VOA常速英语:拜登巩固胜局,特朗普败诉

U.S. President-elect Joe Biden solidified his election victory on Friday when he won the state of Georgia as President Donald Trump said "time will tell" if another administration takes office soon. Several news organizations and Edison Research, which made the Georgia call, also projected that Trump would take North Carolina. That would finalize the electoral vote tally at 306 for Biden to 232 for Trump. The numbers gave the Democrat Biden a resounding defeat over Trump in the Electoral College. It's equal to the 306 votes that Trump, a Republican, won to defeat Hillary Clinton a 2016 victory that Trump called a "landslide.” The president has claimed without evidence that he was cheated by widespread election fraud and has refused to concede. State election officials report no serious irregularities, and several of his legal challenges have failed in court.

U.N. human rights commissioner Michelle Bachelet has expressed alarm at the deteriorating situation in the Ethiopian region of Tigray, warning that fighting there could "spiral out of control.” The statement follows a report by Amnesty International of mass killings in southwest Tigray. Rupert Colville is Bachelet's spokesman in Geneva. "If confirmed as having been deliberately carried out by a party to the current fighting, these killings of civilians would, of course, amount to war crimes.” Bachelet called for a full investigation of the alleged killings, saying "there must be an independent investigation and full accountability for what has happened.” Government forces have been bombing targets in Tigray. The federal government accuses Tigrayan leaders of being an illegal breakaway group.

Twenty migrants have died in a shipwreck off the Libyan coast, according to Doctors Without Borders, raising to almost 100 the death toll from two such Mediterranean tragedies. Teams from the medical humanitarian organization "assisted three women as the lone survivors of another shipwreck where 20 people drowned," the group said on Twitter. The wreck follows Thursday's dinghy capsizing off the coast of Libya that left scores of people dead. Bodies from that incident continued to wash up on the coast Friday. Thousands of migrants leave sub-Saharan Africa every year on a perilous journey to Europe as they seek to escape conflict and poverty.

A suicide car bomb exploded at the western entry gate of the Afghan capital Friday, killing at least three government security troops and wounding four others. Attacks have increased in Afghanistan in recent months despite government negotiators and the Taliban meeting in Qatar to seek an end to decades of relentless war in Afghanistan. The two sides have made little progress.

Reporting by remote, I'm David Byrd, VOA news.