Reuters US Domestic News Summary

Following is a summary of current US domestic news briefs. U.S. tops 21 million COVID-19 cases with record hospitalizations as states ramp up vaccinations

More Americans were hospitalized with COVID-19 on Wednesday than at any time since the pandemic began, as total coronavirus infections crossed the 21 million mark, deaths soared across much of the United States and a historic vaccination effort lagged. U.S. COVID-19 hospitalizations reached a record 130,834 late on Tuesday, according to a Reuters tally of public health data, while 3,684 reported fatalities was the second-highest single-day death toll of the pandemic. 'Banana republic crap:' Some Republicans turn on Trump over Capitol violence

A handful of U.S. congressional Republicans turned on President Donald Trump on Wednesday after a crowd of supporters stormed the Capitol building in a bid to help him overturn his defeat in the November election. "We are witnessing absolute banana republic crap in the United States Capitol right now. @realDonaldTrump, you need to call this off," Representative Mike Gallagher, a Republican who supports Trump, posted on Twitter as demonstrators broke windows to gain entry to the U.S. Capitol. Georgia delivers Senate to Democrats with Warnock, Ossoff wins

Democrats on Wednesday completed a sweep of the two U.S. Senate seats up for grabs in runoff elections in the state of Georgia, giving the party control of the chamber and boosting the prospects for President-elect Joe Biden's ambitious legislative agenda. Raphael Warnock, a Baptist preacher from Martin Luther King Jr.'s former church, beat Republican incumbent Kelly Loeffler to become the first Black senator in the deep South state's history while Democrat Jon Ossoff, a documentary filmaker who at 33 would become the Senate's youngest member, beat Republican David Perdue. More infectious COVID-19 variant in at least five U.S. states - NIH Director

A more contagious variant of COVID-19 that has swept through the United Kingdom has been reported in at least five states in the U.S., National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins said in an interview to the Washington Post on Wednesday. "We have now seen that same UK virus in the U.S. in at least five states and I would be surprised if that doesn't grow pretty rapidly," Collins said, adding that it doesn't however seem to be more severe. U.S. Justice Department says its emails were breached by SolarWinds hackers

The U.S. Department of Justice said on Wednesday its email systems were accessed by the hackers who broke into software company SolarWinds, another indication of the gravity of the breach that has shaken Washington. The scale of the hack at the Department of Justice was not immediately clear but it could be significant. The department, which has more than 100,000 employees across a series of law enforcement agencies, including the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration, and the U.S. Marshals Service, said in a statement that 3% of its Office 365 mailboxes were potentially accessed. Woman shot at U.S. Capitol has died: Washington, D.C., police

A woman has died after being shot on Wednesday during the storming of the U.S. Capitol by supporters of President Donald Trump, a spokeswoman for the Washington police department said. No other details were available, the spokeswoman said. It remained unclear who shot the woman. Analysis: Narrow Democratic majorities in Congress could limit ambitious Biden agenda

President-elect Joe Biden will get the Democratic Congress he sought after his party's stunning success in Georgia, but his expansive legislative agenda on issues such as healthcare and climate change cannot be assured a smooth ride. Wins by Democrats Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff for the state's two U.S. Senate seats in Tuesday's runoff elections will give the party control of both chambers in Congress and the White House. 'It's insurrection' Biden says, as Trump supporters storm U.S. Capitol

Hundreds of supporters of President Donald Trump stormed the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday in a bid to overturn his election defeat, forcing Congress to postpone a session that would have certified President-elect Joe Biden's victory. With drawn guns and tear gas, police evacuated lawmakers and sought to clear the Capitol Building of the Trump supporters, who surged through the halls of Congress in shocking scenes broadcast across the globe. Trump supporters spread protests to statehouses across U.S.

Supporters of President Donald Trump staged rallies on Wednesday at statehouses in several cities, from Atlanta to Salem, Oregon, coinciding with the storming of the U.S. Capitol by protesters demanding that his election loss be overturned, officials and local news media said. In Oregon's capital, where crowds protesting in favor of Trump and against state COVID-19 restrictions burned an effigy of the Democratic governor, police declared an unlawful assembly and ordered protesters to disperse. Corporate group urges officials to consider quick removal of Trump

The head of a major U.S. business group that represents 14,000 companies including Exxon Mobil Corp, Pfizer Inc and Toyota Motor Corp urged senior U.S. officials to consider removing President Donald Trump from office after supporters of the outgoing president stormed the U.S. Capitol. National Association of Manufacturers President and CEO Jay Timmons said Trump "incited violence in an attempt to retain power, and any elected leader defending him is violating their oath to the Constitution and rejecting democracy in favor of anarchy.... Vice President (Mike) Pence, who was evacuated from the Capitol, should seriously consider working with the Cabinet to invoke the 25th Amendment to preserve democracy."

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)