Reuters US Domestic News Summary

Biden cements victory by winning Arizona, but Trump still refuses to concede President-elect Joe Biden cemented his U.S. electoral victory by capturing the battleground state of Arizona late on Thursday, but the official transition to his administration remains stalled as President Donald Trump refuses to accept defeat.

Following is a summary of current US domestic news briefs. Alaska congressman who ridiculed coronavirus now says he has COVID-19

The Alaska congressman who once ridiculed the seriousness of the novel coronavirus, calling it the “beer virus,” said on Thursday he is now infected with it. The announcement by Representative Don Young comes as the state's governor on Thursday warned that health-care and public-safety systems were at risk of being overwhelmed by the rapid spread of the virus across Alaska. Biden cements victory by winning Arizona, but Trump still refuses to concede

President-elect Joe Biden cemented his U.S. electoral victory by capturing the battleground state of Arizona late on Thursday, but the official transition to his administration remains stalled as President Donald Trump refuses to accept defeat. Biden was projected to win Arizona after more than a week of vote counting from the Nov. 3 election, Edison Research said. He becomes only the second Democratic presidential candidate in seven decades to win the traditionally Republican state. Explainer: Why Trump's lawsuits are unlikely to change the outcome of the election

U.S. President Donald Trump's litigation campaign to discredit President-elect Joe Biden's victory is very unlikely to change the outcome of the election and is mostly about politics and fundraising, according to election law experts. Trump has repeatedly made unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud. He claims he won the Nov. 3 election and accused Democrats of trying to "steal" it from him. Chicago and Detroit told to hunker down as pandemic surges

Chicago's mayor issued a month-long stay-at-home advisory on Thursday, and Detroit's public schools called a halt to in-person instruction to curb the spread of the coronavirus as more than a dozen U.S. states reported a doubling of new COVID-19 cases in the last two weeks. The two Midwestern cities became the latest in a growing number of states and metropolitan areas - including New York, California and Iowa - moving this week to re-impose public health restrictions that had been eased in recent months. U.S. Justice Alito says pandemic has led to 'unimaginable' curbs on liberty

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito said the COVID-19 pandemic had led to "previously unimaginable" curbs on individual liberty, singling our restrictions on religious events. The justice, who is seen as a conservative, told a meeting of the Federalist Society late on Thursday he was not underplaying the severity of the crisis or criticizing any officials for their response. At least seven people die in North Carolina flash floods

At least seven people died in North Carolina on Thursday as flash floods swept through parts of the state, authorities said, adding at least two people were missing. In the state's Alexander County emergency responders found three bodies and evacuated more than 30 people from a campground, emergency services said. Biden faces repair job at U.S. spy agencies after tumult under Trump

Shortly after comparing U.S. intelligence agencies to Nazis, Donald Trump tried to mend fences on his first full day as president. On Jan. 21, 2017, standing before a marble wall at CIA headquarters honoring officers who died in service, Trump pledged "so much backing" before delivering a campaign-style speech inflating his inauguration attendance and attacking the "dishonest media." Congressional COVID-19 impasse drags on, Pelosi warns 'house is burning down'

Top Democrats in the U.S. Congress on Thursday urged renewed negotiations over a multitrillion-dollar coronavirus aid proposal, but the top Republican immediately rejected their approach as too expensive, continuing a months-long impasse. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer ticked off a litany of grim data about the spread of the coronavirus in the United States, with eight straight days of over 100,000 new coronavirus cases being reported each day. Zuckerberg defends not suspending ex-Trump aide Bannon from Facebook: recording

Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg told an all-staff meeting on Thursday that former Trump White House adviser Steve Bannon had not violated enough of the company's policies to justify his suspension when he urged the beheading of two senior U.S. officials, according to a recording heard by Reuters. Zuckerberg acknowledged criticism of Facebook by President-elect Joe Biden but said the company shared some of the Biden team's same concerns about social media. He urged employees not to jump to conclusions about how the new administration might approach regulation of social media companies. Pennsylvania officials ask judge to toss Trump lawsuit over election results

Officials in the election battleground state of Pennsylvania on Thursday asked a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit brought by U.S. President Donald Trump's campaign seeking to prevent the state from certifying its results in the vote for president. In court filings in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, lawyers for the Pennsylvania secretary of state and seven of the state's counties said the case made vague and unsupported allegations "on the basis of repeatedly-rejected legal theories and no evidence."