White House offer includes $600 stimulus checks; UK issues allergy warning over Pfizer vaccine

Associated Press, CNN

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration is back in the middle of Capitol Hill’s confusing COVID-19 negotiations, offering a $916 billion package to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that would send a $600 direct payment to most Americans but eliminate a $300-per-week employment benefit favored by a bipartisan group of Senate negotiators.

The offer arrived Tuesday with the endorsement of the top House Republican and appeared to demonstrate some flexibility by powerful Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. But Democrats immediately blasted the plan over the administration’s refusal to back the partial restoration, to $300 per week, of bonus pandemic jobless benefits that lapsed in August.

The House on Wednesday will pass a one-week government funding bill to give lawmakers more time to sort through the hot mess they have created for themselves after months of futile negotiations and posturing and recent rounds of flip-flopping. Without the measure, the government would shut down this weekend. Read more:

Here’s an update on all developments. Scroll or swipe further for in-depth coverage.

  • U.K. regulators said Wednesday that people who have a “significant history’’ of allergic reactions shouldn’t receive the new Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine while they investigate two adverse reactions that occurred on the first day of the country’s mass vaccination program.
  • The United Arab Emirates said Wednesday a Chinese coronavirus vaccine tested in the federation of sheikhdoms is 86% effective, in a statement that provided few details but marked the first public release of information on the efficacy of the shot.
  • President-elect Joe Biden on Tuesday called for urgent action on the coronavirus pandemic as he introduced a health care team that will be tested at every turn while striving to restore the nation to normalcy.
  • Idaho public health officials abruptly ended a meeting Tuesday after the Boise mayor and chief of police said intense protests outside the health department building — as well as outside some health officials’ homes — were threatening public safety.
  • Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley says her sister-in-law has died after contracting the coronavirus.
  • German Chancellor Angela Merkel advocated tougher restrictions on public life Wednesday and pleaded with her compatriots to cut down on socializing as the country reported its highest single-day death toll of the coronavirus pandemic.
  • An elderly passenger on board a Royal Caribbean “cruise to nowhere” has been diagnosed with the coronavirus, prompting the voyage to be cut short as the vessel returned to Singapore on Wednesday.

For more summaries and full reports, please select from the articles below. Scroll further for the latest virus numbers.

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