1. Biden wins, promotes unity

• Democrat Joe Biden crossed 270 Electoral College votes with a win in Pennsylvania Saturday, defeating President Donald Trump to become the 46th president of the United States.
• The results are not official and will almost certainly be challenged, but multiple news organizations, including the Associated Press, had seen enough Saturday to determine Biden’s lead in Pennsylvania could not be overcome.
• Speaking to the nation Saturday evening, Biden attempted to position himself to lead a nation gripped by a historic pandemic and a confluence of economic and social turmoil.
• “It’s time for America to unite. And to heal,” he said.
• “With the campaign over, it’s time to put the anger and the harsh rhetoric behind us and come together as a nation,” Biden said. “There’s nothing we can’t do if we do it together.”
• His victory came after four days of uncertainty as election officials sorted through a surge of mail-in votes that delayed the processing of some ballots.
• Trump has not conceded and isn’t likely to until legal challenges and potential recounts have run their course.
• The Republican Attorneys General Association said it would be announcing a “major legal action in the Pennsylvania mail-in ballot challenge case” later today.
• Read more about the election HERE.
• Read more about why AP finally called the race HERE.

2. Trump, allies push fraud claims

• President Donald Trump has promised legal action in the coming days as he refused to concede his loss to Democrat Joe Biden, making an aggressive pitch for donors to help finance any court fight.
• Trump and his campaign have leveled accusations of large-scale voter fraud in Pennsylvania and other states that broke for Biden, so far without much hard evidence.
• But senior officials, campaign aides and allies say on background that overwhelming evidence of fraud isn’t really the point.
• The strategy to wage a legal fight against the votes tallied for Biden in Pennsylvania and other places is more to provide Trump with an off-ramp for the loss and less about changing the election’s outcome, the officials said.
• Trump aides and allies also acknowledged privately the legal fights would — at best – forestall the inevitable. But they said Trump and a core group of loyalists were aiming to keep his base of supporters on his side even in defeat.
• That could be important for the future as the race among Republicans to position themselves for the next presidential run begins almost immediately.
• Read more HERE.

3. 5 states OK measures eradicating racist language, symbols

• Alabama voters reversed themselves from a few years ago and removed racist vestiges of segregation from the state constitution that courts long ago ruled unconstitutional. Rhode Island did a similar a U-turn to eradicate the word “plantations” from the state’s official name.
• In a year when discussions of racial justice have dominated U.S. society like few others, five states voted to cleanse the public sphere of words, phrases and symbols that to many were painful reminders of the nation’s history of slavery and the systematic oppression of Black people.
• In addition to the votes in Alabama and Rhode Island, residents of Utah and Nebraska decided to strip their constitutions of unenforceable provisions that allowed slavery as a punishment for criminal convictions. And Mississippi voters approved a state flag without the familiar X-shaped design of the Confederate battle flag.
• Read more from Jay Reeves HERE.

4. Health officials urge big side of precaution at Thanksgiving

• State health officials are urging people to serve up a heaping side of precaution at Thanksgiving as the holiday comes during a national surge in COVID-19 cases.
• “We all want to see our family at holiday time and yet this is a special year. This is a year unlike any we’ve ever had,” Alabama State Health Officer Scott Harris said. “Many things maybe could be done virtually, which is not nearly as much fun but certainly safer.”
• The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has issued guidelines.
• Suzanne Judd, an epidemiologist from the University of Alabama at Birmingham’s School of Public Health, said Thanksgiving is particularly problematic because it’s a holiday celebrated by family gatherings indoors.
• “Gatherings greater than 10 people pose a substantial risk of one of the people being COVID-positive and not knowing. You combine that with eating and drinking and socializing and laughing and singing, and it is just something that could lead to substantial COVID transmission,” Judd said.
• Read more from Kim Chandler HERE.

5. Hubbard starts prison stay

• Former Alabama House Speaker Mike Hubbard, who is facing a four-year-prison sentence for an ethics conviction, is now being housed at Kilby Correctional Facility.
• Alabama Department of Corrections records show Hubbard is being held in the medical infirmary of Kilby Correctional Facility outside of Montgomery.
• Samantha Rose, a spokeswoman for the Alabama Department of Corrections, said Hubbard is doing a mandatory 14-day quarantine required of new inmates before being transferred to his housing assignment. The prison system has not said where Hubbard will be assigned.
• Rose denied the former House speaker is getting special treatment, saying “no special privileges or exceptions will be granted to him.”
• Read more HERE.

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