Coronavirus (MN): Record High 3,844 Daily COVID Cases Reported; Gov. Requests Federal Support

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) – A day after the presidential election, Minnesota has broken COVID-19 case records yet again, with 3,844 positive cases reported Wednesday. An additional 31 people have died.

Over the past 10 days, COVID-19 cases have hovered around the 2,000 to 3,000 realm, but Wednesday beat the previous daily positive case record that had been set on Tuesday. The death toll has also breached 2,500.

Hospitalizations have also reached record numbers, with 908 currently in the hospital. Over 20% of those are currently in the ICU, though the data is still preliminary. Continue reading.

Rowdy Trump Mob In Detroit Attempts To Stop Vote Count

A crowd of protesters demanding that vote counting in Detroit cease formed at the TCF Hall, a local election center, Steve Patterson of NBC News reported on Wednesday.

He posted video of the event where the protesters crowded around the entrance to a room where votes were being counted:

“Step back! Step back!” a law enforcement official yelled as he tried to leave the room. The crowd was press up against the door. Continue reading.

World watches with unease as drawn-out, contested election batters America’s global image

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As the world reckoned with another day of uncertainty over the result of the U.S. presidential election, Trump’s premature victory claim, unsubstantiated allegations of voter fraud and the threat of legal challenges continued to overshadow the drawn out vote count, from which no clear winner has emerged. The indecision was met with deep unease around the globe over what lies ahead for the U.S. political process — and more than a little glee from America’s traditional adversaries.

Amid the slow count, America’s global image as a model for other democracies to emulate has taken yet another battering, especially among its allies around the globe.

In Japan, America’s closest ally in Asia and a country whose postwar constitution was largely written by Americans, U.S. election updates dominated television news. The Mainichi newspaper said the events even called into question “the intrinsic value of democracy,” adding that “responsibility for fanning the divide and amplifying the confusion lies with Mr. Trump.” Continue reading.

US sets record for cases amid election battle over virus

New confirmed cases of the coronavirus in the U.S. have climbed to an all-time high of more than 86,000 per day on average, in a glimpse of the worsening crisis that lies ahead for the winner of the presidential election.

Cases and hospitalizations are setting records all around the country just as the holidays and winter approach, demonstrating the challenge that either President Donald Trump or former Vice President Joe Biden will face in the coming months.

Daily new confirmed coronavirus cases in the U.S. have surged 45% over the past two weeks, to a record 7-day average of 86,352, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. Deaths are also on the rise, up 15 percent to an average of 846 deaths every day. Continue reading.

What a contested election means for the economy — and your wallet

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It looks increasingly likely that the United States is going to keep experiencing a ‘K-shaped recovery’

Americans woke up Wednesday morning to an undecided presidential election, which could be the case for some time, depending on legal challenges and recounts. For the economy, that means uncertainty is here to stay in 2020.

Business leaders and investors tend to hate uncertainty, and this political situation adds more of it as the nation is already dealing with a second big wave of coronavirus cases and a contentious battle in Congress over another stimulus package.

The early read among economists and Wall Street analysts is to buckle up for a wild few weeks. Continue reading.

Fox’s Arizona Call for Biden Flipped the Mood at Trump Headquarters

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The Fox News decision left the president fuming, and his team complaining. Then he began casting aspersions on other states’ vote counts.

WASHINGTON — With Florida looking red early on Tuesday night, President Trump and his advisers thought they were witnessing a repeat of election night 2016, when a victory in Florida foreshadowed a victory over all.

Inside the East Room, the mood was upbeat as hundreds of people, including cabinet secretaries, ambassadors and former officials who have remained loyal to Mr. Trump, mingled and dined on sliders and French fries. Officials who had been pessimistic about the president’s re-election chances suddenly started to picture four more years in power.

That mirage of victory was pierced when Fox News called Arizonafor former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. at 11:20 p.m., with just 73 percent of the state’s vote counted. Continue reading.

Trump and his allies boost bogus conspiracy theories in a bid to undermine vote count

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The campaign also sent an estimated 9 million text messages between midnight and midday Wednesday, according to an anti-robocall firm, with some messages seeking money to launch voting challenges.

President Trump, his son and top members of his campaign on Wednesday advanced a set of unfounded conspiracy theories about the vote-tallying process to claim that Democrats were rigging the final count.

Eric Trump tweeted a video, first pushed out by an account associated with the far-right QAnon conspiracy theory, that purported to show someone burning ballots cast for his father. The materials turned out to be sample ballots, and Twitter quickly suspended the original account that circulated the misleading clip.

Trump’s son and others, including White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany, claimed falsely in tweets later hidden by warning labels that the president had won Pennsylvania — even though no such determination had been made. And the campaign’s spokesman, Tim Murtaugh, claimed without evidence that crowd control at a processing center in Detroit was an effort to thwart Trump’s chances of reelection. Continue reading.

As U.S. leaves Paris accord, climate policy hangs on election outcome

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The United States became the first and only nation to withdraw from the Paris climate accord on Wednesday, even as the outcome of the presidential race remained unknown.

The nation’s formal exit from the global effort to combat climate change — a departure set in motion by President Trump more than three years ago — marked the only sliver of certainty in a sea of ambiguity about the future trajectory of U.S. climate and environmental policy.

If Trump were to eke out a victory, the U.S. government would all but vanish from international efforts to slow the Earth’s warming, in favor of promoting fossil fuels. Democratic nominee Joe Biden has called climate change “the existential threat to humanity” and vowed to immediately rejoin the Paris accord if elected. But even if he wins the White House, his plan to invest trillions of dollars toward making the United States a greener nation will face a deeply divided Congress. Continue reading.

Fox News Helped Fuel Trump’s Rise. Now It’s Reporting on a Possible Fall.

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The president and his aides have been critical of the cable network that includes some of his most ardent media allies.

President Trump and Fox News have a complicated relationship. Election Day did not help.

The cable news channel that kick-started Donald J. Trump’s political career was suddenly in the position of signaling its potential end. The network’s early call of Arizona on Tuesday night for Joseph R. Biden Jr. infuriated Mr. Trump and his aides, who reached out publicly and behind the scenes to Fox News executives about the call.

The network held firm — even as two of its biggest stars, Laura Ingraham and Jeanine Pirro, attended Mr. Trump’s defiant early-morning speech in the East Room of the White House. Continue reading.