(WASHINGTON) — Vice President Kamala Harris said her heart is “full of resolve” after losing the presidential election to former President Donald Trump.
“My heart is full today — full of gratitude for the trust you have placed in me, full of love for our country, and full of resolve,” Harris said Wednesday at her alma mater, Howard University, in Washington, D.C.
“The outcome of this election is not what we wanted, not what we fought for, not what we voted for. But … the light of America’s promise will always burn bright as long as we never give up,” Harris said.
“We must accept the results of this election,” she said.
Harris’ defeat came as Trump won the swing states of Pennsylvania, Georgia and Wisconsin overnight. Trump won another swing state, Michigan, on Wednesday.
Trump’s victory underscores just how deep voters’ frustrations were surrounding inflation and immigration, Republicans’ two top issues this election cycle as polls consistently showed Americans’ unhappiness with how President Joe Biden handled them. Trump’s return to the White House also suggests that Democrats were not motivated enough by the prospect of electing the first female president and that its base’s fury over the Supreme Court’s revocation of constitutional abortion protections has waned since 2022.
Harris had an extremely hurried campaign, which began this summer when Biden dropped out of the race and endorsed his vice president.
Biden, who plans to address the nation on Thursday, spoke with Harris on the phone Wednesday to congratulate her on “her historic campaign,” the White House said.
Trump and Harris also spoke by phone on Wednesday, according to the Trump campaign. Harris told Trump she will work with Biden to ensure a peaceful transfer of power, unlike the transition in 2020, according to an email Harris campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon sent to campaign staff.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(MALIBU, CA) — A fast-moving brush fire exploded over 14,000 acres on Wednesday, prompting evacuations amid a red flag warning from the National Weather Service.
Ventura County remains under an “extremely critical” wildfire warning while firefighters struggle to gain an edge on the Mountain Fire, which is currently 0% contained.
At least two individuals have been transferred to hospitals for smoke inhalation, Ventura County Fire Chief Justin Gardner said during a press briefing Wednesday evening.
An accurate number regarding damage is expected on Thursday, as the area remains too dangerous to fully assess the damage, according to Gardner.
At least 14,000 people were told to evacuate, Ventura County Sheriff Jim Fryhoff.
The Mountain Fire is one of two wind-driven fires that broke out in Southern California, leading the NWS to issue a rare red flag warning for Los Angeles and Ventura Counties alerting of an “extreme fire risk” from Malibu into the San Gabriel Mountains, north of Los Angeles, where winds could gust near 100 mph.
“A very strong, widespread, and long-duration Santa Ana wind event will bring widespread extremely critical fire weather conditions to many areas of Los Angeles and Ventura counties Wednesday into Thursday,” according to the NWS warning.
As of Wednesday, at least two wind-driven fires have already broken out in Southern California.
Mountain Fire
According to local fire officials, the rapidly burning Mountain Fire in Ventura County has spread over 14,000 acres, prompting evacuation orders, threatening structures, and leaving several people injured.
“We do know we’ve lost homes, we do know we’ve had homes damaged, and we know of injuries but I do not have any counts,” Public Information Officer Scott Dettorre told ABC News.
“The injuries we do know of are civilian, we do not have any firefighter injuries at this time,” Dettorre said.
Due to extreme wind conditions, fixed-wing aircraft are unable to assist in firefighting efforts, according to the Ventura Fire Department, which said ground crews, helicopters and mutual aid resources are “actively working to protect lives and property.”
Evacuation orders are in effect for Walnut Ave to Balcom Canyon Road and North Highway 118 to the ridgeline and west to Saticoy County Club in Ventura County, according to CAL Fire.
Broad Fire
A second wildfire erupted in Los Angeles County’s Malibu area Wednesday — named the Broad Fire — and has burned at least 50 acres southwest of South Malibu Canyon Road and the Pacific Coast Highway (PCH) in Malibu, according to CAL Fire.
Local fire officials have warned residents to prepare for potential evacuations and the PCH has been closed in both directions between Webb Way and Corral Canyon.
Santa Ana wind conditions
Named after Southern California’s Santa Ana Canyon, the region’s Santa Ana winds bring blustery, dry and warm wind that blows out of the desert, drying out vegetation and increasing wildfire danger.
The long-duration Santa Ana wind event will reach its peak on Wednesday, becoming moderate on Thursday, then tailing off to light offshore winds on Friday.
Northeast winds moving 20 to 40 mph with gusts up to 60 mph are expected across the canyons and passes of Southern California through Wednesday, with higher winds in the more wind-prone areas.
Another surge of wind is expected to peak late Wednesday night through Thursday morning with widespread northeast winds of 20 to 30 mph with gusts to 50 mph before weakening considerably by Thursday afternoon.
(MALIBU, Calif.) — Several Southern California counties are under “extremely critical” wildfire warnings as warm, dry temperatures and strong winds create volatile fire conditions.
On Wednesday, the National Weather Service issued a rare red flag warning for Los Angeles and Ventura Counties alerting of an “extreme fire risk” from Malibu into the San Gabriel Mountains, north of Los Angeles, where winds could gust near 100 mph.
“A very strong, widespread, and long-duration Santa Ana wind event will bring widespread extremely critical fire weather conditions to many areas of Los Angeles and Ventura counties Wednesday into Thursday,” according to the NWS warning.
Named after Southern California’s Santa Ana Canyon, the region’s Santa Ana winds bring blustery, dry and warm wind that blows out of the desert, drying out vegetation and increasing wildfire danger.
As of Wednesday, at least two wind-driven fires have already broken out in Southern California.
Mountain Fire
The fast-moving Mountain Fire in Ventura County has spread over 1,000 acres, prompting evacuation orders, threatening structures and leaving several people injured, according to local fire officials.
Due to extreme wind conditions, fixed-wing aircraft are unable to assist in firefighting efforts, according to the Ventura Fire Department, which said ground crews, helicopters and mutual aid resources are “actively working to protect lives and property.”
Evacuation orders are in effect for Walnut Ave to Balcom Canyon Road and North Highway 118 to the ridgeline and west to Saticoy County Club in Ventura County, according to CAL Fire.
Broad Fire
A second wildfire erupted in Los Angeles County’s Malibu area Wednesday — named the Broad Fire — and has burned at least 50 acres southwest of South Malibu Canyon Road and the Pacific Coast Highway (PCH) in Malibu, according to CAL Fire.
Local fire officials have warned residents to prepare for potential evacuations and the PCH has been closed in both directions between Webb Way and Corral Canyon.
Santa Ana wind conditions
The long-duration Santa Ana wind event will reach its peak on Wednesday, becoming moderate on Thursday, then tailing off to light offshore winds on Friday.
Northeast winds moving 20 to 40 mph with gusts up to 60 mph are expected across the canyons and passes of Southern California through Wednesday, with higher winds in the more wind-prone areas.
Another surge of wind is expected to peak late Wednesday night through Thursday morning with widespread northeast winds of 20 to 30 mph with gusts to 50 mph before weakening considerably by Thursday afternoon.
Bill Burr will host Saturday Night Live this weekend, and while it is his second time hosting, it’s the first show after the 2024 election.
To that end, the stand-up superstar and Old Dads actor/director spilled a little political tea with cast member Marcello Hernández — or, at least he tried to — during a new promo video.
The sketch was obviously shot before the election results were in, so to cover for that, every time the pair mentioned who won the election in the past tense, a custodian drowns them out with a vacuum cleaner.
Further, Burr also let slip, “I was randomly in a steam room with Giuliani,” referring to the former New York City Mayor-turned adviser to former President — and now president-elect Trump. “He told me who actually killed Epstein. He said it was — ” but again, the vacuum drones on.
For his part, a shocked Hernández offered whom his Pentagon-connected cousin reportedly floated as a suspect. However, once again, the name is protected by the noise.
The pair also started talking about drugs Burr could use to take the edge off his nervousness, but this time Saturday Night Live‘s house band saxophonist Lenny Pickett lets fly, and we can’t hear what they’re saying.
The musical guest this will be Mk.gee, making his first SNL appearance.
(WASHINGTON, D.C) — Some gun violence prevention groups said Wednesday that they plan to double down in their fight for stronger firearm-control laws in the wake of former President Donald Trump recapturing the White House and promising to roll back President Joe Biden’s efforts to curb the national plague.
During his victorious campaign, Trump and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance, voiced opposition to most of Biden’s executive orders to combat the scourge that the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions found to be the leading cause of death in the United States for adolescents under the age of 19 for three straight years.
“The election of Donald Trump is deeply troubling for our safety and freedom from gun violence,” Kris Brown, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, said in a statement Wednesday. “And that’s why we are doubling down on our work and fighting harder than ever.”
Gun violence was a big issue during the campaign. In an ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll released in August, gun violence was ranked eighth in importance among voters after the economy, inflation, health care, protecting democracy, crime and safety, immigration and the Supreme Court.
In preliminary national exit polls analyzed by ABC News, voters said they trusted Trump over Vice President Kamala Harris, 50% to 48%, in handling the issue of crime and safety.
In his campaign, Trump often railed against what he described as a “surge” in migrant crime, including several high-profile homicides allegedly committed by undocumented immigrants. A 2020 study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found U.S.-born citizens are over 2 times more likely than migrants to be arrested for violent crimes.
Brown said it won’t be the first pro-gun rights administration that has occupied the White House, adding that Trump’s previous four years in the Oval Office were marked by a “deadly period for Americans.” Among the mass shootings that occurred during Trump’s first term was the 2017 massacre at the Route 91 Harvest Festival music concert in Las Vegas that left 58 people dead and more than 850 people wounded; the 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, that killed 17 students and staff; and the 2019 shooting at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, that claimed 23 lives and injured nearly two dozen other people.
“So even though we won’t have a friend in the White House, Brady isn’t giving up an inch,” Brown said of her organization named after White House press secretary James “Jim” Brady, who was shot and permanently disabled in the 1981 assassination attempt on then-President Ronald Reagan and later died in 2014 as a result of his wounds.
Brown added, “The movement to prevent gun violence has always been larger than one office, and we’ll continue to work with activists, survivors, community leaders and elected officials in states across the country to fight for progress that makes the whole country safer from gun violence.”
Trump and Vance, who have said they oppose a national ban on assault weapons, were endorsed by the National Rifle Association (NRA).
In February, Trump told NRA members at a forum in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, “No one will lay a finger on your firearms” during his second term in office.
“During my four years, nothing happened and there was a lot of pressure on me having to do with guns,” Trump said at the time. “We did nothing, we didn’t yield. And once you yield a little bit that’s just the beginning, that’s [when] the avalanche begins.”
In May, Trump spoke at the NRA convention in Dallas and outlined some of the actions he’ll take in his second term.
“In my second term, we will roll back every Biden attack on the Second Amendment — the attacks are fast and furious — starting the minute that Crooked Joe shuffles his way out of the White House,” Trump said in the speech.
Trump also vowed during the speech to fire Steven Dettelbach, the director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). House Republicans have also said they want to abolish or drastically cut funding for the ATF.
“At noon on Inauguration Day, we will sack the anti-gun fanatic Steve Dettelbach,” Trump told NRA conventioneers. “Have you ever heard of him? He’s a disaster.”
Gun control advocates said they expect Trump to try to water down the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act (BSCA), the first major gun safety law enacted in 30 years that Biden signed in June 2022, about a month after a teenage gunman killed 19 students and two teachers at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. The BSCA enhances background checks for gun buyers under 21, closes the so-called “boyfriend loophole” to prevent people convicted of domestic abuse from purchasing guns, and allocates $750 million to help states implement “red flag laws” to remove firearms from people deemed to be dangerous to themselves and others.
Advocates also expect Trump to abolish the first White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention established under the Biden administration and overseen by Harris.
Angela Ferrell-Zabala, executive director of Moms Demand Action released a statement on social media Wednesday, saying her gun violence prevention group also plans to continue to fight for laws that protect Americans from gun violence.
“If this work has taught me anything, it’s that no matter what, we always can and will secure victories to protect our communities from gun violence. This obstacle is no different. Today, we are crushed by this result,” Ferrell-Zabala said of Trump’s victory. “Tomorrow, we’re going to continue to organize like our lives depend on it — because they do.”
Tom Hanks isn’t Batman — but apparently fans think he is.
The Oscar winner appeared on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, and revealed that despite being one of the most famous actors in Hollywood, fans confuse him for Michael Keaton “all the time.”
“Yeah, me and him are, you know, some form of odd doppelgänger back from a long time ago,” he explains. “They don’t say ‘Beetlejuice Beetlejuice‘ to me exactly. But a lot of time, ‘Hey, were you in that?’ You know, I get that.”
The two men do share a similar comedy background, and they came up in the business around the same time. In fact, Keaton revealed back in 2012 that he was up for a starring role in Splash, the 1984 Ron Howard hit that helped catapult Hanks to movie stardom. However, Keaton turned the role down so that he wouldn’t get typecast in comedies after the success of 1983’s Mr. Mom.
Some time ago, there were rumors Hanks was offered the role of the Caped Crusader before Keaton donned the cape and cowl in 1989’s Tim Burton blockbuster Batman, which he recently reprised in The Flash.
However, Hanks poured cold water on that rumor on the Graham Norton Show, joking the very idea was “comical.” Hanks clarified he was “never” offered the role, adding with a laugh, “Can you imagine me in that suit?”
(WASHINGTON) — Special counsel Jack Smith is in active talks with senior leadership at the Justice Department evaluating ways he can end his prosecutions of President-elect Donald Trump, sources familiar with the matter told ABC News.
The decision is based on longstanding Department of Justice policy that a sitting president cannot face criminal prosecution while in office, sources said.
It is unclear as of today how Smith’s prosecutors will approach dismissing both the federal election subversion case in Washington, D.C., and their ongoing appeal of Judge Aileen Cannon’s dismissal of the classified documents case.
Trump has vowed to fire Smith “within two seconds.”
“We got immunity at the Supreme Court. It’s so easy. I would fire him within two seconds. He’ll be one of the first things addressed,” Trump said on a call into the “Hugh Hewitt Show” on Oct. 24.
But due to Justice Department policy of not prosecuting a president, a firing is unneeded.
Smith was appointed to his position by Attorney General Merrick Garland in November 2022 to investigate Trump and his allies’ efforts to overturn the 2020 election as well as Trump’s alleged unlawful possession of highly classified documents he took from his time in the White House.
On June 8, 2023, Smith indicted Trump on charges he unlawfully retained classified documents and obstructed the government’s efforts to retrieve them. Trump pleaded not guilty to the charges in a federal court in Florida.
On Aug. 1, 2023, Trump was indicted on four felony counts related to his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election. Trump also pleaded not guilty in federal court to those charges.
Both cases were thrown into disarray by the Supreme Court’s decision earlier this summer giving presidents partial immunity against prosecution.
The Jan. 6 case was sent back to a lower court, while Cannon, a Trump nominee, dismissed the classified documents case, ruling Smith’s appointment as special counsel was unconstitutional because he was not appointed by the president or confirmed by Congress.
ABC News’ Ivan Pereira contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — The White House is set to see another history-making vice presidential spouse.
With Ohio Sen. JD Vance set to become the next vice president, his wife, Usha Vance, who is the daughter of Indian immigrants, is set to be the first Indian American second lady in the White House. She will also be the first Hindu second lady.
That will follow Doug Emhoff’s history-making mark as the first second gentleman in the White House. He is also the first Jewish person in the role.
JD Vance thanked “my beautiful wife for making it possible to do this” on social media on Wednesday, after multiple news organizations, including ABC News, projected that former President Donald Trump will win the presidential match-up against Vice President Kamala Harris.
At 38, Usha Vance is set to be the youngest second lady since the Truman administration, when then-38-year-old Jane Hadley Barkley, wife of former Vice President Alben Barkley, assumed the role in 1949.
She was raised in a Hindu household in San Diego, where her parents are academics.
The Vances met during their time at Yale Law School and got married in Kentucky in 2014. They have three children together.
An attorney who once clerked for Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, she left her law firm, Munger, Tolles & Olsen, after her husband was formally announced as former President Donald Trump’s running mate on the Republican party ticket in July.
Usha Vance was in the spotlight at the Republican National Convention, where she introduced her husband.
“My background is very different from JD’s. I grew up in San Diego, in a middle-class community with two loving parents, both immigrants from India, and a wonderful sister,” she said at the convention. “That JD and I could meet at all, let alone fall in love and marry, is a testament to this great country.”
She has since taken on a more behind-the-scenes role on the campaign trail, not delivering any remarks at a public campaign event since the RNC.
“Obviously, at the convention, I was asked to introduce JD, and so that was an active role,” she told NBC News in October. “But the thing that JD asked, and the thing that I certainly agreed to do, is to keep him company.”
She told NBC News at the time that she hadn’t given much thought to what causes or initiatives she might focus on if she became the second lady.
“You know, this is such an intense and busy experience that I have not given a ton of thought to my own roles and responsibilities,” she said.
“And so I thought, what would I do? See what happens on Nov. 5, and collect some information myself and take it from there,” she said. “There are certainly things I’m interested in, but I don’t really know how that all fits into this role.”
In her first interview after JD Vance was named Trump’s running mate, Usha Vance discussed with “Fox & Friends” how she and her husband share different political views and suggested that their opinions influence each other in a “nice give and take.”
“I mean, we’re two different people. We have lots of different backgrounds and interests and things like that, so we come to different conclusions all the time,” she said. “That’s part of the fun of being married.”
She was also asked to respond to her husband’s widely criticized “childless cat ladies” comment, which was directed at Harris and others in a recently resurfaced 2021 Fox News interview.
“He made a quip in service of making a point that he wanted to make that was substantive,” she said. “And I just wish sometimes that people would talk about those things and that we would spend a lot less time just sort of going through this three-word phrase or that three-word phrase.”
She told “Fox & Friends” that she never thought she’d be in politics, that they planned to be lawyers with a family, and that they have agreed to keep their children out of the spotlight.
“Through his Senate candidacy, we had a lot of serious conversations, because, you know, we do have three children, and giving them a stable, normal, happy life and upbringing is something that is the most important thing to us,” she said.
Christina Applegate is opening up about the pain she experiences from multiple sclerosis.
The Married… with Children alum, 52, shared her latest health update during the Nov. 5 episode of the MeSsy podcast she co-hosts with fellow actress Jamie-Lynn Sigler, who also has MS.
“I lay in bed screaming,” she continued, attributing that to “the sharp pains, the ache, the squeezing.”
“I can’t even pick up my phone sometimes, ’cause now it’s traveled into my hands,” she detailed. “So I’ll, like, try to go get my phone or get my remote to turn on the TV or whatever, and I can’t — sometimes I can’t even hold ’em. I can’t open bottles now.”
Applegate said that while her outside may look fine, it’s just because people can’t see what’s going on inside.
Multiple sclerosis is an autoimmune condition in which the body attacks myelin, the tissue that coats nerve fibers within the central nervous system, consisting of the brain and spinal cord, according to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke at the National Institutes of Health.
MS can be unpredictable, causing differing symptoms with variable timing and frequency from fatigue, numbness or tingling, weakness, dizziness and vertigo to rendering a person unable to write, speak or walk in the most severe cases, according to the NIH. Individually, MS symptoms can vary, ranging from mild to extreme pain during a flare-up of the disease.
There is currently no known cure for MS.
Applegate, who was diagnosed with the chronic disease in 2021, told Good Morning America in March 2024 that living with MS was “kind of hell.”
“They call it the invisible disease. It can be very lonely because it’s hard to explain to people,” she said at the time. “I’m in excruciating pain, but I’m just used to it now.”
Bobby and Peter Farrelly – Paul Archuleta/FilmMagic
Peter and Bobby Farrelly exploded on the comedy scene with 1994’s hit Dumb and Dumber, and also scored with 1996’s Kingpin and 1998’s There’s Something About Mary, but they haven’t made a movie together since the 2014 sequel Dumb and Dumber To.
In the interim, Peter Farrelly became an Oscar winner thanks to the 2018 drama Green Book, but as the pair tell Entertainment Weekly, they’re back to the funny with the Jack Black Christmas comedy Dear Santa.
The magazine has a first look at the project, which centers on a kid (Robert Timothy Smith) who desperately wants to prove to his friends that Santa is real, so he writes a letter to the big guy — except he misspells Santa as “Satan.”
Enter Jack Black as the latter, who is so flattered he got a letter that he shows up instead. Bobby Farrelly says reuniting with their Shallow Hal star was a no-brainer. Explaining his Satan is “diabolical, but in a fun way,” Bobby says, “there’s a little bit of mischievous to him at all times, but he’s eminently likable, and that’s just Jack.”
He adds, “We never wanted to make it a horror movie or something like that. We wanted it to be comical. So it was a delicate [balance] of playing this iconic character but doing it in a way that the audience can have some fun with it. And Jack was the perfect guy.”
The Farrelly brothers explained their idea for the film goes back more than 15 years, and they credited Loudermilk writer Ricky Blitt with breathing new life into the project, which Peter co-wrote, and Bobby directed.
Dear Santa hits Paramount+ and digital platforms on Nov. 25.
