Reuters US Domestic News Summary

U.S. COVID-19 cases surpass 20 million as deaths mount U.S. coronavirus cases crossed the 20 million mark on Friday as officials seek to speed up vaccinations and a more infectious variant surfaces in Colorado, California and Florida.

Following is a summary of current US domestic news briefs. Rejecting Trump veto, Republican-led Senate backs defense bill

President Donald Trump suffered a stinging rebuke in the U.S. Senate on Friday when fellow Republicans joined Democrats to override a presidential veto for the first time in his tenure, pushing through a defense policy bill he opposed just weeks before he leaves office. Meeting in a rare New Year's Day session, senators voted 81-13 to secure the two-thirds majority needed to override the veto. Eight previous Trump vetoes had been upheld. More infectious COVID-19 variant found in Florida: state officials

A more infections variant of COVID-19 that has swept through the United Kingdom has been identified in Florida, state health officials said on Thursday, marking the third known U.S. state to identify such a case. The Florida Department of Health said the case involved a male in his 20s in Martin County with no history of travel. Two other cases involving the UK variant have been identified in Colorado and California. Romney floats sweeping vaccine plan as U.S. nears 20 million COVID-19 cases

Senator Mitt Romney on Friday urged the U.S. government to immediately enlist veterinarians, combat medics and others in a sweeping proposal to administer coronavirus vaccinations and slow the rising death toll. The 2012 Republican presidential nominee called for action after it emerged that 2.8 million Americans had received their first dose, far short of the 20 million the Trump administration promised by the end of 2020. A record three million early votes cast in Georgia's U.S. Senate runoff races

A record 3 million early votes have been cast in the two Georgia runoff elections that next week will decide which party controls the U.S. Senate, according to a final tally released on Friday. The turnout figures, compiled by the University of Florida's U.S. Elections Project, indicate strong voter interest in Tuesday's elections that pit incumbent Republican Senators David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler against Democratic challengers Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock. Pfizer and BioNTech to offer COVID vaccine to volunteers who got placebo

Pfizer Inc and its partner BioNTech Se plan to give volunteers who received a placebo in its COVID-19 vaccine trial an option to receive a first dose of the vaccine by March 1, 2021, while staying within the study. The trial's Vaccine Transition Option allows all participants aged 16 or older the choice to discover whether they were given the placebo, "and for participants who learn they received the placebo, to have the option to receive the investigational vaccine while staying in the study," the companies said on their website https://www.covidvaccinestudy.com/participants for trial participants. U.S. COVID-19 cases surpass 20 million as deaths mount

U.S. coronavirus cases crossed the 20 million mark on Friday as officials seek to speed up vaccinations and a more infectious variant surfaces in Colorado, California and Florida. The United States has seen a spike in number of daily COVID-19 fatalities since Thanksgiving with 78,000 lives lost in December. A total of 345,000 have died of COVID-19, or one out of every 950 U.S. residents, since the virus first emerged in China late in 2019. (Graphic: https://tmsnrt.rs/34pvUyi)

Record-setting 'bomb cyclone' batters Alaska's Aleutian Islands with hurricane force A Pacific storm of record proportions swept a remote stretch of Alaska's Aleutian Islands chain on Thursday, battering a region used heavily by commercial shipping with hurricane-force winds and seas five stories high. “It’s the most intense storm ever recorded in the North Pacific, excluding typhoons,” said Brian Brettschneider, a NOAA research scientist with the National Weather Service.

U.S. House Democrats introduce ethics, legislative reforms U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Friday unveiled a package of ethics and legislative reforms for the new Congress set to convene Sunday, including barring former lawmakers convicted of federal crimes from the House floor. Democrats are set to hold a narrower 222-211 in the 435-member House during the 117th Congress, with one vacancy and one race undecided.

After a year of loss, patients ring in 2021 from Houston COVID-19 ward Shortly after midnight Duc Nguyen sat up in his hospital bed for a video call with his wife. The glow of a television and a street lamp outside his window provided the only light as a nasal cannula delivered oxygen to his lungs. It was not how the 33-year-old had envisioned welcoming in the new year, but he said he was grateful the United Memorial Medical Center (UMMC) in Houston had a vacant bed so he could be treated for pneumonia brought on by COVID-19.

Wisconsin pharmacist arrested on charges of sabotaging COVID vaccine doses A Wisconsin hospital pharmacist was arrested on Thursday on suspicion of sabotaging more than 500 doses of coronavirus vaccine by deliberately removing them from refrigeration to spoil, police and medical authorities said. The pharmacist, an employee of Aurora Medical Center in Grafton, Wisconsin, at the time that 57 vials of vaccine were found left out of cold storage earlier this week, has since been fired but has not been publicly identified, officials said.