Today we're featuring members of our voter panel who are US military veterans. Next up, David Williams.

David recently retired from military active duty after 30 years of service, including in Operation Desert Storm, Operation Just Cause and tours in Iraq. Now a US Postal Service employee, he is dismayed by the actions and behaviour of President Trump, and is voting for Joe Biden.

Why does this election matter to you?

I'm a 55-year-old black man with 23 years of service between the active duty Army and the California National Guard. I live in Los Angeles County.

I'm registered as No Party Preference so I suppose that makes me an independent. I would say I'm left of center. As a black man, I'm appalled at the rise of overt racism and white supremacy under Trump. To paraphrase a black politician, even if Trump isn't a racist, the racists think he is one. This emboldens them to be more open. I work for the US Postal Service so I take Trump's attitude towards the USPS personally.

How does your background as a veteran influence your vote?

Trump's reported comments disparaging veterans and calling those who served in the military suckers and losers obviously didn't sit well with me. He also has shown that he doesn't understand the concept of selfless service or that the members of the Executive Branch, not just the armed forces, are not automatically personally loyal to him because he is president.

When I joined the Postal Service I took an oath not dissimilar to the my oath of enlistment into the Army to "support and defend the Constitution." It galls me that Trump doesn't understand that career military and civil servants might place what's good for the country ahead of what's good for Trump. There is a legitimate discussion to be had over the role of Nato in the current global environment but Trump's antagonistic attitude towards many of the other Nato nations prevents him from being the one to do that.

David is a member of our US election voter panel. You'll hear more from him, and many of our other voters, throughout the week.

Join the conversation:

• We want to hear from you - what questions do you have about the US election?
• In five words, tell us what's at stake in this election.

Ricardo Senra
BBC Brasil, Miami, Florida

Eighty-six-year-old Luz Barrenechea was born in Cuba and has lived in Miami since 1968. She brought her daughter Marilu “to vote and make America free from communism” on this Tuesday.

“I know the lies of communism and I cannot let this happen here. Once they get in, you lose your freedom, you can’t say what you think anymore. This is what Biden is trying to do in America.”

Luz wore an American flag on her T-shirt, although our interview was in Spanish. "I don’t speak English. We don’t need to speak English in Miami," she explained.

Her daughter Marilu added: “I came to the US from Cuba when I was seven, but the Spanish is still here.”

Voters have been casting their ballots in-person since Monday in Florida, one of the most important swing states in the US.

There have been long queues since 07:00 local time in Miami’s voting stations - and it's worth noting that everyone here is respecting social distancing and using masks.

Leandra Thomas, 51, brought her sister and her daughter to an early voting station in Miami “to fight against the white supremacy in the White House”.

“The wall is not in the border, it is dividing our own country," she says.

"We should not be fighting each other, we shouldn’t allow the Proud Boys to stand by. If you are a president, you have to act like a president. And a president should be a leader for everyone.”

Tara McKelvey
BBC News, Washington

White House officials and Democrats in Congress are entering last-ditch talks over a stimulus bill that could inject cash into the battered US economy.

Democratic Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has set a Tuesday deadline for any agreement to be reached. Here's our correspondent Tara McKelvey with the latest:

The stimulus package has stalled, and in classic Washington fashion both sides, Democrats and Republicans, blame the other for politicising the issue.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi has expressed guarded optimism about the bill’s prospects, but remains concerned about “differences” that negotiators have.

Image source, EPA

Meanwhile at the White House, I spoke with the president’s economic advisor, Larry Kudlow. He said the president has worked hard on the bill. Kudlow also sighed, loudly, and said the discussions had become ideological.

“There’s a million – not a million – there’s a number of political and ideological points in that, that have nothing to do with Covid,” he told me and a small group of reporters, referring to the bill.

“Once it became a mammoth bill with a lot of ideological asks in it, that’s what hurt.”

At this point, there is no resolution. Yet Republicans and Democrats both say they are doing their best – and that the other side has caused all the political drama and hobbled the bill’s progress. In other words, it’s business as usual here in Washington.

Read more about the bill here

Will Grant
BBC News, Havana

Image source, EPA

Few nations in Latin America have their eyes on the US election as closely as Cuba. Washington's long-standing communist-run adversary is experiencing its toughest economic crisis since the years immediately after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Beyond the dramatic drop in tourism caused by coronavirus, four years of the Trump administration's hard-line policies have only exacerbated the island's economic malaise further.

Little wonder then that you can barely find a kind word to be said in Cuba about President Trump or his repeated announcements to ramp up the decades-long US economic embargo. Most recently, he clamped down on US citizens travelling to Cuba and on the island's two luxury exports: rum and cigars.

Given that Cuba's best relations with Washington since 1959 took place under President Obama, with Joe Biden as his vice-president, there are no prizes for guessing who most Cubans hope is elected to the White House on 3 November.

We reported earlier that First Lady Melania Trump will not be joining the president at a rally in Erie, Pennsylvania later today, due to an ongoing cough.

A little more to add from her spokeswoman Stephanie Grisham, who said in a statement: "Mrs Trump continues to feel better every day following her recovery from Covid-19, but with a lingering cough, and out of an abundance of caution, she will not be traveling today."

It's almost impossible to follow US politics now without seeing negative, even vicious, attacks by candidates on their opponents. But in Utah, two rivals for the governorship have taken a different approach.

"We can debate issues without degrading each other's characters," Republican Spencer Cox and Democrat Chris Peterson say in a video posted on Twitter.

Standing several metres apart due to coronavirus precautions, the two candidates pledge to "show the country there's a better way".

Cox thanked Peterson for recording the video with him, tweeting that "as our national political dialogue continues to decline, my opponent and I decided to try something different."

Watch their refreshing take here:

BBC Monitoring
The world through its media

Image source, Reuters

Joe Biden's attempt to woo US voters who hail from the Western Balkans, outlining his "vision" for the country's future relationship with Bosnia-Hercegovina, Albania and Kosovo, has not gone unnoticed in the region.

It prompted discussion on what the outcome of the vote could mean for US policy, and whether Biden's long-term engagement might outweigh more recent support for Trump's policies in some quarters.

Bosnian media have described Biden as a "proven friend" of the country. Political analyst Jasmin Mujanovic said the broad outline of a policy agenda for Bosnia was "very encouraging”.

But Serb leaders have not forgotten how the then Senator Biden spoke out against Serbian attacks on Bosnia-Herzegovina in the 1990s, as well as his support for the NATO bombing in 1999 which forced the Yugoslav army’s withdrawal from Kosovo.

Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik remarked that “Biden should be told that he has been negative towards Serbs over the past 20 years.” "Unfortunately", he concluded, "if he wins, we shall have to endure Biden's mandate."

Serbia was beginning to build bridges with the current US administration, culminating in the agreement on the normalisation of economic relations with Kosovo, signed in the White House in the presence of President Trump in September.

But the leader of the largest Kosovo Albanian party, Self-Determination (Vetevendosje), Albin Kurti, showed a preference for Biden.

"A Biden White House will bring about a return of much needed American leadership in the dangerous world we face today," he said.

Today we're featuring members of our voter panel who are US military veterans. Next up, Michelle Dunkley.

Michelle served as a reserve flight nurse in the United States Air Force for 28 years, including tours of Afghanistan. She is a moderate voter who considers Joe Biden the more competent option and urgently wants Trump out of office.

Why does this election matter to you?

As a multiracial, multiethnic, immigrant female who wore a military uniform and continues to work in healthcare, I've witnessed the dissolution of the country's status in the world. I'm concerned about my retirement, the security of the Constitution and the amendments. I'm also worried about NATO and the future of the WHO.

How does your background as a veteran influence your vote?

My veteran status enables me to look beyond the general views of the candidates and see where the level of military support has reached. After seeing opinions of people in other countries in the last few years, I've learned the damage done by the current administration may be long-term or permanent.

Michelle is a member of our US election voter panel. You'll hear more from her, and many of our other voters, throughout the week.

Join the conversation:

• We want to hear from you - what questions do you have about the US election?
• In five words, tell us what's at stake in this election.

If you're checking in with us at lunchtime in the US, or post-work in Europe, welcome!

We'll be bringing you the latest updates from the campaign trail, as well as analysis on our theme today: What the world wants from the US.

Our reporting team worldwide are contributing views from where they are, looking at how things have changed under the Trump administration, and how the next four years could affect life beyond America.

For podcast fans, we also have a special additional episode of the Global News Podcast: What the World Wants from America dropping at around 2100 BST - well worth checking out!

BBC Monitoring
The world through its media

China has said it will not interfere with the US elections.

Beijing's "wolf warrior diplomats" have made a point of uncustomary outspokenness over the last two years or so. On the subject of the White House race, however, they have been less openly strident.

State and diplomatic accounts have effectively ignored key political events like the town hall debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, the purported leaking of emails from Biden's son Hunter, and the Trump campaign's criticism of the Biden camp by association with Beijing.

This contrasts quite sharply with commentary that appears in state media, such as in this video by Hu Xijin, the editor of the state Global Times daily, which argues that the election “has robbed US society of its objective perception”.

This does not mean, however, that China’s official state accounts have avoided mentioning America at all.

On the contrary, they have continued an established pattern of criticising Trump and the US where it clashes with China geopolitically, such as in the South China Sea, and on China’s record on human rights, whether in Hong Kong, Xinjiang or Tibet.

One of the ways they do this is by inverting accusations laid at Beijing’s doorstep, such as for the coronavirus outbreak.

For Trump, notes one embassy, China is “his favourite scapegoat for everything Covid-19". To counter criticism of China’s autocratic system, they point to the country’s success in fighting the pandemic, contrasting this with the spread of the virus in the West.

It appears First Lady Melania Trump, who was set to join her husband for a rally in Erie, Pennsylvania this evening, will no longer be attending on health grounds.

Katty Kay
World News America presenter

Flying from Miami to Atlanta last night to cover the election should have been simple. It wasn’t.

We started off with a two-hour delay. Finally left the gate and taxied out to the runway. Sat there for half an hour. And then learned why. One passenger was refusing to wear his mask. The Delta fly crew made it clear they had a policy - no mask, no travel. But this gentleman wouldn’t put his mask on, nor would he leave the plane.

We taxied back to the gate. The flight crew - heroically good-tempered and patient even though it was 11pm and we were by now over 3 hours late - tried to negotiate with him. They were polite, until one of them got shoved backwards by the man’s equally belligerent partner. At which point, armed Miami airport police boarded the plane as extra persuasion.

Eventually the passenger and his partner left the plane. But they then refused to leave the jetway, which meant the plane still couldn’t push back.

As we finally took off, after midnight, the pilot rather wearily announced that in his 33 years of flying he’d never seen anything like it. A late arrival, a minor disruption - but another unnecessary reminder of the stresses of this pandemic.

This mask madness has to stop.

(Looking for live updates on the coronavirus? We've got you covered with our virus live page)

Jack Goodman
BBC Reality Check

As the election reaches the final twists and turns, both parties are keen to show off their celebrity fans.

The Trump campaign looked liked they’d scored two A-listers when Eric Trump, son of the US president, posted a photo of rappers Ice Cube and 50 Cent in “Trump” hats. He wrote: “Two great, courageous, Americans!”

Only problem is – the photo has been manipulated.

Ice Cube posted the original picture in July this year, wishing 50 Cent a happy birthday. Both caps unadorned with the surname of the president.

But in the photo posted by Eric Trump, the word “Trump” has been added to both caps, suggesting both rappers support the president.

Image source, Twitter

The photo - since deleted - went up the day after 50 Cent indeed appeared to endorse Donald Trump after criticising Joe Biden’s plan to raise taxes on the highest earners.

However, Ice Cube told his followers on Twitter recently that he’d been approached by both campaign teams to work on his “Contract With Black America”, which looks at racial inequality.

He said that the Democrats told him they’d address it after the election, but the Trump campaign had “made some adjustments to their plan after talking to us.”

But this was not an endorsement, and Ice Cube told CNN he’s open to working with both parties.

"I'm not playing no more of these political games, we're not part of a team ... so I'm going to whoever's in power and I'm going to speak to them about our problems.”

Image source, Getty Images

Joe Biden and Donald Trump will face each for a second and final time in a presidential debate on Thursday 22 October in Nashville, Tennessee.

The moderator will be respected journalist Kristen Welker, who works for broadcaster NBC news. Trump has called her "a dyed-in-the-wool radical-left Democrat", but allegations that she would favour Biden in the debate appear to be unfounded.

Attacks on Welker ramped up after a New York Post article citing her parents' history of donating to Democratic politicians, and attacking the journalist's "scathing style of questioning".

But many of her peers have been quick to defend Welker., external

Even senior Trump adviser Jason Miller said she was a "very good choice" in a recent interview with Fox News. "Look, I think I have a very high opinion of Kristen Welker," he said. "I think she’s going to do an excellent job as the moderator for the third debate. I think she’s a journalist who is very fair in her approach."

The topics for Thursday’s debate are: Fighting COVID-19, American Families, Race in America, Climate Change, National Security and Leadership.

Image source, Getty Images

A former head of the Republican National Committee (RNC), Michael Steele, has said he is backing Democratic candidate Joe Biden in the US election.

"I am an American, a conservative and a Republican, in that order," he wrote in an opinion piece published by NBC News on Tuesday, external. "And I am voting for Joe Biden on November 3."

Steele, who led the RNC from 2009 to 2011, is a member of the Lincoln Project, a group of Republicans who oppose Trump's re-election.

"I, of course, disagree with Biden on many issues and policies, sometimes vigorously; and it is my fervent hope that he will pursue policies that will help our country heal," he said.

"But this election is not about those issues or policies. Rather, it is about the course of a nation and the character of her people reflected in the leader they choose."

A number of former Republican officials have previously announced their support for Biden in this election, including former presidential candidate John Kasich and former Secretary of State Colin Powell.

Today we're featuring members of our voter panel who are US military veterans. First up, Scott Nolan.

The son of a naval officer, Scott Nolan served in the United States Navy for five years and is now a criminal defense attorney in Fairfax County, Virginia. He is not really a fan of Donald Trump, but, much like he did in 2016, he is casting a vote for Trump as a protest against the direction he believes the country is going in.

Why does this election matter to you?

I am a veteran, a husband and a father. This election means turning over to my children the same well-ordered society with respect for individual rights and freedoms which I inherited, or turning over to them the chaos and victim politics of the unreasoning mob.

How does your background as a veteran influence your vote?

President Trump has consistently acted to preserve and recover American jobs and prestige. He has refused to allow bad treaties to stand just because that’s easier and would make him more popular. He has insisted on respect for American rights and a recognition from our foreign partners that we do not intend to continue to support their ways of life without their full participation. This is particularly important to me as a veteran.

Moreover, Vice-President Biden seems to me to be a non-entity. He is a politician for politics’s sake, and wants to be president because that’s the job with the most prestige. So far as I can tell, his agenda is to get elected. I also very much fear that he will be little more than a figurehead for the far-left policies of his party. The age of the Democratic Party as a social conscience is over, replaced by a party that actually believes the disastrous lies of socialism.

Scott is a member of our US election voter panel. You'll hear more from him, and many of our other voters, throughout the week.

Join the conversation:

• We want to hear from you - what questions do you have about the US election?
• In five words, tell us what's at stake in this election.

Pascal Fletcher
Latin American Specialist, BBC Monitoring

Brazilians are asking whether their country's relations with the US might take a turn for the worse if Democratic nominee Joe Biden wins the election on 3 November.

Far-right Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro recently reacted angrily to a warning from the US Democratic candidate to stop "tearing down" the Amazon rainforest.

Biden's warning, made during the presidential debate last month, suggested that Bolsonaro's Brazil could face "significant economic consequences" if it did not improve its environmental policies over the Amazon.

Bolsonaro's swift and public rebuke to Biden the following day, in which he called his comments "disastrous", raised the prospect of a possible strained relationship if the Democrat wins the White House race.

Officials from both sides sought to play down the spat, but this did not stop Brazilian media from speculating about what a defeat for Trump might mean for Bolsonaro, who was described by one Brazilian commentator as the US president's "Brazilian adulator".

Image source, Reuters

More than any other Latin American leader, Bolsonaro has expressed admiration for Trump, sharing common visions on climate change and Covid-19. When they met in Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida in March, Trump called Bolsonaro "a very special guy".

Bolsonaro has been widely pilloried for his "pro-Trump alliance" by domestic critics in Brazil, and both men have faced scathing international criticism over their handling of the Covid-19 pandemic. The populist Brazilian leader stands to lose an important international supporter if Trump fails to be re-elected.

President Trump has reiterated his promise to bring down US troop levels overseas, while continuing to invest in the military. The president says he will continue to challenge international alliances and maintain trade tariffs on China.

Joe Biden has promised to repair relationships with US allies. He says he would do away with unilateral tariffs on China, and instead hold them accountable with an international coalition that China "can't afford to ignore".

Trump says he does not believe racism is a systemic problem within US police forces. He has positioned himself as a firm advocate of law enforcement, but has opposed chokeholds and offered grants for improved practices.

Biden views racism as a systemic problem, and has set out policies to address racial disparities in the justice system, such as grants to incentivise states in reducing incarceration rates. He has rejected calls to defund police, saying additional resources should instead be tied to maintaining proper standards.

Trump has an expansive interpretation of the US constitution's Second Amendment protections giving Americans the right to bear arms. He did propose tightening background checks on gun buyers after a string of mass shootings in 2019, but nothing came of the plan and no further legislation has been put forward.

Biden has proposed banning assault weapons, universal background checks, limiting the number of guns a person can purchase to one per month, and making it easier to sue negligent gun manufacturers and sellers. He would also fund more research into preventing gun violence.

We have more on the candidates' plans here.

Welcome to our live coverage of the US election, which is now just two weeks away. We're bringing you the latest news from the campaign trails, as well as reports on our theme today - What the World Wants from the US.

Our journalists from around the globe are bringing you reports from where they are - looking at how things have changed under President Trump, and how the next four years of US politics may affect life where they are.

Rose Delaney
BBC Monitoring

Image source, Getty Images

As the days count down to 3 November, Latin American media commentators have increasingly taken note of Democratic challenger Joe Biden's lead in the opinion polls.

Some have pointed out that, while Trump can still bring out big "anti-communist" caravans of Cuban and Venezuelan voters in Florida, his ideological scare tactics do not appear to be working on many sectors of the electorate, to judge from the polls.

Writing in Mexican daily El Universal on 19 October, journalist Leon Krauze said: "From an ideological point of view, boxer Trump had been left alone in the ring… Joe Biden didn't just refuse to get into the Trump game. He seems… to be playing a different game, where what matters is decency and not polarisation. If the polls are right, his strategy will serve to remove Donald Trump."

Eduardo Gamarra, an International Relations professor at Florida International University (FIU), told Colombian newspaper El Tiempo on 19 October that the Republican Party's attempt to win over Colombian-American voters by drawing on the "fear that Colombia would follow in Venezuela's footsteps" was a "tactic that was not working in all cases."

Some observers saw Biden's steady, no-fuss strategy paying off. "Joe Biden is anything but an enigma, although he has run a campaign based on the simple idea that he is not Donald Trump," Vilma Gryzinski wrote in Brazilian news magazine Veja on 19 October.

"US elections: Latino confidence in Biden grows," Mexico's El Universal said in an 18 October headline.

There were even signs that, in Venezuela's opposition sector, which has traditionally cheered Trump's hardline policies against leftist Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro, there were those who favoured a change in the US leadership.

Venezuelan pro-opposition daily El Nacional ran a 16 October opinion article headlined: "Another boss in the White House is needed."

Columnist Trino Marquez wrote in El Nacional: "The current US president [Trump] is the living representation of the degradation of politics; suffered by Venezuela for two decades… I hope Biden can stop him.”