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Tuesday's Mini-Report, 12.1.20

Today's edition of quick hits.

Today's edition of quick hits:

* I'll have more on this in the morning: "Attorney General William Barr has given extra protection to the prosecutor he appointed to investigate the origins of the Trump-Russia probe, giving him the authority of a special counsel to complete the work without being easily fired."

* A striking moment: "Gabriel Sterling, a high-ranking Georgia elections official, walked to a lectern in the State Capitol in Atlanta on Tuesday and angrily denounced the violent threats and harassment directed at people working on elections issues, urging President Trump to condemn it."

* Jerome Powell is right; Steven Mnuchin isn't: "The chair of the Federal Reserve and the secretary of the Treasury painted starkly different visions of the challenges facing the United States economy in the months ahead on Tuesday, further exposing a rift that began to show last month."

* I'll have more on this in the morning, too: "A bipartisan group of lawmakers outlined a temporary $908 billion coronavirus relief proposal on Tuesday, far less than Democrats had hoped for, aimed at breaking a stalemate that has persisted for months."

* The latest DOD shake-up: "The Pentagon policy official overseeing the military's efforts to combat the Islamic State was fired on Monday after a White House appointee told him the United States had won that war and that his office had been disbanded, according to three people briefed on the matter. The ouster of the official, Christopher P. Maier, the head of the Pentagon's Defeat ISIS Task Force since March 2017, came just three weeks after President Trump fired Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper and three other Pentagon officials, and replaced them with loyalists."

* Jobless data: "The nation's weekly unemployment statistics have been plagued by backlogs, fraud and inconsistent data reporting state by state, making them a seriously flawed measurement that has likely overstated the number of individuals claiming unemployment during the pandemic, according to a federal report released Monday."

* Puerto Rico: "The Arecibo Observatory, a huge and previously damaged radio telescope in Puerto Rico that played a key role in astronomical discoveries for more than half a century, completely collapsed on Tuesday. The telescope's 900-ton receiver platform fell onto the reflector dish more than 400 feet below."

* Impeachment in Ohio? "While trying to contain the spread of the novel coronavirus, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine (R) has faced throngs of armed protesters at the statehouse and crowds outside his home. Now, he is facing efforts from within his own party to push him out of office entirely."

See you tomorrow.