Image source, AP

"Can I just say something?" Obama says before launching into a defence of the Affordable Care Act, which has been demonised by Republicans for over six years. 

"Twenty million people have health insurance that didn’t have it before," Obama said reminding the audience that the much-warned-about "death panels" never came to be.

Republicans who say they want to "repeal and replace" the bill don't have a plan, the president said.

"They don't even have a pretense of a plan. They don't even have a semblance of a plan. There's no plan. Nothing. Zero. Nada."

He might be a White Sox fan but the president can't help applauding the baseball World Series victory of the Chicago Cubs, in his Florida speech.

Their triumph, which ended one of the world's longest sporting droughts, was "literally the greatest thing since sliced bread", he said, because when they last won in 1908 there was no such thing as sliced bread.

As it's the season for fact-checking... the first automatically sliced commercial loaves were made in 1928 in Missouri.   

Chicago Cubs fans go wild after triumph

End of a sporting curse

Image source, iStock

Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway sees the historic Cubs win as a possible harbinger of victory for her candidate, tweeting a link to a data analysis that declared: "The Cubs Have A Smaller Chance Of Winning Than Trump Does."

The BBC's Laura Trevelyan is doing a Facebook Live with a Hispanic Trump supporter. See below...  

Obama in Miami: "She made me a better president, she understands policy, she understands how the world works, she understands that the stuff that we do, the challenges that we face aren’t abstract, they mean real things to real people. She will be a smart, steady president for the United States."

Image source, AP

Obama in Miami: "Anybody who's upset about a Saturday Night Live skit you don't want in charge of nuclear weapons. No, I'm serious. That's the thing that bothers you and you want to be president of the United States? Come on, man!" Crowd erupts.

The president also seeks to undercut Trump's claim of the working-class hero mantle, saying "you don't see him hanging out with working people... unless they're mowing the fairways at his golf club".

Obama begins his Miami rally by remarking on how "good-looking" the crowd is.

"Florida, we got five more days... and I got some business to do here today," he says, over shouts of "Hillary".

"Five more days to decide the fate of the future of the country that we love," he adds, before giving the exact address for where people can go to vote early.

Trump is trolling the commander-in-chief on Twitter...

Priorities USA, a group supporting Clinton, has released a "closing ad" in three key swing states to run between now and election day.

The multi-million dollar ad, Everything, will air in Ohio, North Carolina and Florida. It features shots from Trump rallies of his supporters roughing up African-American protesters.

Another pro-Clinton group, Save the Day, which is backed by TV producer Joss Whedon, has released a much more humorous three-minute ad, external.

In it, actor Chris Pine mocks Republicans for blocking congressional laws from being passed, by portraying the worst office co-worker ever.

Image source, Getty Images

The BBC's Jon Sopel, external and Gavin Hewitt, external are in North Carolina, where Clinton and Trump are both holding rallies.

BBC senior North America reporter Anthony Zurcher, external is in Wisconsin.

Nick Bryant, external is travelling with Hillary Clinton on board her plane, which the press have dubbed "Hill Force One".

Laura Trevelyan, external and Rajini Vaidyanathan , externalare in Miami, where Obama is about to hold a rally.

James Cook, external is in Arizona, a red state that Clinton hopes to win over. 

White supremacist David Duke's appearance at the final US Senate debate in Louisiana sparked angry scenes as protesters tried to force their way into the building.

Up to 70 people chanted outside Dillard University in New Orleans, a historically black university. 

The former KKK leader, who backs Donald Trump for president, announced in the summer that he was running for the US Senate.

Trump has been shunned by most of the influential newspapers in the US, but - unhappily for his campaign - has picked up an admiring editorial from the KKK's official newspaper.

In a glowing front-page article this week, the Crusader eulogised about the importance of Trump’s campaign slogan, Make America Great Again.  

Image source, AP

Image source, AP

Image source, AP

Image source, AFP

Prominent conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt says he's "inclined" to vote for Donald Trump - just a month after calling on him to drop out of the race. According to Politico, external, he said the Republican was sounding "more disciplined" than in the past, though he would still "wait on events" to make a final decision.

We haven't seen such agonising vacillation since Hamlet: Act Two, Scene Two.

Here's some other Republicans who can't decided whether to vote for Trump.

Inside the tortured mind of an anti-Trump Republican

Image source, AFP

One senior Republican who's finally come out in favour of the party's nominee is Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who has been as inscrutable as the Mona Lisa on the subject of Trump for much of the campaign.

"We need a new president, Donald Trump, to be the most powerful Republican in America," he declared in Kentucky on Wednesday.

Image source, AFP

Melania Trump will be holding her first public rally since the Republican convention back in July.

She will speak at a sports centre in the Philadelphia suburbs.

The Slovenian-born former model's convention speech was panned because some passages bore striking similarities to Michelle Obama's remarks at the 2008 Democratic convention.

Melania Trump would be the first foreign-born first lady since John Quincy Adams' London-born wife, Louisa, joined him in the White House in 1825.  

Why Melania's plagiarism row matters

She did make a brief appearance, external on CNN after a video emerged of her husband making crude sexual comments about women.

She said that she had forgiven her husband, and that he had been pressured to say those things by the programme's host.

Image source, AP

Clinton, who grew up in the Chicago suburbs, watched part of the final game of the World Series on an aide's iPad after her rally in Tempe, Arizona - a rally which drew more than 15,000 people, one of the largest of her campaign.

Clinton was born in 1947, two years after the Cubs last appeared in the World Series. She grew up watching games with her brothers, the New York Times reports.

After the game ended, she held aloft a "W" banner.

Chicago Cubs end 108-year wait for win

Image source, AP

Image source, AP

Image source, AP

Obama continues campaigning for Clinton in Miami and Jacksonville, Florida.

Trump will also be holding a rally in Jacksonville, but then heads to North Carolina for two more in Concord and Selma.

Clinton will be in North Carolina, too, holding a rally in Wintersville and then an evening event in Raleigh with singer Pharrell Williams and former Democratic opponent Senator Bernie Sanders.

Melania Trump will be holding a rally, and giving her first speech since the Republican convention over the summer. Her address was panned as plagiarism due to the similarities in remarks Michelle Obama made at a Democratic convention years earlier.

Democratic running mate Tim Kaine will make a speech entirely in Spanish in Phoenix, Arizona, and then hold another rally at a high school in Tucson.

Republican vice-presidential pick Mike Pence has two rallies alongside Senator Ted Cruz in Iowa and Michigan, then he goes solo in Pennsylvania.

Bill Clinton will be rallying voters at a fundraiser in Las Vegas.

Chelsea Clinton campaigns in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Image source, AP

Image source, AFP

Nigerian playwright and Nobel Prize winner Wole Soyinka says he will cut up his green card if Trump wins the US election.

The Republican's hardline stance on immigration is the source of his anger.

Read more here

Photos have gone viral of 102-year-old Jerry Emmett, from Prescott, Arizona, casting her early ballot in a white pantsuit this week. Born before women in the US gained suffrage - she was quoted as saying she'd waited her whole life to vote for a female presidential candidate.

Image source, Getty Images

The theme for the live page throughout Thursday will be the Hispanic vote, a crucial voting bloc especially in key states like Florida, Arizona and Nevada.

Donald Trump's promise on the first day of his campaign to build a wall on the Mexican border has energised Latino-American voters.

Many viewed his comments as racist, motivating many to register to vote or even seek citizenship in order to do so.

But some (particularly the Cuban-Americans of Florida) have favoured Republicans in years past.

The BBC's Liliet Heredero, external, has travelled to Texas and Florida to ask how Latinos will be voting.

There's dismay on Twitter after Trump singled out NBC journalist Katy Tur - again - at his Miami rally on Wednesday: "There's something happening. They're not reporting it. Katy - you're not reporting it, Katy."

He called her a "third-rate journalist" last December. 

A New York Times/CBS poll, external just published shows 45% of likely voters supporting Clinton to 42% for Trump - the 3% difference is within the poll’s margin of error. Another poll, by WBUR in New Hampshire, external, shows Trump led Clinton 40% to 39% among likely voters in that state.

Image source, Reuters

The BBC's Rajini Vaidyanathan is in Miami, the battleground state where President Obama and Donald Trump are both holding events today.

She says: "President Obama is in Miami to rally the Democratic base, in particular black voters who helped elect him twice -  but who Hillary Clinton isn't polling as well with.

"Four million Floridians have already cast a ballot in early voting, initial indications suggest that turnout among black voters isn't as high as usual, a pattern seen in other battleground states.

"Donald Trump needs to win the Sunshine State to have a realistic chance of becoming President - and right now local polls show a dead heat."

Image source, AFP