White House race on a knife edge
The US presidential election is pretty much still the only story in town. The United States, and the watching world, is on tenterhooks as counting continues in a handful of states that still have to declare a winner. All eyes are on Nevada, Arizona and Pennsylvania. It looks likely that a win in two of those states would push Joe Biden to the magic 270 electoral college votes required to claim victory in the race for the White House. We have a live ticker, while good sites to follow for the latest updates include The Washington Post, an interactive map from Fox News, and The New York Times. Also, keep an eye on the AP Politics Twitter account for reliable announcements of state by state results.
Biden makes statesman like broadcast
In an address made in Wilmington, Delaware on Wednesday evening, Joe Biden said he was confident of victory. In a direct reference to president Donald Trump’s premature declaration, Biden said he was not going to declare that he had won, but that he believed that when the count is finished, he and running mate Kamala Harris will be the winners. “The presidency, itself, is not a partisan institution,” Biden said, as he pledged to represent and “care for all Americans”. CNN and Fox News have video replay.
Trump makes accusations
In a media briefing at the White House, President Donald Trump said that continued counting of votes in some states is a “fraud on the American public” and that he didn’t want counters to “find any ballots at four o’clock in the morning and add them to the list.”. The president and his team are preparing legal challenges in some states and Trump said “we’ll be going to the US supreme court” as he appeared to conflate counting ballots submitted by election day with people voting after the polls had closed. The Guardian and Politico have more.
Local reaction to US elections
Delano has gathered reactions from local residents and commentators, including political scientists and financial centre experts, representatives of both the Republican and Democrat parties abroad, Paul Schonenberg of the American Chamber of Commerce and former Luxembourg consul to San Francisco George Schmit. Read them here.
Live Chat at noon
Also, why not join me and Pulitzer prizewinning journalist David Schrieberg for a Delano Live Chat at noon today as we analyse the election results so far.
4 more covid deaths in Luxembourg
Figures released by the health ministry show that Luxembourg has experienced four new fatalities due to covid-19, bringing the total number of deaths to 171. 710 people tested positive for coronavirus on Tuesday, out of 10,835 tests. The rate of positive tests was at 6.53%, equivalent to 113.4 infections per 100,000. 225 people are now hospitalized, with 30 in intensive care. Delano has news in our rolling coverage.
Juncker weighs in
Former Luxembourg prime minister and EU Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker told RTL Lëtzebuerg TV said that Donald Trump had performed better than he expected in the US election. However, Juncker likened Trump’s premature victory declaration to “somebody who would try to leave a plane before it had landed…” See Delano’s live ticker for more.
Kanye flops out
The Independent reports that Kanye West received just 60,000 votes in the 12 states where he was named on the ballot. However, the music star has apparently said he is considering a run for the presidency again in 2024.
Fox wins US TV ratings
Fox News attracted some 14.1 million prime-time viewers to its election coverage, Reuters reports. The Nielsen ratings agency says CNN had 9.4 million viewers at peak, followed by MSNBC with 7.6 million.
Global covid-19 update
The United States experienced a new one-day record of more than 100,000 new cases of coronavirus on Wednesday, says the BBC. Italy is categorising its 20 regions into one of three red, orange or yellow, tiers, with different restrictions according to colour, The Local Italy reports. As lockdown measures enter into force in England, the UK recorded 492 deaths on Wednesday, the highest daily fatality rate since 19 May according to The Guardian. And, the British being British, many flocked to pubs for one last drink as establishments offered pints for under £1 to get rid of stock, CNBC says. Finally, Denmark is to cull its entire mink population of up to 17 million animals following reports they could pass a coronavirus mutation on to humans, The Verge reports.
EU-UK relationship: Barnier & Fox make statements
After two weeks of intensive talks on the future relationship between the UK and EU continue, chief negotiators on both sides took to Twitter to update their followers. Michel Barnier said that “very serious divergences remain in Level Playing Field, Governance & Fisheries” and that the EU was still prepared for all scenarios. For the UK, David Frost said that although he agreed with Barnier, progress had been made and they would “continue to work to find solutions that fully respect UK sovereignty.”
Fimmel joined by Bacon in “One Way” cast
And in the only Travis Fimmel news we could find, Variety reports that Kevin Bacon has joined the Australian hunk in the cast of “One Way”, which is a crime thriller set to start filming next year.
Today’s breakfast briefing was written by Duncan Roberts