President Trump gave what aides say is the closest he will come to conceding his loss to President-elect Joe Biden on Monday night, tweeting that while he is still fighting in court, "in the best interest of our country, I am recommending that Emily and her team do what needs to be done with regard to initial protocols, and have told my team to do the same." The Emily in his tweet, General Services Administration head Emily Murphy, had already formally started the presidential transition process.

In an unusually personal letter to Biden and a separate email to her staff, Murphy said she had made the decision to finally start the peaceful transfer of power "independently, based on the law and available facts." She added: "I was never directly or indirectly pressured by any Executive Branch official — including those who work at the White House or GSA — with regard to the substance or timing of my decision."

Murphy was looking for political cover to start the transition while Trump, with GOP backing, refused to concede, and she was afraid the angry president would "fire her and her top aides if she moved forward," The Washington Post reports. Her letter to Biden was issued shortly after Michigan certified Biden's victory, Pennsylvania's Supreme Court shot down yet another Trump legal challenge, and Republican pressure mounted for the transfer to commence.

But the ball started rolling late last week. Murphy's "team had notified the White House Counsel's Office on Friday that she planned to designate Biden the winner on Monday," the Post reports. "Murphy did not hear anything back." Trump hit his own "major inflection point" a day earlier, when his lawyers Rudy Giuliani and, especially, Sidney Powell, made wild, widely mocked vote fraud allegations but failed to present any credible evidence, Politico reports. Trump's more competent legal advisers, Jay Sekulow and Pat Cipollone, told him his chaotic legal strategy was getting untenable.

Still, "Trump only reluctantly agreed to let the transition begin," he "was described as angry about the situation," and he spent Monday calling political advisers "to say he had doubts about the GSA initiating the transition," the Post reports. "Despite Trump's resistance, officials throughout his administration were planning to coordinate directly with counterparts on the Biden team starting Tuesday," and "Chief of Staff Mark Meadows told other officials Monday evening it was time to begin the transition." Peter Weber

The fast-spreading COVID-19 variant is set to become the dominant strain circulating in the U.S. as early as March, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned Friday.

While the U.S. only has less than 100 known cases of the fast-spreading variant first found in Britain now, if actions aren't taken to stop the spread, it'll rapidly take over, the CDC said in a study. The CDC advised the entire health care system to ramp up vaccination efforts and prepare for an influx of hospitalizations — troubling advice given the overwhelmed state of hospitals across the country already.

"We're concerned," Jay Butler, the CDC's deputy director for infectious diseases, told Stat News. "We want to sound the alarm and urge people to continue to do the things that we know work." Modeling by the CDC suggests only rapid vaccinations and strict adherence to social distancing and mask wearing could stop the variant from taking hold. But with vaccine distribution is behind expectations, it's hard to imagine they'll do much to stop the new strain's spread.

So far, 76 infections of the variant, which is seemingly 50 percent more transmissible than the original strain, have been found in people across 12 states. It's very likely there are many more infections across the states. Both COVID-19 vaccines approved in the U.S. have been found to be effective against the new strain.

COVID-19 infections, hospitalizations, and deaths have continually risen to new records over the past few weeks, with the U.S.'s death count fast approaching 400,000. Hospitals both in rural areas and cities are close to general admittance and ICU capacities, and some have exceeded those limits. Kathryn Krawczyk

Less than a week before the inauguration, Vice President Mike Pence has reportedly called Vice President-elect Kamala Harris to offer his congratulations.

Pence and Harris spoke over the phone Thursday, with Pence congratulating the incoming vice president and offering "his belated assistance," The New York Times reported on Friday and The Associated Press confirmed.

This is the first time Pence and Harris have spoken since their debate in October, and the call was "described as gracious and pleasant," the Times writes. President Trump has yet to speak with President-elect Joe Biden since the election, having spent more than two months falsely claiming to have won.

Pence may invite Harris and her husband, Doug Emhoff, to the vice-presidential residence prior to next week's inauguration, according to the Times, though this is reportedly not set in stone due to scheduling issues created by the ongoing security concerns following last week's Capitol riot.

Trump is reportedly expected to leave Washington, D.C. the morning of the inauguration. The president previously confirmed he will skip Biden's swearing-in, but Pence is expected to attend. Brendan Morrow

The FBI is investigating 37 people in the killing of a Capitol police officer last week, an FBI memo sent to the private sector and obtained by The New York Times reveals.

Brian Sicknick, the officer, died last week from injuries he sustained in the pro-Trump mob attack on the Capitol building. Sicknick was struck with a fire extinguisher when the insurgents got inside the building, two law enforcement officials tell the Times. Four other people died in the attack, including one Trump supporter shot by police. Another 14 Capitol Police were injured, the memo reportedly said.

The FBI said yesterday it had 160 open case files stemming from the riot. Several attackers have been arrested in the past week.

The siege was planned across public message boards and social media sites, which have since embarked on widespread crackdowns against election fraud conspiracies and plans for other violent attacks. In the week since the attack, intelligence officials have seen Chinese, Iranian, and Russian attempts to encourage violent rhetoric, a joint threat assessment released Thursday and reported by the Times showed. Kathryn Krawczyk

President Trump's approval rating has fallen to the lowest level of his presidency, with a significant drop among Republicans.

In the latest Pew Research Center poll released Friday, Trump received a job approval rating of 29 percent, which is his lowest-ever number in this poll and a decline of nine percentage points from August. Additionally, Pew notes that "much of the decline has come among Republicans and GOP leaners," 60 percent of whom approve of Trump's job performance compared to 77 percent in August.

Additionally, Pew found that Trump voters "have grown more critical of their candidate's post-election conduct," as the "share of his supporters who describe his conduct as poor has doubled over the past two months, from 10 percent to 20 percent." The poll also found that only 29 percent of respondents said Trump should remain a major figure in U.S. politics in the years to come, while 68 percent said he shouldn't be.

The poll was conducted in the wake of last week's deadly attack on the Capitol by a pro-Trump mob, which led to Trump becoming the first president in American history to be impeached twice. In the poll, three-quarters of respondents said Trump bears either a lot or some responsibility for the riot, while only 24 percent said he isn't responsible at all. Ahead of his upcoming Senate impeachment trial, 54 percent of respondents also said it would be better for Trump to be removed from office than finish his term, a possibility that has been ruled out due to the trial not being expected to begin until President-elect Joe Biden is in office.

Pew Research Center conducted its poll by surveying 5,360 U.S. adults from Jan. 8-12. The margin of error is 1.9 percentage points. Read more at Pew Research Center. Brendan Morrow

A reserve of second-dose COVID-19 vaccines set to be repurposed as first doses is already empty, state and federal officials briefed on distribution plans tell The Washington Post.

Both the coronavirus vaccines currently authorized in the U.S. require two doses to be fully effective. So when distribution of first doses began, the Trump administration held back matching second doses to make sure recipients would be fully protected against COVID-19. Amid a massive demand for more doses, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar announced earlier this week that the department would begin doling out those reserved doses to more people, saying increased production speed would make up for the soon-to-be-depleted reserve.

But as officials soon learned, the federal government had stopped stockpiling second dose vaccines weeks ago, they tell the Post. Both first and second doses were instead taken right off the manufacturing line. That meant Azar's announcement reportedly released a stockpile that didn't exist. The U.S. had already reached its maximum distribution capacity, and new doses distributors were expecting next week weren't coming, the Post reports.

HHS spokesperson Michael Pratt confirmed in an email to the Post that the last of the reserve had been taken out for shipment this weekend. He didn't acknowledge Azar's comments, but said Operation Warp Speed had "always intended to transition from holding second doses in reserve as manufacturing stabilizes and we gained confidence in the ability for a consistent flow of vaccines." he also said states had only ordered 75 percent of the vaccines available to them. Read more at The Washington Post. Kathryn Krawczyk

Facebook may have banned President Trump, but his followers are still gaming the site to spread election fraud conspiracies and downright dangerous disinformation.

Despite Facebook officials' attempts to play down the site's role in organizing last week's Capitol riot, it's clear plenty of Facebook groups and users spread conspiracies and even used the site to fill buses to Washington, D.C. Even after the site started cracking down on the organizers last week, at least 90 "Stop the Steal" groups have remained operating under altered names, while users exploit Facebook's features to spread disinformation other years, CNN reports via research from extremism experts at the activist group Avaaz.

Facebook instituted a blanket ban on "Stop the Steal" content earlier this week. But groups and users have quickly changed gears, rebranding their pages as "'Stop the Fraud' or 'Stop the Rigged Election' or 'Own the Vote,'" Avaaz campaign director Fadi Quran told CNN.

Stories, one of Facebook and its subsidiary Instagram's most popular features, has also helped far-right users spread disinformation undetected. Stories disappear after 24 hours, and Avaaz found accounts with "tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of followers," are "inviting people to events such as the insurrection" using those temporary message boards, Quran said. And despite Facebook's claims that the site "does not profit from hate," BuzzFeed News found earlier this week that Facebook allowed firearms and military gear sellers to target ads to people involved in far-right and militia groups, even placing their ads right next to posts planning the uprising.

A Facebook spokesperson said the site banned three of the groups after being notified of their activity, and has cracked down on white supremacist and QAnon groups. Its recent ban on Stop the Steal content will take longer to ramp up, the spokesperson said. Read more at CNN. Kathryn Streeter