US News Roundup: Mike Pence set to emerge; Georgia lawmakers seek jail reform and more

Following is a summary of current US domestic news briefs.

Long in Trump's shadow, Vice President Mike Pence set to emerge

Vice President Mike Pence, a Christian conservative and one of the few constants in Donald Trump's tumultuous White House, has kept his boss's confidence by being careful never to step out of the president's shadow. Whether Trump wins or loses the election on Tuesday, that strategy and status are likely to change. Pence, 61, will be catapulted into a group of front-runners for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination as soon as the 2020 results are known.

Georgia lawmakers seek jail reform after Reuters investigation

Georgia lawmakers are pressing for stronger jail oversight after a Reuters investigation identified hundreds of deaths in the state’s county jails and dangerous lapses in inmate medical care. David Wilkerson, a Georgia state lawmaker who had been planning new jail legislation for the upcoming January session, said he intends to cite Reuters’ findings in his proposed reforms.

With election looming, U.S. faces record surge of coronavirus cases

A record surge of coronavirus cases in the United States pushed hospitals closer to the brink of capacity and drove the number of infections reported on Friday to an ominous new daily world record of 100,000, four days before the U.S. presidential election. The United States also documented its 9 millionth case to date on Friday, representing nearly 3% of the population, with almost 229,000 dead since the outbreak of the pandemic early this year, according to a Reuters tally of publicly reported data.

Judge rules U.S. teenager should return to Wisconsin to face shooting charges

An Illinois judge on Friday ordered the extradition of a teenager accused of fatally shooting two protesters and wounding a third during demonstrations in August in Wisconsin. Paul Novak, a judge in Lake County, Illinois, where 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse is being held, handed down a six-page ruling denying the teen's request for release and ruled he must raise his self-defense claims in a Wisconsin court.

In final days of campaign, Trump criticizes those fighting coronavirus

President Donald Trump is spending the closing days of his re-election campaign criticizing public officials and medical professionals who are trying to combat the coronavirus pandemic even as it surges back across the United States. Campaigning in the Midwest on Friday, Trump delivered a closing message that promised an economic revival and a vaccine to combat COVID-19, which is pushing hospitals to capacity and killing up to 1,000 people in the United States each day.

A longtime fixture in U.S. politics, Biden seeks to win elusive prize

Joe Biden, a fixture in U.S. politics for a half-century as a senator and vice president, is seeking to complete a long climb to the political mountaintop that includes two previous failed presidential bids by defeating President Donald Trump on Tuesday. If Biden beats the Republican president, a fellow septuagenarian, the 77-year-old Democrat from Delaware would become the oldest person ever elected to the White House.

Brash and pugnacious, Trump has presided over a tumultuous presidency

Businessman-turned-politician Donald Trump has promoted "America First" nationalism, withstood impeachment and a bout with COVID-19, and taken contentious stands on race and immigration during a turbulent presidency that detractors say has flouted U.S. democratic norms. After decades of fame first as a brash and media-savvy New York real estate developer and then as a reality TV personality, the pugnacious Trump tapped into discontent among many Americans to become a political phenomenon unique in the country's 244 years.

The great divergence: U.S. COVID-19 economy has delivered luxury houses for some, evictions for others

When the temperature dipped near freezing in Columbus, Ohio in mid-October, the children had no heat. The gas had been shut off in their apartment for nonpayment. DaMir Coleman, 8, and his brother, KyMir, 4, warmed themselves in front of the electric oven. The power, too, was set to be disconnected. Soon there might be no oven, no lights and no internet for online schooling. The boys’ mother, Shanell McGee, already had her cell phone switched off and feared she could soon face eviction from their $840-a-month apartment. The rundown unit consumes nearly half her wages from her job as a medical assistant at a clinic, where she works full-time but gets no health benefits.

U.S. reports world record of more than 100,000 COVID-19 cases in single day

The United States set a new all-time high for coronavirus cases confirmed in a single 24-hour period on Friday, reporting just over 100,000 new infections to surpass the record total of 91,000 posted a day earlier, according to a Reuters tally. The daily caseload of 100,233 is also a world record for the global pandemic, surpassing the 97,894 cases reported by India on a single day in September.

Harris would break barriers as a high-profile vice president

Kamala Harris will make history if she becomes the next vice president of the United States in the election on Tuesday, and she will immediately be in a strong position to run for the top job four years from now. If Joe Biden and his running mate Harris win the election, she would be the first woman, the first Black American, and the first Asian American to hold the country's second-highest office.

(With inputs from agencies.)