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The Biden administration will release every available vaccine dose once he takes office. This is the opposite of what the Trump administration who says we need to hold back.

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exclusive: biden will release all available vaccine doses in break from trump administration policy of holding back stock for second dose - cnnpolitics

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EXCLUSIVE: Biden will release all available vaccine doses in break from Trump administration policy of holding back stock for second dose

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President-elect Joe Biden will aim to release every available dose of the coronavirus vaccine when he takes office, a break with the Trump administration's strategy of holding back half of US vaccine production to ensure second doses are available.

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New York is now the 4th state to go over 1 million Covid cases.  With the vaccine coming out Mayor Bill de Blasio has said that the city plans to to vaccinate 1 million residents in January alone.

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New York on Saturday became the fourth state to record more than 1 million Covid-19 cases since the coronavirus pandemic started.

As of Saturday, New York had 1,014,044 confirmed cases, according to NBC News counts. California remains at the top of the list with 2.3 million confirmed cases, the most of any state in the country. Florida and Texas have 1.3 million cases and 1.7 million cases, respectively.

Public health officials in New York say the official number of cases represents a significant undercount, since many people in the New York City area were infected with the coronavirus last spring when testing was largely unavailable, NBC New York reported.

"As we start 2021, I encourage all New Yorkers to look to their better angels and continue the practices we know stop the spread of this virus - wash your hands, socially distance and wear a mask," Gov. Andrew Cuomo said in a statement.

Mayor Bill de Blasio has said that the city plans to to vaccinate 1 million residents in January alone.

The United States ended 2020 with the deadliest and most infectious month since the start of the pandemic.

More than 77,000 people died in December, while 6.4 million people contracted the virus amid the emergence of a new variant and delayed efforts to vaccinate people. The second-deadliest month was April 2020, with more than 58,000 deaths.

At least four cases of the Covid-19 variant first detected in the United Kingdom have recently been reported in Colorado, California and Florida, but public health experts believe it is likely circulating elsewhere in the country.

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New York becomes fourth state to record 1 million Covid-19 cases

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New York on Saturday became the fourth state to record more than 1 million Covid-19 cases since the coronavirus pandemic started. As of Saturday, New York had 1,014,044 confirmed cases, according to NBC News counts. California remains at the top of the list with 2.3 million confirmed cases, the most of any state in the country.

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This article talks about two women who are thousands of miles away from each other but have a connection because they both lost their jobs because of the pandemic.  J.C. Penny filed for bankruptcy and was bought out but lost 10,00 workers.

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In her last weeks working the freight shift at the local J.C. Penney store, Alexandra Orozco took out her phone and hit record. The 22-year-old shot a video of the giant black-and-red 'Everything Must go!" posters, and posted it on TikTok in October.

"Slowing losing my job," she wrote below, days before the store in Delano, California shut for good, one of 156 J.C. Penneys across the United States to close since June of this year.

Since being laid off, she's applied for a couple of roles - counselling kids, delivering flowers - but has yet to hear back.

"It's so sad," she explains over the phone. "And it's hard to find jobs here."

Halfway across the world, Matefo Litali experienced upheaval, too. A skilled sewer, the 53-year-old worked at Tzicc Clothing, apparel-maker for U.S-based giants J.C. Penney and Walmart, in Lesotho, a small mountainous country surrounded by South Africa. She was employed for two months before nationwide lockdown measures forced all garment factories to temporarily close in March. After two days back at work, Tzicc confirmed her last day was May 7.

"I felt powerless," she says. "The first thing that went through my mind was, 'Why me?'"

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This story was reported by The Fuller Project, a global nonprofit newsroom reporting on issues that affect women.

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Over the past two decades Lesotho's garment industry, where 9 out of 10 workers are women, has boomed to become its largest employer, crafting clothes for Levis Strauss, Wrangler and Walmart. While Lesotho is a lesser-known garment powerhouse compared to China or Bangladesh, it's another example of an economy heavily reliant on U.S. demand. Outside of the African continent, America is the largest recipient of Lesotho's exports - accounting for almost half - according to the most recently available World Trade Organization data from 2017.

In the U.S, meanwhile, clothing retailers have been hit particularly hard. The country is one of the world's top importers of clothing, accounting for nearly a quarter of global retail spend. While J.C. Penney hasn't been profitable since 2010, the 118-year-old chain filed for bankruptcy in May. Six months later, it was bought out but its workforce was slashed by over 10,000 during restructuring, a source familiar with the situation confirmed to The Fuller Project." . J.Crew, Neiman Marcus and Brooks Brothers also filed for bankruptcy this year.

"And when a big U.S retailer takes a tumble," says Neil Saunders, managing director of GlobalData Retail, "the effects are felt across the globe."

In March, as U.S. retailers cancelled or failed to pay for existing orders worth billions of dollars, the effects quickly rippled down the supply chain.

At Tzicc Clothing, roughly one fifth of employees have lost their jobs since May, says Tšepang Makakole of Lesotho's National Clothing and Textile Workers Union. "For women, it's a disaster...The industry is facing a total collapse."

Litali felt weak in the knees when she heard that she was suddenly unemployed. A widow for the last eight years, the seamstress single-handedly supports her youngest daughter, who is 20, and her 4-year-old grandchild. During the lockdown, her employer delayed her final $94 paycheck for three months until May.

The Human Resources manager at Tzicc Clothing, Masefatsa Mofolo, confirmed the company laid off staff due to limited orders.

For months, Litali received no income or support, instead surviving off donated food from the local church until her final salary arrived. "I got so stressed I thought I was going mad," she says. "I would spend the whole day sleeping."

Back in California, Orozco occasionally walks past the town's J.C. Penney. The windows are free from sale signs, the gates locked. "I was close to the cleaning lady who worked there," she says. "It broke my heart to know I probably won't ever see her again."

A spokesperson for J.C. Penney declined to comment on the closures.

Although Orozco lives with her parents, she still has car and phone bills. When her store closed temporarily in mid-March in adherence with COVID-19 measures, she was out of work for three months and applied for unemployment. She used the time to finesse her side-hustle: a make-up business, selling lashes, lipglosses and clothes via Instagram.

She's earning roughly $200-300 per month in sales, nearly five times less than her salary at J.C. Penney.

Today, both Litali and Orozco's lives look uncertain. In August, Litali landed a job sewing jeans at another factory, but she fears her temporary contract won't be renewed.

By next year, Orozco hopes to have saved enough to open a brick-and-mortar store. "It's stressful but... I know one day it will be worth it."

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Additional research by Refiloe Makhaba Nkune. Louise Donovan is a reporter with The Fuller Project.

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Pandemic crushes global supply chains, workers at both ends

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In her last weeks working the freight shift at the local J.C. Penney store, Alexandra Orozco took out her phone and hit record. The 22-year-old shot a video of the giant black-and-red 'Everything Must go!" posters, and posted it on TikTok in October.

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the patriots lost to the dolphins but the bears won making the patriots 16th for the draft winch is very good news for them as they lost their star quarterback tom Brady.

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Good news for the Patriots' NFL Draft position: The Bears won

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The New England Patriots lost Sunday to the Miami Dolphins, ending their postseason dreams. But at least Bill Belichick's team moved down in the NFL Draft order.

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The MLB has been affected a lot by this pandemic that is in 2020. They have had to drop $2.5 billion dollars in payroll. The wages for a 40-man roster usually costs $1.54 billion just for payroll.

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Major League Baseball payrolls plunged to $1.75 billion during the pandemic-shortened season from $4.22 billion, and the World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers led with $98.6 million - the smallest for the top spender in 20 years

NEW YORK -- Major League Baseball payrolls plunged to $1.75 billion during the pandemic-shortened season from $4.22 billion, and the World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers led with $98.6 million - the smallest for the top spender in 20 years.

Base wages for 40-man rosters tumbled to $1.54 billion, according to information sent from Major League Baseball to teams on Friday night and obtained by The Associated Press. That was down from $3.99 billion in 2019.

Prorated portions of signing bonuses totaled $120.6 million, down slightly from $122.8 million. Earned bonuses fell to $25 million from $26.9 million.

Buyouts of unexercised 2021 options came to $58.2 million, more than double the $26.9 million for buyouts of unexercised 2020 options, a sign of expense-cutting amid the revenue loss.

Los Angeles won its first title since 1988 as it topped spending for the first time since 2017, when the Dodgers led for the fourth year in a row. The total had not been that low of the top spender since the New York Yankees in 2000 at $95.3 million.

The Yankees, at $83.6 million, were No. 2 for the second straight season. The New York Mets were third at $83.4 million in their final season of ownership by the Wilpon and Katz families, up from 12th and their highest since they were second in 2009. The Mets were purchased last month by hedge fund manager Steven Cohen, who is boosting payroll higher for next year.

Houston was fourth at $81.4 million, up from eighth, followed by the Chicago Cubs at $80.6 million, down from third.

San Diego was sixth at $76.3 million, followed by Washington ($76.2 million), Texas ($75.2 million) and the Los Angeles Angels ($69.9 million),

Boston, two years removed from a World Series title, dropped from first to 13th at $63.3 million after trading stars Mookie Betts and David Price to the Dodgers.

AL champion Tampa Bay was 28th at $29.4 million, ahead of only Pittsburgh ($24.1 million) and Baltimore ($23.5 million).

Base salaries were reduced by 60/162 due the shortened schedule as part of an agreement between MLB and the players' association following the interruption of spring training by the novel coronavirus. The season's start was delayed from March 26 to July 23, and each team's schedule cut from 162 games to 60.

If full salaries had been paid and a complete schedule played with the usual average of callups from the minors, payrolls likely would have increased by 4% from 2019.

While the luxury tax was suspended, three teams projected to finish over the $208 million tax threshold, based on full payrolls by average annual value and including benefits and a COVID credit of at least $1.5 million per club: the Yankees ($239.8 million), Houston ($224.3 million) and the Chicago Cubs ($216.3 million).

New York and Chicago, both over for the second straight year, would have paid at 30% of the amount above $208 million up until $228 million, and the Yankees would have paid 42% in the amount over $228 million. Houston would have paid at a 20% amount on its overage.

The Yankees avoided what would have been a full tax bill of $10,965,773 according to AP's calculation, the Astros $3,263,801 and the Cubs $2,480,775. If they had paid on a prorated 60/162 share, the Yankees would have owed $4,061,397, the Astros $1,208,815 and the Cubs $918,805.

Still, each of those teams will have the compensation rate of a luxury tax-paying club if it signs a free agent who turned down a qualifying offer from another team: Each would forfeit its second- and fifth-highest picks in the 2021 amateur draft and lose $1 million of international amateur signing bonus pool allotment.

Philadelphia was just under the tax threshold at $207.3 million and the Dodgers at $204.6 million.

Boston dropped to $184.9 million after paying a Red Sox record $13.4 million luxury tax in 2019, when the team failed make the playoffs.

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More AP MLB: https://apnews.com/MLB and https://twitter.com/AP-Sports

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AP Exclusive: MLB payrolls drop nearly $2.5B in pandemic

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Major League Baseball payrolls plunged to $1.75 billion during the pandemic-shortened season from $4.22 billion, and the World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers led with $98.6 million - the smallest for the top spender in 20 years NEW YORK -- Major League Baseball payrolls plunged to $1.75 billion during the pandemic-shortened season from $4.22 billion, and the World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers led with $98.6 million - the smallest for the top spender in 20 years.

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As covid cases rise, school districts around the country are aggressively recruiting substitute teachers at an attempt to keep classrooms open. In many cases, college students, who are also learning online/home, have stepped in to fill some of those positions.

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INDIANAPOLIS -- As the coronavirus sidelines huge numbers of educators, school districts around the country are aggressively recruiting substitute teachers, offering bonuses and waiving certification requirements in order to keep classrooms open.

Coming to the rescue in many cases are college students who are themselves learning online or home for extended winter breaks.

In Indiana, the 4,400-student Greenfield-Central school district about 20 miles (32 kilometers) east of Indianapolis made a plea for help as its substitute pool shrank. "I said, 'If you've got a student who's in college, maybe they'd like to work even a two-month thing for us - which would be a stopgap, no doubt - but it will help us a whole, whole bunch," said Scott Kern, the Greenfield-Central Community School Corporation director of human resources.

Over a dozen college students answered the call including his own daughter, 19-year-old Grace Kern, who is studying medical imaging technology at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis. She has been working in elementary school classrooms, helping students as teachers offer instruction remotely via a screen inside the room.

"My dad told me that a bunch of teachers are out and they're struggling to get substitutes in. And I was like, 'Well, all my classes are online, except for one, so I have the time to do it.' And I would hate for the schools and the students to struggle," she said.

The teaching force already was stretched in many places before the pandemic hit as fewer students entered the profession, and retirees who often fill in as substitutes have been staying home in large numbers because of concerns about their health. As contact tracing forces teachers into quarantine, staffing shortages have become so severe that many schools have had no choice but to switch to distance learning.

In Connecticut, Gov. Ned Lamont, a Democrat, appealed late last month to college students who were coming home for their winter break to help in hospitals, virus testing sites - and in schools. In cases where teachers are leading instruction remotely because they have to be in quarantine, for example, Lamont said college students could be paid to come into the classrooms and help provide supervision.

"Look you could binge watch Netflix for three weeks but we have some other ways that you could really be of assistance, helping your entire community get through this pandemic," Lamont said at a news briefing.

Isabel Orozco, a freshman at Wellesley College, is working as a substitute teacher in the Cheshire, Connecticut district, where she graduated high school in June. She said she's considering taking all of her spring semester classes online, so she can continue working in the public schools.

"Anything I can do to help, I feel good about," she said.

College students have been tapped in growing numbers this year by Kelly Education, which contracts with districts to provide substitutes. Company president Nicola Soares said the pandemic has laid bare problems with shortages that have been worsening for years.

"So when I think about the pandemic and everything that we have seen for the past 10 months it has absolutely exacerbated the issue around teacher shortages and also substitute teacher shortages," Soares said, adding that she doesn't expect much relief next school year. "We have seen a lot of folks leave the profession. The openings are going to increase, so it is domino effect."

In South Carolina, Lisa Usry, of Charleston, encountered this firsthand. One of her first jobs of the year was filling in for a teacher in his mid-60s who quit abruptly.

"He worked a couple weeks and said, 'I'm out of here' and walked out the door," she recalled.

In Nebraska, more districts are applying for exemptions to a requirement that substitutes have a teaching certificate. The exemption, once only used by a few large districts, allows administrators to hire subs who have 60 college credits and have completed a teaching course and another that addresses bias and discrimination.

Because the state's substitute requirements had been so high, it had relied heavily on retirees in years past, said Jenni Benson, president of the Nebraska State Education Association. But it has been a harder sell this year, with the association finding that only 33% of the 500 retired teachers it surveyed in August planned to sub this year, while the others said no or were unsure.

Seventy-four-year-old Pat Shepard, a retired Spanish teacher from of Lincoln, Nebraska, was among those who went ahead and kept working, more even than past years as her district offered bonuses for subs that committed to a certain number of jobs each month. Some of her substitute teacher friends, though, decided to take the year off.

"One she has a father who is 89 with a heart condition and a brand new grandbaby so she is not willing. I've had some others who are cancer survivors and things like that. And they are just not willing to take that risk," she said. "I'm a little bit more concerned now after Thanksgiving because our our cases here are just getting more and more everyday in the city."

In Iowa, more substitute jobs are going unfilled, even after the state lowered its requirements. In the past districts could manage by dividing an absent teacher's students among the other teachers in the building. But that won't work in a pandemic, said Coy Marquardt, associate executive director at the Iowa State Education Association.

To get by, some administrators and counselors are being called into action to serve as substitutes, although even that isn't enough.

"That is one of the reasons why some of the districts went and are still in virtual or remote because they just didn't have the staffing," he said.

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Hollingsworth reported from Mission, Kansas. Pat Eaton-Robb contributed from Hartford, Connecticut.

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College students recruited as teachers to keep schools open

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INDIANAPOLIS -- As the coronavirus sidelines huge numbers of educators, school districts around the country are aggressively recruiting substitute teachers, offering bonuses and waiving certification requirements in order to keep classrooms open. Coming to the rescue in many cases are college students who are themselves learning online or home for extended winter breaks.

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The FDA has now allowed a second COVID-19 vaccine to doses to states. It can be used for people 18 and over and a shipment of millions of more doses with be going to hospitals and nursing homes within days. This new vaccine has showed to be highly effective and its estimated a 94% effective rate with very little serious side effects.

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Doses of the vaccine are expected to be shipped next week.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has authorized use of a second COVID-19 vaccine for people age of 18 and over, a move that will trigger the shipment of millions more doses to hospitals and nursing homes next week.

Like its competitor Pfizer, the Moderna vaccine was believed to be both safe and highly effective. After tracking some 30,000 volunteers, Moderna estimated it as 94% effective in preventing COVID-19 illness with few serious side effects.

"With the availability of two vaccines now for the prevention of COVID-19, the FDA has taken another crucial step in the fight against this global pandemic that is causing vast numbers of hospitalizations and deaths in the United States each day," said FDA Commissioner Dr. Stephen M. Hahn.

The Moderna vaccine though does not require the same ultra-cold storage, making it more user-friendly, particularly in rural areas that might be less equipped.

The authorization comes after federal advisers -- an independent group of infectious disease experts, doctors and scientists -- agreed overwhelmingly on Thursday that the benefits of the Moderna vaccine outweighed any potential risks based on trial data. The vote was 20-0 with one abstention.

As with volunteers who took the Pfizer vaccine, fatigue, headaches and swelling at the injection site were noted.

Unknown still is whether the vaccine stops transmission. The study only looked at whether people became serious ill.

Also unclear is the potential for allergic reactions. A few incidents have been reported following shots of the Pfizer vaccine.

At Thursday's meeting on Moderna, Dr. Doran Fink, a senior vaccine official at the FDA, said researchers didn't have all the information. But he noted that "these cases underscore the need to be vigilant during the early stage of the campaign" and communicate those findings to the public.

Fink said the FDA was working with Pfizer to further revise fact sheets and warnings to health care providers to make clear that any facility administering it "should ensure that medical treatment for managing serious allergic reactions is immediately available." He said the FDA plans to do the same for Moderna.

"I have never been more hopeful that we will eventually turn the corner on this pandemic," said Rich Besser, a former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and head of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

The 5.9 million doses shipped from Moderna would be in addition to the 6.4 million doses provided by Pfizer-BioNTech.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious disease expert, said Wednesday that people shouldn't be concerned about having to choose between Moderna and Pfizer. An internal assessment by the FDA already found that the Moderna data showed the benefits likely outweigh the risks.

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FDA authorizes 2nd COVID-19 vaccine, giving Moderna green light to ship doses to states

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Doses of the vaccine are expected to be shipped next week. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has authorized use of a second COVID-19 vaccine for people age of 18 and over, a move that will trigger the shipment of millions more doses to hospitals and nursing homes next week.

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Federal authorities open up about a long-undetected into U.S. and other government systems around the world that experts believe was carried out by Russian hackers. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency said that the back compromised federal agencies in a sophisticated attack that will be difficult to undo. If proof is found that the Russia was behind the attack (as experts believe), then it will lead to a foreign policy problem for both the current president and his replacement.

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WASHINGTON -- Federal authorities are expressing increased alarm about a long-undetected intrusion into U.S. and other computer systems around the globe that officials suspect was carried out by Russian hackers. The nation's cybersecurity agency warned of a "grave" risk to government and private networks.

The hack compromised federal agencies and "critical infrastructure" in a sophisticated attack that was hard to detect and will be difficult to undo, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said in an unusual warning message Thursday. The Department of Energy acknowledged it was among those that had been hacked.

The attack, if authorities can prove it was carried out by Russia as experts believe, creates a fresh foreign policy problem for President Donald Trump in his final days in office.

Trump, whose administration has been criticized for eliminating a White House cybersecurity adviser and downplaying Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, has made no public statements about the breach.

President-elect Joe Biden, who inherits a thorny U.S.-Russia relationship, spoke forcefully about the hack, declaring that he and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris "will make dealing with this breach a top priority from the moment we take office."

"We need to disrupt and deter our adversaries from undertaking significant cyberattacks in the first place," he said. "We will do that by, among other things, imposing substantial costs on those responsible for such malicious attacks, including in coordination with our allies and partners."

"There's a lot we don't yet know, but what we do know is a matter of great concern," Biden said.

CISA officials did not respond to questions and so it was unclear what the agency meant by a "grave threat" or by "critical infrastructure" possibly targeted in the attack that the agency says appeared to have begun last March. Homeland Security, the agency's parent department, defines such infrastructure as any "vital" assets to the U.S. or its economy, a broad category that could include power plants and financial institutions.

The agency previously said the perpetrators had used network management software from Texas-based SolarWinds t o infiltrate computer networks. Its new alert said the attackers may have used other methods, as well.

Tech giant Microsoft, which has helped respond to the breach, revealed late Thursday that it had identified more than 40 government agencies, think tanks, non-governmental organizations and IT companies infiltrated by the hackers. It said four in five were in the United States - nearly half of them tech companies - with victims also in Canada, Mexico, Belgium, Spain, the United Kingdom, Israel and the United Arab Emirates.

"This is not 'espionage as usual,' even in the digital age. Instead, it represents an act of recklessness that created a serious technological vulnerability for the United States and the world," Microsoft said in a blog post.

Over the weekend, amid reports that the Treasury and Commerce departments were breached, CISA directed all civilian agencies of the federal government to remove SolarWinds from their servers. The cybersecurity agencies of Britain and Ireland issued similar alerts.

A U.S. official previously told The Associated Press that Russia-based hackers were suspected, but neither CISA nor the FBI has publicly said who is believed to be responsible. Asked whether Russia was behind the attack, the official said: "We believe so. We haven't said that publicly yet because it isn't 100% confirmed."

Another U.S. official, speaking Thursday on condition of anonymity to discuss a matter that is under investigation, said the hack was severe and extremely damaging although the administration was not yet ready to publicly blame anyone for it.

"This is looking like it's the worst hacking case in the history of America," the official said. "They got into everything."

At the Department of Energy, the initial investigation revealed that malware injected into its networks via a SolarWinds update has been found only on its business networks and has not affected national security operations, including the agency that manages the nation's nuclear weapons stockpile, according to its statement. It said vulnerable software was disconnected from the DOE network to reduce any risk.

The intentions of the perpetrators appear to be espionage and gathering information rather than destruction, according to security experts and former government officials. If so, they are now remarkably well situated.

Thomas Bossert, a former Trump Homeland Security adviser, said in an opinion article in The New York Times that the U.S. should now act as if the Russian government had gained control of the networks it has penetrated. "The actual and perceived control of so many important networks could easily be used to undermine public and consumer trust in data, written communications and services," he wrote.

Members of Congress said they feared that taxpayers' personal information could have been exposed because the IRS is part of Treasury, which used SolarWinds software. Experts involved in the hack response say the intruders are not likely interested in such data because they are intelligence agents narrowly focused on sensitive national security data - and trying to steal taxpayer info would likely set off alarms.

Tom Kellermann, cybersecurity strategy chief of the software company VMware, said the hackers are now "omniscient to the operations" of federal agencies they've infiltrated "and there is viable concern that they might leverage destructive attacks within these agencies" now that they've been discovered.

Among the business sectors scrambling to protect their systems and assess potential theft of information are defense contractors, technology companies and providers of telecommunications and the electric grid.

A group led by CEOs in the electric power industry said it held a "situational awareness call" earlier this week to help electric companies and public power utilities identify whether the compromise posed a threat to their networks.

And dozens of smaller institutions that seemed to have little data of interest to foreign spies were nonetheless forced to respond to the hack.

The Helix Water District, which provides drinking water to the suburbs of San Diego, California, said it provided a patch to its SolarWinds software after it got an advisory the IT company sent out about the hack to about 33,000 customers Sunday.

"While we do utilize SolarWinds, we are not aware of any district impacts from the security breach," said Michelle Curtis, a spokesperson for the water district.

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With contributions from Associated Press writers Matthew Lee in Washington, Matt O'Brien in Providence, Rhode Island, and Frank Bajak in Boston.

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Hack against US is 'grave' threat, cybersecurity agency says

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WASHINGTON -- Federal authorities are expressing increased alarm about a long-undetected intrusion into U.S. and other computer systems around the globe that officials suspect was carried out by Russian hackers. The nation's cybersecurity agency warned of a "grave" risk to government and private networks.

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Coca-Cola is wanting there company to move faster so they are 2,200 jobs globally. In the US 1,200 jobs are being cut. Half of those jobs are in the Coca-Cola Headquarter area in Atlanta. Coca-Cola is reorganizing there whole business and will continue to make changes through 2021.

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The company said the pandemic was a "catalyst" for organizational changes.

Coca-Cola confirmed to ABC News Friday that it was cutting approximately 2,200 jobs globally as part of a company reorganization plan.

Some 1,200 of those job cuts will be in the U.S., and about 500 of them will be in the Atlanta area, where the company is headquartered, according to Scott Leith, the company's vice president of global external and financial communications.

"The Coca-Cola Company is on a journey to transform how it operates so we can emerge stronger from the pandemic and accelerate our growth," Leith told ABC News in a statement.

The job cuts account for a sliver of the company's global headcount, which was 86,200 at the end of 2019. Its U.S. headcount was 10,400 at the end of 2019.

"The pandemic was not a cause for these changes, but it has been a catalyst for the company to move faster," Leith added.

The company initially announced plans for a reorganization in August, and Leith said the work "has been ongoing and will continue into 2021."

Leith said they expect severance programs to result in expenses of $350 million to $550 million.

Coca-Cola separately announced earlier this year that it was cutting a handful of its brands by the end of the year, including Odwalla juices, Zico coconut water and Diet Coke Feisty Cherry.

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The company said the pandemic was a "catalyst" for organizational changes. Coca-Cola confirmed to ABC News Friday that it was cutting approximately 2,200 jobs globally as part of a company reorganization plan.

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Ever since Hugo Chavez, the 14 year president of Venezuela, died, the idea of socialism in Venezuela is also dying. Chavez was very political in his day, fighting for a powerful country with their own currency that resembled dollars. According to a Venezuelan, all of their money is now just dollars and they feel they have lost their independence from other countries.

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venezuela is quietly quitting socialism - cnn

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Analysis: Venezuela is quietly quitting socialism

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President Nicolas Maduro told CNN earlier this month that he thought the "values" of socialism might be fading, referring to new displays of wealth in the upmarket streets of Caracas. "At times we moved forwards, other times we pulled back. Perhaps today we retreated for what concerns our socialist values.

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Trump rushes to dole out plum appointments to allies on way out the door

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While President Donald Trump has refused to acknowledge that he lost the election, he's handling the lame-duck period as his predecessors did in one respect: awarding plum appointments to key allies, donors and friends on his way out of the White House.

Since the election, the White House has announced more than 100 appointments and nominations - some to key administration posts, but also to various advisory boards and commissions, in a practice also done by the Bush and Obama White Houses.

He's named former White House Counselor Kellyanne Conway to the Air Force Academy Board of Visitors despite having no obvious connection to the school or the military, along with Heidi Stirrup, an administration official recently barred from the Justice Department over claims she pressured officials for information related to election fraud.

Trump appointed former House Speaker Newt Gingrich on Monday to the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board, and named his daughter, Jackie Gingrich Cushman, to a commission planning and fundraising for a memorial to honor President John Adams.

Rudy Giuliani's son Andrew, who works as a White House aide, and the president's bodyman Nick Luna were named Wednesday to the United States Holocaust Memorial Council.

The White House also announced in early December that Brian Ballard, a prominent GOP lobbyist with ties to the White House, and Pam DeVos, a sister-in-law of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, will sit on the Kennedy Center's board of trustees.

Acting Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Anthony Tata, who has a history of making inflammatory, anti-Muslim remarks and once referred to former President Barack Obama as a "terrorist leader," was awarded this week with an advisory board position at the Merchant Marine Academy.

The positions themselves are not salaried but some of the choices amount to empowering individuals with questionable qualifications for the appointments. The process of selecting the appointments flows through the White House Office of White House Presidential Personnel Office, headed up by Johnny McEntee, who previously served as the president's personal assistant before being escorted off the White House grounds amid issues with his background clearance.

The practice of lame-duck appointments is by no means new or unusual. The president's two most recent predecessors, Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush, made a similar flurry of appointments in the final days of their lame-duck administrations.

"In many ways, [it] is a vestige of the spoil system, where you have political leaders that are able to hand out these plums, not because somebody has deserved it from the perspective of, they're serving their country or having a particular expertise, but because of the political closeness to the president," said Max Stier, the president of the nonpartisan Partnership for Public Service that aims to improve government effectiveness.

The White House declined to comment on the uptick in appointments and nominations in the final days of the administration.

But a person familiar with the process characterized the list of appointments as being "literally a laundry list of all these people who claimed to have been shut out of things for the wrong reasons who are now just being given these things, and there's even less pressure knowing it doesn't matter anymore."

Like Trump, Obama appointed political allies and donors to various boards and commissions in his final months in office.

In November 2016, President Obama named Fred Eychaner, a prominent Democratic donor, to the board of trustees of the Kennedy Center.

On Jan. 5, 2017, he appointed Eric Schwerin, a business partner of Vice President Joe Biden's son Hunter, to the Commission for the Preservation of America's Heritage Abroad.

Leon Panetta, who served as chief of staff to President Clinton and as CIA director and defense secretary under President Obama, said the "biggest difference" between Trump's appointments and those of past presidents "is that a lot of these people that Trump is appointing don't necessarily reflect the kind of background that will help them in their new job."

Last week, Trump named Michael Anton, a former spokesman for the Trump National Security Council, to the Board of Directors of the National Board for Education Sciences, which advises leaders of the Department of Education's research division, along with Larry Schweikart, a retired historian and author of "48 Liberal Lies about American History (That You Probably Learned in School)."

Panetta pointed specifically to Trump confidants and campaign operatives David Bossie and Cory Lewandowski, who were appointed in early December to the Pentagon's Defense Business Board after the White House removed the members serving on the board, which was formed in 2002 to provide senior Pentagon officials with "independent advice on business management issues," according to its website.

"It just makes clear that the purpose of the appointment was not to enhance our defense establishment and national security, it's to plant people on the inside who are politically supporters of President Trump," Panetta added.

While both were appointed to four-year terms, a U.S. defense official added that "members serve at the pleasure of the current administration" raising the very real possibility that President-elect Joe Biden will boot them out.

Matt Schlapp, the chairman of the American Conservative Union and husband of longtime aide Mercedes Schlapp, has been tapped to sit on the Library of Congress Trust Fund Board.

Marcia Lee Kelly, an adviser to first lady Melania Trump, was awarded a position on the Committee for the Preservation of the White House.

Longtime friend Jared Kushner friend Adam Boehler was tapped as a member of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council.

Another key difference in Trump's case, however, is that he's partaking in what is a common practice of a lame-duck presidents in apparent contradiction to his simultaneous crusade to overturn his election defeat, despite having lost both the Electoral College and popular vote.

"At the end of an administration, there is a sense of trying to generate whatever value there is by handing out all plums that are available, you know, with great dispatch, which if you thought you were going to be around you wouldn't need that same sense of urgency," Stier observed.
ABC News' Jon Garcia and Luis Martinez contributed to this report.

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Trump rushes to dole out plum appointments to allies on way out the door

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While President Donald Trump has refused to acknowledge that he lost the election, he's handling the lame-duck period as his predecessors did in one respect: awarding plum appointments to key allies, donors and friends on his way out of the White House.

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Russian hackers have once again broken into many government agencies, private companies and critical infrastructure entities with CISA saying that it poses a great risk to the federal government and state, local, tribal, and territorial governments as well as critical infrastructure entities and other private sector organizations.

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computer science and information technology

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international relations and national security

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US cybersecurity agency warns suspected Russian hacking campaign broader than previously believed | CNN Politics

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An alarming new alert issued by the Department of Homeland Security's cyber arm Thursday revealed that Russian hackers suspected of a massive, ongoing intrusion campaign into government agencies, private companies and critical infrastructure entities used a variety of unidentified tactics and not just a single compromised software program.

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1 in every 5 prisoners will test positive for coronavirus. Around  5,100 prisoners have become infected in Kansas prisons. ¨It was like I was sentenced to death¨ one prisoner said. Westmoreland lived with more than 100 virus-infected men in an open dorm, where he woke up regularly to find men sick on the floor, unable to get up on their own, he said.

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As the pandemic enters its 10th month - and as the first Americans begin to receive a long-awaited COVID-19 vaccine - at least 275,000 prisoners have been infected, more than 1,700 have died and the spread of the virus behind bars shows no sign of slowing. New cases in prisons this week reached their highest level since testing began in the spring, far outstripping previous peaks in April and August.

"That number is a vast undercount," said Homer Venters, the former chief medical officer at New York's Rikers Island jail complex.

Venters has conducted more than a dozen court-ordered COVID-19 prison inspections around the country. "I still encounter prisons and jails where, when people get sick, not only are they not tested but they don't receive care. So they get much sicker than need be," he said.

Now the rollout of vaccines poses difficult decisions for politicians and policymakers. As the virus spreads largely unchecked behind bars, prisoners can't social distance and are dependent on the state for their safety and well-being.

---

This story is a collaboration between The Associated Press and The Marshall Project exploring the state of the prison system in the coronavirus pandemic.

---

Donte Westmoreland, 26, was recently released from Lansing Correctional Facility in Kansas, where he caught the virus while serving time on a marijuana charge. Some 5,100 prisoners have become infected in Kansas prisons, the third-highest COVID-19 rate in the country, behind only South Dakota and Arkansas.

"It was like I was sentenced to death," Westmoreland said.

Westmoreland lived with more than 100 virus-infected men in an open dorm, where he woke up regularly to find men sick on the floor, unable to get up on their own, he said.

"People are actually dying in front of me off of this virus," he said. "It's the scariest sight." Westmoreland said he sweated it out, shivering in his bunk until, six weeks later, he finally recovered.

Half of the prisoners in Kansas have been infected with COVID-19 - eight times the rate of cases among the state's overall population. Eleven prisoners have died, including five at the prison where Westmoreland was held. Of the three prison employees who have died in Kansas, two worked at Lansing Correctional Facility.

In Arkansas, where more than 9,700 prisoners have tested positive and 50 have died, four of every seven have had the virus, the second-highest prison infection rate in the U.S.

Among the dead was 29-year-old Derick Coley, who was serving a 20-year sentence at the Cummins Unit maximum security prison. Cece Tate, Coley's girlfriend, said she last talked with him on April 10 when he said he was sick and showing symptoms of the virus.

"It took forever for me to get information," she said. The prison finally told her on April 20 that Coley had tested positive for the virus. Less than two weeks later, a prison chaplain called on May 2 to tell her Coley had died.

The couple had a daughter who turned 9 in July. "She cried and was like, 'My daddy can't send me a birthday card,'" Tate said. "She was like, 'Momma, my Christmas ain't going to be the same.'"

Nearly every prison system in the country has seen infection rates significantly higher than the communities around them. In facilities run by the federal Bureau of Prisons, one of every five prisoners has had coronavirus. Twenty-four state prison systems have had even higher rates.

Prison workers have also been disproportionately affected. In North Dakota, four of every five prison staff has gotten coronavirus. Nationwide, it's one in five.

Not all states release how many prisoners they've tested, but states that test prisoners broadly and regularly may appear to have higher case rates than states that don't.

Infection rates as of Tuesday were calculated by the AP and The Marshall Project, a nonprofit news organization covering the criminal justice system, based on data collected weekly in prisons since March. Infection and mortality rates may be even higher, since nearly every prison system has significantly fewer prisoners today than when the pandemic began, so rates represent a conservative estimate based on the largest known population.

Yet, as vaccine campaigns get underway, there has been pushback in some states against giving the shots to people in prisons early.

"There's no way it's going to go to prisoners ... before it goes to the people who haven't committed any crime," Colorado Gov. Jared Polis told reporters earlier this month after his state's initial vaccine priority plans put prisoners before the general public.

Like more than a dozen states, Kansas's vaccination plan does not mention prisoners or corrections staff, according to the Prison Policy Initiative, a non-partisan prison data think tank. Seven states put prisoners near the front of the line, along with others living in crowded settings like nursing homes and long-term care facilities. An additional 19 states have placed prisoners in the second phase of their vaccine rollouts.

Racial disparities in the nation's criminal justice system compound the disproportionate toll the pandemic has taken on communities of color. Black Americans are incarcerated at five times the rate of whites. They are also disproportionately likely to be infected and hospitalized with COVID-19, and are more likely than other races to have a family member or close friend who has died of the virus.

The pandemic "increases risk for those who are already at risk," said David J. Harris, managing director of the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice at Harvard Law School.

This week, a Council on Criminal Justice task force headed by former attorneys general Alberto Gonzalez and Loretta Lynch released a report calling for scaling back prison populations, improving communication with public health departments and reporting better data.

Prison facilities are often overcrowded and poorly ventilated. Dormitory-style housing, cafeterias and open-bar cell doors make it nearly impossible to quarantine. Prison populations are sicker, on average, than the general population and health care behind bars is notoriously substandard. Nationwide, the mortality rate for COVID-19 among prisoners is 45% higher than the overall rate.

From the earliest days of the pandemic, public health experts called for widespread prison releases as the best way to curb virus spread behind bars. In October, the National Academies of Science, Medicine, and Engineering released a report urging states to empty their prisons of anyone who was medically vulnerable, nearing the end of their sentence or of low risk to public safety.

But releases have been slow and uneven. In the first three months of the pandemic, more than 10,000 federal prisoners applied for compassionate release. Wardens denied or did not respond to almost all those requests, approving only 156 - less than 2%.

A plan to thin the state prison population in New Jersey, first introduced in June, was held up in the Legislature because of inadequate funding to help those who were released. About 2,200 prisoners with less than a year left to serve were ultimately released in November, eight months after the pandemic began.

California used a similar strategy to release 11,000 people since March. But state prisons stopped accepting new prisoners from county jails at several points during the pandemic, which simply shifted the burden to the jails. According to the state corrections agency, more than 8,000 people are now waiting in California's county jails, which are also coronavirus hot spots.

"We call that 'screwing county,'" said John Wetzel, Pennsylvania's secretary of corrections, whose prison system has one of the lower COVID-19 case rates in the country, with one in every seven prisoners infected. But that's still more than three times the statewide rate.

Prison walls are porous even during a pandemic, with corrections officers and other employees traveling in and out each day.

"The interchange between communities and prisons and jails has always been there, but in the context of COVID-19 it's never been more clear," said Lauren Brinkley-Rubinstein, a professor of social medicine at UNC-Chapel Hill who studies incarceration and health. "We have to stop thinking about them as a place apart."

Wetzel said Pennsylvania's prisons have kept virus rates relatively low by widely distributing masks in mid-March - weeks before even the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention began recommending them for everyday use in public - and demanding that staff and prisoners use them properly and consistently. But prisoners and advocates say prevention measures on the ground are uneven, regardless of Wetzel's good intentions.

As the country heads into winter with virus infections on the rise, experts caution that unless COVID-19 is brought under control behind bars, the country will not get it under control in the population at large.

"If we are going to end this pandemic - bring down infection rates, bring down death rates, bring down ICU occupancy rates - we have to address infection rates in correctional facilities," said Emily Wang, professor at Yale School of Medicine and co-author of the recent National Academies report.

"Infections and deaths are extraordinarily high. These are wards of the state, and we have to contend with it."

---

Schwartzapfel reported from Boston and Park from Washington.

---

This story has been corrected to show that the rate of prisoners who tested positive for the coronavirus was more than four times as high as the general population, not more than four times higher than the general population.

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1 in 5 prisoners in the US has had COVID-19, 1,700 have died

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As the pandemic enters its 10th month - and as the first Americans begin to receive a long-awaited COVID-19 vaccine - at least 275,000 prisoners have been infected, more than 1,700 have died and the spread of the virus behind bars shows no sign of slowing.

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One in every five prisoner tests positive for the corona virus which is a rate that is 4 times the rate of the general population. So far at least 275,000 prisoners have gotten the virus and 1,700 of them died.

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As the pandemic enters its 10th month - and as the first Americans begin to receive a long-awaited COVID-19 vaccine - at least 275,000 prisoners have been infected, more than 1,700 have died and the spread of the virus behind bars shows no sign of slowing. New cases in prisons this week reached their highest level since testing began in the spring, far outstripping previous peaks in April and August.

"That number is a vast undercount," said Homer Venters, the former chief medical officer at New York's Rikers Island jail complex.

Venters has conducted more than a dozen court-ordered COVID-19 prison inspections around the country. "I still encounter prisons and jails where, when people get sick, not only are they not tested but they don't receive care. So they get much sicker than need be," he said.

Now the rollout of vaccines poses difficult decisions for politicians and policymakers. As the virus spreads largely unchecked behind bars, prisoners can't social distance and are dependent on the state for their safety and well-being.

---

This story is a collaboration between The Associated Press and The Marshall Project exploring the state of the prison system in the coronavirus pandemic.

---

Donte Westmoreland, 26, was recently released from Lansing Correctional Facility in Kansas, where he caught the virus while serving time on a marijuana charge. Some 5,100 prisoners have become infected in Kansas prisons, the third-highest COVID-19 rate in the country, behind only South Dakota and Arkansas.

"It was like I was sentenced to death," Westmoreland said.

Westmoreland lived with more than 100 virus-infected men in an open dorm, where he woke up regularly to find men sick on the floor, unable to get up on their own, he said.

"People are actually dying in front of me off of this virus," he said. "It's the scariest sight." Westmoreland said he sweated it out, shivering in his bunk until, six weeks later, he finally recovered.

Half of the prisoners in Kansas have been infected with COVID-19 - eight times the rate of cases among the state's overall population. Eleven prisoners have died, including five at the prison where Westmoreland was held. Of the three prison employees who have died in Kansas, two worked at Lansing Correctional Facility.

In Arkansas, where more than 9,700 prisoners have tested positive and 50 have died, four of every seven have had the virus, the second-highest prison infection rate in the U.S.

Among the dead was 29-year-old Derick Coley, who was serving a 20-year sentence at the Cummins Unit maximum security prison. Cece Tate, Coley's girlfriend, said she last talked with him on April 10 when he said he was sick and showing symptoms of the virus.

"It took forever for me to get information," she said. The prison finally told her on April 20 that Coley had tested positive for the virus. Less than two weeks later, a prison chaplain called on May 2 to tell her Coley had died.

The couple had a daughter who turned 9 in July. "She cried and was like, 'My daddy can't send me a birthday card,'" Tate said. "She was like, 'Momma, my Christmas ain't going to be the same.'"

Nearly every prison system in the country has seen infection rates significantly higher than the communities around them. In facilities run by the federal Bureau of Prisons, one of every five prisoners has had coronavirus. Twenty-four state prison systems have had even higher rates.

Prison workers have also been disproportionately affected. In North Dakota, four of every five prison staff has gotten coronavirus. Nationwide, it's one in five.

Not all states release how many prisoners they've tested, but states that test prisoners broadly and regularly may appear to have higher case rates than states that don't.

Infection rates as of Tuesday were calculated by the AP and The Marshall Project, a nonprofit news organization covering the criminal justice system, based on data collected weekly in prisons since March. Infection and mortality rates may be even higher, since nearly every prison system has significantly fewer prisoners today than when the pandemic began, so rates represent a conservative estimate based on the largest known population.

Yet, as vaccine campaigns get underway, there has been pushback in some states against giving the shots to people in prisons early.

"There's no way it's going to go to prisoners ... before it goes to the people who haven't committed any crime," Colorado Gov. Jared Polis told reporters earlier this month after his state's initial vaccine priority plans put prisoners before the general public.

Like more than a dozen states, Kansas's vaccination plan does not mention prisoners or corrections staff, according to the Prison Policy Initiative, a non-partisan prison data think tank. Seven states put prisoners near the front of the line, along with others living in crowded settings like nursing homes and long-term care facilities. An additional 19 states have placed prisoners in the second phase of their vaccine rollouts.

Racial disparities in the nation's criminal justice system compound the disproportionate toll the pandemic has taken on communities of color. Black Americans are incarcerated at five times the rate of whites. They are also disproportionately likely to be infected and hospitalized with COVID-19, and are more likely than other races to have a family member or close friend who has died of the virus.

The pandemic "increases risk for those who are already at risk," said David J. Harris, managing director of the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice at Harvard Law School.

This week, a Council on Criminal Justice task force headed by former attorneys general Alberto Gonzalez and Loretta Lynch released a report calling for scaling back prison populations, improving communication with public health departments and reporting better data.

Prison facilities are often overcrowded and poorly ventilated. Dormitory-style housing, cafeterias and open-bar cell doors make it nearly impossible to quarantine. Prison populations are sicker, on average, than the general population and health care behind bars is notoriously substandard. Nationwide, the mortality rate for COVID-19 among prisoners is 45% higher than the overall rate.

From the earliest days of the pandemic, public health experts called for widespread prison releases as the best way to curb virus spread behind bars. In October, the National Academies of Science, Medicine, and Engineering released a report urging states to empty their prisons of anyone who was medically vulnerable, nearing the end of their sentence or of low risk to public safety.

But releases have been slow and uneven. In the first three months of the pandemic, more than 10,000 federal prisoners applied for compassionate release. Wardens denied or did not respond to almost all those requests, approving only 156 - less than 2%.

A plan to thin the state prison population in New Jersey, first introduced in June, was held up in the Legislature because of inadequate funding to help those who were released. About 2,200 prisoners with less than a year left to serve were ultimately released in November, eight months after the pandemic began.

California used a similar strategy to release 11,000 people since March. But state prisons stopped accepting new prisoners from county jails at several points during the pandemic, which simply shifted the burden to the jails. According to the state corrections agency, more than 8,000 people are now waiting in California's county jails, which are also coronavirus hot spots.

"We call that 'screwing county,'" said John Wetzel, Pennsylvania's secretary of corrections, whose prison system has one of the lower COVID-19 case rates in the country, with one in every seven prisoners infected. But that's still more than three times the statewide rate.

Prison walls are porous even during a pandemic, with corrections officers and other employees traveling in and out each day.

"The interchange between communities and prisons and jails has always been there, but in the context of COVID-19 it's never been more clear," said Lauren Brinkley-Rubinstein, a professor of social medicine at UNC-Chapel Hill who studies incarceration and health. "We have to stop thinking about them as a place apart."

Wetzel said Pennsylvania's prisons have kept virus rates relatively low by widely distributing masks in mid-March - weeks before even the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention began recommending them for everyday use in public - and demanding that staff and prisoners use them properly and consistently. But prisoners and advocates say prevention measures on the ground are uneven, regardless of Wetzel's good intentions.

As the country heads into winter with virus infections on the rise, experts caution that unless COVID-19 is brought under control behind bars, the country will not get it under control in the population at large.

"If we are going to end this pandemic - bring down infection rates, bring down death rates, bring down ICU occupancy rates - we have to address infection rates in correctional facilities," said Emily Wang, professor at Yale School of Medicine and co-author of the recent National Academies report.

"Infections and deaths are extraordinarily high. These are wards of the state, and we have to contend with it."

---

Schwartzapfel reported from Boston and Park from Washington.

---

This story has been corrected to show that the rate of prisoners who tested positive for the coronavirus was more than four times as high as the general population, not more than four times higher than the general population.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
1 in 5 prisoners in the US has had COVID-19, 1,700 have died

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As the pandemic enters its 10th month - and as the first Americans begin to receive a long-awaited COVID-19 vaccine - at least 275,000 prisoners have been infected, more than 1,700 have died and the spread of the virus behind bars shows no sign of slowing.

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French President Emmanuel Macron is currently suffering from COVID-19. The French leader is currently staying at the French presidential retreat in Versailles. He has been criticized recently for his lack of an attempt to stall the virus spread throughout France.

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French President Emmanuel Macron is riding out the coronavirus in a presidential retreat at Versailles

While Macron routinely wears a mask and adheres to social distancing rules, he hosted or took part in multiple group meals in the days before testing positive Thursday. Critics say that's a bad example for compatriots advised to keep their gatherings to six people.

Macron is suffering from fever, cough and fatigue, officials with the presidency said Friday. They wouldn't provide details of his treatment. He is staying at the presidential residence of La Lanterne in the former royal city of Versailles.

Macron's positive test comes as French health authorities are again seeing a rise in infections and warning of more as French families prepare to get together for Christmas and New Year festivities. France reported another 18,254 new infections Thursday and its death toll is just under 60,000.

France's Pasteur Institute released a study Friday suggesting that meal times at home and in public are a major source of contamination. Pasteur epidemiologist Arnaud Fontanet said on France-Inter radio Friday that during the holidays, "we can see each other, simply not be too numerous, and at critical moments at meals, not too many people at the same table."

Macron's aides have scrambled to contact all the people he had been near in recent days. The French health minister suggested that he might have been infected at an EU summit in Brussels last week, but Macron had multiple meetings in Paris as well.

Macron took a test "as soon as the first symptoms appeared" on Thursday morning and will self-isolate for seven days, in line with national health authorities' recommendations, the presidency said in a brief statement. The 42-year-old president "will continue to work and take care of his activities at a distance," the statement added. Macron went ahead with a planned speech by videoconference Thursday.

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Virus-stricken Macron at presidential retreat with fever

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French President Emmanuel Macron is riding out the coronavirus in a presidential retreat at Versailles While Macron routinely wears a mask and adheres to social distancing rules, he hosted or took part in multiple group meals in the days before testing positive Thursday.

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crazy man kills entire family dressed as Santa, he killed his entire family with firearms after they had manye problems.

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New details have emerged in the brutal 2011 Christmas day attack that shook the Grapevine, Texas, community after a father dressed as Santa gunned down his entire family over reported financial struggles and a drift from his wife and children.

Police believe 56-year-old Aziz Yazdanpanah was dressed up as Santa Claus when he fatally shot his wife, their two teenage children and three other family members inside an apartment in the Dallas-Fort Worth suburb of Grapevine at a Christmas party nearly 10 years ago.
RANDOM SPREE OF CHRISTMAS 'JOY KILLINGS' STILL HAUNTS VICTIMS' FAMILY 30 YEARS LATER
A friend of the family told Fox Nation host Nancy Grace this week that Yazdanpanah's house had entered into foreclosure prior to the incident, which came shortly after he separated from his wife.

Yazdanpanah's wife "didn't really want to make him angry" with the separation, her friend recalled in Fox Nation's "Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. "So she just with the help of her sister, she decided to just buy the basic things for her apartment. She was a very quiet, very super kind lady. She was a peacemaker. She just didn't want anything happen to her kids, her family. She was a really, a wonderful mom and always protecting her kids."

But, the friend explained, "When he saw her coming out of this marriage, even though he's not working, he's hiring prostitutes by selling their rugs and their furniture, he can't stand that."

Grapevine police Sgt. Robert Eberling said police believe that after Yazdanpanah shot his six family members, he dialed 911 and then shot himself. A man can be heard yelling: "Help, help, I am shooting people," in a 911 recording released at the time.

The incident left a permanent scar on the community of about 50,000 people, some 20 miles northwest of downtown Dallas.

"When Christmastime comes, it's hard for me to celebrate because I just think about this family," a resident told Grace.
For more details and a closer look at some of the most brutal holiday crimes, join Fox Nation and watch "Crime Series: Grapevine Christmas Massacre" available today. CLICK HERE TO JOIN FOX NATION AND GET 35% OFF TODAY Fox Nation programs are viewable on-demand and from your mobile device app, but only for Fox Nation subscribers. Go to Fox Nation to start a free trial and watch the extensive library from Tomi Lahren, Pete Hegseth, Abby Hornacek, Laura Ingraham, Ainsley Earhardt, Greg Gutfeld, and many more of your favorite Fox News personalities and thrilling blockbusters.

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New developments emerge in case of Texas father who gunned down entire family on Christmas in Santa costume

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New details have emerged in the brutal 2011 Christmas day attack that shook the Grapevine, Texas, community after a father dressed as Santa gunned down his entire family over reported financial struggles and a drift from his wife and children.

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If an agreement over a stimulus check fails to pass both chambers by Friday the Capital will shut-down. This posses a threat to an already strained economy if politicians fail to make an agreement. Republican lawmakers have stated It is very unlikely that they will come to any agreement by Friday.

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prospects dim for capitol hill approval by friday shutdown deadline as leaders continue to negotiate relief deal - cnnpolitics

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Prospects dim for Capitol Hill approval by Friday shutdown deadline as leaders continue to negotiate relief deal

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As congressional leaders scramble to finalize a $900 billion Covid relief deal, it's growing increasingly unlikely that Congress will be able to get the long-awaited plan through both chambers by Friday night when a government shutdown looms.

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This year will no doubt be a different type of holiday season due to the Corona Virus and during this holiday season Dr. Fauci even said that he has no intentions of traveling to see his kids as to slow the spread of this virus.

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"Make the choice and keep yourself and your family healthy so that you'll have many more Christmases ahead of you," Dr. Fauci said

Fauci, the nation's top infectious disease specialist, said in a recent interview with The Washington Post's "Power Up" newsletter that he and his wife, Christine Grady, are not seeing their three adult daughters - Megan, Alison and Jennifer - on Christmas for the first time since their births.

"I'm going to be with my wife - period, " Fauci, 79, said. "The Christmas holiday is a special holiday for us because Christmas Eve is my birthday. And Christmas Day is Christmas Day. And they are not going to come home ... That's painful. We don't like that. But that's just one of the things you're going to have to accept as we go through this unprecedented challenging time."

With the U.S. experiencing record-number cases of COVID-19 and hospitalizations, Fauci pleaded for Americans to take the necessary precautions during the holidays.

"Stay at home as much as you can, keep your interactions to the extent possible to members of the same household," he said. "This cannot be business as usual this Christmas because we're already in a very difficult situation, and we're going to make it worse, if we don't do something about it."

Although the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic is an "unusual situation," Fauci went on to note that "it's not going to last forever."

"It is highly likely that with vaccines being distributed, that we will be back to normal by next Christmas," he said. "So make the choice and keep yourself and your family healthy so that you'll have many more Christmases ahead of you."

The first vaccine went to one of the people with the highest need: an ICU nurse at Long Island Jewish Medical Center in New York City, one of the hospitals that was hit the hardest by COVID-19 at the start of the pandemic. Over time, millions more will receive Pfizer's vaccine.

Prior to the vaccine's FDA approval, Fauci said that the majority of Americans who wish to get vaccinated should be able to by April or May of next year.

"By the time we get to April, we would likely have taken care of all the high priority and then the general population - the normal, healthy young man or woman, 30 years old that has no underlying conditions - can walk into a CVS or to a Walgreens and get vaccinated," he told Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg in an interview on Nov. 30.

In the U.S alone, there have been more than 17 million cases of COVID-19 as of Thursday, according to data from The New York Times. More than 307,000 people have died from the virus.
As information about the coronavirus pandemic rapidly changes, PEOPLE is committed to providing the most recent data in our coverage. Some of the information in this story may have changed after publication. For the latest on COVID-19, readers are encouraged to use online resources from the WHO and local public health departments. PEOPLE has partnered with GoFundMe to raise money for the COVID-19 Relief Fund, a GoFundMe.org fundraiser to support everything from frontline responders to families in need, as well as organizations helping communities. For more information or to donate, click here.

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Dr. Fauci Says He Won't See His Kids for Christmas, Urges Americans to Make Same 'Painful' Choice

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"Make the choice and keep yourself and your family healthy so that you'll have many more Christmases ahead of you," Dr. Fauci said Fauci, the nation's top infectious disease specialist, said in a recent interview with The Washington Post's "Power Up" newsletter that he and his wife, Christine Grady, are not seeing their three adult daughters - Megan, Alison and Jennifer - on Christmas for the first time since their births.

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After the Electoral College voted to have Joe Biden as our next President, he named Pete Buttigieg as his Transportation Secretary.

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biden to introduce pete buttigieg as transportation secretary nominee wednesday  - cnnpolitics

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Biden to introduce Pete Buttigieg as transportation secretary nominee Wednesday

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President-elect Joe Biden will introduce former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg as his nominee for transportation secretary at an event in Wilmington, Delaware on Wednesday.

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On December 4, a federal judge ordered the Trump Administration reinstate DACA. The act protects undocumented children from being deported. The administration has until Monday to reinstate the act.

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Science and Technology News | World News | Disaster News

The U.S. is a very busy place, and it's hard to stay on top of everything. Infoplease has got you covered. Here are the U.S.news events you need to know so far for December 2020:

1. Coronavirus Updates

2. Judge Reimplements DACA

3. Drug Laws Passed

4. Coronavirus Updates (2)

5. Election Battle Continues

6. Coronavirus Updates (3)

7. William Barr Resigns

8. Electoral College Affirms Win

9. Coronavirus Updates (4)

10. President Trump Pardons 15

11. Intentional Explosion in Nashville

12. Coronavirus Updates (5)

13. Shooting at Illinois Bowling Alley

14. House Faces Tough Voting Week

Coronavirus Updates

On December 1, a new study revealed that coronavirus may have been in the US as early as December last year. Researchers screened blood donations from last December and found that 84 samples across 9 states had the antibodies for coronavirus. Many wonder if they had the disease before it was officially discovered, but there is no way to know as the coronavirus tests didn?t exist at the time. On December 2, the White House coronavirus task force urged public health officials to take control as cases reached an all time high due to a Thanksgiving surge. Hospitalizations and deaths are also increasing at an alarming rate. On December 2, Colorado reported that cases keep rising, as Governor Jared Polis announced that he?s tested positive for the disease. About 1 in every 41 residents in Colorado are testing positive at this rate. On December 3, Governor Newsom announced a regional stay-at-home order in California. The state has over 1.2 million cases, and hospitals are seeing their highest numbers yet. Cases are also raging through the overcrowded prisons in California. Prisons alone have over 22.000 cases and 90 deaths. On December 5, the CDC told states how many vaccinations they will receive in Operation Warp Speed, and many know it won?t be enough for the first round. The CDC is recommending that health care workers and care home workers be the first to get the vaccine, which round out to about 24 million people. However, since each vaccine needs two doses, there is only enough to vaccinate 20 million people. This news comes after the US totaled 10,000 deaths in the last four days. (CNN)

Photo Source: AP Photo/Elise Amendola, File
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Judge Reimplements DACA

On December 4, a federal judge ordered the Trump Administration reinstate DACA. The act protects undocumented children from being deported. The administration has until Monday to reinstate the act. An estimated 700,000 ?dreamers? as they?re called, will be protected by this act. (BBC)

Photo Source: AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta
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Drug Laws Passed

On December 4, President Trump signed an anti-doping bill into law that allows the US to prosecute anyone caught doping at international events. The Rodchenkov Anti-Doping Act targets coaches, officials, and agents, rather than the athletes. On that same day, the US House of Representatives passed a federal cannabis law, decriminalizing cannabis on a federal level. To become a law, the bill must pass the Republican-run Senate, which many don?t think it will. (BBC)

Photo Source: AP Photo/Hans Pennink, File
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Coronavirus Updates (2)

On December 7, New York City welcomed elementary school students back to class after the biggest district in the country shut down two weeks earlier. While younger students are allowed back, the older students will have to continue remote learning. On December 11, the FDA issued authorization for the Pfizer vaccine to be used. Millions of doses are expected to be shipped to the US in the next few days. (CNN)

Photo Source: AP Photo/Matt Slocum, File
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Election Battle Continues

On December 9, the Supreme Court rejected a bid to overturn the election result in Pennsylvania. President Trump continues to seek recounts, but so far, no results have been overturned. On December 11, in another blow to President Trump, the Supreme Court rejected Texas? bid to block thousands of ballots. The electoral college is expected to convene on Monday to confirm Joe Biden?s win. (BBC)

Photo Source: AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite
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Coronavirus Updates (3)

On December 14, the US officially topped 300,000 deaths due to COVID-19. On December 14, President Trump announced he was reversing the decision to have White House officials receive early doses of the coronavirus vaccine. After news broke, there was outrage on social media, but President Trump has said this is not the reason for his reversal. The first three million doses will be distributed among health care workers first. The first dose was given to an ICU nurse on December 14. On December 15, the Supreme Court backed religious groups in Colorado and New Jersey who argued COVID restrictions are against religious freedoms. The debate of personal freedoms continues to be discussed by the Supreme Court. On December 19, it was announced that president-elect Joe Biden and his wife, Dr. Jill Biden, will receive their first doses of the Pfizer vaccine on Monday. On December 17, the FDA approved the Moderna Vaccine for emergency use. This came at a good time, as the army general in charge of distributing the Pfizer vaccine announced that there were fewer doses than planned. (BBC/CNN)

Photo Source: AP Photo/Andrew Harnik
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William Barr Resigns

On December 14, Attorney General William Barr announced his resignation from President Trump?s team. A loyalist, Barr has recently butted heads with President Trump. It is believed that President Trump has been planning to fire Barr for some time, yet the president tweeted that the two parted amicably. (CNN)

Photo Source: AP Photo/Jeff Roberson, File
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Electoral College Affirms Win

On December 14, the electoral college officially affirmed Joe Biden?s win after gathering to submit their ballots. Despite this ruling, many Republicans are still claiming fraud, and the election battle appears to be far from over. On December 16, Senator Mitch McConnell congratulated Joe Biden and asked that no Congress members stage any stunts regarding these results. McConnell?s actions are a blow to Trump?s argument of fraud. On December 19, a meeting at the White House turned into a screaming match after attendees suggested President Trump enact martial law to overturn the election. Michael Flynn was the most outspoken regarding this tactic, but others argued that President Trump should do an executive order that allows the government to inspect voting machines. That same day, Twitter updated its election misinformation warning labels to say that Joe Biden won the election. (CNN)

Photo Source: AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster
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Coronavirus Updates (4)

On December 21, Johns Hopkins University reported that the US officially surpassed 18 million coronavirus cases and 319,000 deaths. On December 22, President Trump released a surprise video discussing the $900 billion stimulus package that was passed a few days before, after being painstakingly negotiated in Congress. Though President Trump didn?t explicitly say he will veto the bill, many worry that is the direction it is going. The stimulus offers $600 to individuals who make less than $75,000 and couples who make less than $150,000, as well as $600 for each dependent. President Trump was more perturbed by the foreign aid portion of the relief bill, which is similar to bills he?s already signed. On December 23, actor Kirk Cameron came under fire for organizing a few maskless protests in California, where people stood shoulder to shoulder and sang Christmas carols. (CNN)

Photo Source: AP Photo/Ashley Landis, File
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President Trump Pardons 15

On December 22, President Trump pardoned 15 people in what many expect to be a strew of pardons before he leaves office. Among those pardoned were two figures convicted of lying to the FBI during the inquiry into the President?s 2016 campaign. Other pardoned were security guards involved in the 2007 massacre in Iraq and some ex-congressmen. (BBC)

Photo Source: AP Photo/Patrick Semansky
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Intentional Explosion in Nashville

On December 25, police recovered the remains of at least one person after an explosion in Nashville. The explosion also injured three other people, as well as set many cars and buildings on fire. At the time, police had very little information, but as of December 26, they believe the body is that of a suicide bomber. Police are now searching the suspected bomber?s home to find more information. (CNN)

Photo Source: AP Photo/Mark Humphrey
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Coronavirus Updates (5)

On December 28, an appeals court blocked New York Governor Cuomo?s restrictions on religious gatherings. The ruling stated that the restrictions were not stemming the spread of coronavirus, thus gatherings should be allowed. On December 29, the US reported its first case of the new strain of COVID in Colorado. Governor Polis stated that the man infected had no travel history and has been isolated. (CNN)

Photo Source: AP Photo/David Zalubowski
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Shooting at Illinois Bowling Alley

On December 27, three people were killed and another three injured after a gunman entered an Illinois bowling alley. Later, police charged an active Special Forces soldier with the murders. Duke Webb, the 37-year-old suspect, was on leave according to the Army. A motive has not yet been released. (CNN)

Photo Source: AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes
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House Faces Tough Voting Week

On December 28, the House voted to override President Trump?s previous veto of the defense bill. The National Defense Authorization Act will now head to the Senate to complete the process of bypassing a veto. President Trump had vetoed the bill because he didn?t like Section 230, which protects internet companies from being liable for what?s posted on their sites by third parties. On that same day, the House also voted to increase stimulus checks from $600 to $2,000, a move President Trump was adamant about. Senator Bernie Sanders has said he?ll delay the voting on the defense bill if the Senate does not also address the stimulus increase. On December 29, Senator Mitch McConnell blocked the vote to raise the stimulus to $2,000. Many other senators are upset at the lack of a simple vote, and still fighting to have a vote be held. On January 1, the Senate voted to override President Trump?s veto of the defense bill. The vote was 81-13, much more than the two thirds necessary. (CNN)

Photo Source: AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File
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Science and Technology News | World News | Disaster News The U.S. is a very busy place, and it's hard to stay on top of everything. Infoplease has got you covered.