Vote-Counting Starts in US Senate Runoff Elections in Georgia

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Polls closed and vote-counting started Tuesday night in two pivotal U.S. Senate runoff elections in the southern state of Georgia that will determine political control in the Senate during the first two years of President-elect Joe Biden’s term in the White House. Republican Senator David Perdue faced a challenge from Democrat Jon Ossoff, a television documentary producer, while Republican Senator Kelly Loeffler, one of the wealthiest lawmakers in Congress, was opposed by the Rev. Raphael Warnock, a Baptist minister. Pre-election polls showed tight contests, with the Democrats holding slight leads. At the moment, Republicans control the 100-seat Senate with a 50-48 advantage,more

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Proud Boys Leader Ordered to Stay Out of DC

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The leader of the far-right group the Proud Boys was released from police custody Tuesday but was ordered to leave Washington, D.C., and stay away. Henry “Enrique” Tarrio was arrested Monday, two days before supporters of President Donald Trump are scheduled to hold demonstrations in the capital city over Trump’s loss to President-elect Joe Biden in the November presidential election. The District of Columbia Metropolitan Police Department said it arrested Tarrio on destruction of property charges for burning a Black Lives Matter sign that was torn down from a historic African American church during protests in Washington last month. D.C. Superior Court Magistrate Judgemore

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Conflicting Stories Emerge After Protest at Senator’s Home

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A self-proclaimed anti-fascist group staged a protest on the Northern Virginia property of a Republican senator Monday night. It was the latest in a string of protests aimed at politicians’ private homes. The group Shutdown DC says it was protesting because Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) says he will not vote to certify the Electoral College presidential vote finalizing Democratic President-elect Joe Biden’s victory in the November contest. On Twitter, Hawley called the group “antifa scumbags” and said they “screamed through bullhorns, shouted down my wife when she asked you to leave, vandalized property, pounded on our door, and terrorized neighbors.”more

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Proud Boys Leader Arrested Ahead of Pro-Trump Demonstrations in Washington 

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The leader of the far-right group the Proud Boys was arrested by Washington police on Monday, two days before supporters of President Donald Trump are scheduled to hold demonstrations in the capital city over Trump’s loss to Joe Biden in the November presidential election. The District of Columbia Metropolitan Police Department said it arrested Henry “Enrique” Tarrio on destruction of property charges for burning a Black Lives Matter sign that was torn down from a historic African American church during protests in Washington last month. The Proud Boys are expected to converge on the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, as Congress votes tomore

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How Georgia Youth Vote Could Impact Runoff Election

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Young voters – specifically young Black voters – participating in the Georgia runoff election for two Senate seats are expected to provide significant support for the Democratic candidates.In the Senate race between incumbent Republican Senator David Perdue and Democratic challenger Jon Ossoff, 88% of Black youth favored Ossoff, compared with 31% of white youth, in the November election, according to the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE) at Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts.In the Senate special election between incumbent Republican Senator Kelly Loeffler and challenger Raphael Warnock, 83% of Black youth preferred Warnock, compared tomore

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Youth Expected to Be Out to Vote in Georgia

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Young voters – specifically young Black voters – participating in the Georgia runoff election for two Senate seats are expected to provide significant support for the Democratic candidates.In the Senate race between incumbent Republican Senator David Perdue and Democratic challenger Jon Ossoff, 88% of Black youth favored Ossoff, compared with 31% of white youth, in the November election, according to the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE) at Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts.In the Senate special election between incumbent Republican Senator Kelly Loeffler and challenger Raphael Warnock, 83% of Black youth preferred Warnock, compared tomore

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DC Mayor Calls in National Guard Ahead of Pro-Trump Protests

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Bracing for possible violence, the nation’s capital has mobilized the National Guard ahead of planned protests by President Donald Trump’s supporters in connection with the congressional vote expected Wednesday to affirm Joe Biden’s election victory. Trump’s supporters are planning to rally Tuesday and Wednesday, seeking to bolster the president’s unproven claims of widespread voter fraud.  “There are people intent on coming to our city armed,” D.C. Acting Police Chief Robert Contee said Monday. A pro-Trump rally in December ended in violence as hundreds of Trump supporters, wearing the signature black and yellow of the Proud Boys faction, sought out confrontations with amore

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Indiana to Host All Men’s March Madness Games

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The Midwestern state of Indiana this year will be host to the entire men’s college basketball tournament, also known as March Madness, the NCAA announced Monday.The college athletic group is attempting to create a “bubble,” or an isolation zone, in an attempt to protect the college athletes from contracting COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus.“If we’re going to be able to do it, it’s got to be done safely,” Creighton coach Greg McDermott said. “The more you can limit travel the better. To do it in the middle of the country makes it easier for everybody. … You wantmore

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Urging Calm, DC Mayor Calls in National Guard for Protests

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The mayor of Washington, D.C., urged calm Monday as some 340 National Guard troops were being activated while the city prepared for potentially violent protests surrounding Congress’ expected vote to affirm President-elect Joe Biden’s victory. According to a U.S. defense official, Mayor Muriel Bowser put in a request on New Year’s Eve to have Guard members on the streets from January 5 to 7 to help with the protests. The official said D.C. National Guard members will be used for traffic control and other assistance, but they will not be armed or wearing body armor. Congress is meeting this week to certify the Electoral Collegemore

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Georgia Runoff Elections Tuesday to Decide Senate Control

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Two runoff elections Tuesday in the southern state of Georgia will determine whether Republicans or Democrats control power in the U.S. Senate, dramatically shaping the legislative maneuvering for the first half of President-elect Joe Biden’s four-year term in the White House. With the stakes high, both Biden and outgoing President Donald Trump are staging last-minute campaign rallies in the state on Monday, even as Trump continues his broadsides against Georgia elections officials for refusing to overturn his narrow loss to Biden in the state in the November 3 election. The incoming president is stumping in Atlanta, Georgia’s biggest city, for the twomore

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Trump, Biden Campaign in Crucial Georgia On Eve of Senate Runoff Elections

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U.S. President Donald Trump and President-elect Joe Biden are each appearing in the southern state of Georgia Monday, the final day of campaigning before elections for two seats that will decide the balance of power in the U.S. Senate.   Trump is going to the town of Dalton for an evening rally as he backs Republican Senators David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler.   Biden will be in Atlanta to boost Jon Ossoff’s bid to unseat Perdue and the Reverend Raphael Warnock’s challenge of Loeffler.  Both elections went to a runoff after no candidate earned a majority of votes on Novembermore

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Georgia Elections Chief Says Trump ‘Just Plain Wrong’ About Vote Fraud 

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U.S. President Donald Trump is “just plain wrong” about election irregularities in Georgia, the state’s top elections official said Monday after he rebuffed Trump’s plea over the weekend to find enough ballots to upend his pivotal 11,000-vote loss in the state to President-elect Joe Biden. Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, the elections official in the southern state, told ABC News’s “Good Morning America” show that when he and Trump had anFILE – In this June 27, 2017, photo, President Donald Trump talks on the telephone in the Oval Office of the White House.“For the last two months, we’ve been fightingmore

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Trump Rewards Allies Nunes, Jordan with Medal of Freedom

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President Donald Trump is set to present one of the nation’s highest civilian honors to two of his most outspoken congressional allies, California Rep. Devin Nunes and Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, as he looks to reward loyalists with just over two weeks left in his term. A White House official confirmed that Trump would present Nunes with the Presidential Medal of Freedom on Monday. The former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee has been an ardent backer of Trump’s during probes into Russian interference in the 2016 election and the president’s 2019 impeachment by the Democratic-led House. The award, establishedmore

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Grad Student Finds Fundamental Flaw in Earlier Study

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A graduate student found a fundamental flaw in published research upon which she was building her research, which led to a retraction by the original author.Susanne Stoll, a graduate student at the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience at University College London, said she thought she had made a mistake when trying to duplicate the results of an earlier experiment in brain research.“When I first stumbled upon the error, I had no clue what I was dealing with. I thought I had messed up my experiment because I obtained similar results in fairly distinct experimental conditions,” Stoll said in emails with VOAmore

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AP Fact Check: Trump’s Claims of Fake Georgia Votes are Unfounded

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President Donald Trump put forth an array of fuzzy accounting and false claims in a phone call to Georgia’s secretary of state seeking a reversal of his election defeat. In the hourlong conversation Saturday with Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, Trump suggested that the Republican find enough votes to hand Trump the victory.  The Associated Press obtained the full audio of Trump’s conversation with Georgia officials from a person on the call. The AP is not publishing the full audio in keeping with its policy of not amplifying disinformation and unproven allegations. A look at Trump’s claims on the call and howmore

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Trump, in Phone Call, Pleaded with Georgia Officials to Overturn His Election Loss

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In an extraordinary phone call, U.S. President Donald Trump pleaded Saturday with election officials in the southern U.S. state of Georgia to find him enough votes to overturn his pivotal loss there to President-elect Joe Biden. “So, look. All I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have. Because we won the state,” Trump told the state’s top elections official, Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, FILE – Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger speaks during a news conference in Atlanta, Nov. 11, 2020.Raffensperger replied a few hours later, “Respectfully, President Trump: What you’re saying is not true. The truth will come out.” Respectfully,more

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Pelosi Re-elected US House Speaker

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Representative Nancy Pelosi was elected speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Sunday for her fourth term, with a narrower Democratic majority in the chamber and challenges ahead.The Democrat from California surpassed the necessary majority of votes Sunday afternoon, with two Democrats voting for other candidates and three more voting present.   Democrats hold a narrow majority in the U.S. House of Representatives in the new 117th Congress, with 222 Democrats and 211 Republicans. A few members were unable to vote because they had tested positive for the coronavirus or had other health problems.For the first time since May, lawmakers had to be present for the vote instead of using a proxy system set up amid the pandemic. The vote lasted several hours as lawmakers weremore

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Dozens of House, Senate Republicans Join Likely Futile Effort to Reject Biden Victory

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More than 100 Republican lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives and a dozen senators say they will join an almost assuredly futile effort Wednesday to try to block certification of the Electoral College vote showing that Democrat Joe Biden defeated President Donald Trump in the November election. The certification of the 306-232 Electoral College vote favoring Biden, a fixture on the Washington political scene for nearly a half century, is the last step before he is set to be inaugurated as the country’s 46th president on January 20.Both chambers of Congress would need to uphold the challenges to Biden’s victorymore

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Homes of Top Republican and Democrat Vandalized

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Vandals have targeted the homes of Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell and Democrat Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi with graffiti, fake blood and a pig’s head, U.S. media said.”Were’s [sic] my money,” and “Mitch kills the poor,” was daubed on McConnell’s front door and window in Louisville, Kentucky, U.S. media reported.A pig’s head and fake blood were left outside Pelosi’s San Francisco home on Jan. 2, according to local media Saturday.The houses of the top Republican and Democrat were targeted following intense debate over a COVID-19 stimulus bailout for Americans.A long-awaited $900 billion pandemic relief package was finally approvedmore

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After Pardon, Blackwater Guard Defiant: ‘I Acted Correctly’

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Evan Liberty was reading in the top bunk of his cell one evening late last month when a prison supervisor delivered news he had hoped for.“He says, ‘Are you ready for this?’” Liberty recalled. “I said, ‘Uh, I’m not sure. What is going on?’ He said, ‘Presidential pardon. Pack your stuff.’”Liberty is one of four former Blackwater contractors pardoned by U.S. President Donald Trump in one of Trump’s final acts in office, freeing them from prison after a 2007 shooting rampage in Baghdad that killed more than a dozen Iraqi civilians. Even for a president who has repeatedly exercised hismore

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Dozen GOP Senators Enlist in Trump Effort to Undo Biden Win 

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A growing number of Republican lawmakers are joining President Donald Trump’s extraordinary effort to overturn the election, pledging to reject the results when Congress meets next week to count the Electoral College votes and certify President-elect Joe Biden’s win.Senator Ted Cruz of Texas on Saturday announced a coalition of 12 senators who have been enlisted for Trump’s effort to subvert the will of American voters.This follows the declaration from Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri, who was the first to buck Senate leadership by saying he would join with House Republicans in objecting to the state tallies during Wednesday’s joint sessionmore

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Cruz Joins Republican Bloc in Senate to Challenge Biden’s Victory

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U.S. Senator Ted Cruz said Saturday that he would be among a dozen Republican senators who will challenge President-elect Joe Biden’s victory when Electoral College results are tallied in Congress next week — a largely symbolic move that has little chance of preventing Biden from taking office.The Republicans join Senator Josh Hawley, who earlier this week became the first sitting member of the Senate to announce he would challenge the election result. A number of Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives also plan on contesting the vote tally.In a statement, Cruz and the other senators said they intended tomore

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In a First, Congress Overrides Trump Veto of Defense Bill 

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Congress has overridden President Donald Trump’s veto of a defense policy bill, a first by lawmakers since Trump took office nearly four years ago.In an extraordinary New Year’s Day session, the Republican-controlled Senate easily turned aside the veto, dismissing Trump’s objections to the $740 billion bill and handing him a rebuke weeks before his term ends.Trump had lashed out at lawmakers from his own party on Twitter, charging earlier this week that “Weak and tired Republican ‘leadership’ will allow the bad Defense Bill to pass.”Trump called the looming override vote a “disgraceful act of cowardice and total submission by weakmore

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