A new Washington Post report reveals the president’s calls to Pennsylvania’s house speaker asking for help reversing his loss. In a column for the Atlantic, Zeynep Tufekci breaks down why Trump’s efforts to overturn the presidential election should not be ignored, even though they don’t fit the formal definition of coup. Politico reports on Lloyd Austin, Biden’s pick to be the first Black defense secretary. Wired dives into a counterintuitive argument about vaccine distribution: Move social butterflies to the front of the line. CNN has the story of why some people are saying the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico must be rescued and restored. According to NPR, medical school applications have risen 18 percent over the last year, in what some admissions officers have named the “Fauci effect.”

Ask this episode

“What did the council decide on item 42?” — answered with the speaker and the moment.