Vincent Ni
BBC World Service

Image source, EPA

Political drama in America has always been a source of fascination in China - whether it’s Netflix series House of Cards or this week’s nail-biting presidential election.

On China’s biggest social media platform, Weibo, the hashtag #USElection had been viewed at least 7.3 billion times as of Thursday evening in Beijing. Users have been sharing memes, videos and comments to express their views on the confusing situation.

For example, while the final results have yet to be confirmed, Chinese internet users are creating videos such as this one to imagine the mood in both campaigns., external

There has also been nostalgia. Chinese internet users have not forgotten the polarising campaign between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton four years ago. One of the highlights from that contest was a bitterly argued second debate. Chinese creatives used a popular 1990s Cantonese love song and reimagined it into a romantic karaoke session.

In it, Trump sings, "Do you know that my heart...,” and Clinton answers, “Desires true love.” Have a listen if you understand Cantonese and read Chinese subtitles., external

Ultimately many Chinese are asking what Trump has meant for China in the past four years and what the next American president - be it Trump or Biden - would mean for Sino-US relations.

Beijing had been reticent until this morning, when Vice Foreign Minister Le Yucheng said he hoped the new US administration “will meet China halfway"., external

Image source, Getty Images

Ballot counting in Philadelphia has resumed amid a legal tug-of-war in Pennsylvania.

The tally was paused earlier to accomodate a court order saying that Trump campaign observers must be allowed to stand within six feet of officials counting and reviewing ballots.

The race in Pennsylvania, with its 20 electoral college votes, is being closely watched by both campaigns. A win there for Joe Biden would almost certainly delivery the presidency to the Democrat, while a win for Donald Trump would provide a critical boost in electoral votes.

There are roughly 120,000 ballots in Philadelphia left to be counted.

Frustrated by the wait? So is the man in charge of Georgia's voting system, Gabriel Sterling.

Speaking to reporters today, Sterling said he is "prayerful" the state will get a result by the end of the day.

"This is going to be an extremely close margin," he said. Georgia's election officials are "protecting democracy", he said.

"These people are not involved in voter fraud, these people are not involved in voter suppression," he said, in an oblique reference to unsupported claims of larger irregularities. "They're doing their jobs everyday. It is hard."

Our electoral map has been updated to reflect the BBC's projection that Joe Biden will take Wisconsin.

This now gives Biden 253 electoral college votes against Mr Trump's 214.

He needs to reach 270 votes to be declared the next US president; ballots are still being counted in the battleground states of Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and Pennsylvania.

Here's a quick, helpful map showing which states have been won by Trump and Biden on their quest to win the White House - and which are still to be called.

Click here to see the full results map.

Here are a few important times to be aware of today. Of course, events are still moving and times could quickly change.

Georgia - Earlier today, the state's top election officials said all ballots may be counted by 12:00ET (17:00GMT), but that has yet to be completed.

Nevada - A new tranche of votes are to be reported around 12:30ET (17:30GMT). Republicans filed a lawsuit against the state today, alleging that 10,000 votes came from people that no longer live in the state.

Arizona - No new results are expected to be released until 21:00ET (02:00GMT). Several US outlets have already called the state for Biden, but the BBC is not prepared to do so.

Pennsylvania - The state's Republican legislature banned election officials from counting votes before election day, so it has always been expected that counting would take days.

North Carolina - No news is expected here until at least 12 November. Postal ballots in the state that were mailed by election day have until 12 Nov to trickle in and still be counted. On Wednesday, the state's top election official said there is no backlog of ballots and they are now counting each ballots as they arrive.

The BBC is now projecting that Joe Biden will take Wisconsin, in line with our US sister network CBS.

With 99% of the votes counted, Biden currently has a lead there of just over 20,000 on Donald Trump.

The tally above now includes the state’s 10 electoral college votes. Our results maps, however, do not show Wisconsin for Biden. This is because they’re driven by data, supplied via Reuters, from polling firm Edison Research, which does the field work for the exit polls and works with US networks in the National Election Pool.

Edison Research has not projected a result for Wisconsin because the margin between Biden and Trump is less than one percentage point, meaning a candidate can request a recount.

Our projection that Joe Biden is the presumptive winner in Wisconsin reflects the situation now. If a recount takes place, we will report that and the result - and if necessary, we’ll change our projections accordingly.

You may have noticed that some other news sites are also projecting a win in Arizona for Biden, giving him an extra 11 electoral college votes.

The BBC, again in line with CBS, considers the state too early to project. With 86% of the vote in Arizona counted, Biden currently has a lead of about 68,000 - or 2.3% - over Trump.

Democrat Joe Biden is projected to win Wisconsin. It gives the former vice-president 10 electoral college votes and extends his lead over President Trump.

Image source, Getty Images

As Georgia officials keep tallying up presidential votes, eyes are also on the state for another reason: two Senate races still up in the air - and both could stretch into 2021.

Election rules in Georgia mandate a run-off election between the top two finishers on 3 November if no candidate receives 50% of the vote.

A special election race for one of the state's US Senate seats looks like it will come down to a runoff in January between Democrat Raphael Warnock and Republican incumbent Kelly Loeffler.

The same could happen in the second Senate race, where incumbent Republican David Perdue is currently ahead of Democrat Jon Ossoff, but ballots are still being counted in Democrat-leaning areas. If Perdue can't hold onto 50% of the vote, there will be a runoff.

Democrats haven't yet been able to gain a majority in the Senate. They need to flip three seats to do so and have so far only gained one.

Biden campaign spokesman Jen O’Malley Dillon has just held a briefing with reporters, where she accused the Trump team of “continuing to push a failing strategy” of lawsuits.

She called the legal challenges “nothing more than an attempt to distract and delay what is now inevitable - Joseph Biden is going to be the next president of the United States".

She claimed victory in Michigan, and said Biden was looking good in Pennsylvania.

"At the end of today, and hopefully it is the end of today, we will win by a sizeable number in Pennsylvania," she said.

Bob Bauer, who is directing Biden's legal team, told journalists he would talk them through "some of the silliness behind" the Republican claims.

"This is part of a broader misinformation campaign," he said, accusing Trump supporters of trying to sabotage confidence in the electoral system.

The Trump allegations are based on the "suspicion of wrongdoing" rather than any actual evidence, he says.

Jack Goodman
BBC Reality Check

President Trump and his supporters continue to try to raise suspicions about fraud and the vote count.

One viral video, shared by the president’s son, Eric, appeared to show around 80 ballots being put into a bag, doused with a flammable liquid, and set on fire.

But officials in the city of Virginia Beach (in the state of Virginia), which is led by a Republican mayor, released a statement on election day explaining that the ballots shown in the video lacked official markings – and were merely samples., external

The city said fire investigators were looking into the incident as an “illegal burning”.

Despite this, Eric Trump shared the video on Twitter, where it was liked, shared and commented on almost 100,000 times.

His post linked to an account that has since been suspended by Twitter. That user has since posted the video on his YouTube page. YouTube has yet to take action.

David McAllister, a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) and chair of its committee on foreign affairs, has stressed that it is important that "all votes count and that means that all votes will be counted" in the US election.

He urged "all parties accept the result and that there will be no further turbulences" once the process is complete.

The US president asking for some voting counts to stop is unprecedented, McAllister said.

"You cannot deprive US citizens of the right to vote," he said. "You cannot announce yourself as the winner of an election while the counting is still ongoing. This is unprecedented."

McAllister said he sees a "new impetus for transatlantic relations" should Joe Biden prevail in the election, but warned that there were still challenges ahead on trade, security and defence issues.

In the event of the president's re-election, he said: "We know what we can expect from Mr Trump, but we also know what we cannot expect from him - and the transatlantic relations have been put to a stress test like we’ve never seen before in the last 70 years."

Two Trump campaign officials, Corey Lewandowski and Pam Bondi, have just turned up at the Philadelphia Convention Center, where mail-in votes are still being counted, saying they have a court order to go inside.

“We plan on entering that building right now and legally observing the voting process," Bondi told reporters after pro-Biden protesters turned up their music to drown her out.

"If there is one illegal vote that is cast, it takes away from the great men and women of Pennsylvania who came out to vote legally”.

She added that the Trump representatives had already been kept back 100 feet from the counting process by a man with a gun and badge who was not a police officer.

Meanwhile, Trump campaign manager Bill Stepien told reporters in a phone call that Democrats are "lying, cheat and stealing" and that illegal behaviour is "running rampant."

There is no evidence of foul play, and the prolonged counting process was always expected in Pennsylvania after the state's legislature blocked counting from beginning before election day.

Image source, EPA

As we edge closer to a result, President Donald Trump has tweeted “STOP THE COUNT!”

In his speech on Wednesday, Trump described the election as a “fraud on the American public” and called for “all voting to stop”, though there is no evidence of systematic fraud.

The Trump campaign has launched legal action to stop the count in several states, claiming - again, without evidence - fraud and irregularities. The campaign has also called for a recount in Wisconsin.

The Republican Party in Nevada confirmed it is planning to file a lawsuit in the state, claiming that about 10,000 votes were cast by people who no longer live there.

Republican strategist Seth Weathers told the BBC that Trump wanted counting halted until officials in count centres granted Republicans greater access to scrutinise their processes.

You can read more about the legal cases here

Things may be moving faster in Georgia than original estimates suggested.

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger just said the state had about 90,000 ballots to go by last night, but by this morning there were just around 60,000 ballots left to be counted.

Speaking to WSB-TV in Atlanta, Raffensperger said: “We should be done no later than noon-time today.” That's 17:00 GMT.

Fulton County, home of Atlanta, is expected to conclude counting in the next hour, he said.

Biden is behind by about 18,000 votes in Georgia, according to the latest estimates.

If Biden wins Georgia, Trump's chance of winning re-election plunges significantly.

Earlier we explained how some news organisations have different tallies on electoral college votes so far.

The BBC is getting its data via Reuters, from polling firm Edison Research, who do the field work for the exit polls and work with US networks in the National Election Pool.

Edison Research said that it will not call a race in Wisconsin or any state where the margin is narrow enough to allow a candidate to demand a recount under state law.

Arizona: An automatic recount will occur if the margin between candidates is less than or equal to 0.1% of the votes.

Georgia: Candidates may request a recount when the spread between the candidates is less than 1% of the total votes cast in that race.

Wisconsin: By law, if race is within 1%, the candidate with fewer votes may request a recount.

Some news sites have projected wins in Arizona (meaning an extra 11 electoral college votes) and Wisconsin (10 electoral college votes) for Joe Biden.

• Unsure how the electoral college system works and why it comes down to state points rather than the popular vote? Read our quick guide.

BBC Monitoring
The world through its media

As if the race for the White House wasn’t gripping enough, Japanese TV news outlets have been peppering their coverage with a variety of animations and graphics, much to the amusement of people on social media.

"One Japanese TV programme really held the interest of viewers by turning Donald Trump and Joe Biden into bobblehead-esque characters, complete with amusing facial expressions," news website SoraNews24 said.

Which prompted an amusing exchange, reminiscing about South Korea's SBS coverage of its own presidential elections in 2017 in a Game-of-Thrones-style.

Image source, SBS

South Korea has form. For their legislative elections in April, they inserted the candidates into well known films. As one Twitter user said, while we wait for the winner of the US election to be declared, we can at least be entertained.

Image source, SBS

Shruti Menon
BBC News, Delhi

There’s been quite a bit of reaction on social media in India after a leading businessman shared an astrological prediction that President Trump would beat Joe Biden to win the election.

Anand Mahindra, chairman of the multinational Mahindra Group, tweeted an image of an astrological claim that said it would be a “neck and neck” fight - but that Trump would emerge as the winner.

The tweet has had nearly 7,000 likes and hundreds of retweets.

The prediction is based on what the astrologer says is the current position of the sun, and Trump’s birth sign. Mahindra did not reveal who the astrologer was, but predicted a rise in their popularity if the forecast turns out to be true.

Other Twitter users reacted by sharing predictions from other astrologers who have also said they believe Trump would win.

Consulting astrologers when it comes to making major decisions is quite popular in India, even among leading politicians, including the current prime minister, Narendra Modi.

The Republican Party of Nevada has just confirmed they plan to file a lawsuit in Nevada, claiming that around 10,000 votes were cast by people who no longer live in the state.

Nevada was one of several states to send postal ballots to every adult that is registered vote. Trump railed against the "universal mail-in ballot" system decision during his campaign, claiming that it would lead to fraud.

Despite Trump's repeated claims, there is no evidence of wide-scale voter fraud in any major US election. This is now the fourth state where Republicans are filing a legal challenge to the vote. They are also requesting a recount in a fifth state - Wisconsin.

In just a few minutes, we are expecting the Philadelphia City Commissioners to give an update on the ongoing mail-in ballot count.

Trump's lead in the swing state of Pennsylvania, which he won in 2016, has been falling as more postal votes are tallied.

Trump is currently leading by around 160,000 votes, but Philadelphia election officials say that they are now counting approximately nine Biden mail-in ballots for every Trump postal ballot.

Image source, Getty Images

Georgia's top election official has estimated that around 50,000 ballots are still to be counted.

According to US media, vote counters are tallying about 3,000 ballots per hour in the state. So literally speaking, it could take around 16 hours or so to get to the end.

But of course, if one candidate takes an insurmountable lead, the race will be projected earlier than that.