Joe Biden has called for Americans to “bring down the temperature” as he addressed the US for the first time in the aftermath of Donald Trump’s sweeping election victory.
Speaking in the White House Rose Garden, the US president said: “I know for some people it is a time for victory, for others it is a time of loss… the country chooses one or the other.
“I have said many times you can’t love your country only when you win, you can’t love your neighbour only when you agree.”
The president said he had spoken with Mr Trump and said he has ordered his team to ensure a “peaceful and orderly transition” of power.
He said: “The people vote and choose their own leaders and they do it peacefully. In a democracy, the will of the people prevails.”
His remarks could be seen as a subtle dig at how Mr Trump refused to accept he lost the election in 2020.
The president also spoke about the “integrity of the American electoral system”, saying: “It is honest, it is fair and it is transparent. It can be trusted, win or lose.”
He concluded: “America endures. We’re going to be okay, but we need to stay engaged.”
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Mr Biden’s speech was intended to highlight what he sees as his achievements, Sky News’ US correspondent Mark Stone said. With more time, those achievements may have been more clear, he added.
“I thought it was interesting that he kind of made the point, almost suggesting if we’d had a bit more time, maybe the American people would have felt the achievements that this administration has put forward,” he said.
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2:59
What will Trump 2.0 look like?
‘We must accept the result’, Harris tells supporters
In a speech in Washington DC, she told her supporters she was “proud of the race we ran” but said “we must accept the result”.
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0:58
What power does Joe Biden have now?
Trump’s path to decisive victory
Mr Trump won a decisive victory – comfortably clearing the 270 Electoral College votes needed to secure the presidency and clinching five battleground states: North Carolina, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.
He is also leading in Arizona and Nevada, which are yet to be called, according to Sky’s US partner NBC News, meaning Mr Trump is on course to claim all seven swing states.
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The 78-year-old president-elect has been keeping a low profile after addressing his supporters in Florida yesterday morning to declare victory.
He is the first defeated president in over a century to return to the Oval Office and also the first convicted of a crime to win the presidency.
Mr Trump is facing several criminal and civil cases, but experts say his victory will essentially end the cases brought against him – at least while he is in the White House.
After spending his first day as president-elect receiving congratulatory phone calls from world leaders, Mr Trump will now begin the process of choosing who will be in his second White House administration before inauguration day on 20 January.
Former US president Bill Clinton is in hospital in Washington DC after developing a fever.
Mr Clinton, 78, has been admitted to MedStar Georgetown University Hospital for “testing and observation”.
Angel Ureña, the 42nd president’s deputy chief of staff, told Sky’s US partner network NBC News he is in “good spirits and grateful for the care he is receiving”.
Another source close to Mr Clinton said the situation is “not urgent”.
“The former president will be fine,” the source added. “He developed a fever and wanted to be checked out. He is awake and alert.”
Mr Clinton was active on the campaign trail in support of vice president Kamala Harris this year and has also been promoting his book Citizen.
The former president, who served two terms from January 1993 until January 2001, also addressed the Democratic National Convention in Chicago this summer.
Since leaving office, Mr Clinton has undergone two heart operations in New York – having a quadruple bypass operation in 2004, and two stents inserted into a coronary artery in 2010.
He was also in hospital for six days in 2021 with a urological infection that spread to his bloodstream.
Matt Gaetz, who was briefly Donald Trump’s nominee for US attorney general, paid women for sex, including with a 17-year-old girl, and used drugs while he was a member of Congress, a committee has said.
The House Ethics Committee’s report concluded there was “substantial evidence” that the former Florida congressman violated House rules, state and federal laws, and other standards of conduct banning prostitution, statutory rape, illicit drug use, and obstruction of Congress.
And the committee accused the 42-year-old of accepting gifts of luxury travel in excess of permissible limits with a trip to the Bahamas in 2018.
The House of Representatives panel wrote: “From 2017 to 2020, Representative Gaetz made tens of thousands of dollars in payments to women that the Committee determined were likely in connection with sexual activity and/or drug use.”
The Republican, who denies any wrongdoing, had sought a restraining order against the committee in a bid to halt the release of its report summarising its investigation.
The filing accused the committee of an “unconstitutional” attempt “to exercise jurisdiction over a private citizen through the threatened release of an investigative report containing potentially defamatory allegations, in violation of the committee’s own rules”.
Mr Gaetz said his selection was “unfairly becoming a distraction” to the transition of Mr Trump’s administration into the White House.
The Florida Republican had faced scrutiny over previous sex trafficking allegations which were investigated by the department he had been picked by the president-elect to lead.
Mr Gaetz was re-elected to the House of Representatives in November this year but resigned after Mr Trump nominated him as attorney general.
The 37-page House report said: “From at least 2017 to 2020, Representative Gaetz regularly paid women for engaging in sexual activity with him.
“In 2017, Representative Gaetz engaged in sexual activity with a 17-year-old girl. During the period 2017 to 2019, Representative Gaetz used or possessed illegal drugs, including cocaine and ecstasy, on multiple occasions.”
‘Sex with 17-year-old girl’
The ethics panel received testimony that Mr Gaetz had sex with a 17-year-old girl, described in the report as Victim A.
It said: “Victim A recalled receiving $400 in cash from Representative Gaetz that evening, which she understood to be payment for sex.
“Victim A said that she did not inform Representative Gaetz that she was under 18 at the time, nor did he ask her age.”
Mr Gaetz was investigated by the Justice Department for three years over sex trafficking allegations. No criminal charges were brought.
The ethics panel said there was not enough evidence that Mr Gaetz violated the federal sex trafficking statute.
All of the women who testified said the sexual encounters with Mr Gaetz were consensual.
‘I feel violated’
However, one woman told the committee that the use of drugs at the parties and events they attended may have “impair[ed their] ability to really know what was going on or fully consent”.
Another woman told the committee: “When I look back on certain moments, I feel violated.”
The suspect accused of fatally shooting the chief executive of UnitedHealthcare has pleaded not guilty to 11 murder and terror charges.
Authorities say Luigi Mangione shot dead Brian Thompson as he was walking to an investor conference in midtown Manhattan on the morning of 4 December.
The 26-year-old was formally charged last week by the Manhattan district attorney with multiple counts of murder, including murder as an act of terrorism.
Mangione was detained in a Pennsylvania McDonald’s after a five-day search, carrying a gun that matched the one used in the shooting and a fake ID, police said.
He was extradited from Pennsylvania on Thursday and quickly rushed to New York City.
As well as this state trial, he also faces a federal charges. The two cases will proceed on parallel tracks, prosecutors have said.
Mangione is being held in a Brooklyn federal jail alongside several other high-profile defendants, including Sean “Diddy” Combs and Sam Bankman-Fried.
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