Georgia's U.S. Senate Democratic candidates Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff each raised more than $100 million in the last quarter of 2020, shattering fundraising records and eclipsing their Republican rivals in the race, new filings show, per the Federal Elections Commission and CNN.
Why it matters: The figures reflect the largest single-quarter totals by any candidate in U.S. Senate history, beating the $57 million South Carolina Democrat Jaime Harrison raised earlier this year during his failed bid for the Senate.
Black Santa, Native American Nativity scenes, and diverse-cast Christmas movies are becoming regular sights around the holidays as U.S. demographics transform.
Why it matters: Advertisers, shopping malls, and movie studios have finally embraced diverse holiday imagery during a national reckoning on race and as communities of color continue to claim Christmas as their own celebration.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is bringing Congress back to the Capitol on Monday to vote on a proposal to hike coronavirus relief payments to $2,000, after Republicans rejected a move to approve the measure by unanimous consent.
Why it matters: The long-shot attempt came after President Trump suggested he wouldn't sign the coronavirus relief bill — which includes a trillion-dollar government funding measure to avoid a government shutdown on Monday — unless Congress increased the direct payments from $600 to $2,000.
President-elect Biden said during his remarks in Wilmington on Tuesday that the Russia-tied cyberattack, which formerly was known to go back to as early as March, began "at least last year."
Why it matters: An administration source verified the earlier breach date — compounding the work and expense involved in rooting out the intruders, discovering what was lost and fixing for the future.
It’s a white, joyous Christmas for convicts with connections to President Trump. The justice system — and the law enforcers who worked years to prosecute these cases — got a big lump of coal.
Why it matters: A senior administration official with no role in the pardon process tells Axios that people have been approaching him to ask for pardons for themselves, their clients — even their former clients. The request is a sign of the final days free-for-all among people who want to be on Trump’s extensive pardons list for personal and political allies.
Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) issued a terse statement criticizing President Trump for issuing full pardons to 26 more people on Wednesday night, saying: "This is rotten to the core."
Of note: His office set up Sasse's one-line comment by stating that Trump had pardoned "another tranche of felons," specifically naming former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and the president's longtime associate Roger Stone, both of whom the statement said "flagrantly and repeatedly violated the law and harmed Americans."
President Trump granted full pardons to 26 more people on Wednesday night, including his former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, longtime associate Roger Stone and Charles Kushner, the father of Trump's senior adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner.
Why it matters: It's a continuation of the president's controversial pre-Christmas pardon spree, which began in earnest Tuesday night with pardons for a trio of convicted former GOP congressmen and several military contractors involved in the 2007 massacre of Iraqi civilians.
