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.
Continue reading...President-elect warned the US is ‘facing a very dark winter’ as 200,000 more could die before a vaccine becomes available
Joe Biden vowed on Monday to spare no effort in tackling the coronavirus pandemic as soon as he enters the White House and warned the US is “facing a very dark winter”.
Continue reading...The Silver state has not gone Republican in a presidential election since 2004 and Clark county is the bedrock of Democrats’ success
For a brief moment last Friday, it appeared that Nevada could carry Joe Biden over the electoral college finish line.
America was three days into its long wait to learn who would be its next president and all eyes were on the officials counting outstanding ballots in Clark county. Major news outlets interviewed anxious voters waiting in line with their photo IDs to “cure” their ballots, a process which allows them to resolve issues with their voting papers.
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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.
My statement on the 2020 Presidential election results: pic.twitter.com/8NY1WpaJpC
Continue reading...Britain risks isolation as the president-elect prioritises relations with the EU. The government must understand the signs of the new times
The Irish question has played havoc with the best-laid plans of hardline Brexiters. Since 2016, successive Conservative governments have struggled to square the circle of keeping the United Kingdom intact, while avoiding the reimposition of a hard border on the island of Ireland. The border issue has been the achilles heel of Brexit, the thorn in the side of true believers in a “clean break” with the EU. So the prospect of an Irish-American politician on his way to the White House, just as Boris Johnson attempts to finagle his way round the problem, is an 11th-hour plot twist to savour.
Joe Biden’s views on Brexit are well known. The president-elect judges it to be a damaging act of self-isolation; strategically unwise for Britain and unhelpful to American interests in Europe. But it is the impact of the UK’s departure from the EU on Ireland that concerns Mr Biden most. This autumn, he was forthright on the subject of the government’s controversial internal market bill, which was again debated on Monday in the House of Lords. The proposed legislation effectively reneges on a legally binding protocol signed with the EU, which would impose customs checks on goods travelling between Britain and Northern Ireland. In doing so, it summons up the spectre of a hard border on the island of Ireland, undermining the Good Friday agreement. Mr Biden is adamant that the GFA must not “become a casualty of Brexit”. He is expected to convey that message, in forceful terms, when his first telephone conversation with Mr Johnson eventually takes place.
Continue reading...As the president refuses to concede defeat, there has been no shortage of people keen to tell him: ‘You’re fired’
“Hillary, get on with your life and give it another try in three years!” This is how Donald Trump advised the failed Democratic candidate for president in 2017, but it seems he has been unable to heed the same advice.
Related: 'Make America rake again': Four Seasons Total Landscaping cashes in on Trump fiasco
Continue reading...President-elect Joe Biden said the months ahead would still be very difficult for the United States, despite the encouraging news about Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine.
Biden said it would be 'many months' before the vaccine was widely available, warning that another 200,000 Americans could die of coronavirus in the coming months.
Biden also spoke about his coronavirus taskforce and urged Americans to wear face masks to limit the spread of the virus
Interim trial results are encouraging as scientists welcome news
It is not yet the end of the pandemic, but the announcement by Pfizer/BioNTech that their vaccine has been 90% successful in the vital large-scale trials has got even the soberest of scientists excited.
These are interim results and the trial will continue into December to collect more data. The two companies – a tiny German biotech with the big idea and the giant pharma company Pfizer with the means to develop it – have not yet published their detailed data, so it is all on trust. And yet, nobody is suggesting the results have been over-egged. It looks as though the vaccine not only works, but works better than anyone hoped.
Continue reading...US saw more than 100,000 cases per day for five days, and expert warns of 100,000 more deaths by January
The US recorded more than 100,000 new coronavirus cases for a fifth day in a row on Sunday, as total cases neared 10m and the death toll passed 237,000.
Related: Covid-19 vaccine candidate is 90% effective, says manufacturer
Continue reading...The left is so used to losing that we have become sore winners. While the US has not been fixed overnight, there is reason to feel hope again
There are many things Joe Biden is not. He is not young. He is not an anti-establishment peacenik. He is not unbeholden to huge, anonymous donors. He is not free of accusations of using male privilege to be gropey with women. He is neither a radical, nor exciting. He is not a brilliant orator. He is not Bernie Sanders. And on it goes: the disappointments pile up thick and fast.
But he is not a loser – and he is not Donald Trump. So let us have a moment, however brief, of celebration.
Continue reading...Gardening firm, situated between crematorium and sex shop, played comic role in final throes of president’s campaign
As Donald Trump’s rise was accompanied by branded merchandise – steaks, ties, boxers and red Maga hats – so his descent may come to be known by the stickers, shirts and hoodies now being sold by an obscure Pennsylvanian landscaping company that wound up playing a comic and widely celebrated role in the final throes of the president’s re-election campaign.
Related: Keep on digging: Trump team holds press conference at suburban garden centre
Continue reading...Writing under the name Selena Montgomery, Abrams has penned eight romantic thrillers, often while also fighting for voters’ rights
Stacey Abrams is the former Georgia state house minority leader, whose fierce fight for Georgians’ right to vote has been credited for potentially handing the state to the Democrats for the first time in 28 years. But Abrams has another identity: the novelist Selena Montgomery, a romance and thriller writer who has sold more than 100,000 copies of her eight novels.
Abrams wrote her first novel during her third year at Yale Law School, inspired after reading her ex-boyfriend’s PhD dissertation in chemical physics. She had wanted to write a spy novel: “For me, for other young black girls, I wanted to write books that showed them to be as adventurous and attractive as any white woman,” she wrote in her memoir Minority Leader. But after being told repeatedly by editors that women don’t read spy novels, and that men don’t read spy novels by women, she made her spies fall in love. Rules of Engagement, her debut, was published in 2001, and sees temperatures flare as covert operative Raleigh partners with the handsome Adam Grayson to infiltrate a terrorist group that has stolen deadly environmental technology.
Continue reading...While president Xi remains silent, Chinese residents voice cautious optimism for better relations between the two superpowers
While China’s top officials remained conspicuously silent on Joe Biden’s presidential victory over Donald Trump, Chinese residents celebrated and held out cautious optimism for improved US-China ties.
On Monday, Biden’s speech after being declared the projected winner was among the most viewed topics on social media, with the hashtag “Biden national address” viewed more than one billion times on Weibo.
Continue reading...Move by the Trump administration comes despite reports that other deportees have gone missing since being repatriated
The US is expected to fly Cameroonian asylum seekers back to their home country on Tuesday despite fears that their lives will be at risk and reports that deportees repatriated last month are now missing.
Some of the deportees are activists from the country’s anglophone minority, who face arrest warrants for their political activities from government forces with a well documented record of extrajudicial killings. They and their lawyers refer to Tuesday’s flight as the “death plane”.
Continue reading...Trump’s brutal policies and spread of misinformation have divided the US. Uniting the country will be Biden’s biggest task
As the result was finally called, the end of his presidency confirmed, Donald Trump teed off on a crisp, autumnal Saturday afternoon at his private golf club in Virginia.
The president was in the midst of a four-day mission to spread baseless misinformation about election integrity in an attempt to subvert US democracy.
Continue reading...President may try to use his power to push for more conservative court appointments or environmental deregulations
Donald Trump may never concede that he legitimately lost the 2020 election and the US presidency.
That in itself will probably not matter too much, but he may use his final months in office before Joe Biden takes office in January, 2021 to push the divisive politics that have become his calling card. He may even boycott Biden’s inauguration ceremony.
Continue reading...Trump isn’t just losing her status as first daughter, she’s also losing her job as ‘advisor to the president’
Ivanka Trump isn’t just losing her status as first daughter with her father Donald Trump’s defeat to Joe Biden – she’s also losing her job.
In her father’s White House, Ivanka Trump works as “advisor to the president”, purportedly focusing on “the education and economic empowerment of women and their families as well as job creation and economic growth through workforce development, skills training and entrepreneurship”.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...Two years ago, she lost to then-secretary of state Brian Kemp, but that loss spurred her to fight for Georgians’ right to vote
Two years ago, Stacey Abrams became a household name when she ran for governor of Georgia against Brian Kemp, then secretary of state. Though her votes came in short, she refused to concede – citing widespread voter suppression in a state where the election was run by the opponent himself.
In 2020, she is still not the governor. But in some ways, Abrams never lost.
Continue reading...US currently has 9.62m confirmed Covid cases; pandemic expert says half positive cases not being identified; economic fallout makes prospect of third world war ‘a risk’. Follow the latest updates
New Zealand and the Cook Islands are set to open a ‘travel bubble’ between the two countries, with NZ prime minister Jacinda Ardern confirming officials from her government would visit the South Pacific archipelago later this week.
“While I don’t wish to put any time-frames on a potential travel bubble, it is my aim and hope that this can resume as soon as is safely possible, and this on-the-ground visit by officials to the Cook Islands is the next step in that process.
US President-elect Joe Biden’s healthcare advisers have held talks with drugmaker executives on the U.S. government’s Operation Warp Speed program to accelerate development of a possible Covid-19 treatment, a Biden spokesman said on Sunday.
Reuters reports that under the Trump administration, Operation Warp Speed has struck deals with several drugmakers in an effort to help speed up the search for effective treatments for the disease amid the global coronavirus pandemic.
The US Covid-19 death toll stands at over 237,000, with more than 9.9 million cases now reported in the country since the outbreak began, according to a Reuters tally.
“As we previously said in September, because President-Elect Joe Biden is absolutely committed to helping develop a safe and effective coronavirus vaccine as soon as possible, campaign medical advisers have received briefings from companies working to produce vaccines in order to be informed about the process,” Biden’s spokesman Andrew Bates said in an emailed statement.
Biden’s advisers met with companies that have Covid-19 vaccines or therapies in late-stage clinical trials in September and October, Bloomberg News had reported earlier.
The report added that the meeting was aimed at gathering information about the development, manufacturing and distribution of shots to ward off the novel coronavirus and therapies to treat the sick.
Biden has vowed to “listen to the science”, with his coronavirus plan calling for scaling up testing and contact tracing and promising to appoint a “supply commander” to oversee supply lines of critical equipment.