Reuters US Domestic News Summary

Republican Georgia secretary of state says no sign of widespread fraud in vote count Georgia's Republican Secretary of State said on Wednesday there was no sign yet of widespread fraud in his state's vote count, where Democratic President-elect Joe Biden currently has a 14,000 vote lead over President Donald Trump.

Following is a summary of current US domestic news briefs. Trump presses on with uphill legal struggle hoping to overturn Biden victory

President Donald Trump's campaign on Wednesday took another step in its long-shot legal strategy to upend his election loss with a Michigan lawsuit while Georgia announced a recount and President-elect Joe Biden worked on laying the foundation of his administration. The Republican president's team went to federal court to try to block Michigan, a U.S. Midwestern battleground state that he won in 2016 but lost to Biden in media projections, from certifying the Nov. 3 election results. Trump trailed by roughly 148,000 votes, or 2.6 percentage points, in unofficial Michigan vote totals, according to Edison Research. Insurance losses from U.S. West Coast wildfires to top $8 billion: Aon

Insurance and reinsurance industry losses from wildfires across U.S. states, including California, Oregon and Colorado, were estimated to be more than $8 billion, according to a monthly report on global catastrophes by Aon Plc. Economic losses from the fires could top $13 billion, the insurance broker said http://thoughtleadership.aon.com/documents/20201111_analytics-if-october-global-recap.pdf on Wednesday. Tropical Storm Eta targets Florida west coast as it nears fourth landfall

Tropical Storm Eta spun toward Florida's west coast on Wednesday on its erratic path to a fourth landfall, threatening squall winds, storm surge and prompting the state's governor to declare a state of emergency in 13 counties. Eta, which had weakened slightly from hurricane strength to become a tropical storm, is the 28th named storm of the busiest Atlantic hurricane season on record, according to the Miami-based National Hurricane Center. Its fourth landfall was projected early on Thursday, north of Tampa Bay, after it already slammed Central America, Cuba and the upper Florida Keys. Fears of COVID-19 resurgence spread to East Coast as grim U.S. records mount

As COVID-19 infections, hospitalizations and deaths surge across the United States, more signs emerged that a second wave could engulf areas of the Northeast, which managed to bring the pandemic under control after being battered last spring. In New Jersey, one of the early U.S. hotspots, a spike in cases in Newark, the state's largest city, prompted Mayor Ras Baraka to implement aggressive measures, including a mandatory curfew for certain areas, to contain the spread of the virus. Cold storage challenges could hamper distribution of Pfizer, Moderna COVID-19 vaccines: Fauci

Anthony Fauci, director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, on Wednesday said it would be challenging to distribute vaccines that use messenger RNA based technology in developing countries, owing to their cold storage requirements. The comments come days after Pfizer Inc said its experimental COVID-19 vaccine is more than 90% effective based on initial trial results and that it expects to file for U.S. emergency authorization this month. Georgia to re-count presidential election ballots by hand

Georgia will re-count all paper ballots cast in the Nov. 3 presidential election by hand, the state's top election official said on Wednesday, a mammoth task that must be completed by Nov. 20. Democrat Joe Biden secured more than the 270 Electoral College votes needed to gain the presidency on Saturday by winning Pennsylvania after four tense days of counting, delayed by a surge in mail-in ballots due to the coronavirus pandemic. Adding Georgia would only add to Biden's margin of victory. Trump campaign sues Michigan to prevent certification of Biden win

Donald Trump's presidential campaign on Wednesday sued Michigan to block the U.S. state from certifying last week's election results, where the president has trailed Democrat Joe Biden. According to a complaint filed in a federal court in western Michigan, many people have submitted affidavits describing alleged misconduct in the voting, with the focus on the Democratic stronghold of Wayne County, which includes Detroit. Sullivan wins re-election in Alaska, taking U.S. Senate battle down to Georgia

U.S. Republican Senator Dan Sullivan of Alaska won re-election, Edison Research and television networks projected on Wednesday, leaving control of the Senate to be determined in January by two runoff elections in Georgia. Sullivan, 55, defeated Al Gross, an independent who ran as a Democrat in an election that some political analysts had seen as a potential opportunity for Democrats to capture a Republican Senate seat. Donations under $8K to Trump ‘election defense’ instead go to president, RNC

As President Donald Trump seeks to discredit last week's election with baseless claims of voter fraud, his team has bombarded his supporters with requests for money to help pay for legal challenges to the results: “The Left will try to STEAL this election!” reads one text. But any small-dollar donations from Trump's grassroots donors won't be going to legal expenses at all, according to a Reuters review of the legal language in the solicitations. Republican Georgia secretary of state says no sign of widespread fraud in vote count

Georgia's Republican Secretary of State said on Wednesday there was no sign yet of widespread fraud in his state's vote count, where Democratic President-elect Joe Biden currently has a 14,000 vote lead over President Donald Trump. Brad Raffensperger, in an interview with CNN, said he has ordered a hand recount because of the closeness of the vote count, but he believed votes had so far been tallied accurately. Biden's current lead, with nearly all votes counted, is 0.3%.