5 things to know for December 11: Pandemic, transition, stimulus, Lebanon, Brandon Bernard

Here’s what you need to know to Get Up to Speed and On with Your Day.

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1. Coronavirus

An FDA advisory committee has recommended that the agency grant a long-awaited emergency-use authorization for the Pfizer/BioNTech coronavirus vaccine. The FDA still has to actually grant the authorization before Operation Warp Speed, the government’s vaccine initiative, can start shipping and distributing the vaccine to states. A CDC committee also would need to recommend the vaccine, and the CDC would need to accept the recommendation, before shots can be administered. That advisory committee will meet today and should vote over the weekend. The whole process will likely be repeated soon for the Moderna vaccine. In Australia, a domestic coronavirus vaccine candidate has been scrapped after trial participants returned false positive test results for HIV.

2. White House transition

More than 100 House Republicans are backing a Texas lawsuit asking the Supreme Court to overturn the results of the election in the states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Georgia. All of the states named have issued blistering rebukes of the lawsuit, with Pennsylvania officials calling it a “seditious abuse of the judicial process.” There has been no evidence of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election, and all states have already certified their election results. Influential Republicans who oppose this legal gambit are invoking GOP principles about protecting states’ rights, saying states should not interfere with other states’ elections. It’s still not clear whether the Supreme Court will act on the lawsuit.

3. Stimulus

Another day down, and still no stimulus deal from Congress. While a full relief package has eluded lawmakers for months, there was some hope that Congress would tack some sort of stimulus measures onto a bill to ward off a looming government shutdown that would start … today. A short-term spending bill on the table would keep the government open for another week, until December 18, but it’s facing pushback from conservative senators who want language to prevent future government shutdowns, and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent, who wants a provision for another round of stimulus checks. Meanwhile, the European Union has reached a final agreement on its own $2 trillion package to rebuild the bloc’s faltering economies.

4. Lebanon

A Lebanese judge has charged the country’s caretaker Prime Minister Hassan Diab and three ex-ministers with criminal neglect over the catastrophic Beirut port explosion that killed more than 200 people in August. Diab’s government stepped down in the wake of the blast, and has repeatedly acknowledged receiving warnings about the dangerous storage of explosive materials at the port. A statement from Diab’s office said that “the Prime Minister’s conscience is clear.” A judge investigating the incident is set to question Diab and the ex-ministers next week. Some Lebanese citizens have expressed anger and frustration over the investigation, which they say isn’t providing enough transparency or answers.

5. Brandon Bernard

Brandon Bernard, a federal prisoner convicted of murder for his part in the gang killing of a couple in 1999, was executed last night by lethal injection, much to the dismay of activists who had been pleading for a stay of execution. He was the youngest person in the United States to receive a death sentence in nearly 70 years for a crime committed when he was an adolescent, and his execution is the ninth to be carried out since Attorney General William Barr restarted federal executions after a 17-year hiatus. Bernard’s case garnered lots of attention from activists, including Kim Kardashian West, who argued against Bernard’s execution because he was a teenager at the time of the double murder, and was not the person who actually shot and killed the two victims.

BREAKFAST BROWSE

Joe Biden and Kamala Harris named Time Person of the Year 

Other notable ‘of the year’ mentions: LeBron James as Athlete of the Year, and Korean pop band BTS as Entertainer of the Year.

These were the biggest beauty trends of 2020

Honorable mention: Not wearing real pants for months on end.

Taylor Swift released two albums in 2020

Well, at least SOMEONE had a productive year.

Ben & Jerry’s creates Colin Kaepernick-inspired ice cream flavor

It’s called “Change the Whirled.” And it’s vegan!

Users turned ‘Ratatouille’ into a TikTok musical. Now, it will become a benefit for Broadway

Humans are amazing. Really weird, but amazing.

TODAY’S NUMBER

86 million

That’s how many subscribers Disney+ has notched since the streaming service was rolled out last year. That number will likely skyrocket after Disney announced 100 new projects for the service, an announcement digital media guru Matthew Ball called “earth-shaking.”

TODAY’S QUOTE

“I told him they put it on a sugar cube and you just ate it. He stared at me, then went to the phone and called my uncle Dick.”

Jeff Sherman, whose father Robert Sherman is one half of famed songwriting duo the Sherman Brothers. The pair wrote the iconic Mary Poppins tune “A Spoonful of Sugar,” and Sherman says the inspiration came from a time he told his father about receiving the oral polio vaccine. Sherman shared the surprising vaccine connection in a Facebook post, and urged people to trust the Covid-19 vaccination process.

TODAY’S WEATHER

Check your local forecast here>>>

AND FINALLY

Playing piano for wild macaques

It’s probably not good concert etiquette to sit on the artist’s head. (Click here to view)