News Information and Media Site: A season of setbacks

THE BIG STORY

A judge demolished the Trump campaign's effort to undo Biden's win in Pennsylvania and push fraud theories

The last three weeks have been filled with setback after setback for Donald Trump's campaign. Trump and his supporters have been attempting to translate baseless theories of widespread voter fraud into winning legal arguments that could actually change the results of the election.

So far, Trump has been unable to meaningfully change vote tallies in any of the states that Biden won. But on Saturday, Trump's campaign faced one of his biggest legal setbacks to date.

US District Judge Matthew Brann in Pennsylvania methodically disassembled the Trump campaign's lawsuit in a 37-page opinion. He found the campaign's arguments unclear and hard to thread together, at one point comparing them to "Frankenstein's monster."

He wrote that the campaign failed to clear the critical first hurdle of having standing to bring the case at all, and that even if they had done so, they'd failed to prove that Pennsylvania election officials unconstitutionally violated voting rights.

President Donald Trump golfs at Trump National Golf Club on November 21in Sterling, Virginia. Tasos Katopodis / Getty Images

STAYING ON TOP OF THIS

The US just passed 12 million total COVID cases as people start to travel for Thanksgiving

Last week, Americans began their treks home for the Thanksgiving holiday, and they did so in the midst of a surge in coronavirus case numbers, which have consistently reached new heights this month.

On Friday, the US set a daily record of 195,542 confirmed new cases of the coronavirus, according to data by researchers at Johns Hopkins University. That new high shattered the record set only the previous day before when the nation totaled just under 188,000 new cases.

Last week, the CDC cautioned against travel for Thanksgiving, issuing a "strong" warning and telling people that the safest way to celebrate Thanksgiving was to do so only with the people they live with.

But since the warning came as people were starting their travel plans, it is yet unclear how effective it will be.

SNAPSHOTS

Uber and Lyft spent hundreds of millions to win their fight over workers' rights. It worked. At the start of the year, it looked like the labor movement was gaining ground in its fight for gig workers' rights. The tech industry spent big to defeat them.

Ted Cruz tweeted a tone-deaf Thanksgiving meme while Texas morgues overflowed with COVID victims. The Texas senator was criticized for tweeting a "war on Thanksgiving" meme while El Paso morgues were overwhelmed, and thousands lined up outside a food bank in Dallas amid surging COVID cases in the state.

One in three Americans didn't vote. Should they be forced to next time? Advocates for compulsory voting in the US are looking for a state to be an electoral guinea pig. They said forcing everyone to vote would fix a lot of problems.

A family created a plastic shield so they could hug each other after their uncle died of COVID. Nichole Thompson captured a gut-wrenching moment between her dad and aunt in a viral TikTok. "I honestly can't even watch it again myself because it makes me so emotional," she told us.

TikTok / @nmt0329

TROUBLE AHEAD

Midwest nurses say their hospitals are on the verge of collapsing — and leaders aren't listening

The trend in Midwest hospitals is worrying. Across Kansas and Missouri, intensive care units are filling to capacity and beyond with patients struggling to breathe.

Last week, Kansas posted a seven-day record for new coronavirus cases. In nearly two days, 5,853 people tested positive and 60 others died.

In the first two weeks of November, Missouri recorded more COVID cases — nearly 60,000 — than it did during any other month since the pandemic began. The state's current positivity rate is 27%.

Nurses in the region are beginning to worry that hospitals will simply buckle under what is being asked of them. They're also worried that outside the hospital, too many refuse to wear a mask or otherwise protect themselves and their communities from the virus, while political leadership hesitates to take action.

MASKS UP

This 5-year-old girl put on a mask before going shopping, but it wasn't the mask her mom was expecting

Raena Granberry told her daughter Justice to grab her mask so the pair can head out shopping. Justice got her mask and came back, and the result made Raena laugh.

That's because Justice was all ready to go in in her tutu, holding a barbie doll, and... wearing a costume mask from The Mandalorian, the Star Wars series.

Raena tweeted the photo and it became instantly iconic, going viral and filling the world with joy. When we spoke to Justice, she was eating pancakes. She told us she wore the mask from The Mandalorian "'cause it's awesome."

Raena Granberry with Justice.

I hope you indulge in the joy of giving yourself a break today,

Elamin

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