Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
Donald Trump went to his golf club in West Palm Beach, Florida on Thursday, after claiming to be “working tirelessly for the American people” with a schedule that included “many meetings and calls”. Back in Washington, a Democratic proposal to increase direct payments to Americans under the Covid relief bill, from $600 to $2,000, was blocked.
Ted Cruz and Lindsey Graham urge Trump to submit Iran nuclear deal and Paris climate agreement to Senate to undercut future attempts to revive them
Two prominent Trump loyalists in the US Senate, Ted Cruz and Lindsey Graham, are reportedly pressing the president to submit the Iran nuclear deal and the Paris climate agreement to the chamber for ratification, in a last-minute attempt to scupper Democratic plans to take America back into the accords.
Top congressional leaders have announced agreement on a $900bn coronavirus aid package after late-night discussions on Sunday.
“We can finally report what our nation has needed to hear for a very long time: more help is on the way,” said Republican Senate leader Mitch MCConnell. “Moments ago, in consultation with our committees, the four leaders of the Senate and House finalised an agreement for another major rescue package for the American people.”
Donald Trump’s flirtation with declaring martial law in battleground states and appointing a conspiracy theorist as special counsel to help his attempt to overturn defeat by Joe Biden are “really sad” and “nutty and loopy”, Mitt Romney said on Sunday.
The Food and Drug Administration approved Moderna’s vaccine for emergency use. This is the second coronavirus vaccine to gain approval in the US.
The government can now begin to distribute 5.9m doses of the Moderna vaccine across the US.
Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle said they were optimistic they could reach a deal on a coronavirus stimulus bill this weekend.
The $900bn proposal currently on the table has been held up over an attempt by Republicans to curtail the Federal Reserve’s lending power - limiting its emergency lending efforts amid a deep economic crisis. Democrats said the provision would tie president-elect Joe Biden’s hands as he tries to rein in the economic fallout caused by the coronavirus crisis.
Republican Mitch McConnell on Tuesday congratulated the Democratic president-elect, Joe Biden, and vice president-elect, Kamala Harris, on their election victories, ending his long silence on the outcome of the presidential race. In remarks on the Senate floor on Tuesday morning, the Senate majority leader acknowledged the Democrats' winning the White House following Monday's formal result issued by the electoral college
Kelly Loeffler spokesman disavows photo of her posing with white supremacist Chester Doles at campaign event
The campaign of the Georgia Republican senator Kelly Loeffler is disavowing a photo circulating on social media of her posing with a longtime white supremacist at a recent campaign event, with less than a month to go until the runoff elections that will determine the balance of the US Senate.
Loeffler did not know who Chester Doles was when she took a picture with him, her campaign spokesman, Stephen Lawson, said on Sunday. The picture was taken on Friday at a campaign event in Dawsonville, Georgia.
Donald Trump’s attacks on Republican officials in Georgia and insistence his defeat by Joe Biden must be overturned are disgusting, the Republican lieutenant governor of the southern state said on Sunday.
Donald Trump campaigned for two Republican senators in Georgia on Saturday, at a rally that some in the party feared could end up hurting their chances by focusing on his efforts to reverse his own election defeat. In his first rally appearance since he lost to Joe Biden, Trump repeated baseless claims of widespread fraud in the presidential election. The crucial January runoff will determine which party controls the Senate
Donald Trump will return to the campaign trail on Saturday – not, notionally at least, in his quixotic and doomed attempt to deny defeat by Joe Biden, but in support of two Republicans who face January run-offs which will decide control of the US Senate.
The chief executive officers of Twitter and Facebook appear before a US Senate hearing to testify about allegations of anti-conservative bias and their handling of the 2020 election. Jack Dorsey and Mark Zuckerberg face questioning for the second time in as many months, with Republican lawmakers alleging – without evidence – censorship of conservative views
Senate hearing was called in response to how the companies’ platforms handled a New York Post article about Joe Biden
The chief executive officers of Twitter and Facebook are taking the stand Tuesday to testify, again, about allegations of anti-conservative bias on their platforms.
Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey were subpoenaed in October to appear at Tuesday’s hearing with the Senate judiciary committee in order to “review the companies’ handling of the 2020 election”.
According to the Wisconsin Elections Commission, if Donald Trump wants a statewide recount, he will have to pay $7.9m.
The president lost the state by more than 20,000 votes - which means a recount is very unlikely to change the fact that he lost. Even if a recount, miraculously, left Trump ahead in the state, Wisconsin’s 10 electoral votes are not enough to change the election outcome.
Georgia’s Republican secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, told the Washington Post that senator Lindsay Graham of South Carolina was among several members of his party who pressured him to toss out legally cast ballots so that Trump could win the state.
From the Post:
In a wide-ranging interview about the 2020 election, Raffensperger expressed exasperation with a string of baseless allegations coming from Trump and his allies about the integrity of the Georgia results, including claims that Dominion Voting Systems, the Colorado-based manufacturer of Georgia’s voting machines, is a “leftist” company with ties to Venezuela that engineered thousands of Trump votes not to be counted.
The atmosphere has grown so contentious, Raffensperger said, that both he and his wife, Tricia, have received death threats in recent days, including a text to him that read, “You better not botch this recount. Your life depends on it.”
Susan Rice is being considered for secretary of state and Michele Flournoy is reportedly top choice for defence secretary
Joe Biden is piecing together what he has promised to be a diverse cabinet, with Michele Flournoy reportedly top choice for US defence secretary and Susan Rice considered a frontrunner for secretary of state.
Trump’s defeat in the reliably red state has shown Democratic voters the power of their ballot, activists say as they focus on Ossoff and Warnock’s races
Donald Trump may have forced a recount of the votes in Georgia that helped end his presidency, but the activists who organised the surge in turnout that helped defeat him have already turned their attention to two elections that will decide who controls the US Senate and the course of Joe Biden’s presidency.
Tens of millions of dollars are pouring in to the Georgia runoff races, which can be expected to draw Biden back to the campaign trail as voters have the opportunity to make history by defeating the state’s two Republican senators to give the new president control of both houses of Congress.
Another adviser to Donald Trump has reportedly tested positive for coronavirus, amid an apparent outbreak among the president’s team.
According to Bloomberg News, David Bossie has now tested positive for the virus.
BREAKING: Trump outside adviser David Bossie tested positive for coronavirus on Sunday, sources tell me.
Susan Collins has become one of the few Republican lawmakers to congratulate Joe Biden on his victory in the presidential election.
“First, I would offer my congratulations to President-elect Biden on his apparent victory – he loves this country, and I wish him every success. Presidential transitions are important, and the President-elect and the Vice-President-elect should be given every opportunity to ensure that they are ready to govern on January 20th,” Collins said in a new statement.
The Kentucky senator revels in the nickname the Grim Reaper and tried to frustrate the previous Democratic president at every turn
After celebrating the winning of a Joe Biden presidency, Democrats are waking to the hangover of figuring out how to govern under the shadow of a runaway pandemic and the potential for gridlock imposed by the man who likes to call himself the Grim Reaper, the Republican Senate leader, Mitch McConnell.
Here are some details on the reaction to Biden’s win in Fiji, Papua New Guinea and other Pacific nations, from Ben Doherty, the Guardian’s Pacific editor:
Joe Biden’s presidential ascension had not even been settled when Fiji’s forthright prime minister was already urging greater US action on climate change from the incoming American leader.
There are a number of troubling statistics out today on the current state of Covid-19 in the US, the most urgent crisis Biden will inherit. Reuters has published an analysis of where things stand in the worsening pandemic in America, as the country nears 10m cases, becoming the first nation in the world to surpass that figure. Some specifics from the news agency’s report:
Georgia’s Secretary of State has tweeted that that county of Fulton had “discovered an issue involving reporting from their work” on Friday.
Brad Raffensperger said officials will rescan the “work”, which I assume he means ballots, although the tweet is fairly vague.
Fulton has discovered an issue involving reporting from their work on Fri. Officials are at State Farm Arena to rescan that work. I have a monitor & investigators onsite. Also sent Dep. SOS as well to oversee the process to make sure to secure the vote and protect all legal votes
The Guardian’s Libby Brooks reports from Glasgow:
Scotland’s first minister Nicola Sturgeon has congratulated President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris following the US Presidential election.