Image source, Getty Images

Wall Street has dipped again as uncertainty continues over the US presidential election.

The Federal Reserve restored some market stability when it announced that rates would remain unchanged.

In early trade, the Dow fell 29.79 points or 0.17% to 18,007.31, while the wider S&P 500 dropped 0.34% to 2,104.55. The Nasdaq fell 0.32% to 5,137.03.

Craig Erlam, senior market analyst at Oanda, said the days leading up to the election were always expected to be chaotic, "but that the events of the last couple of days have seriously taken their toll on investor sentiment".

Image source, Reuters

Some eye-catching apparel donned at a rally in Wisconsin...

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It's very hard to get a general sense of what more than one billion people are thinking, the BBC's Vincent Ni, external writes from Beijing.

Premier Li Keqiang has said the US election "has been lively and has caught the eye" of many Chinese citizens, and most of the people that Vincent has spoken to would agree.

Even before Mr Trump declared his intention to run for the presidency, the name Trump was well known in China.

In Henan province, there is a property management consulting firm called Trump Consulting. It has no connection with Donald Trump, but says on its website, external it is inspired by his property empire.

Shanghai-based corporate lawyer Wei Li, who spent 10 years living in the US, tells the BBC that Trump "is really speaking for heartland Americans, and he is a rare politician who speaks in plain English".

Mr Li says US election politics is "like a theatre" and rational politics will ultimately triumph over rhetoric.

Read Vincent's full piece here

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Did you know that outside of the United States, Canada has the most Americans eligible to vote in the world? - twice as many as the United Kingdom, and almost four times as many as France.   

About 661,000 voting age Americans live north of the border, including quite a few students who are first-time voters.  

The BBC's Robin Levinson-King , externalin Toronto watched the last debate with students who were feeling a bit homesick.

"I was so fired up while watching it, and after watching it I just wanted to be with Americans," one Boston-area native told her.

"People view the US election as kind of a joke," said Benjamin Alperstein, a Chicago-born student at University of Toronto. 

"But back home it's a serious thing."   

Read Robin's full piece here

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Image source, GoFundMe

The mayor of a Mississippi town where a black church was set on fire and vandalised with the words "Vote Trump" said on Wednesday the incident is being "investigated as a hate crime".

"It appears to be a race crime," Greenville Mayor Errick Simmons said, calling the burning of the Hopewell Baptist Church a "hateful and cowardly act". 

"It happened in the '50s, it happened in the '60s. It shouldn't happen in 2016."

The fire was started at the 111-year-old church on Tuesday night, and police have not announced any suspects.  

A GoFundMe page, external set up to rebuilt the church has already raised more than double their initial goal.

Image source, Getty Images

Ronald Reagan was the last Republican to carry Wisconsin in a presidential election, but the Trump team believes their candidate could follow in his footsteps.  

Trump held a rally on Tuesday in Eau Claire, where he urged early Clinton voters to return to the polls to switch their vote.

But opinion polling shows him trailing his opponent in the Midwestern state - so why does his campaign say that he may return there multiple times before election day?

Most likely because his campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, has seen the data which shows him doing well among white voters in rural counties.

The campaign is also probably hoping that Clinton's latest 'emailgate' flair-up with the FBI will make her vulnerable among the Milwaukee suburban voters that have been hesitant to back Trump.

Either way, he won't have the help of the highest ranking US Republican, Wisconsin congressman Paul Ryan. He has been busy raising money to support congressional candidates after saying he would no longer defend his party's nominee.

President Barack Obama has rebuked FBI "leaks" and "innuendo" over its renewed investigation into Hillary Clinton's emails.

"We don’t operate on incomplete information," he told NowThis News. "We don't operate on leaks. We operate based on concrete decisions that are made.

"When this was investigated thoroughly the last time, the conclusion of the FBI, the conclusion of the Justice Department, the conclusion of repeated congressional investigations was that she had made some mistakes but that there wasn’t anything there that was prosecutable."

Mr Obama added that he had "made a very deliberate effort to make sure that I don’t look like I’m meddling in what are supposed to be independent processes for making these assessments".

The BBC's Rajini Vaidyanathan is in Florida following Donald Trump as he holds three rallies across the state.

Follow her Twitter coverage at @BBCRajiniV, external to hear more from the Republican candidate and his supporters.

Here's some of what she observed at Wednesday's event in Miami...

The BBC's Netherlands correspondent Anna Holligan has been asking voters on her patch about their opinion of the US election.

One reader responded: "I'm afraid few people will take USA leadership seriously with a Trump presidency. Clinton is at least capable to do the job."

One Dutchman, who identifies himself online as "Social-Liberal", says: "It's choosing between 2 evils. But I don't trust Hillary so I'd opt for Trump. Just want to see what he can achieve with business instinct."

Some Dutch people drew comparisons to their own firebrand politician, Geert Wilders, who is currently on trial for hate speech and incitement after he questioned how many Moroccans should be allowed into the Netherlands.

Andre Krouwel, a political science lecturer at the Free University of Amsterdam, says that Trump and Wilders "really could be brothers!"

Image source, Getty Images

"It starts with the crazy hair," Mr Kouwels tells the BBC.

"Trump and Wilders look exactly alike, they both have no party organisation, they both get lots of their funding from other countries, they use Twitter and social media as a main way to communicate with their followers, and their message is anti-immigration, anti-establishment and the media is portrayed as corrupt and on the side of the elite."

The US-Russia relationship has been a hot-button issue throughout this campaign. Some have accused Trump of bro-mantic involvement with the Russian leader, President Vladimir Putin.

BBC Moscow correspondent Steve Rosenberg has been watching Russian media for months as they heap praise on Trump and rubbish Clinton.

What the Russian papers have been saying today

Whoever wins the US election, can they ever aspire to the level of adulation that earns you your own calendar, like a certain Kremlin leader? 

Steve has also spoken with Russia's most famous pop star, who has personally known the Republican candidate for over 20 years.

Hear why Philipp Kirkorov thinks a Trump win would bring the US and Russia "closer".

The irrepressible Steve has also spotted a traditional Russian souvenir - a Matryoskha doll - with an American twist.

The BBC's correspondent in Havana, Will Grant, external, has taken a look at how Cuban citizens view their noisy neighbour, and what a Clinton or Trump presidency may mean for the island nation.

Barbara Plett Usher
BBC News, State Department, Washington

Who the Americans put in the White House makes a big difference to the world because US presidents have considerable power to shape foreign policy, our State Department correspondent Barbara Plett Usher, external writes.

Think Lyndon Johnson and Vietnam; Richard Nixon and the opening to China; George Bushes Senior and Junior and their Iraq wars.

This election offers voters a real choice. Despite Donald Trump's sometimes incoherent and seemingly improvisational approach to foreign policy, the two candidates do offer quite different visions. 

Hillary Clinton firmly believes the US role is to uphold a global security order from which it also benefits, the Pax Americana at the core of traditional US military and diplomatic thinking.

Donald Trump's America First approach is more transactional. He frames alliances in business terms, vowing to get better value from them or pull back from historic commitments he says the US can no longer afford.

Read Barbara's full piece, dissecting how the candidates differ on Nato, Russia, the Middle East, China, the Islamic State, and other major global issues.

Until recently, few had set eyes on the fabled Trump portrait bought for $20,000 by his wife Melania, during a charity event at his Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Florida, in 2007. 

But the artist, "speed painter" Michael Israel, has just given the BBC permission to show these photos of the event.

The portrait stirred controversy because it turned out to have been paid for not by Melania Trump, nor by her husband. The cheque came from his charity, the Donald J Trump Foundation.  

Image source, Michael Israel

Image source, Michael Israel

Carrying out your civic duty to vote is a very important matter for this US mother.

Check out the video that's gone viral of a Nigerian-American mum threatening to seize her son’s phone and car if he doesn’t vote for her candidate.  

She demands he produce proof of his ballot when he is back from the polling centre, or else...

They've even had enough of the US election over in Britain! 

In Edenbridge, southeastern England, they're putting the finishing touches to an effigy of Trump and Clinton.

They will both go up in flames on 5 November, Bonfire night, when effigies are torched throughout the UK to commemorate the infamous Guy Fawkes, a member of a group of English Catholics who planned to blow up Parliament during the failed Gunpowder Plot of 1605. 

Image source, AP

Calling all armchair political pundits...

Winning the presidency isn't just about winning the popular vote.

Each candidate needs to win 270 electoral college votes, which they do by winning the states that have the most to award.

Big prizes include California and Texas, but the really hard ones to get are Florida and Ohio.

Try playing our Predict the President game to see who will win

Today we're asking our global audience about the hotly contested White House race.

You can start by taking our quiz to find out which world leader you are most like.

How does this campaign compare to the other political contests around the world?

What does this race say about the state of America?

And what would a Trump or Clinton presidency mean for where you live?

You can tweet your quiz results, and your opinions, to @BBCNewsUS, external

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Former Republican US President George W Bush will vote for the Democratic candidate in this election, his nephew has suggested.

Texas Land Commissioner George P Bush told an audience of Republican voters in San Marcos, Texas, on Tuesday that his uncle and grandfather (both ex-commanders-in-chief) would "potentially" cast their vote for Clinton.

His dad, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush has already said that he couldn't support either Clinton or Trump, after he was knocked out of the primary race by the real estate mogul, who labelled him "low energy".

President George Bush Senior was outed as a Clinton supporter, external by a member of the Kennedy family, although he hasn't confirmed who he is voting for.

The youngest Bush was highlighting his relatives' voting preference to make the point that he is the only member of his political family to vote a straight Republican ticket. 

When asked to clarify later, he said: "I don't know how they voted. I'm speculating, to be honest."

Image source, AP

The Clinton campaign have cancelled a Get Out the Vote event in Des Moines, Iowa, following the shooting death of two city police officers. 

"Due to the tragic shooting of Des Moines and Urbandale police officers last night, the Des Moines Get Out the Vote event with Tim Kaine, President Bill Clinton, and Ben Harper at the Des Moines Social Club has been cancelled," the campaign announced in a press release. 

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While campaigning in Columbus, Ohio, President Barack Obama challenged male voters to consider whether sexism was keeping them from casting their vote for Clinton. 

"To the guys out there, I want to be honest. You know there’s a reason why we haven’t had a woman president before and I think sometimes we’re trying to get over the hump," he said. 

"I want every man out there who’s voting to kind of look inside yourself and ask yourself. If you’re having problems with this stuff, how much of it is, you know, that we’re not just used to it?"