Russia announces cease-fire between Armenia, Azerbaijan

With the Nagorno-Karabakh ceasefire agreement facilitated by Russia on Tuesday, Azerbaijan citizens celebrated 'Victory Day' after fierce clashes with Armenia and Baku's victories in its war to retake the disputed region.

Hundreds of Russian peacekeepers were en route to the ethnic Armenian territory, which broke from Azerbaijan's control during a war in the 1990s, just hours after an early morning ceasefire took effect.

But the agreement sparked outrage in Armenia, with angry protesters storming the government headquarters in the capital Yerevan where they ransacked offices and broke windows.

Crowds also entered parliament and demanded the resignation of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, who earlier described his participation in the accord as "unspeakably painful for me personally and for our people".

"I have taken this decision as a result of an in-depth analysis of the military situation," he added.

Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev said Pashinyan had been left with no choice but to agree. "An iron hand forced him to sign this document," he said in televised remarks. "This is essentially a capitulation."

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Russian military helicopter shot down over Armenia accidentally by Azerbaijan forces

A Russian military helicopter was shot down over Armenia on Monday accidentally by Azerbaijan forces. Two crew members of the helicopter were killed in the incident.

In a statement, the Russian Defense Ministry said that the helicopter had been shot down as a result of man-portable air-defense system close to Armenia;s border with Azerbaijan.

Azerbaijan's Foreign Ministry admitted the helicopter had been shot down and offered an apology to Moscow for the "tragic incident".

"The Azerbaijani side offers an apology to the Russian side in connection with this tragic incident," the statement read. The ministry further clarified that the attack was "not aimed at" Moscow.

The incident takes place as Azerbaijan and Armenia are locked into an armed conflict over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh territory which, by law, is part of Azerbaijan but has been occupied by Armenian groups.

The crash reportedly occurred near the border with Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic, some 70 kilometers (43 miles) from the border to Nagorno-Karabakh.

Armenia said the helicopter had crashed in a gorge near the village of Yeraskh.

Russia, which has a military alliance with Armenia, has managed to stay out of the military conflict between the two traditional rivals.

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Joe Biden wins US election after four tumultuous years of Trump presidency

Joe Biden has been elected the 46th president of the United States, denying Donald Trump a second term after a deeply divisive presidency defined by a once-in-a-century pandemic, economic turmoil and social unrest.

Biden won the presidency by clinching Pennsylvania and its 20 electoral votes on Saturday morning, after days of counting votes and record turnout across the country. The win in Pennsylvania took Biden’s electoral college vote to 284, surpassing the 270 needed to win the White House.

The American people have replaced a real estate developer and reality TV star who had no political experience with a veteran of Washington who has spent more than 50 years in public life and twice ran unsuccessfully for president.

With turnout projected to reach its highest point in a century, a fearful and anxious nation elected a candidate who promised to govern not as a Democrat but as an “American president” and vowed to be a unifying force after four years of upheaval.

The result also marked the historic rise of Kamala Harris, who will be the first woman and the first woman of color to serve as vice-president in American history.

The outcome threatened to send convulsions across the country, as Trump’s campaign made baseless claims of voter fraud and vowed to challenge the results.

Biden, 77, is set to become America’s oldest president. His triumph came more than 48 hours after polls closed on election day, as officials in key states worked furiously to tally ballots amid an unprecedented surge in mail-in voting due to the coronavirus pandemic, which has killed more than 230,000 people and infected millions.

A father and husband who buried his first wife and his infant daughter in 1972 after they were killed in a car crash, and decades later buried his adult son after he died from brain cancer in 2015, Biden sought to empathize with Americans who lost loved ones to the coronavirus.

Biden in part premised his campaign on an ability to appeal to a broad coalition of Democrats, including the blue-collar, white working-class voters who abandoned the party for Trump in 2016. Haunted by the Democrats’ losses in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin four years ago, Biden focused his attention on the region even as Democrats encouraged him to invest more heavily in once conservative states where rapidly changing demographics and an erosion of support in the American suburbs left Republicans vulnerable.

The election unfolded against a public health crisis that has left millions more out of work. While Biden made the pandemic a central theme of his campaign, framing the contest as a referendum on Trump’s management of the Covid crisis, Trump sought to downplay and dismiss it.

In the final days of the campaign, Trump held large rallies without regard to social distancing or mask-wearing, where he falsely claimed the United State was “rounding the corner” even as infections rose dramatically across the country.

Biden, by contrast, resisted public events for several months in an effort to demonstrate that he would be a serious and sober leader in the face of national crisis.

The cautious approach was not without risk, and Democrats fretted over Biden’s decision to so often cede the stage to his opponent, who relished the spotlight. In the final weeks, Biden darted across the swing states, holding drive-in rallies and socially distanced events.

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‘We’re going to win this race’: Biden

Democrat Joe Biden said he was going to win the U.S. presidency as his lead grew over President Donald Trump in battleground states, although television networks held off from declaring him the victor as officials continued to count votes.

“The numbers tell us … it’s a clear and convincing story: We’re going to win this race,” Biden said late on Friday, adding that he and his running mate Kamala Harris were already meeting with experts as they prepare for the White House.

Americans have been waiting longer than in any presidential election since 2000 to learn the winner, as officials methodically count a record number of mail-in ballots in Tuesday’s contest. The COVID-19 pandemic prompted many to avoid large groups of voters on Election Day.

With thousands of votes still to count, it was not clear when the bitter contest would conclude.

Biden backers danced in Philadelphia’s streets, while armed Trump supporters in Phoenix and Detroit said the election was being stolen, despite any evidence of irregularities. Under the banner of “Stop the Steal,” Trump supporters planned dozens of rallies for Saturday.

Biden’s speech in his home state of Delaware was originally planned as a victory celebration, but he changed his approach in the absence of an official call from television networks and other election forecasters.

Still, it amounted to a blunt challenge to Trump. The Republican incumbent kept out of view in the White House on Friday as Biden held on to leads in the four states that will decide the outcome: Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona and Nevada.

Leading Trump by 4.1 million votes nationwide out of a record 147 million cast, Biden said Americans had given him a mandate to tackle the pandemic, the struggling economy, climate change and systemic racism.

“They made it clear they want the country to come together, not continue to pull apart,” Biden said.

He said he hoped to address Americans again on Saturday.

Trump has remained defiant, vowing to press unfounded claims of fraud as his Republicans sought to raise $60 million to fund lawsuits challenging the results. But some in his camp described the legal effort as disorganized, and so far they have not found success in the courts.

As the counting entered its fifth day, Former Vice President Biden had a 253-to-214 lead in the state-by-state Electoral College vote that determines the winner, according to Edison Research. Democrats grew increasingly frustrated that networks had not yet called a winner.

Securing Pennsylvania’s 20 electoral votes would put Biden over the 270 he needs to win the presidency after a political career stretching back nearly five decades.

Biden would also win if he prevails in two of the three other key states. Like Pennsylvania, all three were still processing ballots on Friday.

As officials count a deluge of mail-in ballots, Biden has held on to narrow leads in Nevada and Arizona and earlier on Friday overtook Trump in Pennsylvania and Georgia.

In Arizona, Biden led by 29,861 votes with 97% of the tally completed. In Nevada, he led by 22,657 votes with 93% of the count complete.

In Georgia, he led by a mere 4,289 votes with the count 99% complete, while in Pennsylvania he led by 27,130 votes with 96% of the vote complete.

Biden said Trump’s demands to stop the count would not work.

“Your vote will be counted. I don’t care how hard people try to stop it. I will not let it happen,” Biden said.

Trump showed no sign he was ready to concede, as his campaign pursued a series of lawsuits that legal experts said were unlikely to alter the election outcome.

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Biden moves into lead in Georgia, inches closer to White House

Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden took a narrow lead over President Donald Trump in the battleground state of Georgia early on Friday, edging closer to winning the White House in a nail-biting contest as a handful of undecided states continue to count votes.

Biden has a 253 to 214 lead in the state-by-state Electoral College vote that determines the winner, according to most major television networks. Winning Georgia’s 16 electoral votes would put the former vice president on the cusp of the 270 he needs to secure the presidency.

Biden, 77, would become the next president by winning Pennsylvania, or by winning two out of the trio of Georgia, Nevada and Arizona. Trump’s likeliest path appears narrower - he needs to hang onto both Pennsylvania and Georgia and also to overtake Biden in either Nevada or Arizona.

Biden moved ahead of Trump by 917 votes in Georgia, where counting continued early on Friday.

The shift in Georgia came hours after Trump appeared at the White House to falsely claim the election was being “stolen” from him.

Trump had seen his lead steadily shrink in Georgia, a Southern state that has not voted for a Democratic presidential nominee since Bill Clinton took the White House in 1992, as officials worked through tens of thousands of uncounted votes, many from Democratic strongholds such as Atlanta.

The Georgia secretary of state reported late on Thursday there were about 14,000 ballots still to count in the state.

The state also will have to sift through votes from military personnel and overseas residents as well as provisional ballots cast on Election Day by voters who had problems with their registration or identification.

Biden has been steadily chipping away at the Republican incumbent’s lead in Pennsylvania as well. His deficit had shrunk to just more than 18,000 there by early on Friday, and was expected to continue falling with many of the ballots still to be counted being cast in Democratic areas.

Biden also maintained slim advantages in Arizona and Nevada. In Arizona, his lead narrowed to about 47,000 early on Friday and in Nevada he was ahead by about 11,500 votes.

As the country held its breath for a result in the White House race, Georgia and Pennsylvania officials expressed optimism they would finish counting on Friday, while Arizona and Nevada were still expected to take days to complete their vote totals.

TRUMP’S DIMINISHING LEADS

Trump, 74, has sought to portray as fraudulent the slow counting of mail-in ballots, which surged in popularity due to fears of exposure to the coronavirus through in-person voting. As counts from those ballots have been tallied, they have eroded the initial strong leads the president had in states like Georgia and Pennsylvania.

States have historically taken time after Election Day to tally all votes.

Trump fired off several tweets in the early morning hours on Friday, reiterating the complaints he aired earlier at the White House. “I easily WIN the Presidency of the United States with LEGAL VOTES CAST,” he said on Twitter, without offering any evidence that any illegal votes have been cast.

Twitter flagged the post as possibly misleading, something it has done to numerous posts by Trump since Election Day.

In an extraordinary assault on the democratic process, Trump appeared in the White House briefing room on Thursday evening and baselessly alleged the election was being “stolen” from him.

Offering no evidence, Trump lambasted election workers and sharply criticized polling before the election that he said was designed to suppress the vote because it favored Biden.

“They’re trying to rig an election, and we can’t let that happen,” said Trump, who spoke in the White House briefing room but took no questions. Several TV networks cut away during his remarks, with anchors saying they needed to correct his statements.

Biden, who earlier in the day urged patience as votes were counted, responded on Twitter: “No one is going to take our democracy away from us. Not now, not ever.”

Trump’s incendiary remarks followed a series of Twitter posts earlier in the day in which he called for vote counting to stop, even though he currently trails Biden in enough states to hand the Democrat the presidency.

Trump’s campaign, meanwhile, pursued a flurry of lawsuits in several states, though judges in Georgia and Michigan quickly rejected challenges there. Legal experts said the cases had little chance of affecting the electoral outcome, and Biden campaign senior legal adviser Bob Bauer call them part of a “broader misinformation campaign.”

The close election has underscored the the nation’s deep political divides, and if he wins Biden could also face a difficult time governing in a deeply polarized Washington.

Republicans could keep control of the U.S. Senate pending the outcome of four undecided Senate races, including two in Georgia, and they would likely block large parts of his legislative agenda, including expanding healthcare and fighting climate change.

And even if Biden prevails, he will have failed to deliver the sweeping repudiation to Trump that Democrats had hoped for, reflecting the deep support the president enjoys despite his tumultuous four years in office.

The winner will face a pandemic that has killed more than 234,000 people in the United States and left millions more out of work, even as the country still grapples with the aftermath of months of unrest over race relations and police brutality.

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US Election 2020: Biden projected to win Wisconsin and Michigan

Democrat Joe Biden took a huge step Wednesday to capturing the White House, with wins in Michigan and Wisconsin bringing him close to a majority, but President Donald Trump responded with fury as his campaign sued to suspend vote counting.

In a brief address on national television, flanked by American flags and his vice presidential pick Kamala Harris, Biden said he wasn’t yet declaring victory, but that "when the count is finished, we believe we will be the winners."

By flipping the northern battlegrounds of Michigan and Wisconsin, Biden reached 264 electoral votes against 214 so far for Trump. By adding the six of Nevada, where he is narrowly ahead, or the larger prizes of hard-fought Georgia or Pennsylvania, Biden would hit the magic number of 270 needed to win the White House.

In stark contrast to Trump’s increasingly heated rhetoric about being cheated, Biden sought to project calm, reaching out to a nation torn by four years of polarizing leadership and traumatized by the Covid-19 pandemic, with new daily infections Wednesday close to hitting 100,000 for the first time.

"I know how deep and hard the opposing views are in our country on so many things," Biden, 77, said.

"But I also know this as well: to make progress we have to stop treating our opponents as enemies. We are not enemies. What brings us together as Americans is so much stronger than anything that can tear us apart."

American presidential elections are decided not by the popular vote but by securing a majority in the state-by-state Electoral College, which has 538 members.

US media organizations called Michigan for Biden where he had a lead of some 120,000 votes. Earlier, Biden claimed Wisconsin, with a narrower but insurmountable lead.

Read more: What might happen if US election result is disputed?

The two states, along with Arizona -- another that Biden was projected to flip -- put the Democrat within arm’s reach of making Trump the first one-term president in 28 years.

- Trump claims being cheated -

However, Trump, 74, claimed victory unilaterally and made clear he would not accept the reported results, issuing unprecedented complaints -- unsupported by any evidence -- of fraud.

"The damage has already been done to the integrity of our system, and to the Presidential Election itself," he tweeted, alleging without proof or explanation that "secretly dumped ballots" had been added in Michigan.

Trump’s campaign announced lawsuits in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Georgia and demanded a recount in Wisconsin.

In Michigan, the campaign filed a suit to halt vote tabulation, saying its "observers" were not allowed to watch at close distances.

In Detroit, a Democratic stronghold that is majority Black, a crowd of mostly-white Trump supporters chanted "Stop the count!" and tried to barge into an election office before being blocked by security.

The Trump campaign said it was also suing to halt the counting of votes in Pennsylvania -- after the president called overnight for Supreme Court intervention to exclude the processing of mail-in ballots after the close of polls.

And it demanded a recount in Wisconsin, citing unspecified "irregularities."

The president’s personal lawyer, former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, accused Democrats of sending in fraudulent ballots. He also provided no evidence.

"This is the way they intend to win," Giuliani told reporters in Pennsylvania’s largest city Philadelphia. "We’re not going to let them get away with it."

Trump campaign manager Bill Stepien claimed they had won in Pennsylvania, despite the result still being calculated, and he rejected the call giving Biden a win in Arizona.

In a reversal of roles, the US election brought statements of international concern, with German Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer warning of a "very explosive situation" that could create a "constitutional crisis."

An observer mission from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, which monitors votes around the West and former Soviet Union, found no evidence of election fraud and said that Trump’s "baseless allegations" eroded trust in democracy.

The most crucial -- and messiest -- contest may yet wind up being in Pennsylvania, where Trump’s lead had narrowed to 200,000 votes.

"We have to be patient," said Tom Wolf, the Democratic governor of the state where Republican lawmakers had prevented millions of mail-in ballots from being counted before Election Day.

"They’re going to be counted accurately and they will be counted fully," Wolf told reporters.

The race also tightened in Georgia, a state once seen as solidly Republican, where Trump was up by just under 40,000 votes.

Richard Barron, election director of heavily Democratic Fulton County, which includes Atlanta, told reporters in the counting room that he hoped to finish later Wednesday.

The tight White House race and recriminations evoked memories of the 2000 election between Republican George W. Bush and Democrat Al Gore.

That race, which hinged on a handful of votes in Florida, eventually ended up in the Supreme Court, which halted a recount while Bush was ahead.

The US Elections Project estimated total turnout at a record 160 million including more than 101.1 million early voters, 65.2 million of whom cast ballots by mail amid the pandemic.

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Eight U.S. House of Representatives races to watch

Democrats were projected to retain their majority in the U.S. House of Representatives in Tuesday’s election.

Long-time Representative Collin Peterson, one of only two House Democrats who opposed both articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump in 2019, was defeated by Minnesota’s former lieutenant governor, Republican Michelle Fischbach. The district in rural western Minnesota voted strongly for Trump in 2016.

Representative Joe Cunningham, who stunned Republicans in 2018 when he became the first Democrat to represent the coastal district in nearly four decades, lost to Republican Nancy Mace, the first female graduate of the Citadel military college.

Republican small business owner Marjorie Taylor Greene is a political newcomer who promoted QAnon in a 2017 video but later backtracked, saying it was not part of her campaign. She won a House seat in conservative rural northwest Georgia after her Democratic opponent dropped out.

Republican Representative Chip Roy is being challenged by Wendy Davis, a Democratic former state senator who caught the national spotlight in 2013 by talking for over 11 hours to temporarily stop an anti-abortion bill. The central Texas district includes part of Austin.

Freshman Democratic Representative Xochtil Torres-Small has a rematch with Republican Yvette Herrell, who lost to her narrowly in 2018 and is endorsed by the conservative House Freedom Caucus’ political action committee. The district covers southern New Mexico including part of Albuquerque.

Republican Lauren Boebert, a pistol-packing gun rights activist who defied coronavirus restrictions to open her restaurant, spoke warmly of the unfounded online conspiracy theory QAnon in May, but later said “I’m not a follower.” She faces Democrat Diane Mitsch Bush, a university professor, in a largely rural district encompassing western Colorado.

Representative Jeff Van Drew, who was elected to Congress as a Democrat in 2018 but became a Republican after voting against impeaching Trump, faces a strong challenge from Democrat Amy Kennedy. She is a former schoolteacher who married into the famous U.S. political family. The district in southern New Jersey includes Atlantic City.

Republican New York State legislator Andrew Garbarino is running against a Black combat veteran, Democrat Jackie Gordon, for the seat held for 14 terms by retiring Republican Representative Peter King. The largely suburban district on Long Island includes the eastern edges of the New York City metropolitan area.

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Bettors stampede back in favor of Biden as results stream in

Democratic candidate Joe Biden was back as clear favorite to win the U.S. presidential election in online betting markets on Wednesday morning, a reversal of fortune for President Donald Trump who had been favored overnight.

The shift, according to data from three odds aggregators, came after Biden overtook Trump in the battleground state of Wisconsin, with an estimated 89% of the vote tallied there.

British-based Smarkets exchange was giving Biden a 78% chance, while New Zealand-based predictions market PredictIt had Biden at nearly 80%. Trump’s chances on Smarkets were sitting at 21% - a massive drop from nearly 80% overnight.

“Taking the lead in Wisconsin could be the turning point with the Democrat now also projected to win Nevada and Arizona, which would likely give him the 270 electoral college votes he needs for victory,” Betfair spokesperson Sam Rosbottom said.

Bettors on Betfair were giving Biden a 66% chance to win by breakfast time on the East Coast.

Trump earlier falsely claimed victory over Biden with millions of votes still uncounted.

Biden, meanwhile, was pinning his hopes on the so-called “blue wall” states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania that sent Trump to the White House in 2016, although they could take hours or days to finish counting.

The 2020 election is shaping up to be the biggest betting event of all time, betting companies say, with one player on Monday placing a record-breaking bet of one million British pounds ($1.3 million) on a victory for Biden.

Biden had been favored before election day, but his chances according to oddsmakers plunged to less than one-in-three overnight, after Trump pushed ahead in the swing state of Florida.

Betfair Exchange said a record 425 million pounds has been bet on the outcome of the winner so far -- more than double that of 2016. It accepts bets right up until the result is announced.

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Twitter, Facebook face labeling test on Trump's election posts

Facebook Inc FB.O and Twitter Inc TWTR.N flagged some of President Donald Trump's posts on the U.S. election as votes were still being counted, in a real-time test of their rules on handling misinformation and premature claims of victory.

The two companies have been under fierce scrutiny over how they police rapidly spreading false information and election-related abuses of their platforms. In the weeks before Tuesday’s vote, both vowed action on posts by candidates trying to declare early victory.

Twitter hid a Trump tweet that claimed “we are up BIG, but they are trying to STEAL the Election” behind a label that said it was potentially misleading. The company also restricted users’ ability to share the post.

Facebook added a label to the same post, which had about 18,000 shares, that said “final results may be different from initial vote counts as ballot counting will continue for days or weeks.”

A spokeswoman for Facebook said it was not restricting the reach or sharing of labeled content. She also said it would not flag premature claims of state wins, only of the final result of the presidential race.

Twitter did not label a separate post, in which Trump declared: “A big WIN!” A spokeswoman said this was because the language was vague and unclear on what victory was being claimed.

Facebook added a notice to that post, which had more than 33,000 shares, saying: “votes are still being counted. The winner of the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election has not been projected.”

A Facebook spokesman said it would run top-of-feed notifications saying the same thing on Facebook and its photo-sharing site Instagram. Automatic labels would also start being applied to both candidates’ posts with this information.

Twitter first began adding fact-checking labels to Trump’s tweets in May. Facebook, which has been criticized by some lawmakers and employees for not taking action on inflammatory or misleading posts from the president, has also introduced more labels around the election.

On Wednesday, a group of Facebook critics that includes civil rights activists and platform experts, who recently formed their own rival ‘oversight board’ to review its content moderation, appeared to criticize Facebook for not restricting the reach of Trump’s labeled content, tweeting: “You. Can. Still. Share. The. Post. #DoYourJob.”

Trump claimed in a speech live-streamed on both platforms that he had won the election, with millions of votes still uncounted. His Democratic rival Joe Biden said earlier he was confident of winning the contest.

Facebook labeled the video, which had 2.6 million views on Wednesday morning, with a warning saying vote counting could continue for days or weeks. The video had no label or warning on Twitter, where it was posted by the Trump campaign and retweeted by the president.

“Recordings or clips of the press conference on their own are not a violation of our policies,” a Twitter spokeswoman said.

Alphabet Inc's GOOGL.O video service YouTube added a panel that said 'results may not be final' to election-related videos and directed users to a Google search for the election results.

False or exaggerated reports about voting fraud and delays at the polls, including in battleground states like Pennsylvania, also circulated on social media on Election Day, in some cases helped along by official Republican accounts and online publications. The hashtag #StopTheSteal also gained momentum during the day.

In fact, few if any major disruptions were reported at polling sites on Tuesday.

Twitter put fact-checking labels and sharing restrictions on some of these tweets, including from the Philadelphia Republican Party and Trump campaign official Mike Roman.

The FBI and the New York attorney general said they were looking into a spate of mysterious robocalls urging people to stay home on Election Day.

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German Defence Minister warns US may face "very explosive situation"

German Defence Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer on Wednesday warned the United States was facing a "very explosive situation" and a possible systemic crisis after President Donald Trump prematurely declared election victory.

Following Trump’s remarks that he will go to the Supreme Court to stop ballots from being tallied, Kramp-Karrenbauer told public broadcaster ZDF "this election has not been decided... votes are still being counted".

She said Trump could create "a constitutional crisis in the USA", calling such a scenario "something that must deeply concern us".

The minister, who is also head of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union party, said it appeared "the battle over the legitimacy of the result, however it turns out, has begun".

She admitted that the German-US relationship had faced "a tough test in the past four years" with fierce Trump criticism of Berlin over trade and military spending.

However, she said, "this friendship is more than a question of which administration is currently in the White House", saying she dismissed calls in Germany to "decouple ourselves from the United States".

But Kramp-Karrenbauer stressed that regardless of the ultimate outcome of the US vote, Europe would need to become more self-sufficient.

Read more: Who is winning US Election 2020?

"We will have to do a lot more for our own interests -- both as Germany and in particular with the other Europeans," she said.

Finance Minister Olaf Scholz echoed the sentiment, saying that given the developments in the United States, Europe needed to strengthen its own "sovereignty" so that "a rules-based global order can exist".

"That is why we need to take this opportunity to make Europe strong," he told reporters in Berlin.

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Democrats were "trying to steal" the US Election 2020: Trump

Republican President Donald Trump on Wednesday claimed the Democrats were "trying to steal" the US Election 2020 but vowed that he would score a "big win".

In a tweet early morning, Trump predicted he would win a second four-year term and levelled the accusation against Democrats without citing any evidence.

"We are up BIG, but they are trying to STEAL the Election. We will never let them do it," Trump said on Twitter. "A big win" for re-election.

His tweets came immediately after a statement from Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, who said he was optimistic about his prospects of winning.

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Biden or Trump: Who will win the US elections?

President Donald Trump was leading Democratic rival Joe Biden in the vital battleground state of Florida on Tuesday, while other competitive swing states that will help decide the election, including North Carolina, remained up in the air.

The two contenders split the early US states to be projected in the White House race as expected, with conservative states like Alabama, Indiana, Kentucky and Tennessee going to Trump and Democratic-leaning Massachusetts, Vermont, New York and Connecticut going to Biden, according to projections by television networks and Edison Research.

But none of the approximately dozen battleground states that will decide the race had been settled as polls closed in a majority of US states, with close races developing in many of them.

In Florida, widely seen as a must-win state for Trump in his quest for the 270 Electoral College votes needed to win the presidency, Trump was leading Biden 51.2% to 47.8% with 93% of the expected votes counted. Electoral College votes are assigned to each state, in part based on their population.

Part of Trump's strength in Florida came from an improved performance relative to 2016 in the state's counties with large Latino populations. Trump's share of the vote in those counties was larger than it was in the 2016 election.

For months there were complaints from Democratic Latino activists that Biden was ignoring Hispanic voters and lavishing attention instead on Black voters in big Midwestern cities.

The Biden campaign disputed this but in the weeks leading up to the election, opinion polls in key states showed Biden underperforming with Latinos.

Many younger Hispanics were ardent supporters of US Democratic Senator Bernie Sanders during the party’s primary campaign, but in opinion polls expressed little enthusiasm for Biden, viewing him as too moderate and out of touch.

In the Miami area, Latinos are predominantly Cuban Americans, where generations of families have fled communist rule in Cuba. Trump's messaging about Biden being a socialist seemed to be working with them and with Venezuelans there despite Biden's denials.

Edison's national exit poll showed that while Biden led Trump among nonwhite voters, Trump received a slightly higher proportion of the non-white votes than he did in 2016. The poll showed that about 11% of African Americans, 31% of Hispanics and 30% of Asian Americans voted for Trump, up 3 percentage points from 2016 in all three groups

Edison's national exit poll also found that support for Trump declined by about 3 points among older white voters, compared with 2016, while it rose by about 15 points among older Latinos and by 11 points among Black voters between 30 and 44.

Biden, 77, still has multiple paths to the 270 Electoral College votes he needs to win without Florida despite having spent lots of time and money trying to flip the state that backed Trump, 74, in 2016.

Biden was neck and neck with Trump in the battleground state of North Carolina, tied at 49.4% with 86% of expected votes counted. In Ohio, another must-win state for Trump, the president was leading 50.5% to 48.1% with 69% of expected votes counted. In Texas, Biden narrowly led 49.6% to 49% with 72% of expected votes counted.

Voters, many wearing masks and maintaining social-distancing to guard against the spread of the coronavirus, streamed into polling places through the day, experiencing long lines in a few locales and short waits in many other places. There were no signs of disruptions or violence at polling sites, as some officials had feared.

PANDEMIC STRAINS

The winner - who may not be determined for days - will lead a nation strained by a pandemic that has killed more than 231,000 people and left millions more jobless, racial tensions and political polarization that has only worsened during a vitriolic campaign.

Biden, the Democratic former vice president, put Trump's handling of the pandemic at the center of his campaign and has held a consistent lead in national opinion polls over the Republican president.

But a third of US voters listed the economy as the issue that mattered most to them when deciding their choice for president, while two out of 10 cited COVID-19, according to an Edison Research exit poll on Tuesday.

In the national exit poll, four out of 10 voters said they thought the effort to contain the virus was going "very badly." In the battleground states of Florida and North Carolina, battleground states that could decide the election, five of 10 voters said the national response to the pandemic was going "somewhat or very badly."

The poll found that nine out of 10 voters had already decided on their choice before October, and nine out of 10 voters said they were confident their state would accurately count votes.

The poll found signs Trump was losing support among his core base of supporters in Georgia.

Ahead of Election Day, just over 100 million voters cast early ballots either by mail or in person, according to the U.S. Elections Project at the University of Florida, driven by concerns about crowded polling places during the pandemic as well as extraordinary enthusiasm.

The total has broken records and prompted some experts to predict the highest voting rates since 1908 and that the vote total could reach 160 million, topping the 138 million cast in 2016.

In anticipation of possible protests, some buildings and stores were boarded up in cities including Washington, Los Angeles and New York. Federal authorities erected a new fence around the White House perimeter.

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Anxious Americans vote on Election Day with faces masked, stores boarded up

Americans began casting ballots on Tuesday in an Election Day unlike any other, braving the threat of Covid-19 and the potential for violence and intimidation after one of the most polarising presidential races in US history.

In and around polling places across the country, reminders of a 2020 election year shaped by the pandemic, civil unrest and bruising political partisanship greeted voters, although more than 90 million ballots have been already submitted in an unprecedented wave of early voting.

Many wore masks to the polls either by choice or by official mandate with the coronavirus outbreak raging in many parts of the country.

After a summer of nationwide protests against police violence and racism, businesses in several major US cities were again boarded up as a precaution against unrest, an extraordinary sight on Election Day in the United States.

The American Civil Liberties Union and other civil rights groups said they were watching closely for signs of voter intimidation, and the US Justice Department's Civil Rights Division said it would deploy staff to 18 states.

Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden asked Americans to trust him as they had in 2008 and 2012 alongside Barack Obama. "We can heal the soul of this nation — I promise we won’t let you down," he tweeted.

Voters in Dixville Notch, a village of 12 residents in the US state of New Hampshire, kicked off Election Day at the stroke of midnight on Tuesday by voting unanimously for Biden.

The vote and count only took a few minutes, with five votes for Biden and none for President Donald Trump.

Polls began opening on the East Coast on Tuesday as election officials warned that millions of absentee ballots could slow the tallies, perhaps for days, in some key battleground states and as Trump threatened legal action to prevent ballots from being counted after Election Day.

Those yet to vote headed to polling places on Tuesday despite another spike in Covid-19 cases that has hit much of the country. Among those braving the polls were voters who may have wanted to vote by mail but waited too long to request a ballot or those who didn’t receive their ballots in time.

Election officials across some 10,000 voting jurisdictions scrambled to purchase personal-protective equipment, find larger polling places, replace veteran poll workers who opted to sit out this year’s election due to health concerns and add temporary workers to deal with the avalanche of mail ballots.

Biden leading in polls

More than 99 million Americans have cast their ballots in early voting, according to the US Elections Project.

The United States is more divided and angry than at any time since the Vietnam War era of the 1970s — and fears that Trump could dispute the result of the election are only fueling those tensions.

Despite an often startlingly laid-back campaign, Biden, 77, leads in almost every opinion poll, buoyed by his consistent message that America needs to restore its “soul” and get new leadership in the midst of a coronavirus pandemic that has killed more than 231,000 people.

Hours before the polling was to begin, Biden tweeted that he would "govern as an American president".

"I will work with Democrats and Republicans, and I’ll work as hard for those who don’t support me as for those who do."

“I have a feeling we're coming together for a big win tomorrow,” Biden said in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, a vital electoral battleground where he was joined by pop superstar Lady Gaga.

“It's time to stand up and take back our democracy.”

But Trump was characteristically defiant to the end, campaigning at a frenetic pace with crowded rallies in four states on Monday, and repeating his dark, unprecedented claims for a US president that the polls risk being rigged against him.

After almost non-stop speeches in a final three-day sprint, he ended up in the early hours of Tuesday in Grand Rapids, Michigan — the same place where he concluded his epic against-the-odds campaign in 2016 where he defeated apparent front-runner Hillary Clinton.

Despite the bad poll numbers, the 74-year-old Republican real estate tycoon counted on pulling off another upset.

“We're going to have another beautiful victory tomorrow,” he told the Michigan crowd, which chanted back: “We love you, we love you!”

“We're going to make history once again,” he said.

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FBI warns of possible US election violence in protest-riven Portland

The FBI has warned of the potential for armed clashes linked to Tuesday's United States election in Portland, as the northwestern city that has become symbolic of the country's stark divisions braces for unrest.

The liberal enclave in the state of Oregon is still reeling from a summer that saw mass anti-racism rallies inflamed by the arrival of federal officers and right-wing militias, including the so-called Proud Boys.

Tuesday's fiercely polarised vote — which could see President Donald Trump reelected, or defeated by his Democratic rival Joe Biden — has spurred fears of more deadly street violence.

Downtown businesses were boarding up windows once again as protests are planned for either a Trump or a Biden win — or a state of limbo, with delays in the vote-counting expected nationwide due to a surge in mail-in voting during the pandemic.

“The thing that is the most concerning to me is the potential for armed clashes between opposing groups,” FBI Portland Special Agent Renn Cannon told AFP.

“That could escalate into a dangerous situation where — if tempers are heated — you could end up with an unfortunate or tragic act of violence,” he added, pointing to a deadly shooting of a far-right supporter in the city in August.

The 250-strong Portland office has devoted additional resources to election crimes including voter suppression as well as fraud and foreign cyber threats, said Cannon.

Meanwhile Governor Kate Brown on Monday issued an executive order handing Portland policing to state forces — effectively overruling the city's ban on tear gas — and putting the National Guard on standby.

“This is an election like no other in our lifetime,” she warned.

'Wild card situation'

Brown's warnings about white supremacists have drawn scorn from local conservatives including talk-radio host Lars Larson, who Monday accused her of “deafening silence” about “Antifa and Black Lives Matter violence” over five months of protests.

But while Oregon is a safe Democratic state, Portland's Republican hinterland has made it a focus for protests from all ideologies, with further demonstrators flying in from across the country this summer.

FBI agents are being “extra attentive” to any threats that could “reduce the ability for people to exercise their first amendment rights or exercise the right to vote,” said Cannon.

Officials' fears of renewed violence were echoed by voters on Monday, including restaurant cook Leigh Smith.

“I've seen everybody's boarding up already and I'm like 'oh geez,'” said the 35-year-old, after mailing her ballot near the downtown courthouse that became an epicenter of earlier demonstrations.

“It's really a wild card situation. It could be really chill [...] it could become chaotic.” One cause for optimism is that Oregon votes entirely by mail, making lengthy voting lines that could be targeted unlikely on Tuesday, said Cannon.

Of greater concern are multiple protests planned in Oregon for the aftermath of a vote which may not yield a result for days or even weeks, he added.

“Whether or not those will have an armed component or not, I don't know,” said Cannon, with no specific threats currently identified.

'Prepared' for violence

One group organising a rally — the left-wing Democratic Socialists of America's (DSA) Portland branch — told AFP it was “prepared for right-wing street violence to express frustration about their candidate not winning” if Joe Biden triumphs.

“It's our duty to show up and counter them,” said co-chair Olivia Katbi Smith, adding that if protesters fail to mobilise in numbers, militias “will actually drive around and assault people.” DSA Portland does not advocate for armed response to right-wing extremists, she added.

If Trump tries to claim an illegitimate victory, Katbi Smith hopes liberal groups will bring out protest numbers approaching the tens of thousands who attended Portland's 2017 women's rights march.

“We're going to go forward with specific demands about democracy,” said Katbi Smith, including Trump's removal or a new vote.

She added: “There will be right-wing mobilisations against us after the election.“

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Lawyers in US on standby if cloudy election outcome heads to court

Signature mat­ches. Late-arriving absentee votes. Drop boxes. Secrecy envelopes.

Democratic and Republican lawyers already have gone to court over these issues in the run-up to Tuesday’s election.

But the legal fights could take on new urgency, not to mention added vitriol, if a narrow margin in a battleground state is the difference between another four years for President Donald Trump or a Joe Biden administration.

Both sides say they’re ready, with thousands of lawyers on standby to march into court to make sure ballots get counted, or excluded.

Since the 2000 presidential election, which was ultimately decided by the Supreme Court, both parties have enlisted legal teams to prepare for the unlikely event that voting wouldn’t settle the contest. But this year, there is a near presumption that legal fights will ensue and that only a definitive outcome is likely to forestall them.

The candidates and parties have enlisted prominent lawyers with ties to Democratic and Republican administrations.

A Pennsylvania case at the Supreme Court pits Donald Verrilli, who was President Barack Obama’s top Supreme Court lawyer, against John Gore, a onetime high-ranking Trump Justice Department official.

It’s impossible to know where, or even if, a problem affecting the ultimate result will arise. But existing lawsuits in Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Minnesota and Nevada offer some hint of the states most likely to be ground zero in a post-election battle and the kinds of issues that could tie the outcome in knots.

Roughly 300 lawsuits already have been filed over the election in dozens of states across the country, many involving changes to normal procedures because of the coronavirus pandemic, which has killed more than 230,000 people in the US and sickened more than 9 million.

Most of the potential legal challenges are likely to stem from the huge increase in absentee balloting brought on by the coronavirus pandemic. In Pennsylvania, elections officials won’t start processing those ballots until Election Day. Mailed ballots that dont come inside a secrecy envelope have to be discarded, under a state Supreme Court ruling.

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After a campaign like no other, Americans rendering final verdict at polls

Americans cast votes on Tuesday in the bitterly contested presidential race between incumbent Donald Trump and challenger Joe Biden after a tumultuous four years under the businessman-turned-politician that have left the United States as deeply divided as at any time in recent history.

Voters lined up at polling places around the country casting ballots amid a coronavirus pandemic that has turned everyday life upside down. Biden, the Democratic former vice president who has spent a half century in public life, has held a strong and consistent lead in national opinion polls over the Republican president.

But Trump is close enough in several election battleground states that he could piece together the 270 state-by-state Electoral College votes needed to win the election.

Trump is hoping to repeat the type of upset he pulled off in 2016 when he defeated Democrat Hillary Clinton despite losing the national popular vote by about 3 million ballots. Trump is aiming to avoid becoming the first incumbent U.S. president to lose a re-election bid since George H.W. Bush in 1992.

It is possible that it could be days before the result is known, especially if legal challenges focused on ballots sent by mail are accepted in the event of a tight race.

There was a sense of anxiety among voters and concern about possible unrest after a campaign with heated rhetoric. There were buildings boarded up in anticipation of possible protests, including in Washington and New York City. A new fence was erected around the White House.

Polls opened in some Eastern states at 6 a.m. EST (1100 GMT). The most closely watched results will start to trickle in after 7 p.m. EST (2400 GMT) when polls close in states such as Georgia.

Biden made another appearance on Tuesday morning in the pivotal state of Pennsylvania. Speaking to supporters using a bullhorn in Scranton, the city where he was born, Biden returned to some of his familiar campaign themes, promising to unite Americans and “restore basic decency and honor to the White House.”

Appearing on Fox News on Tuesday morning, Trump said the crowds he saw on Monday during his frenetic last day of campaigning gave him confidence that he would prevail.

 

“We have crowds that nobody’s ever had before,” said Trump, who has been criticized by Democrats for holding packed rallies in defiance of social-distancing recommendations during the pandemic. “I think that translates into a lot of votes.”

The voting caps a campaign dominated by a pandemic that has killed more than 231,000 Americans and put of people millions out of work. The country this year also was shaken by protests against racism and police brutality.

Biden, who has framed the contest as a referendum on Trump’s handling of the pandemic, promised a renewed effort to combat the public health crisis, fix the economy and bridge America’s political divide.

Trump has downplayed the pandemic, saying the country is “rounding the corner” even as numerous states set single-day records of new infections in the final days of the campaign.

More than 99 million Americans voted early either in person or by mail, motivated not only by concerns about waiting in lines on Election Day amid the pandemic but also by extraordinary levels of enthusiasm after a polarizing campaign.

The record-shattering total is nearing three-quarters of the total 2016 vote, according to the U.S. Elections Project at the University of Florida. Experts predict the vote could reach 160 million, exceeding the 138 million ballots cast in 2016.

While there were long lines in some places, in many states lines were shorter, perhaps a reflection of the massive early vote.

In McConnellsburg, Pennsylvania, about a dozen voters lined up, bundled in jackets and hats on an unseasonably chilly morning.

“He’s a bit of a jerk, and I appreciate that,” Martin Seylar, a 45-year-old welder who had just finished his shift, said of Trump, his preferred candidate. “He doesn’t get everything that he says done, but the way I see it is he’s trying, versus where everybody else blows smoke at us.”

In Detroit, Republican voter Nick Edwards, 26, cast a ballot for Biden but voted for Republican candidates for Congress.

“Honestly, decency in the White House,” Edwards said when asked about his main concern. “When someone leads the party, they need to hold those values, as well. I don’t think Trump encompasses that.”

Some crucial states, such as Florida, begin counting absentee ballots ahead of Election Day and could deliver results relatively quickly on Tuesday night. Others including Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin are barred from processing the vast majority of mail ballots until Election Day, raising the possibility of a prolonged vote count that could stretch for several days.

U.S. stocks opened higher on Tuesday, as investors wagered that Biden would prevail and usher in fresh stimulus spending.

Voters on Tuesday will also decide which political party controls the U.S. Congress for the next two years, with Democrats pushing to recapture a Senate majority and expected to retain their control of the House of Representatives.

Trump, 74, is seeking another four years in office after a chaotic first term marked by the coronavirus crisis, an economy battered by pandemic shutdowns, an impeachment drama, inquiries into Russian election interference, U.S. racial tensions and contentious immigration policies.

Trump, looking tired and sounding hoarse after days of frenetic campaigning, struck a decidedly less belligerent tone on Tuesday than he did on the trail over the weekend. He was expected spend most of Tuesday at the White House, where an election night party is planned for 400 guests, all of whom will be tested for COVID-19.

Biden, 77, is looking to win the presidency after a five-decade political career including eight years as vice president under Trump’s predecessor, Barack Obama. He mounted unsuccessful bids for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1988 and 2008.

Biden started his day at St. Joseph on the Brandywine, his Roman Catholic church near Wilmington, Delaware, where he spent some time at his son Beau’s grave with Beau’s daughter, Natalie. Beau Biden died of cancer at age 46 in 2015.

The two candidates have spent the final days barnstorming half a dozen battleground states, with Pennsylvania emerging as perhaps the most hotly contested. Biden will have made at least nine campaign stops in Pennsylvania between Sunday and Tuesday.

Biden’s polling lead has forced Trump to play defense; almost every competitive state was carried by him in 2016.

 

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At least two people killed in a gunfire incident in Vienna

At least two people, including an attacker, were killed in a gunfire incident in central Vienna, police said late Monday.

Police said there was "one deceased person" and several injured, including one police officer.

Meanwhile, one suspect was "shot and killed by police officers," Vienna police said on their Twitter account.

The attack had been carried out by "several suspects armed with rifles", and police added that there had been "six different shooting locations".

Gunshots were fired at around 8:00 pm local time (1900 GMT), beginning at the Seitenstettengasse in the city´s centrally-located first district.

The shooting began just hours before Austria was to re-impose a coronavirus lockdown to try to slow the spread of Covid-19, and bars and restaurants were packed as people enjoyed a final night of relative freedom.

Austrian Interior Minister Karl Nehammer told public broadcaster ORF that the incident "appeared to be a terrorist attack" and urged Viennese to remain in their homes.

Nehammer repeated police appeals to residents to keep away from all public places or public transport, and frequent sirens and helicopters could be heard in the city centre as emergency services responded to the incident.

An AFP photographer said that large numbers of police were guarding an area near the city´s world-famous opera house.

The location of the incident is close to a major synagogue.

The president of Vienna´s Jewish community Oskar Deutsch said that shots had been fired "in the immediate vicinity" of the Stadttempel synagogue, but added that it was currently unknown whether the synagogue itself had been the target of an attack.

He said that the synagogue and office buildings at the same address had been closed at the time of the attack.

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Trump threatens to fire Dr Fauci in rift with disease expert

US President Donald Trump has suggested that he will fire Dr Anthony Fauci after Tuesday’s election, as his rift with the nation’s top infectious disease expert widens while the nation sees its most alarming outbreak of the coronavirus since the spring.

Speaking at a campaign rally in Opa-locka, Florida, Trump expressed frustration that the surging cases of the virus — that has killed more than 230,000 Americans so far this year — remains prominent in the news, sparking chants of “Fire Fauci” from his supporters.

“Don’t tell anybody but let me wait until a little bit after the election,” Trump replied to thousands of supporters just after midnight Monday, adding he appreciated their “advice”.

Trump’s comments on Fauci less than 48 hours before polls close all but assure that his handling of the pandemic will remain front and centre heading into Election Day.

It’s the most direct Trump has been in suggesting he was serious about trying to remove Fauci from his position. He has previously expressed that he was concerned about the political blowback of removing the popular and respected doctor before Election Day.

Trump’s comments come after Fauci leveled his sharpest criticism yet of the White House’s response to the coronavirus and Trump’s public assertion that the nation is “rounding the turn” on the virus.

Fauci has grown outspoken that Trump has ignored his advice for containing the virus, saying he hasn’t spoken with Trump in more than a month. He has raised alarm that the nation was heading for a challenging winter if more isn’t done soon to slow the spread of the disease.

In an interview with the Washington Post this weekend, Fauci cautioned that the US will have to deal with “a whole lot of hurt” in the weeks ahead due to surging coronavirus cases.

Fauci said the US “could not possibly be positioned more poorly” to stem rising cases as more people gather indoors during the colder fall and winter months. He says the US will need to make an “abrupt change” in public health precautions.

Fauci added that he believed Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden “is taking it seriously from a public health perspective” while Trump is “looking at it from a different perspective”. Fauci, who’s on the White House coronavirus task force, said that perspective emphasises “the economy and reopening the country”.

In response, White House spokesman Judd Deere said Trump always puts people’s well-being first and Deere charges that Fauci has decided “to play politics” right before Tuesday’s election. Deere said Fauci “has a duty to express concerns or push for a change in strategy” but instead is “choosing to criticise the president in the media and make his political leanings known”.

Trump in recent days has stepped up his attacks on Biden for pledging to heed the advice of scientists in responding to the pandemic. Trump has claimed Biden would “lock down” the nation once again. Biden has promised to heed the warnings of Fauci and other medical professionals but has not endorsed another national lockdown.

Trump has recently relied on the advice of Stanford doctor Scott Atlas, who has no prior background in infectious diseases or public health, as his lead science adviser on the pandemic. Atlas has been a public skeptic about mask wearing and other measures widely accepted by the scientific community to slow the spread of the virus.

Other members of the White House coronavirus task force have grown increasingly vocal about what they see as a dangerous fall spike in the virus.

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Gunmen kill at least 20 students in attack on Kabul university

Gunmen attacked Kabul University's campus on Monday, killing at least20 students and trading fire with security forces, a senior Afghan government source and witnesses said.

The attackers were targeting students and fired on them as they fled in the Afghan capital, one witness said.

“They were shooting at every student they saw,” Fathullah Moradi told Reuters, saying he had managed to escape through one of the university's gates with a group of friends.

The Taliban said their fighters were not involved in the assault. No other group immediately claimed responsibility.

Witnesses said the attack followed an explosion in the area.

“At least 20 killed many others wounded,” the senior government official told Reuters on condition of anonymity as he was not authorised to speak to media.

Gunfight at Kabul University continues five hours after a group of attackers entered the university compound.

Sources say 20 people have been killed in the attack. pic.twitter.com/9zyGz3N1d4

— TOLOnews (@TOLOnews) November 2, 2020

Several attackers had entered the campus and were fighting with security forces, interior ministry spokesman Tariq Arian said. At least 40 people were injured, a police source said.

Nato Senior Civilian Representative to Afghanistan Stefano Pontecorvo condemned the attack.

“This is the second attack on educational institutions in Kabul in ten days. Afghan children and youth need to feel safe going to school,” he said in a statement.

An attack late last month on an education centre in Kabul killed 24 people, mostly students.

Violence has plagued Afghanistan while government and Taliban negotiators have been meeting in Qatar to try to broker a peace deal and as the United States brings home its troops.

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Covid 19: Lockdown in England could be extended

The one-month lockdown for England announced by Prime Minister Boris Johnson this weekend could be extended as Britain struggles to contain a second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, a senior cabinet member said on Sunday.

After resisting the prospect of a new national lockdown for most of last month, Johnson announced on Saturday that new restrictions across England would kick in after midnight on Thursday morning and last until Dec. 2.

The United Kingdom, which has the biggest official death toll in Europe from COVID-19, is grappling with more than 20,000 new coronavirus cases a day and scientists have warned a worst-case scenario of 80,000 dead could be exceeded this winter.

Asked if a lockdown could be extended beyond early December, senior cabinet minister Michael Gove told Sky News: “Yes.”

Britain has reported 46,717 COVID-19 deaths - defined as those dying within 28 days of a positive test. A broader measure of those with COVID-19 on their death certificates puts the toll at 58,925.

“We can definitively say that unless we take action now, the (health service) is going to be overwhelmed in ways that none of us could countenance,” Gove said.

Several cabinet ministers hinted England’s lockdown could extend to next year, with the government considering a brief relaxation over the Christmas period, according to The Times.

The cabinet ministers said they believed it would be “very difficult” to end the lockdown if coronavirus-related deaths and hospital admissions were still rising, the newspaper reported.

The new lockdown announcement came 10 days after Johnson told parliament it would “make no sense at all” to “turn the lights out with a full national lockdown”.

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