| | More than 1.1 million Georgians have voted in twin U.S. Senate runoff elections that will determine which party controls that chamber of Congress, and with it the fate of much of Democratic President-elect Joe Biden's agenda, state data showed on Friday. | | | An unrelenting U.S. coronavirus surge pushed besieged hospitals further to the brink as the United States pressed on with its immunization rollout on Thursday and prepared to ship nearly 6 million doses of a new vaccine on the cusp of winning regulatory approval. | | | (Reuters) -The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will "rapidly" work towards granting emergency approval of Moderna Inc's COVID-19 vaccine candidate, FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn said on Thursday. | | | Running in between patients, Dr. Eileen Sprys pauses to catch her breath, tries to gather herself, but cannot mask her frustration: The health care workers in her COVID-besieged West Texas hospital were left out of the first shipment of the Pfizer and BioNTech vaccine, and they have no idea when they may get it. | | | The U.S. Congress faced a deadline on Friday to agree to a fresh round of COVID-19 aid as part of a sweeping government funding bill, pass a third stopgap spending bill so negotiations can continue, or let the government shut down at midnight. | | | Army Sergeant Major Das'Chara Champ couldn't have known that the answer to her question about racial discrimination survey data was sitting in an office somewhere in the vast Defense Department bureaucracy. | | | WILMINGTON, Del. (Reuters) -President-elect Joe Biden tapped North Carolina's top environmental regulator, Michael Regan, as U.S. Environmental Protection Agency chief and Democratic congresswoman Deb Haaland as interior secretary as he builds his team to combat climate change and safeguard the environment. | | | A winter storm piled record-breaking amounts of snow onto parts of the U.S. Northeast on Thursday and wreaked havoc throughout the region, killing at least four people in traffic crashes and hobbling travel. | | | A winter storm that has blasted the U.S. Northeast with snow, rain and gusty winds was likely to dump a foot (30 cm) or more of snow on parts of New England before heading out to sea on Thursday. | | | LOS ANGELES (Reuters) -Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said on Thursday that he turned down an offer to work in the administration of President-elect Joe Biden so he can focus on the city as it grapples with record-breaking surges in the coronavirus pandemic. | | | | |