Big win for Joe Biden as Democrats land outright majority in the US Senate, NBC News projects
Democrat Raphael Warnock has been re-elected to the US Senate in a crucial win for President Joe Biden, NBC News has projected.
His expected victory gives Democrats an outright majority in the Senate after two years under a 50-50 divide, with Vice President Kamala Harris casting tie-breaking votes.
Mr Warnock defeated Republican rival Herschel Walker during the Georgia race – a former NFL star.
A run-off election was triggered because neither candidate had won an outright majority during the midterm elections last month.
Reverend Raphael Warnock celebrates with supporters
In his victory speech, Mr Warnock told supporters: “After a hard-fought campaign – or should I say campaigns – it is my honour to utter the four most powerful words ever spoken in a democracy: The people have spoken.”
Mr Biden called him to offer his congratulations.
He tweeted: “Tonight Georgia voters stood up for our democracy, rejected Ultra MAGAism, and most importantly: sent a good man back to the Senate. Here’s to six more years.”
Mr Walker, an American football legend in the 1980s, was unable to overcome a bevy of damaging allegations, including claims he paid for two former girlfriends’ abortions.
Former NFL star Herschel Walker
A multimillionaire businessman, he inflated his philanthropic activities and business achievements, including claiming his company employed hundreds of people and grossed tens of millions of dollars in sales annually, even though records indicate he had eight employees and averaged about $1.5m (£1.2m) a year.
He has suggested he has worked as a law enforcement officer and was a college (university) graduate, though he has done neither.
His Senate run was endorsed by former president Donald Trump.
On the campaign, Mr Warnock, the state’s first black senator, promoted his Senate accomplishments, touting a provision he sponsored to cap insulin costs for low income patients, and deals on infrastructure and maternal healthcare.
Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer said Mr Warnock’s victory was one “against MAGA Republican extremist policies”.
The closing weeks of the election period grew increasingly bitter. Mr Walker labelled Mr Warnock – senior pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia’s capital – as a “hypocrite” and servile to President Joe Biden.
Although a Democrat, Mr Warnock had been attempting to distance himself from Mr Biden, whose approval ratings have lagged as inflation in the US remains high.
Supporter of Walker’s at the Republican watch party. Pic: Associated Press
The Democrats’ new outright majority in the Senate does not mean an end to divided government, as the Republicans narrowly flipped House control in recent midterms, but it does mean they will now hold control of powerful committees.
The man accused of killing right-wing influencer Charlie Kirk has appeared in person at court for the first time.
Tyler Robinson, 22, from Utah, is charged with aggravated murder in relation to the shooting of Kirk on the Utah Valley University campus in Orem.
Charlie Kirk pictured in December 2024. Pic: Reuters
Video of the incident showed Kirk, 31, and a staunch ally of Donald Trump, reaching up with his right hand after a gunshot was heard as blood came out from the left side of his neck. He died shortly after.
Prosecutors plan to seek the death penalty.
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How the Charlie Kirk shooting unfolded
On Wednesday’s appearance at Fourth District Court in Provo, Utah, Robinson arrived in court with restraints on his wrists and ankles and wearing a dress shirt, tie and slacks.
Read more: What we can learn about suspect from charging document
According to the Associated Press, he smiled at family members sitting in the front row of the courtroom, where his mother teared up and wiped her eyes with a tissue.
He made previous court appearances via video or audio feed from jail.
Pic: AP
The shooting happened during Kirk’s “prove me wrong” series, which saw the father of two visit campuses and debate contentious subjects; in this case, he was discussing mass shootings.
Prosecutors say the bullet which struck Kirk’s neck “passed closely to several other individuals”, including the person questioning him as part of the event.
President Trump comforts Charlie Kirk’s widow Erika at his memorial service in Arizona in September. Pic: Reuters
A charging document about Robinson from September includes incriminating texts sent between the alleged shooter and his roommate after Kirk’s death.
Read more from Sky News:
Analysis: The real reason for Trump’s Venezuela exploits
FBI release Luigi Mangione ‘to-do list’ before alleged assassination
Judge Tony Graf also heard arguments on Wednesday about whether cameras and media should be allowed in the courtroom, with Robinson’s lawyers and the Utah County Sheriff’s Office asking for them to be banned.
Mr Kirk’s widow, Erika Kirk, has called for full transparency and said “we deserve to have cameras in there”.
The judge has already made allowances to protect Robinson’s presumption of innocence before a trial, agreeing that the case has drawn “extraordinary” public attention
US
US won’t ‘stand by and watch sanctioned vessels’, warns White House after tanker seized off Venezuela
The US will not “stand by and watch sanctioned vessels sail the seas”, the White House has warned, after American forces seized an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela.
Spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt told reporters she would not speak about future ship seizures, but said the US would continue to follow Donald Trump‘s sanction policies.
“We’re not going to stand by and watch sanctioned vessels sail the seas with black market oil, the proceeds of which will fuel narcoterrorism of rogue and illegitimate regimes around the world,” she said.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt briefing the media. Pic: Reuters
The US is gearing up to intercept more ships, six sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.
One source said several more sanctioned tankers had been identified by the US for potential seizure.
Two of the people said the US Justice Department and Homeland Security had been planning the seizures for months.
American forces were monitoring vessels in Venezuelan ports and waiting for them to sail into international waters before taking action, one source added.
It comes after a crude oil tanker, named Skipper, on Wednesday was stormed by US forces executing a seizure warrant.
The ship left Venezuela’s main oil port of Jose between 4 and 5 December after loading about 1.1 million barrels of oil, according to satellite information analysed by TankerTrackers.com and internal shipping data from Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA.
A still from a video of US forces seizing a Venezuelan oil tanker, posted by Pam Bondi. Pic: X/@AGPamBondi
The real reason for Donald Trump’s Venezuela exploits
Donald Trump wants you to know that there is one leading reason why he is bearing down militarily on Venezuela: drugs.
It is, he has said repeatedly, that country’s part in the production and smuggling of illegal narcotics into America that lies behind the ratcheting up of forces in the Caribbean in recent weeks. But what if there’s something else going on here too? What if this is really all about oil?
In one respect this is clearly preposterous. After all, the United States is, by a country mile, the world’s biggest oil producer. Venezuela is a comparative minnow these days, the 21st biggest producer in the world, its output having been depressed under the Chavez and then Maduro regimes. Why should America care about Venezuelan oil?
For the answer, one needs to spend a moment – strange as this will sound – contemplating the chemistry of oil…
US attorney general Pam Bondi said on X, formerly Twitter, that the ship was “used to transport sanctioned oil from Venezuela and Iran”.
“For multiple years, the oil tanker has been sanctioned by the United States due to its involvement in an illicit oil shipping network supporting foreign terrorist organisations,” she added.
Ms Leavitt said that “the United States does intend to get the oil” that was onboard the vessel.
The government in Caracas, led by President Nicolas Maduro, branded the ship’s seizure a “blatant theft” and an “act of international piracy”.
Read more:
Analysis: Is this what the beginning of a war looks like?
US-Venezuela crisis explained
Why tanker seized by US was ‘spoofing’ its location
The US has been ramping up the pressure on Mr Maduro and is reportedly considering trying to oust him. It has piled on sanctions, carried out a military build-up in the southern Caribbean, and launched attacks on suspected drug vessels from Venezuela.
Now America has issued new sanctions targeting Franqui Flores, Efrain Antonio Campo Flores, and Carlos Erik Malpica Flores – three nephews of Mr Maduro’s wife, Cilia Flores – as well as on six crude oil tankers and six shipping companies linked to them.
Skipper. Credit: TankerTrackers
By seizing oil tankers, the US is threatening Mr Maduro’s government’s main revenue source – oil exports.
The sources said the US was focusing on what’s been called the shadow fleet – tankers transporting sanctioned oil to China, the biggest buyer of crude from Venezuela and Iran.
They said one shipper had already temporarily suspended three voyages transporting six million barrels of Venezuelan crude oil.
“The cargoes were just loaded and were about to start sailing to Asia,” a source said.
“Now the voyages are cancelled and tankers are waiting off the Venezuelan coast as it’s safer to do that.”
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