News Wrap: Trump touts border wall in visit to Texas

Read the Full Transcript

• Judy Woodruff:

  In the day's other news: President Trump traveled to Texas to showcase his signature border wall eight days before he is due to leave office.

  He stopped outside the city of Alamo, touting the wall project. Most of the construction replaced outdated barriers already in place along that stretch.

  On the pandemic, the Trump administration now says that it's releasing all available vaccine to speed up inoculations. President-elect Biden had called for just that step.

  The secretary of Health and Human Services, Alex Azar, said today that faster production guarantees enough vaccine for first and second doses.

• Alex Azar:

  We can now ship all of the doses that had been held in physical reserve, with second doses being supplied by doses coming off of manufacturing lines with quality control.

  Going forward, each week, doses available will be released to first cover the needed second doses, and then cover additional first vaccinations.

• Judy Woodruff:

  Federal officials also announced that, as of January 26, anyone flying to the U.S. will have to have a negative COVID test within three days of flying.

  We will focus on all of this after the news summary.

  Two men on federal death row have tested positive for COVID-19, and a federal judge has halted their executions set for this week. Separately, another judge stopped the first federal execution of a woman in nearly 70 years. He ordered a competency hearing. Federal executions resumed last year after 17 years without one. President-elect Biden is expected to oppose them.

  Late today, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a federal rule that women must visit doctors or clinics in person to get abortion pills during the pandemic. By 6-3, the justice has granted a Trump administration appeal to enforce the rule. The rule could be reversed when the Biden administration takes office.

  The Supreme Court of India the Supreme Court of India today halted the implementation of agricultural laws that prompted farmers to blockade New Delhi. For weeks, thousands of farmers have camped on major highways, insisting the laws will cut their income. Some said that today's court action is not enough.

• Krishan Pal Chaudhary (through translator):

  All farmers and all farmer organizations respect the Supreme Court, but I find the Supreme Court's policy wrong. They have put on hold the laws and they think the farmers will leave this protest site. This will never happen, because we demand the repeal of the laws.

• Judy Woodruff:

  The court today ordered that a committee of experts be created to negotiate a solution.

  Back in this country, Twitter has suspended more than 70,000 accounts linked to the far right QAnon conspiracy theory. That's in the wake of last week's assault on the U.S. Capitol. The social media giant says it is acting against online behavior that — quote — "has the potential to lead to offline harm."

  On Wall Street, stocks had a relatively quiet day. The Dow Jones industrial average gained 60 points to close at 31068. The Nasdaq rose 36 points, and the S&P 500 added a single point.

  And casino magnate and Republican mega-donor Sheldon Adelson has died after a long illness. He was a billionaire who gave hundreds of millions of dollars to Republican politicians, including President Trump. He was also a strong pro-Israel voice, and pushed for relocating the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem back in 2018.

  Sheldon Adelson was 87 years old.