Trump supporters rally in Washington

Donald Trump supporters rallied in Washington on Saturday to push the discredited theory that fraud denied him rightful victory in the election, though turnout for the protest was uncertain as further results cemented the president's defeat.

Trump expressed his thanks and suggested he might "stop by and say hello" at rallies held under the banners of "Stop The Steal," "Million MAGA March" and "Women for America First".

Right-wing militia groups such as the Proud Boys also planned to hold rallies, prompting a large security presence in the capital to prevent clashes with separate anti-Trump events that were scheduled outside the Supreme Court.

"The whole system's rigged... in the way that the information is getting to the people, it's filtered through these channels that makes it so that the truth never actually gets out," said marcher Darion Schaublin, 26, who drove to Washington from Columbus, Ohio.

"There is a good chance... he is not going to have a second term - and I'm not sure of the legitimacy of that."

The final two undeclared states were called on Friday by US television networks - with Democrat challenger Joe Biden winning the former Republican stronghold of Georgia in an extremely close race, and Trump getting North Carolina.

As Trump refuses to concede defeat, far right groups plan show of support in Washington

Far right groups and other backers of US President Donald Trump plan to rally in Washington on Saturday in a public show of support for his unsubstantiated claim of widespread voting fraud in the 3 November election.

Trump defiant, but says of his future: 'who knows'

Donald Trump said on Friday that "time will tell" if he remains president, in a momentary slip of his unprecedented refusal to concede his election defeat and help Democrat Joe Biden prepare to take power.

GOP poll watchers not excluded from Michigan count: Witnesses

United States President Donald Trump’s campaign filed a new lawsuit in the state of Michigan on Wednesday, alleging its poll watchers – known as "challengers" – were blocked from witnessing the ballot count at a convention centre in Detroit on 4 November.

The legal challenge in Michigan, where Joe Biden won by 146 000 votes, also asked the court to stop the certification of any votes that were processed when challengers were "excluded" from observing the count at the TCF Centre.

In Michigan, an election official and a Democratic challenger who were at the TCF Centre on 4 November told Al Jazeera the Trump campaign's claims are false.

Christopher Thomas, senior adviser to the Detroit City Clerk, and Democrat challenger Khalilah Gaston, who both signed affidavits, said Republican challengers were in the room at all times – and that more Republican challengers were present than Democratic ones, in fact.

- Al Jazeera

President-elect Joe Biden has won 306 votes in the state-by-state Electoral College that decides who wins the White House, against 232 for Donald Trump, US media projected on Friday.

Biden solidified his victory over Trump in the US election with a victory in traditionally Republican-leaning Georgia, called in his favor by CNN, ABC and other networks.

Trump meanwhile claimed victory in North Carolina, CNN and NBC projected, putting his final tally at 232.

-AFP

The White House is planning for President Donald Trump to serve a second term despite his reelection loss, a top official said on Friday.

"We are moving forward here at the White House under the assumption that there will be a second Trump term," the outgoing president's trade advisor Peter Navarro said on Fox Business Network.

Trump has yet to concede nearly a week after US media announced that his Democratic challenger Joe Biden had defeated him in the 3 November presidential election.

The president has made few public appearances since then and launched legal challenges in several states, alleging election fraud, but without providing any proof.

US President Donald Trump laid out a detailed scenario in which he believes he can wrest an election victory from President-elect Joe Biden, declaring "Never bet against me.

"Trump, who has not conceded the race nor has spoken publicly since 5 November, described during a Thursday phone call with conservative Washington Examiner columnist Byron York how he sees recounts and litigation changing the outcome in his favour.

"We’re going to win Wisconsin," he told York, even though he is behind by just more than 20 000 votes out of nearly 3.3 million cast.

It is expected Trump will call for a recount there next week. In 2016, Trump won Wisconsin by 22 478 votes out of almost three million cast and a recount that year affected only 131 votes – in his favour.

Biden victory in Arizona puts Trump's longshot challenge further out of reach

President-elect Joe Biden cemented his US election victory by capturing the battleground state of Arizona late on Thursday, but the official transition to his administration remains stalled as President Donald Trump refuses to accept defeat.

Biden was projected to win Arizona after more than a week of vote counting from the 3 November election, Edison Research said.

He becomes only the second Democratic presidential candidate in seven decades to win the traditionally Republican state.

Biden's win in Arizona gives him 290 electoral votes in the state-by-state Electoral College that determines the White House winner.

On Saturday, Biden had already cleared the 270-vote threshold to win the election, setting him on course to be sworn in on 20 January.

Arizona's 11 additional electoral votes put any longshot challenge by Trump even further out of reach.

More world leaders than US Republicans congratulate Biden

Officials in the election battleground state of Pennsylvania on Thursday asked a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit brought by US President Donald Trump's campaign seeking to prevent the state from certifying its results in the vote for president.

In court filings in the US District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, lawyers for the Pennsylvania secretary of state and seven of the state's counties said the case made vague and unsupported allegations "on the basis of repeatedly-rejected legal theories and no evidence."

"This Court should see this lawsuit for what it is: a transparent and premeditated attack on our electoral system that broadly seeks to disenfranchise all Pennsylvania voters who legally cast ballots in this election," four of the counties said in a court filing.

Pennsylvania officials said they "administered a proper, fair, and secure election" and would vigorously defend the case. They also said that the plaintiffs lacked standing for their suit.President-elect Joe Biden, a Democrat, won the majority of the vote in all seven of Pennsylvania's counties cited in the lawsuit and is up more than 53 000 votes with an estimated 97% of ballots counted across the state.

Republican Trump's campaign said the "Democrat-majority counties" did not provide partisan election observers an opportunity to assess the processing of mail-in ballots, placed the observers too far from the tabulation of votes and allowed mail-in voters whose ballots were deficient to cast provisional ballots in what they say was a flouting of the state's electoral rules.

But Pennsylvania officials said the election observers were, in fact, allowed to assess the processing of mail-in ballots and that all of the state's counties were permitted to inform residents if their mailed-in ballots were deficient, even if it was not mandatory for them to do so.

Biden clinched the election on Saturday after media networks and Edison Research called him as the victor in Pennsylvania, putting him over the 270 electoral votes needed to win.

But Trump has refused to concede and has repeatedly and without evidence claimed there was widespread voter fraud. His campaign has filed a string of long-shot lawsuits in several battleground states.

Legal experts say the lawsuits have little chance of changing the outcome of the election. A senior Biden legal adviser has dismissed the litigation as "theatrics, not really lawsuits."

Pennsylvania is due to certify the election results on 23 November.

- Reuters

Twitter says flagged 300 000 'misleading' election tweets           

Twitter labelled 300 000 tweets related to the US presidential election as "potentially misleading" in the two weeks surrounding the vote, making up 0.2 percent of election-related posts, the company said Thursday.

The social network said the labels were issued between October 27 and November 11, one week before and after the US presidential election on 3 November - which Democrat Joe Biden won over incumbent Donald Trump.

Of the 300 000 flagged tweets, 456 were covered over by a warning message and had engagement features limited - users could not like, retweet or reply to the posts, said Vijaya Gadde, Twitter's head of legal, policy and trust and safety, in a blog post.

She estimated that 74 percent of people who saw the problematic tweets did so after they had been labeled as misleading or flagged with a warning message, and sharing of the posts, as a result, declined by about 29 percent.

During the election period, Twitter posted messages on American users' pages which were seen 389 million times that "reminded people that election results were likely to be delayed, and that voting by mail is safe and legitimate," Gadde added.

Nearly half of Trump's tweets were flagged by the platform in the days following the election, as the president claimed, without evidence, that he had won and that the process had been tainted by massive fraud.

- AFP

'No evidence' of lost or changed votes: US election officials

Senior US federal and state election officials said Thursday that there was "no evidence" that votes were lost or changed, or voting systems corrupted, in the presidential election.

The officials, responsible for election security across the country, rejected claims made by President Donald Trump and Republicans that fraud and lost ballots led to his loss to Democrat Joe Biden in last week's election.

"The November 3rd election was the most secure in American history," they said in a statement.

"There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised," they said.

"While we know there are many unfounded claims and opportunities for misinformation about the process of our elections, we can assure you we have the utmost confidence in the security and integrity of our elections, and you should too."

The statement was issued by the Election Infrastructure Government Coordinating Council, a public-private umbrella group under the primary federal election security body, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). It was signed by the heads of the National Association of State Election Directors and the National Association of Secretaries of State - the officials who manage elections at the state level - and by the chairman of the US Election Assistance Commission.

It came hours after Trump retweeted a baseless claim that an election equipment maker "deleted" 2.7 million votes for him nationwide and switched hundreds of thousand from him to Biden in Pennsylvania and other states. It was the latest in a series of bogus assertions Trump and Republicans have put forth in order to reject Biden's victory.

The company, Dominion Voting Systems, and the Pennsylvania Department of States flatly denied Trump's claims. The statement from the election security officials also came amid reports that Trump could fire the head of CISA, Chris Krebs, who has made a strong effort to stifle unsupported allegations of fraud that have surfaced while the votes have been counted around the country.

Despite that, rumours and conspiracy theories of a corrupted vote that allegedly "robbed" Trump have flooded the internet, and Republicans and the Trump campaign have filed multiple lawsuits around the country claiming irregularities.

So far none have been substantiated in court. The statement said that election officials across the country are currently "reviewing and double-checking" their state and local results prior to certifying the numbers.

"When states have close elections, many will recount ballots. All of the states with close results in the 2020 presidential race have paper records of each vote, allowing the ability to go back and count each ballot if necessary," the officials said.

- AFP

Biden rekindles American Dream for Africa's LGBT+ refugees

Joe Biden's electoral victory has revived the American Dream for scores of African LGBT+ refugees who fled persecution at home only to languish in Kenya when President Donald Trump denied them a fresh start in the United States.

Trump is due to leave office in January, with his Democratic successor promising to open the door wider to migrants and lead a more LGBT+-friendly administration.

Under his presidency, Trump lowered the cap on refugee admissions every year, culminating in an all-time low of 15 000 for the fiscal year 2021.

EXPLAINER | Why Trump's lawsuits are unlikely to change the outcome of the election

US President Donald Trump's litigation campaign to discredit President-elect Joe Biden's victory is very unlikely to change the outcome of the election and is mostly about politics and fundraising, according to election law experts.

Trump has repeatedly made unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud. He claims he won the 3 November election and accused Democrats of trying to "steal" it from him.

The Trump campaign has said it is fighting for a "free, fair, and fully transparent election in which every legal ballot is counted and every illegal ballot is not counted".

EXPLAINER | Why recounts rarely change the results of US elections

President Donald Trump hopes a recount of votes will help keep President-elect Joe Biden out of the White House, but as common as recounts may be, especially for state and local candidates, only three in the last two decades have changed the result and none for a presidential election.

Here's how recounts work and the impact they have had:

China sends 'congratulations' to Joe Biden on US election win

China congratulated US President-elect Joe Biden on Friday nearly a week after he was declared winner of the American election.US-China ties have grown increasingly strained in recent years under the administration of incumbent Donald Trump, and relations are as icy as at any time since formal ties were established four decades ago.

"We respect the choice of the American people. We express our congratulations to Mr Biden and Ms Harris," said foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin at a regular press briefing, referring to incoming vice president Kamala Harris.

Wang said China understands "the result of the US election will be determined in accordance with US laws and procedures".

China was previously among a handful of major countries including Russia and Mexico that had not congratulated the president-elect, with Beijing commenting earlier this week simply that it had "noticed Mr Biden declared he is the winner".

Since US media called the presidential race, Trump has not conceded to Biden as is traditional practice once a winner is projected.

Trump's four years in the White House have been marked by a costly trade war between the two powers, with Beijing and Washington also sparring over blame for the Covid-19 pandemic and China's human rights record in Xinjiang and Hong Kong.

Under his "America First" banner, Trump has portrayed China as the greatest threat to the United States and global democracy.

- Reuters

Biden takes Arizona, cementing presidential win despite Trump's refusal to concede

President-elect Joe Biden will win the battleground state of Arizona, Edison Research projected on Thursday, dealing another blow to President Donald Trump's struggling effort to overturn the results of the 3 November presidential election.

Biden's win in Arizona gives the Democrat 290 electoral votes in the state-by-state Electoral College that determines the winner, more than the 270 needed to claim victory.

Biden is also winning the popular vote by more than 5.2 million votes, or 3.4 percentage points.

- Reuters

Since US media declared Joe Biden's White House victory on Saturday, President Donald Trump has refused to concede and repeatedly made baseless claims of election fraud.

Trump's team has mounted legal challenges in at least five key states yet experts see the possibility of the courts overturning the result of the vote as vanishingly small. And a manual recount ordered in Georgia is unlikely to overturn Biden's slim lead.

Here is an update nine days from Election Day on how long the vote can be disputed and whether Biden's victory is at risk:

Trump seen, not heard and files new election lawsuit

 - US President Donald Trump laid a ceremonial wreath at Arlington cemetery in commemoration of the United States' Veterans Day.

 - The president avoided speaking to reporters but kept up his tweeting, claiming "a mountain of corruption & dishonesty" in the US election.

 - President-elect Joe Biden laid his own wreath at a memorial in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

The Trump administration is reportedly withholding a stack of messages from foreign leaders to Biden

 - The State Department has several messages for president-elect Joe Biden from other world leaders, but the Trump administration is preventing access to them as President Donald Trump refuses to acknowledge Biden's win in the 2020 election, CNN reported on Wednesday.

 - Biden has independently been in contact with other foreign leaders, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, since being projected as president-elect.

 - The State Department typically supports international relations for the president-elect, "which is why many countries began sending messages to State over the weekend," according to the CNN report.

 - The president and others in his circle, including State Secretary Mike Pompeo, have refused to acknowledge Biden as president-elect.

 - When asked about the election results and the transition of presidential power on Tuesday, Pompeo jokingly replied, "There will be a smooth transition to a second Trump administration."

Republican Georgia secretary of state says no sign of widespread fraud in vote count

Georgia's Republican Secretary of State said on Wednesday there was no sign yet of widespread fraud in his state's vote count, where Democratic president-elect Joe Biden currently has a 14 000 vote lead over President Donald Trump.

Brad Raffensperger, in an interview with CNN, said he has ordered a hand recount because of the closeness of the vote count, but he believed votes had so far been tallied accurately. Biden's current lead, with nearly all votes counted, is 0.3%.

Asked about voter fraud, Raffensperger said: "We have ongoing investigations but we have not seen something widespread."

Upset and not accepting election results, Trump appears to have forgotten he still has to govern

 - US President Donald Trump appears to be neglecting his duties and has mostly been out of sight for the past week. 

 - Since losing the election, he's refused to concede to president-elect Joe Biden and is falsely alleging fraud.

 - Trump has not addressed the growing Covid-19 outbreak and other national concerns.

(PHOTO: Getty Images)

Biden announces long-time aide Ron Klain as White House chief of staff

US president-elect Joe Biden on Wednesday announced he has chosen Ron Klain, a seasoned Democratic operative, as his chief of staff, his first public personnel choice for the White House.

"Ron has been invaluable to me over the many years that we have worked together," Biden said in a statement on Klain, who also served as the Democrat's first chief of staff when he became vice president in 2009.

"His deep, varied experience and capacity to work with people all across the political spectrum is precisely what I need in a White House chief of staff as we confront this moment of crisis and bring our country together again," Biden said.

Klain, 59, also worked with Biden when he was chairperson of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Afterwards he served as chief of staff to vice president Al Gore.

Under president Barack Obama, Klain coordinated the White House response to the Ebola crisis in 2014.

 - AFP

Trump presses on with uphill legal struggle hoping to overturn Biden victory

President Donald Trump's campaign on Wednesday took another step in its long-shot legal strategy to upend his election loss with a Michigan lawsuit while Georgia announced a recount and President-elect Joe Biden worked on laying the foundation of his administration.

The Republican president's team went to federal court to try to block Michigan, a US Midwestern battleground state that he won in 2016 but lost to Biden in media projections, from certifying the 3 November election results. Trump trailed by roughly 148 000 votes, or 2.6 percentage points, in unofficial Michigan vote totals, according to Edison Research.

The lawsuit made allegations of voting misconduct, with the focus on the Democratic stronghold of Wayne County, which includes Detroit.

Jake Rollow, a spokesperson for the Michigan Department of State, said the Trump campaign was promoting false claims to erode public confidence in the election.

"It does not change the truth: Michigan's elections were conducted fairly, securely, transparently, and the results are an accurate reflection of the will of the people," Rollow said in a statement.

 - REUTERS

Biden reassures US allies in calls with leaders of Japan, South Korea, Australia

In their first calls with Joe Biden since the US election, the leaders of Japan, South Korea and Australia on Thursday reaffirmed plans to form close ties with the president-elect to tackle issues including climate change and regional security.

The three key Asian allies - Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, South Korean President Moon Jae-in and Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison - join other global leaders in recognising the Democratic challenger's 3 November victory over incumbent Donald Trump, who has so far refused to concede.

- Reuters

Georgia's top election official on Wednesday said the state will conduct a recount of all paper ballots cast in the 3 November presidential election.

"Mathematically, you actually have to do a full hand-by-hand recount of all because the margin is so close," Georgia's Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said at a news conference.

"We want to start this before the week is up."

President Donald Trump will win Alaska, CNN projects.

Alaska, which carries three electoral votes, also went to Trump in 2016.

CNN PROJECTION: Donald Trump will win Alaska https://t.co/FhzRTNfNOI #CNNElection pic.twitter.com/hHQyy3MM55

— CNN (@CNN) November 11, 2020

'These are dictator moves': Defence officials alarmed as Trump installs more loyalists at the Pentagon

President Trump is continuing to remove senior defence officials and replace them with loyalists, creating growing alarm in the Pentagon that his rapid overhaul of key staff could undermine national security.

Since Trump fired Secretary of Defence Mark Esper on Monday, three other Defence Department officials have either resigned or been sacked.

Acting Under Secretary of Defence for Policy James Anderson quit on Tuesday after clashes with the White House over its attempts to insert controversial figures into top Pentagon positions.

Anderson was replaced by retired US Army Brig Anthony Tata, an ally of Trump and regular guest on Fox News.

Biden plans move into White House as Trump clings to hope

US President-elect Joe Biden will further lay the groundwork for his new administration on Wednesday as President Donald Trump pursues a flurry of longshot lawsuits challenging the election results in an effort to cling to power.

Trump has declined to concede, instead lodging unsupported charges of election fraud that have gained little traction.

Judges so far have tossed out lawsuits in Michigan and Georgia brought by Trump's campaign, and legal experts say the litigation has little chance of changing the outcome of the 3 November election.

Officials say no evidence of fraud, irregularities in US election - report

Election officials in several states in the US have claimed no evidence of fraud has been detected, according to a recent report by the New York Times.

Contacted by The Times, top election officials across the country said the election process was deemed a success.

President Donald Trump has repeatedly refused to accept the results of the 3 November election, claiming without evidence that there was widespread voting fraud involved in the process and that the election was stolen from him. 

Trump along with his campaign have filed numerous lawsuits in key swing states and asked courts to issue injunctions to stop the certification of the results, AFP reported.

According to the report, The Times reached out to senior election officials in every state to find out whether any evidence of illegal voting had been suspected. The Times received direct response from officials in 45 states and spoke to other statewide officials and secretaries of state in the remaining states.  

"There’s a great human capacity for inventing things that aren’t true about elections," Frank LaRose, a Republican who serves as Ohio’s secretary of state, told The Times.

"The conspiracy theories and rumours and all those things run rampant. For some reason, elections breed that type of mythology."

Democrat Steve Simon, Minnesota’s secretary of state, said: "I don’t know of a single case where someone argued that a vote counted when it shouldn’t have or didn’t count when it should. There was no fraud."

'Nothing's going to stop' transition of power in US, Biden says

President-elect Joe Biden said on Tuesday that nothing would stop the transfer of power in the US government, even as President Donald Trump says without evidence the election was marred by fraud and some of his Republican allies back probes.

Senate Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has backed Trump's right to launch a legal challenge to Biden's victory in several battleground states such as Pennsylvania. Some senior Republicans sought to sow doubt about the outcome.

Mexico's ambassador to US calls Biden 'prospective' President-elect           

Mexico's ambassador to the United States on Tuesday called Joe Biden the "prospective" President-elect, in what could indicate a slight shift in position after the Mexican government said it was too soon to recognise a winner of the US election. Ambassador Martha Barcena published a series of talking points on Twitter titled "Position of the Government of Mexico" containing the new language. It was not immediately clear if the choice of words signalled a shift in Mexico's official stance.

The Democrat former vice president secured the presidency by winning Pennsylvania on Saturday, but Republican President Donald Trump has so far refused to concede, and is pursuing lawsuits in several states in a bid to hold on to power citing "illegal" ballots. State officials have said there were no significant irregularities in the 3 November election.

The Mexican foreign ministry did not offer specific comments on the ambassador's statement, with a ministry official saying it had been issued by the embassy. In response to questions from Twitter users, Barcena later gave several synonyms for the word "prospective".

"Prospective can be translated in several ways, presumed is one of them, virtual would be another, probable, eventual, future," she said in a Tweet. So far, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has held back from congratulating Biden for winning the election even as government leaders in many countries sent their best wishes.

"This principled position underlines the respect for the US political system and institutions and for both the Democratic and Republican parties as well as for President Donald Trump and prospective President-elect Joseph Biden," Barcena said in the document.

"Mexico is ready to engage in a constructive spirit with the future US administration, based on the enduring ties of friendship and neighbourliness that bind our two nations."

Lopez Obrador has reiterated he would not recognise the election winner until legal disputes were resolved, but said he had "no problem" with Biden.

Reuters

Biden brands Trump's refusal to concede an 'embarrassment'

President-elect Joe Biden on Tuesday called President Donald Trump's refusal to concede his election loss an "embarrassment" but dismissed the standoff as unimportant.

"I just think it's an embarrassment, quite frankly," Biden said when asked what he thinks about Trump's refusal to acknowledge defeat in the 3 November election.

"How can I say this tactfully? I think it will not help the president's legacy," Biden told reporters in his hometown of Wilmington, Delaware.

A week after the US election, Trump remained shut up in the White House, pushing an alternate reality that he is about to win and filing lawsuits alleging voter fraud that so far have been backed up by only the flimsiest evidence.

Biden, meanwhile, mostly ignored Trump.

Trump campaign presses legal attack on election, as postal worker recants ballot fraud claims

WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump's campaign said on Tuesday it would file a lawsuit to stop the battleground state of Michigan from certifying its election results, as congressional Democrats said a witness who had raised accusations of ballot tampering in Pennsylvania recanted his allegations.

The Michigan lawsuit will request that election results in the state not be certified until it can be verified that votes were cast lawfully, Trump campaign attorney Matt Morgan told reporters on a conference call.

It was the latest in a string of lawsuits the Trump campaign has filed since Democrat Joe Biden captured the presidency. Biden's victory in the 3 November election was propelled by wins in Michigan and Pennsylvania.

Trump has repeatedly claimed, without evidence, that there was widespread voting fraud.

Judges have already tossed lawsuits in Michigan and Georgia brought by the campaign, and legal experts say Trump's litigation has little chance of changing the outcome of the election.

 - REUTERS

Trump to make first public appearance since election called for Biden

US President Donald Trump will visit Arlington National Cemetery on Wednesday, the White House said, in what would be the president's first public appearance since the US presidential contest was called for his Democratic rival Joe Biden over the weekend.

Trump and first lady Melania Trump will visit the cemetery to mark Veterans Day, White House spokesperson Judd Deere told Reuters.

Since Election Day on 3 November he has made few public appearances and seems to have all but shelved normal presidential duties.

A week after losing the US election, President Donald Trump remained shut up in the White House on Tuesday, pushing an alternate reality that he is about to win and blocking Democrat Joe Biden's ability to prepare the transition.

"WE WILL WIN!" the Republican president tweeted, adding: "WE ARE MAKING BIG PROGRESS. RESULTS START TO COME IN NEXT WEEK. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!"

The message referred to Trump's unprecedented decision for a US president to dispute a lost election, refusing to concede to his opponent and mounting a string of flimsy court challenges in states where Biden won.

Several suits have been thrown out almost immediately and the remainder clearly have no chance of overturning Biden's slim but convincing victories in multiple states.

US elections: Pandor says Trump uncertainty unsettling for world

International Relations and Cooperation Minister Naledi Pandor said the uncertainty in the US as President Donald Trump refuses to concede losing the elections was unsettling for the world.

In an interview with News24, Pandor said she believed President-elect Joe Biden has his work cut out for him following the bruising election last week.

Republicans back Trump's right to challenge Biden's victory

President Donald Trump will push ahead on Tuesday with longshot legal challenges to his election loss, as Republican US lawmakers and state officials defended his right to do so.

Pennsylvania Republican state lawmakers called for an audit of results in the state that on Saturday enabled Democrat Joe Biden to secure the more than 270 votes in the Electoral College he needed to win the presidency.

Trump has made baseless claims that fraud was marring the results. The count has been delayed by a surge in mail-in ballots prompted by voters' desire to avoid infection from the coronavirus pandemic.

Judges have tossed out lawsuits in Michigan and Georgia, and experts say Trump's legal efforts have little chance of changing the election result.

Trump campaign adviser Bossie tests positive for Covid-19 -source

The adviser charged with leading President Donald Trump's post-election legal challenges, David Bossie, has tested positive for Covid-19, a source familiar with the matter said on Monday.

Bossie, a prominent conservative activist who leads advocacy group Citizens United, tested positive on Sunday, joining White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and Housing Secretary Ben Carson as victims of the latest coronavirus outbreak to touch the White House. Bossie was picked to lead the legal challenges to Trump's election loss.

- Reuters

OPINION | The issue of land in SA: Will Biden speak up for his ‘favourites’ again?

Gabriel Crouse asks whether US president-elect will speak on the issue of contentious issue of land expropriation without compensation like he did on the issue of apartheid in 1986.