Members of the Proud Boys gather in support of President Donald Trump and in protest the outcome of the 2020 presidential election near freedom plaza on December 12, 2020 in Washington, DC.

Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images

The Proud Boys, a far-right group, have said they will be attending the rally "incognito."They will forgo their traditional uniform of black and yellow and, instead, wear all-black.Followers of antifa, an anti-fascist movement, typically appear in all-black clothing, have frequently clashed with the Proud Boys.President Donald Trump has advertised a 'stop the steal' rally on January 6 to his followers.Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Members of the far-right group, the Proud Boys, will head to Washington, DC to rally for President Donald Trump on January 6 - the day on which Congress is scheduled to meet to finalize the 2020 presidential election results.

Leaders from the group have shared with their followers that they intend to attend the rally "incognito" and wearing "ALL black."

The Proud Boys' chairman, Enrique Tarrio, revealed on Parler that "the Proud Boys will turn out in record numbers on Jan 6th but, this time, with a twist."

The twist, Tarrio said, is that they will forgo their traditional uniform for something inconspicuous.

He wrote: "We will not be wearing our traditional Black and Yellow."

The group's standard uniform is black and yellow Fred Perry polo shirts, military armor, and MAGA hats.

Instead, the chairman explained: "We might dress in all BLACK for the occasion."

Followers of antifa, an anti-fascist movement, typically wear all-black clothing.

Antifa members gather behind protective shields during a Stop The Steal protest at the Georgia State Capitol on December 12th, 2020 in Atlanta, GA.

Rich von Biberstein/Icon Sportswire

The Proud Boys intend to take further steps to blend in with other protesters.

Tarrio wrote: "We will be incognito and we will spread across downtown DC in smaller teams."

Joe Biggs, an organizer for the group, confirmed the alleged plans on his Parler account.

In a video, he said: "We will not be attending DC in colors. We will be blending in as one of you. You won't see us. You'll even think we are you. "

He continued: "We are going to smell like you, move like you, and look like you. The only thing we'll do that's us is think like us! Jan 6th is gonna be epic."

The Proud Boys and antifa have clashed on numerous occasions. Last month, four people were stabbed and another was shot after the two groups clashed.

In 2018, a video emerged of antifa protesters being beaten up by members of the Proud Boys in New York City

Members of the Proud Boys and antifa stand off near Black Lives Matter Plaza on December 12, 2020 in Washington, DC.

Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images

The Proud Boys gained mainstream attention after Trump name-called them at the first presidential debate. 

They made headlines again after Tarrio claimed responsibility for setting a Black Lives Matter banner on fire during a pro-Trump rally on December 12.

Their plans to gather in support of Trump on January 6 have worried some politicians.

The DC's Attorney General Karl Racine told CBS News: "My level of anxiety is high. My preparation is even more intense than that."

Racine said that he fears that the Proud Boys will "pick fights, create damage, damage property, and then act in a very threatening way."

Trump has been accused of inciting right-wing groups to participate in violent protests on January 6.

A former top aide to Vice President Mike Pence, Olivia Troye, has said that she fears that there could be violence at this rally because "the president himself is encouraging it."

Last month, President Donald Trump promised his supporters that there would be a "wild" rally in Washington, DC.

On Friday, the president reminded his followers that there would be a "BIG Protest Rally" taking place in the capital from 11 a.m.

A man applies finishing touches to graffiti representing a vaccine in Kolkata, India.

Rupak De Chowdhuri/Reuters

Health officials in India approved two COVID-19 vaccines on Sunday, including one made by AstraZeneca, for emergency use. While announcing the emergency use, VG Somani, the country's drug's controller general said the vaccines were "110% safe," according to The Times of India."A decisive turning point to strengthen a spirited fight," India's prime minister, Narendra Modi, said on Twitter.Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Health officials in India on Sunday approved two COVID-19 vaccines, including one made by AstraZeneca, for emergency use. 

"A decisive turning point to strengthen a spirited fight," India's prime minister, Narendra Modi, said on Twitter.

The drugs controller general of India approved a local drug made by Bharat Biotech, along with the vaccine developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford University, according to officials and media reports. 

In announcing the emergency use, VG Somani, DCGI chief, said the vaccines were "110% safe," according to The Times of India.

AstraZeneca's manufacturing partner, Serum Institute of India, will work to produce its drug locally, according to CEO Adar Poonawalla. AstraZeneca's drug is called Covishield in India. 

—Adar Poonawalla (@adarpoonawalla) January 3, 2021

The UK on Wednesday became the first country to approve AstraZeneca's vaccine for emergency use. The company has reportedly increased production, with the goal of producing 2 million doses per week. 

Although the drugs were approved for emergency use, they haven't finished clinical trials, the government said. Phase 3 trials for Bharat's drug, Covaxin, are underway with about 20,000 volunteers in 26 hospitals, said Suchitra Ella, Bharat's joint managing director, in a televised interview with Rajya Sabha TV on Friday. 

With a population of 1.3 billion people, India is the world's second-most populous country. It plans to vaccinate 300 million people by July, according to Gulf News. That will include 30 million healthcare and frontline workers.

The country has been hard hit by  COVID-19. About 149,435 people have died from it in India, according to figures from the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. 

With 10.3 million confirmed cases, it's behind only the US's 20.4 million cases, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

Like elsewhere, rumors have spread about vaccine side effects. In India, some worried the vaccine would make people impotent, a falsehood Somani sought to end on Sunday. 

"Some side effects like mild fever, pain & allergy are common for every vaccine. [The impotence rumour] is absolute rubbish," he said, according to the Times of India. 

After the emergency approval announcement, Modi thanked frontline workers for their work battling COVID-19. 

"We reiterate our gratitude to doctors, medical staff, scientists, police personnel, sanitation workers and all Corona warriors for the outstanding work done, that too in adverse circumstances. We will remain eternally grateful to them for saving many lives," he said. 

Some GOP members of the Senate and the House have indicated they will challenge Biden's win.

Gene J. Puskar/Associated Press

Vice President Mike Pence is supporting the efforts of GOP lawmakers who plan to challenge President-elect Biden's win during a joint session of Congress.About a dozen senators and 140 House Republicans have indicated they will oppose the certification of Electoral College votes.Objections by members of the House and Senate could delay the certification of the results, but would not change the election results in any US state.Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Vice President Mike Pence is supporting the efforts of Republican lawmakers to challenge President-elect Joe Biden's win by opposing the certification of Electoral College votes.

"Vice President Pence shares the concerns of millions of Americans about voter fraud and irregularities in the last election," Marc Short, Pence's chief of staff, said in a statement, The Washington Post reported.

"The vice president welcomes the efforts of members of the House and Senate to use the authority they have under the law to raise objections and bring forward evidence before the Congress and the American people on January 6th."

The statement came after Republican senators and representatives indicated they will object to the certification of the Electoral College votes.

President-elect Joe Biden won the election by receiving 306 electoral votes compared to President Donald Trump's 232. The results have been certified in every state, and presidential electors cast their votes last month.

The electors' votes are due to be certified Wednesday during a joint session of Congress that is usually procedural, confirming the winner that voters and the Electoral College have already chosen.

As vice president, and president of the Senate, Pence will oversee the certification of the results.

But Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas announced Saturday he would oppose certification, and he is expected to be joined by about a dozen other senators. Cruz's effort is seeking a 10-day emergency audit of the election results.

Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri had also indicated Wednesday he would oppose the certification.

The objecting senators have expressed concerns over the integrity of the election, although dozens of lawsuits concerning election fraud have been unsuccessful. The Justice Department also said it found no evidence of widespread fraud that would change the election results.

Some Republican senators, including Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah, have said they will not support effort to challenge the election results.

Meanwhile, at least 140 House Republicans are also planning to vote against certifying the Electoral College vote on January 6.

Objections by members of the House and Senate could delay the certification of the results, but would not change the election results in any US state.

Pence's indication of support for the efforts came one day after a lawsuit against him was dismissed in court.

Rep. Louie Gohmert of Texas led a bid to sue the vice president over his role in overseeing the certification process set for Wednesday. Gohmert argued Pence should have the authority to accept or reject the election results of individual states, which would give him the opportunity to reject votes from states won by Biden.

Before the court ruling, Pence and the Justice Department asked the judge to stop the lawsuit, which was already unlikely to succeed.

President Donald Trump listens as Vice President Mike Pence speaks at a coronavirus briefing in February 2020.

Alex Wong/Getty Images

A federal appeals court on Saturday evening threw out Rep. Louie Gohmert's lawsuit against Vice President Mike Pence seeking to overturn the election.Gohmert's last-ditch legal effort asked the judges to empower Pence to "exercise the exclusive authority and sole discretion in determining which electoral votes to count for a given State."The appeals court judges noted that a lower court had already dismissed Gohmert's lawsuit, and wrote in a one-paragraph order that "we need say no more."Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

A federal appeals court threw out Rep. Louie Gohmert's lawsuit against Vice President Mike Pence on Saturday evening, issuing a one-paragraph response rebuffing the lawmaker's effort to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

Gohmert's last-ditch legal effort asked the judges to dismantle the Electoral Count Act of 1887 and instead empower Pence to "exercise the exclusive authority and sole discretion in determining which electoral votes to count for a given State."

Pence will preside over the January 6 session of Congress certifying the election results, and will declare the winner of the presidency.

Rep. Louie Gohmert of Texas

Screenshot via C-SPAN

President-elect Joe Biden won the election with 306 electoral votes over President Donald Trump's 232 electoral votes. All states certified their election results throughout November and early December, and the Electoral College formally met on December 14 and affirmed Biden's victory.

Pence and the Department of Justice responded to Gohmert's lawsuit by asking the district court judge to toss Gohmert's lawsuit. Gohmert filed his own response on Friday, arguing that Pence's role as vice president should not be limited to "the glorified envelope-opener in chief."

The three judges who sit on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals - two Reagan appointees and one Trump appointee - noted in their order that a lower court had already dismissed Gohmert's case due to a lack of standing, meaning that Gohmert hadn't adequately alleged an injury that could be traced to the defendant and remedied by the court.

"We need say no more, and we affirm the judgment essentially for the reasons stated by the district court," the judges wrote. "We express no view on the underlying merits or on what putative party, if any, might have standing."

Sen. Mitt Romney criticized the efforts of some of his colleagues, including Sen. Ted Cruz.

Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images

Republican Sens. Mitt Romney, Pat Toomey, and Lisa Murkowski have said they will oppose an effort by their colleagues to challenge the election results.Sen. Ted Cruz is among a group of GOP senators that said they will oppose the certification of Electoral College votes on Wednesday during a joint session of Congress that is usually procedural.The effort could delay the certification of the results, but it will not change the results of the vote in any US state.In a statement Saturday, Romney said the effort "may enhance the political ambition of some, but dangerously threatens our Democratic Republic."Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah and other Republican senators said on Saturday that they will oppose an effort by their colleagues to challenge the results of the 2020 presidential election.

Earlier in the day, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas announced he will object to the certification of Electoral College votes, and a number of GOP senators are expected to join him.

"The egregious ploy to reject electors may enhance the political ambition of some, but dangerously threatens our Democratic Republic," Romney said in a statement.

President-elect Joe Biden won the election by receiving 306 electoral votes compared to President Donald Trump's 232. The results have been certified in every state, and presidential electors cast their votes last month.

The electors' votes are set to be certified Wednesday during a joint session of Congress that is usually procedural, confirming the winner that voters and the Electoral College have already chosen.

Cruz's effort to object could delay the certification of the results, but it will not change the election results in any US state.

Romney harshly rejected the effort, emphasizing the will of the voters.

"Were Congress to actually reject state electors, partisans would inevitably demand the same any time their candidate had lost," Romney said. "Congress, not voters in the respective states, would choose our presidents."

Republicans planning to object are reportedly requesting a 10-day emergency audit of the election results in some states, though Romney also noted that the Trump campaign lost all of its election lawsuits and that the Justice Department found no evidence of widespread voter fraud that would change the outcome.

He also criticized Trump directly for calling on his supporters to rally in DC the day the vote would be certified, saying it could lead to "disruption, and worse."

"I could never have imagined seeing these things in the greatest democracy in the world," Romney said. "Has ambition so eclipsed principle?"

Sen. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania and Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska also said they would oppose the effort.

"A fundamental, defining feature of a democratic republic is the right of the people to elect their own leaders," Toomey said in a series of tweets on Saturday.

He said the attempt by Cruz and others to overturn the election results "directly undermines this right."

Toomey said the senators are justifying their objection by citing allegations of fraud, but that "allegations of fraud by a losing campaign cannot justify overturning an election." He also said judges across the US have determined the allegations of fraud were not supported by evidence.

He said he voted for Trump, but that he plans "to vigorously defend our form of government by opposing this effort to disenfranchise millions of voters in my state and others."

Murkowski also said in a statement Saturday that she will vote to affirm the Electoral College results and urged senators of both parties to do the same.

"The courts and state legislatures have all honored their duty to hear legal allegations and have found nothing to warrant overturning the results," she said. 

Republicans who reportedly plan to object to the certification of the results include Cruz, 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.

Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri also said on Wednesday that he intends to object.

In an email to GOP senators Saturday night, Hawley called the recent comments "shameless personal attacks," Politico reported. Toomey specifically named Hawley in his comments about undermining democracy.

"We should avoid putting words into each other's mouths and making unfounded claims about the intentions of our fellow senators," Hawley said, according to Politico. "I never claim to speak for another senator, but I do speak for my constituents when they raise legitimate concerns about issues as important as the fairness of our elections."

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell

Alex Wong/Getty Images; Sarah Silbiger/Getty Images

Nearly half of Americans believe that "Republicans in Congress and Senator Mitch McConnell" was to blame for the inability to pass the $2,000 stimulus checks, according to a new poll published by the progressive think tank Data for Progress.Nearly one-third said the failure to pass the $2,000 checks was due to "Democrats in Congress and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi," according to the same poll.House lawmakers voted in favor of bumping the second round stimulus checks to $2,000 from $600, but Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell refused to consider a standalone bill to increase the check amount.Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Nearly half of respondents to a newly released poll blamed Republican lawmakers and Senat Majority Leader Mitch McConnell for Congress' inability to agree on $2,000 stimulus checks. 

The new poll, published Friday by the left-leaning think tank Data for Progress, revealed that 47% of 1,166 people surveyed responded that "Republicans in Congress and Senator Mitch McConnell" were to blame for the delay in reaching a consensus on the checks.

In comparison, 32% said it was "Democrats in Congress and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi." Just 15% of respondents said President Donald Trump was to blame. 

After months of failures and stalled negotiations, lawmakers finally came to a consensus on a new coronavirus relief package at the end of December. President Trump initially refused to sign the deal, complaining about various provisions and urging that Congress include $2,000 stimulus checks, before eventually signing the bill on Sunday. The signed bill includes $600 stimulus checks. 

After the bill was signed, House lawmakers voted on a separate bill to bump the $600 stimulus checks up to $2,000. But the bill faces a roadblock in the Senate - McConnell recently rebuffed efforts to pass a standalone bill to increase the stimulus checks, Business Insider's Oma Seddiq reported.

Read more:'No realistic path to quickly pass the Senate': McConnell refuses to consider standalone bill on $2,000 stimulus checksLindsay Graham slammed Mitch McConnell for delaying $2,000 stimulus payments: 'Going from $600 to $2,000 doesn't make you a socialist'With a Senate vote on $2,000 stimulus checks looming, Republicans face an agonizing choice between defying Trump and abandoning a tenet of conservatismTrump threw away his leverage by signing the COVID-19 package with $600 checks and can now only watch as McConnell blocks $2,000 payments

 

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

My big question for 2021, and the one that is on every startup’s mind, is how will a cataclysmic event such as a global pandemic show up in post-pandemic innovation? I think we’re in the early innings of seeing what “aha moments” have materialized into companies. And we won’t know the pandemic’s true impact on our psyches until the dust settles and we have an opportunity to reflect.

We do know it will be fascinating to watch. In 2020, innovators and investors were forced to stand still, and witness cracks, fractures and rubble in society in a way like never before. It was a humbling year that, for much of the tech community, was mostly spent inside, away and alone.

One reaction I’ve noticed so far — that isn’t necessarily new but comes with new weight — is a rush of innovation that focuses on reducing friction. Take trends like the rise of building in public or the unbundling of venture capital. Or remote work’s shift from enabling communication to now needing to enable passive and active collaboration. Apply the same idea to mental health, education and fitness. Heck, we’re even seeing people take the Y Combinator format and apply it to anything that makes sense, from helping operators turn into investors to helping employees try to turn their side gig into a full-time company.

While these movements didn’t begin because of the coronavirus, they all seem to have a huge, pandemic-sized asterisk next to it.

It would be easy to dismiss these movements as small and inconsequential. But, as my colleague and fellow Equity co-host Danny Crichton pointed out this week, “sometimes the most important changes in venture and startups more generally have come from lowering that last bit of friction to action.”

Lowering friction feels like the mantra with which we all need to enter 2021.

I already have hope that innovation will come from a more diverse set of people, whether it’s in a hacker house for undergraduate women or a student-founded service that matches undergraduate students to nonprofits. So, as we enter the new year — and bear with me here — I urge you to be optimistic.

The last year in tech hasn’t left people exhausted and hopeless, it’s left them energized and ready.

Will the second time be the charm for Qualtrics?

When SAP announced that Qualtrics was getting spun out in July, the full-circle moment made the Equity podcast crew jump to our mics with guesses around why. Now, months later, there’s a new S-1 filing, and more to color in. Alex Wilhelm broke down the Utah-based unicorn’s numbers, noting that it’s the second time Qualtrics has filed.

Will the second time be the charm that Qualtrics needs to actually go public this time around? I’ll let you make the call yourself once you sift through Alex’s analysis of the valuation and financials.

Miami, Substack and Clubhouse

If those three words in a single subhed elicit a certain reaction from you, Danny Crichton has a bone to pick with you. He wrote a piece this week about tech’s cynicism around anything new, underscoring how Miami’s future as a tech hub, Substack’s future as a replacement for traditional journalism and Clubhouse’s future as a social media disruptor have come under fire as expected:

The cynicism of immediate perfection is one of the strange dynamics of startups in 2020. There is this expectation that a startup, with one or a few founders and a couple of employees, is somehow going to build a perfect product on day one that mitigates any potential problem even before it becomes one. Maybe these startups are just getting popularized too early, and the people who understand early product are getting subsumed by the wider masses who don’t understand the evolution of products?

Danny’s argument is to give these companies a little more grace to execute on a vision they themselves are not even close to scratching the surface of. When it comes to holding specific decision-makers and businesses to a certain standard, I prefer a more fluid conversation. But I do agree that writing off a business because it hasn’t done everything correctly from the start can hurt progress. It’s easy to be grumpy, but why not choose to be an optimist? Tell me your optimistic bets by responding to this newsletter or tweeting me @nmasc_.

And some good news

Speaking of humbling moments and optimism, our own Sarah Perez wrote a piece this week about EarlyBird, an app that lets families and friends gift investments to children. While Acorns and Stash have similar offerings, EarlyBird is bringing a fresh UX play to financial literacy, freedom and education. There’s a ton of work left to be done, hurdles to deal with, and giant unicorns to compete with. EarlyBird, however, is only weeks old, so there’s much to watch out for.

VP Caleb Frankel, now EarlyBird COO, explained the early inspiration:

“This all started with a problem I experienced years ago when my beautiful baby niece was born. I found myself head over heels and spending hundreds and hundreds of dollars on just the most ridiculous stuff — pretty much just junk gifts,” he says. “I wanted to have a larger impact in her life and something that she could really use when she grew up.”

Around TechCrunch

Attending CES 2021? TechCrunch wants to meet your startup

Gift Guide: Last-minute subscriptions to keep the gifts going all year

Across the week

Seen on Extra Crunch

How artificial intelligence will be used in 2021

On the diversity front, 2020 may prove a tipping point

The 2020 boom in climate tech SPACs

2021 will be a calmer year for semiconductors and chips (except for Intel)

Understanding Europe’s big push to rewrite the digital rulebook

Seen on TechCrunch

China lays out ‘rectification’ plan for Jack Ma’s fintech empire Ant

NSO used real people’s location data to pitch its contact-tracing tech, researchers say

India’s slow 2020 told through dollars and cents

An earnest review of a robotic cat pillow

@EquityPod

The Equity pod put together a 2021 predictions episode (with Chris Gates, our producer, making a guest appearance on the mic as well!). We talk about IPO candidates, San Francisco and the future of drugs.

2020 brought several million downloads to the podcast, and we’re super thankful to all of y’ all for tuning in. This year will be even bigger, better and, hey, maybe we’ll even get to make fun of each other in person too.

Till next week,

Natasha Mascarenhas

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

 

 

Ducky generates $1 million a month and 50 million plays with hypercasual games. That's pretty good for a company that is nine months old.Read More

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.

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

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.

La Soufrière volcano in St. Vincent and the Grenadines pictured on December 31, 2020.

University of West Indies Seismic Research Centre/National Emergency Management Organization of St Vincent and the Grenadines via Reuters

Residents of St. Vincent and the Grenadines have been told to be ready to evacuate after a volcano started spewing lava, ash, and gas.La Soufrière is the highest point in St. Vincent and is located near the northern tip of the country but has remained dormant for decades before it suddenly became active on Tuesday, AP reported.The government of the country, which consists of a chain of islands where over 100,000 people live, issued an orange alert, meaning eruptions could occur with less than 24 hours' notice.Last month authorities from the nearby Caribbean island of Martinique issued a yellow alert due to seismic activity under Mount Pelée, the Independent reported.Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Residents of St. Vincent and the Grenadines have been told to remain alert a Caribbean volcano came back to life.

La Soufrière is the highest point in St. Vincent and is located near the northern tip of the country but remained dormant for decades before beginning to spew ash on Tuesday this week, AP reported.

La Soufrière, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, are in the Windward Islands, close to Barbados and St Lucia.

Business Insider

Steam, gas, and a volcanic dome formed by lava that reached the earth's surface could also be seen above the volcano, according to the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA).

The country's government, which consists of a chain of islands home to more than 100,000, raised the alert level to orange, meaning that eruptions could occur with less than 24 hours' notice. 

La Soufrière last erupted in 1979 but did not cause any harm due to warning, while a 1902 eruption led to 1,600 deaths.

In an unrelated incident early last month, authorities from the nearby Caribbean island of Martinique issued a yellow alert due to seismic activity under Mount Pelée, the Independent reported.

Fabrice Fontaine from the Volcanological and Seismological Observatory of Martinique told AP that it is the first time an alert of its kind has been issued since the volcano last erupted in 1932.

Mount Pelée also erupted in 1902 and killed almost 30,000 people, making it the deadliest eruption in the whole of the 20th century.

In December, Hawaii's Kilauea volcano erupted for the first time since 2018 and created a 600ft deep lava lake, according to NPR.

However, the most active volcanoes in the Americas have been the Soufrière Hills in Montserrat, which have erupted continuously since 1995 and killed at least 19 people in 1997, Erik Klemetti, a volcanologist from Denison University, Ohio, told AP.

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."