Contributing Writers

After months of inaction, Congress finally appears close to passing a second, $900 billion coronavirus stimulus package. The agreement is likely to include additional unemployment assistance of $300 a week and one-time direct cash payments of between $600 and $700 for people in the U.S. — a sharp reduction from the first COVID check of $1,200. The COVID-19 relief checks were put back in the bill after a major push from the progressive wing of the Democratic Party.

As the “very exciting” rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine distribution gets underway in the United States, Dr. Ashish Jha, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health, says the country is still experiencing “astronomical” numbers of new infections and deaths. “We’ve just had a federal government that has given up on any efforts to try and control the pandemic,” he says.

Health experts are raising concerns that wealthy countries have reserved enough coronavirus vaccine doses to immunize their populations multiple times over, while poorer countries may only have enough to vaccinate about 20%. Reuters reports the World Health Organization’s global plan for delivering COVID-19 vaccines to 91 poor and middle-income countries faces a “very high” risk of failure and could leave billions of people with no access to vaccines until 2024.

Prisons across the U.S. are facing their greatest swell in COVID-19 cases since the beginning of the pandemic. Nearly a quarter-million incarcerated people in the U.S. have been infected with COVID-19, according to the Marshall Project, and advocates are pushing for incarcerated people to be prioritized in the country’s vaccine rollout.

President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris officially won the Electoral College Monday, as electors met in their respective state capitols to formalize their victory. President Trump continued to claim without evidence he was the victim of a massive conspiracy to rig the election. Republicans across the country attempted to undermine the election results, and right-wing supporters threatened violence.

President-elect Joe Biden promised to reverse Donald Trump’s most restrictive immigration policies during his 2020 campaign, but since he was elected, Biden has not included immigration among his top four priorities. Hundreds of immigrant activists and their allies caravaned through Biden’s home city of Wilmington, Delaware, demanding he issue a moratorium on deportations and advance a path to citizenship for undocumented people within his first 100 days in office.

We speak with Nina Turner, one of Bernie Sanders’s top allies, the day after she announced she is running for Congress in Ohio to fill the seat of Congressmember Marcia Fudge, who Biden tapped to head the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Turner has promised to hold the Biden team accountable and pressure the incoming administration to enact a progressive agenda. “I’m running in service of the people,” says Turner.

The U.S. Army has fired or suspended 14 officers and soldiers stationed at Fort Hood, Texas, following an investigation into sexual assaults and murders at the base, including the bludgeoning to death of 20-year-old soldier Vanessa Guillén, whose remains were found in July. “These are institutional failures at scale.

Prisons across the U.S. are facing their greatest swell in COVID-19 cases since the beginning of the pandemic. Nearly a quarter-million incarcerated people in the U.S. have been infected with COVID-19, according to the Marshall Project, and advocates are pushing for incarcerated people to be prioritized in the country’s vaccine rollout.

President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris officially won the Electoral College Monday, as electors met in their respective state capitols to formalize their victory. President Trump continued to claim without evidence he was the victim of a massive conspiracy to rig the election. Republicans across the country attempted to undermine the election results, and right-wing supporters threatened violence.

William Barr is resigning as attorney general, leaving his post after angering President Trump for not backing his baseless claims of widespread voter fraud more strongly. But despite their split, Barr has been one of Trump’s staunchest allies, echoing much of the president’s inflammatory rhetoric about Black Lives Matter and antifascist activists this year even while downplaying the threat posed by far-right extremists.

Joe Biden’s nominee for defense secretary, retired four-star Army General Lloyd Austin, would make history as the first African American to lead the Pentagon if confirmed by the Senate. But Austin can only be confirmed if he secures a waiver from Congress due to laws designed to preserve the civilian control of the military, and several leading Democratic senators have indicated they would oppose granting a waiver.