Monday, December 23, 2024

Trump formally secures Electoral College win: Live updates

Must read

Donald Trump says ‘something strange is going on’ with drone sightings

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 head 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, headed 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.

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

Pennsylvania state senator mistakes Star Wars prop for drone

Gustaf Kilander17 December 2024 21:00

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

TikTok ban in numbers: Why the block could change the world even more than we thought

After amassing more than 170 million users in the country in less than seven years, TikTok is now facing an outright ban in the US.

On 19 January, just one day before Donald Trump is set to be inaugurated as president, the country is set to become the latest to completely ban the Chinese-owned app.

TikTok’s parent company ByteDance is still attempting to reverse the ruling, and has three potential ways to avoid the nationwide ban. The first is to ask the US Supreme Court to intervene, which it did on Monday. The second is to convince Trump to reverse the decision when he comes into office, with TikTok chief executive Shou Zi Chew reportedly meeting with the incoming president on Monday. And the third – though this appears increasingly unlikely – ByteDance can abide by the ruling and sell TikTok to a US-based owner.

Anthony Cuthbertson17 December 2024 18:30

Live: Immigration activists call on Congress to oppose Trump deportation plans

Gustaf Kilander17 December 2024 18:07

Latest article