Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri announced on Wednesday that he plans to object during Congress’ meeting to certify Electoral College votes next week in order to highlight unfounded claims of widespread voter fraud and the role of “Big Tech monopolies” in the election. The move will delay the final confirmation of President-elect Joe Biden’s victory by forcing lawmakers in both chambers of Congress to debate and then vote on the objection. “At the very least, Congress should investigate allegations of voter fraud and adopt measures to secure the integrity of our elections,” the senator said in a statement. “But Congress has so far failed to act.”
Argentina is set to become the largest Latin American country to legalize abortion after the country’s Senate approved a measure Wednesday allowing women access to abortion services in the first 14 weeks of a pregnancy. The vote was years in the making, as activists pushed in the grassroots for the legalization of abortion, and came immediately after 12 hours of often heated debate in the country’s upper house. The ultimate vote took place at 4 a.m. Wednesday morning with swarms of demonstrators representing both sides of the issue camped out through the night outside of the legislature. When the final tally came in, the abortion bill, which had been approved by the country’s lower house earlier this month, 131 to 117, was approved by the Senate, 38 to 29, a wider margin than was expected. Abortion rights supporters erupted in cheers, chanting and waving green flags in the streets of Buenos Aires when the vote was announced.
The new Congress will convene on Jan. 3, but will do so without one of its freshman members, Louisiana’s Luke Letlow, who died Tuesday night at a Shreveport hospital due to complications stemming from COVID-19. Letlow became the newest member of the state’s congressional delegation on Dec. 5 when he handily won a runoff against a fellow Republican to capture Louisiana’s sprawling, rural 5
th Congressional District that is also the nation’s second poorest district. Two weeks later, Letlow tested positive for the coronavirus and began isolating at home; he was then admitted to the hospital on Dec. 19. Four days later, Letlow was transferred to the intensive care unit at Ochsner LSU Health in Shreveport.
The New York Post published a striking cover editorial online on Sunday night and in print on Monday: “The Post Says: Give It Up, Mr. President for Your Sake and the Nation’s.” The Post’s editorial board called on President Donald Trump to put aside his futile crusade to overturn the election for the sake of his legacy and encouraged him to focus on helping Republicans win the upcoming Senate runoffs in Georgia. The board also harshly criticized Trump’s enablers, calling attorney Sidney Powell a “crazy person” and deeming former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn’s suggestion that martial law could force an election redo as “tantamount to treason.” The op-ed, addressed to Trump, further admonished the president for trying to convince Republicans to hand him the election, charging, “In other words, you’re cheering for an undemocratic coup.”
Post-holiday air travel hit new pandemic-era highs over the weekend as Americans boarded planes and crisscrossed the country following the Christmas holiday. The spike in air travel is an ominous sign for a country that continues to be the runaway global leader in new coronavirus cases and deaths while seeing a rising number of hospitalizations three upward national trend lines that show no sign of flattening. The holiday travel, mixing strangers on planes and in airports with family members in households at each destination, surely won’t help. The Transportation Security Administration said it screened 1,284,599 people in American airports Sunday, a new record since the coronavirus response kicked into gear in mid-March.