United States President Joe Biden has ordered aides to determine the origin of the coronavirus pandemic, saying US intelligence agencies are pursuing rival theories including a possible laboratory accident in China. Intelligence agencies were considering two likely scenarios but still lacked strong confidence in their conclusions and were hotly debating which was more probable, Mr Biden said in a statement. The conclusions …

The Australian share market is set to modestly rise, despite tech stocks on Wall Street pulling that market lower. At 9:30am AEST, ASX 200 futures were up 0.2 per cent. The benchmark closed 0.1 per cent up on Monday after it was pulled higher by energy stocks. Meanwhile, globally the price of oil is up. It is up 1.1 per …

US President Joe Biden has expressed support for a ceasefire between Israel and Gaza’s militant Hamas rulers in a phone call to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Mr Biden is facing growing pressure from his own Democratic Party to play a more vocal role, but US officials say he and his team have opted for a quieter effort, talking directly with Israeli …

The US Senate has voted to acquit former president Donald Trump in his second impeachment trial. A two-thirds majority — 67 or more guilty votes — was required to convict the former president. Senators voted 57-43 guilty on the charge of incitement of insurrection. In the vote, seven of the 50 Senate Republicans joined the chamber’s unified Democrats in favouring …

Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial could conclude on Saturday, leaving a divided U.S. Senate to decide whether the former president incited his supporters to attack the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 in a last-ditch effort to stay in power after his November election defeat. Trump is the first U.S. president to be impeached twice and the first to face trial …

Georgia’s secretary of state has opened an investigation into former US president Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the state’s 2020 election results. The investigation comes after Mr Trump was recorded in a January 2 phone call pressuring Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to overturn the results based on false voter fraud claims. “The Secretary of State’s office investigates complaints it receives,” said …

Freshly inaugurated, US President Joe Biden has signed his first executive orders and has already reversed some of Donald Trump’s policies on immigration, climate change, racial equality and coronavirus. The new President entered the White House with first lady Jill Biden on Wednesday (Washington time) and wasted no time getting to work. He began signing 15 executive orders from the …

US President-elect Joe Biden and President Donald Trump will campaign next week in Georgia, holding duelling events on the eve of runoff elections that will determine who controls the US Senate and the fate of Mr Biden’s legislative agenda. The visits come as Mr Trump escalates his fight with fellow Republican leaders in the state for not supporting his bid …

California has certified its presidential election and appointed 55 electors pledged to vote for Democrat Joe Biden, officially handing him the Electoral College majority needed to win the White House. Secretary of State Alex Padilla’s formal approval of Biden’s win in the state brought his tally of pledged electors so far to 279, according to a tally by The Associated …

The race to decide the US presidential election is on a knife edge with  Donald Trump leading Democratic rival Joe Biden in the vital battleground state of Florida. With other competitive swing states that will help decide the election, including North Carolina, still up in the air, American look likely to go to bed without knowing who their leader will …