Video above: President-elect Joe Biden gives speech on his education nomineeFor President-elect Joe Biden, Washington’s year-end burst of deal-making brought renewed hope for a productive, successful first 100 days in office. The city’s fever broke, at least momentarily, as longtime combatants finally forged a COVID-19 relief deal that carried with it dozens of smaller bills, offering proof that Capitol Hill's damaged systems and norms can still produce meaningful legislation — at least when backed up against the wall.Most of Biden's 36 years in the Senate came in an era when Washington functioned far better. As president he will be seeking to restore at least the veneer of good faith and bipartisanship that defined those times and cast aside the divisions of the tea party era and four years of President Donald Trump.After initial resistance and demands for changes, President Donald Trump signed the $900 billion pandemic relief package, delivering long-sought cash to businesses and individuals while averting a government shutdown.The massive bill includes $1.4 trillion to fund government agencies through September and contains other end-of-session priorities such as money for cash-starved transit systems and an increase in food stamp benefits.In that context, the year-end deal — powered by the imperative to deliver pandemic relief to a struggling nation — is a good omen. At the end, it featured good-faith negotiation among Capitol Hill's skilled but battling leaders as well as a productive role for moderates and pragmatists in both parties whose efforts are often brushed aside.“We have our first hint and glimpse of bipartisanship,” Biden said Tuesday. “In this election, the American people made it clear they want us to reach across the aisle and work together." The demand for bipartisanship is a common refrain that often comes as a throwaway line from Washington pols who have little experience in delivering it. But Biden has made it the centerpiece of his transition message — and he has a track record in the Senate and in the Obama administration of following through.He also has no choice. The election delivered Democrats the narrowest House majority of the modern age and a narrowly divided Senate that demands bipartisanship, even if Democrats win control of a 50-50 chamber after next month's twin Georgia runoff elections. Biden said there is much more work to do and spoke optimistically of lawmakers coming together again in January or February to pass another package — and the template for success is there.There are few measures of success greater than a big, bipartisan vote. By that metric, the 5,593-page, end-of-session behemoth — combining a $900 billion COVID-19 relief deal, a $1.4 trillion catchall spending bill, and dozens of late-session add-ons — was a smash hit. The 92-6 Senate vote and a pair of lopsided House tallies on the final bill came after months of indecision and deadlock were replaced with frenzied deal-cutting and compromise.Yet there are those in Biden's party deeply skeptical that bipartisanship can take root in such a starkly polarized country. Republicans are certain to feel the pull of their far-right flank in the coming era, shifting the party to a debt-and-deficits focus that may well be incompatible with much of Biden's agenda.And then there's the Capitol itself. The pain-inducing process that led to the final virus package offered almost daily lessons in Congress' capacity for dysfunction and wheel-spinning. And enormous power remains concentrated in the hands of only a few leaders.Top Republicans, like Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who will be a critical power broker during Biden's first two years in office, credited Biden with getting Democratic leaders such as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., to accept a bill that was smaller than those she rejected in the summer and fall.“The new president was helpful in suggesting that we ought to go ahead now and I think that may have had an impact on the speaker," McConnell told reporters Monday. Biden and McConnell have a long relationship and worked out several deals on taxes and spending during President Barack Obama's first term. The polarization of the parties and the scorched-earth politics of the past decade won't make that success easy to replicate, but Biden is all-in.“They know I level with them," Biden said of Republicans. “They know I never mislead. They know I tell them the truth, and they know I don’t go out of my way to try to embarrass.”Bipartisanship and deals with McConnell were hardly the message voiced by most Democrats during a campaign in which liberals schemed to get rid of the Senate filibuster to power through their agenda. But when Pelosi pulled back from demands for more than $2 trillion in COVID-19 relief earlier this month, there was little public backlash from arch progressives. Instead, Democrat after Democrat issued praise for the legislation even though it offered less direct aid to struggling people than they wanted.The optimistic take is that COVID-19 relief, with its near-universal support in Congress, amounts to training wheels for a post-Trump Washington to find its way. While topics like immigration and taxes may be too tough to tackle, there's genuine hope in areas like infrastructure. Pelosi is Biden's most powerful asset but she will have her hands full managing the smallest House majority of modern times. Her caucus increasingly tilts to the left and it sustained deep losses in swing districts and Trump country in the fall. But there's no sense, it seems, in catering to the left under the looming balance of power — and a mid-term election in 2022 that will determine whether Biden's Democrats lose control of the House.Pelosi and McConnell have a strained relationship, but when their interests align and when they work in tandem, they are an unstoppable force. The pending new agreement started out as one to work out the annual appropriations bills. It quickly became clear that momentum could be sustained as senior lawmakers were given opportunities to find agreement on taxes, education, energy, and appropriations.The skill is there. Finding the will and the way is the challenge.Democratic lobbyist Steve Elmendorf said Biden and his team are going to be highly engaged and that gives him reason for optimism."These people are obviously dysfunctional and have some challenging relationships,” he said of Trump and his team and allies. “The fact that it took so long to get them in a room is everybody's fault. Well, Joe Biden's not going to let that happen." Washington, however, rarely rewards those who suspend their cynicism. Democrats who give grudging respect to McConnell say the best hope for bipartisanship may be his desire to do what's best for the GOP's hopes to hold the Senate — just as they detect the politics of the Georgia runoff races as a reason for McConnell's flexibility now on pandemic relief.“We're accustomed to each other but he's got a pretty big job," McConnell said of Biden. “So we'll see how that works out.”

A K-9 police dog was killed Sunday morning when an impaired driver crashed into the vehicle the animal was sitting in, according to the Boone County Sheriff’s Office. Loki, a K-9 unit for the Boone County Sheriff's Department, was sitting in the police SUV during a traffic stop when the rear of the vehicle was struck by the drunk driver. The officer, Deputy Robert Rosenkranz, was not in the vehicle, though he received minor injuries from debris that flew from the crash. Loki was badly injured from the crash, and was taken to a veterinary clinic where he later died, officials say.The crash is being investigated by the Boone County Sheriff’s Office and the Illinois State Police.

Federal officials say they will allow operators to fly small drones over people and at night, potentially giving a boost to commercial use of the machines.Most drones will need to be equipped so they can be identified remotely by law enforcement officials.The final rules announced Monday by the Federal Aviation Administration “get us closer to the day when we will more routinely see drone operations such as the delivery of packages,” said FAA Administrator Stephen Dickson.Drones are the fastest-growing segment in all of transportation, with more than 1.7 million under registration, according to the Transportation Department. However, the widespread commercial use of the machines has developed far more slowly than many advocates expected. Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos once predicted that his company would use drones to deliver goods to customers’ doorsteps within five years, but that prediction is already off by two years.There have been several tests and limited uses. United Parcel Service said last year that it received approval to operate a nationwide fleet of drones and has already made hundreds of deliveries on a hospital campus in North Carolina.Also last year, Google sister company Wing Aviation won FAA approval for commercial drone flights in a corner of Virginia. And this past August, Amazon got similar FAA approval to deliver packages by drones. The company is still testing the service and hasn’t said when shoppers will see deliveries. For drone supporters impatient with the pace of adoption, regulatory hurdles are a leading complaint. Currently, operators who want to fly a drone over people or at night need a waiver from the FAA.The new rules will require that drones used at night include flashing lights that can be seen up to three miles away. Operators will need special training. Small drones flying over people cannot have rotating parts capable of cutting skin.The rules covering flights over people and at night will take effect in about two months. They finalize proposed rules issued last year. Related video: 2 arrested after drone crashes into prisonAll drones that must be registered with the FAA will be required to have equipment that broadcasts their identification, location and control station or be operated at FAA-recognized areas. So-called remote ID was a requirement impose by Congress at the urging of national security and law enforcement agencies.Drone manufacturers will have 18 months to begin making drones with remote ID, and operators will have one year after that to start using drones with remote ID.

Congress is ending a chaotic session, a two-year political firestorm that started with the longest federal government shutdown in U.S. history, was riven by impeachment and a pandemic, and now closes with a rare rebuff by Republicans of President Donald Trump.In the few days remaining, GOP senators are ignoring Trump's demand to increase COVID-19 aid checks to $2,000 and are poised to override his veto of a major defense bill, asserting traditional Republican spending and security priorities in defiance of a president who has marched the party in a different direction.Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., a top Trump ally, tried to bridge the divide Thursday, saying Congress could try again to approve Trump's push for bigger COVID aid checks in the new session, which opens Sunday. “I am with President Trump on this," Graham said on Fox News.“Our economy is really hurting here,” he said. "There’s no way to get a vote by Jan. 3. The new Congress begins noon Jan. 3. So the new Congress, you could get a vote.’’As the Senate grinds through the New Year's holiday, the one-two rebuke of Trump's demands punctuates the president’s final days and deepens the divide between the Republican Party's new wing of Trump-styled populists and what had been mainstay conservative views. The stalemate is expected to drag into the weekend.An exasperated Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said this week, “After all the insanity that Senate Republicans have tolerated from President Trump — his attacks on the rule of law, an independent judiciary, the conduct that led to his impeachment — is this where Senate Republicans are going to draw the line — $2,000 checks to the American people?”Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has shown little interest in Trump's push to bolster the $600 relief checks just approved in a sweeping year-end package, declaring Congress has provided enough pandemic aid, for now, as he blocked repeated Democratic attempts to force a vote. Opening the Senate on Thursday, McConnell called the House-passed bill matching Trump's $2,000 request “socialism for rich people” who don't need the federal help. He prefers a more targeted approach.The refusal to act on the checks, along with the veto Friday or Saturday of the defense bill, could very well be among McConnell's final acts as majority leader as two GOP senators in Georgia are in the fights of their political lives in runoff elections next week that will determine which party controls the Senate.Trump made an early return Thursday to the White House from his private club in Florida. Trump and President-elect Joe Biden are separately poised to campaign in Georgia ahead of Tuesday's election as GOP Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler face Democrats Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock. It's a dizzying end to a session of Congress that resembles few others for the sheer number of crises and political standoffs as Trump's presidency defined and changed the legislative branch.Congress opened in 2019 with the federal government shutdown over Trump's demands for money to build the border wall with Mexico. Nancy Pelosi regained the speaker's gavel after Democrats swept to the House majority in the midterm election.Related video: Pelosi slams McConnell for halting stimulus checksThe Democratic-led House went on to impeach the president over his request to the Ukrainian president to “do us a favor” against Biden ahead of the presidential election. The Republican-led Senate acquitted the president in 2020 of the charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.When the pandemic struck, Congress rallied with unusual speed and agreement to pass a $2 trillion relief package, the largest federal intervention of its kind in U.S. history.The COVID-19 crisis also shuttered the Capitol and altered the workings of Congress. The House changed its rules to allow proxy voting, a first, so lawmakers could avoid the health risks of travel to Washington. The Senate ultimately halted its traditional daily lunches. The usually bustling halls of Congress became eerily silent most days. Many members tested positive for the virus.The Congress had few other notable legislative accomplishes, and could not agree on how to respond to the racial injustice reckoning that erupted after the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and other Black Americans at the hands of law enforcement. Instead, the Senate was primarily focused on filling the courts with Trump's conservative judicial nominees, including confirming his third Supreme Court justice, Amy Coney Barrett. As the session appeared to be winding down, Trump stunned Washington days before Christmas by delaying his signature on the latest $2 trillion-plus COVID relief and year-end funding package over his fresh demands for additional aid.Trump’s push for $2,000 checks gained sudden momentum when dozens of House Republicans joined Democrats in approving the measure Monday. But the effort fizzled in the GOP-led Senate.Democrats embraced Trump's demand, a rare alliance with the Republican president, but his own party split between those few joining his push for more aid and others objecting to more spending they said was not targeted to those who need it most.Liberal senators, led by Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who support the relief boost are blocking action on the defense bill until a vote is taken on Trump’s demand.McConnell offered an alternative aid bill, linking the $2,000 checks with Trump's other priorities, including a complicated repeal of protections for tech companies like Facebook or Twitter and the establishment of a bipartisan commission to review the 2020 presidential election. But the GOP leader has scheduled no votes on his measure and it would be unlikely to have enough support in Congress to pass.For now, the smaller $600 checks are being sent to households. Americans earning up to $75,000 qualify for the payments, which are phased out at higher income levels, and there’s an additional $600 payment per dependent child.The outgoing president has been berating Republican leaders for the standoff, but he appears more focused on gathering GOP support for his extraordinary Electoral College challenge of Biden's victory when the vote is tallied in a joint session of Congress on Jan. 6.Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri is among those leading Trump’s challenge to the Electoral College result, but he was rebuked Thursday by GOP Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska, who warned colleagues off what he called a “dangerous ploy” that could damage trust in elections.The challenge is not expected to change the election outcome, with Biden set to be inaugurated Jan. 20. But it will be among the first votes tallied in the new Congress.

Georgia voters are set to decide the balance of power in Congress in a pair of high-stakes Senate runoff elections that will help determine President-elect Joe Biden's capacity to enact what may be the most progressive governing agenda in generations. Republicans are unified against Biden's plans for health care, environmental protection and civil rights, but some fear that outgoing President Donald Trump's brazen attempts to undermine the integrity of the nation's voting systems may discourage voters in Georgia.At a rally in northwest Georgia on the eve of Tuesday's runoffs, Trump repeatedly declared that the November elections were plagued by fraud that Republican officials, including his former attorney general and Georgia's elections chief, say did not occur. The president called Georgia's Republican secretary of state “crazy" and vowed to help defeat him in two years. At the same time, Trump encouraged his supporters to show up in force for Georgia's Tuesday contests. "You've got to swarm it tomorrow,” Trump told thousands of cheering supporters, downplaying the threat of fraud.Democrats must win both of the state's Senate elections to gain the Senate majority. In that scenario, the Senate would be equally divided 50-50 with Vice President-elect Kamala Harris serving as the tie-breaker for Democrats. Democrats already secured a narrow House majority and the White House during November's general election. Even a closely divided Democratic Senate likely won't guarantee Biden everything he wants, given Senate rules that require 60 votes to move most major legislation. But if Democrats lose even one of Tuesday's contests, Biden would have little shot for swift up-or-down votes on his most ambitious plans to expand government-backed health care coverage, strengthen the middle class, address racial inequality and combat climate change. A Republican-controlled Senate also would create a rougher path for Biden's Cabinet picks and judicial nominees. “Georgia, the whole nation is looking to you. The power is literally in your hands,” Biden charged at his own rally in Atlanta earlier Monday. “One state can chart the course, not just for the next four years, but for the next generation.” Related video: Biden warns of high stakes in Georgia Senate racesGeorgia's January elections, necessary because no Senate candidates received a majority of the general-election votes, have been unique for many reasons, not least because the contenders essentially ran as teams, even campaigning together sometimes. One contest features Democrat Raphael Warnock, who serves as the senior pastor of the Atlanta church where slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. grew up and preached. The 51-year-old Black man was raised in public housing and spent most of his adult life preaching in Baptist churches. Warnock is facing Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler, a 50-year-old former businesswoman who was appointed to the Senate less than a year ago by the state's Republican governor. She is only the second woman to represent Georgia in the Senate, although race has emerged as a campaign focus far more than gender. Loeffler and her allies have seized on some snippets of Warnock’s sermons at the historic Black church to cast him as extreme. Dozens of religious and civil rights leaders have pushed back. The other election pits 71-year-old former business executive David Perdue, who held the Senate seat until his term officially expired on Sunday, against Democrat Jon Ossoff, a former congressional aide and journalist. At just 33 years old, Ossoff would be the Senate’s youngest member if elected. The fresh-faced Democrat first rose to national prominence in 2017 when he launched an unsuccessful House special election bid. Democrats have hammered Perdue and Loeffler, each among the Senate's wealthiest members, for conspicuously timed personal stock trades after members of Congress received information about the public health and economic threats of COVID-19 as Trump and Republicans downplayed the pandemic. None of the trades has been found to violate the law or Senate ethics, but Warnock and Ossoff have used the moves to cast the Republicans as self-interested and out of touch.Perdue and Loeffler have answered by lambasting the Democratic slate as certain to to usher in a leftward lunge in national policy. Neither Warnock nor Ossoff is a socialist, as Republicans allege. They do, however, support Biden's agenda. This week's elections mark the formal finale to the turbulent 2020 election season more than two months after the rest of the nation finished voting. The stakes have drawn nearly $500 million in campaign spending to a once solidly Republican state that now finds itself as the nation’s premier battleground.“It’s really about whether an agenda that moves the nation forward can be forged without significant compromise,” said Martin Luther King III, the son of the civil rights icon and a Georgia native, who predicted “razor thin” margins on Tuesday. “There are a lot of things that are in the balance.”The results also will help demonstrate whether the sweeping political coalition that fueled Biden's victory was an anti-Trump anomaly or part of a new landscape.Biden won Georgia’s 16 electoral votes by about 12,000 votes out of 5 million cast in November. Democratic success will likely depend on driving a huge turnout of African Americans, young voters, college-educated voters and women, all groups that helped Biden become the first Democratic presidential candidate since 1992 to win Georgia. Republicans, meanwhile, have been focused on energizing their own base of white men and voters beyond the core of metro Atlanta. More than 3 million Georgians voted before Tuesday. The runoff elections come as Trump continues his unprecedented campaign to undermine election results across various states he lost. In a recording of a private phone call made public on Sunday, the president told Georgia's secretary of state to “find” enough votes to give him an outright victory in the state, even after repeated recounts, failed court challenges, and state certification. Campaigning in Georgia on Monday hours before Trump's visit, Vice President Mike Pence said he has concerns about “voting irregularities." He has also repeatedly described Georgia Republicans as “the last line of defense” against a Democratic takeover in Washington, an implicit acknowledgement that the Trump has indeed lost the election.Related video: Trump supporters rally on eve of Georgia electionCongress is scheduled to vote to certify Biden's victory on Wednesday. In another affirmation of Trump's hold on his fellow Republicans, Loeffler took the stage at Trump's rally and vowed to join the small but growing number of Republicans protesting the count on the Senate floor.“Look, this president fought for us,” she said. "We're fighting for him."

Rumors began emerging from far-right circles claiming the pro-Trump mob of protesters that stormed the Capitol on Wednesday was made up or infiltrated by members of antifa, despite no evidence of this being the case.Several posts, particularly on the right-leaning social media platform Parler, shared images that posters claimed as evidence antifa demonstrators were behind the riot. The images did not, however, show any antifa involvement, and in many instances suggested ties to far-right extremist groups like the Proud Boys, or conspiracy movements like QAnon. President Donald Trump, in a now-deleted video to his supporters, even acknowledged the group as his supporters, saying "we love you" and repeating a baseless claim the election was stolen from them. The riot began after Trump, speaking at a rally, directed the crowd to go to the Capitol.Related video: Trump urges Capitol protesters to 'go home now'One frequent act of misinformation being spread is to show a picture of a member of the mob of protesters side by side with a picture of the same person at a Black Lives Matter rally or among a group of antifa members. However these images often leave out context as to whether the person in question was at these rallies as an ally or a counter-protester to groups like BLM. A frequently employed example being the well-recognized man wearing a horned headdress who was a part of the riot. A picture of him attending a BLM protest is often shared suggesting he is secretly an antifa supporter, but while at the BLM protest, he held a counter-protest sign saying "Q SENT ME." The sign is often cropped out.On Twitter, there were more than 1,250 posts from accounts related to the QAnon conspiracy theory about Wednesday's protests containing terms of violence since Jan. 1. The most basic QAnon belief casts President Trump as the hero in a fight against the "deep state" and a sinister cabal of Democratic politicians and celebrities who abuse children.One post from a QAnon-related account retweeted a post with a baseless conspiracy theory that Democrats, Black Lives Matter activists, and Antifa protestors were planning to kill Trump supporters and advocated for whoever noticed these individuals to get "rid of them."Despite the lack of evidence, U.S. Congressmen, Louie Gohmert, R-TX, and Mo Brooks, R-AL, spread this conspiracy theory on Twitter. Later Wednesday night, Congressman Matt Goetz, R-FL, also pushed these false claims while speaking to the House. Lin Wood, a pro-Trump attorney who is involved with the QAnon movement, sent several viral tweets that falsely claimed that members of antifa were inside the Capitol. A commonly shared image he posted features a bearded man wearing a hoodie seen among the mob inside the Capitol posted with another photo of supposedly the same person, the second photo having come from “PhillyAntifa.org,” suggesting he is actually antifa.“Indisputable photographic evidence that antifa violently broke into Congress today to inflict harm & do damage,” Wood said on Twitter. “NOT @realDonaldTrump supporters.”But the page on phillyantifa.org is not of him being involved with the group, but of the group accusing him to be a member of a neo-Nazi group. CNN contributed to this report.

A police officer has died from injuries sustained as President Donald Trump's supporters stormed the Capitol, a violent siege that is forcing hard questions about the defeated president's remaining days in office and the ability of the Capitol Police to secure the area.The U.S. Capitol Police said in a statement that Officer Brian D. Sicknick was injured “while physically engaging with protesters" during the Wednesday riot. He is the fifth person to die because of the melee.The rampage that has shocked the world and left the country on edge forced the resignations of three top Capitol security officials over the failure to stop the breach. It led lawmakers to demand a review of operations and an FBI briefing over what they called a “terrorist attack.” And it is prompting a broader reckoning over Trump’s tenure in office and what comes next for a torn nation.Protesters were urged by Trump during a rally near the White House earlier Wednesday to head to Capitol Hill, where lawmakers were scheduled to confirm Biden’s presidential victory. The mob swiftly broke through police barriers, smashed windows and paraded through the halls, sending lawmakers into hiding.Five have died because of the Capitol siege. One protester, a white woman, was shot to death by Capitol Police, and there were dozens of arrests. Three other people died after “medical emergencies” related to the breach.Despite Trump’s repeated claims of voter fraud, election officials and his own former attorney general have said there were no problems on a scale that would change the outcome. All the states have certified their results as fair and accurate, by Republican and Democratic officials alike.Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb., said news of the police officer’s death was “gut-wrenching.”“None of this should have happened,” Sasse said in a statement. “Lord, have mercy.”Sicknick had returned to his division office after the incident and collapsed, the statement said. He was taken to a local hospital where he died on Thursday.Two House Democrats on committees overseeing the Capitol police budgets said those responsible need to be held to answer for the “senseless” death."We must ensure that the mob who attacked the People’s House and those who instigated them are held fully accountable,” said Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Ct., and Rep. Tim Ryan, D-Ohio. in a statement.Earlier Thursday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said any remaining day with the president in power could be “a horror show for America.” Likewise, Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said the attack on the Capitol was “an insurrection against the United States, incited by the president," and Trump must not stay in office “one day” longer.Pelosi and Schumer called for invoking the 25th Amendment to the Constitution to force Trump from office before President-elect Joe Biden is inaugurated on Jan. 20. Schumer said he and Pelosi tried to call Vice President Mike Pence early Thursday to discuss that option but were unable to connect with him.At least one Republican lawmaker joined the effort. The procedure allows for the vice president and a majority of the Cabinet to declare the president unfit for office. The vice president then becomes acting president.Pelosi said if the president’s Cabinet does not swiftly act, the House may proceed to impeach Trump. Trump, who had repeatedly refused to concede the election, did so in a late Thursday video from the White House vowing a “seamless transition of power.”Two Republicans who led efforts to challenge the election results, Ted Cruz of Texas and Josh Hawley of Missouri, faced angry peers in the Senate. Cruz defended his objection to the election results as “the right thing to do” as he tried unsuccessfully to have Congress launch an investigation. In the House, Republican leaders Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California and Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana joined in the failed effort to overturn Biden’s win by objecting to the Electoral College results.With tensions high, the Capitol shuttered and lawmakers not scheduled to return until the inauguration, an uneasy feeling of stalemate settled over a main seat of national power as Trump remained holed up at the White House.The social media giant Facebook banned the president from its platform and Instagram for the duration of Trump's final days in office, if not indefinitely, citing his intent to stoke unrest. Twitter had silenced him the day before.Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg said “the shocking events" make it clear Trump “intends to use his remaining time in office to undermine the peaceful and lawful transition of power.”U.S. Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund, under pressure from Schumer, Pelosi and other congressional leaders, was forced to resign. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell asked for and received the resignation of the Sergeant at Arms of the Senate, Michael Stenger, effective immediately. Paul Irving, the longtime Sergeant at Arms of the House, also resigned.Sund had defended his department’s response to the storming of the Capitol, saying officers had “acted valiantly when faced with thousands of individuals involved in violent riotous actions.” Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser called the police response “a failure.”Lawmakers from both parties pledged to investigate and questioned whether a lack of preparedness allowed a mob to occupy and vandalize the building. The Pentagon and Justice Department had been rebuffed when they offered assistance.Black lawmakers, in particular, noted the way the mostly white Trump supporters were treated.Newly elected Rep. Cori Bush, D-Mo., said if “we, as Black people did the same things that happened ... the reaction would have been different, we would have been laid out on the ground.” The protesters ransacked the place, taking over the House area and Senate chamber and waving Trump, American and Confederate flags. Outside, they scaled the walls and balconies.Rep. Val Demings, D-Fla., a former police chief, said it was “painfully obvious” that Capitol police “were not prepared.”

Related video: Capitol police outnumbered as rioters lay siege Journalists were manhandled, threatened and had their equipment stolen or damaged by supporters of President Donald Trump during this week's riot at the U.S. Capitol.The attacks, including a chilling scene distributed on social media of a photographer for The Associated Press being shoved around, led the National Press Photographers Association to call on authorities to investigate and prosecute people who targeted journalists.“To do our jobs, photojournalists must be on the front lines to record the news,” the association said in a statement. “The threats, violence and aggression toward visual journalists are unconscionable acts that erode our democracy and our country's First Amendment rights.”In one striking image, the words “Murder the Media” were scrawled on an indoor doorway at the Capitol.The AP photographer, John Minchillo, is shown in a video taken by a colleague, being pushed, pulled and punched by a group of men standing outside of the Capitol. Some of the attackers are heard accusing him of being part of the left-wing group Antifa; Minchillo holds up his hands and show his press pass.After about a minute, one of the demonstrators guides him away from his attackers. Minchillo stayed on the job.Minchillo declined comment on Friday. On Twitter, he wrote, “Never become the story, that's the core principle. If I could ask for something? Don't linger on the outrage for too long.”But he asked anyone who sees his message to reflect on the importance of journalism and subscribe to a local newspaper.“While we are thankful he is OK, this is a reminder of the dangers journalists both in the U.S. and around the world face every day while simply trying to do their jobs,” said Patrick Maks, a spokesperson for the AP.Another group of AP journalists on Wednesday had photographic equipment stolen and trashed outside the Capitol. One picture on social media saw electrical cords tied into a noose.There were other incidents. Erin Schaff, a photojournalist for The New York Times, wrote in the newspaper about being surrounded by two or three men while in the Capitol who demanded to know who she worked for. One grabbed her press pass, saw she worked for the Times and she was thrown to the floor. One of her cameras was ripped away from her and the lens was broken on another, she wrote.After being knocked to the ground, she screamed for help as loudly as she could.“People just watched,” she wrote.Police eventually came, but drew their guns and ordered her back on the ground. At that point, two other photojournalists vouched for her, she said.Amanda Andrade-Rhoades, a photojournalist on assignment for The Washington Post, told the Committee to Protect Journalists that she had three different people threaten to shoot her on Wednesday. One man told her, “I'm coming back with a gun tomorrow and I'm coming for you,” she said.“Journalists covering a democratic transition of power in Washington shouldn't have to run for cover,” said Mark Lodato, dean of Syracuse University's Newhouse School of Communications. “We've hit bottom.”

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The NFC divisional round will give fans a third-time treat: another meeting between old-timers Tom Brady and Drew Brees.Possibly the final one.The AFC matchups, meanwhile, will include the Cleveland Browns for the first time since they re-entered the NFL in 1999, and Lamar Jackson and the Ravens.Brees assured that the NFC South rival Saints and Buccaneers will meet once more, throwing for two touchdowns in a 21-9 victory over Chicago. The New Orleans quarterback, who turns 42 on Friday — one year younger than Tampa Bay's star — is toying with retirement, but with the way the Saints defense is playing, a second trip to the Super Bowl is not a long shot.Tampa Bay (12-5) defeated Washington 31-23 on Saturday. The Bucs will travel to New Orleans (13-4) next Sunday night.“The minute that he signed with the Bucs and came to the division, you felt like that was going to be a team to contend with, that was going to be a team that would have playoff aspirations and beyond, just like us,” Brees said of meeting Brady in the playoffs for the first time. “So, I guess it was inevitable.”The other NFC game next weekend will be on Saturday as Green Bay (13-3 and coming off a bye) hosts the Los Angeles Rams (11-6), who downed Seattle this weekend.In the AFC, Cleveland's return to the postseason for the first time in 18 years went very well. The Browns not only snapped a 17-game skid at Heinz Field, they manhandled the mistake-prone archrival Steelers 48-37 Sunday night. On to face reigning Super Bowl champion Kansas City (14-2 and coming off a bye) next Sunday.After two postseason flops, Jackson was his usual dynamic and decisive self in leading the Ravens to a 20-13 wild-card victory at Tennessee. That sends them to Buffalo on Saturday night.Browns 48, Steelers 37In their first playoff road victory since 1969, the Browns (12-5) overcame all sorts of problems and history. Baker Mayfield threw for three touchdowns and the Browns got their first playoff win in 26 years. Kareem Hunt added two touchdown runs for Cleveland, playing without several high-profile players and head coach Kevin Stefanski due to COVID-19. It hardly mattered as the Browns raced to a quick 28-0 lead then turned aside Pittsburgh's second-half rally. Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger passed for 501 yards and four touchdowns but also threw four interceptions. Saints 21, Bears 9Michael Thomas and Latavius Murray caught Brees' touchdown passes, and Alvin Kamara rushed for 99 yards and a 3-yard scoring run after sitting out the regular-season finale and not practicing this past week because of COVID-19 protocols.New Orleans (13-4) held Chicago (8-9) to 239 yards, just 48 rushing. “Our defense played outstanding,” coach Sean Payton said. “We tackled well in space. ... Ultimately we forced them to become one-dimensional, and when you do that you’re going to win a lot of games.”The Saints won both meetings with the Bucs during the regular season.Ravens 20, Titans 13Some first steps are far longer than others. Such as what Jackson achieved Sunday.He isn't in any way the only reason Baltimore is advancing — the defense shut down 2,000-yard rusher Derrick Henry like no other team has come close to doing. But he was a positive contributor, unlike in losses to the Chargers and Titans in his other playoff appearances.Jackson ran for 136 yards and a 48-yard touchdown while throwing for 179 more, rallying the Ravens from a 10-0 hole. The Ravens (12-5) went 21 straight losses in either the regular season or playoffs when trailing by 10 or more points.Despite being sacked five times and throwing an interception, Jackson turned in the sixth 100-yard rushing game by a quarterback in the postseason, and joined Colin Kaepernick with two. “We stayed focused. We didn’t get rattled. Our coaches didn’t get rattled. We had to put points on the board," Jackson said. “I throw an interception, a dumb interception. We just kept fighting.”Especially the defense: Henry had his worst performance this season with 18 carries for 40 yards and the Titans (11-6) were held to their fewest points of the season.“Our defense was tired of hearing the noise,” Jackson said. "And they did what they were supposed to do.” SATURDAYBuccaneers 31, Washington 23In his first postseason game wearing a uniform other than New England's, Brady showed why he was so responsible for the Patriots' two-decade dynasty. While leading his new team, the Buccaneers (12-5), to their first playoff win since Tampa Bay won the 2002 championship, Brady extended his record for playoff victories to 31. He threw for 381 yards and two touchdowns in his 42nd postseason start.“You could win 100-0 and it’s going to be the same result in the end," Brady said. “You’d love to play great every game; I think it’s good to win and advance. If we don’t play well next week, we’re not going to be happy. Glad we won, glad we have another week of work.”Bills 27, Colts 24At Buffalo, there actually was a playoff game played, for the first time in 15 years. And won by the Bills, the AFC East champions for the first time since 1995. Josh Allen threw two touchdown passes and scored another rushing, and the Bills (14-3) knocked down a desperation pass by Philip Rivers to end the game.The Bills have won seven in a row.“We understand that whatever’s going on in the game, we feel like we’ve got a chance,” Allen said. “That’s just based on how we play, how we trust one another, how we care for one another, how we practice. Just the foundation. ... It is a family-like atmosphere here and we want to do everything in our power not to let each other down.”Rams 30, Seahawks 20At Seattle, a staunch defensive performance by the league's top-ranked unit lifted Los Angeles (11-6) into the divisional round. The Rams, even with unanimous All-Pro DT Aaron Donald sitting out much of the second half with a rib injury, rattled Seahawks QB Russell Wilson, sacking him five times and getting a pick-6 from Darious Williams. LA also shut down the Seattle rushing attack."We expected to do this," Rams coach Sean McVay said. "Nobody acted surprised.”

Related video: Japanese Citizens Say 2021 Summer Olympics Are ‘Impossible’More than 80% of people in Japan who were surveyed in two polls in the last few days say the Tokyo Olympics should be canceled or postponed, or say they believe the Olympics will not take place. The polls were conducted by the Japanese news agency Kyodo and TBS — the Tokyo Broadcasting System. The results are bad news for Tokyo organizers and the International Olympic Committee as they continue to say the postponed Olympics will open on July 23. Tokyo is battling a surge of COVID-19 cases that prompted the national government last week to call a state of emergency. In declaring the emergency, Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga said he was confident the Olympics would be held.Japan has controlled the virus relatively well but the surge has heightened skepticism about the need for the Olympics and the danger of potentially bringing 15,000 Olympic and Paralympic athletes into the country.The Olympics could also attract tens of thousands of coaches, judges, officials, VIPs, sponsors, media and broadcasters. It is not clear if fans from abroad will be allowed, or if local fans will attend events.Japan has attributed about 3,800 deaths to COVID-19 in a country of 126 million.The TBS poll asked if the Olympics can be held. In the telephone survey with 1,261 responding, 81% replied “no” with only 13% answering “yes." The “no” responses increased 18 percentage points from a similar survey in December.In Kyodo's poll, 80.1% of respondents in a telephone survey said the Olympics should be canceled or rescheduled. The same question in December found 63% calling for cancellation or postponement.Kyodo said the survey covered 715 randomly selected households with eligible voters. Neither poll listed a margin of error.Japan is officially spending $15.4 billion to hold the Olympics, although several government audits show the number is about $25 billion. All but $6.7 billion is public money.The Switzerland-based IOC earns 91% of its income from selling broadcast rights and sponsorships. The American network NBC agreed in 2011 to a $4.38 billion contract with the IOC to broadcast four Olympics through the Tokyo. In 2014 it agreed to pay an added $7.75 billion for six more games — Winter and Summer — through 2032.

This college football season had a series of stops, starts and ripped-up schedules because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet, despite its unevenness, the 2020 season did conclude — and with a familiar team at the top.For the sixth time under head coach Nick Saban, the top-ranked Alabama Crimson Tide are national champions, pulling away to defeat No. 3 Ohio State 52-24 at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, Florida.At 13-0, Alabama ended a dominant season as the nation's only undefeated team. The Crimson Tide also avenged their loss to the Buckeyes in the inaugural College Football Playoff semifinals in the 2014 season.Heading into the fall, the initial outlook for these two teams were quite different. Like throughout the U.S., the pandemic wasn't handled in the same manner across the college football landscape.The Southeastern Conference didn't waver, opting to play a conference-only schedule for the 2020 season. Though at times impacted by COVID-19 — including Saban having to miss his team's game against Auburn after a positive test — Alabama had just one game postponed, which would eventually be played later in the season, against LSU.For Ohio State (7-1), vying to become the first team to win a national championship with just an 8-0 record since Minnesota did it in 1941, it wasn't so straightforward. In fact, it looked like Buckeyes wouldn't get to play at all.On August 11, the Big Ten Conference announced it was suspending fall sports, including football, because of health and safety concerns related to the pandemic. Just over a month later, on September 16, the conference reversed course, saying football season would resume in late October, including a specification that a team would need to play at least six games to be eligible for the conference championship game.But COVID-19 wreaked havoc on the schedule, and Ohio State had to cancel its game against Illinois, while two other schools (Maryland and Michigan) canceled against the Buckeyes because of their own COVID-19 concerns. That left the Buckeyes, at 5-0, on the outside looking in for the Big Ten title game.On December 9, officials from the Big Ten voted to amend its policy, which thereby extended Ohio State's season. The Buckeyes would come back against Northwestern in the Big Ten title game, and then went on to crush Clemson in the Sugar Bowl College Football Playoff semifinal.According to statistics provided by the College Football Playoff, Ohio State was one of 15 schools that had three games canceled and/or postponed without being made up. In all, according to the CFP, 111 games were canceled throughout the season because of the pandemic.

when we think about stars. Supermassive balls of white fusion gas are probably what come to mind, but they aren't also big. In fact, in the Milky Way galaxy red Dwarf E B L M j 0555-57 A. B is barely bigger than Saturn, and it's actually smaller than Jupiter. So you might be asking yourself, Why didn't Jupiter ever turned into a star? Jupiter, after all, is made of the same stuff that stars air made of hydrogen and helium. But the biggest factor is its density. Sure, Jupiter may have the mass of 2.5 times the rest of our solar systems planets combined, but its density is only around 1.33 g per cubic centimeter. And yeah, the sun's mass may only be 1.41 g per cubic centimeter. While Jupiter is big on a planetary scale, it's only 0.1 times the mass of our Sun Stars form when the core of a future star is pressed so hard under the gravity of its own mass. That thermonuclear fusion occurs, and Jupiter, while Big, just doesn't have enough mass. So rather than being a failed star. Like some may say, Jupiter is more likely the leftover gasses from the birth of our own solar systems. Son, right?

FM radio signal found coming from Jupiter moon

Updated: 8:43 AM EST Jan 12, 2021

Related video above: Here’s Why Jupiter Never Became a StarA spacecraft orbiting Jupiter discovered an FM radio signal from Ganymede, one of the gas giant's moons. The discovery marks the first time a signal has been detected from Ganymede.Patrick Wiggins, a NASA Utah ambassador, cautioned it's probably not aliens, according to KDFW.“It’s not E.T.,” Wiggins said. “It’s more of a natural function.”The spacecraft, called Juno, was moving across a region of Jupiter were magnetic field lines can connect with the Ganymede moon. That's when Juno picked up the radio source. Juno was sent out to study how Jupiter formed and evolved over time.“Juno's primary goal is to reveal the story of Jupiter's formation and evolution. Using long-proven technologies on a spinning spacecraft placed in an elliptical polar orbit, Juno will observe Jupiter's gravity and magnetic fields, atmospheric dynamics and composition, and evolution,” according to NASA.It was electrons, not extra terrestrials, responsible for the radio emissions form the moon.Through a process called cyclotron maser instability, electrons oscillate at a lower rate than they spin which causes them to amplify radio waves rapidly. Though a significant discovery, the orbiting spacecraft was only able to pick up the radio emissions for just five seconds. Juno hurtled by at a blinding speed of 111,847 mph. That's fast enough to cross the entire United States coast to coast in just under two minutes.

Related video above: Here’s Why Jupiter Never Became a Star

A spacecraft orbiting Jupiter discovered an FM radio signal from Ganymede, one of the gas giant's moons. The discovery marks the first time a signal has been detected from Ganymede.

Patrick Wiggins, a NASA Utah ambassador, cautioned it's probably not aliens, according to KDFW.

“It’s not E.T.,” Wiggins said. “It’s more of a natural function.”

The spacecraft, called Juno, was moving across a region of Jupiter were magnetic field lines can connect with the Ganymede moon. That's when Juno picked up the radio source.

Juno was sent out to study how Jupiter formed and evolved over time.

“Juno's primary goal is to reveal the story of Jupiter's formation and evolution. Using long-proven technologies on a spinning spacecraft placed in an elliptical polar orbit, Juno will observe Jupiter's gravity and magnetic fields, atmospheric dynamics and composition, and evolution,” according to NASA.

It was electrons, not extra terrestrials, responsible for the radio emissions form the moon.

Through a process called cyclotron maser instability, electrons oscillate at a lower rate than they spin which causes them to amplify radio waves rapidly.

Though a significant discovery, the orbiting spacecraft was only able to pick up the radio emissions for just five seconds. Juno hurtled by at a blinding speed of 111,847 mph. That's fast enough to cross the entire United States coast to coast in just under two minutes.

so at the outset, the president of the United States is the last person in the world who could want for a platform. Uh, but recall that free speech isn't speech free from consequences. It means speech free from government consequences. And here it's a government speaker who is the actor. So when digital services take content offline that they regard is inciting violence and thereby violating their terms of service, they're exercising their own, Speech writes in saying. We don't want our users and the public at large the affected by this content, which violates our policies and arguably of law. Digital services have taken action against the inflammatory rhetoric in the past, particularly when it violated their policies against misleading the users or or otherwise creating content that was inconsistent with what the president as ah user of the service, had committed to abide by theirs. Ah, very deep policy conversation we can have about how deep into the technological stack content moderation policies like he should be implemented. But I don't think there's any question that if you make a commitment to abide by certain rules when you enter into a contract that the other party can say, Hey, you've reached that commitment and terminate the service. And so that includes an Internet user. It also includes an app that allows it's users to, uh, thio, incite violence or otherwise engage in, uh, and behavior they committed not.

YouTube suspending President Donald Trump's channel

Updated: 11:45 PM EST Jan 12, 2021

Video above — Analysis: Twitter, Facebook moves protected by lawYouTube is suspending President Donald Trump's channel for at least one week, and potentially longer, after his channel earned a strike under the platform's policies, the company said Tuesday evening.A recent video on Trump's channel had incited violence, YouTube told CNN Business. That video has now been removed.YouTube declined to share details of the video that earned Trump the strike, but said that after the one-week timeout, it will revisit the decision.Until now, YouTube had been the only remaining major social media platform not to have suspended Trump in some fashion. Facebook has suspended Trump's account "indefinitely," while Twitter has banned Trump completely."After careful review, and in light of concerns about the ongoing potential for violence, we removed new content uploaded to the Donald J. Trump channel and issued a strike for violating our policies for inciting violence," a YouTube spokesperson said in a statement. "As a result, in accordance with our long-standing strikes system, the channel is now prevented from uploading new videos or livestreams for a minimum of seven days—which may be extended."YouTube also said it will be taking the extra step of disabling comments underneath videos on Trump's channel.Under YouTube's policies, earning a second strike will result in a two-week suspension and three strikes will result in a permanent ban.

CNN —

Video above — Analysis: Twitter, Facebook moves protected by law

YouTube is suspending President Donald Trump's channel for at least one week, and potentially longer, after his channel earned a strike under the platform's policies, the company said Tuesday evening.

A recent video on Trump's channel had incited violence, YouTube told CNN Business. That video has now been removed.

YouTube declined to share details of the video that earned Trump the strike, but said that after the one-week timeout, it will revisit the decision.

Until now, YouTube had been the only remaining major social media platform not to have suspended Trump in some fashion. Facebook has suspended Trump's account "indefinitely," while Twitter has banned Trump completely.

"After careful review, and in light of concerns about the ongoing potential for violence, we removed new content uploaded to the Donald J. Trump channel and issued a strike for violating our policies for inciting violence," a YouTube spokesperson said in a statement. "As a result, in accordance with our long-standing strikes system, the channel is now prevented from uploading new videos or livestreams for a minimum of seven days—which may be extended."

YouTube also said it will be taking the extra step of disabling comments underneath videos on Trump's channel.

Under YouTube's policies, earning a second strike will result in a two-week suspension and three strikes will result in a permanent ban.

President Donald Trump's fiery speech at a rally just before the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol is at the center of the impeachment charge against him, even as the falsehoods he spread for months about election fraud are still being championed by some Republicans.A Capitol police officer died from injuries suffered in the riot, and police shot and killed a woman during the siege. Three other people died in what authorities said were medical emergencies.Follow along below for updates: (all times eastern)9 a.m.The House has opened its proceedings Wednesday, poised to impeach President Donald Trump for a second time exactly a week after his supporters stormed the Capitol to protest his election defeat.At least five Republicans have said they will join Democrats in voting to remove Trump from office. The article of impeachment charges the president with “incitement of insurrection.”The House chaplain opened the session with a prayer for “seizing the scales of justice from the jaws of mob-ocracy.”A vote is expected by the end of the day.8:15 a.m.Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger is predicting more Republicans will join him in voting to impeach President Donald Trump.The House is set to vote Wednesday afternoon on impeaching Trump for a second time, accusing him of rallying a violent mob of supporters to attack the U.S. Capitol last week. If that isn't an impeachable offense, Kinzinger said, “I don't know what is.”Several other Republicans are backing impeachment, including No. 3 GOP leader Liz Cheney.“This is one of these moments that transcends politics,” the Illinois lawmaker told “CBS This Morning” in an interview ahead of the vote.Besides Kinzinger and Cheney, other Republicans backing impeachment are John Katko of New York, Fred Upton of Michigan and Jaime Herrera Beutler of Washington.Kinzinger wouldn’t say how many more GOP lawmakers might vote to impeach, but said, “there’ll be more than the five you’ve seen so far.”

Video above: President Trump condemns violence, calls for calm in videoPotential threats and leads are pouring in to law enforcement agencies nationwide after the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. The challenge is now figuring out what's real and what's just noise.Investigators are combing through a mountain of online posts, street surveillance and other intelligence, including information that suggests mobs could try to storm the Capitol again and threats to kill some members of Congress.Security is being tightened from coast to coast. Thousands of National Guard troops are guarding the Capitol ahead of President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration. Governors and lawmakers are stepping up protections at statehouses after an FBI bulletin this week warned of threats to legislative sessions and other inaugural ceremonies.A primary concern is the safety of members of Congress, particularly when they are traveling through airports, according to two U.S. officials briefed on the matter.The FBI and other federal authorities use their substantial resources to prepare. But smaller local police departments lack the staff to hunt down every tip. They must rely heavily on state and federal assessments to inform their work, and that information sometimes slips through the cracks — which apparently happened last week. A day before the deadly attack on the Capitol, the FBI sent an intelligence bulletin warning of potential violence to other agencies, including the Capitol Police. But officials either did not receive it or ignored it — and instead prepared for a free-speech protest, not a riot. It took nearly two hours for reinforcements to arrive to help disperse the mob. Five people died, including a Capitol officer.“There are some grammar schools that are better protected than the Capitol,” said Brian Higgins, a professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York and the former chief of a northern New Jersey police force.Since last week, the FBI has opened 170 case files and received more than 100,000 pieces of digital media. The threats have ranged in specificity and complexity, according to officials briefed on them, making it difficult for authorities to determine which could be credible.Combing through intelligence isn't the same as shoe-leather detective work. Large departments like New York and Los Angeles have dedicated intelligence units — the NYPD even disseminated its own bulletin ahead of the riot. But smaller police forces rely on joint terrorism task forces and so-called “fusion centers” that were set up around the country after the 2001 attacks to improve communication between agencies.Norton, Kansas, Police Chief Gerald Cullumber leads a seven-member department in the northwestern part of the state. He said he relies on larger agencies like the Kansas Highway Patrol because his agency is too small to do its own intelligence work. But Cullumber said he stays up to date on the latest information and briefs his officers.“It doesn’t mean that we rest on our laurels," he said. "It doesn’t mean that we ignore things.”Once they receive intelligence reports, it’s up to local agencies to plan and take action to keep their communities safe, said Rich Stanek, the former sheriff of Hennepin County in Minnesota who now works in consulting and started the Public Safety Strategies Group.“If I was the sheriff today, I would be taking it very seriously,” he said. “If they told me Jan. 17 is the date, yeah, I think it’s reasonable to plan for one week ahead and one week behind.”Mike Koval, who retired in 2019 as the police chief in Madison, Wisconsin, said his state's two fusion centers have technology and resources that go far beyond those of a single local police department.Staying on top of all the potential intelligence on the internet is like “going to a water fountain to get a drink of water, and it’s coming out with the strength of a fire hydrant and it will take your jaw off,” Koval said.Meanwhile, elected officials nationwide, including President Donald Trump, have started to urge calm amid the threats. Trump egged on the riots during a speech at the Washington Monument, beseeching his loyalists to go to the Capitol as Congress was certifying Biden’s victory. He took no responsibility for the riot.“In light of reports of more demonstrations, I urge that there must be NO violence, NO lawbreaking and NO vandalism of any kind,” Trump said in a statement Wednesday. “That is not what I stand for, and it is not what America stands for. I call on ALL Americans to help ease tensions and calm tempers.”Experts say explicit or implicit bias likely helped downplay last week's threat because the protesters were white, and that must change, said Eric K. Ward, a senior fellow with the Southern Poverty Law Center and an expert on authoritarian movements and hate groups.That could be why Capitol police were so unprepared, compared with the much more aggressive law enforcement response to last summer's protests following the death of George Floyd and other Black men killed by law enforcement.___ Dazio reported from Los Angeles. Associated Press writers Amy Forliti and Doug Glass in Minneapolis, Michael R. Sisak in New York and Maryclaire Dale in Philadelphia contributed to this report.

Video above: State Capitols step up security amid threatsU.S. defense officials say they are worried about an insider attack or other threat from service members involved in securing President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration, prompting the FBI to vet all of the 25,000 National Guard troops coming into Washington for the event.The massive undertaking reflects the extraordinary security concerns that have gripped Washington following the deadly Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol by pro-Trump rioters. And it underscores fears that some of the very people assigned to protect the city over the next several days could present a threat to the incoming president and other VIPs in attendance.Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy told The Associated Press on Sunday that officials are conscious of the potential threat, and he warned commanders to be on the lookout for any problems within their ranks as the inauguration approaches. So far, however, he and other leaders say they have seen no evidence of any threats, and officials said the vetting hadn't flagged any issues that they were aware of.”We’re continually going through the process, and taking second, third looks at every one of the individuals assigned to this operation,” McCarthy said in an interview after he and other military leaders went through an exhaustive, three-hour security drill in preparation for Wednesday’s inauguration. He said Guard members are also getting training on how to identify potential insider threats.About 25,000 members of the National Guard are streaming into Washington from across the country — at least two and a half times the number for previous inaugurals. And while the military routinely reviews service members for extremist connections, the FBI screening is in addition to any previous monitoring.Multiple officials said the process began as the first Guard troops began deploying to D.C. more than a week ago. And they said it is slated to be complete by Wednesday. Several officials discussed military planning on condition of anonymity.“The question is, is that all of them? Are there others?” said McCarthy. “We need to be conscious of it and we need to put all of the mechanisms in place to thoroughly vet these men and women who would support any operations like this.”In a situation like this one, FBI vetting would involve running peoples’ names through databases and watchlists maintained by the bureau to see if anything alarming comes up. That could include involvement in prior investigations or terrorism-related concerns, said David Gomez, a former FBI national security supervisor in Seattle.Insider threats have been a persistent law enforcement priority in the years after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. But in most cases, the threats are from homegrown insurgents radicalized by al-Qaida, the Islamic State group or similar groups. In contrast, the threats against Biden’s inauguration have been fueled by supporters of President Donald Trump, far-right militants, white supremacists and other radical groups. Many believe Trump’s baseless accusations that the election was stolen from him, a claim that has been refuted by many courts, the Justice Department and Republican officials in key battleground states.The insurrection at the Capitol began after Trump made incendiary remarks at the Jan. 6 rally. According to McCarthy, service members from across the military were at that rally, but it’s not clear how many were there or who may have participated in the breach at the Capitol. So far only a couple of current active-duty or National Guard members have been arrested in connection with the Capitol assault, which left five people dead. The dead included a Capitol Police officer and a woman shot by police as she climbed through a window in a door near the House chamber.Gen. Daniel R. Hokanson, chief of the National Guard Bureau, has been meeting with Guard troops as they arrive in D.C. and as they gather downtown. He said he believes there are good processes in place to identify any potential threats.“If there’s any indication that any of our soldiers or airmen are expressing things that are extremist views, it’s either handed over to law enforcement or dealt with the chain of command immediately,” he said.The insider threat, however, was just one of the security concerns voiced by officials on Sunday, as dozens of military, National Guard, law enforcement and Washington, D.C., officials and commanders went through a security rehearsal in northern Virginia. As many as three dozen leaders lined tables that ringed a massive color-coded map of D.C. reflected onto the floor. Behind them were dozens more National Guard officers and staff, with their eyes trained on additional maps and charts displayed on the wall.The Secret Service is in charge of event security, but there is a wide variety of military and law enforcement personnel involved, ranging from the National Guard and the FBI to Washington’s Metropolitan Police Department, U.S. Capitol Police and U.S. Park Police.Commanders went over every aspect of the city’s complicated security lockdown, with McCarthy and others peppering them with questions about how the troops will respond in any scenario and how well they can communicate with the other enforcement agencies scattered around the city. Hokanson said he believes his troops have been adequately equipped and prepared, and that they are rehearsing as much as they can to be prepared for any contingency.The major security concern is an attack by armed groups of individuals, as well as planted explosives and other devices. McCarthy said intelligence reports suggest that groups are organizing armed rallies leading up to Inauguration Day, and possibly after that.The bulk of the Guard members will be armed. And McCarthy said units are going through repeated drills to practice when and how to use force and how to work quickly with law enforcement partners. Law enforcement officers would make any arrests.He said Guard units are going through “constant mental repetitions of looking at the map and talking through scenarios with leaders so they understand their task and purpose, they know their routes, they know where they’re friendly, adjacent units are, they have the appropriate frequencies to communicate with their law enforcement partners.”The key goal, he said, is for America’s transfer of power to happen without incident.“This is a national priority. We have to be successful as an institution,” said McCarthy. “We want to send the message to everyone in the United States and for the rest of the world that we can do this safely and peacefully.”___Associated Press writer Eric Tucker contributed to this report.

Video above: Pfizer study says vaccine protects against variantThe race against the virus that causes COVID-19 has taken a new turn: Mutations are rapidly popping up, and the longer it takes to vaccinate people, the more likely it is that a variant that can elude current tests, treatments and vaccines could emerge.The coronavirus is becoming more genetically diverse, and health officials say the high rate of new cases is the main reason. Each new infection gives the virus a chance to mutate as it makes copies of itself, threatening to undo the progress made so far to control the pandemic.On Friday, the World Health Organization urged more effort to detect new variants. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said a new version first identified in the United Kingdom may become dominant in the U.S. by March. Although it doesn’t cause more severe illness, it will lead to more hospitalizations and deaths just because it spreads much more easily, said the CDC, warning of “a new phase of exponential growth.”“We’re taking it really very seriously," Dr. Anthony Fauci, the U.S. government's top infectious disease expert, said Sunday on NBC's “Meet the Press.”“We need to do everything we can now ... to get transmission as low as we possibly can,” said Harvard University’s Dr. Michael Mina. “The best way to prevent mutant strains from emerging is to slow transmission.”So far, vaccines seem to remain effective, but there are signs that some of the new mutations may undermine tests for the virus and reduce the effectiveness of antibody drugs as treatments. “We’re in a race against time" because the virus “may stumble upon a mutation” that makes it more dangerous, said Dr. Pardis Sabeti, an evolutionary biologist at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. Younger people may be less willing to wear masks, shun crowds and take other steps to avoid infection because the current strain doesn’t seem to make them very sick, but “in one mutational change, it might,” she warned. Sabeti documented a change in the Ebola virus during the 2014 outbreak that made it much worse.MUTATIONS ON THE RISEIt's normal for viruses to acquire small changes or mutations in their genetic alphabet as they reproduce. Ones that help the virus flourish give it a competitive advantage and thus crowd out other versions.In March, just a couple months after the coronavirus was discovered in China, a mutation called D614G emerged that made it more likely to spread. It soon became the dominant version in the world.Now, after months of relative calm, “we’ve started to see some striking evolution” of the virus, biologist Trevor Bedford of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle wrote on Twitter last week. “The fact that we’ve observed three variants of concern emerge since September suggests that there are likely more to come.”One was first identified in the United Kingdom and quickly became dominant in parts of England. It has now been reported in at least 30 countries, including the United States. Soon afterward, South Africa and Brazil reported new variants, and the main mutation in the version identified in Britain turned up on a different version “that’s been circulating in Ohio ... at least as far back as September,” said Dr. Dan Jones, a molecular pathologist at Ohio State University who announced that finding last week.“The important finding here is that this is unlikely to be travel-related” and instead may reflect the virus acquiring similar mutations independently as more infections occur, Jones said.That also suggests that travel restrictions might be ineffective, Mina said. Because the United States has so many cases, “we can breed our own variants that are just as bad or worse” as those in other countries, he said.___TREATMENT, VACCINE, REINFECTION RISKSSome lab tests suggest the variants identified in South Africa and Brazil may be less susceptible to antibody drugs or convalescent plasma, antibody-rich blood from COVID-19 survivors — both of which help people fight off the virus.Government scientists are “actively looking” into that possibility, Dr. Janet Woodcock of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration told reporters Thursday. The government is encouraging development of multi-antibody treatments rather than single-antibody drugs to have more ways to target the virus in case one proves ineffective, she said. Current vaccines induce broad enough immune responses that they should remain effective, many scientists say. Enough genetic change eventually may require tweaking the vaccine formula, but “it’s probably going to be on the order of years if we use the vaccine well rather than months,” Dr. Andrew Pavia of the University of Utah said Thursday on a webcast hosted by the Infectious Diseases Society of America.Health officials also worry that if the virus changes enough, people might get COVID-19 a second time. Reinfection currently is rare, but Brazil already confirmed a case in someone with a new variant who had been sickened with a previous version several months earlier.___WHAT TO DO“We’re seeing a lot of variants, viral diversity, because there’s a lot of virus out there,” and reducing new infections is the best way to curb it, said Dr. Adam Lauring, an infectious diseases expert at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Loyce Pace, who heads the nonprofit Global Health Council and is a member of President-elect Joe Biden’s COVID-19 advisory board, said the same precautions scientists have been advising all along “still work and they still matter.”“We still want people to be masking up,” she said Thursday on a webcast hosted by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. “We still need people to limit congregating with people outside their household. We still need people to be washing their hands and really being vigilant about those public health practices, especially as these variants emerge.”___AP Medical Writer Carla K. Johnson in Seattle contributed reporting.___The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Joe Biden swears the oath of office at noon Wednesday to become the 46th president of the United States, taking the helm of a deeply divided nation and inheriting a confluence of crises arguably greater than any faced by his predecessors.Here's the latest on the inauguration. All times are ET: 8:40 a.m.President-elect Joe Biden is attending church ahead of his inauguration, a traditional step taken ahead of the swearing-in ceremony.Biden and incoming first lady Dr. Jill Biden on Wednesday are attending a service at Washington’s Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle. With them are incoming Vice President Kamala Harris and her husband, Douglas Emhoff.At Biden’s invitation, the first couple is joined by a bipartisan group of members of Congress, including all four top-ranking members of congressional leadership.That includes both Senate leaders, Republican Mitch McConnell and Democrat Chuck Schumer, as well as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy.8:35 a.m.Trump arrives at Joint Base Andrews and is speaking to a crowd of supporters. 8:15 a.m.President Donald Trump is leaving the White House for the final time as president.Trump emerged from the building Wednesday morning and strode across the South Lawn to board Marine One. He said, “It’s been a great honor, the honor of a lifetime.”He will not attend Biden's inauguration.6 a.m.There are more than 20,000 National Guard troops in Washington Wednesday morning as the nation's capital prepares to hold an unprecedented inauguration for President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris.2 a.m.During his final hours as president, Trump pardoned Steve Bannon, his former chief strategist. Trump also pardoned dozens of others.------------Original story:The very ceremony in which presidential power is transferred, a hallowed American democratic tradition, will serve as a jarring reminder of the challenges Biden faces: The inauguration unfolds at a U.S. Capitol battered by an insurrectionist siege just two weeks ago, encircled by security forces evocative of those in a war zone, and devoid of crowds because of the threat of the coronavirus pandemic.Stay home, Americans were exhorted, to prevent further spread of a surging virus that has claimed 400,000 American lives. Biden will look out over a capital city dotted with empty storefronts that attest to the pandemic’s deep economic toll and where summer protests laid bare the nation’s renewed reckoning on racial justice.He will not be applauded — or likely even acknowledged — by his predecessor. Flouting tradition, Donald Trump planned to depart Washington on Wednesday morning ahead of the inauguration rather than accompany his successor to the Capitol. Trump, awaiting his second impeachment trial, stoked grievance among his supporters with the lie that Biden’s win was illegitimate.Biden, in his third run for the presidency, staked his candidacy less on any distinctive political ideology than on galvanizing a broad coalition of voters around the notion that Trump posed an existential threat to American democracy. On his first day, Biden will take a series of executive actions — on the pandemic, climate, immigration and more — to undo the heart of Trump's agenda. He takes office with the bonds of the republic strained and the nation reeling from challenges that rival those faced by Abraham Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt.“Biden will face a series of urgent, burning crises like we have not seen before, and they all have to be solved at once. It is very hard to find a parallel in history,” said presidential historian Michael Beschloss. “I think we have been through a near-death experience as a democracy. Americans who will watch the new president be sworn in are now acutely aware of how fragile our democracy is and how much it needs to be protected.”Biden will come to office with a well of empathy and resolve born by personal tragedy as well as a depth of experience forged from more than four decades in Washington. At age 78, he will be the oldest president inaugurated.More history will be made at his side, as Kamala Harris becomes the first woman to become vice president. The former U.S. senator from California is also the first Black person and first person of South Asian descent elected to the vice presidency and will become the highest-ranking woman ever to serve in government.The two will be sworn in during an inauguration ceremony with few parallels in history. Tens of thousands of troops are on the streets to provide security precisely two weeks after a violent mob of Trump supporters, incited by the president, stormed the Capitol in an attempt to prevent the certification of Biden’s victory.The tense atmosphere evoked the 1861 inauguration of Lincoln, who was secretly transported to Washington to avoid assassins on the eve of the Civil War, or Roosevelt's inaugural in 1945, when he opted for a small, secure ceremony at the White House in the waning months of World War II.Despite security warnings, Biden declined to move the ceremony indoors and instead will address a small, socially distant crowd on the West Front of the Capitol. Some of the traditional trappings of the quadrennial ceremony will remain.The day will begin with a reach across the aisle after four years of bitter partisan battles under Trump. Biden invited Mitch McConnell and Kevin McCarthy, the Republican leaders of the Senate and House, to join him at a morning Mass, along with Chuck Schumer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic leaders.Once at the Capitol, Biden will be administered the oath by Chief Justice John Roberts; Harris will be sworn in by Justice Sonia Sotomayor. The theme of Biden’s approximately 30-minute speech will be “America United,” and aides said it would be a call to set aside differences during a moment of national trial.Biden will then oversee a “Pass in Review,” a military tradition that honors the peaceful transfer of power to a new commander in chief. Then, Biden, Harris and their spouses will be joined by a bipartisan trio of former presidents — Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama — to lay a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Ceremony. Later, Biden will join the end of a slimmed-down inaugural parade as he moves into the White House. Because of the pandemic, much of this year's parade will be a virtual affair featuring performances from around the nation.In the evening, in lieu of the traditional glitzy balls that welcome a new president to Washington, Biden will take part in a televised concert that also marks the return of A-list celebrities to the White House orbit after they largely eschewed Trump. Among those in the lineup: Bruce Springsteen, Justin Timberlake and Lin-Manuel Miranda. Lady Gaga will sing the national anthem at the Capitol earlier in the day.Trump will be the first president in more than a century to skip the inauguration of his successor. He planned his own farewell celebration at nearby Joint Base Andrews before boarding Air Force One for the final time as president for the flight to his Florida estate.Trump will nonetheless shadow Biden’s first days in office. Trump’s second impeachment trial could start as early as this week. That could test the ability of the Senate, poised to come under Democratic control, to balance impeachment proceedings with confirmation hearings and votes on Biden’s Cabinet choices. Biden was eager to go big early, with an ambitious first 100 days that includes a push to speed up the distribution of COVID-19 vaccinations to anxious Americans and pass a $1.9 trillion virus relief package. On Day One, he’ll also send an immigration proposal to Capitol Hill that would create an eight-year path to citizenship for immigrants living in the country illegally.He also planned a 10-day blitz of executive orders on matters that don’t require congressional approval — a mix of substantive and symbolic steps to unwind the Trump years. Among the planned steps: rescinding travel restrictions on people from several predominantly Muslim countries; rejoining the Paris climate accord; issuing a mask mandate for those on federal property; and ordering agencies to figure out how to reunite children separated from their families after crossing the border.The difficulties he faces are immense, to be mentioned in the same breath as Roosevelt taking office during the Great Depression or Obama, under whom Biden served eight years as vice president, during the economic collapse. And the solution may be similar.“There is now, as there was in 1933, a vital need for leadership,” said presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, “for every national resource to be brought to bear to get the virus under control, to help produce and distribute the vaccines, to get vaccines into the arms of the people, to spur the economy to recover and get people back to work and to school.”