USA

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected Republicans’ last-gasp bid to reverse Pennsylvania’s certification of President-elect Joe Biden’s victory in the electoral battleground.

The court without comment refused to call into question the certification process in Pennsylvania. Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf already has certified Biden’s victory over President Donald Trump and the state’s 20 electors are to meet on Dec. 14 to cast their votes for Biden.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Americans waiting for Republicans in Congress to acknowledge Joe Biden as the president-elect may have to keep waiting until January as GOP leaders stick with President Donald Trump’s litany of legal challenges and unproven claims of fraud.

Tuesday’s deadline for states to certify their elections — once viewed as a pivot point for Republicans to mark Biden’s win — came and went without much comment. Next week’s Dec. 14 Electoral College deadline may produce just a few more congratulatory GOP calls to Biden.

(AP) --- Deaths from COVID-19 in the U.S. have soared to more than 2,200 a day on average, matching the frightening peak reached last April, and cases per day have eclipsed 200,000 on average for the first time on record, with the crisis all but certain to get worse because of the fallout from Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s.

Virtually every state is reporting surges just as a vaccine appears days away from getting the go-ahead in the U.S.

UNITED NATIONS, Dec 08 (APP): Pakistan has joined a key group launched at the United Nations to coordinate actions aimed at the elimination of violence against women and girls that has intensified since the outbreak of coronavirus pandemic.

Seventy-seven UN Member States and observers have already joined what is called the “Group of Friends”, which will meet on quarterly basis, according to the organizers. Some international and regional organizations as well as civil society groups have also expressed their interest to partake in this initiative.

UNITED NATIONS, Dec 08 (APP): United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has called for quick restoration of the rule of law and respect for human rights in Ethiopia’s restive Tigray region as well as reconciliation efforts and unimpeded humanitarian access.

LOS ANGELES, Dec 8 (NNN-AGENCIES) — An overwhelming majority of California’s residents went into lockdown Monday, putting 33 million people under stay-at-home orders as the United States battles record Covid deaths.

The lockdown in America’s most populous state forced most offices to close and banned gatherings among different households, while bars and services such as hair salons were shut and restaurants only allowed to serve takeaways.

DETROIT (Reuters) - Jocelyn Benson, Michigan’s top election official, had just finished hanging Christmas decorations with her young son on Saturday night when a crowd demanding November’s presidential election result be reversed gathered outside her home to denounce her as a “traitor” and a “criminal.”

The demonstrators, some armed and holding up placards saying “Stop the Steal”, clustered on the sidewalk outside Benson’s Detroit home as security and police officers looked on, video broadcast live on Facebook by one of the participants showed.

WASHINGTON, Dec. 7 (Xinhua) -- A U.S. federal judge on Monday blocked the Trump administration's ban on the popular video-sharing app TikTok, the latest defeat in the administration's clamp down on the app.

"For the foregoing reasons, Plaintiffs' Motion for a Preliminary Injunction is granted as to all the prohibitions listed in the Commerce Identification. An Order will accompany this Memorandum Opinion," Judge Carl Nichols of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia wrote Monday in a court document.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Lawmakers are giving themselves more time to sort through their end-of-session business on government spending and COVID-19 relief, preparing a one-week stopgap spending bill that would prevent a shutdown this weekend.

ATLANTA (AP) — Georgia’s top elections official on Monday recertified the state’s election results after a recount requested by President Donald Trump confirmed once again that Democrat Joe Biden won the state, and the governor then recertified the state’s 16 presidential electors.

“We have now counted legally cast ballots three times, and the results remain unchanged,” Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said during a news conference at the state Capitol before the results were recertified.