US news | The Guardian

With a slim majority in Congress, the president-elect lacks a solid base. The past teaches us what may happenPresident Trump’s efforts to overturn the outcome of the 3 November election, which appear to be over, provided his opponents with a source of sadistic amusement. Trump’s self-humiliation in the eyes of the liberal world is complete. To his followers, of course, the fight goes on. And his Republican colleagues have reason to be cheerful. We should not allow the schadenfreude to distract us from this basic fact. Yes, Biden defeated Trump. But in that same election the Democrats failed to gain the majority of seats that the new president needs to actually put an end to the era of Republican dominance. Things might still go right in Georgia, but that would leave the Senate hanging by a thread.Four times, at moments of historic crisis, the US electorate has handed the White House to a Democrat – 1916, 1932, 2008 and 2020. But this year is the first time it has done so without also handing the Democrats a clear majority in Congress. The basic difference between Biden and his predecessors is that he lacks a solid political basis from which to wield power. Continue reading...

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Results of this election and the changes from past elections say an enormous amount about where the country is and is goingLooking at the results of the 2020 election at the more granular level of counties and precincts, it can mostly be defined by one thing: stasis. But beneath that stasis the results of this election and the changes from previous elections say an enormous amount about where the country is and is going. The counties that swung the most mostly fall into two categories: Latino areas swinging strongly towards Trump, and white-majority suburban areas swinging towards Biden. These 10 swing state counties were crucial to the final results, and help tell the story of what happened in 2020. Continue reading...

Chief says video shows two officers ‘used deadly force in accordance with policy’ when they shot Kenneth Jones, as protesters demand release of videoOmaha’s police chief said on Monday that two officers acted appropriately when a Black man was fatally shot during a traffic stop last week, because the man repeatedly failed to comply with their commands. Video of the confrontation will not be immediately released.Police chief Todd Schmaderer said his officers followed department policy when Kenneth Jones was shot last Thursday, because Jones reached for a gun in his waistband and disregarded commands. Continue reading...

President says he will cooperate with transition after GSA declares Biden win, but insists he will continue to contest result. Plus, Biden announces cabinet

Many believe the lefthander was the fastest pitcher to ever take the mound. But his career – and life – went off the rails before he could make an impactSteve Dalkowski, a career minor-leaguer who very well could have been the fastest (and wildest) pitcher in baseball history, died in April at the age of 80 from complications from Covid-19. And yet, partly because of one missing detail, his legend lives on, perhaps for ever.

GSA recognises Biden’s win to allow presidential transition to go ahead, as Trump continues to refuse to acknowledge result Continue reading...

A mysterious monolith has been discovered in a remote part of Utah after being spotted by state employees counting sheep from a helicopter. The structure, estimated to be 3 metres high, appears to be made from metal. The helicopter pilot, Bret Hutchings, told the local news channel KSLTV: 'That’s been about the strangest thing that I’ve come across out there in all my years of flying'

Dinkins hired thousands of police officers and revitalised housing during his time in officeDavid Dinkins, who broke barriers as New York City’s first African-American mayor, has died at the age of 93.Dinkins died on Monday, the New York City Police Department confirmed. The department said officers were called to the former mayor’s home in the evening. Initial indications were that he died of natural causes. Continue reading...

It looks as though the knives are out for the one-time power couple as they plan a return to their former city. But there may be some surprises yetIn the purgatory of Donald Trump’s unacknowledged election defeat, the knives are out for Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump who, like dozens of other lesser-placed Trump acolytes, may be looking to return to New York, a city that the lame-duck president calls an “anarchic jurisdiction”.The reception they will receive, judging from the city’s press commentary, could be brutal. Continue reading...

We have allowed the gig economy to quietly establish itself as an unregulated, secondary labour marketLike many new arrivals, Bijoy Paul proudly posed in front of Sydney’s famous landmarks when he landed in early 2019. He was thrilled at the opportunity to live and study in Australia, posting on social media: “thanks to my Almighty for having an auspicious journey.” He was here to study a master of information technology, but for income he worked as a delivery rider for Uber Eats.

State employee spotted mysterious metal structure amid red rocks while counting bighorn sheepA mysterious monolith has been discovered in a remote part of Utah, after being spotted by state employees counting sheep from a helicopter.The structure, estimated at between 10ft and 12ft high (about 3 metres), appeared to be planted in the ground. It was made from some sort of metal, its shine in sharp contrast to the enormous red rocks which surrounded it. Continue reading...

President says he will continue to fight results as General Services Administration clears way for handoverThe General Services Administration has declared president-elect Joe Biden the apparent winner of the US election, clearing the way for the formal transition from Donald Trump’s administration to begin after weeks of delay.The GSA said on Monday that it had determined that Biden was the winner of the 3 November race after weeks of Trump refusing to concede and violating the traditions of the transition of power at the White House. Continue reading...

The GSA has recognized Joe Biden as the apparent election winner, a key step in the transfer of powerThe US government’s General Services Administration on Monday ascertained Joe Biden is the apparent winner of the 2020 presidential election, allowing for the presidential transition to officially begin.Donald Trump on Monday tweeted he had directed his team to cooperate on the transition, but he vowed to continue fighting the election results. Continue reading...

New York governor had planned to spend holiday with mother and daughters, despite urging constituents to limit gatherings due to pandemic

California lawmaker, who has held position for four years, has faced growing opposition from progressivesThe California senator Dianne Feinstein will not seek to retain her position as the top-ranking Democrat on the Senate judiciary committee.“After serving as the lead Democrat on the Judiciary Committee for four years, I will not seek the chairmanship or ranking member position in the next Congress,” Feinstein said in a statement on Monday. Continue reading...

State reported 15,000 coronavirus cases on Saturday as it faces fears of hospital bed shortage and growing threat over holidaysLos Angeles is shutting down restaurant dining and plans to adopt a new stay-at-home order as California faces record Covid-19 infections, a potential shortage of hospital beds and an expected surge in cases tied to the holidays.LA officials announced on Sunday that the county would be prohibiting dining at restaurants for at least three weeks starting on Wednesday, and urged residents not to travel or gather in groups for Thanksgiving this week. With a record of 6,124 new cases reported on Monday in LA and an alarming increase over the last week, the county is expected to launch another lockdown, officials said on Monday. Continue reading...

Board of state canvassers confirms 154,000-vote victory in 3-0 vote with one abstentionMichigan election officials on Monday certified Joe Biden’s 154,000-vote victory in the state amid president Donald Trump’s brazen attempts to subvert the results of the election.The board of state canvassers, which has two Republicans and two Democrats, confirmed the results on a 3-0 vote with one abstention. Allies of Trump and the losing Republican Senate candidate John James had urged the panel to delay voting for two weeks to audit votes in heavily Democratic Wayne county, home to Detroit. Continue reading...

Queens club that was holding a sex party was based in part of the city where indoor gatherings are limited to 25 peopleNew York authorities have said no to Sex and the City – shutting down a swingers club in Queens that was holding a sex party in contravention of restrictions aimed at curbing the rising coronavirus rate.Caligula New York, which markets itself as a “private upscale on premise swingers club catering to people in the swing lifestyle”, was shut down in the early hours of Sunday morning by local law enforcement and charged with breaking local emergency regulations and serving alcoholic drinks without the proper license, the New York City sheriff’s office said. Continue reading...

The 48th annual celebration of music featured festive dressing and normcore nods Continue reading...

Barack Obama said the Trump administration's foreign relations had inflicted 'damage' upon America, and that it would take time for the country's reputation to be restored. Obama expressed confidence in a new Biden administration, but cautioned change would not happen immediately Continue reading...

The fact that the president cannot hold on to power shows the checks and balances are workingSlowly, painfully, alarmingly, Donald Trump has been conceding the US presidency to Joe Biden. Over the weekend his close friend Chris Christie called his delay “a national embarrassment”, joining judges, aides and other Republican politicians. Meanwhile the world has erupted in a chorus of derision at the state of American democracy, polluted by corruption, fake news and money. Countries whose leaders would not dream of risking an open election, let alone conceding one, mimic Moscow in ridiculing “the obvious shortcomings in the American electoral system”. Beijing celebrates by preparing to jail a clutch of Hong Kong democrats.The reality is the opposite. The late American historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr pointed out that the US constitution regularly takes its grand coalition of diverse peoples to the brink of disintegration, shows them disaster and pulls them back. Trump in 2016 was a populist candidate who ran for election on a pseudo-revolutionary ticket against the Washington establishment. Though he won fewer votes than his opponent, Hillary Clinton, an electoral college biased to protect the interests of small states against big ones gave him the presidency. In office he ran up huge debts, was a bully and a xenophobe, and relentlessly attacked all centres of establishment power. The economy boomed. Continue reading...

Two other internationalists, Linda Thomas-Greenfield and Jake Sullivan, also tipped for top jobs

The vision of what appeared to be hair dye running down the politician’s face provoked glee. But, as a bald woman, I know linking physical appearance to morals is a lazy tropeWeren’t the pictures of Rudy Giuliani’s hair malfunction last week wonderful? I was transfixed by footage of him bug-eyed and ranting at a press conference, as dark rivulets of hair dye (or mascara, expert opinion was divided) ran down his sweaty cheeks. The incident spawned a delighted outpouring of comment and mocking tweets. He was a Scooby-Doo villain unmasked; a gargoyle, a comic-book grotesque, and it felt so apt. For critics, it was as if corruption, lies and moral turpitude were finally oozing out of him as a tarry discharge.It is the same satisfaction we feel as we dissect the brittle spun-sugar edifice of Trump’s hair, the harshly theatrical lines of his makeup (“una naranja espantosa”, a scary orange, as a White House housekeeper described it to the Washington Post) or his cack-handed panda-eye concealer habit. It is delicious when the facade cracks, especially in one so obsessed with surface. It feels like poetic justice when a man who built a gold tower, regularly comments on his daughter’s looks and mocked a disabled reporter is caught looking diminished and ridiculous. Continue reading...

I know my daughter and I will be a little sad without our found family this holiday, but we’ll hope that, by this time next year, we can all be together againI love Thanksgiving. Not the Thanksgiving of American myth, where benevolent pilgrims revel in the harvest with their good friends the Natives, whom they would never think of enslaving or massacring – not that insidious lie – but the Thanksgiving of my own making, the one that has become a tradition for me and my daughter and our found family. And I wonder how it will feel, this year, to not be able to gather and celebrate together.Related: Even in this year of Covid, New York just can't say no to Thanksgiving | Emma Brockes Continue reading...

A Florida retiree dived into the water and wrestled the reptile to free his puppy, GunnerA man in Florida rescued his puppy from the jaws of an alligator, diving under the water and wrestling the reptile all without dropping the cigar in his mouth.Richard Wilbanks, 74, was walking his Cavalier King Charles spaniel, Gunner, around the pond near his retirement home in Estero, Florida, when the alligator raced up from the water and grabbed the dog, Wilbanks told CNN. Continue reading...

Prominent Republicans have escalated their criticism of Trump’s attempts to overturn the election, as his legal team cut ties with a conspiracy theorist lawyer. Plus, what influence will Obama have on a Biden presidency?Good morning.Prominent Republicans have ramped up their criticism of Trump’s fruitless attempts to overturn the election result, condemning his legal team as an “embarrassment” to the party. Two of Trump’s former national security advisers joined the calls for the president to drop his baseless allegations of voter fraud, with HR McMaster calling the claims “very corrosive” and John Bolton describing Trump as “the political equivalent of a street rioter”. Meanwhile, in Pennsylvania, a Republican district court judge threw out Trump’s attempts to overturn the result, comparing the claims to “Frankenstein’s monster”. Continue reading...

Biden has laid out a fast-paced agenda but he faces many obstacles and his plans could stall without action at the justice departmentIn one beating, the woman from El Salvador told the immigration judge, her boyfriend’s punches disfigured her jaw and knocked out two front teeth. After raping her, he forced her to have his name tattooed in jagged letters on her back, boasting that he was marking her with his brand. Continue reading...

Move is latest chapter in deteriorating relationship with Beijing and improvement under Joe Biden is unlikelyDonald Trump has banned US investment in a further 89 Chinese companies, and reportedly sent a navy admiral to Taiwan, as he seeks to secure a tough-on-China foreign policy legacy.Multiple media outlets have reported plans by the Trump administration for a series of confrontations with China before Biden’s inauguration on 20 January, and the moves were largely expected. Foreign policy and political analysts believe Trump wants to leave a legacy of being tough on China, while simultaneously conducting a “scorched earth” policy on his way out of the White House. Continue reading...

The president refuses to acknowledge Biden’s win, but experts say there is no constitutional path forward for him to remain in the White HouseJoe Biden won the presidential election, a fact that Donald Trump and other Republicans refuse to acknowledge.There are worries the president and other Republicans will make every effort to stay in power. “There will be a smooth transition to a second Trump administration,” Mike Pompeo, the secretary of state, said. William Barr, the attorney general, has authorized federal prosecutors to begin to investigate election irregularities, a move that prompted the head of the justice department’s election crimes unit to step down from his position and move to another role. Trump also fired Christopher Krebs, the director of the federal agency that vouched for the reliability of the 2020 election and had pushed back on the president’s baseless claims of voter fraud. Continue reading...

A man in Florida rescued his puppy from the jaws of an alligator, diving under the water and wrestling the reptile all without dropping the cigar from his mouth.Richard Wilbanks, 74, was walking his Cavalier King Charles spaniel, Gunner, around the pond near his retirement home when the alligator raced up from the water and grabbed the dog. Cameras set up by the Florida Wildlife Federation and the fStop Foundation captured the encounter.Gunner suffered a small puncture wound to his stomach, while Wilbanks told CNN that his hands were 'chewed up'. He doesn’t want the alligator removed, he said. 'They’re part of nature and part of our lives'

London-listed group shut all of its 660 movie theatres in the US and the UK in October

The Indianapolis Colts quarterback never makes the game look easy, but that just adds to his ragged charmPhilip Rivers is probably going to the Hall of Fame. The main obstacle is that he has played the entirety of his career at the same time as multiple other great quarterbacks. He has never been to a Super Bowl and has never even had an individual year where he was the clear-cut best quarterback in the league. Yet watching Rivers, in the twilight of his career and clearly not fully healthy, lead the Indianapolis Colts against Aaron Rodgers and the Green Bay Packers was a reminder that he really is one of the greats.One reason that Rivers doesn’t quite get the love of those of his contemporaries is that he’s never been one who makes the transcendent look routine. In fact just the opposite: few other NFL greats make one aware of the amount of effort and energy that they put into everything he does. Even his throwing motion is ragged and agonized compared to the easy sling of a Tom Brady or Patrick Mahomes. Continue reading...

Trump refuses to concede as Biden wins, with a 6m advantage in the popular vote Continue reading...

A born internationalist, Blinken will seek to soothe the frayed nerves of western allies

Voters in the Sunshine state have backed the Fight for $15 demand but the federal minimum remains stuck at 2009 levelsIt has been a long time coming but Hector Rivera is hopeful that one day soon he will be able to take a day off work. The 61-year-old works as a janitor in Miami, Florida, making just over $9 an hour. Because the pay is so low, Rivera works two janitorial jobs and scrambles to find gig jobs on the weekends in order to cover his rent and bills every month.“Trying to survive on this salary is extremely difficult because I’m constantly looking for more work,” said Rivera, a Dominican and one of the millions of Latino and Black Americans who are disproportionately represented in the low-wage sector. Continue reading...

Scaled-down inauguration celebration expected because of risks of spreading coronavirus, says incoming White House chief of staffUS president-elect Joe Biden will announce the first names chosen for his cabinet on Tuesday, the incoming White House chief of staff said – and is expecting a scaled-down inauguration celebration because of the risks of spreading coronavirus.In a sign that his transition team is pressing ahead swiftly – despite Donald Trump’s failure to concede the election and ongoing attempts to thwart the transition process – Ron Klain said on Sunday that the appointments were moving at a faster pace than the previous two administrations. Continue reading...

New Zealand prime minister says US president-elect has ‘fond memories’ of New Zealand after previous visitNew Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern has said US president-elect Joe Biden wants to “reinvigorate” the two countries’ relationship, something that should prove fairly easy after Ardern’s previous encounters with Donald Trump.The two leaders had a “positive and warm” phone call, Ardern said on Monday, and she had invited Biden to visit, saying: “He spoke of his fond memories of visiting New Zealand years ago. He was very pleased to be invited to come back here.” Continue reading...

The visit by Lobsang Sangay, president of the Central Tibetan administration, could further infuriate Beijing

Powell has made a raft of incorrect claims, including that Georgia’s voting software was created at the behest of late Venezuelan president Hugo ChavezPerhaps Sidney Powell has gone too far even for Rudy Giuliani this time.The Trump campaign’s legal team has moved to distance itself from the firebrand conservative attorney after a tumultuous few days in which Powell made multiple incorrect statements about the election voting process, unspooled complex conspiracy theories and vowed to “blow up” Georgia with a “biblical” lawsuit. Continue reading...

Raymond Deskins charged after breathing forcefully over two women during altercation outside Trump golf club in VirginiaA man seen forcefully exhaling on two women outside Donald Trump’s Virginia golf course has been charged with assault.Raymond Deskins, 61, was charged with misdemeanor assault after a private citizen obtained a warrant through a county magistrate, the Loudoun county sheriff’s office said on Sunday. Deskins did not immediately return a request for comment. Continue reading...