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ATLANTA — All votes have been counted and President-elect Donald Trump’s clear victory in Georgia is confirmed. Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger certified the election results Friday after two audits and unanimous approval by county election boards across the state. The final count showed Trump defeated Vice President Kamala Harris by 115,100 votes, a 2.2 percentage point margin. Republicans also retained their majorities in Congress, the state Senate and the state House after the election. “The votes were counted accurately, securely and quickly,” said Raffensperger, a Republican. “I’m proud to certify these results and we congratulate President-elect Donald J. Trump on his victory.” After the last election four years ago, Trump criticized Raffensperger for certifying Joe Biden’s narrow win by 11,779 votes, a 0.2 percentage point margin. Trump falsely claimed the election was stolen and pressured Raffensperger to “find” enough votes to reverse the result. A criminal case alleging Trump tried to subvert the 2020 election has stalled in Fulton County, and Trump’s attorneys plan to ask a judge to dismiss the charges because he’s the newly elected president. This time, without any dispute over the outcome, Raffensperger isn’t facing controversy since Harris conceded without complaint. Certification makes the results official, a step required by state law 17 days after the election. Since then, election officials have checked vote counts, verified voting data and signed off on the winners. Besides the presidential race, Republicans secured the same majorities over Democrats in Congress and the state Senate, holding a 9-5 lead in Washington and a 33-23 advantage in the state Senate. Republicans lost two seats in the state House but still maintain a 100-80 majority. A hand-count audit this week showed similar results as the machine count, with tiny differences that Raffensperger attributed to human error. The manual review of nearly 750,000 ballots — about 14% of total turnout — reported 11 more votes for Trump and six fewer for Harris. In all, turnout reached a record of nearly 5.3 million voters in Georgia. The secretary of state’s office said election officials also completed a second audit that used text-recognition technology to read candidate names printed on every ballot cast in Georgia, and then counted the totals. The numbers were compared to vote counts from ballot scans on election night, which tabulated results from QR codes printed on ballots. Raffensperger didn’t immediately release details of the text-recognition audit Friday. State law also requires Gov. Brian Kemp to certify Georgia’s election results by Saturday. Next, electors for Trump will meet in the Georgia Capitol to record their votes on Dec. 17, and then Congress will count Electoral College votes on Jan. 6. Trump will be inaugurated Jan. 20. ©2024 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Visit at ajc.com . Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
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Dodgers urged to sign 2.92 ERA starter predicted to get $217M deal | Sporting NewsLISBON, -- Just when were starting to wobble, Martin Odegaard produced a match-defining moment of quality. Manager Mikel Arteta will hope that can apply to their season as a whole after a difficult run of results in which the absence of their captain was keenly felt. Managers bemoaning injuries is nothing new -- and it can often serve as a useful distraction from other issues -- but Odegaard's return from an ankle injury has coincided with a dramatic upturn in their performances, continuing with Tuesday's impressive 5-1 demolition of Sporting Lisbon in the . "He is an unbelievable player and the day he returned, there was a big smile on my face," said of Odegaard. "You can see the chemistry we have, how much I enjoy playing with him. So I am happy he is back and I hope he stays fit for the rest of the season." Sporting went into this game unbeaten across 19 matches this season and fresh off beating here at Estadio Jose Alvalade just three weeks ago, with 's hat-trick confirming his status as one of Europe's hottest properties. Manager Ruben Amorim has since departed for and Gyokeres was a peripheral figure on Tuesday night, with Arsenal's opening 45 minutes ranking as their finest half of football of the season. It was a quintessential European away performance: clinical in attack, disciplined and dogged in defence. Their 3-0 half-time lead -- coming through goals from , and -- was thoroughly deserved, the first two emanating from a right-wing combination Sporting simply could not cope with. Odegaard's tendency to drift to the right flank to link up with Saka is a familiar pattern of play, but one so many teams struggle to combat: found that out to their cost last weekend when being soundly beaten at Emirates Stadium. With showing promising signs of being a more-than-able deputy for regular right-back (he'll be out until the New Year following knee surgery), Arsenal's potency down that wing was such that 65% of their attacks came via that channel in the first half. Timber set up Martinelli for the opener, while Saka found Havertz for the second on 22 minutes. Gabriel's third was a header from a corner, extending their impressive set-piece record, but after put a dent in their defensive record with a near post finish two minutes into the second half, Sporting sensed an improbable comeback. Arsenal began to exhibit nerves. Passes were misplaced, the pressure began to build, goalkeeper was booked for timewasting. And then suddenly, Odegaard burst forward, cruising past Inacio and somehow, off balance but still purposeful, he worked his way into the box, where could only foul him and concede a penalty. Saka drilled home the spot-kick before substitute added a late fifth, but Odegaard was the chief architect. He has more touches of the ball (82) than any other Arsenal player aside from Timber (84) and he didn't even play the final 12 minutes, rested with Saturday's tricky trip to West Ham in mind. There is skepticism about the overall quality of the Portuguese league, but Arsenal made the gulf in class look massive here, which is to their considerable credit. For a start, Tuesday marked the first time Arsenal have scored five goals away from home in the Champions League since October, 2008. After coming into this game facing legitimate questions about their durability on the road in Europe -- Arsenal hadn't scored an away goal in this competition since December, during a run of one win in eight matches -- this was an emphatic response. Asked if this was the best European away performance of his five-year tenure, Arteta was clear. "For sure, especially against the opponent that we played in their home," he said post-match. "I don't think they've lost here in 18 months. They've been in top form, they've been better than everyone they've played here. To play to that level, with the fluidity that we've done today ... I'm very pleased." Arteta raised eyebrows when he described their 1-0 defeat at Inter Milan as the best they had played in a big European game for years, but that faith was thoroughly vindicated here. "It's true that the result is very different," he said. "But with the performance and identity of what I saw against Inter I was very pleased. I knew that in that pathway good things were going to happen in Europe. Today we've been able to do that and replicate it and be more efficient in the opposition half. Very pleased because the team has played with so much courage. They are so good and watching them live I realise how good they are." Arteta also believes the return of several players from injury has increased the competitiveness in training, which in turn raises the level of performance. That said, Odegaard's return feels most transformative when he plays like this. The learned it last weekend and on Tuesday, the Champions League got the same message.
But it is not the largest prize a person has won in this country. Here are the 10 biggest UK lottery winners – all from EuroMillions draws – and what some of them did with their fortunes. – Anonymous, £195,707,000 A UK ticket-holder scooped the record EuroMillions jackpot of £195 million on July 19 2022 – the biggest National Lottery win of all time. – Joe and Jess Thwaite, £184,262,899.10 Joe and Jess Thwaite, from Gloucester, scooped a then record-breaking £184,262,899 with a Lucky Dip ticket for the draw on May 10 2022. At the time, Joe was a communications sales engineer, and Jess ran a hairdressing salon with her sister. – Unclaimed ticket holder, £177 million Tuesday’s winner is wealthier than former One Direction member Harry Styles and heavyweight boxer Anthony Joshua, who are both worth £175 million, according to the latest Sunday Times Rich List. Players have been urged to check their tickets to see if they can claim the prize. – Anonymous, £170,221,000 The fourth biggest winner of the National Lottery to date scooped £170 million in October 2019, after matching all the numbers in a Must Be Won draw. – Colin and Chris Weir, £161,653,000 Colin and Chris Weir, from Largs, North Ayrshire, bagged their historic winnings in July 2011, making them the biggest UK winners at the time. Colin used £2.5 million of his fortune to invest in his beloved Partick Thistle Football Club, which led to one of the stands at the stadium being named after him. He later acquired a 55% shareholding in the club, which was to be passed into the hands of the local community upon his death. He died in December 2019, aged 71. The couple also set up the Weir Charitable Trust in 2013 and donated £1 million to the Scottish independence referendum in 2014. They divorced in the same year as Colin’s death. – Adrian and Gillian Bayford, £148,656,000 Adrian and Gillian won 190 million euros in a EuroMillions draw in August 2012, which came to just over £148 million. The couple bought a Grade II listed estate in Cambridgeshire, complete with cinema and billiards room, but it was sold in 2021, some years after the pair divorced, as reported by The Mirror. – Anonymous, £123,458,008 The seventh biggest National Lottery winner won a Superdraw rollover jackpot in June 2019, and decided not to go public with their success. – Anonymous, £122,550,350 After nine rollovers, one lucky anonymous ticket-holder bagged more than £122 million in April 2021. – Anonymous, £121,328,187 Another of the UK’s top 10 lottery winners found their fortune through a Superdraw jackpot rollover, this time in April 2018. – Frances and Patrick Connolly, £114,969,775 Former social worker and teacher Frances set up two charitable foundations after she and her husband won almost £115 million on New Year’s Day 2019. She estimates that she has already given away £60 million to charitable causes, as well as friends and family. She considers helping others to be an addiction, saying: “It gives you a buzz and it’s addictive. I’m addicted to it now.”Brazilian police indict Bolsonaro and accomplices for 2022 coup attempt, alleged plot to kill Lula
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U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has denied an appeal by TikTok, upholding a ban that will go into effect in January. The Biden administration followed through on what the Trump administration had previously tried, banning TikTok over national security concerns. ByteDance, TikTok’s parent, has until January 19 to sell the social media app’s US operations or it will be banned. According to , the three-judge panel upheld the ban, throwing out an argument by ByteDance that the ban unfairly targeted the app and infringed on users’ First Amendment rights. The judges said the law banning TikTok was “carefully crafted to deal with only control by a foreign adversary,” and therefore the First Amendment wasn’t an issue. “The government acted solely to protect that freedom from a foreign adversary nation and to limit that adversary’s ability to gather data on people in the United States,” the judges continued. TikTok has vowed to fight the ban all the way to the Supreme Court. “The Supreme Court has an established historical record of protecting Americans’ right to free speech, and we expect they will do just that on this important constitutional issue,” said company spokesperson Michael Hughes, saying the ban amounted to “outright censorship of the American people.” Despite TikTok’s stand, it seems unlikely that the Supreme Court will overturn the ban, especially given the argument presented by the appeals court. What’s more, there is little hope the incoming Trump administration will overturn the ban. While Trump has to save TikTok, those plans likely involve ByteDance giving up control of its US operations, much like Trump’s initial attempt to ban the app during his first term. In addition, Trump has made escalating the trade war with China a critical theme of his second term, adding to the unlikelihood of any meaningful attempt to reverse the ban. Either way, the future of TikTok in the US is looking increasingly bleak.In the weeks leading up to Donald Trump 's second term, it appears that Vice President-elect JD Vance is nowhere in sight. Instead, Elon Musk – the world's richest person and largest single donor to the Trump re-election campaign – is by Trump’s side at every turn. The pair have been keeping busy since the election. They’ve flown together on Trump’s private Boeing 757, nicknamed Trump Force One. The president-elect attended Musk’s SpaceX launch in Texas. And the X owner joined Trump for Thanksgiving at Mar-a-Lago , even appearing in a family photo. But Musk’s role isn’t limited to “first buddy.” As a member of his inner circle, major donor, and co-leader of the new Department of Government Efficiency , Musk’s role as enforcer and influencer for Trump is starting to take shape. Musk takes on Capitol Hill Musk made the rounds on Capitol Hill last week on behalf of his new boss, aggressively pitching ways the federal government can reduce its spending through the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, a nod to the Dogecoin cryptocurrency that Musk promotes. Musk and fellow businessman Vivek Ramaswamy held a private meeting with Republican lawmakers to discuss ways they can slash government spending through DOGE. The task force will also be responsible for finding ways to fire federal workers, cut social programs, and slash federal regulations. Their visit to Capitol Hill also came with a warning to lawmakers – join Trump in making cuts or pay the price. Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, who is leading the House working group for DOGE, told reporters after the meeting that Musk and Ramaswamy said they will have a “naughty and nice list” of lawmakers who support or vote against the spending cuts. Power of the purse Musk’s rise to prominence within the Trump campaign and the incoming administration was likely boosted by the amount of money he spent during the election. According to documents filed with the Federal Election Commission, Musk spent at least $277 million in political contributions to support Trump and other Republicans, making him the single largest donor of the 2024 election. Nearly $239 million of that total went directly to Musk’s personal super PAC, America PAC , which he quietly established in the spring. He used the PAC to spend $154.5 million on digital ads and get-out-the-vote efforts to support Trump and oppose Vice President Kamala Harris. The billionaire also donated another $20 million to a group that claimed Trump wouldn’t sign a national abortion ban, comparing him to late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Musk said he plans to continue to fund and operate his super PAC, potentially using it to challenge Republican lawmakers during the midterms who don’t follow Trump’s agenda. Will Musk’s influence last? It’s hard to say. Trump previously joked that he “can’t get Musk out of Mar-a-Lago.” And NBC News reported that Musk’s constant presence is starting to strain longtime Trump advisors. But for now, as Musk joins in on phone calls with world leaders and travels abroad with the president-elect, it appears the billionaire will maintain his outsized role. Melissa Cruz is an elections reporting fellow who focuses on voter access issues for the USA TODAY Network. You can reach her at mcruz@gannett.com or on X, formerly Twitter, at @MelissaWrites22.
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Legislative leaders announced this week who will chair committees in the next session, appointments that will shape the tenor of debate in the Minnesota House that will almost certainly be evenly divided in a rare tie between DFLers and Republicans. Bills are typically debated and amended in at least one committee before going before the full House for a vote. In a typical year, bills could pass out of committee on a partisan vote. But the two caucus leaders, Rep. Melissa Hortman, DFL-Brooklyn Park and Rep. Lisa Demuth, R-Cold Spring, say committees will consist of 14 representatives, seven from each party. And next year’s rules will require eight votes for a bill to pass out of committee — not just a majority of the representatives present. “So that we’re not playing the ‘who went to the bathroom’ game or, ‘whose car got stuck in the snow’” Hortman said. “That was part of the problem they encountered in 1979,” the last year the House was tied. Instead of trying to find a partisan advantage at any opportunity, Hortman and Demuth said they both want to work on a bipartisan basis. When a bill comes out of committee, Hortman said, it will already have bipartisan support. She compared the process of finding bipartisan agreement on a bill in committee to conference committees during divided government. When the DFL controlled the House and Republicans controlled the Senate from 2019 to 2022, she said, Republicans and Democrats had to come to agreements on bills. She and Demuth are confident that can happen again. Who is leading committees? In a normal year with one party in the majority, the majority party would appoint representatives to run committees. But this year, each committee will have two co-chairs, one from each party. Hortman said the plan is for the Republican and Democratic co-chairs to each lead about half of the committee meetings, setting the agenda for the day. Maybe that will mean a week of DFL-run meetings followed by a week of Republican-run meetings, she said, but more likely the partisan co-chairs will just alternate days. Demuth and Hortman said they worked together to decide how many committees there would be and which subjects they would work on. The caucuses appointed committee co-chairs independent of each other. Demuth said she was focused on seniority and subject-area expertise. One exception to seniority is the Rules and Legislative Administration committee. The Republican co-chair of that committee is Rep. Harry Niska, R-Ramsey, who was just elected to his second term this month. Demuth explained that Niska will chair that committee because the Republican caucus elected him their deputy leader. The Rules committee will be co-chaired by one of the more powerful Democrats in the House. Rep. Jamie Long, DFL-Minneapolis, the Rules DFL co-chair, is one of three representatives on the DFL’s “organizational team” working just under Hortman. What could this mean? With the two parties unlikely to find much common ground on policy legislation, most expect the main action of the 2025 legislative session will be the biennial budget, with a chance to pass a bonding bill to borrow for major one-time spending. Because Minnesota requires a 60% supermajority to pass a bonding bill, the process is typically more bipartisan. Recommendations for bonding go through the Capital Investment Committee, which will be co-chaired by Rep. Mary Franson, R-Alexandria, and Rep. Fue Lee, DFL-Minneapolis. Lee chaired the capital investment committee last session, and Franson was also a member. “The legislative process is all about finding compromise that can work,” Hortman said. “We are ready to get to work,” added Demuth.
Japan's ruling and opposition parties agreed Tuesday to work toward abolishing policy activity funds, which are not subject to disclosure even when such income reaches hundreds of millions of yen, during their first meeting on political reforms. But the ruling Liberal Democratic Party has expressed reluctance to eliminate corporate donations, which have benefited the pro-business LDP, lawmakers said, despite criticism that the practice is considered a form of bribery that could distort policy outcomes. The discussions come as Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba's LDP seeks to reach policy consensus with the opposition camp, after the party and its junior coalition partner lost their majority in the House of Representatives election on Oct. 27. The LDP aims to enact new revisions to the political funds control law by the end of the year. Party powerbrokers have not been required to report how they spend the money, raising doubts about whether it may have been used inappropriately. The Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan said it intends to map out its own proposals on political funds reforms. It remains uncertain whether the main opposition party and the LDP will make concessions on the issue, lawmakers said. The 24-day extraordinary parliamentary session is scheduled to convene on Thursday, as the LDP faces intense scrutiny over revelations that some of its factions failed to report portions of income from fundraising events and created slush funds. Revisions to the law were previously passed in June, when the LDP, then led by Ishiba's predecessor, former Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, attempted to showcase efforts to reform the political funds system to regain public trust in politics. The changes, however, were criticized as insufficient, with opposition parties highlighting the absence of a ban on corporate donations and the lack of clarity on when mandatory disclosures of policy activity funds would be implemented.Veteran Shattenkirk retires after 14 seasons