What’s next? Saturday’s election verdict isn’t last step
WASHINGTON — Saturday’s election verdict isn’t the last step in selecting an American president. Under a system that’s been tweaked over two centuries, there is still a weekslong timeline during which the 538-member Electoral College picks the president. A look at the key steps: — When American citizens vote for...
Convention centers, museums become classrooms amid pandemic
MISSION, Kan. — In ordinary times, the airy convention center on a 61-acre site in Hesston, Kansas, hosts weddings, corporate retreats and church events. During the pandemic, it has become a schoolhouse for the district’s seventh- and eighth-graders. Megan Kohlman teaches literature and writing inside one of the rooms, separated...
Love it or hate it, here’s how the Electoral College came to be
CHICAGO — As they do every four years, pundits and newscasters again are explaining why we choose a president in the peculiar way we do. By now, our customary amnesia has set in. Millions of Americans voted for president on Nov. 3, but it is the 538 electors in the...
5 states OK measures eradicating racist language, symbols
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — Alabama voters reversed themselves from a few years ago and removed racist vestiges of segregation from the state constitution that courts long ago ruled unconstitutional. Rhode Island did a similar a U-turn to eradicate the word “plantations” from the state’s official name. In a year when discussions...
Iran’s president calls on Biden to return to nuclear deal
TEHRAN, Iran — Iran’s president called on President-elect Joe Biden to “compensate for past mistakes” and return the U.S. to Tehran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, a state-run news agency reported Sunday. Hassan Rouhani’s comments mark the highest-level response from Iran to Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris clinching...
Biden says it’s ‘time to heal in America’ in 1st address as President-elect
WASHINGTON — Democrat Joe Biden defeated President Trump to become the 46th president of the United States on Saturday and offered himself to the nation as a leader who “seeks not to divide, but to unify” a country gripped by a historic pandemic and a confluence of economic and social...
Watch LIVE: President-elect Joe Biden, VP-elect Kamala Harris address the nationVideo
Joe Biden was elected the 46th president of the United States on Saturday when Pennsylvania and Nevada delivered the electoral votes he needed to claim the White House, ending a caustic campaign that sorely tested the nation amid a pandemic and deep partisan divisions. Biden will address the country as...
Fight for Senate control awaits in Georgia after Biden’s win
WASHINGTON — Control of the Senate likely won’t be decided until a January runoff in Georgia, even after Democrat Joe Biden won the White House on Saturday. That post-election cliff-hanger will determine the balance of power in Washington, as neither party appears to have a lock on a Senate majority...
Throng of Trump supporters in Harrisburg protest Biden’s winVideo
Supporters of President Trump protested Saturday in Harrisburg at the Capitol against Joe Biden’s growing vote tally for the presidency. Then news broke that the presidential race had been called in Biden’s favor. All of the major news organizations called the states of Pennsylvania and Nevada for Biden, which would...
Trump defeat leaves chastened White House wondering what’s nextVideo
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s aides described a leadership vacuum in the White House on Saturday after he lost reelection and internal finger-pointing began, even as his associates wondered how he would grapple with defeat. The race was called while Trump was at his golf course in northern Virginia. Many...
Gun-waving St. Louis couple sues news photographer
ST. LOUIS — A St. Louis couple facing felony charges for waving guns at racial injustice protesters who marched near their home allege in a lawsuit that a news photographer trespassed to capture an image of the confrontation. Mark and Patricia McCloskey, lawyers in their 60s, filed the lawsuit Friday...
‘This isn’t over!’: Trump supporters refuse to accept defeatVideo
Chanting “This isn’t over! and “Stop the steal,” supporters of President Donald Trump protested at state capitols across the country Saturday, refusing to accept defeat and echoing Trump’s unsubstantiated allegations that the Democrats won the election by fraud. From Atlanta and Tallahassee to Bismarck, Boise and Phoenix, crowds ranging in...
After waiting game, media moves swiftly to call Biden winner
NEW YORK — With a fifth day of vote counting testing the nation’s patience, news organizations on Saturday moved swiftly following a crucial release of data from Pennsylvania to declare Democrat Joe Biden as the winner of the presidential election. CNN made its call at 11:24 a.m. Eastern, and was...
Timeline: How Pennsylvania broke for Biden as Trump’s early lead evaporated
In 2016, President Donald Trump won Pennsylvania by 44,284 votes, out of more than 6 million cast. Here are some highlights of what transpired over five days this week in the Keystone State as he tried to recreate that magic, only to have Pennsylvania declared for Democrat Joe Biden —...
Census takers say they were told to enter false information
Two census takers told The Associated Press that their supervisors pressured them to enter false information into a computer system about homes they had not visited so they could close cases during the waning days of the once-a-decade national headcount. Maria Arce said her supervisor in Massachusetts offered step-by-step instructions...
Doctors fear more death as Dakotas experience virus ‘sorrow’
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. — With coronavirus cases running rampant in the Dakotas and elected leaders refusing to forcefully intervene, the burden of pushing people to take the virus seriously has increasingly been put on the families of those killed. The ranks of those who know what it means to lose...
Mourners say farewell to Walter Wallace Jr., killed in encounter with police
PHILADELPHIA — Mourners began lining up at a North Philadelphia church Saturday morning to pay respect to Walter Wallace Jr., who was shot and killed last month by police during a domestic call. A steady line of mourners began forming shortly before 9 a.m. outside National Baptist Temple Church. A...
World leaders congratulate Biden and Harris on election win
Although U.S. President Donald Trump wasn’t conceding defeat, world leaders swiftly congratulated Joe Biden for his election victory Saturday and expressed hope that the new White House will prioritize the fight against climate change. The news elicited cheers in an Italian coffee bar, encouraged protesters outside the house of Israel’s...
Biden win sparks smattering of protests; most stay peaceful
A smattering of protests broke out around the country Saturday after former Vice President Joe Biden won the presidency, with President Donald Trump and his supporters refusing to accept defeat and pushing unfounded suspicions that rampant voter fraud was denying him a second term. Outside the state capitol building in...
1st woman free-climbs El Capitan’s Golden Gate route in day
YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK, Calif. — Rock climber Emily Harrington has become the first woman, and fourth person, to free-climb the Golden Gate route on Yosemite National Park’s 3,000-foot granite wall in a single day. While most of the country was focused on the results of the U.S. presidential election early...
Elation and anger: Catharsis in the streets around U.S. as election ends
As soon as the news buzzed on their phones, Americans gathered spontaneously on street corners and front lawns — honking their horns, banging pots and pans, starting impromptu dance parties — as an agonizingly vitriolic election and exhausting four-day wait for results came to an end Saturday morning. And for...
Biden built back Pennsylvania’s own ‘blue wall’ — one brick at a time
Former Vice President Joe Biden rebuilt the Pennsylvania section of the “blue wall” one brick at a time as he amassed a lead that led The Associated Press to declare him president-elect Saturday. Preliminary returns show how he held onto Philadelphia, flipped back Erie and Northampton counties and built larger...
Trump defied gravity; now falls back to earth, future TBD
WASHINGTON — Donald Trump, who defied political gravity with his extraordinary rise from reality star and businessman to the presidency, has fallen back to earth. In the end, his flurry of raucous rallies, an unprecedented turnout operation and sheer force of will could not overcome the reality of his enduring...
Pennsylvania has back-to-back record-high coronavirus cases
Pennsylvania on Saturday reported 4,035 new coronavirus cases — a whopping 651 case jump from the previous record set just the day before. The state also reported 40 new deaths. The total number of covid-19 deaths in Pennsylvania is 9,015. The new data bring the total cases to 227,985. Officials...
Explainer: Why The Associated Press called Pennsylvania for BidenVideo
Four years ago, President Donald Trump breached the Democrats’ “blue wall,” narrowly winning Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin — a trio of Great Lakes states that had long served as a bulwark against Republican presidential candidates. On Saturday, Democrat Joe Biden captured it back — and also won the presidency —...
