Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, prepares to receive his first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine at the National Institutes of Health on December 22, 2020 in Bethesda, Maryland.

Patrick Semansky-Pool/Getty Images

Institutions like hospitals and possibly schools will mandate that a person receives a COVID-19 vaccination, Dr. Anthony Fauci predicted. "I would not be surprised, as we get into the full scope of [COVID-19] vaccination, that some companies, some hospitals, some organizations might require [COVID-19] vaccination," he said in an interview with Newsweek. Vaccine rollout has been slower than anticipated. About 3.5 million doses have been given out since the Food and Drug Administration approved Pfizer and Moderna's vaccines. Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's leading infectious disease expert, said he expects the coronavirus vaccination to be mandatory in some institutions in the future.

In an interview with Newsweek published Friday, Fauci said he's "sure" institutions like hospitals will mandate the vaccine. 

"I'm not sure [the vaccine is] going to be mandatory from a central government standpoint, like federal government mandates," he said. "But there are going to be individual institutions that I'm sure are going to mandate it."

Fauci pointed to his own experience with the National Institutes of Health, which mandates all employees and contractors receive yearly influenza and Hepatitis B vaccines.

"I have to get certified every year," he told Newsweek. "If I didn't, I couldn't see patients. So in that regard, I would not be surprised, as we get into the full scope of [COVID-19] vaccination, that some companies, some hospitals, some organizations might require [COVID-19] vaccination."

Fauci, the longtime director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, also said schools might be among the institutions that mandate the vaccine. It is also "quite possible," he said, that the vaccine will be required for travel to and from the United States. 

"Everything will be on the table for discussion" within the incoming Biden administration, he said. The Biden transition team did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

The decision to standardize the vaccine as a travel requirement is not one that Fauci can make, he said. But he thinks it would be a smart move, he told Newsweek.

"Yellow fever's a good example. So we, in this country, don't require [people] to get a yellow fever vaccine when you go [to] some place. It's the place to which you are going that requires it," he said. "I went to Liberia during the ebola outbreak. I had to get my yellow fever vaccine or they would not let me into Liberia."

In the United States, about 3.5 million doses have been given out since the Food and Drug Administration approved Pfizer and Moderna's vaccines. 

Business Insider's Susie Neilson previously reported that the vaccine rollout has been slower than anticipated, and at this rate, it will take nine years to reach widespread vaccination. 

On Tuesday, President-elect Joe Biden criticized the slow rollout of vaccines.

"The effort to distribute and administer the vaccine is not progressing as it should," Biden said in Wilmington, Delaware. At this rate, he said, "it's going to take years, not months, to vaccinate the American people."

Virginia state Sen. Ben Chafin.

AP Photo/Steve Helber

Virginia state Sen. Ben Chafin died on Friday from complications related to COVID-19, according his state legislative office.Chafin, a Republican who represented a rural district in Southwest Virginia, was 60 years old."Southwest Virginia has lost a strong advocate — and we have all lost a good man," said Gov. Ralph Northam in a written statement.Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Virginia state Sen. Ben Chafin died on Friday from complications related to COVID-19, according his state legislative office.

Chafin, a Republican who represented a rural district in Southwest Virginia, was 60 years old.

Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam and the Virginia Senate Republican Caucus, who confirmed Chafin's death, immediately issued words of praise for the senator, who was elected to the state's House of Delegates in 2013 before joining the Senate in 2014.

Chafin, an attorney, had been hospitalized with the coronavirus for roughly two weeks before his death. While several Virginia state legislators have contracted the highly infectious disease, he is the first Virginia lawmaker to pass away from complications related to the coronavirus, according to The Richmond Times-Dispatch.

"Southwest Virginia has lost a strong advocate - and we have all lost a good man," Northam expressed in a written statement. "I knew Ben as a lawmaker, an attorney, a banker, and a farmer raising beef cattle in Moccasin Valley, working the land just as generations of his family had done before him. 

Chafin's Republican and Democratic colleagues saluted his life and service to the commonwealth.

"Ben was deeply and wholeheartedly committed to the commonwealth, and especially to the people of Southwest Virginia," said state Senate GOP leader Thomas K. Norment Jr. in a statement. "He put the interests of those he was entrusted to serve first, cherishing the people of the region he proudly called 'home.'"

"We grieve the loss of our colleague and friend, Senator Ben Chafin," said the Democratic Senate caucus in a statement. "He was a passionate leader who represented his constituents of the 38th District in Southwest Virginia with such compassion, strength, and thoughtfulness."

Chafin is survived by his wife, Lora and their three children, along with his sister and grandchildren.

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, there have been roughly 355,000 confirmed infections and over 5,000 deaths in Virginia, according to the latest data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange leaves Westminster magistrates court in London.

Reuters

A UK judge is set to rule on Monday on the extradition of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to the US, where he would face an array of conspiracy and hacking charges. At 10 am at London's Old Bailey courthouse, a district judge is scheduled to deliver her decision on the extradition, according to The Associated Press. Press advocates are having difficulty gaining access to Monday's hearing, said Rebecca Vincent, director of international campaigns at Reporters Without Borders, on Twitter."Press freedom itself is in the dock," said Stella Moris, Assange's partner, on Twitter. Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

A UK judge is set to rule on Monday over the extradition of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to the US, where he would face an array of conspiracy and hacking charges with a maximum sentence of 175 years. 

At 10am at London's Old Bailey courthouse, Vanessa Baraitser, a district judge, is scheduled to deliver her decision on the extradition, according to The Associated Press. The case would then go to Priti Patel, home secretary, for a final call, per the AP. 

Press advocates were having difficulty gaining access to Monday's hearing, said Rebecca Vincent, director of international campaigns at Reporters Without Borders, on Twitter.

"Press freedom groups are trying to monitor the defining case for press freedom and investigative journalists in the UK and around the world. Press freedom itself is in the dock," said Stella Moris, Assange's partner, on Twitter. 

In June, US Department of Justice officials expanded their 18-count indictment, broadening the scope of the conspiracy charges against Assange. The 49-page indictment says Assange "risked the safety and freedom" of US forces and diplomats by obtaining and releasing secret US government documents. 

Chinese artist Ai Weiwei joins supporters of Julian Assange during a silent protest, outside the Old Bailey in London.

Toby Melville/Reuters

For years, free press advocates have called for the charges against Assange to be dropped. 

"You don't need to know the vagaries of extradition law to understand that the charges against Assange are not only classic 'political offences' and thus barred under extradition law, but more crucially, the charges are politically-motivated," wrote Amnesty International's Julia Hall in September.

Last month, editors at The Guardian, one of three papers that worked with Assange on the first big WikiLeaks leak in 2010 and 2011, urged UK officials to deny the extradition request. 

"No publisher covering national security in any serious way could consider itself safe were this extradition attempt to succeed - wherever it was based; the acts of which Mr Assange is accused (which also include one count of conspiring to hack into a Pentagon computer network) took place when he was outside the US," the Guardian said in an unsigned editorial. 

—WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) January 1, 2021

The New York Times, which also published documents from WikiLeaks, said in a 2019 editorial that Assange's indictment "could have a chilling effect on American journalism as it has been practiced for generations. It is aimed straight at the heart of the First Amendment."

The case against Assange sets a "dangerous precedent" for press freedom, wrote Ben Cohen in a Saturday opinion piece on Business Insider. 

 "These semantic arguments over whether someone is a journalist or not miss the point. Journalism isn't about where you work. It's about what you do," Cohen said. 

A question that's popped up repeatedly is whether President Donald Trump, in his final days in office, might pardon Assange. If Trump were to pardon him, he'd be following the 2017 lead of then-President Barack Obama, who commuted the 35-year prison sentence of Chelsea Manning, the army private who leaked 700,000 documents to Assange.  

"I feel very comfortable that justice has been served," Obama said on Twitter, days before he left office. 

Meanwhile, one of Assange's celebrity friends, Pamela Anderson, has also spoken out on the issue.  "Everyone should be asking Mr. Trump to pardon him," she told The Post. "Anyone with influence should speak up for his freedom because it is our freedom, too. Take to Twitter and start a storm of requests."

Donald Trump attends a rally in support of Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue in Valdosta, Georgia on December 5, 2020.

Spencer Platt/Getty Images

President Donald Trump tweeted that the Georgia Senate runoff elections are "both illegal and invalid."He cited a bipartisan legal agreement as being proof of unconstitutionality — a claim that courts have rejected.Hours later, Trump urged his Twitter followers to "get ready to vote on Tuesday."Trump will attend a rally in Georgia on Monday for Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue.Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

On Friday evening, President Donald Trump tweeted that the upcoming Georgia Senate runoffs are "both illegal and invalid."

Just hours later, Trump vowed to "rally" for both Republican candidates - Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue - and told Georgians to "get ready to vote on Tuesday."

In the initial three-part Twitter thread alleging fraud, Trump claimed that Tuesday's vote would be illegitimate because of one of the state's legal settlements.

Read more: Secret Service experts are speculating in group chats about how Trump might be hauled out of the White House if he won't budge on Inauguration Day

"The Georgia Consent Decree is Unconstitutional & the State 2020 Presidential Election is therefore both illegal and invalid, and that would include the two current Senatorial Elections," the president wrote.

—Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 1, 2021—Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 1, 2021

 

The consent decree, a bipartisan agreement signed in March, established standards for verifying signatures on absentee ballots. Legal attempts to prove that this decree is unconstitutional have all failed.

Other legal challenges to overturn the election results, such as L. Lin Wood and Sidney Powell's attempt to decertify Georgia's results, have also been thrown out.

Despite Trump inaccurately dismissing Tuesday's two Senate runoffs as illegitimate, he still urged his followers to vote.

—Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 2, 2021

 

The elections will directly affect the beginning of Joe Biden's presidency. If Jon Ossoff and the Rev. Raphael Warnock win, the Democratic Party will control the legislative and executive branches, allowing Biden to accomplish his legislative goals more easily.

Trump will speak at a rally in Dalton on Monday. Vice President Mike Pence will speak in Milner later that afternoon.

The race is close and has seen both parties spending extraordinary amounts to help secure a Senate majority. 

Since Election Day, Georgia Senate candidates and outside groups have spent $480 million on advertising, according to AdImpact. It is now the most expensive Senate race ever.

According to a recent poll, the Democrats have a slight but widening lead.

More than 3 million people have already voted in the January 5 Senate runoffs, according to ABC News.

An activist in Dayton, Ohio, is seen chanting slogans on a megaphone while holding a placard that says "I will not go quietly back to the 1950s" during a protest in 2019.

Megan Jelinger/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine this week signed legislation that would require remains from a surgical abortion be either buried or cremated.DeWine, a Republican, who has previously supported controversial and restrictive abortion legislation, was expected to sign the bill. Other states have passed or at least considered similar bills, and the Supreme Court upheld similar legislation in Indiana in 2019.Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine on Wednesday signed a bill that requiring that remains from a surgical abortion be either buried or cremated in the state's latest attempt to limit or impose restrictions on reproductive rights, the Cincinnati Enquirer reported.

The Columbus Dispatch previously reported that the Ohio House in December had passed Senate Bill 27, which had passed in the state Senate earlier last year, by a vote of 60-35. All Republicans in the House and just one Democrat voted in favor of the bill. The legislation previously passed the Ohio Senate in March.

Under existing Ohio law, disposal of any fetal remains, including remains from abortions, miscarriages, or embryos in fertility clinics was not regulated other than the fact was done in a "humane" way, the Dispatch reported. The bill signed Wednesday would only change the rules for abortion providers, requiring that clinics develop and comply with written guidelines for the cremation or burial of a fetus. 

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, a Republican elected to office in 2018, was expected to sign the bill into law. The Ohio governor has previously signed in controversial and restrictive abortion legislation into law. In April 2019, as one of his first moves as governor, DeWine signed a measure known as the "Heartbeat" bill into law, prohibiting abortion after a fetal heartbeat is detected.

Ohio's previous governor, Republican John Kasich, had in 2016 declined to sign similar legislation, arguing that its passage would likely initiate a slew of hard-to-win legal battles.

As the Enquirer noted, the new law was sparked from DeWine's prior investigation as the state's attorney general into whether Planned Parenthood was selling fetal tissue. While the organization was not, DeWine took issue with the disposal of fetal tissue in a landfill, arguing it did not meet the "humane" requirement under Ohio law, according to the report.

Ohio is not the first state to consider - or implement - a law targeting the remains of an abortion. The Supreme Court in 2019 upheld a similar Indiana law requiring abortion remains to be buried or cremated, signed into law in 2016 by Vice President Mike Pence, during his time as the governor of Indiana.

Last year, lawmakers considered similar legislation in Pennsylvania.

Several groups that support abortion rights in Ohio have opposed the legislation, including the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio.

"The ACLU of Ohio opposes SB 27 because it serves no legitimate medical purpose and is an obvious attempt to inconvenience patients, shut down abortion providers, and imprison doctors who do not comply with the numerous nonsensical regulations found in this bill," Gary Daniels, the ACLU of Ohio's chief lobbyist said in written testimony opposing the bill.

Daniels noted the bill only applies to abortion providers and not to Ohio jails and prisons, or to fertility clinics who destroy embryos, calling it "legislative harassment."

Pro-life groups applauded the legislation.

"This legislation is attempting to add structure and policy to this process," Dayton Right to Life President Margie Christie said in submitted testimony, the Columbus Dispatch reported. "This legislation strictly addresses the disposition of the remains. It is not infringing on a woman's right to choose and in no way burdens her choice. The choice has, at this point, been made."

Elon Musk.

Odd Andersen/AFP via Getty Images

Tesla had set a goal of 500,000 deliveries for 2020. On Saturday, it announced it missed the target by 450 vehicles.Some analysts had said the ambitious target could be tough to reach because of a slump in auto sales during the coronavirus pandemic.The company reached its production goal for the year, making a total of 509,737 vehicles. It also said production of its mid-size SUV, the Model Y, has begun in Shanghai. Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Tesla just missed its goal of delivering 500,000 vehicles last year, the company announced Saturday.

The electric automaker delivered 499,550 vehicles in 2020, 450 shy of CEO Elon Musk's target.

Some analysts had said the ambitious target could be tough to reach because of a slump in auto sales during the coronavirus pandemic.

Consumers cut back spending on cars during the pandemic and Tesla's sales in the first half of 2020 dropped 15% from the second half of 2019. To reach its 500,000 deliveries goal, the automaker needed to sell about 181,650 vehicles in the final three months of the year - 30% more than the third quarter.

In an earnings call in October, Tesla acknowledged the 500,000 goal had "become more difficult," but said it could reach the target if it produces more Model Y and Shanghai vehicles, as well as make its logistics and delivery more efficient.

Read more: Tesla's stock price surged 740% in 2020. Here's where 5 analysts say the shares are headed next.

The automaker delivered 180,570 electric vehicles in the fourth quarter and produced 179,757 vehicles, it said. 

The company said Saturday that its delivery numbers "should be viewed as slightly conservative" because it only counts a car as delivered if it is transferred to the customer and all paperwork is correct. "Final numbers could vary by up to 0.5% or more" when it announces its fourth quarter earnings, it said.

The company reached its production goal for the year, making a total of 509,737 vehicles. It also said production of its mid-size SUV, the Model Y, has begun in Shanghai. 

"So proud of the Tesla team for achieving this major milestone! At the start of Tesla, I thought we had (optimistically) a 10% chance of surviving at all," Musk tweeted Saturday.

Demand from China was a boon to Tesla in 2020, with the automaker selling roughly 22,000 Model 3 vehicles there in November.

People attend a vigil marking the one year anniversary of the killing of Iranian military commander General Qassem Soleimani in a U.S. drone attack, in Sanaa, Yemen January 2, 2021.

REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah

Iran intends to resume enriching uranium to 20% purity, the Associated Press reported on Saturday."We are like soldiers and our fingers are on the triggers," Ali Akbar Salehi, the head of Iran's civilian atomic energy organization, reportedly said on state television, adding that the country would produce 20% enriched uranium "as soon as possible."Iran agreed not to enrich uranium above 4% as part of an international nuclear deal in 2015.President Trump exited the agreement in 2018 and reimposed sanctions on Iran, but President-elect Biden intends to rejoin and lift sanctions if the country strictly complies with international demands.The first anniversary of the drone strike in Baghdad, killing Iran's most powerful military commander, General Qasem Soleimani, ordered by President Trump, is on January 3.Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Iran plans to enrich uranium to 20% purity "as soon as possible," marking its latest breach of international restrictions on its nuclear program, the Associated Press reported on Saturday.

Iranian authorities recently penned a letter to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), informing the watchdog that they plan to boost enrichment levels from under 5% to as high as 20% at one of their nuclear plants. The officials didn't say when the increases would be implemented.

Ali Akbar Salehi, the boss of Iran's civilian atomic energy organization, said on state television on Saturday that Iran won't waste any time, according to the AP. 

"We are like soldiers and our fingers are on the triggers," he said. "The commander should command and we shoot. We are ready for this and will produce (20% enriched uranium) as soon as possible."

Read more: Secret Service experts are speculating in group chats about how Trump might be hauled out of the White House if he won't budge on Inauguration Day

As part of a nuclear deal in 2015, Iran agreed not to enrich uranium above 4% and allow international inspections of its nuclear facilities to exchange relief from sanctions.

President Trump exited the agreement in 2018 and reimposed sanctions. It set in motion a series of incidents that culminated in a drone strike on January 3, 2020, in Baghdad, killing Iran's most powerful military commander, General Qasem Soleimani.

The latest brinkmanship comes as renewed tension ramped up in the region in the last days of the Trump presidency. 

This week, the US sent B-52 bombers to fly over the Persian Gulf region to send a message to Tehran after a rocket attack on the US Embassy in Baghdad that the Trump administration said was the work of Iranian proxy forces.

European intelligence officials are alarmed about the possibility of military action towards Iran in the waning days of the Trump administration, Insider reported in November.
 According to three European intelligence officials who spoke with Insider, the prospect of  Trump - who has pushed for maximum pressure on Iran - or a combination of Israel or Saudi Arabia creating a military confrontation has been a concern.

President-elect Joe Biden has indicated he will seek to reenter it and lift sanctions if Iran strictly complies with international demands.

Iran's parliament passed a bill allowing 20% enrichment last month after one of the country's top nuclear scientists, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, was assassinated in November.

The new law required the Iranian government to resume enriching uranium to 20% if sanctions on its oil and financial sectors weren't eased within two months. It also enables officials to block UN inspectors from several nuclear facilities.

Uranium is enriched to low levels to provide fuel for nuclear power plants and enriched to 20% or more for research reactors.

Higher enrichment levels might accelerate the speed at which Iran could theoretically develop a nuclear bomb, which requires around 90% enrichment levels. However, Iran has repeatedly emphasized it has peaceful goals for its nuclear program.

In this June 11, 2014 photo, former Blackwater Worldwide guard Evan Liberty, right, arrives at federal court in Washington.

AP Photo/Cliff Owen

Evan Liberty, one of the former Blackwater contractors recently pardoned by President Donald Trump, expressed little remorse in his first interview since he was released from prison. In an interview with the Associated Press, Liberty said he was "confident in how I acted and I can basically feel peace with that."Liberty was sentenced to 30 years in prison after he was convicted of manslaughter in 2014 for his role in the killing of Iraqi men, women, and children during a 2007 shootout in Baghdad. Of 17 people who died in the September 16, 2007, event known as the Nisour Square massacre, the Federal Bureau of Investigation found 14 killings were unjustified. Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Evan Liberty, one of the former Blackwater contractors pardoned in December by President Donald Trump, in an interview with the Associated Press showed little remorse and maintained he acted appropriately in the 2007 incident that led to his conviction.

Liberty was convicted of manslaughter by a jury in 2014 and sentenced to 30 years behind bars, though a judge last year cut his sentence in half. Liberty told the Associated Press in his first interview since he was pardoned that he maintained he had done nothing incorrectly during the September 16, 2007, event known as the Nisour Square massacre. 

"I feel like I acted correctly," he told the outlet. "I regret any innocent loss of life, but I'm just confident in how I acted and I can basically feel peace with that."

Read more: Secret Service experts are speculating in group chats about how Trump might be hauled out of the White House if he won't budge on Inauguration Day

Trump in December pardoned Liberty, Nicholas Slatten, Paul Slough, and Dustin Heard, military veterans all previously employed by the security firm then known as Blackwater Worldwide, according to a previous Business Insider report. The security firm, which now exists under a different name, was contracted by the US to provide protection for diplomats in Iraq.

"I didn't shoot at anybody that wasn't shooting at me," Liberty told the AP, adding that he and the others convinced would "never take an innocent life"

The men involved in the Nisour Square massacre were part of an armored convoy that opened fire in a crowded area of Baghdad on September 16, 2007, using machine guns, sniper fire, and grenade launchers against civilians.

More than a dozen Iraqi civilians, including women and children, were killed during the 2007 shootout. Slatten was convicted of the most serious charge - first-degree murder - and sentenced to life in prison, though he was also pardoned by the president last month. 

As Business Insider previously reported, two children were killed, the youngest being a 9-year-old boy named Ali Mohammed Hafedh Abdul Razzaq. In total, 17 people were killed during the shootout, and FBI investigators later determined that 14 of the deaths were unjustified.

The pardons drew ire from many, despite the White House's implication that there was widespread support for their pardons. 

Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Democrat from Minnesota, said, "pardoning monstrous criminals will leave a dark mark on the history of presidential pardons." Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy, also a Democrat and a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said, "pardoning these murderers is a disgrace."

Some activist organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union, also spoke out against Trump's pardons.

Liberty said he hadn't spoken to the president and wasn't sure how his pardon came to be. The company formerly known as Blackwater was founded by Erik Prince, an ally of the president and the brother of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos.

"I feel like it's my duty to go out and do something positive and live a good life because they gave me a second chance, so that's basically my goal," Liberty, who spent six years in prison, told the Associated Press. 

The "Ratatouille: The TikTok Musical" marquee as it appears in the event trailer.

@ratatousicalthemusical/@e_jaccs/TikTok

"Ratatouille: The TikTok Musical" earned over $1 million in ticket sales from its virtual New Year's Day stream, according to The Hollywood Reporter and a tweet from the production's official Twitter account.What started as a TikTok trend became a Broadway-scale online production featuring Tony-, Emmy- and Grammy-nominated performers like Wayne Brady, Tituss Burgess, André De Shields, and Ashley Park.Some proceeds from the virtual performance, also known as the "Ratatousical," will go to The Actors Fund, a charity that supports performers and other entertainment workers who have been hit hard by theater closures during the coronavirus pandemic.Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

"Ratatouille: The TikTok Musical" earned over $1 million in ticket sales from its virtual New Year's Day stream, according to The Hollywood Reporter and a tweet from the production's official Twitter account.

The project, which Insider's Palmer Haasch previously reported began as a series of user-generated videos on TikTok, was picked up by the theater production company Seaview Productions and turned into a Broadway-scale musical starring Tony-award winning talent and the 20-piece Broadway Sinfonietta orchestra.

Some proceeds from the benefit event (which will be streamable for 72 hours) will go to The Actors Fund, a charity that supports performers and other entertainment workers who have been hit hard by theater closures during the coronavirus pandemic. Broadway venues shut their doors on March 12, 2020, and aren't expected to reopen until May 30, 2021 at the earliest. 

Based on the Pixar film "Ratatouille," Seaview's musical includes 12 rat- and cooking-themed songs performed by actors like Wayne Brady, Tituss Burgess, Andrew Barth Feldman, André De Shields, and Ashley Park. The show was initially tested out in a series of TikTok posts where users created their own musical renditions of scenes from the film. One creator, Jess Siswick, even designed a playbill for the musical that was eventually turned into the project's official Playbill. 

TikTok has become a central hub for music artists and other performers over the past year as many in-person events have shut down during the pandemic. One need look no further than the Billboard 100 or Spotify Viral 50 to see how TikTok trends have left an imprint on the entertainment industry in recent months.

Artists' songs can rise on TikTok quickly and unexpectedly, as was the case with Matthew Wilder's "Break My Stride" and Fleetwood Mac's "Dreams" which reemerged into pop culture last year after gaining steam on the app. In other instances, marketers or artists try to make songs take off by tapping into existing TikTok fads, creating original songs, or adapting tracks for TikTok's short-video format and hiring influencers to promote them.

In the case of "Ratatouille: The Musical," the group was able to pull together the TikTok-born concept into a full-scale streamable performance in a matter of weeks.

"This event really highlights a lot of the TikTok creators, and we're very happy we got this recognition," Christopher Routh, the project's set designer, told the New York Times. "We can take our content and do something good with it, not only raise money for the show but make sure that Broadway comes back stronger than ever."

For more stories on how TikTok has left its mark on the music and entertainment industries, read these other Business Insider posts:

How a 91-year-old record label is using TikTok to promote its artists, including hiring micro influencers to spark trends: RCA Records' digital marketing lead, Tarek Al-Hamdouni, walked Business Insider through the label's strategy for promoting artists and songs on TikTok.The 24 power players using TikTok to transform the music industry, from marketers and record execs to artists: Business Insider compiled a list of the music marketers, artists, digital creators, and record labels that are using TikTok to reshape popular music.Inside TikTok's music division, where staffers analyze data to spot trends and use different 'promo levers' to help songs blow up: Business Insider spoke with TikTok's music team to learn how it works with artists, labels, and users to shape the music experience on the app.A Sony Music exec explains the label's TikTok strategy and how it responds when a song like 'Break My Stride' catches fire: Business Insider spoke with the marketing team at Sony Music's Legacy Recordings to learn about its strategy for promoting trending songs on TikTok.Music artist Tiagz explains how he mastered TikTok's algorithm to score a major record deal, with help from Charli D'Amelio and a 1950s jazz classic: The Canadian rapper Tiagz (Tiago Garcia-Arenas) has built a career as a producer by strategically uploading songs to the short-form-video app TikTok.

Sen. Ted Cruz during a Senate hearing on November 17, 2020.

BILL CLARK/POOL/AFP via Getty Images

Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas on Saturday is announced he will object to the certification of Electoral College votes on Wednesday, Axios first reported.While President-elect Joe Biden won the race in November, Trump and a number of his Republican allies have refused to accept the results, leveraging baseless claims of widespread voter fraud.A number of other senators are expected to join Cruz, according to the report. Cruz' GOP colleague, Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri, has already said he planned to object to the certification next week, though this effort is separate, according to Fox News.According to the Fox News report, Cruz and his Republican senatorial colleagues will call for a 10-day emergency audit of the election results in states where they are disputed, pointing to a commission created in 1877.Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas on Saturday is reportedly behind an effort by GOP senators to object to the certification of Electoral College votes scheduled for Wednesday, Axios and Fox News first reported. 

Also involved are Republican Sens. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, James Lankford of Oklahoma, Steve Daines of Montana, John Kennedy of Louisiana, Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, Mike Braun of Indiana, and Sens.-elect Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming, Roger Marshall of Kansas, Bill Hagerty of Tennessee, and Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, according to the Axios report Saturday. 

The news comes after Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri on Wednesday announced he intended to object to the certification of the electoral college vote, which occurred last month. The Senate must certify the results before Biden is to be inaugurated on January 20. 

While such objections risk delaying the certification of the results in Biden's favor, it will not change the results of the vote in any US state.

"I cannot vote to certify the electoral college results on January 6 without raising the fact that some states, particularly Pennsylvania, failed to follow their own state election laws," Hawley said Wednesday. "At the very least, Congress should investigate allegations of voter fraud and adopt measures to secure the integrity of our elections. But Congress has so far failed to act."

The new effort Saturday is separate from that previously launched by Hawley, according to Axios and Fox News.

Trump has failed to concede his loss for two months, as he and his allies within the GOP have baselessly alleged allegations of widespread voter fraud that he and his legal team haven't been able to substantiate in dozens of court battles.

According to the Fox News report, Cruz and his Republican senatorial colleagues will call for a 10-day emergency audit of the election results by an electoral commission in states where they are disputed. 

"Voter fraud has posed a persistent challenge in our elections, although its breadth and scope are disputed. By any measure, the allegations of fraud and irregularities in the 2020 election exceed any in our lifetimes," the lawmakers said in a statement, according to Fox News.

The GOP lawmakers in the statement said without the agreement for the audit, they will vote against certifying the results Wednesday. They cited the commission appointed following allegations of fraud in the election of 1877 between Samuel Hayes and Rutherford Hayes, Fox News reported.

"We intend to vote on January 6 to reject the electors from disputed states as not 'regularly given' and 'lawfully certified' (the statutory requisite), unless and until that emergency 10-day audit is completed," the statement read, according to Fox News.

As Fox News noted, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican, has publicly accepted Biden's win and has privately urged senators not to contest the results.

Congressman-elect Burgess Owens was a featured speaker at the 2020 Republican National Convention.

Courtesy of the Committee on Arrangements for the 2020 Republican National Committee via Getty Images

GOP Congressman-elect Burgess Owens of Utah on Thursday said that he will support the challenge to President-elect Joe Biden's presidential victory on the House floor and contended that there was "no question" that President Donald Trump was reelected to a second term.In an interview with The Salt Lake Tribune, Owens said that his goal was "to make sure that I'm doing everything I can to take this to every legal end we have."Owens defeated first-term Democratic Rep. Ben McAdams in one of the closest Congressional races in the country.Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

In an interview with The Salt Lake Tribune, GOP Congressman-elect Burgess Owens of Utah on Thursday said that he will support the challenge to President-elect Joe Biden's presidential victory on the House floor and contended that there was "no question" that President Donald Trump was reelected to a second term.

Owens, a strong Trump supporter and a featured speaker at the 2020 Republican National Convention, said that he believes Trump was victorious in the election, despite Biden securing 306 Electoral College votes to Trump's 232 electoral votes and winning over 7 million more votes than the president.

"There's no question in my mind that I think he won," Owens said.

Read more: Secret Service experts are speculating in group chats about how Trump might be hauled out of the White House if he won't budge on Inauguration Day

His comments come as Congress is set to certify the Electoral College results on Jan. 6, with many GOP lawmakers, including Sen. Josh Hawley, opting to challenge the election results.

Owens, a former NFL player, compared the Republican effort to his days playing football.

"In 10 years in the NFL, I played in a lot of losing games," he said. "If you leave everything on the field and you've done everything you can and there's nothing left, then it's a winning game regardless of what the score might be."

Owens said that contesting the Electoral College was "the right thing to do" because "seventy-plus percent of conservatives say that this [election] is not fair" and their views deserve to be heard, according to the Tribune.

The congressman-elect claimed that 42,000 votes were incorrectly added to the final vote total in Nevada, an allegation that state officials have firmly denied.

Owens also said that after living in Pennsylvania, "the Democratic Party has done things" in the state that are not "fair," but didn't provide any solid evidence of any electoral wrongdoing in the 2020 presidential election.

"My goal basically is just to make sure that I'm doing everything I can to take this to every legal end we have," he added. "And once the official count is done, then we'll respect whoever the president is."

Since November, the Trump legal team has contested the election across the country, unleashing an array of high-profile but overwhelmingly unsuccessful lawsuits to overturn the election results.

Stacey Abrams, Nia Dumas, Deja Mason, Aiyana Edwards

Earl Gibson III/Getty Images, Nia Dumas, Deja Mason, Aiyana Edwards

In a few days, the Georgia runoff elections on January 5 will decide what party takes control of the US Senate. When Joe Biden became the first Democratic presidential candidate to win Georgia since 1992, many attributed the flip to Stacey Abrams.Business Insider spoke to students at Spelman College, a top HBCU based in Atlanta, who described how their alumna Abrams inspired them to rally young voters to turn out for the runoff elections. Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

For 20-year-old Deja Mason, a junior at Spelman, this period in the year is a weird "in-between time."

Finals are over; people are on winter break. But as part of the New Voters Project, a non-partisan program to encourage young voter turnout,  Mason said she has spent her free time between her virtual classes in the fall semester trying to get her peers to turn out and cast their ballots. With just days left until the contentious Georgia Senate runoffs, she's reaching out to make sure these voters "have a vote plan," she said. 

A supporter of Stacey Abrams holds a sign thanking her during a celebration of Democratic nominee Joe Biden's projected presidential win at Freedom Park on November 7, 2020 in Atlanta, Georgia

Elijah Nouvelage/Getty Images

The Georgia Senate runoffs will decide what party takes control of the Senate, and if Republicans win just one of the two races, President-elect Joe Biden will be the first president since 1989 to not have their party in control of both chambers of Congress. 

Following the November election where Biden became the first Democratic presidential candidate to win the state since 1992, Stacey Abrams was credited for the flip, as she helped register 800,000 new voters through Fair Fight, a voting rights organization founded by the former Georgia Democratic gubernatorial nominee after her loss in the 2018 midterm elections.

For Mason, Spelman alumna like Abrams, who graduated in 1995, and other women of color in politics energized her to volunteer and encourage young voters to turnout in the Senate runoff elections. 

"I feel Black women, especially such as Kamala Harris and Stacey Abrams," Mason said, "they just give me a lot of inspiration because it shows that I can do what they're doing." 

Deja Mason

Courtesy of Deja Mason

Nia Dumas, a junior studying political science at Spelman, echoed Mason's sentiments. 

"Spelman College is an HBCU for Black women. It's a place where you can really thrive, and as a Spelman student, I feel like it's given me that space where I can just be myself without having to worry about outside influences and things like that," she told Business Insider. "So when all of these Spelman women are together and trying to advocate for change, it pushes you and it inspires you." 

In a video posted on Spelman's website for voter resources, Abrams speaks directly to current students: "I was 17, ready to change the world, and I knew Spelman would be a part of it."

"When I was 17, I set up my first voter registration table helping sign up people to vote long before I was able to do so," she continues. "I'm proud of who you are - I'm proud that you have chosen to become Spelman women," Abrams added.

Dumas, who also spent the semester virtually from home roughly a 50 minutes' drive outside of Atlanta, leads Spelman's Fair Fight chapter, excited to work for an "organization that was literally there to fight voter suppression, and its CEO was an alumna of my college," she said. 

Nia Dumas

Nia Dumas

The young voters that Dumas and Mason are reaching out to has proven to be an increasingly formidable voting bloc. Young voter turnout in the 2020 election was much larger than four years ago: around 42 to 44% of voters under 30 turned out for the 2016 election, whereas between 52 to 55% of this group turned out for the 2020 election, according to the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning & Engagement at Tufts University. In Georgia, voters under the age of 30 counted for 20% of all votes cast, according to Tufts University.

"I think young voters understand that if we don't decide for ourselves, someone else will decide for us," Dumas said. "The policies and the legislations and things that are going into action now - if they don't affect us now, they will affect us in the years to come."

Aiyana Edwards, who is in her second year at Spelman, told Business Insider she has been working through RISE, a student advocacy organization, to encourage young people online to make a plan to vote. In the November election, she said she also worked as a poll monitor as part of the Election Protection Coalition.

Edwards said that seeing Abrams' work meant "seeing a Black woman have the opportunity to create her own organization to increase the participation in Georgia," which was inspiring. 

Aiyana Edwards

Aiyana Edwards

In a historic record, about 3 million people have already cast their ballots, according to the Atlanta Journal Constitution. With a few days left before the election on Jan. 5, Edwards, Dumas, and Mason are making a final push for young voters.

Mason, in an appeal to them, said she can understand if they're tired by the continuous political messages ahead of the election. 

"There is so much weighing on us," she said, but "using your vote and making sure your voice is heard is extremely significant."

Read more:Georgia voters will decide which party controls the Senate in 2 unusual runoff races in JanuaryPolitical pioneer Stacey Abrams created a spreadsheet to plan her life goals back in college. More than 25 years later, she is still using that same spreadsheet. Here's how it works, according to Abrams.Meet Stacey Abrams, the architect of Georgia's political shift from 'red' to 'purple'Stacey Abrams helped register 800,000 voters and flipped Georgia for Biden. Here's what anyone can learn from her ability to inspire and influence others.

Research shows that dolls with unrealistic proportions, like Barbie, promote body dissatisfaction and low self-esteem among young girls. We set out to to discover how unrealistic Barbie's body is by scaling her up to the height of an average American woman.The most noticeable difference was in the waist. Barbie's was about 50 centimeters around, compared to the waist of an average American woman of 98 centimeters.In 2016, Barbie's maker Mattel released a handful of new sizes, including Curvy Barbie, which are more representative of real-life body diversity. But some experts say these dolls are still far from perfect.Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Following is a transcript of the video.

Ken: Hiya, Barbie!

Barbie: Hi, Ken! You're looking unrealistically thin today!

Ken: Funny, I was going to say the same about you.

Narrator: Barbie is one of the most popular dolls in America. But that doesn't mean that she's loved by everyone. For years, women advocates have criticized the doll for her proportions, which they say set unrealistic and damaging body expectations for young girls.

In response, her maker, Mattel, created a handful of new sizes in 2016, including Curvy Barbie. But how unrealistic is Barbie really? Is Curvy much better? And where does Ken fit into all of this? That's what we set out to discover.

Benji Jones: Hello, and welcome to our Barbie experiment. Today, we're going to open up each of these three dolls and do a little bit of math to try to figure out what they would look like if they were life-size. We have your more typical Barbie over here. We've got a Curvy Barbie, which is kind of a newer doll. And then, of course, we also have a Ken doll because I couldn't not get Ken. So let's get started.

Narrator: First, we measured each of the dolls, their height, waist, and so on, and used some high-school algebra to figure out their life-size measurements. Then, we compared them to a real-life woman for comparison: our colleague Jensen.

Jones: So Jensen, how tall are you?

Jensen Rubinstein: I am 5-3 and a half.

Jones: So you are the average height of an American woman, congratulations.

Rubinstein: Wow, thank you!

Jones: First thing we're gonna do is take some of your measurements.

Rubinstein: OK.

Jones:And then we're gonna compare that to Barbie. Will you point to your belly button for me?

Rubinstein: Right here.

Jones: OK.

Narrator: Although Jensen is the average height of an American woman, she has a smaller-than-average waist. But still, it's not nearly as thin as Barbie's. If we scale Barbie to life-size, her waist would be a mere 50 centimeters, and her hips, just 71 centimeters. And if Jensen had Barbie's proportions, this is what she would look like. She'd have shorter arms, a longer neck, and tiny feet. In fact, they'd be so small that she'd have trouble balancing and would be forced to walk on all fours.

And what about Curvy Barbie? Is she any more realistic? Actually, yes, at least relative to Jensen. Her waist would be around 63 centimeters and her hips around 90, the same as Jensen's. Now, here's Jensen with Curvy Barbie's proportions. Not that different. Though, of course, she still wouldn't be able to walk upright.

Now, we can't forget about Ken. This time, I stood in for comparison. If we scale Ken up to my height, his waist would be just 63 centimeters, and he would also have unusually small feet, long legs, and larger calves. But his biceps, well, mine are actually bigger. Uh, Ken, you better watch out.

So as you might expect, most Barbies look nothing like average Americans, as fit as they may be. In fact, researchers found that the chance of a woman having traditional Barbie's proportions is less than one in 100,000. And that's a problem.

Deborah Tolman: My name's Deborah Tolman. I'm a professor of critical social psychology and women and gender studies at Hunter College at City University of New York.

Narrator: And according to Tolman:

Tolman: Dolls actually have an enormous effect on girls' and boys' sense of themselves, their ideas about body, particular thin-body ideals. If you have an ideal, and you're never able to achieve it, you don't need a psychological study to show that it makes you feel bad.

Narrator: But there are plenty of studies that do. A study published in 2006, for example, found that young girls who are exposed to Barbie-doll images had more body dissatisfaction and lower body esteem compared to girls who were shown similar pictures of a larger-sized doll. But fortunately, it goes both ways.

Tolman: Playing with a more, I guess, quote, chubby doll actually suppresses the desire for a thin body. So thinking about it only as negative really doesn't tell the full story because there are ways that we can introduce dolls and play that will actually yield protective effects.

Narrator: And that's why some experts applaud Mattel for creating Curvy Barbie. But it's also led to a whole new business for people who want to make even more realistic dolls because let's face it, Curvy Barbie still doesn't depict the average American woman.

Nickolay Lamm: So Curvy, Tall, and Petite Barbie, like, I think it sounds good, like, "Oh, Curvy, Tall, and Petite, we're all diverse and everything." But if we actually look at their individual, each doll, each doll is still unrealistic because the Curvy is still like the perfect hourglass shape. The Petite is very extremely slim, and the Tall is basically like essentially the original Barbie, except kind of a little bit taller.

Narrator: That's Nickolay Lamm.

Lamm: I'm the founder of Lammily, which makes dolls with realistic body proportions to promote healthy body image.

Narrator: Lamm competes with Mattel for business, so of course there's some difference in opinion about the perfect doll, but if you look at his dolls, it's easy to see how they differ from Barbie, Curvy or otherwise. And in the end, maybe there is no perfect doll. After all, people come in all different shapes, sizes, and colors, and it's pretty clear that dolls should too.

EDITOR'S NOTE: This video was originally published in June 2019.

America has an obesity problem, but there are more 200,000 fast foods restaurants dotted throughout the country. Customers have been moving towards places with healthier menus and many traditional chains are adding items to address this. I tried eating these "healthy" fast foods for an entire week. I had every meal at McDonald's, Wendy's, Taco Bell, Burger King, Subway, Dunkin' Donuts or Chick-fil-A. Following is a full transcript of the video. 

Kevin Reilly: Fast food is cheap and convenient. But hidden in between the burgers and tacos are some "healthy" options: salads, grilled chicken, yogurts, oatmeal, power burritos. Doesn't sound too bad, right? I spent a week eating nothing but these "healthy" fast foods and I lost six-and-a-half pounds. But even though I lost about a pound a day, it didn't really go well.

I live in New York City, a place with every possible food you could want. Eating healthy here, it's a breeze. But across America, there are more than 200,000 fast food joints, and they're bringing in more than $200 billion a year in sales. And no matter where you go, you're never far from a place like McDonald's or Taco Bell. But in recent years, consumers want better, healthier choices, and the traditional fast food places have been losing customers to those fast casual healthy options.

The rules were pretty simple: Eat every major meal at a national fast-food chain and stick to the healthy options. McDonald's, Wendy's, Burger King, Taco Bell, Dunkin' Donuts, Subway, and Chick-fil-A; nothing but them for a week. Yeah, I lost almost seven pounds, but let's take a close look at the numbers.

On a normal day, I'm eating around 2,500 calories. An adult man should be having about 2,400 to 2,600 calories a day. But on this fast food plan, my calories plummeted. Most of these meals came in under 400 calories, and that was one of my first problems. I'd eat and just a couple hours later, I was starving. And I had days when I didn't eat more than 1,000 calories.

Now, some of these meals were really good. My favorite was this grilled chicken market salad from Chick-fil-A. It had blueberries, strawberries, apples; it was delicious and it was actually healthy. However, a lot of the other salads from Burger King, McDonald's, and Wendy's were loaded with salt, often more than 50% of what I needed for the entire day, from a salad. In fact, excess salt was a problem the entire week. I thought I had hit the jackpot with Taco Bell's al Fresco menu. They take off all the cheese and mayo-based sauces and replace it with lettuce and pico de gallo. One night I got tacos, another night I got a power cantina burrito, and these were meals with more protein than usual. So, I felt like I was getting enough food. They were good, too good. It was all salt. In fact, just one burrito had almost as much salt as I needed in just one day. The American Heart Association says we should limit our sodium to about 2,300 milligrams a day, but the ideal is closer to 1,500 milligrams a day, especially for a person like me with high blood pressure. But if you look at my sodium intake, it was high every day, yet I was barely getting the calories I needed. If I wanted to keep the sodium down, I was starving. If I wanted to feel full, salt through the roof. You see, that's an issue in the fast food industry. Wendy's even acknowledges on their website that there's going to be a trade-off between salt and flavor.

It was weird. I didn't feel healthy at all throughout the week, even though I was eating healthy foods and losing weight. And on the last day, I had this massive headache that was just infuriating. These places, they're supposed to be tasty, cheap, and convenient. But it wasn't cheap. Every healthy option was expensive, but left me hungry. For eight grilled nuggets and this tiny kale salad at Chick-fil-A, $12. For the power Mediterranean salad at Wendy's, it was almost $8, yet I could get a cheeseburger, nuggets, fries, and a soda for only $4. That brings me to another problem. Walk into McDonald's and you get hit with that sweet, sweet french fry smell, and I had to get a salad.

Would I recommend this to anyone? Nope, unless you're stuck on the road with no other options. Though there was a bright spot: breakfast at Subway. They have these egg-white-and-cheese sandwiches, which I got covered in spinach and peppers. And let me tell you, it was good. But after all this, I just want a cheeseburger.

EDITOR'S NOTE: This video was originally published in May 2018.

Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos.

John Locher/AP and Odd Andersen/AFP via Getty Images

Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk alone increased their net worth by $217 billion last year, according to Bloomberg. For this amount, more than 100 million Americans can receive $2,000 checks. Collectively, the net worth of the world's 500 richest people rose to about $1.8 trillion, a 31% increase that represents the largest annual gain in the eight years that Bloomberg has tracked these figures.Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

While many Americans were economically upended by the coronavirus pandemic, and now await a decision from Congress on whether they'll receive a $2,000 stimulus check soon, the world's richest people had raked in record gains in 2020. 

Last year, Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk collectively increased their net worth by $217 billion last year, an amount that could cut $2,000 checks for more than 100 million Americans. 

The world's richest person, Amazon CEO Bezos, is now worth about $190 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. And Tesla founder and CEO Elon Musk took second place with about $170 billion, surpassing Microsoft's Bill Gates. 

Musk's net worth, in particular, grew the fastest in 2020, Bloomberg reported. His net worth is primarily made up of Tesla shares, of which he owns about 75%, according to Bloomberg. 

These figures come as millions of people in the United States remain jobless because of the economic devastation brought on by the coronavirus pandemic. 

Congress in March passed the first coronavirus stimulus package, which included $1,200 in direct payments to Americans. It was an attempt to offset the financial ruin after small businesses nationwide were shuttered to curtail the spread of the virus. 

Americans waited nine months to receive a second stimulus check. In December, Congress finally reached a deal on the second stimulus relief package, an agreement that included $600 checks to taxpayers. 

But the House and the Senate are once again at odds as House Democrats are pushing for $2,000 checks to go out. Senate Republicans, led by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, have repeatedly struck down the effort.

Meanwhile, employment rates have been steadily rising in the US. But the November jobs report from the Labor Department said about 15 million people did not work that month because of the pandemic. 

Globally, the outlook is much grimmer. 

In a report released last year, the World Bank predicted that global poverty would rise in 2020 for the first time in more than two decades because of the coronavirus pandemic. 

"The newest and most immediate threat to poverty reduction, COVID-19, has unleashed a worldwide economic disaster whose shock waves continue to spread," an overview from the World Bank reads. "Without an adequate global response, the cumulative effects of the pandemic and its economic fallout, armed conflict, and climate change will exact high human and economic costs well into the future."

Collectively, the net worth of the world's 500 richest people grew about $1.8 trillion last year, according to Bloomberg. It's a 31% increase that represents the largest annual gain in the eight years that Bloomberg has tracked these figures. 

Bitcoin's value grew over 300% last year.

REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration

Bitcoin set a new record Saturday when the price of the digital currency passed $30,000.The blockchain incumbent has been surging in recent weeks, passing the $20,000 price point a little over two weeks ago and edging toward $25,000 on Christmas day.Bitcoin has grown significantly over the last year as it's drawn in more interest from institutional and retail investors, some of whom view digital coins as a safe haven during the coronavirus pandemic. Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

The price of bitcoin crossed $30,000 for the first time on Saturday as the digital currency continued its rally into the new year. 

Bitcoin reached a high of $33,136.92, a spike of around 14% over the last 24 hours.

The cryptocurrency has been breaking record-after-record in recent days, passing the $20,000 price point a little over two weeks ago and edging toward $25,000 on Christmas day. Its current market cap is about $611 billion.

Bitcoin's value grew over 300% last year as more institutional investors decided to embrace digital currencies. Companies like PayPal added support for cryptocurrency transactions, and some retail investors turned to digital coins as a safe haven (like gold) during the coronavirus pandemic. 

Investors aren't sure yet whether bitcoin's recent rise will impact the price of gold going forward. 

JPMorgan strategists argued in December that the newcomer currency may eventually lower the value of gold because "adoption of bitcoin by institutional investors has only begun, while for gold its adoption by institutional investors is very advanced."

But a Goldman Sachs analyst later wrote that bitcoin was unlikely to negatively affect gold long-term. "We do not see evidence that bitcoin's rally is cannibalizing gold's bull market and believe the two can coexist," the analyst wrote in a note.

Bitcoin wasn't the only digital currency to rise Saturday. Smaller competitors like Ethereum, Litecoin, and Chainlink all saw price jumps during cryptocurrency trading while almost all other markets were closed.

Read more about bitcoin's recent rally: 

Bitcoin surges to fresh record high and looks set to break the $25,000 level: 'Merry Bitmas'Bitcoin soars above $23,000 as mammoth 2020 rally drives record highsBitcoin's intrinsic value will rise in the coming months while gold may struggle as institutional investors flock to crypto, JPMorgan saysBitcoin's surge poses no threat to gold's status as the currency of last resort, Goldman Sachs says

 

Elon Musk.

Maja Hitij/Getty Images

Tesla short-sellers saw $38 billion in mark-to-market losses throughout 2020, Bloomberg reported Thursday, citing S3 Partners data.Short interest in the company's shares plunged to less than 6% of Tesla's float from nearly 20% at the start of last year.The losses trounce the $2.9 billion total seen in 2019 and come on the back of Tesla's 740% surge over the past 12 months.Watch Tesla trade live here.Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Investors betting against Tesla lost billions last year, as the automaker's shares leaped above nearly all estimates.

Short sellers saw $38 billion in mark-to-market losses throughout 2020, Bloomberg reported Thursday, citing data from S3 Partners. Short interest in the shares fell to less than 6% of Tesla's float from nearly 20% as the company's rally led investors to close out their bearish positions.

Tesla bears lost more than any other group of short-sellers in 2020. Those betting against Apple saw the second-largest deficit of nearly $7 billion, according to Bloomberg.

The hefty losses are up sharply from the previous year's total. Bearish investors lost $2.9 billion in 2019 as Tesla jumped nearly 70% from its June low into the end of December.

Read more: Jeremy Grantham's GMO called the dot-com bubble. His firm now sees 'very odd and speculative things' going on again - and warns large US stocks could see negative returns over the next 7 years.

Short-selling a stock involves selling borrowed shares and buying them at a lower price. Investors shorting a stock profit from a drop in price.

Tesla shares gained 743% in 2020, boosted by steady profitability, newly bullish analyst outlooks, and outsized demand from retail investors. The rally pushed CEO Elon Musk's net worth to $158 billion in December and established him as the world's second-wealthiest person - after Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos.

The automaker split its shares on a five-for-one basis in August after Tesla's stock price climbed above $2,000. While the action had no effect on the company's fundamentals, some analysts saw the move as helpful to stoking new interest from retail investors.

The stock most recently charged higher upon inclusion in the S&P 500 index. News of Tesla on the S&P lifted shares in mid-November. Soon afterward, Goldman Sachs analysts noted that institutional investors tracking the index could fuel Tesla's next leg higher as they look to match the benchmark's weight.

Read more: JPMorgan unveils its 50 'most compelling' stock picks to buy for 2021 - and details why each one will be a top performer

Musk has repeatedly squared off with short sellers on social media. The chief executive's latest mockery of the group came in July when he sold red shorts featuring the company's logo. The "short shorts" - marketed as a sardonic rebuke to the company's short-sellers - proved so popular on their launch day that Tesla's merchandise website crashed.

Tesla closed at $705.67 per share on Thursday. The company has 20 "buy" ratings, 44 "hold" ratings, and 19 "sell" ratings from analysts.

Now read more markets coverage from Markets Insider and Business Insider:

We spoke with Wall Street's 9 best-performing fund managers of 2020 to learn how they crushed the chaotic market - and compile the biggest bets they're making for 2021

US stocks close at record highs to end tumultuous 2020

A bitcoin ETF could finally become a reality in 2021 after an SEC filing from VanEck

Markets Insider

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell speaks to reporters as Senate Republican leaders hold a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, December 1, 2020.

Kevin Lamarque/Reuters

US Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell's Louisville, Kentucky home was vandalized in graffiti on Saturday, according to local news.The spray-painted message on the GOP's door states "Weres my money" in spray-paint, according to WDRB-TV."Vandalism and the politics of fear have no place in our society," McConnell said in a statement Saturday morning, according to the Louisville Courier-Journal. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's home in California was also vandalized with spray-paint on her garage door and a dead pig's head in her driveway. Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

US Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell's Kentucky home was found defaced with red and white graffiti on Saturday morning - a response to his objection to increasing stimulus checks from $600 to $2,000 earlier this week.  

A photo of the door of McConnell's home in Louisville, Kentucky shows the spray-painted message stating "Weres my money", according to WDRB-TV. The news station reported local authorities are not aware of the perpetrators responsible for the vandalism. 

Don't miss: Sign up here for our live event on January 5 to learn how to make the most out of PPP

WDRB-TV's Grace Hayba who broadcasted live in front of his residence said McConnell's home doesn't appear to have any additional damage. 

—Grace Hayba (@GraceHayba) January 2, 2021

 

McConnell responded to the incident in a statement on Saturday calling it a "radical tantrum," the Louisville Courier-Journal reported.

"I've spent my career fighting for the First Amendment and defending peaceful protest. I appreciate every Kentuckian who has engaged in the democratic process whether they agree with me or not," McConnell said, according to the Courier-Journal.

"Vandalism and the politics of fear have no place in our society," he added.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's California home on Friday morning was also found vandalized. The words"$2k CANCEL RENT!" were spray-painted on her white garage door and a deceased pig's head coated in fake blood was found on her driveway. 

Read more:

Nancy Pelosi's San Francisco house vandalized with a pig's head, spray-painted anarchist symbol and graffiti about $2,000 stimulus check

Trump threw away his leverage by signing the COVID-19 package with $600 checks and can now only watch as McConnell blocks $2,000 payments

'No realistic path to quickly pass the Senate': McConnell refuses to consider standalone bill on $2,000 stimulus checks

 

 

Logo of Tesla is seen at a branch office in Bern

Reuters

Tesla's stock price skyrocketed 740% in 2020, but Wall Street is split on where the shares will move next.JPMorgan sees the electric vehicle company plummeting 87% to $90 a share in 2021. Meanwhile Goldman Sachs has a 12-month price target of $780 for Tesla.  Here are five Tesla price targets from Wall Street's top strategists. Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

2020 was a wild ride Tesla's stock. It opened on January 2 2020 at $84.90 (adjusted for the stock split) and will close 2020 above $700-that's a gain of over 740%. Here's where five analysts say Tesla shares are headed in 2021. 

JPMorgan

JPMorgan analysts rate the stock "underweight," with a price target of $90, an 87% drop from current levels. 

Tesla stock is "in our view and by virtually every conventional metric not only overvalued, but dramatically so," a team of JPMorgan analysts led by Ryan Brinkman said earlier in December.

Goldman Sachs 

Goldman Sachs has a "neutral" rating for Tesla and 12-month price target of $780. On December 2, analysts led by Mark Delaney raised the price target to $780 from $455, telling clients: "We believe that the shift toward battery electric vehicle (EV) adoption is accelerating and will occur faster than our prior view." 

Read more: Jeremy Grantham's GMO called the dot-com bubble. His firm now sees 'very odd and speculative things' going on again - and warns large US stocks could see negative returns over the next 7 years.

Wedbush Securities

Wedbush's Dan Ives rates the stock "neutral," with a 12-month price target of $715, and a bull case price of $1000.

"Heading into year-end and 2021, we are seeing a major inflection of EV demand globally with our expectations that EV vehicles ramp from ~3% of total auto sales today to 10% by 2025," Ives said on Dec 29 in a note to clients. "We believe this demand dynamic will disproportionately benefit the clear EV category leader Tesla over the next few years especially in the key China region which we believe could represent ~40% of its EV deliveries by 2022 given the current brisk pace of sales." 

CFRA Research

Garrett Nelson, senior equity analyst at CFRA Research senior equity strategist has a "hold" rating on Tesla and a 12-month price target of $750.

"After a YTD run-up of over 700%, we think future growth expectations are now appropriately bullish and after a multi-quarter run of positive news, we struggle to identify the next catalyst in the story. In early January, TSLA will report Q4 vehicle production/sales, and we continue to forecast it will fall just shy of TSLA's full year sales goal of 500K units," Nelson said. " While TSLA has materially strengthened its balance sheet through recent equity offerings, the company's longer-term growth plans will require significant capital and we anticipate TSLA will face some bona fide competition in the EV space from Lucid, Rivian, and others in 2021." 

RBC Capital Markets 

RBC Capital Markets has a $339 price target for Tesla, more than a 50% drop from current levels.

"Our $339 price target takes a look at EV/sales- and EV/EBITDA-based multiple approaches and probability weights them (65% base, 17.5% each for upside/downside)," analysts led by Joseph Spak said on Dec 22. 

Read more: JPMorgan unveils its 50 'most compelling' stock picks to buy for 2021 - and details why each one will be a top performer