As counting continues in the last handful of states, here’s what we might expect for the rest of Thursday:

Pennsylvania: Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar is expected to give a news conference at 17:15 (22:15 GMT). Earlier, she told CNN that a winner “definitely could” be determined by the close of business on Thursday.

Arizona: Maricopa County, the state’s largest county, is expected to give their next update at 02:00 GMT.

Georgia: The final result from Fulton County, the state’s most populous county, may be known later on Thursday. Counting continues in other parts of the state.

Nevada: As of early Thursday there are still about 60,000 votes to be counted. Election officials expect to continue receiving mail-in ballots until the weekend and reckon they won’t have the final result until next week.

North Carolina: No news is expected here. Postal ballots in the state that were mailed by election day have until 12 Nov to trickle in and still be counted.

Democrat Joe Biden has urged people to “stay calm” while the remaining votes from the US presidential election are counted.

"Democracy is sometimes messy," he said, but "the process is working".

“In America the vote is sacred,” he said, stressing that each ballot must be counted. “It is how people in this country express their will.”

He said that he and his running mate Kamala Harris "have no doubt" that when the counting is finished they "will be declared the winners".

Tara McKelvey
BBC News, Washington

Back in 2016, Trump said the election had been “rigged”. Now he is making similar accusations. His campaign staffers have spoken about voter fraud and issued a statement: “They can steal the election from us” - but they have provided no basis for their claims.

Meanwhile in the West Wing, the rooms are quiet. Brian Morgenstern, the White House deputy press secretary, has been working around the clock (he had leftover fried chicken for breakfast, he tells me) and is waiting to see what will happen. “It’s a fluid situation,” he says. “We’re all, you know, just rolling with it.”

No-one here seems to be heading for the door, or not anytime soon. Desks are cluttered with stacks of unopened mail and old paper cups embossed with a White House seal, while CNN plays on a TV screen: “Biden on the brink of win”.

In this office, at least, people are paying little attention to the report. They are instead chatting with each other, taking phone calls and settling in for another long night.

Image source, Getty Images

Former acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney said on Thursday that he "absolutely" expects Donald Trump to run for president again in 2024 if he fails to win reelection this year.

Mulvaney, who now serves as a special envoy for Northern Ireland, made his prediction during a web session hosted by Dublin's Institute for International and European Affairs.

"I would absolutely expect the president to stay involved in politics and would absolutely put him on the shortlist of people who are likely to run in 2024," he said.

The US constitution says a person can only be elected to president twice, for two four-year terms.

Brazil’s leading daily Folha de Sao Paulo has been mocking President Jair Bolsonaro’s public support for Donald Trump's re-election with a number of satirical cartoons.

As Trump trailed his Democratic rival in the US election, the newspaper ran a cartoon showing Bolsonaro with an “I love Trump” tattoo on his lower back. In an accompanying speech bubble he asks: "Do you know anybody who removes tattoos?”

Brazil’s far-right president has been dubbed by some the "Trump of the Tropics". Like the US president he is a deeply divisive figure who has sought to project an image of toughness while playing down fears over climate change and the coronavirus pandemic.

Image source, Getty Images

A top Georgia election official has just concluded a briefing where he refused to make a prediction for how much longer we will have to wait for a result.

“We can’t know how long the process will take," said Gabriel Sterling, an official in the secretary of state's office. He added that counties technically have until 13 November to report results and that the state does not certify the outcome until 20 November.

Counting is going slowly because they are using paper ballots for the first time in 20 years, he said, and because the gap between Trump and Biden is so close.

“These close elections require us to be diligent and makes sure we do everything right,” Sterling said.

He also dismissed claims of voter fraud, saying: “I think if anyone was trying to rig a system they would see something less close than this.”

Image source, Getty Images

If you're just tuning in, welcome.

We are still here and still waiting on results from the four battleground states whose voters will send either Joe Biden or Donald Trump to the White House.

Here's what's been happening:

• Biden is slowly gaining ground in Georgia, where Trump's lead has narrowed, and the Democrat is holding his slim advantage in Nevada. After his projected win in Wisconsin, the Democrat will have enough electoral votes to claim the presidency if he wins in these two other states.
• But when that could happen is still unknown. As of this afternoon, Georgia had just more than 47,000 ballots outstanding and results are expected to trickle in from Nevada through the weekend.
• As ballots are counted, the Trump campaign is continuing legal action aimed at challenging the counting process in four states. Across the country, his supporters are protesting at election locations amid unsubstantiated allegations of fraud.
• Meanwhile, Democratic voters are demonstrating to demand that every vote be counted before a winner is declared.
• And in Pennsylvania, election workers are "furiously counting" ballots, opening the possibility for a Thursday result. If Biden wins here - it'll be all over for Trump, making this state most crucial for both candidates.

Anthony Zurcher
BBC North America reporter

Image source, Getty Images

The jury is still out in the presidential race, but while Democrats have high hopes for a Joe Biden win, they face a gloomy verdict in down-ballot congressional races. A “blue wave” that would carry their party to unified control of the presidency and Congress didn’t materialise.

Their hopes of wresting control of the Senate from Republicans now hinge on winning two possible run-off elections in January, after Democratic candidates came up short in competitive contests in Maine, Iowa, Montana and (pending a major swing in votes) North Carolina. Well-funded longshots in Kentucky, South Carolina and Texas also lost handily.

The party did post pick-ups in Colorado and Arizona, but with incumbent Doug Jones losing in deeply conservative Alabama, Democrats needed more.

Meanwhile, in the House of Representatives, Democrats were predicting they would expand their majority. Instead, they will lose seats – as incumbents in places like Minnesota, Iowa, Michigan and Florida were defeated. The party will still have a majority in the chamber, but Republican chances of flipping control in future elections have drastically improved.

All this means either a Biden or a Trump administration will face divided government and very real challenges to enacting any big-ticket policies. Biden has boasted about his ability to bridge partisan divides to get things done. If he were to win, he would have plenty of opportunities to prove it.

The depth of the Democratic down-ballot disappointment goes further. Their failure to take control of state legislatures in Texas, North Carolina, Iowa or Minnesota means Republicans will have the upper hand in drawing new congressional boundaries to help their candidates for the next decade.

Perhaps the bitterest pill for Democrats is that this year’s Republican victories will beget more in elections to come.

As vote counts continue in key states, the Trump campaign has been running a fundraising campaign asking for donations in order to fund legal challenges.

Supporters have been inundated with pleas to "stop the left" from "stealing" the election.

Today alone, they've raised $8m (£6.1m) as part of an effort to help fund its election lawsuits, a finance chairman for the Trump Victory group told CBS.

Christopher Giles
BBC Reality Check

False claims of more votes in Wisconsin than registered voters have been spreading online in the wake of Tuesday's election.

One tweet claimed: "BREAKING: Wisconsin has more votes than people who are registered to vote. Total number of registered voters: 3,129,000. Total number of votes cast: 3,239,920. This is direct evidence of fraud."

However, this number of registered voters is outdated - the latest figure as of 1 November is 3,684,726.

That tweet has now been deleted, but people on Facebook and Twitter continue to share a screenshot of the post.

Voter turnout for Wisconsin was significantly higher in this election than in previous years.

The state also allows people to register to vote on election day itself, so the overall number of registered voters could be higher than the current reported figure.

We’ve fact-checked other claims about the vote count here.

Image source, Facebook

And now, for a bit of levity:

Wilbur, a 6-month-old French bulldog, has a big four years ahead of him. The good boy has just been elected mayor of Rabbit Hash, Kentucky.

According to Wilbur's spokeswoman - that is, owner Amy Noland - this tiny town of fewer than 500 residents has never had a human mayor.

A local man proposed the idea of electing animal mayors in the late 1990s as a fundraising device for the historical society, Noland told NBC News.

There have been five dog mayors of Rabbit Hash since the first, named Goofy.

So far, Noland says that Wilbur has been taking the new job in stride, with "a lot of belly scratches and a lot of ear rubs".

Image source, Getty Images

Michigan

On 4 November, Trump's campaign announced a lawsuit to stop the count, though 96% of the votes have already been unofficially tallied by local election officials.

The Trump camp wants to place an inspector at each absentee counting board and review any ballots already counted.

The lawsuit was thrown out by a state judge, who determined that the campaign did not name the correct defendant in the suit, rendering it moot.

Pennsylvania

The challenge here centres on the state's decision to count ballots that are postmarked by Election Day but arrive up to three days late. The Trump campaign and Republicans are seeking an appeal.

Republicans have also sued election officials for allegedly illegally counting postal ballots early and allowing voters to re-submit ballots if theirs were rejected.

Georgia

State Republicans and Trump's campaign have filed a lawsuit in Chatham County to pause the count, alleging problems with absentee ballot processing. The suit was dismissed today.

What about Wisconsin?

The president's campaign said it had requested a recount in Wisconsin "based on abnormalities seen" on Tuesday - but note that this is not a legal challenge. Under state law, Trump has the right to request a recount if the margin between candidates is less than 1%.

It's unclear when this recount would take place, however, since typically these do not happen until after county officials finish reviewing the votes. The state's deadline for this part of the process is 17 November.

It's also unlikely to change much, as recounts typically only affect a few hundred votes, experts say.

Read more about how the election could play out here.

The Trump campaign has vowed to challenge the counting process in the battleground states that hold the keys to the US election results - but his supporters themselves seem confused about what has been actually happening on the ground.

Here, Republican Randi Reed clashes with Emily Maitlis over her claims about vote counts being stopped.

Here's a handy graphic showing what states each candidate needs now in order to reach the 270 electoral college votes that will give them the keys to the White House.

As you can see Joe Biden's win in Wisconsin has made his path easier. He now needs either just Pennsylvania or two other states in order to win. Donald Trump must win in Pennsylvania and take three other states if he is to serve another four years as president.

There is one possibility that results in a tie (not pictured) - if Biden were to win only the state of Georgia and Trump wins the remaining states. That outcome is unlikely, however.

Marianna Spring
Specialist disinformation and social media reporter

A huge viral Facebook group spreading unsubstantiated claims that there is a Democratic party plot to “steal” the election has been removed by the social media firm.

Among the comments inside the group were threats of violence and calls for civil war and revolution.

A Facebook spokesperson says it took action because of “worrying calls for violence” in the group “which was creating real-world events".

“Stop the Steal” was set up yesterday had more than 330,000 members before it was taken down. Posts called for its members to take to the streets in the event that Joe Biden is declared the next US president.

Dozens of comments went much further and encouraged people to take up arms or even shoot their political opponents. Some threatened rioting and looting.

The group taken down by Facebook was the by far the largest of a handful of “Stop the Steal” forums set up since election day. On Tuesday, a “#StoptheSteal” label gained a bit of popularity on Twitter, and included baseless and misleading claims of voter fraud and dirty tricks.

Similar claims have been circulating in the Facebook group. The allegations include some of the ones we’ve debunked here.

Facebook says it removed the group “in line with the exceptional measures that we are taking during this period of heightened tension”. It also said the group "was organised around the delegitimisation of the election process”.

Image source, Facebook

A judge in Michigan has dismissed the Trump campaign's lawsuit to stop counting postal ballots in the state.

Judge Cynthia Stephens of the state's first district appeals court said that the campaign filed the request too late - just hours before counting wrapped up - and that the suit was brought against the wrong individual (the secretary of state). The official does not have control over the local counting process, the judge said.

The president's campaign was arguing that the count should stop until more Republican poll watchers could observe the counting process.

BBC OS

Ballots are being counted in the battleground state of Nevada, with results expected to trickle in throughout the weekend.

BBC OS on World Service radio has been hearing from voters in Reno, in northwest Nevada.

Jay is a retired businessman and a Republican who voted for Donald Trump in 2016. This time, however, he changed his vote to Joe Biden.

“I just felt that the country was so tired of the drama, so tired of their leader being so incapable of being civilised, honest,” he said. “Then when it was so close, both my wife and I were just on pins and needles.”

He says he’s concerned about the divide in the US.

“I think it’s probably always been there, it’s just that we had a president that was able to stoke the fire in a way that was revealing beyond my understanding of who we were as a country.

“I really question whether this party [the Republican Party] is who I am, and whether I’m going to stay depends on maybe the next year or two.

“It’s about voting for the country. And four more years of Donald Trump would be a disaster.”

Let's pop over to Nevada for a moment - another state in the limelight right now.

An additional 51,000 ballots will be reported tomorrow, according to Joe Gloria, an official in Clark County, which contains Las Vegas. There are still just over 63,200 ballots remaining, and a clearer result will likely come by the weekend.

"We are anticipating to have the bulk of our mail ballots that have been received into the system by Saturday or Sunday."

Gloria emphasised that the process was running slow because of the sheer number of mail-in ballots, not because of "any improper ballots that are being processed".

He said "a small number" of ballots are pending - including those that are delayed in the mail, but postmarked by 3 November - and likely won't be finalised until 12 November, in accordance with state rules.

Robert Cuffe
BBC head of statistics

The opinion polls underestimated Donald Trump, but still called most states correctly.

Joe Biden’s lead in the national poll and most battleground states has been consistently smaller than the final polling averages suggested.

But he is ahead in the national vote and in almost all of the states in which he led the polls.

The chart below shows the 14 battlegrounds tracked by the BBC throughout the campaign.

The dark blue dots show the latest results from Tuesday’s vote.

They’re almost all to the left (more in favour of Trump) of the final polling averages shown by the light blue dots - but not by enough to swing many of the races.

Florida is the exception: the polls gave Biden a slight edge and he lost decisively.

Pennsylvania still has to be projected, and the final votes there still have to be counted.

The race for the White House is coming down to who wins the few remaining battleground states.

Want to know who's ahead in the places that are still counting? - here's your guide.