The Morning Dispatch: Not With a Bang but With a Whimper

Happy Friday! With Sen. Lamar Alexander announcing he’s a “no” on additional impeachment trial witnesses, this whole thing could very well be wrapped up by the next time we’re in your inbox. What a journey we’ve been on together—didn’t we tell you we knew how it would end?

Quick Hits: Today’s Top Stories

  • The White House created a new task force, headed by Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, to deal with the coronavirus outbreak, just as the Centers for Disease Control confirmed the first human-to-human transmission of the virus within the United States. The World Health Organization declared the outbreak a global public health emergency, and the State Department issued a travel advisory, warning Americans to steer clear of China due to the virus.

  • Full-year gross domestic product (GDP) growth for 2019 came in at 2.3 percent, according to the Department of Commerce, compared to 2.9 percent in 2018.

  • The rate of fatal drug overdoses in the United States declined in 2018 for the first time in nearly 30 years.

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