News Wrap: California goes into lockdown with sharp rise in COVID-19 cases

Read the Full Transcript

• Judy Woodruff:

  A new week brings sharply higher COVID-19 numbers, with no end in sight. The United States is now averaging nearly 2,200 deaths per day, and health officials warn of new spikes after holiday gatherings. In California, almost 85 percent of state residents went under stay-at-home orders today.

• Mark Ghaly:

  The point is to stay at home during this critical time to bring transmission rates down, to help us get this under control, so our hospitals they can do what they have done for so long, which is provide high-quality health care to all those Californians who need it.

• Judy Woodruff:

  But, in New York City, elementary schools reopened, something many parents had clamored for. Mayor Bill de Blasio cited low infections in the classroom.

  President-elect Joe Biden today announced his selections to oversee the pandemic and health care in general. He's nominating California's Attorney General Xavier Becerra to be secretary of Health and Human Services. Becerra would be the first Latino in that role. Harvard's Dr. Rochelle Walensky will be director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And Dr. Anthony Fauci of the National Institutes of Health will also be chief medical adviser on COVID-19.

  Later, Mr. Biden said he will announce his choices for attorney general and secretary of defense this week.

  The top elections official in Georgia has recertified the state's results and once again confirmed president-elect Biden's victory there. Georgia's secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, made the announcement today, after a recount requested by the Trump campaign.

• Brad Raffensperger:

  We have now counted legally cast ballots three times, and the results remain unchanged. Disinformation regarding election administration should be condemned and rejected. Integrity matters. Truth matters.

• Judy Woodruff:

  Meanwhile, federal judges dismissed separate lawsuits by a Trump ally to overturn the results in Michigan and Georgia.

  In Venezuela, President Nicolas Maduro has extended his power over the only government body under opposition control. Sunday's elections handed Maduro's socialist allies a landslide victory in the national congress. The opposition mostly boycotted the vote. The U.S., the European Union and much of Latin America rejected the results.

  Two robotic spacecraft are making headlines with historic cargoes. A Japanese capsule came down safely in the Australian Outback on Sunday. It's the first to retrieve rocks from below an asteroid's surface. And a Chinese spacecraft is ready to return with samples from the moon, as this animation shows. That hasn't been done since the 1970s.

  On Wall Street today, stocks had a choppy session. The Dow Jones industrial average lost 148 points to close at 30069. The Nasdaq rose 55 points, but the S&P 500 slipped seven.

  And legendary singer/songwriter Bob Dylan has sold his entire catalog of songs to Universal Music Publishing Group. The price was not announced, but the deal covered more than 600 songs, including "Blowin' in the Wind," "The Times They Are a-Changin'," and "Like a Rolling Stone" — in other words, priceless.