Actress Eva Longoria has clarified election comments made in a TV interview, after she was criticised for taking credit for the election win away from black women.

In an earlier interview with MSNBC, the actress had said that Latinas were heroines in the election for their turnout and voting for Biden and Harris.

She was criticised for failing to acknowledge the influence of black men and women on this year's election results.

Writing on Facebook, external, the actress said: “When I said that Latinas were heroines in this election, I simply meant that they turned out in greater numbers and voted more progressively than LATINO men.

“Black women have long been the backbone of the Democratic Party, something we have seen played out in this election as well as previous ones.

“Nothing but love and support for black women everywhere!” she added.

Steve Rosenberg
BBC Moscow Correspondent

What a difference four years make.

In 2016 Vladimir Putin was among the first world leaders to congratulate President-elect Trump on his victory.

In 2020 Mr Putin has yet to congratulate President-elect Biden.

Perhaps it’s because this time round the Kremlin is less excited by the result.

Joe Biden has been a vocal critic of Moscow. He recently named Russia as the biggest threat to America.

This morning’s Russian newspapers aren’t enthused by the prospect of President Biden.

The government’s Rossiyskaya Gazeta called Mr Biden “a lame duck”. Another paper dismissed him as “old and senile”.

Nezavisimaya Gazeta commented on President Putin’s delay in contacting the winner. It said the Kremlin’s “caution” was “…understandable. In America the official vote count hasn’t been completed.”

Watch Steve Rosenberg's video round-up of the Russian headlines below

James, a lifelong Republican who voted for Joe Biden, has been speaking to the BBC. This was his first time voting for a Democrat. Here's what he had to say:

Biden is a seasoned politician who has all sorts of personal connections in the Senate. Even if the Senate remains in Republican hands, I believe that Biden as president will be able to reach across the aisle and get things done.

This is the first time I've ever voted for a Democrat for president. The very first time.

I'm looking forward to Trump being gone so I can become a Republican again.

I fear that Trump will set himself up with his own TV network. Certainly a running commentary for the next four years as he seeks to run for president again in 2024.

He will continue for the next four years to spout this nonsense about massive fraud and there's no evidence of massive fraud.

It's just amazing to me the kind of stuff he says.

Read more from our voter panel here.

Harmeet Dhillon, a Republican Party official and member of Donald Trump’s legal team, has been speaking to the BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

She was asked if she really believed that potential recounts could end up reversing the result, giving that Joe Biden is leading Trump by tens of thousands of votes in Pennsylvania, Nevada and Arizona.

“It is not as if there is one magic bullet here,” said Dhillon. “There are half a dozen states that are still in play or disputed and the president would need to win at a minimum Pennsylvania and two others. We believe that is possible.”

Many experts have said that recounts tend to affect results when margins are down to a few hundred votes.

Read more about the legal challenges Trump is planning

A record 32 million Latinos were eligible to vote in the 2020 election, making them the largest minority bloc of voters in the country.

Although they historically lean Democrat, their support for the Republican party has been increasing. But it's a very mixed picture.

Watch Angélica Casas delve into the subject.

Image source, Reuters

Joe Biden is someone who “will do everything to bring people together”, former UK prime minister Gordon Brown said.

Speaking to the Today Programme on BBC Radio 4, Brown said Biden's international focuses will be on global health, the economy and the “green revolution”.

The former Labour leader said there are huge amounts of things Biden can do by executive order, such as re-joining the Paris agreement even if he does not have control of the senate.

“He’s one of those guys where what you see is what you get. He works closely with people, he’s a natural negotiator,” Brown said

He added that Biden plans to come to Britain within the first six months of his presidency, probably for the meeting of the G7 nations, however this would be dependent on the coronavirus pandemic. He could then visit again for a climate change summit in Glasgow, Brown said.

“Joe Biden has always been a friend of Britain,” he said.

Image source, Reuters

President Trump has been incredibly quiet, making his last official appearance on Thursday.

On Sunday, just before midnight local time, he posted a number of video clips from Fox News, which discussed mail-in ballots and whether the president planned to concede the election.

But, without any captions or messages, the messages were unlike his other empassioned tweets about the election.

There are no planned events in his diary for Monday.

Image source, EPA

Germany’s Foreign Minister Heiko Maas says he doesn’t think Nato’s defence spending target will be as much of a focus under President-elect Joe Biden.

President Donald Trump has been vocal about Germany’s defence spending, complaining that the country had failed to raise defence spending to 2% of its economic output – a move that was mandated by Nato.

Trump previously claimed Europe's Nato members were not spending enough to support the alliance and were relying on the US to shoulder the burden.

He said the US would move nearly 12,000 troops out of Germany, some of whom going elsewhere in Europe.

Maas told Deutschlandfunk radio on Monday that the argument over spending would be conducted in a different style under Biden but would not end.

BBC Monitoring
The world through its media

The mayor of a small Japanese town has found internet stardom after people realised his name could be pronounced "Jo Baiden".

Yutaka Umeda, 73, was surprised by the attention he received online, Kyodo News agency reports, external, but welcomed the unexpected connection the the new president-elect.

Kanji characters used in Japanese can have several phonetic readings. In the mayor's case, the characters "ume" and "da" in his family name - meaning "plum" and "rice field" – can also be pronounced as "bai" and "den", while the character for "Yutaka" is often pronounced as "Jo".

"I feel very close to him. It feels as though I've also won the election after hearing about [Biden's] projected win," the mayor of Yamato, in Japan's south-western Kumamoto Prefecture, said.

The town of less than 15,000 people currently has no plans aimed at capitalising on this unexpected link, but Umeda hopes it will help the place become better known.

"Being the president of a superpower as the United States and a mayor of Yamato, the scale [of our jobs] is completely different, but I would like to think of ways to promote the town," he said.

Image source, Reuters

A winner has been chosen, and for many of us, that means an end to staring at the US election ticker at the top of the BBC News website, waiting for a result.

But the count isn't over, and there are still a few states left to declare their winner.

So which states are we still waiting to hear from?

Georgia: Some 99% of the state's votes have been counted, and most of them are for Biden - but only just. He has a lead of 10,353 votes, giving him 49.5% of the vote to Trump's 49.3%. The state has announced a recount because of the tight margins.

Arizona: Biden has a lead here too, with 98% of the vote counted. He currently has 16,985 more votes than Trump

North Carolina: Trump leads here, with 98% of the vote having been counted. He has 75,407 more votes than Biden

Alaska: Only 56% of the vote has been counted in this Republican stronghold. Trump has almost twice as many votes as Biden, but it's still too early to project the winner. The state, however, was never considered a batteground as it has long been assumed that Trump will eventually win here and score the state's three electoral college votes.

Image source, Getty Images

The Nelson Mandela Foundation has "celebrated" the end of Donald Trump's presidency and urged President-elect Joe Biden to fix the problems of "racism, sexism, xenophobia and Afrophobia".

"It is with a sense of relief that we have seen President Donald Trump defeated in the US presidential election. Like many around the world, we celebrate the fact that we won’t have to watch him undermining democratic institutions," the foundation, which was set up to continue the legacy of Mandela following his tenure as South Africa's first black president, said in a statement., external

The foundation urged Trump to support what it termed as a difficult transition.

"As Nelson Mandela often used to say, a good leader knows when to step down. And how to do so appropriately. It’s not too late for Trump to embrace dignity, for himself and for others," it said.

Anthony Zurcher
BBC North America reporter

Image source, Reuters

After nearly 50 years in public office, and a lifetime of presidential ambitions, Joe Biden has captured the White House.

It was not the campaign anyone predicted. It took place amidst a once-in-a-century pandemic and unprecedented social unrest. He was running against an unconventional, precedent-defying incumbent.

But in his third try for the presidency, Biden and his team found a way to navigate the political obstacles and claim a victory that, while narrow in the electoral college tally, is projected to surpass Trump's overall national total by millions of votes.

Read Anthony's list of Biden's stepping stones to victory here.

Al Schmidt, Philadelphia's Republican city commissioner, has told CBS's 60 Minutes that his office, which is responsible for the vote count, has received death threats.

The count of provisional ballots is still continuing and expected to last for another week.

Schmidt said there had been calls to his office in which people had told him “this is what the second amendment is for”.

He added: “At the end of the day, we are counting eligible votes cast by voters. The controversy surrounding it is something I don’t understand.”

Image source, Reuters

For our readers in the UK and Europe who are just waking up, good morning and welcome to our rolling coverage of the US election.

The results of the vote may have been called, but there's still a lot going on. To help you catch up, here are the headlines:

• President-elect Joe Biden is reportedly planning to issue a series of executive orders to reverse some of Donald Trump's measures after assuming office in January. This will apparently include rejoining the Paris climate accord and the World Health Organization
• Biden is also going to name a 12-member coronavirus task force on Monday, which he's said will be made up of "leading scientists and experts"
• This comes as Vice-President Mike Pence is set to reconvene a meeting of Trump's own coronavirus task force, which has not met for weeks because of the election campaign
• Although Biden is now making plans to ease the transition of power, Trump still has not conceded the election. Instead, he is continuing to tweet allegations - still presented without any evidence - of voter fraud and irregularities on election day, and is going ahead with a series of legal challenges in several key states
• Apart from the tweets, Trump has not spoken publicly since the election was called for Biden. Tomorrow, again, he has no official plans
• A bipartisan group of former White House officials has urged Trump to concede the election and move on so that the transition period can begin

And if you want to know how the rest of the world has been reacting to the news of Biden's win, BBC Monitoring's Krassi Twigg has taken a look:

Christopher Badillo is a young progressive who reluctantly voted for Joe Biden. The BBC has been catching up with him over the weekend. Here is what he had to say:

This is the start of the work, not the end. We need to get back to work.

I need to go back into my community and start doing the work to organise for a Democratic infrastructure that will actually make progressive change. In my area of Florida, the Democrats have lost a lot of local seats. We need to reflect on how we build up Democratic candidates that serve the community but who can also win.

If we're going to define unity as everybody coming together and singing in the streets, that's just not going to happen.

We're going to have to work to get ourselves to the point where we feel like our country is one.

That's going to be a long process because our systems are truly broken and it's going to take all of us to put it back together.

Read more from the BBC's vote panel - made up of people from across the US - here.

With Joe Biden having won the election, it's official - after four years pooch-free, there will be dogs in the White House again.

And not just one, but two. Biden's two German Shepherds, Champ and Major, are getting ready to take their places as First Pooches in January.

Champ is 12 and was by Biden's side during his time as vice-president, while Major is a young rescue dog whom the Bidens adopted in 2018.

Major will also be making history as the first dog rescued from an animal shelter in the White House.

It's been a long-time tradition for presidents to have a dog while in office. Trump didn't have a dog when he was elected, however, and later said he wouldn't get a dog because doing so would feel "a little phony".

Image source, EPA

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has said he wants to resume sincere political dialogue with the US once Joe Biden takes over as president in January.

"In time... we will work, hopefully, to resume decent, sincere, direct channels of dialogue between the future government of Joe Biden" and Venezuela, Maduro has said in a televised speech.

The left-wing leader broke off diplomatic relations with the US in January 2019 after Donald Trump's administration - along with about 60 other countries - recognised opposition leader Juan Guaido as Venezuela's president. Despite the international pressure, Maduro remains in power.

"Donald Trump left a minefield between the government of the United States and Venezuela," Maduro added. "He left a swamp. I know, we know."

Meanwhile, here's how other world leaders reacted to the news of Biden's win.

It is fair to say that users of the Chinese social media site Weibo have been enjoying watching events in the US over the last few days.

Some have even gone as far as to declare that "US politics is more exciting than their Hollywood blockbusters".

Indeed, many of China's social media users have made light of the "conflict caused by two white-haired old man". Others say they are watching and waiting to see what Donald Trump might do next.

One even suggests - with tongue firmly in cheek - that Trump has been working for China all these years, helping stir up chaos in the US.

"You've done your job, you can come home now," the user jokes.

But all that aside, there is also a sense that some are worried about what a Biden presidency would mean for China, with some saying that Biden would be "more difficult to deal with".

Here's our piece on what Biden's victory means for the rest of the world.

Image source, Getty Images

Nick Bryant
BBC New York Correspondent

Image source, Reuters

Let the 2020 election bury the mistaken notion once and for all that the 2016 election was a historical accident, an American aberration.

Donald Trump won more than 70 million votes, the second highest total in American history. Nationally, he has more than a 47% share of his vote, and looks to have won 24 states, including his beloved Florida and Texas.

He has an extraordinary hold over large swathes of this country, a visceral connection that among thousands of supporters has brought a near cult-like devotion. After four years in the White House, his supporters studied the fine print of his presidency and clicked enthusiastically on the terms and conditions.

Any analysis of his political weakness in 2020 also has to acknowledge his political strength. However, he was defeated, becoming one of only four incumbents in the modern era not to get another four years. Also he has become the first president to lose the popular vote in consecutive elections.

Donald Trump won the presidency in 2016 partly because he was a norm-busting political outsider who was prepared to say what had previously been unsayable.

But Donald Trump also lost the presidency in 2020 partly because he was a norm-busting political outsider who was prepared to say what had previously been unsayable.

Read Nick's full analysis.

Taylor Golden is a white woman who became energised about politics for the first time in 2016 - because of Trump. A member of our voter panel, she tells the BBC:

It's so exhausting because Trump has been fighting his entire presidency. People never left him alone to let him do his job.

I'm exhausted, I'm so tired of it. I've had to turn off social media and unplug and calm myself not to stress about it.

I don't believe in the results, Biden can't legally become president yet. I believe that everything will be settled in the Supreme Court.

If Biden does win, it's going to be a crappy next four years.

It will inspire me to get involved more for the next election with the Republicans in my town.

Read more from Taylor and the other members of our voter panel here.