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| Happy Friday, Daily Briefing readers. What a week it's been. It's Jane, with today's news. |
| President-elect Joe Biden will shed more light on his plans to get millions of Americans vaccinated against COVID-19. Democratic lawmakers are alleging that some of their Republican colleagues may have conspired with the rioters who attacked the U.S. Capitol last week. Fast-food workers across the country are planning to go on strike in an effort to raise the minimum wage. And, the strange tale of a pigeon thought to have traveled from Oregon to Australia takes a surprise twist – scroll to the bottom to find out what that is. |
| Here's what's happening Friday: |
Biden to discuss plans to administer COVID-19 vaccine to Americans |
| President-elect Joe Biden will deliver remarks in Wilmington, Delaware, on Friday about his plan to administer COVID-19 vaccines to the U.S. population, according to his published schedule. Biden has already said he wants Americans to get 100 million COVID-19 vaccine shots during the first 100 days of his administration, a lofty goal to reverse a slow start to the nation's vaccine rollout. But to this point, the president-elect has offered few details on how his administration would achieve the ambitious timeline. During a prime-time speech Thursday evening, however, Biden addressed his proposed $1.9 trillion economic recovery package , which contains $20 billion for a national vaccination program. The program will work in partnership with states, tribes and territories and make the vaccine free to everyone in the United States. |
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Dem lawmakers speculate that Capitol rioters may have had GOP help |
| Democratic lawmakers leveled a series of stunning allegations that their GOP colleagues – none of whom they named – may have conspired with rioters before they attacked the U.S. Capitol in an attempt to overturn the election that President Donald Trump lost. Though they offered few specifics and little evidence, their claims represent the culmination of months of warnings and frustrations over the cozy relationship between some prominent Republicans and the violent fringes, including white nationalists, animated by lies about voter fraud and a stolen election. At least one federal agency, the Inspector General of the Capitol Police, launched a wide-ranging investigation into last week's security failures, according to a congressional aide familiar with the matter but not authorized to speak on the record. It's unclear whether investigators will look into the potential role of insiders who may have helped the rioters. |
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Fast-food workers plan to strike for higher minimum wage |
| Fast-food workers across the country plan to strike Friday to send a message to the incoming Biden administration as well as their employers to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour . Employees of McDonald's, Wendy's and other fast-food chains will stay home or walk off the job in roughly 15 cities, said a spokesperson for the "Fight for $15 and a Union" movement, which has staged walkouts since 2012 and is backed by the Service Employees International Union. The federal minimum wage of $7.25 hasn't budged since 2009; President-Elect Joe Biden has made a minimum wage of $15 an hour a key goal. |
Final federal execution of the Trump administration |
| Dustin Higgs is scheduled for execution on Friday, the last before next week's inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden. Barring court intervention, the Trump administration will have executed a total of 13 prisoners by January, outnumbering any presidency since Franklin D. Roosevelt's and outnumbering all states combined. Death penalty experts and advocates say the Trump administration's execution spree highlights longstanding inequalities in a criminal justice system that continues to disproportionately treat Black prisoners as the worst of the worst criminals while the nation reckons with the issues of racial injustice. Higgs, who is Black, was convicted of kidnapping and killing three women, Biden has promised to eliminate the federal death penalty and to give incentives for states to do the same. |
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More news you need to know: |
| • | 'Completing the job': Subdued Donald Trump and aides struggle to get to the finish line | | • | 'Do you need help?': Florida restaurant manager's note helps child escape 'torture,' police say | | • | New York City bus left dangling from overpass after crash | | • | 'Saved by the Bell' alum Dustin Diamond has been diagnosed with cancer | | • | Tax season 2021: IRS Free File is open for taxpayers | | • | 'Trailblazer' Spike Lee honored for film career with American Cinematheque Award, vows to keep on going | |
Mega Millions prize keeps growing: Winning ticket could fetch $750M |
| Friday's Mega Millions jackpot has swelled to a whopping $750 million – the fifth largest in lottery history and the game's second largest ever – after Tuesday night's drawing didn't produce a winner. The jackpot has steadily grown since the fall, with 34 drawings without a winner since September. Both of the nation's major lottery games are flush with cash: Saturday's Powerball drawing is worth $640 million after no one won Wednesday's $550 million drawing. The largest U.S. lottery prize was a $1.58 billion Powerball jackpot split by three winners in 2016. |
And finally: 'Globe-trotting' pigeon Joe gets a reprieve |
| A pigeon that was thought to have traveled 8,000 miles from Oregon to Australia will live, after a U.S. bird organization declared its identifying leg band was fake . The band had suggested the bird found in a Melbourne backyard on Dec. 26 and named Joe, after President-elect Joe Biden, was a racing pigeon that had left Oregon two months earlier. Australian authorities considered the bird a disease risk and planned to kill it. But Deone Roberts, of the Oklahoma-based American Racing Pigeon Union, said on Friday that the band was fake. The band number belongs to a blue bar pigeon in the United States which is not the bird pictured in Australia, she said. Australia's Agriculture Department, which is responsible for biosecurity, agreed that Joe was wearing a "fraudulent copy" leg band. "Following an investigation, the department has concluded that Joe the Pigeon is highly likely to be Australian and does not present a biosecurity risk," it said in a statement. Phew, Joe! You had us worried there. |
 | | In this image made from video, a racing pigeon sits on a rooftop Wednesday, Jan. 13, 2021, in Melbourne, Australia. The racing pigeon, first spotted in late December 2020, was thought to have made an extraordinary 8,000-mile Pacific Ocean crossing from the United States to Australia. | | AP | |
| Contributing: The Associated Press |
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