Rachel Looker
Reporting from Pennsylvania

Hello from Erie, Pennsylvania! I'm in the very northwest corner of the state today in one of the counties that could determine if Pennsylvania swings blue or red.

The city is sandwiched between Ohio and New York, and borders Lake Erie, the fourth largest of the five Great Lakes.

I've already seen six yard signs - three for Vice-President Harris and three for former President Donald Trump - on my drive downtown. This is representative of the tight races between Democrats and Republicans in the area.

Some fast facts:

• Erie County is one of two bellwether counties in Pennsylvania, meaning the way the county swings could help indicate which candidate wins Pennsylvania.
• In recent presidential elections, it’s flipped from blue to red and back to blue. Obama carried the county in 2012; Trump in 2016 and Biden won the county in 2020 by just 1,400 votes.
• This area has gone for the candidate who wins Pennsylvania in every election since 1992.

Ana Faguy
Reporting from Pennsylvania

I spent some time this morning in the Lehigh County Democrats campaign office chatting with volunteers.

When I first walked in, there were only two women. An hour later, there were almost a dozen.

It’s representative of the energy on the ground, Ana Comas told me, “there’s enthusiasm out there”.

Comas told me about a recent fruitful door knocking effort, where volunteers found a person who had never voted and didn’t know how.

She returned the next day to that house with a mail in ballot, Comas said.

In a race as tight as this year's election, the winner will ultimately be decided by as little as a few thousands votes. Every ballot counts and both campaigns are under pressure to reach a dwindling number of new supporters.

Image source, Reuters

After Hurricane Milton tore through Florida overnight, questions continue to swirl about how recent severe weather will impact voting.

North Carolina legislators have passed a measure as part of a larger relief bill to expand voting options in the counties most affected by Hurricane Helene, which devastated the western part of the state two weeks ago.

Voters in 25 counties will be allowed to request an absentee ballot in person up until the day before election day, and there will be more locations for voters to drop off their ballots.

The new rules largely follow changes suggested by the Trump campaign, which late Tuesday suggested a list of provisions to ease voting in North Carolina.

Asheville, one of the towns hardest hit by Helene, is a Democratic stronghold, but much of the surrounding area leans heavily Republican.

Ana Faguy
Reporting from Pennsylvania

I’m in Allentown this morning, about an hour outside Philadelphia in the all-important Lehigh County.

With less than a month to go to election day, you can see the highways are lined with massive billboards urging voters to cast their ballot either for Trump or Harris.

On city streets, the signs are a lot smaller but just as frequent.

Many people here are clearly engaged in the election process and recognize that this state may be one that determines who heads to the White House in January.

I’ll be driving around the eastern part of the state today, stick with us for updates.

How important is Pennsylvania in the presidential race?published at 17:01 British Summer Time 10 October

17:01 BST 10 October

Anthony Zurcher
North America correspondent

The White House’s address may be 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, but the real road to the presidency runs through the state of Pennsylvania, the biggest prize among the electoral battleground map.

According to calculations by elections analyst Nate Silver, the candidate who wins Pennsylvania has more than a 90% of winning the White House.

“It’s the granddaddy of all the swing states,” said former congressman Patrick Murphy, who represented north-eastern Pennsylvania as a Democrat from 2007-11.

With its 19 electoral votes, Pennsylvania – the fifth most populous US state - is the lynchpin of the swing-state electoral firewalls for both Kamala Harris and Donald Trump.

If the Democrats win Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan, along with one congressional district in Nebraska, she’s the next president. If the Republicans carry Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Georgia, Trump is back in the White House next year.

Without Pennsylvania, there is no way Trump can win without flipping at least three of the states Joe Biden won in 2020.

Nicknamed the Keystone State, Pennsylvania could in fact be the key to the White House.

• Read Anthony's analysis in full

Away from the election, we've a bit of breaking political news for you.

Ethel Kennedy, the family's matriarch and the widow of Robert F Kennedy, died this week after having a stroke, her grandson says in a statement.

She was 96 years old.

• You can read more about her life in our main news story

Image source, Getty Images

Few would disagree that political and social issues are becoming increasingly polarised. Finding common ground on issues such as the environment, foreign policy and gun control appears to be difficult, according to some research.

But what is this doing to people's friendships?

This is what psychologist Ian MacRae and BBC.com hoped to explore with a so-called Friendship Study - a short questionnaire offered to readers in July and August this year.

Some 1,912 people participated, and many said they did not find it harder to talk about politics now than in the past. And many reported actually gaining friends - while also losing some - due to political discussions.

• Find out more about the study and it's conclusions

As the election nears, two major hurricanes have struck the US in as many weeks.

First was Hurricane Helene, which made landfall on the US's Gulf Coast at the end of September, and went on to kill at least 223 people across states including Florida, the Carolinas and Georgia. Then came Milton, which made landfall in Florida last night.

Since Helene's arrival, various claims have been made about how the US government is handling money allocated for disaster relief, including Republicans claiming the White House is prioritising funding for foreign countries.

Below, BBC Verify's Jake Horton investigates the facts:

Image source, Reuters

Here's a quick rundown of what to expect from Thursday's campaign trail:

• Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump will be at the Detroit Economic Club today, in the key state of Michigan, while his running mate JD Vance will hold a town hall forum in Greensboro, North Carolina
• Meanwhile, Kamala Harris will be hitting the crucial swing states in the West - with a campaign stop in Phoenix, Arizona, followed by a town hall in Las Vegas, Nevada, hosted by Spanish-language network Univision
• The Democratic nominee's campaign is also bringing out some added political firepower in the form of former president Barack Obama, who'll be kicking off a multi-state tour this evening in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
• Plus don’t miss a special US election edition of the BBC's Question Time, airing at 16:00 EST (21:00 BST), where a panel of pundits and politicians will take questions from a live studio audience
• Moderated by Fiona Bruce, the panel includes our North America Correspondent Anthony Zurcher, Bryan Lanza, an adviser to Trump, Republican and Democratic members of Pennsylvania’s House of Representatives, and British-American commentator Mehdi Hasan

Image source, Reuters

Madeline Halpert
Reporting from Detroit

Sitting next to me this morning at the Detroit Economic Club event is the president of “Trump’s Front Row Joes”, a Trump super fan club whose name comes from how frequently they appear in the front rows of Trump’s rallies.

Rick Frazier has been to over 80 of them. “It’s like going to a concert over and over but the music changes,” he tells me.

Trump’s message tends to change based on the location, he says.

He’s also been to Mar-a-Lago several times, including after Trump was indicted the first time.

Today, Frazier expects Trump to talk about the economy and the auto industry.

Frazier says he supports Trump in part because of his border policies. He lost his daughter to a fentanyl overdose this year and is concerned about drug trafficking.

''A big thing is getting the border closed,” he says.

Madeline Halpert
Reporting from Detroit

Good morning from Michigan, where the race between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump remains neck and neck, according to the most recent polls.

Trump is slated to speak at a Detroit Economic Club event around 13:00 at the Motor City Casino Hotel. In the past, dozens of presidential candidates have come to speak at events hosted by the historic nonprofit group, which serves as a platform to discuss business, government and social issues.

The auto industry is likely to feature heavily in Trump’s remarks today, as he tries to woo workers from the state’s famous industry. He and running mate JD Vance have used their trips in Michigan to attack Biden and Harris’s investments in electric vehicles, claiming it will cost auto workers their jobs.

The group invited Harris to speak as well but she has yet to say for sure whether she will.

The vice-president was in Michigan last week and is expected to make more trips to the key battleground state with less than a month to go before Election Day.