Arizona and Wisconsin officials confirmed the presidential election results in their states, formalizing President-elect Joe Biden's victories in the key battlegrounds.
Why it matters: The moves deal yet another blow to President Trump's efforts to block or delay certification in key swing states that he lost.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said on Monday that struggling state hospital systems must transfer patients to sites that are not nearing capacity, as rising coronavirus cases and hospitalizations strain medical resources.
Why it matters: New York does not expect to get the same kind of help from thousands of out-of-state doctors and nurses that it got this spring, Cuomo acknowledged, as most of the country battles skyrocketing COVID hospitalizations and infections.
Dominion Voting Systems CEO John Poulos on Monday responded to a flood of "bizarre" and baseless conspiracy theories — boosted by President Trump and his allies — alleging that the company rigged the 2020 election.
What he's saying: "The allegations against Dominion are bizarre, but I’ll set the record straight," Poulos wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed out Monday. "Dominion is an American company, now headquartered in Denver. Dominion is not and has never been a front for communists."
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) returned to in-person work on Monday after quarantining with an asymptomatic case of the coronavirus, his office said in a statement.
Why it matters: Grassley, 87, is the second oldest member of the Senate, meaning he was at high risk for a severe infection. But the senator reports that he remained asymptomatic the entire time he was in quarantine.
At least nine Republican and Democratic senators have formed an informal working group aimed at securing new coronavirus spending during the lame-duck session, a move favored by President-elect Biden, two sources familiar with the group tell Axios.
Why it matters: It may be the most significant bipartisan step toward COVID relief in months.
Expect to begin hearing a lotabout private equity firm Pine Island Capital Partners, as its partners include Tony Blinken (Biden's secretary of state nominee, now on leave from Pine Island) and Michèle Flournoy (Biden's possible defense secretary nominee).
What to know: Pine Island was formed in 2018 by former CIT Group and Merrill Lynch CEO John Thain, former Goldman Sachs buyout big Phil Cooper, and ex-Coca-Cola executive Clyde Tuggle. It focuses on mid-market companies in a variety of sectors, including aerospace and defense.
News emerged Sunday night that President-elect Joe Biden plans to tap Brian Deese to direct the National Economic Council inside the White House.
Catch up fast: He was a senior climate aide late in the Obama era, helping to craft the Paris climate deal, and held senior roles at White House Office of Management and Budget and the NEC.
Merriam-Webster announced Monday that "pandemic" is its word of the year.
The big picture: Peter Sokolowski, editor at large for Merriam-Webster, told AP that after the World Health Organization declared on March 11 the COVID-19 outbreak to be a pandemic, searches for the word on Merriam-Webster.com were 115,806% higher than for the same period in 2019.
Former Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency director Chris Krebs criticized Rudy Giuliani Sunday for making baseless claims about the 2020 presidential election at a Nov. 20 news conference.
Driving the news: When asked in an interview with CBS' "60 Minutes" what he thought of the news conference, Krebs responded: "It was upsetting because what I saw was [an] apparent attempt to undermine confidence in the election, to confuse people, to scare people."
President-elect Joe Biden was left with hairline fractures in his foot and will require a walking boot after slipping while playing with his dog Major on Saturday, his office announced on Sunday.
Details: Kevin O'Connor, Biden's doctor, originally said that the president-elect had "sustained a sprain of his right foot" and initial X-rays showed "no obvious fracture," per pool reports.
President-elect Biden is strongly considering Rahm Emanuel to run the Department of Transportation, weighing the former Chicago mayor’s experience on infrastructure spending against concerns from progressives over his policing record.
Why it matters: The DOT could effectively become the new Commerce Department, as infrastructure spending, smart cities construction and the rollout of drone-delivery programs take on increasing economic weight.
