Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
The scientist behind the first Covid-19 vaccine to clear interim clinical trials says he is confident his product can “bash the virus over the head” and put an end to the pandemic that has held the world hostage in 2020.
The German company BioNTech and the US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer announced via a press release on Monday that their jointly developed vaccine candidate had outperformed expectations in the crucial phase 3 trials, proving 90% effective in stopping people from falling ill.
Democratic senator Bernie Sanders says members of the Republican party are afraid to stand up to Donald Trump as he continues his refusal to concede the result of last week's presidential election. Speaking on CNN, Sanders said his Senate colleagues on the Republican side are not 'idiots', but there's an intimidation factor from Trump that is preventing members from speaking up. 'They understand Trump has lost,' Sanders said. 'But one of the other things we should all be nervous about and fearful about is the degree to which Trump intimidates and scares the hell out of Republican members of Congress. They are afraid to stand up to him'
Donald Trump stepped out of the White House for his first official appearance in six days as he laid a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier to mark Veterans Day.
This was Trump's first outing, other than to play golf, since Joe Biden was declared president-elect over the weekend. Trump has declined to concede the election to Biden.
Fears that appointment of extreme Republican partisans could endanger or politicise operation of defense department
Extreme Republican partisans have been installed in important roles in the Pentagon, following the summary dismissal of the defense secretary, Mark Esper, at a time Donald Trump is refusing to accept his election defeat.
Democrats immediately demanded explanations for the eleventh-hour personnel changes and warned that the US was entering dangerous “uncharted territory” with the reshuffling of key national security roles during a presidential transition.
We are brought up to admire athletes for refusing to throw in the towel, but events in the White House are putting that mindset to the test
We all know a bad loser when we see one and we all know what a tantrum looks like. So there has been something wearily familiar about Trump the grump’s carry-on in the White House. If you have watched a football match or dealt with kids, or indeed adults, you’ll have come across his type before.
Except I am not sure we have. When you think about it, his kind of behaviour is actually rather rare.Then again, normalising the abnormal and hitherto unacceptable would appear to be the president’s special gift.
As Biden’s victory sinks in across Brazil, Hungary and elsewhere, dreams of a rightwing global crusade appear to be fading
As the Donald Trump era draws to a close, many world leaders are breathing a sigh of relief. But Trump’s ideological kindred spirits – rightwing populists in office in Brazil, Hungary, Slovenia and elsewhere – are instead taking a sharp breath.
The end of the Trump presidency may not mean the beginning of their demise, but it certainly strips them of a powerful motivational factor, and also alters the global political atmosphere, which in recent years had seemed to be slowly tilting in their favour, at least until the onset of coronavirus. The momentous US election result is further evidence that the much-talked-about “populist wave” of recent years may be subsiding.
From making baseless claims of voter fraud to false declarations of victory, Donald Trump has been criticised for undermining democracy through his refusal to concede the US election. Joe Biden became the president-elect after several days of vote counting, and when the race was called for the former vice-president, Trump sent out several angry tweets – without any evidence – alleging vote count irregularities and is still yet to speak out publicly or call Biden to acknowledge the result
‘Do not expect him to concede,’ one top aide said. More likely, the aide said, ‘he’ll say something like, ‘We can’t trust the results, but I’m not contesting them.’’
Another adviser said that after the legal battles and recounts, the closest the president is likely to get to a concession is, ‘he’ll acknowledge the results and that we’ll never know how accurate they are.’
Joe Biden’s lead in Pennsylvania has now surpassed 50,000, after the latest batch of ballots from Allegheny county were posted.
As of this afternoon, Biden leads Donald Trump in Pennsylvania by 50,483, or 0.7% of the total vote in the state.
Poor Donald Trump. Not only has he lost the election, it looks as if he has lost the love of his life. I’m not talking about Melania – although some rumours have it that she is “counting the minutes” until she can get a divorce (which she has denied). I’m talking about Fox News.
For years, Trump and Fox News have been in a committed, loving relationship. Recently, however, there has been trouble in paradise, with Trump complaining the network is a “much different place than it used to be”. The relationship might have been salvaged, but then Fox News did something unforgivable: it flirted with real journalism. On election day, it was the first major outlet to declare Joe Biden would win Arizona, sending the Trump administration into a meltdown. Since then, Fox News has continued to infuriate the White House by refusing to encourage Trump’s delusion that he won the election. On Monday, for example, it cut away from the White House press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, when she claimed that the Democrats had encouraged voter fraud. “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” the Fox News anchor said to the viewers. “I can’t in good countenance continue showing you this.”
Here’s a reminder of how the two sides have been approaching this election outcome. Joe Biden described the reaction of Donald Trump and the Republicans as ‘an embarrassment’. Secretary of state Mike Pompeo meanwhile, baselessly spoke about ‘a second Trump administration’. He may have had a slight twinkle in his eye as he said it.
The networks have made their calls, world leaders have begun paying their respects, and even Fox News and Rupert Murdoch’s other media outlets appear to have given up on a second term for Donald Trump. But in a video posted on Facebook on 7 November and viewed more than 16.5m times since, NewsMax host and former Trump administration official Carl Higbie spends three minutes spewing a laundry list of false and debunked claims casting doubt on the outcome of the presidential election.
President-elect Joe Biden says Donald Trump's refusal to concede the presidential election is 'an embarrassment'. Biden was outlining plans for the transition period before he takes office in January 2020 when he was asked what he would say to Americans anxious over Trump's refusal to concede and what it would mean for the country. "Well, I just think it's an embarrassment, quite frankly," Biden said. "I think it will not help the president's legacy." Biden has promised to "get right to work" despite alarm over whether there would be a smooth transition of power
Pompeo focused on the various legal challenges being pursued by the Trump administration, while Biden, who said he has not spoken to Donald Trump since the election was called in Biden’s favor on Saturday, said Trump’s refusal to concede defeat was 'an embarrassment'
When Joe Biden formally takes over the presidency in January he will face some of the greatest crises to hit the US in recent history: a pandemic that has killed more than 200,000 Americans, a devastated economy, a rapidly overheating climate and a deeply fractured nation.
The Guardian's Lauren Gambino looks at how Biden and the vice-president-elect, Kamala Harris, plan to 'heal' the country after four years of Trumpism – and the challenges they will face with the prospect of having to navigate these times without a majority in the Senate
Joe Biden is “never going to see Donald Trump again”, the president-elect’s younger sister, sometime campaign manager and close political adviser Valerie Biden Owens says in a new interview, when asked if there can be any forgiveness for the 45th president once he leaves the national stage.
Overwritten image suggests No 10 was uncertain about US presidential election victor until late in the process
Downing Street’s congratulatory message to Joe Biden and Kamala Harris on winning the US presidential election contains a hidden message congratulating Donald Trump for winning a second term in office.
The message, posted on Twitter as an image a few hours after the US TV networks called the election for Biden, congratulates the president-elect on his election, and Harris “on her historic achievement”.
Analysis: With defence secretary’s firing and potential new Iran sanctions, Trump raises fears over impact of a vengeful president
The abrupt dismissal of the US defence secretary, Mark Esper, and reported plans for multiple layers of new sanctions on Iran have made clear that Donald Trump’s last 10 weeks in office could still prove a very bumpy ride for the rest of the world.
Trump is refusing to concede his loss to Joe Biden and, while he launches a quiver of baseless legal challenges to the results, he is also seeking to demonstrate he is still in charge of foreign and defence policy – fueling fears about the impact a vengeful president might have on the US role on the world stage over the coming 10 weeks of transition.
Fox News has cut away from a briefing held by the White House press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, during which she repeated Donald Trump’s refusal to accept defeat in the presidential election and doubled down on allegations of voter fraud, for which there is scant if any evidence.
Speaking to media on Monday night in a 'personal capacity' during what she said was a campaign event at the Republican National Committee headquarters, McEnany said Republicans want 'every legal vote to be counted, and every illegal vote to be discarded', prompting the conservative Fox News network to stop broadcasting the briefing.
The Trump campaign and Republicans have brought numerous lawsuits alleging election irregularities. Judges have already tossed out cases in Georgia and Michigan
He carries a rosary in his pocket, one that belonged to his dead son, Beau. On election day last Tuesday, he went to mass, as he does every Sunday.
In his victory speech on Saturday night, he quoted from Ecclesiastes: “The Bible tells us that to everything there is a season – a time to build, a time to reap, a time to sow. And a time to heal. This is the time to heal in America.”
US attorney general’s intervention comes as Donald Trump refuses to concede and promotes unfounded claims of voter fraud
The US attorney general, William Barr, has authorized federal prosecutors to begin investigating “substantial allegations” of voter irregularities across the country in a stark break with longstanding practice and despite a lack of evidence of any major fraud having been committed.