TRUMP MAY BE COMING TO TERMS WITH LOSS HE WON'T ACKNOWLEDGE

President Donald Trump still won't bring himself to concede the election he

decisively lost to President-elect Joe Biden. But he's now acknowledging he

will leave the White House if Biden's win is affirmed by the Electoral

College, which is firmly on track to do just that in a few weeks.

"Certainly I will," he said Thursday when asked if he will vacate the

premises after electors make Biden's win formal. "But you know that."

No evidence has emerged of the widespread voting fraud that Trump and his

legal team have repeatedly alleged, only to be slapped down by judges and

state election officials.

A federal appeals court on Friday flatly dismissed President Donald Trump's

claim that the election was unfair and refused to freeze Joe Biden's win in

the key state of Pennsylvania.

In a scathing review of the Trump campaign's arguments that the president

was cheated in his November 3 reelection bid, three appeals court judges

unanimously said that allegations of unfairness were not supported by

evidence.

"Charges of unfairness are serious. But calling an election unfair does not

make it so," the court said.

In appealing a lower court ruling, the Trump campaign claimed

discrimination, the judges noted.

"But its alchemy cannot transmute lead into gold," the court said.

Trump, who took questions from reporters for the first time since the

election, unleashed another round of complaints about the vote and

theatrical warnings that "a lot of things" would happen before the Electoral

College meets Dec. 14 that could possibly change results. But while he's

stirring uncertainty about how he will behave in the weeks ahead, there is

no real suspense about the outcome.

All states must certify their results before the Electoral College meets and

any challenge must be resolved by Dec. 8. States have already begun that

process, including Michigan, where Trump and his allies tried and failed to

delay the process, and Georgia and Pennsylvania.

Nothing stands in the way of Biden taking office Jan. 20 with a clear margin

of electoral votes.

No concession is needed from Trump for Biden to become president, none has

been offered and Trump may never admit he was beaten fair and square. But

there were a few signs that Trump was coming to terms with his loss.

At one point he expressed concern that Biden would get the glory from

pending coronavirus vaccines. "Don't let him take credit for the vaccines,"

Trump said, "because the vaccines were me, and I pushed people harder than

they've ever been pushed before."

Trump, in his remarks, openly questioned whether that election would be

fair, casting suspicions that could dampen Republican turnout.

"I think you're dealing with a very fraudulent system," he said. "I'm very

worried about that." He said: "People are very disappointed that we were

robbed."

Trump made clear that he will probably never formally concede, even if he

said he would leave the White House.

MOHSEN FAKHRIZADEH, IRAN'S TOP NUCLEAR SCIENTIST, ASSASSINATED NEAR TEHRAN

Iran's most senior nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh has been

assassinated near the capital Tehran, the country's defence ministry has

confirmed.

The scientist long suspected by the West of masterminding a secret nuclear

bomb programme was killed in an ambush near Tehran on Friday that could

provoke confrontation between Iran and its foes in the last weeks of Donald

Trump's presidency.

The death of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, who Iranian media said died in hospital

after armed assassins gunned him down in his car, will also complicate any

effort by U.S. President-elect Joe Biden to revive the detente of Barack

Obama's presidency.

Iran pointed the finger at Israel, while implying the killing had the

blessing of the departing Trump. Foreign Minister Javad Zarif wrote on

Twitter of "serious indications of (an) Israeli role".

The military adviser to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei vowed to

"strike as thunder at the killers of this oppressed martyr". "In the last

days of the political life of their ... ally (Trump), the Zionists seek to

intensify pressure on Iran and create a full-blown war," Hossein Dehghan

tweeted.

Channels of the Telegram encrypted messaging app believed to be close to

Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards reported that the top security body, the

Supreme National Security Council, had convened an emergency meeting with

senior military commanders present.

There was silence from foreign capitals. Israel declined to comment. The

White House, Pentagon, U.S. State Department and CIA also declined to

comment, as did Biden's transition team.

APPEALS COURT REJECTS DONALD TRUMP'S CHALLENGE OF PENNSYLVANIA RACE

President Donald Trump's legal team suffered yet another defeat in court

Friday as a federal appeals court in Philadelphia roundly rejected the

campaign's latest effort to challenge the state's election results.

Trump's lawyers vowed to appeal to the Supreme Court despite the judges'

assessment that the "campaign's claims have no merit."

"Free, fair elections are the lifeblood of our democracy. Charges of

unfairness are serious. But calling an election unfair does not make it so.

Charges require specific allegations and then proof. We have neither here,"

3rd Circuit Judge Stephanos Bibas, a Trump appointee, wrote for the

three-judge panel, all appointed by Republican presidents.

The case had been argued last week in a lower court by Trump lawyer Rudy

Giuliani, who insisted during five hours of oral arguments that the 2020

presidential election had been marred by widespread fraud in Pennsylvania.

However, Giuliani failed to offer any tangible proof of that in court.

U.S. District Judge Matthew Brann, another Republican, had said the

campaign's error-filled complaint, "like Frankenstein's Monster, has been

haphazardly stitched together" and denied Giuliani the right to amend it for

a second time.

The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals called any revisions "futile." Chief

Judge D. Brooks Smith and Judge Michael Chagares were on the panel with

Bibas, a former University of Pennsylvania law professor. Trump's sister,

Judge Maryanne Trump Barry, sat on the court for 20 years, retiring in 2019.

"Voters, not lawyers, choose the president. Ballots, not briefs, decide

elections," Bibas said in the opinion, which also denied the campaign's

request to stop the state from certifying its results, a demand he called

"breathtaking."

WHO SAYS WOULD BE 'HIGHLY SPECULATIVE' TO SAY COVID DID NOT EMERGE IN CHINA

The World Health Organization's top emergency expert said on Friday it would

be "highly speculative" for the WHO to say the coronavirus did not emerge in

China, where it was first identified in December last year.

Mike Ryan was speaking at a virtual briefing in Geneva after being asked if

COVID-19 could have first emerged outside China.

It was first identified in the central city of Wuhan.

"You start your investigation where the first human cases emerged," he said.

POPE BACKS ARGENTINE WOMEN'S OPPOSITION TO ABORTION BILL

Pope Francis is encouraging Argentine women who are protesting a proposed

new law to legalise abortion, saying the protection of life is above all a

matter of human ethics.

In the letter to the women dated November 22, the Argentine pope wrote: "Is

it fair to eliminate a human life to solve a problem? Is it fair to hire a

hit man to solve a problem?" After Francis' handwritten letter circulated on

social media this week, the news portal of the Holy See confirmed Francis'

intervention on Friday.

Vatican News said Francis was responding to a group of women from the

shantytowns of Buenos Aires where he used to minister who have organised in

recent years to oppose efforts to decriminalise abortion.

In the letter, Francis thanked the women for their activism and encouraged

them, saying "the country is proud to have women like you".

President Alberto Fernandez announced earlier this month that he would

present a Bill to legalise abortion, saying it would save lives by

preventing women from resorting to unsafe, clandestine procedures.

Francis has strongly upheld Catholic doctrine forbidding abortion,

denouncing it as part of today's "throwaway culture" that doesn't respect

the dignity of the unborn, the weak or elderly. He has, however, offered a

merciful approach to women who have resorted to abortion, allowing mere

priests and not just bishops to absolve them if they seek forgiveness.

S KOREA FOILS N KOREA ATTEMPT TO HACK COVID-19 VACCINE MAKERS

South Korea's intelligence agency foiled North Korean attempts to hack into

South Korean companies developing coronavirus vaccines, the News1 agency

reported on Friday, citing a member of the parliamentary intelligence

committee.

Legislator Ha Tae-keung said after being briefed by the National

Intelligence Service the agency did not specify how many and which

drugmakers were targeted but said there was no damage from the hacking

attempts, News1 said.

There was no immediate response from North Korea to the allegation.

Last week, Microsoft said hackers working for the Russian and North Korean

governments had tried to break into the networks of seven pharmaceutical

companies and vaccine researchers in South Korea, Canada, France, India and

the United States.