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Donald Trump Elected US President in Stunning Comeback

Republican presidential nominee and former US President Donald Trump takes the stage with his wife Melania, his son Eric, and his daughter-in-law Lara, following early results from the 2024 US presidential election in Palm Beach County Convention Center, in West Palm Beach, Florida, US, Nov. 6, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Brendan McDermid
Donald Trump was elected president of the United States, capping a remarkable comeback four years after he was voted out of the White House and ushering in a new American leadership.
Trump, 78, recaptured the White House on Wednesday by securing more than the 270 Electoral College votes needed to win the presidency, Edison Research projected.
The former president’s victory in the swing state of Wisconsin pushed him over the threshold. As of 5:45 am ET (1045 GMT) Trump, a Republican, had won 279 electoral votes to US Vice President Kamala Harris’ 223 with several states yet to be counted.
He also led Harris, a Democrat, by about 5 million votes in the popular count.
“America has given us an unprecedented and powerful mandate,” Trump said early on Wednesday to a roaring crowd of supporters at the Palm Beach County Convention Center in Florida.
Trump’s political career had appeared to be over after his false claims of election fraud led a mob of supporters to storm the US Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in a failed bid to overturn his 2020 defeat.
But he swept away challengers inside his Republican Party and then beat Democratic candidate Harris by capitalizing on voter concerns about high prices and what Trump claimed was a rise in crime due to illegal immigration.
Harris did not speak to supporters who had gathered at her alma mater Howard University. Her campaign co-chair, Cedric Richmond, briefly addressed the crowd after midnight, saying Harris would speak publicly later on Wednesday.
“We still have votes to count,” he said.
Republicans won a US Senate majority, but neither party appeared to have an edge in the fight for control of the House of Representatives where Republicans currently hold a narrow majority.
Major stock markets around the world rallied following Trump‘s victory, and the dollar was set for its biggest one-day jump since 2020.
JOBS AND ECONOMY
Voters identified jobs and the economy as the country’s most pressing problem, according to Reuters/Ipsos opinion polls. Many Americans remained frustrated by higher prices even amid record-high stock markets, fast-growing wages, and low unemployment. With the administration of President Joe Biden taking much of the blame, a majority of voters said they trusted Trump more than Harris to address the issue.
Hispanics, traditionally Democratic voters, and lower-income households hit hardest by inflation helped fuel Trump‘s election victory. His loyal base of rural, white, and non-college educated voters again showed up in force.
Trump prevailed despite persistently low approval ratings. Impeached twice, he has been criminally indicted four times. In May, Trump was convicted by a New York jury of falsifying business records to cover up hush money payments to a porn star.
His victory will have major implications for US trade and climate change policies, the war in Ukraine, Americans’ taxes, and immigration.
His tariff proposals could spark a fiercer trade war with China and US allies, while his pledges to reduce corporate taxes and implement a spate of new cuts could balloon US debt, economists say.
Trump has promised to launch a mass deportation campaign targeting immigrants in the country illegally.
A second Trump presidency could drive a bigger wedge between Democrats and Republicans on issues such as race, gender, what and how children are taught, and reproductive rights.
HARRIS FALLS SHORT
Vice President Harris fell short in her 15-week sprint as a candidate, failing to galvanize enough support to defeat Trump, who occupied the White House from 2017-2021, or to allay voters’ concerns about the economy and immigration.
Harris had warned that Trump wanted unchecked presidential power and posed a danger to democracy.
Nearly three-quarters of voters say American democracy is under threat, according to Edison Research exit polls, underscoring the polarization in a nation where divisions have only grown starker during a fiercely competitive race.
Trump ran a campaign characterized by apocalyptic language. He called the United States a “garbage can” for immigrants, pledged to save the economy from “obliteration,” and cast some rivals as the “enemy within.”
Despite legal woes and controversies, Trump is only the second former president to win a second term after leaving the White House. The first was Grover Cleveland, who served two four-year terms starting in 1885 and 1893.
UNPRECEDENTED CAMPAIGN
Two months after Trump‘s conviction in the hush money case, a would-be assassin’s bullet grazed his right ear during a July campaign rally in Pennsylvania, exacerbating fears about political violence. Another assassination attempt was thwarted in September at his Florida golf course. Trump blamed both attempts on what he claimed was the heated rhetoric of Democrats including Harris.
Barely eight days after the July shooting, Biden, 81, dropped out of the race, finally bowing to weeks of pressure from his fellow Democrats after a poor performance during his debate with Trump called into question his mental acuity and the viability of his reelection bid.
Biden’s decision to step aside turned the contest into a sprint, as Harris raced to mount her own campaign in a matter of weeks, rather than the typical months. Her rise to the top of the ticket reenergized despondent Democrats, and she raised more than $1 billion in less than three months while erasing what had been a solid Trump lead in opinion polls.
Harris’ financial advantage was partly countered by the intervention of the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, who poured more than $100 million into a super PAC mobilizing Trump voters and used his social media site X to amplify pro-Trump messaging.
As the campaign drew to a close, Harris increasingly focused on warning Americans about the perils of reelecting Trump.
She highlighted remarks from several former Trump officials, including his former chief of staff and retired Marine Corps General John Kelly, who described Trump as a “fascist.”
A TRUMP SECOND TERM
Trump has vowed to reshape the executive branch, including firing civil servants he views as disloyal.
During his first term, Trump‘s most extreme demands were sometimes stymied by his own cabinet members, most notably when Vice President Mike Pence refused to block Congress from accepting the 2020 election results.
Once the 2024 vote is certified by Congress on Jan. 6, 2025, Trump and his incoming vice president, US Senator JD Vance, are due to take office on Inauguration Day, Jan. 20. Throughout his two-year-long campaign, Trump has signaled he will prioritize personal fealty in staffing his administration. He promised roles in his administration to Musk and former presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., both avid supporters.
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Iran Rejects US Nuclear Proposal, Says ‘Counteroffer’ Coming as Talks Stall Over Uranium Enrichment, Sanctions

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei speaks during a meeting in Tehran, Iran, May 20, 2025. Photo: Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS
Iran has denounced the latest nuclear proposal from the United States as “unprofessional and untechnical,” reaffirming the country’s right to enrich uranium and announcing plans to present a counteroffer in the coming days.
“After receiving the American proposal regarding the Iranian nuclear program, we are now preparing a counteroffer,” Ali Shamkhnai, political adviser to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said in an interview on Wednesday.
Shamkhani criticized the White House draft proposal as “not well thought out,” emphasizing its alleged failure to address sanction relief — a key demand for Tehran under any deal with Washington.
“There is no mention whatsoever of lifting sanctions in the latest American proposal, even though the issue of sanctions is a fundamental matter for Iran,” Shamkhnai said.
The Iranian official also warned that Tehran will not allow the US to dismantle its “peaceful nuclear program” or force uranium enrichment down to zero.
“Iran will never relinquish its natural rights,” Shamkhani said.
Washington’s draft proposal for a new nuclear deal was delivered by Omani officials — who have been mediating negotiations between Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and US Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff — during last month’s talks in Rome.
On Wednesday, Khamenei dismissed such an offer, saying it “contradicts our nation’s belief in self-reliance” and runs counter to Iran’s key objectives.
“The proposal that the Americans have presented is 100 percent against our interests,” the Iranian leader said during a televised speech.
“The rude and arrogant leaders of America repeatedly demand that we should not have a nuclear program. Who are you to decide whether Iran should have enrichment?” Khamenei continued.
After five rounds of talks, diplomatic efforts have yet to yield results as both adversaries clash over Iran’s demand to maintain its domestic uranium enrichment program — a condition the White House has firmly rejected.
In April, Tehran and Washington held their first official nuclear negotiation since the US withdrew from a now-defunct 2015 nuclear deal that had imposed temporary limits on Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for sanction relief.
Since taking office, US President Donald Trump has sought to curtail Tehran’s potential to develop a nuclear weapon that could spark a regional arms race and pose a threat to Israel.
Meanwhile, Iran seeks to have Western sanctions on its oil-dependent economy lifted, while maintaining its nuclear enrichment program — which the country insists is solely for civilian purposes.
As part of the Trump administration’s “maximum pressure” campaign against Iran — which aims to cut the country’s crude exports to zero and prevent it from obtaining a nuclear weapon — Washington has been targeting Tehran’s oil industry with mounting sanctions.
Amid the ongoing diplomatic deadlock, Israel has declared it will never allow the Islamist regime to acquire nuclear weapons, as the country views Iran’s nuclear program as an existential threat.
However, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged to uphold any agreement that prevents Tehran from enriching uranium.
“But in any case, Israel maintains the right to defend itself from a regime that is threatening to annihilate it,” Netanyahu said in a press conference last month, following reports that Jerusalem could strike Iranian nuclear sites if ongoing negotiations between Washington and Tehran fail.
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Day After Colorado Attack, Founder of Anti-Israel Group Chides Activists Who Are Insufficiently ‘Pro-Resistance’

Nerdeen Kiswani, founder of WithinOurLifetime (WOL), leading a pro-Hamas demonstration in New York City on Aug. 14, 2024. Photo: Michael Nigro via Reuters Connect
Nerdeen Kiswani, the founder of the radical anti-Israel organization Within Our Lifetime, chastised those within the pro-Palestinian movement who only support “resistance” in the abstract but not in practice following Sunday’s antisemitic attack in Boulder, Colorado.
“A lot of people who call themselves anti-Zionist or pro-resistance don’t actually understand what resistance is,” Kiswani posted on X/Twitter on Monday. “They support it in theory, but when it shows up in practice, they hesitate, distance themselves, or shift the conversation entirely.”
She continued, “And it makes it even harder for those of us who are principled to take public stances. We’re already marginalized, already painted as extreme or dangerous and that isolation only deepens when others in the movement won’t stand firm when it counts.”
Kiswani’s comments came the day after a man threw Molotov cocktails at a Boulder gathering where participants were rallying in support of the Israeli hostages who remain in captivity in Gaza — which resulted in 15 injuries, including some critically, in what US authorities called a targeted terrorist attack. Her tweets also came less than two weeks after a gunman murdered two Israeli embassy staffers in Washington, DC, while they were leaving an at the Capital Jewish Museum hosted by the American Jewish Committee. In both attacks, the perpetrator yelled “Free Palestine” as they targeted innocent civilians, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
After Kiswani’s social media posts sparked some backlash among pro-Israel users on X, she provided limited pushback on the idea that it was an expression of support for the prior day’s attack in Colorado.
“Zionists are freaking out in the QTs about this, insisting it’s about Colorado,” she wrote. “Newsflash: the world doesn’t revolve around you. Resistance hasn’t stopped in Gaza, look at what just happened in Jabalia [where three IDF soldiers were killed] for instance. The perpetual victimhood is getting old.”
However, Kiswani did not say her comment had no connection to the attack in Colorado, and she did not say that she opposed the firebombing.
Kiswani and her group, Within Our Lifetime (WOL), have been at the forefront of anti-Israel and pro-Hamas activism since Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists killed 1,200 people and abducted 251 hostages during their invasion of southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, a massacre that started the war in Gaza.
On Oct. 8, 2023, one day after the biggest single-day slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust, WOL organized a protest to celebrate the prior day’s attack, which it described as an effort to “defend the heroic Palestinian resistance.” Kiswani notably refused to condemn Hamas and the Oct. 7 massacre following the atrocities.
Then, in Apil 2024, Kiswani refused to condemn the chant “Death to America” and organized a mass demonstration to block the “arteries of capitalism” by staging a blockade of commercial shipping ports across the world in protest of Western support for the Jewish state. That same month, she was banned from Columbia University’s campus in New York City after leading chants calling for an “intifada,” or violent uprising.
The following month, Kiswani led a demonstration in Brooklyn, New York in which she lambasted the local police department, claimed then-US President Joe Biden will soon die, and called for the destruction of Israel.
That proceeded the activist saying she does not want Zionists “anywhere” in the world while speaking in defense of a person who called for “Zionists” to leave a crowded subway car in New York City.
WOL, which planned a protest last year to celebrate the one-year anniversary of the Oct. 7 massacre, was also behind demonstrations at the Nova Music Festival exhibit, which commemorated the more than 300 civilians slaughtered by Hamas while at a music festival.
The latter protest prompted widespread condemnation, including from Biden and even progressive members of the US Congress who are outspoken against Israel.
US Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), for example, posted on social media that the “callousness, dehumanization, and targeting of Jews on display at last night’s protest outside the Nova Festival exhibit was atrocious antisemitism – plain and simple.”
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Israel’s Defense Exports Hit Record $15 Billion in 2024 Despite European Pressure, Calls for Arms Embargo

Israeli troops on the ground in Gaza. Photo: IDF via Reuters
Israel reached a new all-time high in defense exports in 2024, nearing $15 billion — the fourth consecutive year of record-breaking sales — despite mounting international criticism over the war in Gaza and growing pressure from European countries to suspend arms deals.
In a press release on Wednesday, Israel’s Defense Ministry announced that defense exports reached over $14.7 billion last year — a 13 percent increase from 2023 — with more than half of the deals valued at over $100 million.
According to the ministry, Israel’s military exports have more than doubled over the past five years, highlighting the industry’s rapid expansion and growing global demand.
“This tremendous achievement is a direct result of the successes of the IDF [Israel Defense Forces] and defense industries against Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, the Ayatollah regime in Iran, and in additional arenas where we operate against Israel’s enemies,” Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said in a statement.
“The world sees Israeli strength and seeks to be a partner in it. We will continue strengthening the IDF and the Israeli economy through security innovation to ensure clear superiority against any threat – anywhere and anytime,” Katz continued.
In 2024, over half of the Jewish state’s defense contracts were with European countries — up from 35 percent the previous year — as many in the region have increased their defense spending following Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
Despite increasing pressure and widespread anti-Israel sentiment among European governments amid the current conflict in Gaza, this latest data seems to contradict recent calls by European leaders to impose an arms embargo on the Jewish state over its defensive campaign in Gaza against the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas.
On Wednesday, Germany reversed its earlier threat to halt arms deliveries to Israel, reaffirming its commitment to continue cooperation and maintain defense contracts with Jerusalem.
“Germany will continue to support the State of Israel, including with arms deliveries,” German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul told lawmakers in parliament.
Last week, Berlin warned it would take unspecified measures against Israel if it continued its military campaign in Gaza, citing concerns that exported weapons were being used in violation of humanitarian law.
“Our full support for the right to exist and the security of the State of Israel must not be instrumentalized for the conflict and the warfare currently being waged in the Gaza Strip,” Wadephul said in a statement.
Germany would be “examining whether what is happening in the Gaza Strip is compatible with international humanitarian law,” he continued. “Further arms deliveries will be authorized based on the outcome of that review.”
Spain and Ireland are among the countries in Europe that have threatened or taken steps to limit arms deals with Israel, while others such as France have threatened unspecified harsh measures against the Jewish state.
According to the Israeli defense ministry’s report, since the outbreak of war on Oct. 7, 2023, after the Hamas-led invasion of and massacre across southern Israel, the operational successes and proven battlefield performance of Israeli systems have fueled strong international demand for Israel’s defense technology.
Last year, the export of missiles, rockets, and air defense systems reached a new high, making up 48 percent of the total deal volume — up from 36 percent in 2023.
Similarly, satellite and space systems exports surged, accounting for 8 percent of total deals in 2024 — quadrupling their share from 2 percent in 2023.
While Europe dominated Israel’s defense export market in 2024, significant portions also went to other regions. Asia and the Pacific made up 23 percent of total sales — slightly lower than in previous years, when the region approached 30 percent.
Exports to Abraham Accords countries fell to 12 percent, down from 23 percent in 2022, while North America remained stable at around 9 percent.
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