Ga. secretary of state says fellow Republicans are pressuring him to find ways to exclude legal ballots  —  Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said Monday that he has come under increasing pressure in recent days from fellow Republicans, including Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.) …

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 …

Trump Sought Options for Attacking Iran to Stop Its Growing Nuclear Program  —  The president was dissuaded from moving ahead with a strike by advisers who warned that it could escalate into a broader conflict in his last weeks in office.  —  WASHINGTON — President Trump asked senior advisers …

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 …

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 …

A third GOP senator comes out against Trump's Fed nominee, putting confirmation vote on knife's edge  —  Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee joins two other Republicans in opposing Judy Shelton's nomination  —  Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) on Monday said he would not support the nomination …

Lawsuits that tried to disrupt Biden's wins in four states are withdrawn  —  (CNN)Voters in four states who had brought longshot lawsuits to disrupt President-elect Joe Biden's win and went nowhere in court have dropped their cases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

Burgess Owens wins back Utah's 4th Congressional District seat for Republicans  —  Burgess Owens, Republican candidate for Utah's 4th Congressional District, chats with people at an election night event for Republican candidates in at the Utah Association of Realtors building in Sandy on Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2020.

Moderna Vaccine Found Highly Effective at Preventing Covid  — Vaccine has 94.5% efficacy in an analysis of late-stage trial  — Interim results suggest vaccine may also block severe cases  —  Moderna Inc. said its Covid-19 vaccine was 94.5% effective in a preliminary analysis …

Wisconsin presidential recount would cost Trump $7.9 million  —  MADISON, Wis. (AP) — President Donald Trump will have to pay $7.9 million if he wants a statewide recount of unofficial results in Wisconsin showing him losing to Democrat Joe Biden by about 20,500 votes.

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 …

Unsanitized: Student Debt Cancellation Now an Anti-Austerity Measure  —  Plus, Moderna has great news on its vaccine.  This is The COVID-19 Daily Report for November 16, 2020.  —  Unsanitized-111620  —  The government can prevent the resumption of student loan payments.  —  First Response

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 …

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.

Portland's anarchists say they support racial justice.  Black activists want nothing to do with them  —  The day after President-elect Joe Biden delivered his victory speech, telling the nation it was time to heal and unite, a clandestine Twitter account — @safePDXprotest — summoned Portland anarchists.

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 …

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.

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).

Facebook Knows That Adding Labels To Trump's False Claims Does Little To Stop Their Spread  —  Internal data shows that labels on President Trump's posts decrease reshares by about 8%.  They still account for some of the most engaging posts on the platform.  —  Copy

“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.

Perdue declines runoff debates against Ossoff in Georgia  —  ATLANTA (AP) — Republican Sen. David Perdue is declining to participate in debates against Democratic challenger Jon Ossoff ahead of their Jan. 5 runoff in Georgia.  —  Ossoff's campaign said Monday that Ossoff has accepted six invitations …

Biden Brings Top Campaign Aides to White House Jobs  — Richmond will be one of highest-ranking Black aides to Biden  —  President-elect Joe Biden is beginning to fill out his roster of top White House aides, with Cedric Richmond and Jen O'Malley Dillon planning to take top jobs, according to people familiar with the matter.

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 …

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 …

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 …

Trump's New Vote Fraud Theory Is So Much Crazier Than You Realize  —  President Trump has been promoting wild conspiracy theories about election fraud since 2016.  Like so many of his outrages, this has numbed the public and caused the absurdity to recede into the background of events.

Handicapping the contenders for Biden's economic team  —  Welcome to POLITICO's 2020 Transition Playbook, your guide to one of the most consequential transfers of power in American history.  —  ‘I KNOW WE CAN DO THIS’ — President-elect JOE BIDEN promised that his administration could help revive …

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 …