Image source, Getty Images

Stacey Abrams, a politician who is being credited with a large Democratic turnout in the traditionally Republican state of Georgia, has been speaking on CNN about Joe Biden and Kamala Harris's win.

"It is a privilege in this nation to be able to see yourself reflected in the face of leadership," she said.

"For African-Americans and Indian-Americans, Kamala Harris signals that the face of leadership does change. We do have a role to play beyond being supporters - it shows that we can be the leaders in this country."

Abrams ran to be Georgia governor in 2018. After a narrow loss (she never officially conceded) she pledged to mobilise voters in a state where accusations have long been made about the disenfranchisement of black voters. Since then, hundreds of thousands more African-Americans have registered to vote.

"We've been working on this for more than a decade," Abrams said.

Georgia is yet to be projected and will go to a recount. The latest count shows Biden is ahead by 10,196 votes. Democrats haven't won the state since 1992.

Two Senate races in Georgia will go to a run-off election in January, giving Democrats hope of still flipping the Senate from Republican control.

Celebrities and sports stars wasted no time revelling in Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’ election win.

Julia Louis-Dreyfus, who plays a fictional female vice-president in the TV satire Veep, led the charge, celebrating Harris’ historic win with this tweet:

Pop star Lizzo posted multiple updates - including a video of her sobbing with joy, external.

Kim Kardashian-West tweeted a picture of the victors holding hands - not mentioning her husband Kanye West, who was on the ballot in some states but only received 60,000 votes out an estimated total of 160 million cast.

Lady Gaga, who campaigned with Biden in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on the eve of the election, tweeted: "@JoeBiden @KamalaHarris and the American people, you just gave the world one of the greatest acts of kindness and bravery humanity has ever seen."

Comedian Mindy Kaling was emotional over the first woman of colour to become vice-president-elect.

NBA star LeBron James, who repeatedly clashed with Trump during his presidency, put up numerous celebratory posts including this one:

US soccer player Megan Rapinoe - who famously said she wouldn't go to the White House if her team won the World Cup - tweeted that she can't get to the White House "fast enough now". She also posted:

Rappers Lil Pump, Lil Wayne and Kid Rock, who voiced support for Trump's re-election, have yet to comment.

Actors Scott Baio and Kirstie Alley, both Trump supporters, have backed his claims of voter fraud on Twitter.

Image source, Getty Images

As election news on Saturday swung from painfully slow to hyper-speed in a matter of minutes, a bizarre scenario unfolded that ultimately ended with Donald Trump's lawyer speaking to reporters from a garden centre car park next to a porn shop.

It's raised a lot of questions online. What was behind the Four Seasons Landscaping saga? We've done our best to untangle some details.

On Saturday morning, as Trump repeated unproven claims that the election had been rife with fraud, he tweeted that he was holding a "big press conference". The venue would be Four Seasons Total Landscaping in Philadelphia (a city in Pennsylvania where Republicans had tried unsuccessfully to get vote counting halted).

Shortly after, the Four Seasons hotel in Philadelphia tweeted a clarification - they were not hosting Trump's press conference. Four Seasons Total Landscaping had "no relation with the hotel.", external

In fact the venue was, as Google Maps revealed, a small garden centre next to a crematorium and Fantasy Island adult book shop on the city's outskirts.

It remains unclear if Trump's staff intended to book the garden centre or confused it with the luxury skyscraper hotel in central Philadelphia.

The president had originally tweeted: "Lawyers News Conference Four Seasons, Philadelphia. 11:00 a.m” before correcting the tweet. The New York Times reports that the venue was always the garden centre but Trump had misunderstood the intended location.

Image source, Getty Images

Around 11:30ET, as US networks and the BBC projected that Joe Biden would win the election, Trump's personal lawyer and loyal ally Rudy Giuliani emerged from a door in a small green warehouse and began to address reporters from the car park.

With Trump/Pence campaign posters fixed to a garage door behind him, Giuliani made a series of claims about electoral fraud without providing evidence. At one point, journalists informed him that Joe Biden was projected to win the election. “Don’t be ridiculous," he replied.

The story was inevitably swallowed up by the day's huge news - but social media remains thirsty for answers.

Image source, Reuters

In the south Indian village of Thulasendrapuram - some 14,000km (8,700 miles) from Washington DC - celebrations were in full swing on Sunday.

Villagers were ecstatic that Kamala Harris, whose maternal grandfather was born in Thulasendrapuram, had been elevated to vice-president-elect of the US.

As we reported earlier, firecrackers were set off and prayers were offered to mark the projected victory of Harris and President-elect Joe Biden.

Now we can bring you some more pictures of the festivities from the village, which is in Tamil Nadu state.

Image source, Reuters

Messages of support for Harris were drawn outside homes, while posters wishing the Democratic senator a “grand success” adorned walls.

"A new history for America was written by a woman whom we consider as a daughter of our village,” a councillor for the village, Arul Mozhi Sudhakar, told the BBC.

Image source, Getty Images

Elsewhere, a close relative of Harris in the Indian capital Delhi - her maternal uncle, Gopalan Balachandran - said the family in India would fly to the US to attend the inauguration next year. He said he had been calm during the nail-biting wait for election results.

“I knew she was going to win. So, I was not tense, except I wanted the final results to come in so that I could go and sleep."

Read more: The many identities of the first woman vice-president

James Landale
Diplomatic correspondent

Image source, Getty Images

The election of Joe Biden leaves Boris Johnson facing a substantial diplomatic repair job.

The two men have never met. Last December the president-elect described the prime minister as a "physical and emotional clone" of Donald Trump.

There are people around Mr Biden who remember bitterly how Mr Johnson once suggested President Obama harboured anti-British sentiment because of his part-Kenyan ancestry.

Mr Biden and his team think Brexit is an historic mistake. They would not want Britain to leave the EU without a trade deal, particularly if it involved breaking commitments made in the Northern Ireland protocol.

Read the full article here.

Steve Rosenberg
BBC Moscow Correspondent

Image source, Getty Images

So far, no tweet, no telephone call, no congratulatory telegram from President Putin to President-elect Biden.

The Kremlin is silent.

But not so Russian state TV’s most controversial news anchor Dmitry Kiselev, who has delivered a stinging rebuke of the US election.

“The US electoral system is so archaic, such a dinosaur, I can’t bring myself to call it democratic,” he told viewers of his flagship weekly news show.

“US President Trump speaks of mass ballot-stuffing by the Democrats, he says fraudulent methods are being used to steal the election from him.”

Mr Kiselev omitted to say that the president had provided no evidence for this.

Image source, Screengrab

The news anchor has a reputation for colourful anti-Western monologues. Even by his standards, today’s performance was eyebrow-raising.

He criticised US TV networks for collectively switching away from Donald Trump while he was talking, calling it “a sign of a coloured revolution” in America.

“For a long time, America tried to teach us. Now the teacher has gone on the rampage, smashed the windows, and pooped in his pants.”

The aim here: to try to devalue American democracy in the eyes of the Russian people. And, in so doing, make them feel better about Russia’s own political system.

BBC Monitoring

While mostly welcoming the announcement of Joe Biden's victory, the European press have noted that challenges are ahead, and not just legal challenges to the result.

Here are some observations from across the continent.

Italy

In the immediate aftermath of the projected victory, the Italian press focused on better acquainting its readers with the president-elect.

Il Fatto Quotidiano described Biden as “the Democrat always in the centre who isn’t divisive and can talk to everyone". It went on: "He might not be the most exciting choice, but that’s why he’s been chosen: to represent normality after the Trump era.”

Germany

"Joe Biden and his vice-president Kamala Harris have four years in which they can try to heal America," said a prominent front-page article on the website of news magazine Der Spiegel.

"Will Trump now barricade himself at the White House?" asked newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. "That should not be the president-elect's biggest worry. What Trump does after his departure could become much more dangerous to Biden."

France

Le Monde says: "At the end of four days of unbearable suspense, the Democrat has officially been elected the 46th president of the United States. But his predecessor Donald Trump has certainly not said his last word."

"At 77 years, Biden will become the oldest president ever elected," writes Le Figaro. "He will also become the president of a country confronted with an unprecedented combination of multiple crises, health, economic, social, and political."

Netherlands

"As president, his abilities as a folksy builder of bridges will be tested," predicted newspaper NRC Handelsblad.

"For the US, Joe Biden is like a pair of old slippers: familiar and comfortable. With him, as he promised during the campaign, you need not wake up worried about your president's mouthy tweets," said popular daily Algemeen Dagblad.

Belgium

"Four years of Trump in the White House have acutely increased the division and polarisation in America," said leading daily De Standaard. "Because of that, Biden will have no option but to make a serous attempt to reconcile Americans with one another."

Portugal

"Good news for the world" said Portugal's Politico. "Trump can contest the results on Twitter, the streets or the courts, but the sovereign will of American citizens has triumphed, and the US and the world will be freed from ... the president that always lacked the sufficient dignity to lead the greatest superpower."

Poland

The Polish daily Rzeczpospolita said things would be "a bit different" in the USA from now on but "we will get used to this".

One of Joe Biden's closest allies has told the BBC that his election is an opportunity "to jump-start a new chapter" in transatlantic relations following past disagreements with the Obama administration over Brexit.

Senator Chris Coons, who is also from Delaware and a possible secretary of state in the new Biden administration, said he expected there to be some "reconsideration of whatever comments may have been made about the moment of Brexit".

When vice-president under Barack Obama, Biden opposed Brexit, which current UK PM Boris Johnson successfully campaigned for.

"President-elect Biden is someone who has long valued our partnership with the UK, the EU, with Nato and other countries which share our core values," Coons told Andrew Marr.

"The reality is the UK government shares a number of the biggest priorities that a new Biden-Harris administration will have, namely combating climate change, working together on security and promoting democracy.

"We have more to do together than we could possibly do apart and I am sure those enduring and tectonic forces will bring us together fairly quickly."

You'll remember that it was Pennsylvania - and its haul of 20 electoral college votes - that took Joe Biden over the line to become president-elect. Soon after his victory was projected on Saturday, Nevada was also projected as a win for him, taking his total to 279 electoral college votes versus 214 for Donald Trump.

Four states remain to be projected. Here's the state of play.

Arizona - Biden leads by 18,610 with 97% counted

Some US media organisations projected this for Biden early. The BBC still has not. We don't expect any update soon as the ballots still being counted require additional time.

Georgia - Biden leads by 10,196 with 99% counted

Biden has a narrow lead in this southern and normally reliably Republican state. But there will be a recount so we don't expect a result soon here either.

North Carolina - Trump leads by 75,407 with 98% counted

Trump has a strong lead here but no networks have projected it yet. There are still lots of ballots that are yet to be counted or rejected, and postal ballots postmarked by election day are still valid if received by 12 November.

Alaska - Trump leads by 51,382 with 56% counted

Trump has a significant lead in this solidly Republican state but there are many votes left to count - and postal ballots can continue to arrive until 18 November.

For a deep dive into the results click here.

Joe Biden supporters took to the streets to celebrate his projected victory on Saturday.

Footage of thousands of people singing "Sweet Caroline" in Washington DC has been doing the rounds on social media. (There have been some concerns about the risk of Covid transmission in those packed crowds, we should note.)

But one man really stole the show while crashing a French TV broadcast.

Omelette du fromage, anyone?

Image source, Reuters

Since Biden was announced as the projected election winner, messages from world leaders have poured in - most of them positive. Here's what some of them have had to say.

• Boris Johnson (UK) said the US "is our most important ally and I look forward to working closely together on our shared priorities, from climate change to trade and security"
• Narendra Modi (India) called it a "spectacular victory", and added effusive congratulations to Kamala Harris, who is half Indian: "Your success is pathbreaking, and a matter of immense pride not just for your chittis (aunties), but also for all Indian-Americans"
• Justin Trudeau (Canada) said: "We share a relationship that's unique on the world stage. I'm really looking forward to working together and building on that with you both"
• Muhammadu Buhari (Nigeria) said Biden's victory was a "reminder that democracy is the best form of government because it offers the people the opportunity to change their government by peaceful means"
• Angela Merkel (Germany) said that "our transatlantic friendship is indispensable if we are to deal with the major challenges of our times"
• Fuat Oktay (Turkey's vice-president) gave a more lukewarm response. "Nothing will change for Turkey," he said
• Nicolás Maduro (Venezuela) said his country "will always be ready for dialogue and understanding with the people and government of the US"
• But Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (Iran) said the election was "a spectacle", adding: "This is an example of the ugly face of liberal democracy in the US. Regardless of the outcome, one thing is absolutely clear, the definite political, civil, & moral decline of the US regime"
• And Alexander Lukashenko (Belarus) - whose own recent re-election, widely viewed as rigged, sparked nationwide unrest - condemned the US result as "a travesty of democracy"

There is still a noticeable silence from Russia, China and North Korea.

Laura Trevelyan
BBC World News America presenter

This is Richard, who voted for Joe Biden in his home state of Florida. After Saturday's result he told me that now Biden is president-elect, he felt profound relief and hope for the future.

Richard, who is working from one short term contract to another in retail, wants the next president to get a grip on coronavirus so the economy can return to normal.

Richard was in the final stage of interviewing for a not-for-profit job back in the spring when the coronavirus outbreak began in the US, and the charity stopped hiring.

He can't see his girlfriend in England either as there's no way either of them can travel during the pandemic.

Richard is hoping Biden and Kamala Harris can heal this divided nation, and that President Trump will accept the verdict of the American people.

The UK's foreign secretary has said the government is "excited" about working with President-elect Joe Biden following his victory.

"We want to avoid getting sucked into domestic American politics but it is very clear now, in our view, that there is a definitive result," Dominic Raab told the BBC's Andrew Marr.

Raab said he hoped, under the incoming president's leadership, the two countries would work together closely on the development and rollout of a Covid vaccine and next year's Cop-26 climate change summit, which is being hosted by the UK.

"There is a huge bedrock of interests and values that bind our two countries... it is clear we are excited about the opportunities of working together," he said.

The UK, he added, would "listen carefully" to US concerns about the impact of Brexit on peace in Northern Ireland.

Biden, who as vice-president under Barack Obama opposed Brexit, has warned that the 1998 Good Friday Agreement - the deal which brought to an end 30 years of violence in Northern Ireland - must "not be a casualty" of the UK's exit from the EU.

Raab said he understood Biden, who is Irish-American, had strong feelings on the matter but said he had made clear in his visits to the US this year as foreign secretary that he felt that it was the EU, rather than the UK, which was "putting pressure" on the agreement.

Read more on this story here.

Image source, Getty Images

On 20 January 2021, Joe Biden will – pending legal challenges – be inaugurated as the 46th US president.

He’s expected to get down to work immediately in trying to unwind key parts of Donald Trump’s agenda. Here’s some of what we know:

Climate: He will tell the UN that America will again join the Paris Agreement that Donald Trump left. Only a month’s notice is needed and the US should be back in the global pact to fight climate change that commits nations to reducing emissions.

Covid: As we just reported, Biden has pledged to set up a Pandemic Testing Board to “produce and distribute tens of millions of tests”. He also wants to set up a nationwide contact-tracing programme and call on governors to impose mask-wearing mandates..

Immigration and borders: He has vowed to end any separation of migrant families at the southern border and to immediately rescind the controversial travel ban that targets several Muslim-majority countries

• Read more here about Biden's policies

Coronavirus is being seen as one of the major reasons Joe Biden clinched victory, and all eyes will be on how he goes about tackling the pandemic - the most immediate and obvious challenge facing the country.

President-elect Biden's plan is to provide free testing for all and hire 100,000 people to set up a national contact-tracing programme.

He says he wants to establish at least 10 testing centres in every state, call upon federal agencies to deploy resources and give firmer national guidance through federal experts. He says all governors should mandate wearing masks.

For now though, cases continue to climb - the latest daily figures show 128,396 cases were recorded on Saturday, external. That means for four days in a row daily cases have been above 100,000.

The number of deaths on Saturday was 1,097. With more than 237,000 virus deaths, the US has the highest death toll in the world.

It's been about 20 hours since the US networks (and us at the BBC) called the race for Joe Biden based on his projected win in the key state of Pennsylvania.

Here's how that moment was reported live on American television.

Image source, Reuters

All local paper journalists know that it's essential you cater to your audience.

Scotland's Ayrshire Daily News made sure of that when covering Donald Trump's loss to Joe Biden. The president owns the Trump Turnberry golf course in South Ayrshire.

"South Ayrshire Golf club owner loses 2020 presidential election" was the headline on the Daily's website.

Read the story in full here., external

The paper does not speculate as to whether the golf-loving current president - who took to another one of his courses yesterday as the news from Pennsylvania came in - might choose to spend more time at his Turnberry location in future.

The US has had a history of defeated presidential candidates graciously and publicly conceding defeat since 1896, when William Jennings Bryan sent a brief telegram to victor William McKinley expressing his "congratulations".

Since then every candidate has kept up the tradition - no matter how rancorous or hostile the election - and usually within hours of the polls closing.

But there's no legal or constitutional requirement to concede and the Trump campaign has indicated their candidate does not plan to do so

Soon after Biden's victory was announced, Trump released a statement saying: "This election is far from over." The president has not spoken in public since the numbers were announced, but he repeated previous claims of voter fraud in a tweet, which Twitter soon marked as a "disputed" claim.

This is in stark contrast to John McCain's speech after losing to Barack Obama in 2008.

Hillary Clinton delivered a concession speech in 2016 despite her election battle against Trump being one of the most bitter in history.

She said she congratulated him and said she hoped he would be a "successful president for all Americans".

Joe Biden and Kamala Harris couldn't appear closer after their historic election victory.

"We did it! We did it, Joe. You're going to be the next president of the United States!" Harris beamed as the pair spoke by phone on Saturday. The moment was captured in a video posted to her social media that has gone viral.

But it wasn't long ago that things were not so cosy between the pair.

When Harris was running for the Democratic nomination herself last year, she launched a potent attack on Joe Biden over race during a televised debate. It was seen as a stand-out moment that inflicted some damage on Biden's primary campaign.

And early last year Harris said she believed women who had accused Biden of touching them inappropriately. Biden later pledged to be "more mindful" of physical contact with women.

"I believe them and I respect them being able to tell their story and having the courage to do it," Harris said.

Asked by a reporter at the time if Biden should run for president, she replied: "He's going to have to make that decision for himself. I wouldn’t tell him what to do."

However Harris endorsed Biden with "great enthusiasm" in March, and she was announced as his running mate in August. The former vice-president referred to Harris's friendship with his late son Beau when the two were both attorneys general when he made the pick.

Kamala Harris has made history as the first female, first black and first Asian American US vice-president-elect.

President-elect Joe Biden chose the California senator as his running mate a few months ago.

We take a look at her life and career - and how you say her name.

Have a watch.