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Good evening. Here’s the latest.
1. The Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, backed President Trump in his refusal to concede.
In his first comments since Joe Biden was declared the winner, the top Republican in Congress declined to recognize the victory, arguing on the Senate floor that Mr. Trump was “100 percent within his rights” to challenge the election outcome.
As the president continued to claim the election was stolen from him and vowed to pursue lawsuits in key swing states, Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, broke ranks and became only the fourth senator in her party to recognize Mr. Biden’s “apparent victory.”
3. President Trump fired Mark Esper as defense secretary.
Mr. Esper had taken pains to hew to the Trump line during his nearly 16-month tenure. But concern over invoking the Insurrection Act to send troops to battle protesters across the country is deep in the Pentagon, and Mr. Esper ultimately opposed the move.
4. Global markets soared in a relief-fueled rally.
Though markets were already ahead before Pfizer’s vaccine announcement, shares surged for companies like airlines and cruise operators that would benefit from a post-pandemic normalcy.
Since President Trump took office, Big Business has been thrust into political issues as never before. But with Joe Biden now president-elect, corporate America may be in line for a breather.
5. Burying “America First.”
In a statement to The Times, Joe Biden said he wanted to bring an end to a foreign policy slogan that represents building walls and making cooperation with allies an afterthought.
He says he will re-enter the Iran nuclear deal, sign up for another five years of the only surviving nuclear arms treaty with Russia and double down on American commitments to NATO.
But allies concede they may never fully trust that the U.S. will not lurch back to building walls.
In other foreign policy spheres:
6. Tropical Storm Eta soaked South Florida, dumping 13 inches of rain in some areas.
Eta came ashore at 11 p.m. Sunday in the middle Florida Keys, but the strongest winds and thunderstorms were northeast of its center, lashing the upper keys and Miami-Dade and Broward Counties overnight.
7. “Lawn and Order!”
We still don’t know for sure how a Rudy Giuliani news conference on Saturday ended up in the parking lot of Four Seasons Total Landscaping, a Philadelphia business next door to an adult bookshop and a crematory, and not at the Four Seasons Hotel.
But after finding itself the subject of merciless mocking, the landscaping company is now capitalizing on it, selling patriotic-themed merchandise on its website.
The family-owned company reported on Twitter that the merchandise business — including a $5 sticker with the phrases “Make America Rake Again” and “Lawn and Order!” — was booming.
8. Did the founding father celebrated as an abolitionist in the musical “Hamilton” actually own slaves?
New research out of the Schuyler Mansion State Historic Site in Albany, N.Y., argues that our first Treasury secretary did indeed. Above, an entry in Alexander Hamilton’s cash book from March 23, 1793, listing a payment to Philip Schuyler, his father-in-law, for “2 Negro servants purchased by him for me.”
While the evidence isn’t new, the argument is forceful, experts say. “It just shows that the founders were nearly all implicated in slavery in some way,” according to a Harvard history professor.
9. Old dogs and new research.
Scientists increasingly believe that our canine companions are good models for human aging and that studying the process in dogs may help us learn more about how to age better.
Their research shows that dogs are similar to us in important ways, like how they act as seniors and what happens in their aging DNA. They also share many of the same old-age ailments, like obesity, arthritis, hypothyroidism and diabetes. Above, the Border collies Miley and Tiara, who were part of a study of older dogs at Vienna’s University of Veterinary Medicine.
“One of the things that we’re really interested in is figuring out, first of all, whether there are things in the DNA of dogs that you can find that actually explain why some of them live a remarkably long time,” one of the researchers said.
10. And finally, these two drummers make a joyful sound.
If you’re a rock ’n’ roller in Los Angeles, and a 10-year-old prodigy in Ipswich, England, challenges you to a drum-off on social media, whatcha gonna do?
Dave Grohl, the Foo Fighters frontman and former Nirvana drummer, accepted that call to battle this summer from Nandi Bushell, who took up percussion at age 5.
Grohl conceded defeat after their epic online encounter, and since then the two have continued playing music for each other. “There’s something about seeing the joy and energy of a kid in love with an instrument. She just seemed like a force of nature,” Grohl said.
Have a loud and energetic evening.
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