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TODAY'S HEADLINES:

California’s healthcare system is being pushed to the breaking point by a winter wave of coronavirus cases. They’re setting up field hospitals and rolling out the morgue trucks.

Meanwhile, federal security officials are blaming Russia for what’s said to be the worst hacking attack in United States history. Details are scarce, but it sounds serious.

And lastly, Google is facing another antitrust case, this time from the states. Silicon Valley is bringing Republicans and Democrats together in contempt for its business practices.

THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW:

It’s grim out west, folks. California is the new epicenter of America’s coronavirus crisis, the Washington Post reports. Unprecedented surges of seriously infected patients are threatening to overwhelm hospitals and overflow morgues there. On Wednesday, the state posted more than forty one thousand infections. If California were a country, it would be among the world leaders in new coronavirus cases, ahead of India, Germany and Britain.

The number of available beds in intensive care units is plummeting, the Post reports. Christina Ghaly, director of Los Angeles County’s Department of Health Services, told reporters QUOTE Our hospitals are under siege, and our model shows no end in sight ENDQUOTE. California has already reenacted tough restrictions meant to curb the coronavirus’s spread, yet it has continued unabated. Governor Gavin Newsom laid out the state’s mass fatality plan on Tuesday: Sixty refrigerated storage units, each fifty three feet long, to store the bodies that won’t fit in morgues – and five thousand more body bags.

The LA Times reports that local hospitals are filling up as never before. There are now about six hundred new patients with Covid-19 needing hospital admissions daily. Officials expect that that could rise to more than thirteen hundred a day by New Year’s Eve. Ghaly previewed what would happen if the healthcare system does become overwhelmed: exhausted doctors and nurses stretched beyond their capacity, increasing the chance that the sick will die and medical staff will be forced to ration ICU beds. Hospitals in LA County are desperately trying to free up beds by discharging patients as quickly as possible. Ghaly urges that people cancel

gatherings such as Christmas parties. Vaccine doses are being distributed, but the worst of this pandemic hasn’t yet passed. Stay safe.

'Worst' Government Hack Ever

LUCIE: Well, this sounds ominous. US authorities expressed increased alarm yesterday about an intrusion into computer systems around the globe, the Associated Press reports. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said the intrusion has compromised government agencies as well as critical infrastructure in a sophisticated attack that was hard to detect and will be difficult to undo. Officials suspect Russian hackers.

The agency did not say which infrastructure was breached or what information taken, the AP reports. The attack appeared to have begun in March. One anonymous official said the hack was severe and extremely damaging, although the Trump administration was not yet ready to publicly blame anyone for it. The official said QUOTE this is looking like it’s the worst hacking case in the history of America. They got into everything. ENDQUOTE. The administration is working on the assumption that most, if not all, government agencies were compromised. But the extent of the damage is not yet known.

The New York Times raises the possibility that the goal of the hackers went beyond espionage, and that the Russian actors could use their access to take command of industrial processes. The Washington Post reports that purging the intruders could take months. Closing the digital back doors initially created by the Russians won’t suffice because they appear to have stolen keys to an unknown number federal and private corporate systems, according to investigators at FireEye, a cybersecurity firm that also was hacked. Separately, the Guardian reports that Dutch prosecutors have confirmed that a man in the Netherlands hacked into Donald Trump’s Twitter account by guessing his password: MAGA 2020. The man will not be punished because he reported the breach according to ethical hacking guidelines. Maybe that Dutch fella can help out with this other hacking situation? Just spitballing!

38 States Sue Google

Big Tech is on its back foot again. Nearly forty states filed a wide-ranging antitrust lawsuit against Google yesterday, the Washington Post reports. They allege the tech giant

fiddles with search results to give its own products greater rankings over rivals. The rigged results deprive web users from seeing the best options when they search for shopping, dining, travel and more. The lawsuit marks the third competition case filed against Google since October, reflecting the growing national dissatisfaction with Silicon Valley.

The Post reports that in the latest legal salvo, attorneys general from thirty-eight states, led by Colorado and Nebraska, took aim at a broad swath of Google’s digital empire. They claim that Google has solidified its monopoly through an array of anti-competitive tactics. Chief among them are the special deals that Google makes to ensure it is the default option on web browsers and connected devices. State investigators also faulted Google for requiring companies to purchase ads to rise to the top of users’ pages.

The states’ attorneys general said yesterday they would seek to consolidate their lawsuit with the Justice Department’s earlier complaint so that the cases would be argued together, the Post reports. The Democratic and Republican state leaders opened the door for a judge to order broad penalties, including potentially forcing Google to sell off its business. They stopped short of calling explicitly for Google to be broken up. Why go through all this trouble just to pull punches? Of course Google should be broken up, and now’s our chance!

AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES:

The number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits rose again last week to eight hundred and eighty five thousand, the AP reports. It is the highest weekly total since September, and worse than economists expected. Try to keep up, economists!

President-elect Joe Biden named yesterday New Mexico Congresswoman Deb Haaland to head the Interior Department. She will reportedly be the first Native American Cabinet secretary. Biden also named Michael Regan to head the Environmental Protection Agency. Regan runs North Carolina’s Department of Environmental Quality and will become the first Black man to run the EPA.

Nearly a dozen immigrants arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement were kept in solitary confinement for more than two months, including two people who were isolated for more than three hundred days, BuzzFeed News reports. A draft Homeland

Security Inspector General’s report calls those incidents serious violations of protocol. I could call them some other things: Disgusting. Depraved. Inexcusable. Criminal. You get the idea.

Sesame Street is introducing two Rohingya Muppets to help children living in a Bangladesh refugee camp learn to cope with the trauma of their experiences, NBC News reports. The Muppets are Rohingya Muslim twins named Noor Yasmin and Aziz and I dare you to think about this for more than thirty seconds without crying.

That’s all for the AM Quickie. Join us this afternoon on the Majority Report.

DEC 18, 2020 - AM QUICKIE

HOSTS - Sam Seder & Lucie Steiner

WRITER - Corey Pein

PRODUCER - Dorsey Shaw

EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - Brendan Finn