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There was more good, albeit preliminary news on Monday about coronavirus vaccine development (according to the company making one), and the stock market reacted favorably. But there is a long way to go before the world emerges from Covid-19’s deadly grip, and the road will be filled with casualties. In Europe, Sweden is using unprecedented restrictions to beat back the pathogen while the U.S. is now registering 1 million infections every week, and no state is safe. In addition to 1,300 Americans dying daily, any chance of quickly rebooting that nation’s sputtering economic recovery is now even more improbable. Here’s the latest on the pandemic. —David E. Rovella

Bloomberg is mapping the pandemic globally and across America. For the latest news, sign up for our Covid-19 podcast and daily newsletter.

Here are today’s top stories

Tesla was named to the S&P 500 on Monday, in a move that will greatly broaden the investor base of the groundbreaking electric automaker. The company, founded and run by billionaire Elon Musk, joins the storied index next month.

A fight for control has broken out at one of the biggest names in the exchange-traded fund world. The head of Ark Investment Management and manager of the wildly popular Ark Innovation ETF is fighting a move by Resolute Investment Managers to take a controlling stake.

Eight months into the pandemic, Americans are oddly the kings of cash. Household finances are in the best shape they’ve been in decades. The reason, it turns out, has more to do with what was happening before the pandemic hit than after. The Fed and that huge bailout did help, though.

There is some drama brewing over President Donald Trump’s nominee to join the Fed. A third Republican senator said he opposes the resuscitated nomination of Judy Shelton, who has supported returning to the gold standard, opposed insurance for bank deposits and even the Fed itself. If confirmed, Karl Smith writes in Bloomberg Opinion, Shelton could clear the way for the politicization of the Fed.

Trump used Twitter over the weekend to fan conflict over protests organized by his far-right supporters as he continued to promote falsehoods about President-elect Joe Biden’s victory. While there are some signs Trump is coming to grips with losing, a growing chorus is warning that his administration’s continuing refusal to cooperate with the transition is doing grave damage to national security and worsening a health catastrophe that’s already killed a quarter of a million Americans. Meanwhile, the White House is moving quickly to throw sand in the gears of any environmental initiatives by the coming Biden administration.

For the first time ever this late in the year, a hurricane (now headed for the Americas) has become a catastrophic Category 5 storm. It is also the 30th named storm of a devastating hurricane season that, like massive droughts, deadly wildfires and destructive summer storms, has been fueled by the warming climate.

Hurricane Iota

What’s Joe Weisenthal thinking about? The Bloomberg news director contends that with the coronavirus raging unchecked across the U.S., there’s reason to think it’s creating new problems for an already weakened economy. Joe notes that JPMorgan’s card spending tracker has shown declines of late, and their employment model suggests a stall in the labor market. 

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