America

    A top adviser said Trump is now focused on matters that are essential in setting up his administration, not on comments he made during the heat of the campaign. Kellyanne Conway, from left, President-elect Donald Trump, New York Times Publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. and vice chairman of The New York Times Company Michael Golden appear during a meeting with editors and reporters at The New York Times building. (AP Photo) Two weeks after his election victory, President-elect Donald Trump began backing off campaign promises Tuesday, including his hard line on climate change and his vow to jail Crooked Hillary Clinton that had brought thunderous Lock her up chants at his rallies. A top adviser said Trump is now focused on matters that are essential in setting up his administra...

    Donald Trump has suggested that Britain should make Nigel Farage the ambassador to the US, in a surprising tweet guaranteed to raise eyebrows in the UK. Mr Trump made the recommendation to his almost 16 million Twitter followers on Monday night. "Many people would like to see @Nigel_Farage represent Great Britain as their Ambassador to the United States. He would do a great job!" said the president-elect, who is currently in the process of choosing his new Cabinet. Mr Trump appears to be revelling in ripping up the rule book. It is highly unusual for an incoming president to suggest ambassadors from other countries. Yet Mr Farage appears to have cultivated a remarkably close relationship with Mr Trump, who he sees as a kindred spirit, determined to turn "the establishment"...

    Come Jan. 3, Congressional Republicans will be pushing two plans: House Speaker Paul Ryan will move to end Medicare as we know it and to privatize it by giving vouchers, forcing seniors on a fixed income to go shopping for affordable medical insurance. Speaking of privatization, Donald Trump's economic advisers have floated a plan to pay for his promised massive infrastructure bill. Their plan: Allow private investment firms to invest 20 percent of the cost and recoup their money through tolls on highways and bridges. Notice the pattern — privatize and turn over the profit to wealthy investors? Be very familiar with the term “privatization” because that is the plan. These two will be fast-tracked by Republicans and we need to be ready with a response. Do we want to have In...

    Donald Trump agreed on Friday to pay $25 million to settle fraud lawsuits over his Trump University real estate seminars, in what New York's attorney general called a "stunning reversal" for the US president-elect. The lawsuits had dogged Trump, who denied any wrongdoing, throughout his campaign. They led to one of the more controversial moments of his run when he claimed the judge overseeing two of the cases was biased because he was of Mexican ancestry. The settlement was announced by New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, who said it followed repeated refusals by Trump "to settle for even modest amounts of compensation for the victims of his phony university." Lawyers for Trump had argued against students, who claimed they were they were lured by false promises in...

    Hillary Clinton has addressed the disappointment she felt after her crushing defeat by Donald Trump in last week's presidential election, stating: "All I wanted to do was just to curl up." In her first public appearance since her shock defeat a week ago, the Democrat said that she had felt like never leaving the house. Despite winning the popular vote, Mr Trump triumphed in most key swing states to pull of a victory that the pollsters had said was virtually impossible. "Now I will admit coming here tonight wasn't the easiest thing for me," Mrs Clinton said in a speech at the annual gala of the Children's Defense Fund, the child advocacy organisation where she started her legal career. "There have been a few times this past week when all I wanted to do was to curl up with a...

    In the era of Donald Trump and Brexit, Oxford Dictionaries has declared post-truth to be its international word of the year. Defined by the dictionary as an adjective “relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief”, editors said that use of the term “post-truth” had increased by around 2,000% in 2016 compared to last year. The spike in usage, it said, is “in the context of the EU referendum in the United Kingdom and the presidential election in the United States”. Oxford Dictionaries’s word of the year is intended to “reflect the passing year in language”, with post-truth following the controversial choice last year of the “face with tears of joy” emoji. The publishe...