Bloomberg

President-elect Joe Biden’s transition team said the Pentagon, currently run by Trump loyalist Christopher Miller, has ceased briefing the incoming administration just a little over a month before inauguration. Miller called it “a holiday pause.” This new spat between the Trump administration and the new one comes as the U.S. scrambles to assess the damage done by a stunning attack on its computer systems, allegedly by Russia. Hal Brands writes in Bloomberg Opinion that, for the U.S., the time to use its own cyber arsenal may be here. —David E. Rovella 

Bloomberg is tracking the progress of coronavirus vaccines while mapping the pandemic globally and across America. 

Here are today’s top stories 

The Fed, showing confidence in how banks are weathering the pandemic, gave them a green light to resume billions of dollars in stock buybacks. JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs said they’ll take the Fed up on its offer.

December is shaping up to be America’s worst month of the pandemic. Through Thursday, the U.S. had already posted 42,535 Covid-19 deaths, the most for any month except April. At the same time, some states are saying the Trump administration is inexplicably cutting back on the number of vaccine doses they will get. Here is the latest on the pandemic.

Air Force and Pentagon investigators opened a criminal probe of Lockheed Martin in 2016 over faulty coolant line tubing inside its persistently troubled F-35 fighter jet.

We spoke too soon. A Republican effort led by Senator Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania to tack on language ending a Fed program Biden could use to fight the recession may doom a second Covid bailout after all. And even if it does pass, states and cities have already been shoved out in the cold, with no help on the way and stark choices to make.

Senator Pat Toomey 

Property investors are about to discover just how much global fallout from the pandemic has spread to their bottom lines.

Multibillionaire Elon Musk may be one of the richest people on Earth, but he’s managed to spread the wealth: he has made millionaires out of his most loyal fans.

Brandon Smith invested in Tesla stock in 2017. Now he’s a millionaire (on paper).

Google said it hasfigured out the source of an outage that knocked out some of its major services earlier this week, including YouTube and Gmail.

What you’ll need to know tomorrow

What you’ll want to read in Bloomberg Checkout

Lockdown Guilt Fuels Massive U.S. Toy Sales

Celebrating the holidays might be pretty ho-hum this year, but one area that’s booming is toys. After a year of remote school, canceled birthday parties and no vacations, parents suffering from lockdown guilt are spending a lot more on puzzles, crafts and games. This is setting the U.S. industry up for its best Christmas in years—perhaps ever.

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The Best of Bloomberg Podcasts: As 2020 finally comes to an end, use your holiday down time to catch up on the best podcasts you may have missed, including Blood River, a tale of murder, corruption and environmental activism (on Apple and Spotify), and Foundering, the story of the fall of WeWork (on Apple and Spotify).

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