Category Archives: US News

Schumer calls pro-Trump mob ‘domestic terrorists’ as Senate resumes election certification – live

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While the electoral vote certification continues on the senate floor, there appears to be a number of resignations happening at the White House in the wake of the Capitol riot:

One source also said Chris Liddell, the deputy chief of staff, will resign tomorrow. 2/2

The White House social secretary Rickie Niceta has submitted her resignation tonight in reaction to today's protest, a source with direct knowledge tells @ABC

Per multiple sources familiar, NatSec Adviser @robertcobrien and DepNatSec Adviser Matthew Pottinger are considering resigning after today’s events and Trump’s actions. O’Brien still mulling, Pottinger more sure.

As with all things, it’s possible they stay in the admin. 1/2

.⁦@WhiteHouse⁩ Deputy Press Secretary Sarah Matthews resigns from the Trump Administration in response to today’s events. I have always known her to be a good person who has the best interests of the nation at heart. pic.twitter.com/4ZMfmM2Zl3

Former president Barack Obama has issued a statement on today’s events, calling the storming of the Capitol “a moment of great dishonor and shame for the nation”.

Read his full remarks below:

Here’s my statement on today’s violence at the Capitol. pic.twitter.com/jLCKo2D1Ya

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Coronavirus live news: Israel ‘to vaccinate all over-16s by April’; France’s border with UK closed ‘for foreseeable future’

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More than 17% of Israelis have had first shot; 26,391 new infections in Germany; Reuters says Europe has now had more than 25m cases

Brazil has hit another dire milestone in its struggle with coronavirus as its death toll rose above 200,000 with the epidemic again worsening.

On Thursday afternoon a coalition of news groups that tracks the number of deaths said Brazil’s death toll had risen to 200,011.

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Biden calls on Trump to ‘demand an end to this siege’ – video

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President-elect Joe Biden denounces the violence at the Capitol, after a mob of Trump supporters storm the building. 'This is not dissent, it's disorder, it's chaos, it borders on sedition, and it must end now,' Biden said. He then called on outgoing US president Trump to publicly 'demand an end to this siege'

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‘Stand back and stand by’: how Trumpism led to the Capitol siege

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The president spent 2020 enabling and encouraging mass displays of armed protest on the streets of American cities

The storming of the US Capitol by a pro-Trump mob on Wednesday was the culmination of a year of white nationalist and anti-democratic violence that steadily intensified and featured the direct incitement of the US president.

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Jon Ossoff wins Georgia runoff election, giving Democrats control of Senate

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Victory unseats Republican David Perdue, who held the seat for the past six years, and follows fellow Democrat Raphael Warnock’s win

The Georgia Democrat Jon Ossoff has won his Senate runoff election, giving Democrats control of the Senate for the opening of Joe Biden’s presidency.

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Maga mob’s Capitol invasion makes Trump’s assault on democracy literal

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Hundreds of the president’s supporters stormed the Capitol in the most dramatic challenge to US democracy since the civil war

The US Capitol, the seat of American democracy, has been stormed by a pro-Donald Trump mob, egged on by the president in a desperate and violent effort to overturn the results of the election.

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Pro-Trump mob storm Capitol as lawmakers meet to certify Biden’s win – video

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Protesters swarmed the Capitol on Wednesday, putting it on lockdown, as Mike Pence rebuffed Donald Trump's demand to overturn his loss to Democrat Joe Biden and the Senate's Republican leader denounced a bid in Congress to undo the election outcome.

Trump supporters overturned barriers and clashed with police on the US Capitol grounds and streamed inside the building. The demonstrations flared as lawmakers met inside to formally certify Biden's victory over Trump in November's election. Law enforcement authorities struggled to maintain order.

Biden won the election by 306-232 in the electoral college and by more than 7m ballots in the national popular vote, but Trump continues to falsely claim there was widespread fraud and that he was the victor

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‘The new south’: Raphael Warnock becomes Georgia’s first Black senator

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State on the brink of delivering the Democrats control of Senate is in a cultural, demographic and political transition

The Ebenezer Baptist church in Atlanta has witnessed tides of history ebb and flow during its 134 years. Martin Luther King Jr, the civil rights leader, often preached here. Now its pastor, Raphael Warnock, has added a new chapter by becoming the first African American senator from Georgia.

The storied church was firmly closed as votes were tallied on Tuesday night and its doors were plastered with coronavirus warnings, but there was a palpable surge outside as expectation turned to elation.

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Democrats’ Georgia success reshapes US political landscape

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Projected election victories will give Biden a majority in the Senate and were built on a revamped strategy and organisational effort

The US state of Georgia on Wednesday afternoon looked set to present an early inauguration gift to Joe Biden, giving him a decent shot at breaking Washington gridlock and enacting his agenda.

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Trump’s doomed bid to reverse result further damages faith in US democracy

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The rantings of a president unable to accept defeat have gained traction, and are embraced by a majority Republican voters as fact

Americans’ confidence in their democracy has been eroded for years by a system that has, at various junctures, delivered victory to Republican presidents who lost the popular vote, permitted industrial-scale gerrymandering of electoral maps, and is built around a Congress rigged in favour of conservative states.

Related: Trump supporters storm Capitol as McConnell warns of democracy 'death spiral' – live

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‘I’ll be for you’: Jon Ossoff thanks Georgia as election draws to close – video

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The Democratic candidate has given a speech thanking the people of Georgia for electing him to the US Senate before the final tally is formally announced.

In his speech, Jon Ossoff asked the country to unite to beat the coronavirus pandemic and said he would fight both for people who voted for him and those who did not in the second of two runoff elections in Georgia

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Congress is facing an election reckoning. Democracy hangs in the balance | Lloyd Green

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As a procedural certification has become a coup attempt, Trump and his allies have done lasting harm


Democracy in the US teeters on the edge of a figurative sword. On Wednesday, the US Congress will convene to formally receive the outcome of the 2020 presidential election. Unfortunately, Donald Trump and his allies have converted a legal formality into a blatant coup attempt.

The ex-reality television host is like none who have come before him. Presidents Hoover, Carter and Bush Sr all suffered rejection at the ballot box after just one term. However painful, they accepted the electorate’s verdict. In the end, personal pride took a backseat to the orderly transition of power. The nation had spoken.

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Julian Assange refused bail despite judge ruling against extradition to US

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Judge says WikiLeaks co-founder ‘still has an incentive to abscond from these, as yet unresolved, proceedings’

Julian Assange has been refused bail by a judge who this week rejected a US request to have him extradited to face espionage and hacking charges.

The co-founder of WikiLeaks has been held at Belmarsh prison in south-east London for the past 18 months after he was evicted from the Ecuadorian embassy, where he sought asylum for seven years.

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Why Raphael Warnock was elected Georgia’s first black US senator

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Analysis: Political rise of preacher who took up mantle of earlier civil rights activists has coincided with changes in state

When Raphael Warnock was born, the state of Georgia was represented in the Senate by two segregationists – one of them, Herman Talmadge, a southern Democrat who opposed civil rights legislation in the 1960s.

Today, Warnock, a senior preacher at the Ebenezer Baptist church, where Martin Luther King Jr once preached, has been elected the first African American Democratic senator from a formerly Confederate state.

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Misinformation ‘superspreaders’: Covid vaccine falsehoods still thriving on Facebook and Instagram

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Researchers say big Facebook accounts still condemn vaccines while anti-vaxxers banned from Facebook have fled to Instagram

Conspiracy theories and misinformation about the coronavirus vaccine are still spreading on Facebook and Instagram, more than a month after Facebook pledged it would take them down.

Under pressure to contain an avalanche of falsehoods, Facebook announced on 3 December that it would ban debunked claims about the safety and efficacy of vaccines now being distributed worldwide. The company said it removed more than 12m pieces of content from Facebook and Instagram between March and October, and that it worked with factcheckers to place labels on 167 million more pieces of content over the same period.

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‘I will fight for you’: Democrat Raphael Warnock declares victory in Georgia Senate runoff – video

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Shortly after midnight, Rev Raphael Warnock delivered a message of hope to Georgians and declared his win in the Senate runoff election: 'Whether you voted for me or not – know this: I see you. I hear you. And I will fight for you.' He beat Republican incumbent Kelly Loeffler, a Trump loyalist. This is the first time for 24 years that a Democrat will represent Georgia in the Senate

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