Anti-Trump protesters descended on state capitols throughout the US in a last-ditch effort to persuade so-called "faithless electors" in states Trump won to change their vote. Many of the Republicans casting ballots said they were inundated with calls and emails urging them to dump Trump.

And some electors did break with how their state voted, albeit in unexpected ways. In Washington, a state Clinton won by 16 points, the former secretary of state received just eight of the state's 12 electoral votes. Colin Powell received three votes and Native American tribal leader Faith Spotted Eagle received one as part of an effort to promote a candidate other than Trump.

An Associated Press survey of the electoral college's 538 members found there was little interest from members in breaking from voting how their states did. Thirty-seven electors would have needed to defect from Trump to endanger him from winning. The Electoral College met in all fifty states and Washington, DC on Monday. Congress will certify the results on January 6 and the president will be inaugurated January 20.

After stressing that he always preferred to pass legislation through Congress rather than use executive orders, Obama gave his explanation as advice to Trump. “Keep in mind, though, that my strong preference has always been to legislate when I can get legislation done,” the president told NPR. “In my first two years, I wasn’t relying on executive powers, because I had big majorities in the Congress and we were able to get bills done, get bills passed.”

“And even after we lost the majorities in Congress, I bent over backwards consistently to try to find compromise and a legislative solution to some of the big problems that we’ve got – a classic example being immigration reform, where I held off for years in taking some of the executive actions that I ultimately took in pursuit of a bipartisan solution.”

“So my suggestion to the president-elect is, you know, going through the legislative process is always better, in part because it’s harder to undo,” Obama said. He added that it would be perfectly legal for Trump to use executive orders, however. “I think that he is entirely within his lawful power to do so,” Obama said.

Nestled among them is a cartoonish depiction of President-elect Trump, obliviously walking smack into a street light. The mural perfectly captures how many Germans feel about the President-elect — who drew disapproval from 82% of them, according to a recent poll. “He’s the fighter. He plays with his muscles,” Ulrike Bretz, 41, said in front of the loudly colored mural. “For me, he incorporates everything that I hate ... he’s got a lot of money and he shows it.”

Speaking in a city where reminders of the past are everywhere, Bretz, a PR professional, reflects on how far her country has come. “We were the bad ones,” she says. “We were the ones who had to learn all about how to be liberal and democratic again. We learned our lesson and everyone else did and now it’s changing and we’re maybe the last ones.” Trump’s impending presidency has helped create a sense of unease in Germany. He has suggested the US won’t support NATO countries that come under attack and taken a cozy attitude toward Russia.

Back on Rosenthaler Strasse, Trump’s November 8 win seemed to be on everyone’s mind. Those who paused in front of the Trump mural enjoyed the chance to jeer at the American President-elect for a moment, even as they were anxious about what he means for the world. “He kind of reminds me of Hitler, because Hitler got elected, too,” said Francesca Willbrand, a 21-year-old student.

The far-right party Alternative fur Deutschland has enjoyed rising popularity as anti-immigration sentiment among Germans intensifies. If Germany’s political landscape shifts in a rightward direction, together with growing misgivings about the United States’ retrenchment from the world and its commitment to Europe’s security, it is not inconceivable that Germany’s neighbors will begin to fear Berlin’s power and intentions in a way they haven’t for decades.

There are already signs of a debate within Germany about the desirability of a nuclear deterrent in some form. While this does not mean that a European conflict driven by fear of Germany is inevitable as perhaps it was a century ago, American policymakers should not assume that the present post-World War II stability in Europe will last forever.

Those who diminish the enduring relevance of America’s security presence in Europe should remember that NATO sought to do more than keep Russia at bay. It has also been instrumental in keeping the continent’s largest states at peace with each other. That in turn has paid America significant dividends, which could be lost if the American people sanction Trump’s turn away from the transatlantic order.

"The situation is getting worse by the day… people are desperate". As Jayant detailed previously, expect a continuation of new social engineering notifications, each sabotaging wealth-creation, confiscating people’s wealth, and tyrannizing those who refuse to be a part of the herd, in the process destroying the very backbone of the economy and civilization.

There are clear signs that in a very convoluted way, possession of gold for investment purposes will be made illegal. Expect capital controls to follow. India will become a police state, likely with the full support of most Indians. Nationalism will be the thread that weaves them together. But it is a fake thread, devoid of any value. Eventually, there will be far too many stresses in the system, whose institutions are already in an advance stage of decay.

India as it exists today is a British creation. With the British now gone for 69 years, it is an entity that has less and less reason to exist in its current form. The glue of reason that the British have applied is flaking, and it is doing so rapidly under the catalyst by name of Narendra Modi.

The rest of the UN Security Council was ready to go along with the French resolution, but there was just one country standing in the way. The United States has veto power on the UN Security Council, and so the Obama administration had the power to potentially block the resolution.  After carefully considering the matter, the Obama administration decided that it was not the time for such a resolution, and so France never submitted it for a vote.

Just about everything else that Barack Obama did throughout his entire presidency was bad, but in this instance he got something completely right.  The decision whether or not to divide the land of Israel was in his hands, and he made the right call. Once this decision was made, it was almost as if someone hit a “pause button”.  None of the bad things that people were forecasting ending up happening, and since that decision America has been blessed compared to the rest of the world. In this case, Barack Obama blessed Israel by preventing the UN Security Council from dividing the land, and so we were blessed as a result.

So the next month is absolutely critical.  The UN Security Council still has time to take action while Obama is still in office, and we know that such a move is actively being considered. If we can get to January 20th and the land of Israel has not been divided by the UN Security Council and Donald Trump successfully takes office, perhaps our reprieve will be extended for a while. But if Barack Obama very foolishly allows the land of Israel to be divided at the UN Security Council before January 20th, the “pause button” will be unpaused, our blessing will be turned into a curse, and all hell will break loose in America.

The President-elect tapped New York-based attorney David Friedman Thursday to represent the United States. Friedman, who maintains a residence in Jerusalem, is known for hardline views that depart from decades of established American policy and in some cases are to the right of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Friedman argues that Israeli settlement construction in Palestinian areas shouldn't be illegal and has called the effort to find a two-state solution an "illusion." In Trump's announcement, the bankruptcy lawyer and Orthodox Jew welcomed moving the embassy from Tel Aviv to "Israel's eternal capital, Jerusalem" - settling in one phrase a fraught issue that has been designated for final peace talks, as Palestinians claim Jerusalem as their capital as well.

The upshot, analysts and experts say, is that there's likely turbulence ahead. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has ebbed as an issue of concern for the Middle East, roiled by five years of war that have changed regional dynamics. But a US shift in the status quo of Jerusalem - home to the third-holiest site in Islam as well as the holiest in Judaism - and away from forging a state for the Palestinians, long seen as an important cause by other Arabs, could revive regional tensions.

"One, their perception that the previous president, or the outgoing president, basically withdrew America from international politics, so that they had to make their own assessments of their necessities," he said.

"And secondly, that here is a new president who's asking a lot of unfamiliar questions. And because of the combination of the partial vacuum and the new questions, one could imagine that something remarkable and new emerges out of it."

When asked if he has a sense about the president-elect's emerging foreign policy vision, Kissinger said he and the billionaire appear to operate differently, but offered some praise for the issues Trump has raised. "I think he operates by a kind of instinct that is a different form of analysis as my more academic one," Kissinger said. "But he's raised a number of issues that I think are important, very important. And if they're addressed properly, could lead to good — great results."

Duterte slammed the agency, telling journalists on Saturday: “I understand that we have been stricken out of the Millennium Challenge. Well, good, I welcome it. We can survive without American money.” “But you know, America, you might also be put on notice. Prepare to leave the Philippines, prepare for the eventual repeal or the abrogation of the Visiting Forces Agreement,” he added. The Philippines leader then urged US troops to “start packing,” adding, “You know, tit for tat... if you can do this, so can we. It ain’t a one-way traffic. Bye-bye America.”

In 1998, the US and the Philippines signed a pact allowing US troops to conduct joint drills on the islands, and at least two major military exercises currently take place there yearly. Prior to that, the US had maintained permanent military bases in the Philippines, but the last of them was removed 25 years ago. Since 2012, around 600 US military have been deployed in the Philippines to train troops battling Muslim extremists, but their numbers have been scaled down in recent years.

Fewer Americans invest additional time into following the news more in-depth. The survey asked people about going in-depth for news two different ways. It asked whether people generally tried to get news in-depth on any subject in the last week. It also asked, when they recalled a breaking news story they followed in the last week, whether they had tried to find out more about it after initially learning of it.

Overall, 41 percent of Americans report that they watched, read, or heard any in-depth news stories, beyond the headlines, in the last week. Slightly more people, 49 percent, report that they invested additional time to delve deeper and follow up on the last breaking news story they followed.

So, roughly six in 10 people acknowledge that they have done nothing more than read news headlines in the past week. And, in truth, that number is almost certainly higher than that, since plenty of people won’t want to admit to just being headline-gazers but, in fact, are. The popular content management site Copy Blogger puts the number at eight in 10.