Trump speaks for first time in public since defeat

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US media are reporting that dozens of Secret Service officers have either tested positive for or are isolating due to exposure to coronavirus.

The Washington Post reported that the number could be as high as 130 agents. ABC News reports the majority are quarantining due to possible exposure and have not themselves tested positive.

US Secret Service members are charged with protecting the nation's leaders and visiting foreign dignitaries. In total there are about 7,000 people in the service.

Those said to be isolating are from the Uniformed Division, who worked at election events checking bags. They are separate from those agents who protect the president and president-elect.

An official told ABC News that all agents who worked on the campaign trail during the election are now being tested.

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Two health experts advising the president-elect have rejected the idea of a national US lockdown to halt the rise in coronavirus cases.

Celine Gounder told CNBC on Friday they supported "targeted" measures against businesses, like shutting bars, gyms and restaurants.

"Really the consensus is that we need a more nuanced approach," she said. "We've learned a lot since the spring, and we can be much more targeted geographically, and we can also be more targeted in terms of what we close."

Vivek Murthy, who helps head Biden's coronavirus task force, agreed.

"We've got to be more targeted. If we don't do that, what you're going to find is that people will become even more fatigued, schools won't be open to children and the economy will be hit harder."

The US reported another record high of 153,496 new infections on Thursday, according to Johns Hopkins University, as well as 919 deaths.

Daily cases have topped 100,000 for the last 10 days and over 67,000 people are currently in hospital.

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US Attorney General William Barr earlier this week issued an unusual memo allowing federal prosecutors to probe alleged election irregularities if there are "clear and apparently-credible allegations" that "could potentially impact the outcome of a federal election in an individual State".

On Friday, a group of 16 assistant US attorneys ordered to monitor the 2020 election asked Barr to rescind the memo, the Washington Post reports. They told Barr that his order "thrusts career prosecutors into partisan politics", the newspaper said.

Moreover, they said they had seen zero evidence of the sort of fraud Barr's memo highlighted.

Top justice department official Richard Pilger quit earlier this after the release of Barr's memo.

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The attorney general of New York, Letitia James, has said she is ready to sue the Trump administration if the state does not receive an approved Covid-19 vaccine along with the rest of the country.

Speaking earlier today, Trump had said that vaccines would be available throughout the US with the exception of New York, alleging that this was because Governor Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, was delaying the delivery.

Cuomo "will have to let us know when he’s ready for it because otherwise, we can’t be delivering it to a state that won’t be giving it to its people immediately,” Trump said.

In September, the New York governor set up an independent science panel to review Covid-19 vaccine data analysed by the Food and Drug Administration.

James criticised Trump's comments.

"This is nothing more than vindictive behavior by a lame-duck president trying to extract [sic] vengeance on those who oppose his politics," she said.

"If dissemination of the vaccine takes place in the twilight of a Trump Administration and the president wants to play games with people’s lives, we will sue and we will win.”

Jill Biden will soon be making history as the first First Lady to hold a job while in the White House. Here's a look at who America's next first lady is - from educator to her husband's defender and more.

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He still hasn't admitted defeat. But when speaking about the coronavirus and whether or not there would be a US lockdown, President Trump admitted for the first time something had definitely changed.

"This administration will not be going to a lockdown. Hopefully the... whatever happens in the future, who knows which administration it will be, I guess time will tell - but I can tell you this administration will not go to a lockdown."

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Trump and his team have wrapped up the coronavirus briefing, with the president leaving the podium without responding to any questions shouted by reporters.

Here's a summary of what was else was said:

• Trump said his coronavirus response programme, Operation Warp Speed, was "unequalled and unrivaled" in its achievements at helping to develop vaccines and treatments for coronavirus.
• The president said millions of doses would be available for vulnerable Americans as soon as next month throughout the country, but could not resist taking a political swipe at New York governor Andrew Cuomo, saying the treatments would not be available there because the Democrat had expressed doubt about safety
• The leaders of his coronavirus team gave an optimistic outlook on the development of the Pfizer vaccine, which earlier this week announced an effectiveness rate of 90%. They also said another vaccine candidate, developed by Moderna, appeared to be promising, and that other therapeutics were still in the pipeline
• Vice-President Mike Pence acknowledged the rise in coronavirus cases, which this week reached record levels.

Donald Trump may not be willing to concede the election yet, but in his press event from the White House Rose Garden, some doubt about the ultimate outcome appears to be creeping in.

After pledging that his administration would not order lockdowns to control the spread of the coronavirus pandemic, he added: “Whatever happens in the future, who knows which administration it will be? I guess time will tell.”

As the days go by, and the president’s legal challenges to Joe Biden’s Electoral College victory are either dropped or batted away by courts, Donald Trump’s time as president is heading towards an end.

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Donald Trump has just made his first public reference to the election, days after his rival Joe Biden was projected as the winner by US networks.

Speaking about the coronavirus response, Trump said: "This administration will not be going to a lockdown... whatever happens in the future - who knows which administration it'll be, I guess time will tell - but I can tell you this administration will not go to a lockdown."

The president has so far refused to concede the election. Though he has taken to Twitter many times since the 3 November election to insist that he will contest the result, today's Rose Garden event is only the second public appearance he has made since last week, and he took a muted tone to deliver his coronavirus update.

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Donald Trump starts by praising the success of Operation Warp Speed.

"No medical breakthrough of this scope or magnitude has ever been achieved this rapidly," he said, giving credit for the development of a vaccine to his administration. Earlier this month, the drug giant Pfizer announced breakthrough results of its vaccine candidate, which showed 90% effectiveness against the virus, according to early analysis.

Pfizer did not receive Operation Warp Speed funding for research, but did sign an agreement for distribution of doses through the programme.

Trump again referred to Covid-19 as the 'China virus' - something the president has repeatedly said since the start of the pandemic, as the virus was first detected in China.

"Operation Warp Speed is unequalled and unrivaled anywhere in the world," he said. "It’s been an incredible effort."

He would authorise the vaccine for emergency use, Trump said.

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Ad we wait for President Donald Trump to appear at the White House for an update on the coronavirus response, President-elect Joe Biden has repeated calls for Americans to adhere to mask wearing, handwashing and social distancing.

In a statement on Friday, Biden said he had spoken to the co-chairs of his transition Advisory Board for the pandemic, adding: "The facts they presented were alarming."

"This crisis demands a robust and immediate federal response, which has been woefully lacking," he added.

"Urgent action is needed today, now, by the current administration - starting with an acknowledgment of how serious the current situation is."

While he welcomed the progress made into developing a vaccine, he noted that it would be "many months" before it would be available for widespread use.

This week, the US has seen record numbers of daily coronavirus infections. More than 10.6 million cases have been reported since the pandemic began, and 243,000 people have died in the country.

Biden's statement comes as Reuters news agency reports that the states of California, Oregon and Washington have issued advisories urging people to avoid non-essential out of state travel ahead of Thanksgiving later this month.

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The Carter Center has announced that it will monitor the manual recount of ballots in Georgia, the first time in its history that it will deploy its monitors for a US election.

It said it wanted to increase confidence in US democracy.

"As an independent, nonpartisan monitor, The Carter Center will assess the postelection audit and related processes to help bolster transparency and confidence in election results," it said in a statement.

President-elect Joe Biden is currently ahead in Georgia, but earlier this week its secretary of state announced a full hand recount of the almost five million votes cast because of the narrow margin between the two candidates.

Donald Trump has made numerous allegations of election fraud since the vote without providing any evidence.

The Carter Center has observed more than 110 elections in Africa, Latin America, and Asia since 1989, but never before in the US.

The organisation stressed that its involvement would be limited to Georgia's post-election audit, adding that the decision was "not part of a broader assessment of the election as a whole".

Earlier this year, the Carter Center announced that it would be turning its attention to the US by launching a campaign "to strengthen transparency and trust in the election process" amid increasing polarisation.

Pennsylvania's secretary of state has said she will not order a recount in the state, as Joe Biden's margin of victory was sufficiently big not to warrant one.

States often have rules which mean an automatic recount if a candidate's win is within a certain small range - by less than 0.5%, for instance. Georgia is currently holding a recount for this reason.

But Pennsylvania will not do the same. Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar decided not to order a recount, an update today said, "as no statewide candidate was defeated by one-half of one percent or less of the votes cast".

The BBC's results data says Joe Biden is ahead by about 60,000 votes, with 99% of votes counted.

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The BBC projected tonight that Joe Biden won Georgia - a state that has not voted for a Democratic candidate since 1992.

He is also projected to have won Arizona, which similarly has not opted for a Democratic candidate since the 1990s.

But Biden also managed to flip three states that had been Democratic for decades before voting for Donald Trump in 2016 - Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania.

In all, Biden is projected to have won 306 electoral college votes to 232 for Donald Trump. It's exactly the same total Trump won in 2016 when he defeated Hillary Clinton.

However one difference is that Biden also won the 2020 popular vote with nearly 78 million votes, more than five million more than Trump. In 2016 Trump got about 1.3 million votes fewer than Clinton despite winning the electoral college.

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The mysterious figure behind a viral pro-Donald Trump conspiracy theory has broken their silence about the president’s election defeat by hinting at an acceptance of the election result.

The unfounded QAnon theory claims Mr Trump is battling a clandestine network of Satan-worshipping elites who run a child trafficking ring.

It’s fuelled by messages on a fringe website from “Q”, a supposed government insider.

Before a post late Thursday, Q hadn’t said anything since the 3 November vote.

But some believers were dismayed by the new message, which included the term “post-POTUS”. The acronym stands for “President of the United States” and the post seemed to be, in part, an admission that Mr Biden won.

QAnon believers are among Mr Trump’s most fervent supporters, and many remain convinced Mr Trump will overturn the result and win a second term.

Travis View, who co-presents a podcast about QAnon, says that we shouldn’t underestimate the ability of Q supporters “to rationalise away any event that disconfirms their worldview”.

“The majority will probably continue to ‘trust the plan’,” Mr View added, referring to one of the movement’s key slogans.

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President Donald Trump is expected to give a media conference in less than an hour (16:00EST / 21:00GMT), in what will be his first public speech since US media projected that his rival, Joe Biden, had won the White House.

He's set to give an update on the US response to the coronavirus pandemic from the White House, following a week of record daily coronavirus cases.

More than 150,000 new infections were reported on Thursday - the highest figure since the pandemic began.

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Ten days after election day, the counting continues but all states now have projected results.

As of now, Democrat Joe Biden has 306 electoral votes while Republican Donald Trump has 232.

It puts Biden over the magic number - 270 electoral votes - needed to win the presidency.

These numbers are the inverse of 2016, when Trump won 306 electoral college votes to Hillary Clinton's 232 votes.