Good morning. I'm James Holman from the Washington Post and this is the Daily

202 for Friday, December 11th. In today's news, FDA authorization is all but certain after federal advisors endorse the Pfizer

vaccine.

Stimulus talks fall into disarray as deadlines loom. And a Texas woman dies from COVID five days

after she was supposed to get married.

But first, the big idea. More than 20 million Americans are on some form of

unemployment assistance and 12 million will run out of benefits

the day after Christmas unless new relief materializes.

According to fresh data from the USDA, 54 million Americans will struggle this year with hunger, a 45% increase from 2019.

With food aid programs like SNAP and Wick being reduced and other federal assistance on the brink of expiration,

food banks and pantries are inundated,

reporting hours long waits and lines that stretch into the thousands.

The number of new unemployment claims last week rose sharply to 853,000, up 137,000 from the week before.

The worst weekly jobs report during the depths of the Great Recession a dozen years ago was

650,000.

It's hard to capture just how many people are living on knife's edge right now.

The result is a growing subset of Americans who are stealing food to survive.

According to interviews, with more than a dozen retailers,

security experts and police departments across America,

shoplifting has surged markedly since the pandemic began in the spring and it's at

much higher levels than during past economic downturns. But what's distinctive

about this trend is what's being taken. More staples, like

...