Donald Trump will return to the White House after claiming a stunning US election victory over Democrat opponent Kamala Harris.
Mr Trump, who previously served as president between 2017 and 2021, picked up his first swing state after he was declared the winner of North Carolina.
Around an hour later he was declared the winner of Georgia – taking back the state he narrowly lost to Joe Biden in 2020.
He was projected as the winner of Pennsylvania shortly afterwards – touted as the most pivotal of the seven battleground states.
Mr Trump’s victory was confirmed when he surpassed 270 electoral college votes by winning the state of Wisconsin, and he remains on course to claim all seven swing states.
Ms Harris’ aides had earlier said she wouldn’t speak until later on Wednesday as her path to victory narrowed and defeat seemed certain.
The lectern where her supporters hoped she would be delivering a historic victory speech at Howard University in Washington DC was instead seen protected with rain covers.
Meanwhile, Mr Trump headed to Palm Beach in Florida to declare victory to a crowd of his supporters hours before the election result was confirmed.
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2:04
Trump declares victory
Mr Trump told his supporters: “We’re going to help our country heal.
“We have a country that needs help, and it needs help very badly. We’re going to fix our borders. We’re going to fix everything about our country and we’ve made history for a reason tonight.”
During a speech where he doubled down on his promise to crack down on illegal immigration, Mr Trump promised those who gathered a “golden age of America”.
He added: “This is a magnificent victory for the American people that will allow us to ‘make America great again’.”
The president-elect briefly paused his speech as the crowd chanted “USA, USA, USA!”.
Mr Trump continued: “America has given us an unprecedented and powerful mandate. We have taken back control of the Senate. Wow.
“Wow. That’s great.”
He added that the Senate races in Montana, Nevada, Texas, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania were “all won by the MAGA (Make America Great Again) movement”.
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4:33
What happened on results night?
Mr Trump then invited his running mate JD Vance to speak, with the incoming vice president saying: “I think that we just witnessed the greatest political comeback in the history of the United States of America.
“And under President Trump’s leadership, we’re never going to stop fighting for you, for your dreams, for the future of your children.
“And after the greatest political comeback in American history, we’re going to lead the greatest economic comeback in American history.”
Once the vote counting was under way, three Trump campaign officials told Sky News’ US partner network NBC News that the mood at his Mar-a-Lago resort was moving away from “cautious optimism” towards “optimism”.
Image: Donald Trump reads over his speech ahead of addressing the crowd in Florida. Pic: Eric Trump
Zelenskyy and Netanyahu congratulate Trump
World leaders began to congratulate Mr Trump before his victory had even been confirmed, with the election result set to have a sweeping impact on global politics.
British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said: “Congratulations President-elect Trump on your historic election victory. I look forward to working with you in the years ahead… I know that the UK-US special relationship will continue to prosper on both sides of the Atlantic for years to come.”
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he looked forward to an “era of a strong United States of America under President Trump’s decisive leadership”.
He added: “I appreciate President Trump’s commitment to the ‘peace through strength’ approach in global affairs. This is exactly the principle that can practically bring just peace in Ukraine closer.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu congratulated Mr Trump on “history’s greatest comeback!”, while senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri said that the incoming president will be tested on his statements that he can stop the war in Gaza within hours.
It came as European Commission Ursula von der Leyen says she “warmly” congratulated Mr Trump, while NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said he is looking forward to working with him to “advance peace through strength”.
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The race initially appeared neck and neck as Americans went to the polls, but Mr Trump pulled ahead as result predictions came in from solidly red states including Florida, Texas and Alabama throughout the night.
Ms Harris’s support came from her party’s strongholds on the east and west coasts in states like New York, Delaware, and California.
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‘Thank you so much for all your support, it was hard work, I know…’, Melania says after voting
While Mr Trump prepared to address his supporters in Palm Beach, the crowd at Ms Harris’s watch party at Howard University in Washington DC began to file out after midnight on Wednesday.
Ms Harris did not speak at the party. Cedric Richmond, co-chairman of the Harris campaign, spoke instead, telling the crowd there were still votes to count and states to be called.
“We will continue overnight to fight to make sure that every vote is counted. That every voice has spoken,” he said. “So you won’t hear from the vice president tonight, but you will hear from her tomorrow. She will be back here tomorrow.”
US President Donald Trump has called for the reopening of notorious prison Alcatraz.
In a post on his social media site Truth Social, Mr Trump said America had been “plagued by vicious, violent, and repeat criminal offenders”.
He added that when the United States was “a more serious nation” it “did not hesitate to lock up the most dangerous criminals”.
“That is why, today, I am directing the Bureau of Prisons, together with the Department of Justice, FBI, and Homeland Security, to reopen a substantially enlarged and rebuilt Alcatraz, to house America’s most ruthless and violent offenders,” he wrote.
Mr Trump said the reopening of the San Francisco prison would “serve as a symbol of law, order, and justice”.
Image: US President Donald Trump speaking to reporters on Sunday. Pic: AP
Alcatraz was infamously inescapable and in the 29 years it was open, 36 men attempted 14 separate escapes, according to the FBI.
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Nearly all of them were caught or did not survive the attempt at escaping.
The prison housed some of America’s most notorious criminals, including Al Capone and George Kelly.
It has also been the subject of a number of films, including The Rock, starring Sean Connery and Nicolas Cage.
Image: Alcatraz Island. File pic: AP
Alcatraz Island, which is surrounded by strong ocean currents and cold Pacific waters, is now a major tourist site, operated by the National Park Service.
The prison’s closure in 1963 was attributed to crumbling infrastructure and high repair costs.
A spokesperson for the Bureau of Prisons said it would “comply with all presidential orders”.
The Bureau of Prisons currently has 16 high-security prisons, including its maximum-security facility in Florence, Colorado, and a facility in Terre Haute, Indiana, which is home to the federal death chamber.
The United States’ federal law enforcement agency has been the subject of increased scrutiny in recent years after Jeffrey Epstein‘s suicide at a federal jail in New York City in 2019.
A woman in the US who has been missing since 1962 has been found “alive and well”, authorities have said.
Audrey Backeberg left her home in Reedsburg, Wisconsin, in July that year when she was 20 years old, Sauk County Sheriff’s Office said.
Investigators pursued numerous leads over the years but the case eventually went cold.
However, during a review of cold cases earlier this year, a detective reassessed all the case files and evidence, and re-interviewed several witnesses – and found Ms Backeberg.
The 82-year-old was “alive and well” – living outside of the state of Wisconsin, the sheriff’s office said.
Ms Backeberg was married and had two children when she disappeared on 7 July 1962, according to the Wisconsin Missing Persons Advocacy organisation.
She left her home to pick up her salary but never returned, causing her husband to ask family members where she was.
Shortly afterwards their 14-year-old babysitter claimed she and Ms Backeberg had hitchhiked to Wisconsin’s capital city Madison and then caught a bus to Indianapolis, Indiana.
The teenager said when she arrived she became nervous and wanted to go home, while Ms Backeberg refused to return and was last seen walking near a bus stop.
Ms Backeberg’s marriage was troubled and there were allegations of abuse, the Wisconsin Missing Persons Advocacy organisation said, with a criminal complaint having been filed days before she went missing.
Her relatives insisted she would never abandon her children, the organisation added, and her husband passed a polygraph test and maintained his innocence.
Mr Hanson said Ms Backeberg may have left home due to marital issues, but it was unclear why she had stayed away for so long.
He said he had promised to keep their conversation private.
“I think she just was removed and, you know, moved on from things and kind of did her own thing and led her life,” he said.
“She sounded happy. Confident in her decision. No regrets.”
Sauk County Sheriff’s Office said Ms Backeberg made the choice to leave and her disappearance “was not the result of any criminal activity or foul play”.
Donald Trump has posted an AI-generated image of himself dressed in papal regalia on his Truth Social platform – just 11 days after the death of Pope Francis.
Uploaded onto his account early on Saturday morning, it shows the US president with a large gold cross on a chain around his neck.
From there, it was published, without comment or explanation, on the White House X and Instagram accounts and, though it drew fierce criticism, it was liked more than 100,000 times.
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It comes just a few days after the world leader joked that he’d like to be the pontiff.
Last week, he was asked by reporters on the White House lawn who he would like to succeed Francis and he replied: “I’d like to be Pope. That would be my number one choice.”
He went on to say that he did not have a preference, but there was a cardinal in New York who was “very good”.
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0:19
‘I’d like to be pope’
Mr Trump was quickly accused of mocking Pope Francis’sdeath, but, by noon, UK time, the post had been liked more than 58,000 times on Instagram.
User comments, however, were mostly negative, with one saying that the image “isn’t funny. It’s not satire. And it’s not harmless”.
Another simply called it “disgusting”, while other reactions included “disturbing”, “disrespectful” and “offensive”.
On X, where the picture was liked more than 78,000 times, a user commented that Mr Trump was “making a mockery of the pious”, while another judged it “not a wise decision”.
The Argentinian, who became pope in 2013, died on Easter Monday at the age of 88 due to a stroke and heart failure.
Last weekend, the president was criticised for wearing a non-traditional blue suit for Francis’s Vatican funeral and chewing gum during the ceremony.
However, his meeting in St Peter’s Basilica with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy before the outdoor mass got under way was dubbed “Pope Francis’s miracle” by members of the clergy.
Image: Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy met in St Peter’s Basilica. Pic: Ukrainian Presidential Press Office
Mr Trump’s own religious views have long been a matter of speculation.
He was raised as a Presbyterian and publicly identified with it for most of his adult life, before, in October 2020, he renounced it and said he now considered himself a non-denominational Christian.
Many have questioned the depth of his faith, but that hasn’t stopped him appealing to conservative Christians and the Christian right, particularly evangelicals, some of whom have helped him get elected twice.
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Earlier this year, Mr Trump shared a bizarre AI-generated video on his Truth Social platform showcasing what appeared to be a vision of Gaza under his proposed plan.
The footage showed the area transformed into a Middle Eastern paradise with exotic beaches, Dubai-style skyscrapers, luxury yachts and people partying – and featured Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Elon Musk.