which has been meeting for months to study and recommend who in the United States should get the first scarce doses of a COVID-19 vaccine. U.S. Senate leader McConnell urges new COVID-19 aid in broad funding bill

The U.S. Congress should include a fresh wave of coronavirus stimulus in a must-pass $1.4 trillion spending bill aimed at heading off a government shutdown in the midst of a pandemic, top Senate Republican Mitch McConnell said on Tuesday. After a monthslong standoff between Republicans and Democrats that persisted as COVID-19 infections and deaths soared, lawmakers put forth a flurry of proposals in an attempt to pass something this month.

U.S. judiciary, shaped by Trump, thwarts his election challenges U.S. President Donald Trump's reshaping of the federal judiciary has done little to help him win lawsuits challenging the election outcome, with Trump appointees rebuffing him and the U.S. Supreme Court showing little interest in getting involved. An appeals court judge appointed by Trump, a Republican, on Friday ruled against his campaign's effort to overturn President-elect Joe Biden's win in Pennsylvania based on unsupported allegations of voter fraud.