World
Trump formally secures Electoral College win: Live updates
Donald Trump has formally won the Electoral College and the presidency after Texas’ electors handed him the state’s 40 electoral votes Tuesday.
After Trump’s election win on November 5, his victory was formalized Tuesday as presidential electors gathered across the U.S.
It takes 270 electoral votes to win the Electoral College — Trump won 312 last month to Vice President Kamala Harris’s 226.
Thirteen of the electors are Republicans who took part in the fake electors plot in 2020, and some of them face criminal charges.
This comes as Trump’s choices for his cabinet headed to Capitol Hill to meet with senators ahead of their confirmation hearings. HHS secretary nominee Robert F Kennedy Jr. and the nominee to serve as the director of national intelligence, former Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, went to the hill Tuesday to drum up support for their respective nominations.
Meanwhile, Trump has lost his latest bid to throw out his New York hush money conviction, with the judge overseeing the case rejecting his attorneys’ conjecture that he is protected by “presidential immunity”.
The president-elect appears likely to enter the White House as a convicted felon, though it remains unclear when, or if, the justice will continue to postpone a sentencing date.
Trump meets TikTok CEO as platform fights US ban
In the days leading up to the meeting, Trump had expressed some degree of sympathy for the company, saying he had a “warm spot” for the app, and promising that he’d “take a look” at the ban.
Graig Graziosi17 December 2024 22:00
Republican report suggests Liz Cheney be criminally investigated because of work on Jan 6
Republicans released a 128-page report Tuesday which suggested that former GOP Rep. Liz Cheney be investigated for her work probing the January 6 Capitol riot.
The report looked at the “failures and politicization” of the now-dissolved January 6 Committee, claiming that President-elect Donald Trump was unfairly blamed for the attack.
“Speaker Pelosi’s multimillion-dollar Select Committee was a political weapon with a singular focus to deceive the public into blaming President Trump for the violence on January 6 and to tarnish the legacy of his first Presidency,” it says.
The conclusion argues that the FBI should investigate Cheney, claiming that her contact with witness Cassidy Hutchinson, a former Trump White House aide, amounted to witness tampering.
“January 6th showed Donald Trump for who is really is – a cruel and vindictive man who allowed violent attacks to continue against our Capitol and law enforcement officers while he watched television and refused for hours to instruct his supporters to stand down and leave,” Cheney said in a statement, according to The Hill.
She went on to note that “Chairman [Barry] Loudermilk’s (R-Ga.) ‘Interim Report’ intentionally disregards the truth and the Select Committee’s tremendous weight of evidence, and instead fabricates lies and defamatory allegations in an attempt to cover up what Donald Trump did. Their allegations do not reflect a review of the actual evidence, and are a malicious and cowardly assault on the truth. No reputable lawyer, legislator or judge would take this seriously.”
Gustaf Kilander17 December 2024 21:47
The rise and fall of Justin Trudeau as Canadian prime minister is on the brink
After nearly 10 years at the country’s helm, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is facing growing calls from his own party to resign.
Mr Trudeau’s latest crisis has been sparked by the sudden resignation of his finance minister Chrystia Freeland, amid a row over how best to handle US President-elect Donald Trump’s threatened trade tariffs.
Once the poster-boy for liberal politics, his popularity has waned and his approval rating has dipped below 30 per cent several times this year.
Rachel Clun17 December 2024 21:30
Trump formally clinches presidency with Electoral College win
Donald Trump has formally won the Electoral College and the presidency after Texas’ electors handed him the state’s 40 electoral votes Tuesday.
After Trump’s election win on November 5, his victory was formalized Tuesday as presidential electors gathered across the U.S.
It takes 270 electoral votes to win the Electoral College — Trump won 312 last month to Vice President Kamala Harris’s 226.
The votes of each state will be sent on to Congress next month, where Trump and Vice President-elect J.D. Vance will be declared the next president and vice president before they take office at noon on January 20.
Gustaf Kilander17 December 2024 20:55
Senators warn that Pete Hegseth’s hearings will echo Brett Kavanaugh’s with fervor from both sides
Gustaf Kilander17 December 2024 20:30
Trump insiders reveal candid details about Melania and Barron’s relationship
Incoming First Lady Melania Trump is devoted to ensuring her 18-year-old son, Barron Trump, is happy and healthy which will likely make her role in the White House less visible than other first ladies, insiders say.
“Melania worries about the hate in the country and how it falls on her son, who is innocent of any of this,” a social source told the magazine.
Ariana Baio17 December 2024 20:00
Comment: Why Elon Musk should get every cent of his $56bn Tesla pay package
The moment my children became interested in the US election was not when Taylor Swift declared her support for Kamala Harris, it was when Elon Musk appeared alongside Donald Trump.
He’s also the future, their future. They admire the Tesla – ‘faster than a motorbike from traffic lights’ one said to me recently. They can take or leave X, it’s not their network. And the space rocket reversing into a dock, as neatly as any car – that video has been replayed in our household countless times.
Chris Blackhurst17 December 2024 19:30
Why is tech giant SoftBank investing over $100 billion in the US?
Trump said the investments in building artificial intelligence infrastructure would create 100,000 jobs, twice the 50,000 promised when Son pledged $50 billion in U.S. investments after Trump’s victory in 2016.
Son, a founder and CEO of SoftBank Group, is known for making bold choices that sometimes pay big and sometimes don’t. SoftBank has investments in dozens of Silicon Valley startups, along with big companies like semiconductor design company Arm and Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba. The stock market rally and craze for AI has boosted the value of its assets, but it’s unclear whether its investments will create that many jobs.
Elaine Kurtenbach17 December 2024 19:00
‘We live to fight another day’
After losing the ranking member spot on the House Oversight Committee to Rep. Gerry Connolly, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wrote on BlueSky: “Tried my best. Sorry I couldn’t pull it through everyone – we live to fight another day.”
Gustaf Kilander17 December 2024 18:35