Votes are still being counted in the US election, meaning the race is not yet won – but Donald Trump is just a handful of electoral votes from victory.
Overnight developments have thrilled Republicans, with Mr Trump going well ahead in the race for the magic number of 270 electoral college votes to win.
While the fight isn’t officially over yet for Kamala Harris– her opponent no longer needs the four remaining key battleground states to win, and he’s already claimed victory.
Here’s the story of the night…
Trump wins first three swing states
North Carolina, Georgiaand Pennsylvania – three of seven critical battleground states – have been called in favour of Donald Trump by Sky News’ US partner network NBC News.
North Carolina was the first battleground win of the election, giving Mr Trump the state’s 16 Electoral College votes, which he also narrowly won in 2020 with 49.9% of the vote, while Joe Biden garnered 48.6%.
It may not be a massive surprise, as North Carolina hasn’t swung to a Democrat for president since 2008, but it is still a significant blow for Ms Harris, who had been eyeing the state as a place to expand her path to 270.
Republican running mate JD Vance admitted before the vote it would be “very hard” for Mr Trump to win if their campaign did not hold North Carolina.
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Both candidates have made frequent trips to the battleground in the final weeks of the race.
But perhaps an even bigger loss for Team Harris was Georgia, which Mr Trump was projected to win at about 5.30am UK time.
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2:25
Trump projected to win Georgia
Numbers had shown Mr Trump was well ahead earlier this morning, but Democrats were holding out hope because he had been 200,000 votes ahead at the same stage of the 2020 election and still lost.
In 2020 it had proved a false lead because votes in the state’s four largest counties – Fulton, Gwinnett, Cobb and DeKalb – which normally lean Democrat – had not been counted.
Once they were, Joe Biden came from behind to win the state.
Those same counties took the longest to count this time too, but Ms Harris couldn’t make up the ground in them.
Then at around 7am NBC News projected that Mr Trump would win Pennsylvania.
The state is seen as the key to victory in the election as it holds a crucial 19 electoral college votes.
Pennsylvania has been a heavy focus of the Republican and Democrat campaigns, with both camps spending huge amounts of money and time vying to win the state.
Trump’s victory there means he only needs to win the states he’s widely expected to win – he doesn’t need any more battleground states.
Florida goes to Trump
Sky News’ US partner NBC News projected Donald Trump as the winner in Florida at 1am UK time.
The Republican-leaning state has a massive 30 electoral votes, the third largest number behind California (54) and Texas (40).
Florida, which is Mr Trump’s home state, was once considered a swing state but has been reliably Republican for over a decade.
The last time Floridians went for a Democratic presidential candidate was when Barack Obama beat Mitt Romney by less than a percentage point in 2012.
Image: Trump supporters celebrate in Florida, where the Republican nominee is projected to win. Pic: AP
New York Times needle is back
There was talk that the popular New York Times ‘needle’ may not have been available on election night due to strike action that nearly ran into polling day.
The Tech Guild, which represents the Times’s software developers and data analysts, went on strike on Sunday over contracts, pay and in-office working policies.
But the needle was up and running on election night, predicting a comfortable win for Donald Trump.
The needle is part of the New York Times’s election coverage brought to readers by 100 journalists, engineers, statisticians, data experts and researchers.
It “estimates the final outcome based on partial election results, helping readers understand what to make of the vote that has been counted so far”, the New York Times says.
You can read exactly how the needle works, and see it for yourself, on the New York Times’ website.
Image: Pic: NYT
Republicans projected to win the Senate
NBC News projects the Republicans will take over control of the Senate from the Democrats.
It is forecast the party will win 51 seats to the Democrats’ 40.
The House, currently held by the Republicans, is still up in the air.
If Donald Trump were to win, having control of the Senate and the House would enable him to govern more freely than if these legislatures were split.
Crowds leave Harris event
Crowds were leaving Kamala Harris’s watch party in Washington DC at around midnight local time as news of Mr Trump’s projected swing state victories came in.
Supporters had hoped she would be delivering a historic victory speech there, but she didn’t show up at all in the end.
One of the supporters who attended, Anna Aurilio, told Sky News: “I’m heading home for a stiff drink but I’m a sport fan so I know it’s not over until it’s over.”
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Crowd leaves Harris event
Another, Ellycia Smalley, said: “I’m a little down, obviously, but I’m not giving up hope, there are still big cities in swing states to be counted.
“It’s not over until the fat lady sings.”
That was before Pennsylvania was projected to go Mr Trump’s way.
One of her campaign chairs said she will be there tomorrow to “address the nation”.
Trump declares victory with 266 electoral college votes
Donald Trump took to the stage in West Palm Beach, Florida, with a huge entourage.
“I want to thank you all very much,” he said, praising the “incredible” MAGA movement.
“Frankly I believe this was the greatest political movement of all time,” he says, adding it’s now going to go to another level.
“We have a country that needs help very badly,” he adds, promising to “fix everything”.
“It’s clear that… this is a political victory,” he adds.
“I want to thank the American people for the extraordinary honour of being elected your 47th president and your 45th president,” he says, effectively claiming victory.
“This is a magnificent victory for the American people that will allow us to make America great again.”
A farmer who fell from a greenhouse roof during an anti-immigrant raid at a licensed cannabis facility in California this week has died of his injuries.
Jaime Alanis, 57, is the first person to die as a result of Donald Trump’s Immigration Compliance and Enforcement (ICE) raids.
His niece, Yesenia Duran, posted on the fundraising site GoFundMe to say her uncle was his family’s only provider and he had been sending his earnings back to his wife and daughter in Mexico.
The United Food Workers said Mr Alanis had worked on the farm for 10 years.
“These violent and cruel federal actions terrorise American communities, disrupt the American food supply chain, threaten lives and separate families,” the union said in a recent statement on X.
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Who is being targeted in Trump’s immigration raids?
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said it executed criminal search warrants at Glass House Farms facilities on Thursday.
Mr Alanis called family to say he was hiding and possibly fleeing agents before he fell around 30ft (9m) from the roof and broke his neck, according to information from family, hospital and government sources.
Agents arrested 200 people suspected of being in the country illegally and identified at least 10 immigrant children on the sites, the DHS said in a statement.
Mr Alanis was not among them, the agency said.
“This man was not in and has not been in CBP (Customs and Border Protection) or ICE custody,” DHS assistant secretary for public affairs Tricia McLaughlin said.
“Although he was not being pursued by law enforcement, this individual climbed up to the roof of a greenhouse and fell 30ft. CBP immediately called a medivac to the scene to get him care as quickly as possible.”
Four US citizens were arrested during the incident for allegedly “assaulting or resisting officers”, the DHS said, and authorities were offering a $50,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of a person suspected of firing a gun at federal agents.
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In a statement, Glass House, a licensed Cannabis grower, said immigration agents had valid warrants. It said workers were detained and it is helping provide them with legal representation.
“Glass House has never knowingly violated applicable hiring practices and does not and has never employed minors,” it added.
Donald Trump has said he is considering “taking away” the US citizenship of actress and comedian Rosie O’Donnell, despite a Supreme Court ruling that expressly prohibits a government from doing so.
In a post on Truth Social on Saturday, the US president said: “Because of the fact that Rosie O’Donnell is not in the best interests of our Great Country, I am giving serious consideration to taking away her Citizenship.”
He also labelled O’Donnell, who has moved to Ireland, as a “threat to humanity” and said she should “remain in the wonderful country of Ireland, if they want her”.
O’Donnell responded on Instagram by posting a photograph of Mr Trump with Jeffrey Epstein.
“You are everything that is wrong with America and I’m everything you hate about what’s still right with it,” she wrote in the caption.
“I’m not yours to silence. I never was.”
Image: Rosie O’Donnell moved to Ireland after Donald Trump secured a second term. Pic: AP
O’Donnell moved to Ireland with her 12-year-old son in January after Mr Trump had secured a second term.
She has said she’s in the process of obtaining Irish citizenship based on family lineage and that she would only return to the US “when it is safe for all citizens to have equal rights there in America”.
O’Donnell and the US president have criticised each other publicly for years, in an often-bitter back-and-forth that predates Mr Trump’s move into politics.
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2:46
Will Trump address parliament on UK state visit?
This is just the latest threat by the president to revoke the citizenship of someone he has disagreed with, most recently his former ally Elon Musk.
But the two situations are different as while Musk was born in South Africa, O’Donnell was born in the US and has a constitutional right to American citizenship.
Amanda Frost, a law professor at the University of Virginia School of Law, said the Supreme Court ruled in a 1967 case that the fourteenth amendment of the constitution prevents the government from taking away citizenship.
“The president has no authority to take away the citizenship of a native-born US citizen,” he added.
“In short, we are nation founded on the principle that the people choose the government; the government cannot choose the people.”
Donald Trump has announced he will impose a 30% tariff on imports from the European Union from 1 August.
The tariffs could make everything from French cheese and Italian leather goods to German electronics and Spanish pharmaceuticals more expensive in the US.
Mr Trump has also imposed a 30% tariff on goods from Mexico, according to a post from his Truth Social account.
Announcing the moves in separate letters on the account, the president said the US trade deficit was a national security threat.
In his letter to the EU, he wrote: “We have had years to discuss our trading relationship with The European Union, and we have concluded we must move away from these long-term, large, and persistent, trade Deficits, engendered by your tariff, and non-Tariff, policies, and trade barriers.
“Our relationship has been, unfortunately, far from reciprocal.”
In his letter to Mexico, Mr Trump said he did not think the country had done enough to stop the US from turning into a “narco-trafficking playground”.
The president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, said today that the EU could adopt “proportionate countermeasures” if the US proceeds with imposing the 30% tariff.
Ms von der Leyen, who heads the EU’s executive arm, said in a statement that the bloc remained ready “to continue working towards an agreement by Aug 1”.
“Few economies in the world match the European Union’s level of openness and adherence to fair trading practices,” she continued.
“We will take all necessary steps to safeguard EU interests, including the adoption of proportionate countermeasures if required.”
Ms von der Leyen has also said imposing tariffs on EU exports would “disrupt essential transatlantic supply chains”.
Meanwhile, Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof said on the X social media platform that Mr Trump’s announcement was “very concerning and not the way forward”.
He added: “The European Commission can count on our full support. As the EU we must remain united and resolute in pursuing an outcome with the United States that is mutually beneficial.”
Mexico’s economy ministry said a bilateral working group aims to reach an alternative to the 30% US tariffs before they are due to take effect.
The country was informed by the US that it would receive a letter about the tariffs, the ministry’s statement said, adding that Mexico was negotiating.
The US imposed a 20% tariff on imported goods from the EU in April but it was later paused and the bloc has since been paying a baseline tariff of 10% on goods it exports to the US.
In May, while the US and EU where holding trade negotiations, Mr Trump threated to impose a 50% tariff on the bloc as talks didn’t progress as he would have liked.
However, he later announced he was delaying the imposition of that tariff while negotiations over a trade deal took place.
As of earlier this week, the EU’s executive commission, which handles trade issues for the bloc’s 27-member nations, said its leaders were still hoping to strike a trade deal with the Trump administration.
Without one, the EU said it was prepared to retaliate with tariffs on hundreds of American products, ranging from beef and auto parts to beer and Boeing airplanes.