US election result confirmed after violence: Update

Adds Trump statement on orderly transition of power in paragraph 7

The US Congress has completed the certification of November's presidential election after supporters of outgoing President Donald Trump stormed the US Capitol building in an attempt to disrupt the process.

The certification was completed at around 03:40am ET (08:40 GMT), confirming Joe Biden as the next president.

Both houses of congress worked late into the night after thousands of pro-Trump protestors occupied Capitol grounds, vandalizing the Senate chamber and the office of the speaker of the House of Representatives. One protestor was fatally shot, three other people died in the protests, and a curfew has been imposed in Washington.

Congress was meeting to count Electoral College results showing that Biden won the 3 November election. Every state and the District of Columbia certified the election results, and courts rejected scores of lawsuits filed by the Trump campaign to contest the election.

There were objections to the certification of electoral votes in Arizona and Pennsylvania by six and seven Republican senators respectively, fewer than had been expected before the violence earlier in the evening. Those objections, together with similar challenges in the House of Representatives, were defeated by wide margins.

With majority leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) adamantly opposed to the objections, calling the vote the most important of his 36-year career in the Senate, the outcome was never in doubt, even if the timing was delayed.

Trump released a statement shortly after the votes were certified, repeating his dismissal of the election outcome but committing to an "orderly transition" of power on 20 January, when Biden will take office. The statement was released through the White House's deputy communications director Dan Scavino, after social media platforms including Twitter and Facebook earlier temporarily suspended Trump's accounts, saying his posts encouraging the protests had violated their guidelines.

Trump earlier in the day addressed protesters at a rally near the White House, encouraging them to march to the Capitol to back his claims of massive fraud that he said cost him re-election. Mob violence, looting and rioting followed after protestors overcame security and entered the congressional buildings.

Several members of Trump's White House staff resigned following the storming of the Capitol. Cabinet members, including Treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin, issued statements condemning the violence, while global leaders including in the EU and UK called for a peaceful transition of power in the US. McConnell described the protests as a "failed insurrection", and the violence was denounced by vice president Mike Pence.

The Democrats' victories in two run-off elections in Georgia earlier in the week give the party control of the Senate, bolstering Biden's ability to achieve his energy and climate agenda.

By Kevin Foster, Haik Gugarats and David Ivanovich