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Texas asks U.S. Supreme Court to help Trump upend election in long-shot lawsuit The state of Texas on Tuesday asked the U.S. Supreme Court to throw out the voting results in four other states in a long-shot legal gambit intended to help President Donald Trump upend his election loss to President-elect Joe Biden.

Companies and industry groups lobbying to get their U.S. workers to the front of the line for COVID vaccination are running into a patchwork of state plans and confusion over who is essential, and who is not. Inoculation against the disease caused by the novel coronavirus is key to safely reopening large parts of the economy and reducing the risks of illness at crowded meatpacking plants, factories and warehouses. Texas asks U.S. Supreme Court to help Trump upend election in long-shot lawsuit

The state of Texas on Tuesday asked the U.S. Supreme Court to throw out the voting results in four other states in a long-shot legal gambit intended to help President Donald Trump upend his election loss to President-elect Joe Biden. Officials from the four states - Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin - called the lawsuit a reckless attack on democracy while legal experts gave it little chance to succeed. It was filed directly with the Supreme Court rather than with a lower court, as is permitted for certain litigation between states. Judge says he leaned against dismissing Flynn case prior to Trump pardon

A federal judge said on Tuesday he had been leaning towards denying a Justice Department request to drop the criminal case against former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn but was forced to dismiss it after President Donald Trump pardoned him. In a 43-page opinion, U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan said that while he was required by law to throw out the case, he was not persuaded by many of the arguments that prosecutors previously made in urging him to dismiss it. With vaccine drawing closer, U.S. tops 15 million coronavirus cases

U.S. coronavirus cases crossed the 15 million mark on Tuesday as regulators moved a step closer to approving a COVID-19 vaccine and Britain started inoculating people, offering hope of slowing a pandemic that killed 15,000 Americans in the last week alone. Record cases in at least three states - Arizona, Alabama and Ohio - pushed the cumulative case load to over 15 million, according to a Reuters tally of state and county data. With the virus showing no sign of abating, leading health officials are once again sounding the alarm of further spread when people gather for the year-end holidays. Rudy Giuliani, diagnosed with COVID-19, says will leave hospital soon

President Donald Trump's lawyer Rudy Giuliani on Tuesday said he is feeling better after contracting COVID-19 and expects to leave the hospital on Wednesday. The 76-year-old former New York City mayor, who is spearheading Trump's flagging effort to overturn the Republican president's election loss to Democrat Joe Biden, said he began to feel unusually tired on Friday. U.S. Fort Hood Army panel finds 'permissive' culture of sexual assaults

An investigative panel looking into violent crimes and abuse at the Fort Hood Army base in Texas said on Tuesday it had found a command structure that was "permissive" of sexual assaults. In light of the panel's finding, over a dozen commanders have been suspended or relieved and Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy said he expects to make widespread changes.