Reuters US Domestic News Summary

Biden urges safe Thanksgiving amid pandemic; Trump pardons ex-aide Flynn President-elect Joe Biden pleaded with Americans on Wednesday to take steps to remain safe over the Thanksgiving holiday as COVID-19 cases soar, while President Donald Trump pardoned a former aide who twice pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI.

Following is a summary of current US domestic news briefs. Americans defy pandemic, political leaders to travel for Thanksgiving

Americans defied pleas from state and local officials to stay home for the Thanksgiving holiday in the face of the surging coronavirus pandemic, triggering fresh warnings from health officials with the release of vaccines still weeks away. U.S. President-elect Joe Biden joined in the calls for safety, urging people to forgo big family gatherings, wear protective masks and maintain social distancing. As COVID-19 cases soar, U.S. families weigh risks of welcoming college kids home

Nina Jain was regularly checking the nation's COVID-19 data and holding out hope that her son Antonio, a sophomore who attends college in Iowa, could come home to Sacramento, California, for Thanksgiving this week. Jain, who works in a government office, had her hopes dashed when she saw U.S. COVID-19 cases rise by an average of more than 168,000 per day last week. Antonio canceled his flight on Friday, hours before it was scheduled to depart, heeding public health warnings that a nationwide dispersal of college students heading home for the holidays could fuel a deadly wave of infections. Severe storm in Arlington, Texas causes damage to property

Authorities in Arlington, Texas were responding to reports of collapsed buildings and flying debris after strong winds swept through the southern U.S. state on Tuesday night. "Our units are currently assessing the structures, triaging potential patients, and moving to other reported locations," the city's fired department said, while the police were determining the extent of damages. Trump order could spark mass firings of civil servants, lawmakers warn

U.S. government civil servants could face mass firings under an executive order before President Donald Trump leaves office and Democratic lawmakers, watchdog groups and unions are mobilizing to block the move. Leaders of 23 House committees and subcommittees asked the heads of 61 federal departments and agencies to provide a "full accounting" of any plans to reclassify federal workers under the Oct. 21 order, leaving them vulnerable to firing. Space oddity? Monolith in Utah desert mystifies helicopter crew

They were on a mission to count sheep when they found something they had not counted on. As a Utah helicopter crew buzzed over the southeastern part of the state looking for bighorn sheep last week, sitting beneath them in the middle of the desert was a bright shiny monolith, the stuff of sci-fi sagas. Biden urges safe Thanksgiving amid pandemic; Trump pardons ex-aide Flynn

President-elect Joe Biden pleaded with Americans on Wednesday to take steps to remain safe over the Thanksgiving holiday as COVID-19 cases soar, while President Donald Trump pardoned a former aide who twice pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI. Biden gave a presidential-style speech acknowledging people's fatigue with restrictions amid the coronavirus pandemic, but urged them to exercise caution as caseloads surge. Explainer: Can Trump's lawyers be disciplined for making false claims?

In the weeks since U.S. President Donald Trump lost the election, his lead lawyer Rudy Giuliani has repeatedly made baseless claims of widespread voter fraud and the campaign brought a flurry of lawsuits challenging the results, many of which were dismissed. Representative Bill Pascrell, a Democrat, on Friday called for Giuliani and other members of the legal team to be stripped of their law licenses for bringing "frivolous" lawsuits and allegedly attempting to help Republican Trump steal the Nov. 3 vote from President-elect Joe Biden. Special Report: To reopen or not to reopen - That is the fraught question for U.S. schools

After a two-week deluge of calls and messages from parents - and at least one death threat - the school board in Chandler, Arizona, called a special meeting this fall. The board would revisit its decision, prompted by the coronavirus, to temporarily close local campuses and offer all classes online. U.S. CDC reports 259,005 deaths from coronavirus

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Wednesday reported 12,498,734 cases of the new coronavirus, an increase of 165,282 from its previous count, and said that the number of deaths had risen by 1,989 to 259,005. The CDC reported its tally of cases of the respiratory illness known as COVID-19, caused by a new coronavirus, as of 4 pm ET on Nov. 24 versus its previous report a day earlier.(https://bit.ly/2J0rzdj) State Department tells staff: transition to Biden administration has begun

The U.S. State Department has informed staff that the transition process has begun and a team had been assigned inside the agency to support a handover to the incoming Biden administration, according to an internal email seen by Reuters on Wednesday. The guidelines, sent on Wednesday, came after the General Services Administration (GSA), the federal agency that must sign off on presidential transitions, notified President-elect Joe Biden on Monday that he could formally begin the handover.