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Joe Biden won Wisconsin and Michigan in two critical victories that boosted his chances of winning the presidential election as the Trump campaign demanded a recount in one of the states and launched lawsuits designed to delay vote counts. After Wisconsin and Michigan were called for Mr Biden, he reached 264 electoral college votes —

Eric Platt and Colby Smith in New York and Katie Martin in London Fading expectations of a decisive election win for Joe Biden have boosted bonds and lifted the dollar as a set of trades based on a “blue wave” Democratic sweep of the White House and Congress stumbled. Investors had ramped up bets in

President Donald Trump and Joe Biden, his Democratic rival, traded victories in conservative and liberal states as they waited for the results in the battlegrounds that will decide the election, including Florida. Mr Trump won solidly conservative states including Indiana, Tennessee and South Carolina. Mr Biden took New York, Virginia, Maryland, Massachusetts and Illinois, all

Our New York-based columnist Rana Foroohar offers her views on election day so far For days, American shopkeepers have been boarding up stores, and police have been planning for riots. Today, many US schools, including some in NYC where I live, were closed in anticipation of election violence. And yet, from the early looks of

US retailers prepared for post-election unrest by boarding up stores as Donald Trump and Joe Biden tried to win over undecided voters who will head to the polls on Tuesday following one of the most divisive presidential campaigns in recent history. Tuesday marks the end of a political race as surreal as it was polarising,

Democratic officials in key swing states lashed out at Donald Trump after he pledged to mount a legal challenge before all the votes are counted as the US prepared for a chaotic election. Democrats fear Mr Trump is trying to boost his re-election chances by making baseless claims about voter fraud, in an effort to

Trailing in the national polls, Donald Trump spent the final week of the US presidential campaign on a frenetic sprint across the country — a last-ditch burst of rallies that seemed impossible just a month ago when he was in hospital with Covid-19. In a desperate attempt to shift the momentum of the race, the

Fresh lockdowns announced across Europe in recent days to contain the resurgence of the coronavirus pandemic have triggered a flurry of downgrades to economic growth forecasts as restrictions on activity threaten the continent’s recovery. The eurozone economy is now expected to shrink by 2.3 per cent in the fourth quarter of this year, cutting output

European politicians have long known there was a real danger of a second wave hitting the continent, but few predicted it would hit with the speed and ferocity seen in recent weeks. The coronavirus resurgence that has forced EU countries into new lockdowns is being exacerbated by multiple failures, including premature lifting of restrictions, behavioural

An uncharacteristically subdued Donald Trump delivered a sombre message to Pennsylvania voters on Saturday as the president kicked off a final blitz of swing state rallies — his last chance to hold on to the White House. Mr Trump and his Democratic opponent Joe Biden are making a final play for states Republicans carried in

US coronavirus cases increased by 97,000 on Friday, by far the largest one-day jump since the start of the pandemic, with Midwestern states leading a wave of infections, hospitalisations and deaths across the country just days before the presidential election.  The sharp increase, which beat Thursday’s record of 88,400, took the weekly total for the

Equities markets were set to cap a volatile trading week on a gloomy note on both sides of the Atlantic after broadly upbeat earnings from America’s tech giants failed to impress investors. A sell-off on Wall Street gathered pace an hour after the opening bell, sending the large-cap S&P 500 down 1.9 per cent and

The biggest US tech companies set aside their growing political troubles on Thursday to disclose the latest leg of their seemingly unstoppable business ascendance: a stunning boom in digital markets has lifted their fortunes at a time when much of the global economy is hurting. Alphabet, Amazon, Apple and Facebook all disclosed quarterly results on

The US economy grew in the third quarter at its fastest pace in postwar history as activity bounced back from coronavirus lockdowns, although output has yet to return to pre-pandemic levels. The jump in gross domestic product was worth 33.1 per cent on an annualised basis — the measure used by the US commerce department’s

Donald Trump’s chance of victory in next week’s presidential election rests on a dwindling number of swing states as a spike in coronavirus cases across the Midwest dents his ratings in crucial battlegrounds, according to pollsters. Mr Trump will continue his tour of battleground states on Thursday, with planned visits to Florida and North Carolina,

European countries are poised to tighten coronavirus crisis restrictions as soaring infection rates stoke alarm across the continent, sending stocks to their lowest level since May. Angela Merkel, Germany’s chancellor, was due to hold talks on Wednesday with premiers of the country’s 16 states about proposed new curbs, while France’s president Emmanuel Macron will give

Apple is stepping up efforts to develop its own search technology as US antitrust authorities threaten multibillion-dollar payments that Google makes to secure prime placement of its engine on the iPhone. In a little-noticed change to the latest version of the iPhone operating system, iOS 14, Apple has begun to show its own search results

LVMH and Tiffany are in talks to renegotiate their $16.6bn combination and are moving closer to agreeing a new deal to avoid a courtroom showdown, said four people with direct knowledge of the matter. The French luxury goods group had agreed to pay $135 a share in cash for US jeweller Tiffany in November last

More than 60m Americans have already cast their ballots in the US presidential election amid a surge in early voting due to the pandemic, pointing to massive turnout despite fears that Covid-19 would dampen participation. According to data from the US Elections Project, more than 63m Americans had voted as of Monday evening, either by

Ant Group is set to raise more than $34bn after setting the price of shares in its initial public offering, putting the Chinese payments group on track to top Saudi Aramco as the biggest ever market listing. The financial technology company, controlled by Alibaba’s billionaire founder Jack Ma, will sell shares in a dual listing

A vaccine considered a frontrunner in the race to protect the global population from Covid-19 has produced a robust immune response in elderly people, the group at highest risk from the disease, according to two people familiar with the finding. The discovery that the vaccine being developed by the University of Oxford, in collaboration with

The Italian government is expected to introduce the harshest public health restrictions since the end of its first national lockdown in May as new coronavirus cases hit a fresh daily record on Saturday. A draft government decree leaked to multiple Italian media outlets on Saturday suggested that Giuseppe Conte, prime minister, was preparing as early

US states were grappling with surges in coronavirus cases that threatened to overwhelm hospitals as Donald Trump and Joe Biden staged competing campaign rallies on Saturday with just 10 days to go until the presidential election. Mr Trump was due to visit three battleground states — North Carolina, Ohio and Wisconsin — on Saturday alone

16 November 2005 Two weeks after I was appointed editor My first meeting with Tony Blair in Downing Street. I’ve been doing some background reading on the Blair years, thanks to a colleague lending me a copy of The Insider, the private diaries of Piers Morgan, the roguish ex-editor of the Daily Mirror and News

The US has tallied the most new coronavirus cases in a week since a major summer outbreak, threatening to overwhelm hospitals in parts of the country just as voters head to the polls for one of the most hotly contested presidential elections in modern history. The worst-hit region in the latest spike continued to be

European governments have warned of an alarming rise in the number of coronavirus infections across the continent from west to east, an autumnal second wave that threatens to overwhelm hospitals and will sharply increase the death toll in the weeks ahead.  “The situation is grave,” Pedro Sánchez, Spain’s prime minister, said on Friday, a day

Donald Trump and his Democratic challenger Joe Biden clashed over the best way to tackle the coronavirus pandemic in a final presidential debate on Thursday night that was less chaotic than their first encounter. Mr Biden slammed Mr Trump over his handling of the crisis, accusing the president of hiding the severity of the threat

Hong Kong’s securities regulator has fined Goldman Sachs’s Asia business a record $350m for serious deficiencies in risk compliance and money laundering controls in relation to Malaysia’s 1MDB. The Hong Kong fine is the first of more than $2bn of new penalties set to be announced on Thursday as regulators from the US to the

One of the biggest US public pension funds has frozen new investments with Apollo Global Management, as growing concerns about founder Leon Black’s relationship with the late paedophile Jeffrey Epstein take a toll on the $414bn private equity group. The Pennsylvania Public School Employees’ Retirement System said it had a discussion with Apollo last week

China is promising preferential access to its Covid-19 vaccines to countries across Asia, Africa and Latin America, as Beijing uses inoculations as a new tool to bolster its ties with nations neglected by the US. Wang Yi, China’s foreign minister, has spearheaded the effort, pledging that Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia and Laos will be among the