(NEW YORK) — Here are today’s In Crisis headlines:
Trump still not conceding election; Georgia to re-count votes by hand
As President-elect Biden meets with transition advisers today, President Trump still is not acknowledging the election results. Wednesday night, the president tweeted, again without evidence, that in Michigan and Pennsylvania there are “hundreds of thousands of votes that should not be allowed to count. Therefore, I easily win both states.” However, Republican efforts to challenge election results in states, including Michigan and Pennsylvania, on the basis of alleged voter fraud have so far failed to move forward in state courts due to lack of evidence to back the allegations.
In Georgia, where Biden’s lead of Trump has remained, albeit slim, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger on Wednesday announced an audit of presidential election results that he said will trigger a full hand recount. Raffensperger said at a news conference that his office wants the process to begin by the end of the week and he expects it to take until November 20, which is the deadline to certify the state’s ballot count. President-elect Joe Biden leads President Donald Trump by about 14,000 votes out of nearly five million cast in the state. Meanwhile, ABC News has confirmed that Biden has chosen longtime adviser Ron Klain as his chief of staff. A statement from Klain says he looks forward to helping “heal the divides in our country.”
Check ABCNews.com for the latest vote counts and other election updates.
Additional 709,000 Americans applied for unemployment last week
An additional 709,000 people applied for unemployment in the U.S. last week, according to figures released Thursday morning by the U.S. Department of Labor. That number, for the week ending November 7, was down by 48,000 from the previous week’s revised level of 757,000 and is in line with expectations. Unemployment claims have stagnated at a high level for the last 11 weeks in the midst of pandemic business closures and job losses. While vaccine news has been positive these last few days, the COVID-19 resurgence continues to pose an increasing threat to jobs and the economy until a vaccine becomes widely available, which is currently not expected to happen until late spring or early summer of next year.
COVID-19 numbers
Here’s the latest data on COVID-19 coronavirus infections and deaths.
Latest reported numbers globally per Johns Hopkins University
Global diagnosed cases: 52,256,150
Global deaths: 1,286,543. The United States has the most deaths of any single country, with 241,808.
Number of countries/regions: at least 191
Total patients recovered globally: 34,003,936
Latest reported numbers in the United States per Johns Hopkins University
There are at least 10,260,282 reported cases in 50 states + the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and Guam. This is more than in any other country.
U.S. deaths: at least 241,808. New York State has the greatest number of reported deaths in the U.S., with 33,848.
U.S. total patients recovered: 3,997,175
U.S. total people tested: 156,618,421
The greatest number of reported COVID-19 cases in the U.S. is in Texas, with 1,022,336 confirmed cases out of a total state population of 29 million. This ranks fourth in the world after Maharashtra, India, which has 1,731,833 reported cases; Sao Paulo, Brazil, which has 1,150,872 reported cases; and England, which has 1,073,300 reported cases.
US tops 240,000 COVID-19 deaths, sets yet another daily case record as infection surge continues
The number of reported COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. topped 240,000 on Wednesday, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University, which puts the number of fatalities at 241,808 as of Thursday morning. That number remains the highest death toll from the virus seen in any country, accounting for 18.7% of global fatalities.
The United States also has 10,260,282 COVID-19 cases as of Thursday morning, following yet another day of record numbers of reported cases. The Covid Tracking Project reports a record 144,270 daily COVID-19 cases reported Wednesday, marking the first time the number of new cases nationally crossed 140,000. The figure also broke a record set the day before by more than 13,000 cases, based on data from the tracker. A record 65,368 people were also hospitalized for COVID-19 Wednesday, with 1,421 deaths reported. Every county in the U.S. now is reporting daily increases in coronavirus infections.
Texas on Tuesday became the first U.S. state to exceed one million reported COVID-19 cases. Now California is also approaching that grim milestone, with 996,435 confirmed cases as of Thursday morning, making them all but certain to also post one million COVID-19 cases in the next few days.
At the White House, political director Brian Jack and at least two other White House aides have tested COVID-19 positive, sources familiar with the matter tell ABC News. At this point, at least 12 people in President Trump’s orbit have tested positive since White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows tested positive one week ago.
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