According to Fox News, the 68-year-old star’s movie ‘Honest Thief’ shot to the top of the box office in October amid a slew of theatre closures that prompted several movie studios to postpone their major blockbuster releases until at least 2021, and now, the action thriller ‘The Marksman,’ has also reached the top of the charts.

According to Variety, the film debuted at No. 1 with USD 3.2 million in ticket sales and is expected to close out the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend with USD 3.7 million across 1,975 locations. That means it’s a likely contender to finally unseat ‘Wonder Woman: 1984’ in its third week in theatres.

As reported by Fox News, the Gal Gadot-led superhero movie surprised everyone by performing well at the box office in December despite also releasing for free to HBO Max subscribers in a bid to cultivate viewership at a time when the coronavirus pandemic has made going to the theatre a difficult prospect for most Americans.

However, as Variety notes, alongside films like ‘Wonder Woman: 1984,’ ‘Honest Thief’ and Robert De Niro’s ‘The War With Grandpa,’ ‘The Marksman’ joins the club of lowest-grossing box office toppers in modern history thanks to only 65 percent of theatres in the U.S. being open for business.

Currently, ‘Wonder Woman: 1984’ is in a bit of a race for a second during the holiday weekend with ‘The Croods: A New Age’ edging close to its expected total of USD 2.6 million. Meanwhile, ‘News of the World’ with Tom Hanks is likely to finish fourth.

Fox News reports that ‘The Marksman’ sees Neeson playing an Arizona rancher who becomes the unlikely protector of a young Mexican boy who is being pursued by a cartel to assasinate him.

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A pro-Trump nonprofit group called Women for America First hosted the “Save America Rally” on Jan. 6 at the Ellipse, an oval-shaped, federally owned patch of land near the White House.

But an attachment to the National Park Service public gathering permit granted to the group lists more than half a dozen people in staff positions for the event who just weeks earlier had been paid thousands of dollars by Trump’s 2020 re-election campaign. Other staff scheduled to be “on-site” during the demonstration have close ties to the White House.

Since the siege, several of them have scrambled to distance themselves from the rally.

The riot at the Capitol, incited by Trump’s comments before and during his speech at the Ellipse, has led to a reckoning unprecedented in American history. The president told the crowd to march to the Capitol and that “you’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength, and you have to be strong.”

A week after the rally, Trump was impeached by the House of Representatives, becoming the first U.S. president ever to be impeached twice. But the political and legal fallout may stretch well beyond Trump, who will exit the White House on Wednesday before Democrat Joe Biden takes the oath of office. Trump had refused for nearly two months to accept his loss in the 2020 election to the former vice president.

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In the factsheet, US claims to have evidence that several researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology became sick in autumn of 2019, before the first identified case of the coronavirus outbreak, with symptoms consistent with the both COVID-19 and common seasonal illness. US maintain its claims that the virus may have escaped the controversial Wuhan lab.

According to the factsheet , the department says that the virus could have emerged from human contact with infected animals or through a laboratory accident. The report says, “Scientists in China have researched animal-derived coronaviruses under conditions that increased the risk for accidental and potentially unwitting exposure”.

US released the fact sheets as 13 international experts of the World Health Organisation (WHO) arrived in China to probe the origin of the coronavirus.

Major claims

The fact sheet highlights three major elements about the COVID-19 virus- illness inside the Wuhan Institute of Virology(WIV), Research at the WIV and Secret military activity at WIV.

The factsheet claim that several researchers inside the WIV became sick in 2019 before the first outbreak was reported. This raises the questions about the credibility of WIV senior researcher Shi Zhengli’s public claim that there was “zero infection”among the WIV’s staff and students of SARS-CoV-2 or SARS-related viruses, the report says. It also mentioned about how accidental infections in Chinese labs have contributed to previous virus outbreak.

The US also claimed the involvement of Chinese military in secret military experiments in Wuhan lab since 2017.The report says, “The WIV has engaged in classified research, including laboratory animal experiments, on behalf of the Chinese military since at least 2017″. It added, “The United States and other donors who funded or collaborated on civilian research at the WIV have a right and obligation to determine whether any of our research funding was diverted to secret Chinese military projects at the WIV”.

The US asserted that the WHO investigators must have access to the records of the WIV’s work on bat and other coronaviruses before the coronavirus outbreak.

“As part of a thorough inquiry, they must have a full accounting of why the WIV altered and then removed online records of its work with RaTG13 and other viruses,” the US fact sheet said.

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According to reports, the documents are currently available on the Black Vault, an online archive of declassified government documents. Now the truth is perhaps out there in .zip file, which primarily deals with information of UFOs, which by definition remain a mystery. Although it might need dedicated digging.

The Black Vault, a UFO enthusiast site and clearinghouse for related government files, recently published approximately 2,700 pages of the declassified documents provided by the CIA.

The CIA told the Black Vault that the document includes its “entire” collection of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP).

Black Vault site founder John Greenewald.Jr spent decades trying to get his hands on the documents through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) laws and he finally succeeded last year. CIA gave the files to Mr. Greenwald, in a CD-Rom. CIA claims that all files it has on UFO are present in the CD, but Greenewald notes on his website that “there may be no way to entirely verify that”.

Some of the reports, including one about the mysterious explosion in a Russian town and another with a first-hand account of a strange sighting of a flying object near Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, are the sort of reads that you might expect to find in a science fiction novel rather than official government documents. But some of the documents are difficult to read, and what exactly they were used for is unclear. Greenewald told a news site that the intelligence agency put the documents together in an “outdated” format that makes it hard to parse the collection.

1/ In this CIA #UFO document, the Assistant Deputy Director for Science & Technology (A/DDS&T) was shown SOMETHING related to a UFO that was hand carried to him. He decided he would personally look into it, and after, he gave advice on moving forward. That advice is classified. pic.twitter.com/PyVEr3zCny

— John Greenewald, Jr. (@blackvaultcom) January 8, 2021

The Black Vault hosts more than 2.2 million pages of government documents obtained through approximately 10,000 FOIA requests.

The site also has a history of obtaining high-profile disclosures. In 2019, a U.S. navy spokesperson confirmed that three leaked government videos of UFOs were legitimate.

The Pentagon declassified the videos and released them to the public last year, citing the need for pilots to feel comfortable reporting such phenomena.

The disclosure put fuel on the burning question about the possibility that alien life might have visited Earth, though there remains no definitive proof of such claims.

Speculation flared up again late last year after Israel’s former head of space security claimed there was a “Galactic Federation” of aliens who didn’t want humans in their club. He also claimed that the heads of the U.S. and Israel were in touch with the aliens, and that the extraterrestrials had helped set up human bases on Mars.

He did not provide evidence to support his claims.

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Trump is the only president to be impeached twice.

According to the article of impeachment, Trump “repeatedly issued false statements asserting that the presidential election results were fraudulent and should not be accepted”.

Ten Republicans, including the House’s top senior Republican, Liz Cheney of Wyoming, joined all Democrats to impeach Trump.

Impeachment may not force Trump from office, but the vote was an instant response from lawmakers in both parties furious at Trump after a deadly pro-Trump mob ransacked the US Capitol and put the lives of Vice President Mike Pence and lawmakers in danger last week. Trump won’t face trial until after President-elect Joe Biden is sworn in next week.

After the House vote, Trump released a video statement calling for calm as the threat of a new riot cast an impending danger on Washington. But he did not mention the historic impeachment. Trump never showed repentance for his role in the Captiol Hill siege.

What will happen next?

The Senate which is the upper chamber of the legislature will have to hold a trial. If convicted, Donald Trump could be barred from running for office ever again. A two-third majority is required in the Senate for the conviction to take place.

The Senate is divided equally between the two parties. The Democrats will need at least 17 Republicans to vote in favour of the article of impeachment. New York Times reported that nearly 20 Republicans are open to voting against Donald Trump. If a conviction doesn’t happen then the president is considered impeached but not removed from office.

Donald Trump was first impeached just a year ago over allegations of improperly seeking help from Ukraine to boost his chances of re-election. He was accused of seeking damaging information from the foreign country about his political rival Joe Biden. However, he was cleared by a majority of senators at his trial.

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https://www.instagram.com/p/CJ3moA_A-fZ/?utm_source=ig_embed

On the cover, Harris is seen wearing an espresso-colored blazer, black pants and converse sneakers in front of pink and green background. The photo instantly attracted ire on social media for appearing poorly lit and styled, while others suggested it was “disrespectful” to the Vice President-elect.

Some said that shoot wasn’t professional, while some were in the opinion that Kamala Harris’s skin colour may have been lightened and her features have been photoshopped by the magazine, calling the cover a ‘washed out’ mess.

The Vice President-elect posed in a powder blue suit from Michael Kors Collection, paired with a white top, for the digital cover. The images were taken by Tyler Mitchell, who famously became the first Black photographer to shoot an American Vogue when he captured Beyonce for the magazine’s September 2018 issue.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CJ3mrTGAbDt/?utm_source=ig_embed

Kamala Harris is not just the first woman, but she is also the first woman of colour to be the VP-elect.

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US regulators are now weighing in whether to grant emergency use authorisation for Moderan vaccine. A panel of outside advisers to the US Food and Drug Administration encouraged the emergency use of Moderna vaccine.

Early data from the trials of the coronavirus vaccine candidate being developed by Oxford University and AstraZeneca show two full doses of the vaccine give better immune response than the previously tried one full dose and a half-dose booster.

Developers of the vaccine candidate have already published late-stage trial results showing higher efficacy when a half dose is followed by a full dose, compared to a two full-dose regime.

Meanwhile, AIIMS- Delhi is reportedly unable to find enough number of volunteers for the Phase 3 trials of Covaxin, a coronavirus vaccine candidate being developed by Bharat Biotech and ICMR. AIIMS officials have observed people are unwilling to participate in the trials thinking a vaccine would be anyway be available soon.

The All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in Delhi is one of the sites conducting the final phase of the trial of Covaxin and it needs around 1,500 volunteers.

“We wanted 1,500-2,000 participants but so far, we have been able to recruit only around 200 participants. People are unwilling to participate in the exercise thinking why take part in a trial when a vaccine would be available soon for everyone,” Dr Sanjay Rai, professor at AIIMS and also the principal investigator of the study, said.

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The two countries earned top grades for their robust disclosure regimes across six categories including fees, transparency of fund holdings and issues such as conflicts of interest. The report covering 26 markets across North America, Europe, Asia and Africa singled out Australia as a notable laggard.

“The US has consistently led the pack in this area, while India has gradually added global best practices to its disclosure framework,” Christina West, director of manager research services at Morningstar and co-author of the study, said in a statement. “India has also set a high standard with monthly required portfolio holdings disclosure.”

Morningstar applied a grading scale of top, above average, average, below average, and bottom to evaluate 26 markets based on six disclosure criteria: easy to understand prospectuses, fees, portfolio holdings, portfolio manager and compensation disclosures, and for the first time ESG(Environmental, Social and Governance) and stewardship, and sales disclosures.

Belgium, Italy, Japan, Singapore and Switzerland were ranked below average, while Canada, Korea, South Africa, Sweden, Taiwan and Thailand were ranked above average.

Among the countries, Australia ranks at the bottom. According to the report Australia doesn’t follow the practice of regulated portfolio holdings disclosure, despite being a sophisticated market. The nation has also yet to adapt to increasing investor expectations around ESG and stewardship disclosures, it said.

Most fund managers in Australia publish their top 10 holdings on their websites, but it’s difficult to get the entire portfolio breakdown, said Grant Kennaway, director of manager research for Australia at Morningstar and one of the report’s co-authors. In India, fund managers publish full portfolio allocations and what percentage is invested in them, he said.

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A mysterious monolith discovered in the Utah desert in the United States has made several conspiracy theorists believe that aliens have visited earth. The monolith was discovered by a team of workers at the Utah Department of Public Safety and Division of Wildlife Resources, as they were conducting a helicopter survey of bighorn sheep.

Even though the monolith looked like steel, experts are still unclear regarding the material with which it is made. As of now, authorities have not revealed the exact site in which this monolith is located in the Utah desert, as they worry people who wish to reach this area may get stranded in this desert.

Interestingly, the monolith discovered in the remote region of the desert shared eerie similarities to the one which was depicted in Stanley Kubrick’s cult classic movie ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’.

As the object is placed in the federal land, it is illegal to place such objects in these areas. Authorities are now investigating to know when the structure was placed in the remote area of the desert without any authorization.

As conspiracy theorists have suspected alien connection to this development, Lt. Nick Street of the Utah Highway Patrol, part of the Department of Public Safety, has made it clear that this structure is not from another world.

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A Food and Drug Administration advisory committee is set to meet on December 10 to discuss Pfizer Inc.’s request for an emergency use authorisation for its developing Covid-19 vaccine.

US drug maker Pfizer Inc, has claimed that they developed a 95% effective vaccine against coronavirus. They are now seeking the emergency use tag from US government for its dosage. Pfizer has said the emergency use tag could start the process early and the coronavirus vaccine doses could be available as early as next month.

Dr. Moncef Slaoui, head of Operation Warp Speed, the coronvirus vaccine program said that their plan is able to ship vaccines to the immunisation sites within 24 hours from the approval.

Meanwhile leaders of the 20 biggest economies vowed to spare no effort to supply Covid-19drugs, tests and vaccines affordably and fairly to ‘all people”, reflecting worries that the pandemic could deepen divisions between the world’s rich and poor.

Meanwhile Niti Ayog member and National Expert Group on Vaccine Administration for COVID-19, Vinod Paul said that Pune-based Serum Institute (SII) may be granted emergency use authorisation of the Oxford AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine if AstraZeneca get approval from the UK government. He also said that if the clinical trials of the coronavirus vaccine in India go as per the script, phase III trials should be over by January-February 2021.

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China remained the largest source of international students in the US with the number of Chinese students in the country increasing for the 16th consecutive year. There were over 3,72,000 Chinese students in the US during 2019-20 year, revealed in the report titled “Open Doors 2020” released by the US Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs and the Institute of International Education (IIE).

India remained the second largest source of international students, despite 4.4 percent decline to 1,93,124, it said.

The report said that for the fifth consecutive year the United States hosted more than one million international students (10,75,496 ) in an academic year.

According to the US Department of Commerce, international students contributed USD 44 billion to the US economy in 2019, including USD 7,69 billion from Indian students.

We are encouraged to see a fifth year of more than 1 million international students in the United States before the pandemic, said Marie Royce, Assistant Secretary of State for Educational and Cultural Affairs.

International student mobility is as important today as ever, and we believe the United States is the best destination for students to study and earn their degrees. Education is a pathway to a greater future and international educational exchange has the power to transform students’ trajectories, Royce said.

Among the top 20 places of origin, the largest percentage increases were students from Bangladesh (+ seven per cent), Brazil (+ four per cent) and Nigeria (+ three per cent).

Saudi Arabia saw the largest percentage decrease (- 17 per cent) primarily due to changes in its government’s scholarship program.

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According to media projections, Democrat Biden has won the November 3 presidential election. However, Trump, a Republican, has alleged election fraud and mounted legal fights in a number of battleground states.

“More people may die if we don’t coordinate,” Biden said in Wilmington, Delaware, on Monday, responding to a question on President Donald Trump refusing to concede the election and the outgoing administration not co-operating in the transition process.

“A vaccine is important. It’s of little use until you’re vaccinated. So, how do we get the vaccine, how do we get over 300 million Americans vaccinated? What’s the game plan? It’s a huge, huge, huge undertaking to get it done, prioritise those greatest in need and working our way through, and also cooperate with the World Health Organiszation and the rest of the world in dealing with this,” he said.

“So they (Trump administration) say they have this ‘Warp Speed’ programme that not only dealt with getting vaccines, but also how to distribute this. If we have to wait until January 20th (day of Presidential inauguration) to start that planning, it puts us behind over a month, month-and-a-half. And so, it’s important that it be done, that there be coordination now, now or as rapidly as we can get that done,” Biden said.

As of now, Biden said his action plan is to deal with every individual, organisation in the country from business to labour, Republicans and Democrats, to try to pull together a serious and consistent plan so that he is ready on day one with everything from staffing to ultimately naming cabinet members to moving along on coordinating with business and labour, the COVID-19 outbreak.

And so, it would make it a lot easier if the president were to participate. We have a number of Republicans suggesting that–the good news here is my colleague is still on the Intelligence Committee so she gets the intelligence briefings. I don’t anymore. But there’s a number of Republicans calling for that, he said.

“My message is I will work with you. I understand a lot of your reluctance because of the way the president operates, but I’ve been in contact with and will be in contact with more of them as we move along. And if it has to wait until January 20th to get–to actually become operational, that’s a shame but it may be that’s the only way to get it done,” he said.

Biden was also asked about his thoughts on Trump’s tweet over the weekend where he first seemed to acknowledge that Biden had won the election. However, soon after Trump said he would not concede, and that he had won.

“I interpret that as Trumping-ism, no change in his modus operandi. And I think the pressure will continue to build,” he said.

The President-elect said that he is having a lot of meetings with world leaders on the telephone and he can get into negotiating with them about things that are going to be done. They are calling with some degree of enthusiasm everyone from a holy father to prime ministers across the globe.

“So we are moving along knowing what the outcome will be and but I find this more embarrassing for the country than debilitating for my ability to get started,” Biden said.

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But there are still several steps in the electoral process before President Donald Trump’s presidency ends on January 20 and Biden takes office.

Let’s take a look at the key dates leading up Biden becoming the 46th President of the US.

December 8

News organisations typically project who has won the election shortly after polls right after Election Day.

However, this year, those projections took several days, primarily, due to an unprecedented number of mail-in ballots cast amid the coronavirus pandemic in the country.

At this particular situation, news organisations using a variety of factors, determine that one candidate no longer has a path to victory. Official counting continues for several days, and sometimes weeks, after a winner is projected. These tallies are subject to legal challenges and recounts, the criteria and timeline of which are regulated under individual states’ laws.

Regardless of state’s laws regarding recounts, the state must meet the deadline. December 8 is the deadline- to appoint the electors who will decide the winner based on a certified final count.

It is in this scenario Trump has not conceded and his campaign has vowed to challenge the election results in certain states.

December 14

On December 14, electors across the country cast their votes by paper ballots in their respective states and the District of Columbia, which has three electoral votes. Those results must be delivered to the US capital and other relevant officials by December 23.

There are 538 electoral votes, and the number of votes in each state matches how many senator and representatives that state has in Congress .

Washington, DC also has three electoral votes. In most states, all electoral votes are given to the candidate who wins the most votes in that state, although this is not necessarily required by law.

Two states – Maine and Nebraska – have slightly different systems: Two electors vote for the candidate that wins the state’s overall popular vote, while a third elector votes based on which candidate wins the most Congressional districts in that state.

Currently, 33 states and Washington, DC, have laws that require electors to vote for the candidate that wins the popular vote in their state.

January 6

The House and Senate hold a joint session to count the votes sent by electors across the country . If one ticket has received 270 or more electoral votes, the president of the Senate, currently Vice President Mike Pence, will announce the winner of the election.

If there is any objection to electoral returns from any state, the Memebers of Congress can express their objections by writing by at least one member of the House and one in the Senate.

If neither presidential candidate wins at least 270 electoral votes, the House decides the election, based on the 12th Amendment to the Constitution. If required, the House would elect the president through a majority vote.

January 20
President-elect Joe Biden will be sworn into office at noon on Inauguration Day. Vice- President elect Kamala Harris will be sworn in shortly before that.

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Zohran Mamdani, a Democratic Socialist and a rapper ran unopposed to represent New York’s 36th Assembly District in Astoria( a neighbourhood in Queens).

Mamdani tweeted the news of his victory and wrote: “ It’s official: we won. I’m going to Albany to fight to tax the rich, heal the sick, house the poor and build a socialist New York. But I can’t do it alone. To win socialism, we’ll need a mass movement of the multiracial working class as well. So let’s build one. Join @nycDSA.”

Zohram Mamdani was born and raised in Kampala, Uganda, and grew up in New York City after his family moved there when he was seven years old. He graduated from Bowdoin College.

He currently works as a housing counsellor, and aids immigrant families facing eviction retain their homes.

Mamadani decided to enter into politics in October 2019, after a friend and a fellow member of the local unit of Democratic Socialist of America (DSA) suggested it and defeated incumbent Aravella Simotas by 346 votes in the Democratic primary.

Immigration is high on Mamdani’s list of issues that he would like to tackle as an elected representative. His primary goals also include guaranteeing housing and healthcare for all. Most importantly he also wants to defund the NYPD and aims to bring change to ‘the racist police system as a means of control over black and brown New Yorkers.

Many had advised Mamdani against highlighting his desi roots when began his campaign last year.

But the young politician chose otherwise and put a twist to the popular Democratic socialist slogan ‘bread and roses’ and went with ‘roti and roses’ instead.

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All eyes are on the key battleground states of Arizona, Iowa, Georgia, Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas and Wisconsin. The results of these states are crucial for both contenders.

Donald Trump prevailed in the hotly contested Rust Belt state of Ohio- one he seized in 2016 and which is key to his efforts to win reelection over Joe Biden. The Republican incumbent won one of the key battlegrounds, Florida while Biden got Arizona.

As of now Biden had 238 electoral votes against Trump’s 213. A candidate needs 270 votes to win the presidency.

Biden, searching desperately for states to recapture from Trump, was eyeing the so-called “blue wall” states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania that sent Trump to the White House in 2016.

So far Trump has won Alaska, Arkansas, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, West Virginia, Wyoming, Indiana, South Carolina and Utah.

Biden meanwhile has taken Democratic-leaning states like California, Colorado, Columbia, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia and Washington.

Why Electoral College is crucial in United States election?

The winner of the election is determined through a system called the electoral college. Each of the 50 states, plus Washington DC, is given a number of electoral college votes, adding up to a total of 538 votes.  More populous states get more electoral college votes than smaller ones.

A candidate needs to win 270 electoral college votes to win the election. In every state except two- Maine and Nebraska- the candidate that get the most votes wins all of the state’s electoral college votes.

Due to these rules, a candidate can win the election without getting the most votes at the national level. This happened at the last election, in which Donald Trump won a majority of electoral college votes although more people voted for Hillary Clinton across the US.

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“When @JoeBiden and I are in the White House we’ll listen to scientists, promote masks to save lives, implement nationwide testing and tracing, and ensure vaccines are free to all,” she tweeted.

The bitter and divisive race for White House between Republican incumbent President Donald Trump and his Democratic challenger Joe Biden comes in the midst of coronavirus pandemic which has infected over 92 lakh people and claimed the lives of more than 2,30,000 others in the country, making it the worst hit nation from the deadly virus.

While the formal election is today, nearly 93 million people have already cast their ballots in early voting, including 33 million in-person votes and 58 million mail-in ballots. To be elected as president , a candidate should win at least 270 votes in what is called the Electoral College.

The 2020 US Presidential election is much different than previous elections as people cast their ballots amid rising anxiety and worry about the country’s future due to the pandemic and eight percent unemployment.

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The Malabar exercise this year is especially significant with the participation of Australia, thus covering all member of the Quad, an informal group of the four largest democracies in the Indo-Pacific region.

This is also the first military-level engagement among all the four member countries , primarily focusing on checking China’s increasing military muscle-flexing.

US Navy ship USS John S McCain (Guided-missile destroyer), Australian Navy Ship HMAS Ballarat (long- range frigate) and Japan Maritime Self Defence Ship ( JMSDF) Ship JS Onami (destroyer) are participating along with Navy units.

Malabar exercise is a multilateral naval exercise that includes simulated war games and combat manoeuvres. It started in 1992 between the Indian and US navies. Japan joined in 2015.
This year, the exercise will be held in two phases, the first from November 3 to 6 off the coast near Vishakapatnam and the second from November 17 to 20 in the Arabian Sea.

According to the Defence Ministry, the exercise this year has been planned on a ‘non-contact- at sea’ format in view of the covid-19 pandemic. This means there will be no contact among military personnel of the four countries.

China is rattled by participation of four leading global powers in the annual exercise. It said that the drill should be conducive to regional peace. They worry that the annual war game is an attempt to contain its influence in the Indo-Pacific region.

The exercise comes at a time when the ties of all the four participating countries with China are under strain. Especially India is locked in the worst border deadlock with China in decades.

US and Australia’s relations with China have deteriorated recently over a range of issues including the Covid-19 pandemic and economic sanctions.

Japan meanwhile has a dispute with China over ownership of islands in the East China Sea.

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The midnight vote began today with voters choosing their preferred candidates for US President and New Hampshire governor, as well as federal and state legislative seats.

The 2020 US elections and congressional races, came amid a surging COVID-19 pandemic in the country.

Americans will decide the fate of incumbent President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden through their votings.

To win the presidency, either Trump or Biden must acquire over 50 per cent of the electoral vote, which is 538 in total. This means each candidate must get a minimum of 270 electoral votes to clinch the presidency.

Joe Biden is currently leading Donald Trump in the national polls. But leading in polls does not guarantee victory. Hillary Clinton also had a clear lead over Trump in the polls for the entire 2016 campaign. She ended up losing the race.

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In a trending clip, Barack Obama left many stunned after he walked into a basketball court and scored an effortless basked from quite a distance. After scoring the shot, he yells, “That’s what I do.” He shared the clip with the caption, “Shoot your shot (sic).”
The video was shared by the former president on Twitter.

Shoot your shot. https://t.co/XdZz4dh82T pic.twitter.com/elpBmzu6hV

— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) October 31, 2020

After he scored the basket, people present in the gym can be heard hooting and praising the former president. Then Biden walks into the frame and praises Obama saying, “Whoa, whoa, whoa. All net.” After which Obama, once again, jokingly says, “You don’t understand, that’s what I do.”

The netizen went crazy on social media and gave apt reaction to Obama’s skills. The video has garnered over 10 million views and thousands of likes.

The coolest of all time.
Please just come back and run the world, already!!! https://t.co/yMNhocVukb

— Shruti Seth (@SethShruti) November 1, 2020

Can we bring this guy back? https://t.co/YtmYq4UTVe

— Raemond99 (@raemond99) November 1, 2020

The video was initially shared by the Biden campaign’s travelling digital director Olivia Raisner.

Obama had played basketball during his school days and would often play basketball during rise to political prominence and kept it up during his time in White House.

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Biden is set to close his campaign in Pittsburgh where he made his maiden campaign appearance in April 2019.

Held in the middle of pandemic that has claimed many American lives, aside from a series of civil rights protests and fallen economy, the US election this year is deemed to define the future course of America.

Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, North Carolina, Arizona, Wisconsin, Iowa are the key states also known as the swing states, where the spotlight are on. A majority of the voters from these states flipped from supporting Obama to Trump in 2016.

As Donald Trump seeks re-election, predictions show a better chance for Joe Biden who holds a clear advantage over the President across four of the swing states.

The polls also indicate that the presidential election is getting tighter even though Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden continues to maintain substantial lead over Republican’s Donald Trump.

In the national polls, Trump continues to trail with a 42% chance as compared to a 51% of Biden, according to the latest Reuters poll. Similarly, a New York Times poll showed Joe Biden holding a clear advantage over 4 important swing states- Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Florida and Arizona. Biden’s electoral position appears to put him in a stronger position than any presidential candidate since 2008.

Democratic Vice Presidential nominee Kamala Harris has sought a decisive mandate from Americans so that no amount of legal battle can overturn the poll results. Earlier Donald Trump hinted that he is gearing up for a legal battle in the counting of mail and absentee votes post the election

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Set up in 2014, V-Dem is an independent research institute based at the University of Gothenburg, and has published a data-heavy worldwide democracy report each year since 2017. As the name suggests, these reports look at the status of democracies in countries around the world. The institute calls itself the world’s largest data collection project on democracy.

The 2020 report titled ‘Autocratisation Surges – Resistance Grows’, begins with figures that point to the fact that globally, the spirit of democracy is on the decline.

For the first time since 2001, autocracies are in the majority and comprise 92 countries that are home to 54% of the global population, said the report.

It says that major G20 nations and all regions of the world are now part of the “third wave of autocratisation” which is affecting major economies with sizeable populations, like India, Brazil, the US and Turkey. “India has continued on a path of steep decline, to the extent it has almost lost its status as a democracy,” the preface to the report mentions.

India, the report finds, is the largest country verging towards a system of autocracy in terms of population.

Attacks on freedom of expression and media freedom are now affecting 31 countries. Two years ago it was just 19 countries. Moreover, academic freedom has registered an average decline of 13% in autocratising (including India) countries over the last 10 years. The right to peaceful assembly and protest has declined by 14% on average in such countries.

According to the report the first step of autocratisation involve eliminating media freedom and curtailing civil society.

The report cites “…the dive in press freedom along with increasing repression of civil society in India associated with the current Hindu-nationalist regime of Prime Minister Narendra Modi” to illustrate this.

India is not on the top 10 regressing countries according and is still considered as an electoral democracy. But the report warns that the signs of deterioration are evident.

This is not the first time India’s democracy has been under scrutiny by an international watch dog. Earlier in the 2019 Democracy index released this January, India slipped to the 51st position , and was categorised under flawed democracies .

Flawed democracy is defined as countries that hold free and fair elections and where basic civil liberties are respected, but have significantly weak governance, an underdeveloped political culture and low levels of political participation. The report was prepared by the intelligence unit of The Economist Group.

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