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According to the latest numbers just released, Biden is holding his lead over Trump by around 22,000 votes in Nevada.

An estimated 91% of votes have been counted so far, and around 76% of the total vote is expected to have been via mail-in ballots.

Nevada is one of a handful of states that chose to send mail-in ballots (also known as absentees) to every registered voter in the state.

Before the election, Trump repeatedly denounced the move, known as universal vote-by-mail, saying it would open the process up to tampering.

Researchers have found no evidence of any widespread electoral fraud.

Billions of dollars spent, dozens of candidates, two nominees, one pandemic.

What started with a little-known congressman in the summer of 2017 ended as the most expensive US presidential election of all time.

It featured 26 candidates for the Democratic Party nomination, the first black and Asian-American woman vice-presidential nominee, and some other historic firsts.

In just three minutes, we can take you back through it all. Watch below.

Produced by Franz Strasser and Joaquim Salles

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Biden's margin over Trump in Arizona has shrunk since yesterday.

He is now leading Trump in the battleground state by 43,570 votes, the BBC projects, which is down from his previous margin of 47,000 votes over Trump.

Maricopa County, the state's largest county which is still counting votes, has just reported that nearly two million votes were cast there, representing almost 75% of the county's residents.

Maricopa reports that they still have around 142,000 ballots left to count.

Other news organisations have already projected a win in Arizona for Biden, but the BBC considers it still too early to project.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, the top Democratic lawmaker in Washington, is speaking from Capitol Hill about the latest developments, where she says it is clear that Joe Biden and his running mate Kamala Harris are on their way to the White House.

On Democrats' inability to retake the Senate from Republicans, and losses in the House of Representatives, she says this: "We did not win every battle in the House. But we did win the war."

"Be confident. Be patient," she says to Democrats, adding: "We look forward to continued victories, and there are some out there."

"While we prepare for the new Biden administration, we must also move swiftly forward with a new coronavirus relief bill," she says referring to economic talks that fell through before the election.

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger has just announced that the state's presidential contest will go to a recount.

He says that 4,169 votes remain to be counted, and that some 8,000 military absentee ballots are still in the mail and will only be counted if they arrive by the end of the day.

"Right now Georgia remains too close to call," he says, adding: "With a margin that small there will be a recount in Georgia."

"Interest in our election obviously goes far beyond Georgia's borders. The final tally in Georgia at this point has huge implications for the entire country."

"We are looking at a margin less than a large high school," Raffensberger's aide Gabriel Sterling added after the Republican official left without taking questions.

Sterling, who oversees voting for the state, added that the reason for the recount is due to how close the race is, and that they have not seen "any widespread irregularities" that would indicate foul play.

Image source, Reuters

With officials in Philadelphia still counting postal votes that arrived before election day, Joe Biden's lead over Trump in the decisive swing state appears to be growing.

According to the BBC's election system, Biden is now leading Trump by 6,817 votes.

Just over an hour ago, Biden was leading by 5,587 votes.

Biden's lead is expected to continue growing, since the votes being counted now are absentee ballots. Trump actively discouraged his supporters from voting by mail. Biden told his supporters to do so, in order to help prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

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Pennsylvania Republican Senator Pat Toomey is among several critics from the president's own party who are disputing details from his news conference at the White House yesterday.

"I saw the president's speech last night and it was very hard to watch," he told NBC earlier today.

"The president's allegations of large-scale fraud and theft of the election are just not substantiated. I'm not aware of any significant wrongdoing here."

"Look, there are irregularities in every election. They tend to typically be very small and involve just a handful of ballots."

Toomey, who is due to retire in 2022, also said he had no idea how long it would take for votes to be fully counted in Pennsylvania, a state leaning towards Biden at present.

"It's going to take the time that it takes," he said, adding that the remaining votes will likely be for Democrats. "But at this point we just don't know. That's why we go through the process - to find out."

Anthony Zurcher
BBC North America reporter

It won’t be long now. Overnight, Joe Biden pulled ahead of Donald Trump in Georgia. And with the latest batch of vote totals released, Biden has taken the lead over Trump in Pennsylvania.

Georgia’s 16 electoral votes would be enough to guarantee at least a tie in the Electoral College, pending results from the other uncalled states. Pennsylvania would single-handedly deliver the White House to Biden.

The trendlines in both states are clear, as well. Biden has been netting more votes with each new tally, and he’s only going to extend his lead in both states. There are fewer ballots to count in Georgia, so the state is going to stay close – and well within the recount margin.

By the time all is said and done, however, Biden should lead in Pennsylvania by more than Donald Trump won the state by in 2016.

The drama from these last few days is the result of the process by which these states have counted their votes – tallying mailed-in ballots that have tilted heavily toward Biden after in-person ones, which have been in Trump’s favour. If the process had been reversed, the picture on election night would have been much clearer from the start.

After the dust settles, the results are what they are. And in Delaware, Biden is probably smiling.

We're still waiting for a final result in the election, after Joe Biden gained a 5,587 vote edge in crucial Pennsylvania with 95% of precincts reporting.

And the number of people currently glued to their screens around the world is a reminder that who sits in the White House isn't only an issue for the US.

America's president remains one of the most powerful people on earth, and the way they use that power has a huge impact on global politics and diplomacy.

For the last four years, President Trump has followed his America First policy. He has renegotiated or pulled out of trade deals, military alliances and international treaties, arguing that they are unfair to the US.

But Joe Biden has promised change. If he wins the election he has promised to rejoin the key Paris climate agreement, external on day one of his presidency. All in all, he has a much more traditional approach to the US role on the world stage.

BBC State department correspondent Barbara Plett Usher has explored what could change under a Biden presidency.

You can read it here

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A statement was just released from the Trump campaign, as projections show Biden pulling ahead in the swing state of Pennsylvania. If Biden takes Pennsylvania, he will win the presidency.

“This election is not over," says campaign lawyer Matt Morgan.

"The false projection of Joe Biden as the winner is based on results in four states that are far from final."

He claims without evidence that ballots in Georgia were "improperly harvested" and that in Pennsylvania election observers were not given "meaningful access" to counting, despite a judge's order allowing them further access yesterday.

Morgan also disputes that Arizona will go to Biden, as several news networks have projected, and claims that "thousands" of ballots were cast improperly in Nevada.

"Biden is relying on these states for his phony claim on the White House, but once the election is final, President Trump will be re-elected,” he concluded.

There has been no evidence of widespread voter fraud, and the Trump campaign has offered no evidence of these claims.

Image source, Reuters

It feels like a long time since election day - but we're edging closer to a definitive result now.

All eyes are on four key states:

• In Pennsylvania, Biden has now gained an edge over Trump by 5,587 votes. 95% of the state's precincts have reported results. Analysts believe the remaining mail ballots to be counted could favour Biden - and if Biden wins the state, he gets the 270 votes needed to win the presidency.
• Biden has also taken the lead in Georgia with 99% of votes counted. There are approximately 8,197 ballots outstanding, as well as military and overseas ballots.
• Biden has a slender lead in Nevada, with 89% of votes counted. Election officials say that, as of Thursday evening, they still have about 190,000 ballots outstanding.
• In Arizona, Biden leads by 1.6%, with 90% of votes counted. As of Thursday night, there were approximately 300,000 ballots outstanding.

Vote counting is still ongoing in North Carolina, where Trump leads by 1.4%, with 95% of expected votes counted, and Alaska, where Trump has 62.9% of the vote with 56% of votes counted. But if Biden wins either Pennsylvania, or Georgia, Nevada and Arizona, he would win the presidency.

Image source, Getty Images

If Biden takes Pennsylvania he will have 273 votes, which would hand him the presidency.

In the past hour, we've just heard that Biden has pulled ahead in the "keystone" state and is now leading with some 98% of votes counted.

According to the BBC's election system, 40% of votes are expected to be absentee - a category that includes postal ballots.

Yesterday, election officials said postal votes - which Biden told supporters to use and Trump told his not to - were now being counted at a rate of around 90% for Biden.

The Trump campaign has tried to shut down vote counting there, but that move was blocked by a federal judge.

With 20 electoral college votes, Pennsylvania has always been a major political battleground. The state voted Democrat in six consecutive races before it swung to Trump in 2016.

A Missouri election official who had tested positive for Covid-19 four days before the election worked at a suburban St Louis polling site, potentially exposing nearly 2,000 voters to the virus.

The person, who has since died, was an election judge at the Blanchette Park Memorial Hall voting station in Lake Charles, officials announced on Thursday, without identifying the person who died.

They added that the person had been advised after their positive test to quarantine for 14 days. The cause of death is unknown, they said.

The midwestern state has seen 200,042 infections, according to Johns Hopkins University. There have been 3,117 deaths recorded in Missouri, and 234,944 deaths nationwide.

We've just heard an update from election officials in Pennsylvania.

Biden has taken the lead over Trump by 5,587 votes, with 95% of the state's precincts reporting.

The state could hand him the 270 electoral college votes needed to win.

Kerry Allen
BBC Monitoring, Chinese Media Analyst

Image source, Getty Images

One of the biggest talking points in Chinese media today is how multiple US broadcasters suddenly halted their coverage of President Donald Trump’s live White House statement yesterday, mid-broadcast.

This is sort of ironic given that China, more than any other country, has a track record of repeatedly cutting TV interviews mid-broadcast.

China repeatedly ranks near the bottom in media press freedom indexes from organisations such as Reporters Without Borders, while the US often appears nearer the top.

It is common for TV channels like BBC World News to suddenly be replaced with a black screen, external, when content that contradicts China’s Communist Party rhetoric is aired.

But influential Chinese media outlets have not shied from highlighting how major networks including CNBC, MSNBC and NBC cut away from Trump's statement yesterday - even though US broadcasters would argue they pulled the stream for reasons of accuracy.

US outlets said they halted Mr Trump's speech because he was spreading unsubstantiated claims. “Our job is spread truth – not unfounded conspiracies," USA Today said.

Nonetheless, Chinese social media users on the popular website Sina Weibo are having a field day.

“This is the free and democratic American media,” one user says. “Long live democracy,” another says sarcastically.

“Someone suppressed his speech? Don’t they [Americans] often say that that they have the right to speak freely and no one should stop it?” one asks.

One user joked that Trump needs to take “Chinese software” to his next speech, referring to a VPN. That’s a piece of software that bypasses restrictions, and allows Chinese netizens to see and hear media the Chinese government doesn’t want them to see.

Who sits in the White House could very much affect the US relationship with the UK.

Former UK ambassador to the US Sir Peter Westmacott believes that while Trump has a good relationship with UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Joe Biden would have a "more traditional way of working with allies".

A Biden win could mean a "more comfortable" relationship between the two countries, he says.

A teenager has won a seat in New Hampshire's state legislature, becoming one of the youngest elected officials in the US, local media report.

Eighteen-year-old Tony LaBranche will take his place as the representative for Amherst.

"Last night we made history, first openly gay man elected in Amherst history and possibly the youngest in state history," the Democrat wrote on Instagram, external after the vote. "Thank you to everyone who made this possible and thank you all for standing by me and supporting me!"

Speaking to the Alton Telegraph, external, he said a cancer diagnosis when he was 10 and the high cost of healthcare convinced him to enter politics.

"I went from beating cancer to running for state rep and here I am," LaBranche told the paper.

In the run-up to the election businesses in cities across the US boarded up their stores and a fence was erected around the White House, amid concerns about post-election unrest.

Various surveys suggested that almost three in four Americans were worried about violence on, or after election day.

But there has been little violence in the country so far. Protesters have turned out demanding that vote counting continues in some states - and demanding it stops in others - but for now there has been little sign of mass unrest as feared.

Officers in the state of Pennsylvania have however reportedly arrested two heavily armed men amid an investigation into an apparent plan to attack a counting centre in Philadelphia.

CBS said that it involved a group of people from out of state in a silver Hummer SUV, with Virginia number plates. Police reportedly found a number of guns inside the car.

Image source, Reuters

Reality Check
BBC News

Image source, Reuters

In his 17 minute speech on Thursday, President Trump made a series of unsubstantiated claims about “illegal votes” and attempts to “steal” the election from him and the Republicans.

He described the postal voting system as “corrupt.” But electoral fraud in the US is very rare.

He said it was “amazing” how postal votes were “so one-sided” – but he himself had urged Republicans to vote in person rather than using the post, so it’s not surprising they tend to favour the Democrats.

And he falsely claimed that counting had stopped at one location in Georgia because a water pipe burst “far away.” The burst pipe did actually affect a room where votes were being counted.

There's more on all this from our Reality Check team here

US correspondents and others on social media are pointing out that Donald Trump could well be taking a hit in the states of Georgia and Arizona because of his earlier criticism of two American heroes.

Biden currently has a lead in both states, which have voted Republican in recent presidential elections, although not all votes have been counted yet.

Trump has repeatedly attacked the late Arizona Senator John McCain, questioning whether he should be considered a US war hero because he was a prisoner of war in Vietnam.

Last year, Trump said McCain "didn't get the job done for our great vets and the VA" by refusing to repeal Obamacare and attacked him for "a war in the Middle East", in reference to the senator's support for the Iraq War.

"Not my kind of guy," the president said. "But some people like him and I think that's great."

Meanwhile, Trump appears to be falling behind in Clayton County, Georgia, which is the home district of the late Democratic Congressman and civil rights icon John Lewis.

In 2017, Lewis questioned Trump's legitimacy as a president, pointing to an investigation into possible Russian interference in the 2016 election.

Trump responded by saying that Lewis was "all talk" and should focus on his constituents.

"Congressman John Lewis should spend more time on fixing and helping his district, which is in horrible shape and falling apart (not to mention crime-infested) rather than falsely complaining about the election results. All talk, talk, talk - no action or results. Sad!" he tweeted at the time.