The Latest: Biden to deliver remarks following Trump’s win, House control hangs in the balance

President Joe Biden is scheduled to deliver remarks to the nation in what will be his first appearance on camera in the aftermath of Donald Trump ’s decisive victory over Kamala Harris.

Control over the U.S. House of Representatives hangs in the balance, teetering between a Republican or Democratic majority with dozens of races left to be called.

The Republicans won control of the U.S. Senate early Wednesday.

Follow the AP’s Election 2024 coverage at: https://apnews.com/hub/election-2024.

Here’s the latest:

Independent Sen. Angus King won a third term in the U.S. Senate representing Maine on Thursday, turning back challenges from a former Republican state party chair and a Democratic environmental activist.

The 80-year-old former governor would be the oldest senator from Maine to serve if he completes his term, which ends in 2030, but he wasn't dogged by questions about his age like President Joe Biden, the former Democratic presidential nominee. King caucuses with Democrats and was first elected to the Senate in 2012. The Associated Press declared King the winner at 10:14 a.m. EST.

Donald Trump won the presidency after holding tight to his core base of voters and slightly expanding his coalition to include several groups that have traditionally been part of the Democratic base. That finding comes from AP VoteCast, a sweeping survey of more than 120,000 voters nationwide that shows what issues mattered to voters in this election.

Trump picked up a small but significant share of Black and Hispanic voters and made narrow gains with men and women. As Trump chipped away at parts of the Democratic coalition, Vice President Kamala Harris wasn’t able to make enough of her own gains.

Trump succeeded in locking down his traditionally older, white base of voters, and he slightly expanded his margins with other groups into a winning coalition.

▶ Read more about how five key demographic groups voted

Around 50 European leaders on Thursday called for a stronger defense posture across the continent that no longer necessitates a fundamental dependence on Washington as they gave a guarded welcome to U.S. President-elect Donald Trump.

The European Political Community summit on Thursday in Hungary’s capital of Budapest reassessed trans-Atlantic relations in the hope that Trump’s second U.S. presidency will avoid the strife of his first administration.

“He was elected by the American people. He will defend the American interests,” French President Emmanuel Macron told the other leaders, adding that it was not the role of European Union leaders to “comment on the election ... to wonder if it is good or not.”

“The question is whether we are willing to defend the European interest. It is the only question. It is our priority,” Macron said.

There are concerns, too, that the robust military aid Ukraine has enjoyed under President Joe Biden will be cut under Trump, particularly if Republicans take control of the House.

▶ Read more about how European leaders are responding to Trump’s election

Federal Reserve officials are poised Thursday to reduce their key interest rate for a second straight time, responding to a steady slowdown of inflation pressures that exasperated many Americans and contributed to Donald Trump’s presidential election victory.

Yet the Fed’s future moves are now more uncertain in the aftermath of the election, given that Trump’s economic proposals have been widely flagged as potentially inflationary. His election has also raised the specter of meddling by the White House in the Fed’s policy decisions, with Trump having proclaimed that as president he should have a voice in the central bank’s interest rate decisions.

The Fed has long guarded its status as an independent institution able to make difficult decisions about borrowing rates, free from political interference. Yet during his previous term in the White House, Trump publicly attacked Chair Jerome Powell after the Fed raised rates to fight inflation, and he may do so again.

▶ Read more about interest rate cuts

Less than 24 hours after Donald Trump was elected the 47th president of the United States, social media users began pushing two conflicting narratives to suggest election fraud, one that revived false claims by Trump that the 2020 vote was stolen from him and the other questioning how Vice President Kamala Harris could have received so many fewer votes in 2024 than President Joe Biden in 2020.

Both narratives hinge on a supposed 20 million vote gap between Harris and Biden.

Here’s a closer look at the facts.

CLAIM: President Joe Biden won approximately 20 million more votes in the 2020 election than Vice President Kamala Harris earned in the 2024 race, proving either that Trump has cheated his way to a second term or that there was widespread fraud four years ago.

THE FACTS: The claims are unfounded. Votes from Tuesday’s presidential election are still being counted, so any comparison with previous races would not be accurate. In addition, election officials and agencies monitoring the vote have reported no significant issues with Tuesday’s election. Claims of widespread fraud in 2020 have been debunked countless times.

▶ Read more on this fact focus

Iranians, like many around the world, are divided on what Donald Trump’s next presidency will bring: Some foresee an all-out war between Tehran and Washington, particularly as other conflicts rage in the region. Others hold out hope that America’s 47th president might engage in unexpected diplomacy as he did with North Korea.

But nearly all believe something will change in the U.S.-Iran relationship.

And while Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has final say on all matters of state, has repeatedly expressed his own disgust with Trump, Iran’s new reformist president has kept the door open to talks with Trump to seek relief from international sanctions to buoy a cratering economy. The Iranian rial, in a free fall for years, hit its lowest value against the dollar on Wednesday before slightly recovering.

▶ Read more about the response in Iran to Trump’s election win

Trump’s second term could realign U.S. diplomacy away from traditional international alliances and more toward populist, authoritarian politicians, according to both those leaders and outside observers.

Among them are:

▶ Read more about these leaders and their diplomatic approaches

Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders did not mince words in a scathing statement Wednesday.

“It should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned working class people would find that the working class has abandoned them,” Sanders, Vermont’s senior senator, said.

“First, it was the white working class, and now it is Latino and Black workers as well,” Sanders said.

Sanders won reelection to a fourth term on Tuesday. He singled out wealth inequality, a slipping standard of living in the U.S., a lack of full health care guarantees and support for Israel’s recent military campaigns as problems Democrats need to focus on. Sanders’s 2016 presidential run was a key factor in pushing the dialogue in the Democratic party to the left. Sanders has built his political career outside — and often criticizing — the Democratic Party, but he caucuses with Democrats in the Senate.

“At the start of his mandate, we wish him much wisdom because this is the main virtue of rulers according to the Bible,” Cardinal Pietro Parolin said, speaking on the sidelines of a Rome conference on Thursday, according to Vatican News.

While acknowledging no one had a “magic wand” to end wars in Ukraine and Gaza, Parolin said the Holy See hoped Trump “can indeed be an element of détente and pacification in the current conflicts that are bleeding the world.”

Parolin also said he hoped Trump would work to end polarization in the U.S., including over abortion. On migration, he recalled Pope Francis’ call to welcome those fleeing wars, poverty and climate change.

After visiting the U.S.-Mexico border in 2016 and asked about Trump’s call to build a wall, Francis famously said anyone who builds a wall to keep out migrants was “not Christian.”

More recently, Francis recommended U.S. voters choose the “lesser evil” when asked how a U.S. Catholic should vote given Trump’s pledge to deport migrants and Vice President Kamala Harris’ support of abortion rights.

“I have long admired the United States of America as the champion of democracy, freedom and the rule of law,” the Tibetan spiritual leader said in a message to Trump from the northern Indian town of Dharamshala where he has lived in exile since fleeing Tibet in 1959.

“The Tibetan people and I have been honored to have received the support of respective U.S. Presidents and the American people, in our endeavor to protect and preserve our ancient Buddhist culture — a culture of peace, non-violence and compassion that has the potential to benefit humanity as a whole,” he said.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan conveyed his hopes in a call for strengthened cooperation between their two countries during Trump’s new term in office, according to a statement from the Turkish president’s office.

Trump’s impending return to the White House means he’ll want to stand up an entirely new administration from the one that served under President Joe Biden. His team is also pledging that the second won’t look much like the first one Trump established after his 2016 victory.

The president-elect now has a 75-day transition period to build out his team before Inauguration Day arrives on Jan. 20. One top item on the to-do list: filling around 4,000 government positions with political appointees, people who are specifically tapped for their jobs by Trump’s team.

That includes everyone from the secretary of state and other heads of Cabinet departments to those selected to serve part-time on boards and commissions. Around 1,200 of those presidential appointments require Senate confirmation, which should be easier with the Senate now shifting to Republican control.

▶ Read more about Trump’s transition

The House contests remain a tit-for-tat fight to the finish, with no dominant pathway to the majority for either party. Rarely, if ever, have the two chambers of Congress flipped in opposite directions.

Each side is gaining and losing a few seats, including through the redistricting process, which is the routine redrawing of House seat boundary lines. The process reset seats in North Carolina, Louisiana and Alabama.

Much of the outcome hinges on the West, particularly in California, where a handful of House seats are being fiercely contested, and mail-in ballots arriving a week after the election will still be counted. Hard-fought races around the “blue dot” in Omaha, Nebraska and in far-flung Alaska are among those being watched.

With a win in Wisconsin early Wednesday, Trump cleared the 270 electoral votes needed to clinch the presidency. But his exact margin of victory is still unclear — there are two presidential races that the AP has yet to call:

Arizona: Officials in Arizona’s Maricopa County said late Wednesday they’ve got more than 700,000 ballots left to count, which means the races for president and senate were too early to call. In all, AP estimates there are at least a million ballots to be added to the results in Arizona. County election officials are expected to firm up those numbers on Thursday.

Nevada: AP estimated late Wednesday evening that there are more than 200,000 ballots left to count in Nevada — including more than 130,000 in Clark County. Given the narrow margins in the races for president and U.S. Senate, both are too early to call. The AP will further review results released by Nevada election officials on Thursday.

Arizona: Officials in Arizona’s Maricopa County said late Wednesday they’ve got more than 700,000 ballots left to count, which means the races for president and senate were too early to call. In all, AP estimates there are at least a million ballots to be added to the results in Arizona. County election officials are expected to firm up those numbers on Thursday.

Nevada: AP estimated late Wednesday evening that there are more than 200,000 ballots left to count in Nevada — including more than 130,000 in Clark County. Given the narrow margins in the races for president and U.S. Senate, both are too early to call. The AP will further review results released by Nevada election officials on Thursday.

The U.S. House majority hung in the balance Wednesday, teetering between Republican control that would usher in a new era of unified GOP governance in Washington or a flip to Democrats as a last line of resistance to a Trump second-term White House agenda.

A few individual seats, or even a single one, will determine the outcome. Final tallies will take a while, likely pushing the decision into next week — or beyond.

After Republicans swept into the majority in the U.S. Senate by picking up seats in West Virginia, Ohio and Montana, House Speaker Mike Johnson predicted his chamber would fall in line next.

“Republicans are poised to have unified government in the White House, Senate and House,” Johnson said Wednesday.

▶ Read more about control of Congress

The remarks to the nation will be Biden’s first appearance on camera in the aftermath of Trump’s decisive victory over Harris.

Donald Trump spent his first day as president-elect receiving congratulatory phone calls from his defeated opponent, world leaders and President Joe Biden as he began the process of turning his election victory into a government.

Trump was keeping a low profile, staying out of the public eye after addressing supporters in Florida during the wee hours of Wednesday morning.

Vice President Kamala Harris called Trump to concede the race and to congratulate him, while Biden invited the man he ousted from the White House four years ago to an Oval Office meeting to prepare to return the keys.

Biden’s chief of staff later Wednesday nudged the Trump team to sign the required federal agreements necessary to begin an orderly presidential transition, a White House official said.

▶ Revisit how the news unfolded with Wednesday’s live coverage

Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign event, Wednesday, Sept. 25, 2024, in Mint Hill, N.C. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Vice President Kamala Harris delivers a concession speech for the 2024 presidential election, Wednesday, Nov. 6, 2024, on the campus of Howard University in Washington. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough)

Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris shake hands before the start of an ABC News presidential debate at the National Constitution Center, Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2024, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

President Joe Biden speaks to union laborers about his administration's support for unions in Philadelphia, Friday, Nov. 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

Vice President Kamala Harris delivers a concession speech after the 2024 presidential election, Wednesday, Nov. 6, 2024, on the campus of Howard University in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump and his running mate Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, stand on stage at an election night watch party at the Palm Beach Convention Center, Wednesday, Nov. 6, 2024, in West Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

CHICAGO (AP) — For the second year in a row, Earth will almost certainly be the hottest it's ever been. And for the first time, the globe this year reached more than 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) of warming compared to the pre-industrial average, the European climate agency Copernicus said Thursday.

“It's this relentless nature of the warming that I think is worrying,” said Carlo Buontempo, director of Copernicus.

Buontempo said the data clearly shows the planet would not see such a long sequence of record-breaking temperatures without the constant increase of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere driving global warming.

He cited other factors that contribute to exceptionally warm years like last year and this one. They include El Nino — the temporary warming of parts of the Pacific that changes weather worldwide — as well as volcanic eruptions that spew water vapor into the air and variations in energy from the sun. But he and other scientists say the long-term increase in temperatures beyond fluctuations like El Nino is a bad sign.

“A very strong El Nino event is a sneak peek into what the new normal will be about a decade from now,” said Zeke Hausfather, a research scientist with the nonprofit Berkeley Earth.

News of a likely second year of record heat comes a day after U.S. Republican Donald Trump, who has called climate change a “hoax” and promised to boost oil drilling and production, was reelected to the presidency. It also comes days before the next U.N. climate conference, called COP29, is set to begin in Azerbaijan. Talks are expected to focus on how to generate trillions of dollars to help the world transition to clean energies like wind and solar and avoid more warming.

Also on Thursday, a report released by the United Nations Environment Programme called for increased funds to adapt to global heating and its consequences. It found that the $28 billion spent worldwide to adapt to climate change in 2022 — the latest year the data is available — is an all time high. But it's still far short of the estimated $187 to $359 billion needed every year to deal with the heat, floods, droughts and storms exacerbated by climate change.

“Earth’s ablaze,” said U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in a pre-recorded statement marking the report's release. “Humanity’s torching the planet and paying the price” with the vulnerable most affected, he said.

“Frankly, there is no excuse for the world not to get serious about adaptation," said UNEP's director Inger Andersen. “We need well-financed and effective adaptation that incorporates fairness and equity.”

Buontempo pointed out that going over the 1.5 degree Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) threshold of warming for a single year is different than the goal adopted in the 2015 Paris Agreement. That goal was meant to try to cap warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) since pre-industrial times on average, over 20 or 30 years.

A United Nations report this year said that since the mid-1800s on average, the world has already heated up 1.3 degrees Celsius (2.3 degrees Fahrenheit) — up from previous estimates of 1.1 degrees (2 degrees Fahrenheit) or 1.2 degrees (2.2 degrees Fahrenheit). That's of concern because the U.N. says the greenhouse gas emission reduction goals of the world's nations still aren't nearly ambitious enough to keep the 1.5 degree Celsius target on track.

The target was chosen to try to stave off the worst effects of climate change on humanity, including extreme weather. “The heat waves, storm damage, and droughts that we are experiencing now are just the tip of the iceberg,” said Natalie Mahowald, chair of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Cornell University.

Going over that number in 2024 doesn’t mean the overall trend line of global warming has, but “in the absence of concerted action, it soon will,” said University of Pennsylvania climate scientist Michael Mann.

Stanford University climate scientist Rob Jackson put it in starker terms. “I think we have missed the 1.5 degree window,” said Jackson, who chairs the Global Carbon Project, a group of scientists who track countries’ carbon dioxide emissions. “There’s too much warming.”

Indiana state climatologist Beth Hall said she isn't surprised by the latest report from Copernicus, but emphasized that people should remember climate is a global issue beyond their local experiences with changing weather. “We tend to be siloed in our own individual world,” she said. Reports like this one “are taking into account lots and lots of locations that aren’t in our backyard.”

Buontempo stressed the importance of global observations, bolstered by international cooperation, that allow scientists to have confidence in the new report's finding: Copernicus gets its results from billions of measurements from satellites, ships, aircraft and weather stations around the world.

He said that going over the 1.5 degree Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) benchmark this year is “psychologically important” as nations make decisions internally and approach negotiations at the annual U.N. climate change summit Nov. 11-22 in Azerbaijan.

“The decision, clearly, is ours. It’s of each and every one of us. And it’s the decision of our society and our policymakers as a consequence of that,” he said. “But I believe these decisions are better made if they are based on evidence and facts.”

Associated Press reporters Seth Borenstein in Washington and Sibi Arasu in Bengaluru, India contributed to this report.

Follow Melina Walling on X, formerly Twitter: @MelinaWalling.

The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

FILE - Tourists with an umbrella walk in front of the Parthenon at the ancient Acropolis in central Athens, June 12, 2024. June 2024 was the hottest June on record, according to Europe's Copernicus climate service on Monday, July 8. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris, File)

FILE - Firefighter Geo Mulongo, center, finishes his water while taking a break during the Line Fire in Highland, Calif., Sept. 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, File)

FILE - Ricky Leath, an outreach specialist with the City of Miami, talks with Bei Zhao, right, as he works with the Miami-Dade County Homeless Trust to distribute bottles of water and other supplies to the homeless population, helping them manage high temperatures, May 15, 2024, in Miami. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky, File)

FILE - A man fills containers with water due to the shortage caused by high temperatures and drought in Veracruz, Mexico, on June 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Felix Marquez, File)

FILE - A tourist shelters from the sun by a fountain in front of the Sforzesco Castle in Milan, Italy, July 11, 2024. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno, File)

FILE - Counselor Izzy Kellar, of Dayton, Ohio, fills up her campers' water bottles, June 20, 2024, at YMCA Camp Kern in Oregonia, Ohio. (AP Photo/Joshua A. Bickel)

FILE - A woman, center, weeps as patients of heatstroke receive treatment at a hospital in Karachi, Pakistan, June 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Fareed Khan, File)

FILE - A volunteer pours water to cool a man off during a hot day in Karachi, Pakistan, May 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Fareed Khan, File)