Good morning. I'm Arjun Singh from the Washington Post and this is the Daily

2002 for Wednesday, December 30th. James is out for the holidays but I'll be here instead with the stories you need to know.

In today's news, the first case of a highly infectious coronavirus variant was detected in Colorado.

And in Louisville, police moved to fire two more officers involved in the raid that killed Brianna Taylor.

But first, the big idea.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell appeared to dash the hopes of those who hope to send stimulus payments of up to $2,000 to most Americans when the Kentucky Senator blocked consideration of a House bill that would do just that on Tuesday.

But McConnell's move was just the beginning of a saga that is likely to engulf the Senate

for the rest of the week.

The issue is royal the Republican Party, as President Trump, in a rare alliance with Democrats like

Bernie Sanders and Nancy Pelosi, has forced Republicans to publicly take sides on an issue

the party is not in unison on.

As my colleagues Mike de Bonus and Tony Romm report, Trump attacked

GOP leadership on Tuesday calling them pathetic for failing to act while more Senate

Republicans joined with the president in calling for $2,000 payments.

That includes Senators David Perdue and Kelly Leffler,

who are both competing in tight runoff

re-election races in Georgia that Republicans need to win

to maintain control of the Senate.

As pressure mounts on McConnell to hold a vote on the checks,

the senator on Tuesday started the process for moving to votes on two bills later in the week.

One would be the House's approved bill that would send $2,000 checks. The other would be a

a bill that would send $2,000 checks. The other would be a bill that would combine the

...