GSA official blocking Biden's transition appears to privately plan post-Trump career  —  Emily Murphy has the power to decide when a transfer of power begins.  —  Obama sounds alarm in new interview as Trump digs in  —  The president still has not conceded defeat despite Joe Biden winning …

Moderna's COVID-19 Vaccine Candidate Meets its Primary Efficacy Endpoint in the First Interim Analysis of the Phase 3 COVE Study  —  First interim analysis included 95 participants with confirmed cases of COVID-19  —  Phase 3 study met statistical criteria with a vaccine efficacy of 94.5% (p <0.0001)

Georgia's GOP Secretary of State Unloads on Trump's Election Lies  —  The GOP in-fighting over the election results and recount have gotten really nasty.  —  Georgia's Republican secretary of state has had enough of President Trump's lies about voting integrity.

Madison Cawthorn has tried to convert Jews to Christianity  —  (JTA) — Madison Cawthorn, the newly elected congressman from North Carolina who was criticized for selfies he took at Hitler's vacation retreat in Germany, is a zealous Christian.  And the 25-year-old firebrand conservative …

Why Obama Fears for Our Democracy  —  Barack Obama was describing to me the manner in which the Mongol emperor and war-crimes innovator Genghis Khan would besiege a town.  “They gave you two choices,” he said.  “'If you open the gates, we'll just kill you quickly and take your women and enslave …

Lawsuits that tried to disrupt Biden's wins in four states are withdrawn  —  (CNN)Voters in four states who had brought longshot lawsuits to disrupt President-elect Joe Biden's win and went nowhere in court have dropped their cases Monday morning.  —  The cases were short-lived in Georgia …

The Republican Party Is Dead.  It's the Trump Cult Now.  —  Donald Trump is the past, present, and future of the Republican Party.  And that is because the GOP is no longer a traditional political party designed to win elections so that it can enact a policy agenda.  It is a personality cult built around grievance.

Trump aide promises ‘very professional transition’ to Biden  —  DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — President Donald Trump's national security adviser promised a “very professional transition” to the administration of President-elect Joe Biden in an interview broadcast Monday …

US military anticipates Trump will issue order to plan for further troop withdrawals from Afghanistan and Iraq  —  (CNN)US military commanders are anticipating that a formal order will be given by President Donald Trump as soon as this week to begin a further withdrawal of US troops …

Hate crimes in US reach highest level in more than a decade  —  WASHINGTON (AP) — Hate crimes in the U.S. rose to the highest level in more than a decade as federal officials also recorded the highest number of hate-motivated killings since the FBI began collecting that data in the early 1990s …

Why Joe Biden Must Sideline Fox  —  In January of 2007, I had an out-of-body experience.  No, it wasn't during an ayahuasca retreat with a kindly shaman.  Instead, I was floating above my cubicle in the Hart Senate Office building where I worked as a spokesman for then-Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL).

Liberals Envisioned a Multiracial Coalition.  Voters of Color Had Other Ideas.  —  Democrats may need to rethink their strategy as the class complexities and competing desires of Latino and Asian-American demographic groups become clear.  —  The proposition seemed tailor-made for one of the nation's most diverse and liberal states.

Ossoff, Warnock start Georgia runoffs behind the eight ball  —  CUMMING, Ga. — Joe Biden turned Georgia blue.  Compared to what they're up against now, that was the easy part for Democrats.  —  To repeat Biden's feat in a pair of Senate runoffs on Jan. 5, with control of the Senate on the line …

Pro-Trump Wisconsin Lawyers Spike Election Lawsuit on Morning of Court Hearing  —  When filing their federal lawsuit in Green Bay, Wisconsin, Republican lawyers hoping to block certification of the vote in a state that outgoing President Donald Trump lost wrote in their complaint that “evidence will be shortly forthcoming.”

Trump officials rush to auction off rights to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge before Biden can block it  —  Officials aim to sell drilling rights to the pristine wilderness's coastal plain before Joe Biden takes office  —  The Trump administration has called for oil and gas firms …

Northam: ‘We are going to move forward with legalizing marijuana in Virginia’  —  Gov. Ralph Northam said Monday he plans to introduce legislation legalizing marijuana when the General Assembly convenes in January, setting the state on a path to become the first in the South to allow recreational use of the drug.

Republicans Have Good Reason Not To Trust The Election Results  —  And it's not because they're stupid, traitorous Nazis.  —  To read reports in the mainstream press about the throngs of President Trump's supporters who rallied in Washington, D.C., over the weekend, you'd think the crowd …

Trump lawyer complains of harassing call from attorney at opposing firm  —  A lawyer spearheading the efforts by President Donald Trump's campaign to dispute the election results in Pennsylvania complained to a federal court Sunday that she received an abusive telephone message from an attorney …

Trump fights to keep a job he shows no interest in performing  —  Imagine if, in November 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt had decided to check out of World War II because it wasn't going as well as he had hoped.  Imagine if he had secluded himself in the Oval Office, listening to the radio all day …

A former right-wing media creator on how a ‘different reality’ became so prominent.  —  Matthew Sheffield started his first conservative website in 2000, dedicating it to criticizing the former CBS News anchor Dan Rather, who Mr. Sheffield believed was a partisan liberal and not critical enough …

“More people may die, if we don't coordinate,” he said.  —  Mr. Biden also said that he wanted to see a mask mandate in the United States, reiterating his request for state and local officials to require citizens to wear face coverings as cases surge during the cold winter months.

Biden's IRS could finally give Trump's tax returns to Democrats  —  President Donald Trump's defeat will make it a lot easier for Democrats to finally get his tax returns, and some prominent lawmakers plan to keep the heat on the incoming Biden administration and House leaders to deliver.

Was It Worth It, Jared and Ivanka?  —  The glossiest grifters become Vuitton vagabonds.  —  Just five short years ago Jared and Ivanka were dinner-party royalty here in Manhattan.  It's that kind of place.  They had money, they had youth, they had celebrity.  They were thin.

Transcript: NPR's Full Interview With Former President Barack Obama  —  Michel Martin: So thank you for having us.  Thank you for receiving us here at your office, which is amazing.  —  Former President Barack Obama: It's wonderful to have you.  —  Have you developed any interesting COVID habits?

The Substackerati  —  Did a newsletter company create a more equitable media system—or replicate the flaws of the old one?  —  The first week of March, Patrice Peck, a freelance journalist living in New York, started sanitizing everything.  She went to Nitehawk, a dine-in movie theater …

3rd Breonna Taylor grand juror: Cops ‘got slap on the wrist’  —  LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — A woman who sat on the Breonna Taylor grand jury said she believes their investigation was incomplete and that prosecutors wanted to give police “a slap on the wrist and close it up.”

Time to concede: The peaceful transition of power is an American tradition  —  Ever since the first presidential transition, from George Washington to John Adams, America's Founding Fathers set the stage for how to peacefully transition from one administration to the next …