New polling has suggested Americans are overwhelmingly opposed to president-elect Donald Trump’s plan to pardon January 6 defendants. During his campaign, he had pledged to ‘absolutely’ pardon those involved in the January 6 Capitol storming, frequently referring to them as ‘patriots’ and ‘hostages’. When Trump is sworn in as the 47th President of the United States, he will have the authority to wipe those cases of the 1,488 people charged in relation to Jan 6.

Former President Bill Clinton has addressed a bizarre claim his staff deliberately tore the letter ‘W’ from White House keyboards to hinder his successor, President George W Bush – and admitted that the long-running allegation might be true. Writing in his new memoir, Citizen – My Life After The White House, Clinton, 78,  recalls how a media ‘feeding frenzy’ marred the handover to Bush in 2001 amid claims departing staff had vandalized the West Wing. At the time, it was said that filing cabinets were glued shut, obscene messages left on answering machines and pornographic pictures placed on office printers.

A North Dakota Target is facing backlash for firing a woman who wrote ‘Trust in Jesus’ on her name tag. Denise Kendrick, an employee of the store in Fargo, said she was fired on November 16 over a dress code issue. She put ‘Trust in Jesus’ and a drawing of a cross on her name tag for that shift, but was approached by a manager who told her she could not wear it, according to KVLY.

With a growing number of Americans considering leaving the country after Donald Trump’s election as president, one young woman has warned fleeing for politics isn’t always what it’s cracked up to be. Google searches on on ‘how to move to countries’ massively increased after Trump’s win, with relocation firms saying 80 per cent of people want to move specifically for political reasons. Celebrities such as Barbra Streisand, Cher and Sharon Stone and Barbie star America Ferrera all said they’d leave if Trump won.

Sir Keir Starmer today pledges to crack down hard on the ‘bulging benefits bill blighting our society’ as he tries to steal the Tories’ political clothes over abuses of the welfare system. The Prime Minister uses an article in today’s Mail on Sunday to promise ‘sweeping changes’ to try to tame the £137 billion bill for welfare benefits – including a blitz on cheats and those who ‘game the system’ – vowing: ‘No more business as usual.’ His most hardline comments yet on the issue come as Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall prepares to announce a package of legislation on Tuesday to ‘get Britain working’, after officials forecast that more than four million people will be claiming long-term sickness benefits by 2030 – 60 per cent higher than before the pandemic.

A petition calling for a general election has exceeded the amount needed for a response from the government and needed to be considered for a debate in in parliament. The online petition has surpassed 200,000 signatures, at the time of publication, after being widely shared on social media since being created on Wednesday. It smashed through the 100,000 mark today which is the amount needed for it to be considered for a debate in parliament.