Today’s In Crisis headlines

(NEW YORK) — Here are today’s In Crisis headlines:

Trump pressures GA secretary of state to “find 11,780 votes” to overturn election results
In an extraordinary hour-long phone call Saturday, President Donald Trump pressured Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, the state’s top election official, to overturn the election results there. In an audio recording of the call, acquired by the Washington Post and obtained in full by ABC News, Trump cited multiple disproven claims of election fraud and raised the prospect of a “criminal offense” if officials did not change the Georgia vote count, which Biden won. Georgia counted its votes three times before certifying Biden’s victory.

“All I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have,” Trump said in the call. “Because we won the state.” Raffensperger rejects the president’s arguments, saying, “Mr. President, the challenge that you have is the data you have is wrong.” On ABC’s Good Morning America Monday, Raffensperger said the president “did most of the talking. We did most of the listening but I did want to make my points that the data that he has is just plain wrong.” Raffensperger — a Republican who has already said he voted to re-elect Trump – also said that he didn’t feel pressured by the call, declaring, “We have to follow the process, follow the law. Everything we’ve done for the last 12 months follows the constitution of the state of Georgia, follows the United States Constitution, follows state law.”

The telephone call has spurred largely partisan calls for an investigation into whether it violated any laws. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer tweeted: “You want to investigate election fraud? Start with this.”

COVID-19 numbers
Here’s the latest data on COVID-19 coronavirus infections and deaths.

Latest reported numbers globally per Johns Hopkins University
Global diagnosed cases: 85,202,384
Global deaths: 1,844,847. The United States has the most deaths of any single country, with 351,590.
Number of countries/regions: at least 191
Total patients recovered globally: 47,936,942

Latest reported numbers in the United States per Johns Hopkins University
There are at least 20,640,214 reported cases in 50 states + the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and Guam. This is more than in any other country.
U.S. deaths: at least 351,590. New York State has the greatest number of reported deaths in the U.S., with 38,415.
U.S. total people tested: 252,904, 789

The greatest number of reported COVID-19 cases in the U.S. is in California, with 2,428,610 confirmed cases out of a total state population of 39.51 million. This ranks first in the world. England is second in the world, with 2,286,803 cases. Maharashtra, India, which has 1,942,136 cases, ranks third, while Texas is fourth, with 1,810,537 confirmed cases out of a total state population of 29 million.

More than 210,000 new US COVID-19 cases reported Sunday; total deaths pass 350k
There were 210,479 new cases of COVID-19 confirmed in the United States on Sunday, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University, making it the second consecutive day the U.S. has reported more than 200,000 new confirmed infections, following the 297,491 new cases reported Saturday. However, officials again warn that real-time data reporting is lagging due to the holidays, meaning actual numbers could be higher once all the data are accounted for. As of Monday morning, there were a reported 20,640,214 COVID-19 cases in the U.S. – more than in any other nation, and representing just over 24% of the total global infections.

The U.S. also surpassed 350,000 COVID-19 fatalities late Saturday night. As of Monday morning, total reported U.S. fatalities number 351,590. That’s more than in any other country and represents 19% of the more than 1.8 million reported global fatalities. It took the U.S. only 19 days to add 50,000 deaths, after the nation hit 300,000 confirmed COVID-19-related deaths on December 14. One in every 951 Americans has now died from the virus, with the Centers for Disease Control currently forecasting between 383,000 and 424,000 total COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. by the week ending January 23.

COVID-19 hospitalizations continue at record levels. Since they first surpassed 100,000 a day on December 2 they haven’t fallen below that threshold, with Monday marking 33 consecutive days with daily hospitalizations over that number, according to the Covid Tracking Project. Since December 30, daily hospitalizations have exceeded 125,000, with 125,544 reported Monday.

TSA screens pandemic-record 1.3 million+ people Sunday, 17.7 million+ over holidays
Despite repeated warnings against holiday travel because of the risk of spreading COVID-19, the Transportation Security Administration reports it screened 3,326,160 people over the holiday weekend. Sunday was the biggest travel day since the start of the pandemic, with 1,327,289 people screened at airport checkpoints nationwide. Overall, 17,714,722 people were screened at TSA checkpoints for the entire holiday travel period, beginning Friday, December 18 and ending Sunday, January 3. By comparison, AAA had earlier forecast just 2.94 million expected to travel by air for the entire holiday period. Over the same period in 2019, 40,154,710 were screened by the TSA at the nation’s airports.

News

By She 100.3 | January 4, 2021