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A fight over how to pay for veterans' health care is the final big hurdle to getting a deal on a massive government funding omnibus, senators said Thursday. Negotiators have been working for weeks to try to cut an agreement on a mammoth omnibus — which would fund the government until Oct. 1, 2021 — and have until Dec. 18 to pass the bill, after using a stopgap measure to delay the deadline a week past Dec. 11. (Carney, 12/10)

Democratic lawmakers on Thursday urged President-elect Joe Biden to take immediate steps after taking office to combat the "infodemic" of disinformation and misinformation surrounding COVID-19. “Understanding and addressing misinformation – and the wider phenomena of declining public trust in institutions, political polarization, networked social movements, and online information environments that create fertile grounds for the spread of falsehoods – is a critical part of our nation’s public health response,” the lawmakers wrote in a letter to Biden. (Miller, 12/10)

Rep. Dick Hinch, a Republican who was elected speaker of the New Hampshire House just one week ago, died of COVID-19 on Wednesday. This comes about a month before the state legislature, the largest in the U.S., is expected to convene for its regularly scheduled annual session. (Barrick, Bookman and Rogers, 12/10)

Members of the Republican-controlled New Hampshire House of Representatives fear they may have been exposed to the novel coronavirus after the newly sworn-in speaker died on Wednesday. Dick Hinch (R), 71, died from covid-19 a week after the 400-person state house had its swearing-in ceremony outdoors at the University of New Hampshire. (Shepherd, 12/11)