National

U.S. deaths increase most years. But the 2020 numbers amount to a jump of about 15%, and could go higher once all the deaths from this month are counted.

Lawmakers tacked on a $1.4 trillion catchall spending bill and thousands of pages of other end-of-session business to create a massive bundle of bipartisan legislation.

Highlights of the measure with overall funding amounts and specific amounts for some but not necessarily all initiatives.

A federal advisory committee voted to put adults 75 and over and frontline essential workers next in line for COVID-19 vaccines.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has issued an advisory declaring “postponing travel and staying home is the best way to protect yourself and others from COVID."

Families are getting put out on the street despite an order to block evictions from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Advocates say the order needs to be extende

Public health experts say the shots — and others in the pipeline — are the only way to stop a virus that has been spreading wildly.

The agreement would establish a temporary $300 per week supplemental jobless benefits and $600 direct stimulus payments to most Americans.

Lawmakers on both sides said a provision by Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., that would curb emergency Federal Reserve powers was the sticking point.

"I failed. I'm adjusting. I am fixing and we will move forward from there," Gen. Gustave Perna told reporters in a telephone briefing.

The Trump administration on Friday made public a trove of federal data on the pandemic that reveals a country awash in red alerts.

Vice President-elect Kamala Harris and her husband, Doug Emhoff, will receive their doses the week after next.

Government funding lapses at midnight Friday and a partial, low-impact shutdown would ensue if Congress fails to pass a stopgap spending bill before then.

The three liberal justices dissented, saying the effort to exclude people in the country from the population for divvying up House seats is unlawful.

In remarks after his shot, Pence called the speed with which the vaccine was developed "a medical miracle.”