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What a weekend it was: the United States of America and its territories have new leaders, President-Elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris.
This is the 12th Edition of the Monday Digest; get it directly to your phone via our app here.
Here are the weekend's top stories:
Joe Biden is President-elect; Kamala Harris is First Woman to be Elected Vice President
On Saturday Joe Biden was declared winner of the 2020 U.S. presidential election by the Associated Press, even as President Donald Trump, to this day, has yet to concede, claiming election fraud took place and that he had won the election.
Mr. Biden won by securing a slate of states won by Hillary Clinton in 2016 plus Michigan and Wisconsin, which voted last time for Mr. Trump, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Mr. Biden's election is historic on multiple fronts. It makes Kamala Harris, the senator from California, the first woman to ever be elected vice president. Additionally, she was also the first Black woman and first of Indian descent to be nominated on a major party ticket.
Another major point, with Biden's age, Ms. Harris, as vice president, would be the highest ranking woman ever in the presidential line of succession.
Virgin Islander to be announced today as co-chair to Biden's Covid-19 Task Force
Virgin Islander and associate professor of internal medicine, public health and management and founding director of the Equity Research and Innovation Center at Yale, Marcella Nunez-Smith, has been appointed co-chair of President-Elect Joe Biden's yet to be announced 12-member Covid-19 task force, according to sources speaking to CNN. The announcement of the task force is expected to be made today, according to WSJ.
Trump has not Conceded Defeat
President Donald Trump is facing pressure to cooperate with President-elect Joe Biden’s team to ensure a smooth transfer of power when the new administration takes office in January, according to the Associated Press.
The General Services Administration is tasked with formally recognizing Biden as president-elect, which begins the transition. But the agency’s Trump-appointed administrator, Emily Murphy, has not started the process and has given no guidance on when she will do so.
That lack of clarity is fueling questions about whether Trump, who has not publicly recognized Biden’s victory and has falsely claimed the election was stolen, will impede Democrats as they try to establish a government.
V.I. Dept. of Health Halts Soccer Restart
The USVI Soccer Association on Thursday held a press conference to announce the restart of soccer at its Bethlehem Stadium on St. Croix, while listing guidelines it expected would guide the restart — including having no spectators at the games.
But in a release issued Sunday evening, the V.I. Dept. of Health said it would not allow the restart to take place, stating that the association had misunderstood a conversation.
In other news, Governor Bryan and Delegate to Congress Stacey Plaskett congratulated the Biden-Harris team and vowed to work with the new administration; Caribbean leaders did the same; a Banco Popular employee who created debit cards in the bank's customers' names and used the debit cards on a shopping spree in Florida has been arrested; UVI has hired Alfonzo Duncan to serve in the university’s Athletics Department, where he will lead the men’s basketball team and manage the wellness center; St. Thomas has been named the top cruise destination in the Caribbean for the second year in a row by the readers of Porthole Cruise Magazine, who voted for their favorite destination in the region in the publication’s 22nd Annual Readers’ Choice Awards; a man was arrested after allegedly assaulting his pregnant girlfriend, causing visible injuries; and the V.I.P.D. has made an arrest in the Four Winds Plaza Shooting in St. Thomas that left one man dead.
Our previous Monday Digest is here.
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