gus, it is great to have these ideas because you really have a thesis that works well with it. we'll be watching of course. gus scacco by the way, guys, we look what is an all time record for the russell -- [closing bell rings] liz: not so much for the nasdaq. we appear, what do you mean walking away, walking away with the win. it is a record for the nasdaq. that will do it for "the claman countdown." connell: a lott going on here. a threat after new virus variant weighing on wall street the last couple days. we do get the record for the nasdaq at the close but overall we're mixed on the day even though congress is able to pass the 900 billion-dollar stimulus bill. look at the numbers. dow is down 200 points as we close down here. s&p 500 turned lower and closes down by seven 1/2 points. at the bottom of the screen, another record high for the

nasdaq composite. tech stocks keep going up. good to be with you. i'm connell mcshane. welcome to "after the bell." time for the news coming happening at this hour. blake burman has new reporting on stimulus. susan li has big names in the tech world joining forces. we'll get to greg palkot on the latest virus news coming out of london. but, black. connell: we start with you. reporter: connell the house and senate did their jobs last night passing this covid relief bill doing so overwhelmingly i'm told by a trump officials it could take a couple days to get to the bill to the president's desk. 900-dollar relief bill put together with $1.6 trillion spending bill. it is 5500 pages long. there is always a process to get this to the president's desk and right now it is undergoing to that process, could take couple more days. we just heard from the incoming president. his first reaction about this

new 900 billion-dollar deal. take a listen to president-elect biden from moments ago. >> we need more funding to help firefighters and police, many of whom are being laid off as i speak. the same with nurses. risking their lives on the front lines. the same for millions of hurting families. we're unable to put food on the table, pay rent or the mortgage. unemployment is extended for another 10 weeks. it will take a lot longer than that. congress did its job this week and i can and i must ask them to r. it again nt yr. hereerport conrtll tnes,ne is we rruthe ff ie ffnn georgiaeo rer s ocusus bauseecec calcacacaunding ifhey win thotea tw tw tw racesac demra conoltrol eyillilro pybl aeeeeee t doooo at hey tant w w don tttt cansf ns intama cmaolmafheheheate,enen

yoow wknowtowowhehe tra toff tof tenttentytentouyld lyldkyldk lee herehere te atate atate ate a local l lnr e lthe lliiabilirote pionsctioht puanav hee h heeki s. s. connell? nn isnnoi to beo bebe b b e.e. as you sayspiallyiallnllll ulimulusul trent sn thees cidididid stimusim, rimelief bill,l,l,l, t abthat bigig veto w b smhhbout,uthatutututs l coming, right? reporter: still coming. we believe the president has been threatening to veto the defense authorization bill. he has until tomorrow night at midnight to do so. one of the main sticking points for president trump here relates to section 230. that is the legal shield that social media platforms have, that the president does not like. now if the president goes through with this veto, keep in mind the defense authorization bill overwhelmingly passed the democratic controlled house and republican controlled senate, that means lawmakers would have to come back here after christmas, before the new year to override that veto f they do

so, how all of this ends up playing out that it looks like, first and only veto override of the trump presidency. connell? connell: doesn't happen often obviously. not at all in this presidency. thank you, blake burman live in washington. the new london strain of covid-19 spreading fast across europe still. dr. anthony fauci saying that strain is already here in the united states as the uk continues on its lockdown. fox news correspondent greg palkot picks up the story now from london. reporter: connell, yeah it has been a real challenge on several fronts here in the uk and it has been shifting hour by hour. let's give you a quick recap. london, its surroundings remain under pretty severe lockdown. that is triggered by the news of this variant strain of covid-19. it is now estimated to be at least 50% for contagious than the old strain and also now thought to be spreading around the uk. it is not however thought to be more deadly.

the word is probably it is not resistant to vaccines which are out now. we herd from the creator of the pfizer biontech vaccine, he said, remember the vaccine is in use in the you'd and the vaccine that his vaccine could probably handle it. as for the problem we've been telling you about, connell on the uk's borders, there is a little bit of easing tonight. trucks have been backed up at port crossings, particularly going over to france. france is one of dozens countries puts bans on incoming travelers from britain. the uk and france now agreed if truckers can get a negative covid test, then they can roll. the hitch is though, that could take days. there are now runs on shops here in london and in the uk. finally, as for the u.s., there have been reports all day that airlines have agreed, they will allow only passengers to get on their flights from the uk to at least to new york, if they have again, that negative covid test.

washington has been holding off on a full uk travel ban. we have to remind our viewers again the trump administration has had in place back since march pretty strict restrictions on travel between britain and the united states. all of this amid reports, yes, of more instances of this new strain being detected on the continent of europe and even perhaps in the united states. something to watch, connell. back to you. connell: greg, thank you. greg palkot live in london. here with us now the former fda commissioner, dr. mark mcclellan. policy director at duke university margolis center for health. what stands out to you, dr. mcclellan, about this new strain which dr. fauci figures may already be here in the united states? >> connell this, is it what viruses do. they change over time to try to become better able to infect more people. that is why you have to get a flu vaccine every year to keep up your immunity. it looks like the coronavirus

though changes at a significantly slower rate than viruses like flu. so from what i've soon no significant reason to worry that people who are immune to covid because they have gotten vaccinated or because they have had it before are going to get reinfected by this new strain. it is something to watch though. connell: one of the comments that the president-elect joe biden made about an hour ago, he had a news conference, took questions from reporters, end of the year type situation that in his view the battle against covid, our darkest days are ahead of us, not behind us. is that true? do you think that, would you make that same assessment the way you look at things? >> you know it us a really mixed picture. the brightest days are definitely ahead. the reason for that is a tremendous progress we've had on vaccinations. i would add to that too we now have man-made antibodies potentially can help even with

the current surge in cases. connell, this is the worst surge we've had. unfortunately i think it will get worse before it gets better. hospitalization rates, mortality is still on the way up in the united states overall. in many parts of the country we're seeing places going to lockdown. that is ahead of christmas travel and what could be additional bump in the surge from that. immunizations that are happening now are not going to have an impact on the current surge. they will help in the future. a month out, beyond that, but not for this current surge. so that is the reason for president-elect's concerns. connell: now let's talk a little bit if we can about treatment. we talked so much about vaccines, to your point the light is there at the end of the tunnel. everybody is excited about that. we have to get through that. we need treatment to do so. you wrote an op-ed with form scott gottlieb, former fda commissioner. you told the covid antibody

drugs sitting on the shelf, more than 80% of the supply unused. what is going on the treatment side what can we do about it? >> this is a challenge of health care providers having a lot to do at the same time dealing deah the pandemic connell. a million doses of man-made antibodies, same kind of antibodies that you make when you give vaccine, gives you immunity, neutralizes the virus, keeps you from getting serious consequences when you're infected, they can be given. there are very promising studies. the evidence is limited. i think it is pretty important for people who are at high-risk, those over 65, those with chronic conditions, if they get covid, getting treated with these new antibodies before their condition progresses very much. think about what president's trump experience was. he got early version of the antibody treatment. it does look like it is substantially reduces risks of emergency room visits or

hospitalizations. the problem is that in order to use it we have to let people know quickly after they have been diagnosed that they need to get treatment. we need to set up up a place for them to get it. these are people actively infectious. they need a separate place to go from all the other patients getting infused with treatments for other conditions. it has been challenging for many hospitals and health care organizations to set up that kind of access. we hope that can accelerate. we laid out ideas in the op-ed how to do it. connell: right. because the bottom line to make it simple, i think just normal people, you mentioned the president, just normal people on the street, they can't get this type of thing or if they do they're very, very lucky. >> normal people in the country around get it. maryland set up good distribution. texas, governor abbott there really engaged with hospitals health care systems around the state to help make sure there is access with every region of the

state. that is what we need to happen everywhere. connell: as always, dr. michelle lan -- mcclellan, thank you very much, we appreciate it. facebook and google banning together to fight off antitrust actions. susan li joins us from the newsroom with the latest. reporter: according emails from "the wall street journal" google and facebook are teaming up in case the advertising partnership sparked an investigation. this goes back to the texas 10-state antitrust case launched against google last week. the partnership was nicknamed "star wars" internally. google allocated facebook a certain amount of advertising space on their properties for a certain price. there was some price collusion involved as well. got in contact with google. here is statement they sents us here at fox business. the idea this was a secret deal is just wrong. we've been public about this

partnership for years. despite that though you had both google and facebook shares down in the session. it seemed like in the emails both of these big tech giants were aware their deal could possibly even set off antitrust concerns. this is just the latest in a string of lawsuits that both of these giants have faced. for instance, google is now looking at three lawsuits in two months. that includes virtually every state in america that thinks google has way too much control when it comes to online search and advertising and also the department of justice. facebook is facing down a lawsuit bit by "the the ftc thet to facebook to spin off entities they bought six, eight years ago. wall street thinks there may be some concessions here but not virtual entire breakup of these big tech giants. they also have money in the bank to fight these charges. alphabet has 100 billion

stashed. facebook has 50 billion. the thinking on wall street yes there might be some olive branch but not breakup. no revisionist history being done here, connell. connell: if anybody can stand it they can with all that money. thank you, susan li. we have a holiday shipping rush pretty much like we've never seen before. it resulted in delays of 3 million packages every single day. that is sparking questions over the future of one major player in the delivery wars. we'll have that for you. emerging policy war, joe biden's pick for education secretary setting up a potential clash with the teachers unions. what it mean for getting kids in the classroom. georgia's secretary of state is taking action against 8,000 individuals just weeks before that state's crucial runoff elections and look, it feels like i'm just wasting time.

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in chicago with more on the story. reporter: connell if you're willing to pay more, with a little bit of luck your package might get to where you want it to go by christmas. that is what dozens and dozens of people showing up at this post office are hoping most if not all the shipping deadlines have passed. this is set to be a record-breaking holiday season in terms of shipping. at this point because of volume about 3 1/2 million packages are delayed a day or two every single day. that is according to ship matrix. out of the poise stall service, fedex, ups, that usps is the worst performer. the postal service posted a massive loss in the latest fiscal year $9 billion i should say. as part of the latest relief deal in washington, the postal service will get $10 billion. that will be direct funding not a loan originally intended in

the cares act. joe biden and his plans for the postal service, he wants to direct even more funding for the postal service even as it struggles financially. one of the root causes of those financial different cuts is a requirement to pray pay for future retiree health care benefits. he wants to do away with that. he wants to slow the rates of increases to ship things through the postal service. to do two of three things on the list he would need help of congress. another thing the republicans thrown out several times over the past several years is privatizing the u.s. postal service. president-elect joe biden says he has no mans to do that. connell: that wouldn't be something he would think about. the other issues, why georgia is so important, grady, thank you. grady trimble live in chicago. the fbi is warning americans to stay vigilant and be on the lookout for scams.

the biggest issues, a bunch of crooks are looking for down payment or medical details, in exchange for being placed on a waiting list or priority access to a vaccine. you hear that type of thing. it is almost definitely a scam. we'll be back

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♪. connell: back with a roundup of the headlines this hour. virgin atlantic is joining up with some other airlines like delta, british airways agreeing to test passengers coming from the uk to new york after growing concerns over this new strain of coronavirus. joe biden plans to nominate connecticut education secretary, joseph cardone n he is proponent getting kids back into the schools a view many union leaders might disagree with. scope of suspected russian hack is growing by the day. the president-elect says he will prioritize cybersecurity and he

criticized president trump. >> the trump administration failed to prioritize cybersecurity. connell: gary kaltbaum is with us with his take on those headlines you just heard. gary, of course, president of kaltbaum capital management. a fox news contributor. always good to see you, my friend. we'll start with the hack here. you know, president-elect taking a shot at the current president. the thing about this story, we've done it on this show a few times, you talk to the experts every single one comes on say this is huge. the problem of us, lay people, we don't know enough about the technology or don't have the intelligence. president trump says it is under control. what is your sense how big of a deal it is, not only for government but for business? >> reason why it was huge they got into all the important departments. looks like they were able to hack all the important people in all the important departments like homeland security, the treasury, you name it. there is worry, if they ever get into the irs what they would be

able to get their hands on, what kind of information. so, yeah, this is big stuff and i think the only good news off of this is that there is going to be a redoubling and tripling of effort to make sure this never happens again. but look, some of these bad players are determined and it looks like, looks like it is russia. i know the president may not think so but pompeo does. just, let's hope it doesn't happen again but i do suspect that president-elect biden may retaliate with something along the cyber front. connell: right. then you go back and forth. that is kind of tough to stop there when one's hacking the other which goes on by the way all the time i suppose anyway. talk about education. mentioned in the headlines the education secretary, nominee, likely this guy out of connecticut, miguel car don't n all the articles written about him, they basically say something along the lines this guy will prioritize getting kids

back in school, in person learning. that is what he has done in connecticut. the other picks the president-elect was supposedly thinking about the heads of respective teachers unions who might have gone in another direction. wonder how this plays out in the first days of the biden administration? >> good on this pick if he wants to get kids back into school. it is something, that must, must, must be done. i looked into the man's resume'. everything we'll find out in time. you know whether he is up to the job but he has more than two decades of experience in the public school system. he is very highly looked at. you keep your fingers crossed that he knows what he is doing as we move forward. we never knew we would have to deal with a pandemic and schools. we care about most, what, our kids. let's hope they get it right. connell: right. we didn't know it would last this long if nothing else. that is the thing. it has dragged on. has a big effect on two school years. still going. you're right. let me talk about the virus

itself again as a final point because at the top of our headlines we were talking about how the airlines will test people coming in from the uk to new york city. virgin atlantic is doing it, british air wears delta. do you think that is good idea and what do you make of the new strain reporting we're getting out of the uk last couple days? >> i always err on the side of caution. i don't blame new york city testing. all of europe is basically banning uk travel to other countries so they're serious about it. with this strain i will put it best. great people over the last nine months have been wrong a lot. geniuses have been wrong a lot because you just don't know which way this thing is going to move. so whenever you hear about a strain 70% this or 70% that, you have to worry. i was speaking to a couple of my buddies today who live in london. yeah, they are definitely watching this very closely. you can see all of london's

basically dead shut right now and people getting the heck out of there to go into the smaller cities. connell: are you making investment decisions on that even if it is just to say boy, whatever happens here we might see more lockdowns? that kind of thing might spread and slow economic activity even more, right? >> i let the markets and its actions dictate my decisions. so far the market acts pretty darn well. i live in the technology space and growth stock areas. and they're just en fuego right now. until that changes i will stick with it. if we have another big lockdown here, all bets are off, no doubt, fundamentally things will head south. but i'm not in that camp. i think it was november 9th when they first announced the vaccine. the vaccine trade is in full gear right now. the closer we get to everybody getting that done. most people getting that done, we'll be great for the economy and typically will be good for earnings and the market. connell: you're living in the technology space. you're living large which we

know you are, gary kaltbaum there in florida. thank you, sir. >> happy holidays, connell. same here. connell: you too. voter turnout in the peach state rivaling that of the general election with the numbers we're seeing right now but georgia's secretary of state issuing a new warning to voters with less than three weeks to go in an election that could have far-reaching implications for your wallet. that is why we're covering it so closely. plus one familiar face telling the incoming biden administration, he is interested in one key role, how about u.s. ambassador to china? we'll talk more about that. as health officials urge americans to avoid travel for the holidays, zoom is dropping the 40 minute time limit for calls starting tomorrow between 10:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. eastern time until the day after christmas. give you option for talking to families. better than nothing. the same over new year's as they did thanksgiving. more on "after the bell".

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we're portuguese? i thought we were hungarian. can you tell me that story again? behind every question is a story waiting to be discovered. this holiday, start the journey with a dna kit from ancestry. ♪. connell: we're already seeing high turnout in the consequential georgia runoffs. more than 1.6 million people have already voted there. that is total rivals what we saw in the general election. it comes as georgia's secretary of state is taking new action against out-of-state voters. following all of this for us is fox news correspondent jonathan serrie reporting live from atlanta. reporter: connell, secretary of state raffensperger says he is conducting a whole of government

approach to combating illegal voting in the state of georgia. multiple agencies, including the georgia bureau of investigation are assisting with ongoing efforts across the state that includes a signature audit in cobb count where "atlanta journal-constitution" white house chief of staff paid a surprise visit today to ask questions. republicans are trying to reassure skeptical voters that their ballots will be counted properly in an election that will determine which party controls the u.s. senate. >> if we vote we will win but if we don't vote we will lose the country. that is what is at stake here. reporter: early voting in georgia is already in its second week but a group called "true the vote" has submitted electoral challenges that would require more than 364,000 voters who filed out-of-state or in-state changes of address with the post office to prove their eligibility before casting ballots in the county where they

registered. the organization says "true the vote"'s research was performed uniformly across all counties without regard to any demographic or voting history but democrats are critical of these mid-election investigations of voters including senate candidate jon ossoff who cast an early ballot today. >> when senator perdue supports efforts to throw out ballots cast by his own constituents, that is an attack on black voters here in georgia. reporter: several georgia counties have already rejected this challenge by "true the vote" including some very large metro atlanta counties. connell, back to you. connell: thank you, jonathan serrie, atlanta, georgia, the center of the political world. from disney world to the world of politics, how about that move, there are multiple reports that former disney chief bog iger indicated he would be interested in serving as u.s.

ambassador to china in the biden administration. bring in fox contributor james freeman from the "wall street journal." you just wrote a book about china. what are your thoughts about a possible ambassador eiger, james? >> thanks, connell. it is definitely a concern. on the plus side this is someone who has done business in china for decade and maybe you want that experience but he has not been a champion for liberty. now maybe that is not his job. his job, previous job was to make money for disney shareholders, whether you're talking about disney's espn and its dealings with the nba and hong kong and filming in shinzhen province or issues where tibet comes up over and over again bob iger sought to please the chinese regime and not stand up for people being repressed by that regime. so it's a disturbing history from a liberty standpoint.

i think if you're a senator considering him for ambassadorship you would want to know at a bare mir minimum this is a very different job. what the people in that area need is a champion for liberty. connell: a lot of times at least early in the administration a pick for ambassador, especially like russia and china is more a signal than anything else. the day-to-day operations probably more important what the state department is doing and what the president himself and the signals he may or may not be signaling. but the signal here would be in your view a biden administration is too cozy with china? is that what you're getting at if they pick iger? >> i think the signal would be terrible. maybe he would be actually better than the initial signal but the signal is, we want to get along. we don't want to raise uncomfortable questions for the regime. we want to go back to the sort of obama-biden era where joe biden saw xi xinping, chinese dictator as sort of a friend and

built a relationship with him. i think it would be very bad signal at this time, given how the people of hong kong are just seeing their liberty eroded. connell: right. >> almost day by day by the chinese regime. connell: now on economics, one place we've talked about this over the years where maybe you're more at odds with the current administration's approach is on tariffs and you might, someone like iger with his business experience might roll back some of those policy policies right? >> i mean what i've been hope something that we might go to zero tariffs everywhere else if the tariffs on china are going toe remain. i think some of those tariffs may remain. i think what we would ideally have in this job, in ambassador to china someone who is going to hold the regime accountable and push them towards liberty. what we talk about in the book

leaders of both parties for decades in the united states believed that more economic engagement would lead to political reform in china. it hasn't happened. that theory has been proven wrong. so whether it is political liberty, rule of law and theft of intellectual property, the united states really needs to figure out how to, how to use its leverage to get china to move on the path to reform and this is not the signal that that's what biden intends but like i said maybe given all of his experience, maybe iger can make clear he understands he is in a different job now if he is appointed and bring some of that experience to bear but yeah as initial signal it is not a good one. connell: two of the points you were making on liberty, the current administration, which you know, still have a month left, the comments they're making on the way out of the door are interesting. secretary of state mike pompeo, more than comments, some

actions, announcing the united states is imposing additional vis-a-vis trickses on chinese officials, when they made that announcement secretary pompeo announced human rights abuses. this comment on the crack down before president trump leaves office, seems like he is trying to leave his mark when it comes to china, right? >> people have realized, and this is one of the great miscalculations of joe biden's when he was vice president, a lot of people in business and media, people realized xi xinping is old-fashioned communist thug dictator. he is not a reformer. the reason i think you're seeing a lot of responses now with the trump administration with officials heading out trying to, trying to affirm a policy to hold them to account, you see it across the region really. whether it us repression of

their own people. xi xinping's government cracking down on business people, even some of the most successful entrepreneurs in the country. reasserting communist control over these enterprises. also in hong kong we talked about that. jimmy lai, really courageous advocate for liberty, free press, being arrested, detained. the regime bringing up one trumped up charge after another in efforts to humiliate him, silence him, hope others see the example and also remain silent. it's a terrible, disturbing trend from the standpoint of what we hoped by now where china would be in terms of its development. it is not moving toward political freedom or the rule of law. connell: all right. james freeman as always. great stuff. we like having you on. just wrote a book about china with a lot to say about issues. we'll talk to you again soon.

hiring frenzy for pharmacists with vaccines rolling out. headlines from both cvs and walgreens. what they're trying to lure back employees. they're throwing out signing bonuses, ramping up staffing, trying to find thousands of people to administer vaccines this includes retirees to try to bring them back, recently laid off employees to bring them back. walgreens plans to hire 25,000 people across the country including 8 to 9,000 pharmacists and other health care workers to give the vaccine to the masses. we'll be right back research shows that people remember

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along with the approved pfizer vaccine as covid cases continue to surge across the country as we've been reporting. here now with more is brandon daniels. president of global markets there. we had you on number of times, brandon, talking about the logistics getting vaccines from one place to another. on moderna one of the things that stands out to people it has to be cold but not as cold as pfizer. maybe it gets to places might not have had access or able to store the pfizer vaccine. is that part of it for moderna and what else are you looking at? >> yeah. this is what we had discussed a couple of conversations ago where there are different advantages to each of the vaccines, right? they're going to be logistical challenges and benefits to each of the vaccines from a outreach

perspective to hard to reach jurisdiction perspective and so moderna gives us an opportunity to start a broader scale of distribution, to nursing homes, to form sys, to places that today don't have access to the vaccines because it has to be stored in industrial refrigerators, right? that's, that is going to make a huge difference for a large part of the population as these vaccines start to roll out. now still at this point in time, connell, we're, we're essentially seeing pills of finished vaccines rolling off the line and calling for immediate distribution to hub hospitals in each of the states but again as that starts to

expand moderna creates a new logistical opportunity for us to reach underserved communities and non-local hospital communities. connell: that is so important. we have some time before we get to the point where obviously we all have access to get one of these vaccines, or one of the other ones that might come on line. i was talking to mark mcclellan, earlier this hour, former commissioner of the fda and he wrote this op-ed in the ws this week with scott gottlieb. they were talking about the treatments supposed to get us until where we are now with the vaccine and the biggest problem with the antibody treatments especially, they're sitting on the shelves. people don't have access to them. i want to play a little bit what he said about those treatments. maybe we can talk about how this issue might be solved. here is dr. mcclellan from earlier this hour. >> probably, close to a million doses of the man-made antibodies, the same kind of

antibodies that you make when you get a vaccine, gives you immunity, neutralizes the virus, looks like substantially reduces the risk of emergency room visits or hospitalizations. the problem is in order to use it, let people know quickly after they are diagnosed to get treatment and we need to set up a place for them to get it. connell: that last part, brandon, is not happening. a lot of these treatments are so promising. we heard about when the president had covid they're just sitting there. any suggestions on what we could do there to speed along that process? seems to me that would be important because a lot of us won't have access to the vaccine right away? >> well, at the very beginning of the covid-19 response efforts, and specifically the joint acquisition task force one of the things we were looking closely at were treatments. and alternatives to vaccines and a lot of those treatments came

online well before the promise of a vaccine had congealed, connell. and so there are a lot of opportunities to start to treat covid-19 patients in a more aggressive fashion. for instance, there are a number of drugs and treatments have been approved to be formed into cocktails with remdesivir. and have shown material improvements in covid-19 recovery. we also have things like dexamethasone, other anti-inflammatory drugs, that basically create an opportunity to fight the symptoms, to fight the inflammation, to fight the disease early on but we've had a gap in clinician guidance i feel like and also we've put so much toward the very end of the patient life cycle, right, when you're in the most severe condition, we kind of ignored

the gap between asymptomatic and severe, right? and i think that is where treatments could be a huge help and we're missing a trip. connell: we might not have a chance to solve it given the timing. hope we do. it seems it is really important. brandon good to have you on with your analysis. brandon daniels. thank you, sir. covid restrictions leading to 50% drop in donations for several religious institutions. that is an important story this time of year. we'll talk about how some of them plan to make up the difference next. ♪. ♪

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♪ ♪ connell: yet another another hurdle amid this pandemic in that religious institutions have been forced to find new ways to

raise money this holiday season. let's go to gerri willis who's reporting to us from outside a church in scars dale, new, with more on this story. >> reporter: christmas week is typically a critical week to raise money, for sure, and there's just no passing of the basket to raise that money during covid-19. even in upscale communities like scarsdale, it's hard for these churches to do with. now, i'm standing outside of scarsdale congregational church. they've had to tap their endowment to make shower they don't lay off any -- sure they don't law off any employees. and across the nation in december, nearly a thursday of all cricks -- third of all contributions are collected, is so you can see it's a really important time. and while contributions to catholic parishes are down 7% year-over-year, next year it's

expected to be even worse, we're expecting a 50% decline next year. even so, changes are being made, and they're having a bug impact, a positive one. online church services are very popular. listen. >> we have people that have left their kong redivision because of -- congregation because of moves across the country as far away as 20 years ago that are attending worship on sundays and coming to our fellowship opportunities online. so our reach has really expanded. >> reporter: so ultimately here, there's a silver lining in all of this for a lot of churches that have moved online. they're getting more people through their virtual doors x this more people listening to those sermons. connell, back to you. connell: right. so the numbers could go up overall. again, when you don't have people going in person every week, i guess it's not just on their the minds as much as in

the past. gerri willis, thank you. real quick, we started by telling you the dow sold off today. seems like the worry, if there is one with on wall street, that we'll see more travel restrictions as this coronavirus strain spreads across europe. thanks for watching us reporting the news "after the bell." see you back here tomorrow. ♪ ♪ gregg: good evening, i'm gregg jarrett sitting in for the say cautioning lou dobbs. -- vacationing lou dobbs. president trump has made it abundantly clear he is not backing down from the battle for the white house. the president and his allies in congress have been talking about the possibility of challenging the electoral college votes when congress convenes january 6th. and today some of those congressional allies began pressuring u.s. senators to stand with the president and demand that the integrity the of the election is insured. the president calling in to a conservative conference today, also calling for the republican party expect department of