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 | | | The fastest vaccine ever developed | | How scientists developed a COVID-19 vaccine in record time. The Doomsday Clock is still 100 seconds to midnight. It's Wednesday's news. | | |
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| Today we dive into the story behind the race to a COVID-19 vaccine and lift the curtain on the Capitol Police's budget after the deadly siege. |
| It's Ashley. Let's talk news. |
| But first, Gamestop gets upvoted: What does Reddit have to do with GameStop's stock prices? Shares of the struggling video game retailer surged this week. You can thank Reddit users for that. |
| The Short List is a snappy USA TODAY news roundup. Subscribe here! |
How an unheralded team developed a COVID-19 vaccine in record time |
| The COVID-19 vaccines will go down as one of the major triumphs of medical science. They weren't created overnight: Credit for Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine belongs in part to discoveries dating back 15 years, David Heath and Gus Garcia-Roberts report. After two children died in a vaccine trial in 1966, decades of research into that tragedy yielded findings in 2013 that were pivotal to making a highly effective and safe vaccine. Had COVID-19 come 10 years earlier – or even five – science would not have been ready. Here's the story of the scientists who made the vaccine happen. |
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Let's look inside the Capitol Police budget |
| A year ago, the U.S. Capitol was the kind of place where a suspicious flicker on a radar screen was all it took for police to lock doors and stop traffic. Yet three weeks ago, when the threats turned into the single largest attack on the main building under the agency's protection, hundreds of officers were sent into the chaos with little, if any, protective gear. Capitol Police have an estimated $500 million budget , $22 million of which is set aside for equipment this year. Where were the stockpiles of riot gear during the attack that left five people dead? USA TODAY explored the agency's handling of threats and security. |
| The investigation into the deadly Capitol siege continues to grow: More than 400 suspects have been identified by authorities who expect to bring sedition charges against some of those linked to the insurrection. The charges could carry a maximum punishment of 20 years. At least 138 people have been arrested. |
 | | Trump rioters storm the U.S. Capitol Wednesday afternoon as lawmakers inside debated the certification of the presidential election. | | Jerry Habraken, USA TODAY Network | |
What everyone's talking about |
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So we're doomed? |
| After a brutal 2020, the Doomsday Clock is still 100 seconds to midnight – the same time as last year, but don't get your hopes up: That's the closest the clock's been to destruction since it was created in 1947. Each year, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, a nonprofit group that sets the clock, decides whether the events of the previous year pushed humanity closer to or further from destruction. The closer to midnight we are, the more danger we're in, according to the Bulletin. The Doomsday Clock authors wrote that "by our estimation, the potential for the world to stumble into nuclear war – an ever-present danger over the last 75 years – increased in 2020." |
 | | Members of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists' Science and Security Board, Robert Rosner and Suzet McKinney, reveal the 2021 setting of the Doomsday Clock: It is still 100 seconds to midnight. | | Thomas Gaulkin, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists | |
Biden's all in on fighting climate change |
| President Joe Biden signed another raft of executive actions Wednesday to combat climate change and pause oil drilling on public lands in the latest move to unwind the Trump administration's environmental policies. Biden's goal is to decarbonize the U.S. power sector by 2035 and reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. Where does America stand now? The USA emits the second-largest amount of carbon dioxide (CO2), producing about 5.41 billion metric tons in 2018. But we're not the worst country: China emits nearly twice that amount. |
Real quick |
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Sharks are in danger |
| Sharks are dying at a devastating rate: Shark populations in the world's oceans have declined by an "alarming" 71% since 1970, according to a study published Wednesday. The research found that more than three-quarters of the shark and ray species the scientists studied are threatened with extinction. Three species of shark – including the great hammerhead – have declined so sharply that they are classified as critically endangered – the highest threatened category. The risk of extinction is primarily caused by overfishing, study authors said. |
 | | Researchers are alarmed about the decline in shark populations. | | Getty Images/iStockphoto | |
A break from the news |
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| This is a compilation of stories from across the USA TODAY Network. Want this news roundup in your inbox every night? Sign up for The Short List newsletter here. |
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