Image source, Reuters

While many world leaders have sent in their congratulations to President-elect Joe Biden, a number have refused to say anything at all.

We’ve put together a list of some of the key international figures who have not sent messages of support or have appeared lukewarm in their congratulations.

Some have gone even further, congratulating Mr Trump or backing unsubstantiated claims he has made about voter fraud.

Read more here

Image source, Reuters

US President-elect Joe Biden has welcomed the “excellent news” that a Covid-19 vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech was 90% effective, according to preliminary analysis.

"I congratulate the brilliant women and men who helped produce this breakthrough and to give us such cause for hope," he said in a statement.

"At the same time, it is also important to understand that the end of the battle against COVID-19 is still months away," he added, as he stressed the continued importance of mask-wearing, social distancing and other measures.

Donald Trump has also reacted on Twitter, saying it was “such great news”.

The vaccine has been tested on 43,500 people in six countries and no safety concerns have been raised.

The companies plan to apply for emergency approval to use the vaccine by the end of the month.

You can read our full story on the announcement here

The Senate is back in session on Monday following the weekend’s election result.

Only two Republican senators – Mitt Romney and Lisa Murkowski have congratulated Joe Biden on his election. President Trump has not conceded and is seeking legal action in several battleground states.

From Monday, the Senate will enter a "lame duck" session - the nickname for transitional period between the election and the new government.

The Senate is still in play for both the Republicans and Democrats. At present, both have 48 Senate seats, falling short of the number needed for a majority.

The Republicans need 51 seats, while the Democrats need 50 for a majority, owning to the deciding vote traditionally being given to the vice-president.

The results are not yet in for North Carolina and Alaska, and run-off elections for two seats in Georgia will take place on 5 January next year.

Those who won their senate seats at the election are set to be in Washington this week for orientation, according to The Hill.

The director-general of the World Health Organization has welcomed Joe Biden as president-elect of the US, saying he is looking forward to working very closely with his administration.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a virtual WHO summit: “We need to reimagine leadership, build on mutual trust and mutual accountability, to end the pandemic and address the fundamental inequalities that lie at the root of so many of the world's problems.”

US President Donald Trump has frozen US funding to the WHO and begun the process of withdrawing from the world health body having accused it of being “China-centric” in its handling of the pandemic – a charge denied by Mr Tedros.

Joe Biden, before becoming president-elect, had tweeted:, external "On my first day as President, I will rejoin the WHO and restore our leadership on the world stage.

Image source, Reuters

Image source, Getty

A Joe Biden presidency means the return of a long-held tradition of pets in the White House.

Donald Trump was the first US president in more than 100 years not to have a pet.

Biden is set to bring his two German Shepherds - Champ and Major - to the sprawling residence after the inauguration in January.

From dogs and cats to ponies, we take a look at some of the most memorable White House pets over the years.

Pollsters are continuing to reflect on flaws in their predictions for this year’s election.

While unlike in 2016, surveys projected the correct election winner, they greatly underestimated support for President Donald Trump.

There’s been a lot of talk about polls failing to take into account so-called "shy" Trump voters, who may not have felt comfortable revealing their real political positions.

But news site Axios said many pollsters didn’t get enough Trump voters to even participate in their surveys.

“We’ve been struggling with this issue and we keep trying to fix it and it’s not totally working,” one pollster told the news site.

The BBC’s head of statistics Robert Cuffe noted that most opinion polls did call most states correctly.

But, he added, “Joe Biden’s lead in the national poll and most battleground states is consistently smaller than the final polling averages suggested.”

Image source, EPA

The Trump campaign has tapped Republican congressman Doug Collins to head its recount efforts in Georgia.

Collins, a Trump ally who has just lost his bid to take one of Georgia's Senate seats, said he was “confident” the recounting group would “find evidence of improperly harvested ballots and other irregularities.”

“Georgians deserve a free and open process, and they will get one,” he said.

The group will start the recount when canvassing has ended, according to a campaign news release.

Trump has accused several states of large-scale voter fraud, but has produced no evidence to back this up.

As we mentioned in an earlier post, some 99% of Georgia’s votes have been counted, and Biden has a lead in the state of around 10,000.

The state announced a recount because of these tight margins.

Image source, Reuters

Welcome to our live coverage of the US election, after Democrat Joe Biden was declared the projected winner over the weekend.

Here’s a quick recap of some of the latest updates:

• President-elect Joe Biden is reportedly planning to issue executive orders to quickly reverse some Trump measures, such as exiting the Paris climate accord, when he takes office in January
• Biden has named a group of scientists and experts to develop a blueprint for tackling Covid-19

• Trump has been quiet in recent days - except on Twitter - and there are no public events in his diary for Monday. He is pursuing legal action in several states to challenge their vote count results
• An independent government agency has yet to sign an important letter that facilitates the transfer of power between Trump and Biden

• We’re still waiting for results from Georgia, Arizona, North Carolina and Alaska
• At present both parties have 48 seats in the next Senate but the wait to see who will control it could take some time as Alaska and North Carolina are still counting, and two contests in Georgia will go to a run-off in January
• Global markets have rallied as uncertainty over the election result dissipates

President-elect Joe Biden has announced, external his coronavirus advisory board to guide the future administration on their response to the pandemic.

The board will be led by three of his main advisers – former Food and Drug Administration Commissioner David Kessler, former Surgeon General Vivek Murthy and Marcella Nunez-Smith, an associate professor of internal medicine, public health, and management at Yale University.

Rick Bright, a whistleblower who claims he was removed from his Trump administration post for raising concerns about the county’s preparedness, for the virus is also on the panel.

More than 237,000 people have died from the virus in the US and more than 9.9 million people have contracted Covid-19 since the pandemic began.

Image source, Reuters

Global markets have rallied in response to Joe Biden projected win.

The end of uncertainty about the race's outcome saw London's FTSE 100 rise 1.5% to 5,994.58 points in early trade, with similar gains seen across Europe.

Asian shares also jumped, with Japan's Nikkei 225 climbing 2.1% to 24,839.84 - it's highest level since 1991.

There were similar gains in Australia, China and Hong Kong, while oil and currency markets also climbed.

Randeep Somel, director of global equities at M&G, told the BBC: "First and foremost it looks as if the uncertainty of who is going to be the president is going away, with world leaders coming out and openly congratulating Joe Biden and Kamala Harris."

Biden has already said he will reverse many Trump era policies, including rejoining the Paris Climate agreement on his first day in office in January.

There are also hopes that the new administration will expand fiscal stimulus in the US and widen measures to reduce the spread of Covid-19.

Read more from our business team.

Image source, Reuters

Fresh from its shot at fame after Trump’s team held a press conference in its car park, Four Seasons Total Landscaping in Philadelphia has released its own merchandise.

On Saturday, President Trump’s legal team put together a hastily arranged press conference there to discuss legal proceedings regarding the election results.

The president initially said on Twitter that the conference would be at the Four Seasons Hotel, before announcing that it would be held at the garden business on the outskirts of town, prompting speculation that it had been booked by mistake.

Pictures of Mr Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani briefing journalists, next to an adult bookstore and a crematorium, went viral among Democrats, who found the situation highly amusing.

The gardening business has since come out to say it has no political allegiances, but, responding to popular demand, it has hastily released its own range of T-shirts and hoodies. , externalIt is also selling a souvenir sticker with the slogan "Lawn and order", punning on a Trumpian phrase.

Beril Akman
Turkey Specialist, BBC Monitoring

Image source, Reuters

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is yet to comment on Democratic candidate Joe Biden’s projected win in the US election.

In 2016 he called President Donald Trump one day after the election and tweeted his congratulations. Similarly, he congratulated Barack Obama shortly after his re-electionin 2012.

Erdogan has forged warm ties with President Trump over the past four years,using the personal relationship to guard Ankara from sanctions over Russian arms purchases and other disagreements. Ahead of the election, Turkish pro-government media outlets struck a strong anti-Biden tone after he criticised Erdogan on foreign policy issues and vowed to support Turkey's opposition.

Vice-President Fuat Oktay said over the weekend that Ankara will “work with the new administration” on issues of interest to the Nato alliance.

Some analysts suggest Erdogan may be keeping a low profile to avoid offending Trump during his final weeks in office. However, the lack of congratulations for Biden so far may signal a rocky road ahead for Turkey and the US.

Image source, Getty Images

Kamala Harris will be the first woman of colour to serve as vice-president of the United States, however she won’t be the first vice president of colour.

Charles Curtis, a Native American lawmaker, became President Herbert Hoover’s vice-president in 1928.

He was the son of a white father and a mother who was a quarter Kaw Indian, with heritage from other tribes too.

He spent his childhood with his maternal grandparents on the Kaw reservation – he spoke the Kansa language before he was able to speak English, according to CNN, external.

Despite his family’s wishes that he attend school, Curtis became a jockey.

After his grandfather’s death in 1873, his grandmother told Curtis that if he expected to make something of himself he should attend school.

He then went to law school and started becoming interested in politics. In 1892 he was elected to US Congress.

After becoming vice-president he decorated his office with Native American artefacts and posed for pictures wearing Indian headdresses, according to the US Senate website, external.

Image source, US Capitol

At present both parties have 48 seats in the next senate but the wait to see who will control it could take some time.

Races in North Carolina and Alaska are currently still too early to call and two seats in Georgia will go to a runoff in January.

If the Republicans secure seats in Alaska and North Carolina, they could still be short of the 51 seats needed if they don't also make a win in Georgia.

The Republicans essentially need one more seat than their rivals, because the vice-president holds the tie-breaking vote and, in the next administration, that is going to be Democrat Kamala Harris.

The Democrats already have control of the House and so control of the Senate would allow them to push through legislation more easily.

If Republicans continue to control the Senate, it would create issues for Biden, especially when attempting to push through larger portions of his legislative agenda.

During a rally in Atlanta last month, Biden said: “I can’t tell you how important it is that we flip the United States Senate. There’s no state more consequential than Georgia in that fight."

And now that is more true than ever.

Reality Check

Posts are being widely shared online suggesting a glitch in the vote-counting software used in Michigan led to thousands of ballots cast for Donald Trump being counted for Joe Biden.

The claims have made their way on to the president’s Twitter feed, after he retweeted a post from Republican Senator Ted Cruz suggesting there could be a problem with the software used across the state.

There was a problem in one county where votes were initially incorrectly reported for Mr Biden, which Michigan’s Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson said, external “was quickly identified and corrected”.

She added the initial mistake was a human error, not a software error.

Viral posts currently circulating claim there could be the same issue in 47 other counties in Michigan, where the same software is used.

Mrs Benson said: “There is no evidence this user error occurred elsewhere in the state.”

Read more on false and misleading voting claims here.

The BBC has been talking to Gabriel Montalvo, a Latino voter who switched from Democrat to Republican this year to cast his vote for Donald Trump. He says:

The mainstream media has jumped the gun projecting that Biden will win the electoral college.

Nothing has changed since yesterday and President Trump's campaign has signalled that he will mount vigorous legal action in multiple swing states on Monday.

The American political process continues and this is the media playing psychological warfare to make President Trump seem like a sore loser in the court of public opinion.

I do think the country can heal. There's going to be people on either side that don't support this election but it should never get to the point of violence. You have a right to protest but you do not have a right to riot.

But Biden's win is seen as disingenuous to a lot of us.

Find out more about what our voter panel has to say about the election result here.

Estonian Minister of Interior Mart Helme says he will resign from his post over comments he made about President-elect Joe Biden on a radio talk show.

The minister branded Joe Biden and his son Hunter as “corrupt types”.

Helme’s son Martin, who is the nation's finance minister, also joined the talk show where he claimed the election was “rigged”, according to local media.

Both are members of the far-right Conservative People's Party of Estonia (EKRE).

Estonia’s President Kersti Kaljulaid said she was “embarrassed” by the two men’s comments.

In a statement she said they had “damaged our relations with our allies and have sown doubt on the Estonian democratic elections”.

Mart Helme said he was leaving his post to preserve the coalition.

Image source, EPA

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has delivered her first public speech about Joe Biden’s win.

Merkel congratulated Biden “wholeheartedly”, saying that he knows Germany and Europe well and she had fond memories of meeting him.

She also congratulated Kamala Harris as the first woman vice-president and added that, as a child of two migrants, the Californian was an “inspiration to many people”.

Merkel stressed the importance of the two countries’ relationship and said that without US support, German reunification 30 years ago would never have been possible.

She added that the two countries must stand together to overcome major challenges, such as the coronavirus pandemic, global warming and terrorism.

A short while ago we brought you the latest news from Russia, and specifically President Putin's delay in acknowledging Joe Biden as president-elect.

Since then Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, has given an update.

“The correct thing to do is wait for the official result,” he said. He referred to the “legal procedures” announced by Donald Trump.

US election results are never official until final certification, which occurs in each state in the weeks following the election.

However, the media projections - which involve the work of thousands of analysts - are usually deemed enough to spark a concession and kick off the transition process.

Even though President Trump has refused to conceed, congratulations have flooded in from many other world leaders.

US media have noted that an independent government agency has yet to sign an important letter that facilitates the transfer of power between Trump and Biden.

The General Services Administration (GSA) signs paperwork that allows the transition team access to government officials, office space, equipment and funds.

According to the Washington Post, external, the letter amounts to a formal declaration by the federal government - outside of the media - of the winner of the presidential race,

Democrats have criticised the delay.

However, Robert C MacKichan Jr, an attorney who served as GSA general counsel for president Ronald Reagan and George HW Bush, said it is too early for the letter to be signed because Trump has not yet conceded and the results have not been made official by the electoral college.

Since the 1960s, the agency has always identified the winner within hours, or at most a day, after the media projections.