Image source, Getty Images

It's been a busy week.

States reported record turnout for early voting. Trump hopscotched around the country for back to back (to back!) rallies. Barack Obama made his first in-person campaign stops to support his former Vice-President Joe Biden, and the candidates had their final face-to-face meeting in last night's debate.

And, in the past day, Biden promised to make the covid-19 vaccine free for every American once its approved, and Trump vowed to make America great again, again, at a rally in Florida.

We're shutting down our election live coverage for the night, but we'll be back to do it all again tomorrow.

Looking for more?

• A look at the presidential debate: Trump and Biden row over Covid, climate and racism
• A really simple guide to the US election
• See which candidate is winning in the polls

Image source, Getty Images

Trump just wrapped up his rally at one of the largest retirement communities in the nation - The Villages, Florida - one of two events he has tonight.

The president trotted out familiar lines of attack before an enthusiastic crowd.

He claimed victory for Thursday's presidential debate. Biden, Trump said, made a major error when the Democrat said that he would seek to end the fossil fuel industry if he takes office.

Trump attacked Biden's son, Hunter, and claimed the family is "corrupt".

He again downplayed the coronavirus pandemic and said it is all Democrats want to talk about because, "they want to scare you to vote for Biden".

At one point he told the state's Republican governor, who was in attendance, that they would never speak again if he loses Florida.

He also said the Democrats would open the door to dangerous socialism, claimed to have been a great president to African Americans and vowed to "make America great again, again".

Florida has 29 electoral college votes, and winning the state is crucial for Trump's re-election strategy.

Image source, Getty Images

The National Guard of Louisiana was mobilised to stop a number of cyberattacks targeting small government offices across the US state in recent weeks, according to US media. Staff at government offices were reportedly compromised, but the attack was said to have been stopped in its early stages.

The reports from Reuters and Politico raise alarm over foreign interference ahead of the 3 November election.

The Louisiana case mirrors a similar situation in Washington state and comes days after US Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe said that Iran and Russia had obtained US voter registration information.

It is so far unclear if the hackers were aiming at systems specifically tied to the election, but there is growing concern that hackers are testing states' defences in preparation for the election. Experts found that a tool used by the hackers was associated with a North Korean government-linked group.

And now for a little levity... Only on the 2020 US election campaign trail will you see two septuagenarians awkwardly dancing to stir up an audience, but even their choices of music have a political tinge.

Watch as one candidate dances to a Latin song - an effort to emphasise a campaign message of inclusiveness - while another bops to the familiar strains of "YMCA".

Image source, Getty Images

More than 71,600 new coronavirus cases were recorded in the US on Thursday, according to Johns Hopkins University.

That's the fourth-highest number of new infections reported in the country in a single day during the pandemic - and the highest number reported since July.

For months, the US has led world in having the highest number of virus cases, and experts say things have been getting worse in recent weeks.

At least 14 states are currently seeing record numbers of hospital admissions, and the number of patients with Covid-related symptoms has risen over the past week in 38 of America's 50 states.

Experts warn that the winter months ahead, when more people will be remaining indoors, could likely lead to a new deadly surge in cases.

Read more:

Why are infections rising again in the US?

Image source, Getty Images

Trump tells the crowd that journalist Kristen Welker was "fair" in her role last night as debate moderator.

"I thought Kristen did a really good job yesterday," Trump said.

He's got good company. If social media is to be believed, Welker was the true winner of Thursday's presidential face-off.

Read how the internet responded to the person in charge.

'Where's Hunter?" Trump says, as he levels attacks on Biden's son Hunter, claiming that he improperly made money off his father's name when he was US vice-president.

As the election edges closer, Trump has doubled down more forcefully on the claim that the Bidens were "corrupt" as a line of attack.

"The Bidens got rich while America got robbed," he claims, but insists his own family - which has also faced allegations of influence peddling and self-dealing during his administration - has never engaged in conflicts of interest.

Image source, Getty Images

Accusations of familial political impropriety are common in Washington, but deeply disputed.

The Biden campaign denies any wrongdoing, but the issue has been in the news after a man who claims to be a former business partner of Hunter Biden claimed he has damaging information.

He is being interviewed by the FBI today, according to the Republican-controlled Senate Homeland Security subcommittee.

Read more:

Hunter Biden: What was he doing in Ukraine and China?

Trump tells the crowd he plans to vote early tomorrow in The Villages, Florida where he is now holding his rally. The Villages among the largest retirement communities in the country, with a population of over 70,000.

"I guess I'm old fashioned," he tells the crowd, saying he prefers to vote in person instead of by mail. (In actuality, Trump has voted by mail in at least three recent elections.)

Record numbers of Americans are sending in postal ballots this year. Trump has expressed scepticism of the practice, suggesting without evidence that it is susceptible to wide-scale fraud.

Trump, speaking at a rally in Florida, riffed on remarks made my his rival Joe Biden during last night's debate.

During that face-off, Biden made a call for a "transition" from oil-based energy in favour of renewable energy sources.

"One of the most stunning moments last night was when Joe Biden admitted he wanted to abolish the oil industry," Trump said, asking energy-heavy states what they thought.

He then made a quip about wind energy.

"Let's watch the president on television tonight. We can't honey, the wind's not blowing."

Trump continues by saying that Biden described the US as an "idea" and notes that the Democrat also referred to antifa - the loose coalition of "anti-fascist protesters" as an idea.

"America's not an idea, it's a great country."

His speech is peppered with shout-outs to local officials, and fans - some of whom have dressed in Uncle Sam costumes for the occasion.

Image source, Getty Images

After unveiling his Covid plan, Biden took to social media with a post mocking his rival.

He tweeted a link to what looked like an official Trump "covid plan" website, but actually took the user to an almost blank page headlined “Not Found” with the option to explore further the Biden team's view on the president's handling of the pandemic.

Image source, Getty Images

At a rally in Florida, one of two he's attending today, President Trump condemned Biden's "gloomy message" to voters last night and said the Democratic rival's pledge to close the fossil fuel industry was "perhaps the most shocking admission ever made in a debate".

He says that in Biden's America, senior citizens would have "no air conditioning in the summer, no heat in the winter and no electricity during peak hours".

He is speaking in a retirement community called The Villages.

Image source, Getty Images

Voters in Pennsylvania have already cast nearly 1.5 million mail-in and absentee ballots ahead of the 3 November election - about half of the approved postal ballots requested in the state.

"That's just incredible," said Pennsylvania Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar. "It's almost exactly the number of Pennsyvlanians who voted by mail in the primary and we still have 11 days to go."

It also marks a massive jump from the last general election, in 2016, when just 266,208 absentee ballots were cast statewide.

This year, nearly 3 million Pennsylvania voters registered to vote by mail, nearly a third of the state's 9 million registered voters.

Both Biden and Trump will be watching closely to see which way Pennsylvania voters go this year. Winning this battleground state is critical for both on their way to the White House.

In a blow to the Trump campaign, the state supreme court of Pennsylvania has ruled that ballots cannot be discarded on the basis of signatures that do not match official voting records.

The ruling was celebrated by Democrats, but condemned by Republicans who say the matching signatures are necessary to prevent voter fraud in postal voting.

Pennsylvania is shaping up to be one of the most heavily-contested states of 2020. An estimated 1.5m people have already voted in the crucial swing state with 20 all-important Electoral College votes.

Earlier today (see our 12:13 EDT post) we reported that the Trump campaign was being warned against filming people dropping off their ballots in Philadelphia.

Image source, Getty Images

Television viewership figures have just been released, and they found a major drop in the number of people watching the second debate on a major US news network.

For the second and final presidential debate on Thursday, 55.2m people tuned in, according to Nielsen ratings - an agency that calculates audience numbers for advertisers.

That's down significantly from the 77.1m that watched the first face-off in September.

Reality Check

In the final presidential debate last night, Donald Trump said the US has had the "best carbon emission numbers" in the last 35 years.

He went on to claim that countries such as China, Russia and India were "filthy".

Last year, the US's carbon emissions per capita were at their lowest point in the past 35 years - if this is what Trump was referring to.

The data shows that, in recent decades, total carbon emissions have been on a general downward trend, with some fluctuations. There's been a shift to both gas and renewable energy sources, and away from coal, largely because of cost.

Trump would have burned more coal (which would have increased emissions), but it proved uneconomic to do so.

As far as other countries are concerned, China has higher total CO2 emissions than the US, although emissions from the US are still much bigger than both India and Russia.

And as far as emissions per capita go, the US is still ahead of China, Russia and India.

Emissions from the US per capita in 2017 were over 16 tonnes while India's were the lowest – at fewer than two tonnes.

Image source, Getty Images

Kamala Harris has sought to clarify Joe Biden's comments about fracking during Thursday night's presidential debate.

"Let's be clear," the Democratic vice-presidential candidate told reporters upon arrival in Georgia. "What Joe was talking about was banning [oil] subsidies but he will not ban fracking in America."

Fracking is a technique designed to recover gas and oil from shale rock.

Biden said during the debate he would “transition from the oil industry”, which led to charges from Trump that “he is going to destroy the oil industry”.

“Will you remember that Texas? Will you remember that Pennsylvania, Oklahoma, Ohio?” Trump added, repeating it in a tweet, external again on Friday.

President Donald Trump has said that Sudan is to become the latest Arab country to normalise ties with Israel.

The president described the news on Twitter as a "HUGE win today for the United States and for peace in the world".

In a phone call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, meanwhile, Trump asked if he thought "Sleepy Joe" could have achieved the deal, in reference to his Democratic rival Joe Biden.

The growing number of Arab countries formalising relations with Israel has been condemned by the Palestinians, who see it as a betrayal of their cause.

Historically, Arab countries conditioned peace talks with Israel on its withdrawal from territories occupied in the 1967 war and the establishment of a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital.

Read more about the Sudan announcement here.

Just minutes after Biden finished his speech outlining his Covid-19 plan, Donald Trump hit back.

Taking to Twitter, the president called the US government's response to H1N1 - while Biden was in the White House as vice-president - "pathetic".

"One of the weakest and worst in the history of fighting epidemics and pandemics," Trump says.

Closing his speech, Biden returns to a key campaign theme: unity.

"We're not too divided to do big things," he says, "We're America."

The virus can be conquered, he says, clutching a face mask - if Americans remain "bound by our common resolve, determination and values".

"I promise you... we can do this, we must do this."