First Thing: ‘Help is on the way’ as Congress agrees Covid aid package

Good morning.

Congress has agreed on a $900bn coronavirus aid package, after weeks of negotiations ran into late-night talks on Sunday. The House was forced to grant a temporary funding extension to avoid a government shutdown, as lawmakers ran out of time to pass the aid package before the midnight Sunday deadline. The Republican Senate leader, Mitch McConnell, last night promised that “help is on the way,” while the Democratic Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, said the package should have enough support to pass both chambers of Congress.

But despite the aid package, the outlook for the US’s coronavirus pandemic still looks bleak. Donald Trump’s vaccine adviser Dr Moncef Slaoui said on Sunday the situation was likely to get worse as the country dealt with the aftermath of Thanksgiving gatherings, and further infections over the Christmas period.

The second coronavirus vaccine is getting closer

Workers began processing shipments of the second coronavirus vaccine on Sunday, preparing the new Moderna vaccine doses to be distributed around the US. The first shots expected to be given today, three days after the FDA approved the vaccine. Nearly all early vaccine doses will be given to healthcare workers and residents of care homes, with the general population not expected to be vaccinated until spring.

The rollout has been far from smooth. Frontline healthcare workers have described their disappointment and frustration after a series of logistical mishaps prevented them from receiving the coronavirus vaccine last week. The workers described the vaccine programme as “an absolute mess”.

• A leading epidemiologist has predicted a post-pandemic ‘roaring 20s’, saying that pandemics often lead to a burst in social interaction, which happened after the 1918 flu. The Yale professor also described the coronavirus vaccine as “miraculous”, saying we are the first generations of humans to respond to a pandemic in real-time with effective medicines.

Mitt Romney called Trump’s election disputes ‘nutty and loopy’

The Utah Republican senator, Mitt Romney, launched a cringe-inducing attack on Donald Trump on Sunday, describing his attempts to overturn the US election as “really sad”, “embarrassing”, and “nutty and loopy”. Romney said Trump risked overshadowing his success with the coronavirus vaccine with his baseless claims of voter fraud, saying that “this last chapter suggests what he is going to be known for.”

Fox News has also further distanced itself from the president’s baseless election fraud claims, appearing to retract its host’s previous allegations of fraud about Smartmatic voting machines. Lou Dobbs had claimed the machines were fraudulent, but ran a bizarre segment on Friday night in which an election technology expert said he had not seen any evidence of voter fraud in Smartmatic software – essentially debunking Dobbs’s own allegations. It likely follows a legal notice Smartmatic sent to Fox News last week, assailing them for spreading “false and defamatory claims” about the software.

Will Biden hit back over the hack?

President-elect Joe Biden is reportedly considering options for punishing Russia over its suspected hack of US government agencies and companies, with his choices ranging from financial sanctions to revenge cyberattacks. Pressure is mounting for the US to act; Mitt Romney accused Russia of acting “with impunity” and said the move “demands a response”, while John Barasso, a Republican senator from Wyoming, said the US needed a “forceful, effective punishing response so people pay a price for this”.

The secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, became the first in Trump’s administration to blame Russia for the attack this weekend, but Trump claimed that the “Fake news media” was exaggerating the scale of the hack and suggested China might be behind it.

• Dozens of journalists have been hacked through a vulnerability in the iPhone, allegedly through spyware sold by Israeli private intelligence firm. Researchers have suggested that the unprecedented cyber-attack on staff at Al Jazeera was ordered by Saudi Arabia and the UAE, who they said exploited a vulnerability in iMessage that enabled hackers to seize control of the iPhone simply by sending a message.

In other news…

• Chicago’s top attorney has resigned over the wrongful raid on the home of a Black social worker who was prevented from putting clothes on before she was handcuffed. A police video of the 2019 raid on Anjanette Young’s home, which showed her repeated pleas that police had the wrong house, sparked outrage.

• Early humans may have survived cold winters by hibernating, fossil experts have suggested. Evidence from bones at one of the world’s most important fossil sites indicates humans might have slowed down their metabolisms and slept for months to survive the winter.

Stat of the day: the number of recorded deaths from lightning has dropped this year

The number of lightning strike fatalities in the US has dropped to its lowest figure in years, with 17 deaths recorded in 2020. This is four fewer than 2018 and 2019, and less than half of the total for 2016, when there were 40 deaths. However, specialists get most of their information from media reports, and one expert suggested there may be other deaths that had gone unrecorded as coronavirus dominated the headlines.

Don’t miss this: why a fracked pipeline is being described as ‘environmental racism’

In the US, people of color are far more likely than white people to live close to polluting facilities, and to get unwell because of it. Environmental activists in Brooklyn have said that a fracked gas pipeline being built in their area, is an example of “environmental racism”, with residents used as “the dumping ground” for ecologically destructive policies.

Last thing: Even Jacinda Arden gets imposter syndrome

New Zealand’s prime minister, Jacinda Arden, who won a landslide re-election in October and led one of the world’s most successful responses to coronavirus, has revealed that even she gets “imposter syndrome”. Discussing mental health in an interview this weekend, Arden also said she watches “bad crime shows” to unwind, and enjoys being around people constantly.

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