Ben Carson is Trump's pick to be Housing secretary

North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory conceded the governor's race Monday, clearing the way for Democrat Roy Cooper to be declared the winner nearly four weeks after election day.

The win by Cooper, the state's outgoing attorney general, gives Democrats an important consolation prize after a disappointing election across the country. However, Republicans retain super majorities in both legislative chambers.

In a video message from his office posted to YouTube, McCrory said, "Despite continued questions that should be answered regarding the voting process, I personally believe that the majority of our citizens have spoken, and we now should do everything we can to support the 75th governor of North Carolina, Roy Cooper."

President Obama mourned the deaths in last weekend's warehouse fire in Oakland that killed at least 36, saying in a statement Monday that his administration was in close contact with local and state officials to monitor the response.

"While we still don't know the full toll of this disaster, we do know that an American community has been devastated, and many people — including young men and women with their whole futures ahead of them — have tragically lost their lives," Obama said.

Most of the victims were in their 20s and 30s, police have said, attending a secret electronic music show late Friday at the "Ghost Ship," a piano factory that was being used as an art space.

Noting that Oakland is one of the "most diverse and creative cities" in the nation, Obama pledged the "unwavering support of the American people" as residents there recover.

Authorities are investigating whether any criminal activity led to the fire, one of the worst in modern California history.

Its cause is undetermined. Officials have said the warehouse was being investigated for possible code violations at the time of the fire. Some former residents described it as a cluttered “death trap” lacking fire sprinklers.

The Republican drive to repeal President Obama's healthcare law just as soon as President-elect Donald Trump takes office already has hit snags, and new state-by-state data help show why.

Of the five states whose residents receive the most in subsidies to help them buy insurance, four — Florida, Texas, North Carolina and Georgia — have Republican-controlled congressional delegations.

Florida has the most to lose: Its residents will receive an estimated $5.2 billion in Obamacare tax credits this year, about one-sixth of the money that the federal government distributes to help people with their insurance premiums. That's even more than California, the nation's most populous state and the one Democratic bastion on the top-five list.

The data on the amount of the subsidies in each state were compiled by the Kaiser Family Foundation, which has tracked data on the Affordable Care Act since it took effect. The foundation based its estimates on the average amount of the tax credits and the number of people buying insurance under the law in each state.

The law provides subsidies to about 9.4 million Americans with moderate or low incomes to help them buy insurance. Almost half of those receiving subsidies live in the top five states.

The amount of the subsidy depends on recipients' incomes and on the premiums in their market. As a result, the amounts vary considerably among states. In North Carolina, for example, the average subsidy is $401; in New York it is only $178. The national average subsidy is $291.

Republicans have a number of proposals to repeal the law but have not agreed on how to replace it. They seem likely to try a "repeal and delay" plan that could keep subsidies flowing for at least another year or two while they seek agreement on a replacement plan, but some conservatives, particularly in the House, are pushing for faster action. 

President-elect Donald Trump has chosen Ben Carson, a rival in the GOP presidential primary who became a top supporter, to run the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Trump chose Carson despite the pediatric neurosurgeon’s protestations that he lacked the experience to run a federal agency. The announcement Monday that Carson has been picked for the post came after weeks of negotiations during which Carson said publicly he had little interest in serving in Trump’s Cabinet, but then expressed more openness to the idea as Trump publicly courted him.

“Ben Carson has a brilliant mind and is passionate about strengthening communities and families within those communities,” Trump said in a statement. “We have talked at length about my urban renewal agenda and our message of economic revival, very much including our inner cities. Ben shares my optimism about the future of our country and is part of ensuring that this is a presidency representing all Americans. He is a tough competitor and never gives up.”

Carson said in a statement that “I feel that I can make a significant contribution particularly by strengthening communities that are most in need. We have much work to do in enhancing every aspect of our nation and ensuring that our nation’s housing needs are met.”

The choice of Carson further positions Trump to move the federal government in a drastically different direction than President Obama on policies that will affect millions of low-income Americans. Carson, a tea party favorite, has been deeply critical of social welfare programs. He has characterized the country’s safety net of cash assistance, housing allowances and social services as a failure that perpetuates dependence on government.

Carson would be taking on a post that was elevated to Cabinet-level as part of former President Lyndon Johnson’s “Great Society” agenda, which Carson has pilloried as a colossal failure.

Trump picked Carson days after announcing that his administration’s effort to dismantle one of the most expansive programs serving low-income Americans, Obamacare, will be headed by Republican Rep. Tom Price of Georgia, a fiscal conservative and longtime crusader for substantially cutting healthcare spending. Price is Trump’s pick to run the Department of Health and Human Services.

President-elect Donald Trump on Sunday blamed China for militarizing the South China Sea, taxing U.S. imports and devaluing its currency — even though the Chinese Renminbi has appreciated rapidly for the last 10 years.

“Did China ask us if it was OK to devalue their currency (making it hard for our companies to compete), heavily tax our products going into their country (the U.S. doesn't tax them) or to build a massive military complex in the middle of the South China Sea? I don't think so!” he wrote on Twitter.

The tweets come two days after Trump spoke on the phone with Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen, an astonishing break with diplomatic protocol that confounded foreign policy experts and angered Beijing.

China regards self-governing Taiwan as a breakaway province, and the two sides enjoy a fragile peace marked by delicate political rhetoric and rising economic integration. China lodged a diplomatic protest with the U.S. over the call.

China’s central bank does heavily manipulate the country’s currency markets — yet the country’s real exchange rate has risen nearly 40% since 2004, according to the Bank for International Settlements, and the International Monetary Fund declared last year that the Renminbi was no longer undervalued.

Trump during his campaign slammed Beijing for taking U.S. jobs, claiming that it was “using our country as a piggy bank to rebuild China,” and was intentionally devaluing its currency to boost exports. “They’re the best, the best ever at it,” he said.

House Speaker Paul D. Ryan said he is working with President-elect Donald Trump to tighten the nation's immigration practices.

“What we’re focused on is securing our border,” Ryan told "60 Minutes" in its Sunday evening broadcast.

Ryan said Trump and their fellow Republicans had no plans for a deportation force that would round up people in the U.S. illegally. 

“Here's what we're working on with respect to immigration — securing our border, enforcing our current laws,” Ryan said.

Noting that Trump has discussed people who have committed crimes beyond illegally entering the country, Ryan added: “That's just enforcing laws for people who came here illegally, who came and committed violent crimes. We should enforce those laws. But really, what we're focused on is securing our border.”

Since his election, Trump has said he would focus deportation efforts on criminals. But top aides have discussed widening that definition to include people suspected of crimes. 

Trump also has said that some parts of his promised wall along the border with Mexico might be made of fencing material.

“Conditions on the ground determine what you need in a particular area,” Ryan said. “Some areas, you might need a wall. Some area, you might need double fencing. My own view on this is, whatever kind of device or barrier or policy to secure the border, that's necessary to secure the border, then do it.”

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani criticized U.S. lawmakers on Sunday for, in his view, undermining a landmark nuclear agreement, but he said Tehran had no intention of abandoning the deal.

In a speech to parliament, Rouhani slammed a Senate vote last week to extend for 10 years a longstanding package of trade, energy, defense and banking sanctions against Iran.

The unilateral U.S. restrictions were not rescinded by the agreement that Iran signed last year with six world powers — including the United States — to roll back its nuclear program in exchange for an easing of international sanctions.

Hillary Clinton had already made up her mind to concede to President-elect Donald Trump before she talked with President Obama on election night, her campaign manager said.

“She made that decision on her own before she spoke to the president,” campaign manager Robby Mook said in a taped interview that aired on CNN on Sunday morning.

“And she made it because she believed, and she had said during the campaign, that it is important to our democracy that whoever wins, that their opponent concede the election and be supportive of them becoming president-elect,” Mook said. “And so she acted in good faith.”

A soon-to-be published book by well-sourced authors contradicted that claim. The book, by veteran reporters Amie Parnes and Jonathan Allen, says Clinton had not yet reached that decision before Obama advised her to concede. They cite three people close to Clinton familiar with how the night unfolded, according to a report by Parnes in the Hill newspaper.

“You need to concede,” Obama told Clinton as she and her family watched results come in from Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, according to the story. Clinton called Trump in the early morning hours to concede the election.

Incoming White House chief of staff Reince Priebus said Sunday that “it’s possible” millions of people voted illegally in the election of his soon-to-be boss, President-elect Donald Trump, though no evidence exists of such votes. 

Priebus doubled down after Trump's false assertion last week but cited no proof.

“I don’t know if that’s not true,” Priebus said on CBS' "Face the Nation."

“But you think millions of people voted illegally?” host John Dickerson asked.

“It’s possible,” Priebus replied.

Trump tweeted last week that he should have won the popular vote instead of Democrat Hillary Clinton but falsely claimed that millions of people illegally voted. 

Though Trump won the electoral vote, Clinton got at least 2.5 million more votes than he did overall; votes are still being counted in several states, including California. 

Trump has offered no evidence of voter irregularities in the 2016 race.

He has mentioned a statistical analysis by three Virginia academics that estimated that more than 6% of noncitizens cast illegal votes in 2008. But that study was attacked by other experts who say it made too much of a few people who said they were noncitizens and might have given incorrect answers in a survey.

The lack of evidence appeared to be evidence enough for Vice President-elect Mike Pence, who told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos that he can’t prove it’s not true.

“Look, I don’t know that that is a false statement, George, and neither do you,” Pence said. 

While voter fraud does happen, it is rare and not in great enough numbers to tip an election, and experts say it is often attributable to error, not intent. Trump warned during the campaign that people were coming into the U.S. illegally to vote, but offered no proof, and no coordinated effort emerged.

“What we have seen are errors,” Dale Ho of the American Civil Liberties Union said before the election. “There’s not a horde of people trying to break into this country so they can vote.”

President-elect Donald Trump doubled down on his threat against U.S. businesses that send jobs abroad on Sunday, declaring it an "expensive mistake" and warning of a massive tax if companies try to sell foreign-made goods in the U.S.

Trump said he would impose a 35% tariff on goods produced overseas as he encouraged businesses to consider looking for better deals by moving state to state.

"The United States is open for business," he tweeted.

The tax will make leaving "financially difficult," Trump also said, part of a series of tweets on the topic, but "these companies are able to move between all 50 states, with no tax or tariff being charged."

Trump will make decisions about companies that might move jobs “on a day-to-day basis," Vice President-elect Mike Pence said on ABC's "This Week."

But neither Trump nor Pence provided clarity about what tariffs Trump might try to impose, on his own or with Congress, or how he would apply them.

The elliptical announcement follows a week in which Trump bragged about his ability to persuade U.S. corporations to rethink their off-shoring strategies.

Trump traveled to Indiana last week to mark the decision by Carrier, a heating and cooling manufacturer, to keep roughly half the 2,000 jobs it was planning to move to Mexico. Carrier's impending move was a key talking point during Trump's campaign for president, and during his visit to the plant, Trump celebrated his influence in the decision.

Carrier also won $7 million in incentives from the state, drawing concerns from critics about whether Trump had actually demonstrated how companies might extort benefits from state and local officials by threatening to move jobs out of the country.

But Pence characterized the process more as an act of diplomacy that Trump had initiated.

“What the president-elect did with Carrier was simply reach out one American to another and ask them to reconsider,” Pence said on "This Week."

President-elect Donald Trump frequently complained during the campaign about the portrayal of him on "Saturday Night Live," and his dim view of the show carried over last night into the transition. 

Here's the skit, about Trump's compulsive tweeting, that drew his ire.

He praises enemies, he ignores allies, he upends decades of policy.

And Donald Trump hasn’t even been sworn in as president.

In a series of telephone calls with foreign leaders apparently eager to congratulate the president-elect, Trump has broken many of the rules that govern delicate matters of international relations, leaving State Department diplomats shocked and confused.

President-elect Donald Trump's surprise phone call with Taiwan’s president left many in China reeling over a perceived assault on the country’s sovereignty and questioning their assumptions about America’s future leader.

Although Trump repeatedly denounced China’s trade policies as unfair during the campaign, many here thought that his “America first” rallying cry might spare their country from lectures on human rights, territorial disputes and other diplomatic sore points.

“This is a message that their predictions were too optimistic,” said Shi Yinhong, director of the Center on American Studies at People’s University in Beijing. “China leaders will be quite prudent in their response, but this naturally increases worries in their minds about Trump’s possible attitudes and policy towards China.”

The Green Party is dropping its court case seeking a statewide recount of Pennsylvania's Nov. 8 presidential election. It had wanted to explore whether voting machines and systems had been hacked and the election result manipulated.

The decision came Saturday, two days before a court hearing in the case. Lawyers for the Green Party-backed voters who filed the case say they can't afford the $1-million bond ordered by the court by 5 p.m. Monday. However, Green Party-backed efforts to analyze election software in scattered precincts are continuing.

Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein has spearheaded recount efforts in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, states where Republican Donald Trump won narrowly over Democrat Hillary Clinton. Trump and the Pennsylvania GOP had opposed the recount.

Following his appointment as the next Treasury Secretary by President-elect Donald Trump, California banker Steven Mnuchin has resigned from his board position at the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art. 

Mnuchin, a former Goldman Sachs partner and onetime co-chairman of the troubled Relativity Media studio, joined the Board of Trustees of the museum in December 2009. He cited a new workload as the reason for his resignation.

Mornings have been a little more somber for Mario Calderon and his family since Nov. 8, when he came home from school and told his mother what another kid had said on the bus — that because he was a Mexican he’d have to start sitting at the back now that Donald Trump would be president.

Mario had never felt a sting like that before — he was born in Idaho, just like his sisters. His stomach churned. He was confused. Lonely. Anger muscled its way forward too. The bus driver reprimanded the kid, and Mario didn’t sit in the back. But the seed was planted. He worried that it would happen again.

“I felt sad,” he said.

All summer long, I celebrated the California coast, marking the 40-year anniversary of protections built into the Coastal Act.

Now winter is coming on, and I’m scared of what could happen to the greatest 1,100-mile beach on the planet.

We have a president-elect who said he’d like to bulldoze the Environmental Protection Agency, thinks global warming is a fairy tale and has surrounded himself with knuckle-draggers who would frack in marine sanctuaries and drill in Yosemite if they could get away with it.

Heather Spohr didn’t vote for Donald Trump, but that doesn’t mean she’s not interested in keeping up with what her soon-to-be president has been saying.

That hasn’t been so easy for the Thousand Oaks mother of two ever since she tweeted during a Republican primary debate last year that she found the celebrity businessman “repulsive” because of his feud with Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly.

Spohr is now one of an untold number of people who are blocked from following the president-elect on Twitter — a distinction that ordinarily wouldn’t matter except that Trump, who hasn’t held a news conference since July, uses the social media platform as his primary tool for communicating with the American public.

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump praised Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s anti-drug campaign — a bloodbath that has taken the lives of nearly 5,000 suspected drug dealers and users — in a phone call on Friday night, Duterte said.

Trump told the Philippine leader that he was conducting his drug war “the right way” and invited him to the White House, Duterte said, according to the Philippine Inquirer.

“The President-elect Trump wishes to extend his warmest regards to the Filipino people,” Duterte recounted, according to the newspaper. “And in just a few minutes, we were talking [about] a lot of things. He was quite sensitive also to our worry about drugs.”

“And he wishes me well too, in my campaign and he said that… well we are doing it as a sovereign nation, the right way,” he continued. “And he wishes us well. And I said that, well, we assured him of our ties with America.”

Trump’s transition team confirmed that the phone call took place, but did not say whether Trump praised the Philippine president’s drug war or invited him to the White House. 

Trump and Duterte “noted the long history of friendship and cooperation between the two nations,” according to the Trump team’s statement, “and agreed that the two governments would continue to work together closely on matters of shared interest and concern.”

Duterte, 71, campaigned on promises to rid the country of illegal drugs by killing tens of thousands of drug dealers, and since his inauguration in late June, an estimated 4,800 people have been killed, most of them gunned down by police and vigilantes.

Duterte’s latest comments contrasted sharply with his exchanges with the Obama White House, which frequently criticized his drug campaign as an affront to human rights and due process. Duterte responded with hostility, calling Obama the “son of a whore” and threatening to “separate” from the U.S., a longstanding Philippine ally. 

President-elect Donald Trump had a potentially provocative phone conversation Friday with Tsai Ing-wen, the president of Taiwan, which could upset delicate relations between the U.S. and the Chinese government.

It is believed to be the first call between a president or president-elect with a Taiwanese leader since 1979, when the U.S. recognized the mainland government and cut ties with Taiwan.

China has long been sensitive to any diplomatic recognition of Taiwan, which it regards as a rogue province. The reaction from China could be sharp.

The Trump transition team confirmed the call Friday in a statement summarizing contacts with four foreign leaders, including leaders from Afghanistan, the Philippines and Singapore.