Image source, EPA

We're pausing our live coverage of the US election aftermath - thanks for staying with us.

Just to recap - here are the key developments in the past 24 hours:

• Senior Democrats have urged Republicans to "accept reality" over the US presidential election. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi also accused Trump of ignoring the coronavirus crisis
• President-elect Joe Biden has announced his chief of staff - veteran political operative Ron Klain. The appointment has been welcomed by a broad range of Democrats
• Biden, a devout Catholic, has spoken with the Pope by telephone, with the pair discussing "humanity's common bonds"
• Donald Trump continues to refuse to admit defeat - nine days after the closely-fought poll. Many senior Republicans are continuing to back him
• A growing chorus of former US officials and former world leaders are warning that the delay to the transition of power is posing a risk to US security and democracy
• Three states have yet to be projected - Arizona, Georgia and North Carolina. However Biden already has an unassailable tally of 279 under the electoral college system, the BBC projects

Thursday's live page was brought to you by our teams in London and Washington - Mal Siret, Ritu Prasad, Vicky Bisset, Yaroslav Lukov, Max Matza, Patrick Jackson and Thomas Spender.

Biden has expressed condolences to the families and friends of five American peacekeepers who died in a helicopter crash in Egypt's Sinai peninsula earlier on Thursday.

In a tweet, the US president-elect also wished "a speedy recovery", external to one US national who survived the crash.

"I join all Americans in honouring their sacrifice, as I keep their loved ones in my prayers," Biden wrote.

The American death toll was initially given as six before later being revised to five.

The Multinational Force and Observers (MFO) said the helicopter came down during a routine mission near the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh., external

A French citizen and a Czech citizen also died.

An investigation is now under way into what caused the crash.

Read our full story here

Image source, Getty Images

Twitter says that approximately 300,000 "disputed and potentially misleading" tweets had additional context added to them in the two-week period around the election, according to a report it released today. That represents some 0.2% of all election-related tweets sent during their study.

Around 450 tweets were subjected to further censoring, with warning labels applied and restrictions about how they could be shared.

The report, external focused on tweets sent from 27 October to 11 November. As you're probably aware, dozens of Trump tweets (including those claiming he had won re-election) were flagged under the Twitter rules that were temporarily put in place for the election.

Overall, about 75% of people that viewed the tweets in question did so after the labels were applied, Twitter says. The number of times the labelled tweets were shared in quote tweets was also down by nearly 30%, the firms said.

The analysis comes as Twitter begins to roll back some of their election-time restrictions.

Image source, Reuters

Donald Trump has issued an order banning American investments in Chinese firms the government determines have ties to the Chinese military.

In the order,, external Trump accused China of "increasingly exploiting" US investors "to finance the development and modernisation of its military".

The ban is to go into effect in January.

It could affect some of China's biggest publicly-listed firms, including China Telecom and tech firm Hikvision.

Throughout his administration, Trump has made efforts to disentangle the US from its close economic ties with China.

Read our full story here

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Joe Biden has been projected to reach the 270 electoral college votes needed to beat Donald Trump in the race to the White House. What happens now?

The former vice-president does not get to move his furniture into 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue straight away - there are a few things that need to happen first.

It's usually a smooth process, but there are extra complications this time due to probable legal challenges to the election.

The presidential transition is the period between the election result and the start of the new presidential term on 20 January.

The incoming president assembles a group called a transition team who prepare to assume power immediately after inauguration - and the Biden team has already set up a transition website, external.

They will pick people to serve in the cabinet, discuss policy priorities and prepare to govern.

Read more here

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With just two weeks until Thanksgiving, the mayor of Chicago has issued a month-long advisory for residents to stay at home, warning that 1,000 more people could die in the city by the end of the year if no action is taken to stop the spread of coronavirus.

Citing an "alarming and ongoing surge in Covid-19 cases", Mayor Lori Lightfoot called on people in the city to remain at home except for essential reasons, to stop having guests from other households, avoid non-essential travel, and cancel "traditional Thanksgiving plans".

She said that cases had risen from 500 per day a month ago to at least 1,9000 currently.

While the mayor did not order a complete shutdown, she also announced a 10-person limit on social gatherings. Both measures will come into effect from 06:00 on Monday morning.

Chicago is the latest US region to impose new restrictions as a second wave gathers pace in the US. President-elect Biden has made tackling the virus his top priority. One of his coronavirus advisers has suggested a 4-6-week national lockdown but the top US virus expert Dr Anthony Fauci has said that won't be necessary if people wear masks and follow social distancing guidelines.

Image source, EPA

Biden has had talks with two top Democratic politicians, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority leader Chuck Schumer.

In a statement, the president-elect thanked them for their congratulations on his election victory and "expressed his commitment to uniting the country after a hard-fought campaign".

The three leaders also discussed the coronavirus outbreak and the country's economy, saying that many Americans were facing a "growing economic pain".

Image source, Reuters

Hand counts in more than half of Arizona's counties show no evidence of discrepencies or other voting issues.

Figures published by the state's official website, external showed that the audits covered districts where the vast majority of the state's votes were cast, including its major cities.

The audit compared a hand-counted sample of ballots to the results of a machine count.

Of Arizona's 15 countries, at least two districts did not perform audits because the Republican party had not designated the required members for a vote to proceed, while a number of others are yet to post their results.

Arizona is one of three states yet to be projected, but current figures show a more than 11,000-vote lead for President-elect Joe Biden. More results from the state, which has 11 electoral college votes, are expected soon.

President Donald Trump has still not conceded the election, despite projections showing a clear victory for his rival. He has continued to make repeated - and unfounded - allegations of fraud during the election.

Image source, Getty Images

A pro-Trump rally planned for Washington DC this weekend could bring violence to the nation's capital, according to experts on extremism.

The Proud Boys, the group that Trump refused to condemn in his first debate and who have a reputation for street fights with their opponents, are planning to host the event despite not having a permit from local authorities.

Members of the Oath Keepers and Three Percenters militias have also said they will be attending, as have white nationalists and proponents of conspiracy theories.

Pizzagate conspiracy proponent Alex Jones is reportedly leading a caravan from Texas and plans to bring a "battle tank".

Police in Washington have warned attendees of the rally, dubbed variously the "Million MAGA March”, the “Stop the Steal” protest and the “March for Trump”, to leave guns at home or risk arrest.

Experts say the groups could clash with counter-protesters outside the White House. This comes just days after businesses in Washington, and in cities around the US, began removing plywood barricades that were put up in the event of election-related unrest.

Image source, Reuters

A court in Pennsylvania has backed a complaint by the Trump camp, ruling that the key swing state may not count ballots where the voters had to provide identification proof and failed to do so by 9 November.

Pennsylvania Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar had earlier extended the submission process for such voters until 12 November.

But the court said on Thursday that she "lacked statutory authority" to provide this guidance, external, adding that all such votes may not be counted.

It's unclear how many ballots are affected by the court verdict, and whether the Biden camp plans to appeal.

The Democrat is currently leading Trump by just over 40,000 votes. Pennsylvania has 20 electoral votes.

Anthony Zurcher
BBC North America reporter

Image source, Reuters

It's been days since the White House race was called for Democrat Joe Biden, but Donald Trump has yet to concede - or show any signs of acknowledging his defeat.

Instead, he is making unproven allegations of widespread voter fraud, which he says tipped the race to Biden.

The maths, however, are daunting - he trails by tens of thousands of votes in several states he would have to overturn in order to succeed. Most see it as a lost cause.

Trump's position, in defiance of political norms and traditions, is sending tremors throughout the nation, as public officials and American voters react to a situation that, while telegraphed for months in advance, is still travelling uncharted terrain.

Read more from Anthony on how some key groups are handling these days of uncertainty and how it might all play out

Image source, Reuters

Senator Lindsey Graham has joined a small but growing number of senior Republicans who say that Joe Biden should receive the presidential-level security briefings.

When asked by journalists on Thursday whether Biden should have access to the President's Daily Briefing, Graham - who is an ally of Donald Trump - responded: "I think so."

The top secret document is given every day to the US president and is customarily also made available to incoming presidents, but has been denied to Biden as Trump's administration refuses to accept the Democratic victory.

As we've already reported, more than 150 former US officials warned today that witholding the briefing could damage US national security.

Other Republicans expressing support for Biden receiving the briefing include the Senate's president pro tempore, Chuck Grassley, and Senate Majority Whip John Thune, both of whom spoke to CNN.

However, not all senior members of the party agree.

"He's not president right now," House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said of Biden. "Don't know if he'll be president January 20th. But whoever is will get the information."

Earlier today, Senate Leader Mitch McConnell ignored reporters questions about the briefings as he made his way to the Senate floor.

Image source, Reuters

Georgia's Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger says he will start self-isolating after his wife Tricia tested positive for Covid-19.

This comes as the key battleground state is preparing to manually recount votes in the presidential election.

Biden currently has a razor-thin lead in the southern state, which carries 16 Electoral College votes.

Earlier on Thursday, top Trump campaign adviser Corey Lewandowski was confirmed to have been infected.

The Republican party has become more authoritarian in recent years, an academic report has found, with one of the authors noting that the party's response to the 2020 election is likely to show a further drop in democratic behaviour.

"It is disturbing that most leading Republicans are still not objecting to President Trump's baseless claims of electoral fraud and attempts to declare himself the winner," Anna Lührmann, a former MP and political scientist at the University of Gothenburg's V-Dem Institute, told the Washington Post, external.

V-Dem's report, external, which was released last month and based on data until the end of 2018, "shows that the Republican party in the US has retreated from upholding democratic norms in recent years", adding that its rhetoric resembled that of "authoritarian parties" in power in Turkey and Hungary.

However it said this was a global trend, with the "median governing party" in democracies having become more illiberal over recent decades.

The Democratic party, in contrast, "has retained a commitment to longstanding democratic standards", it said.

The data comes from the university's project into political parties around the world, with 665 country experts assessing each party's adherence to a number of democratic principles.

Image source, Reuters

A number of leading Republicans have broken ranks, either congratulating Biden on his election victory or at least pushing for a smooth transition at the White House - despite the fact that Trump is refusing to concede.

The group may be small - but it is growing and includes:

Senators

• Lisa Murkowski, Alaska
• Marco Rubio, Florida
• Susan Collins, Maine
• Ben Sasse, Nebraska
• Pat Toomey, Pennsylvania
• Mike Rounds, South Dakota
• Mitt Romney, Utah

Representatives

• Francis Rooney, Florida
• Adam Kinzinger, Illinois
• Fred Upton, Michigan
• Paul Mitchell, Michigan
• Tom Reed, New York
• Will Hurd, Texas

Meanwhile Democratic Senator Chris Coons from Delaware told CNN some Republicans are asking him to congratulate Biden on their behalf because they don't feel able to do so publicly.

"They call me to say, you know, 'Congratulations, please convey my well wishes to the President-elect, but I can't say that publicly yet'," he told the broadcaster.

"My job here, I think, is to continue to urge them privately to do the right thing," he added.

Several governors and former President George W Bush have also congratulated Biden.

Hours after polls closed in the US election, as votes were being counted, Donald Trump claimed fraud - without providing evidence - and said: "We'll be going to the US Supreme Court."

To date, the only election that hinged on a US Supreme Court decision was in 2000 when Al Gore was defeated by George W Bush.

Image source, Reuters

So it's tempting to make comparisons between the two elections but they can be misleading.

The 2000 election came down to one state - Florida - where both candidates were separated by only a few hundred votes. By contrast, Donald Trump has filed lawsuits in several states, and the margins with his rival Joe Biden are far greater.

So what happened in Florida, and how is this year's election different? Find out here

More than 150 former national security officials in the US have joined the prominent voices urging the Trump administration to recognise Joe Biden as the next president.

In a letter to the General Services Administration, which was sent on Thursday, external and obtained by news website Politico, they said that "delaying the transition further poses a serious risk to our national security".

Under the Presidential Transition Act, the General Services Administration is tasked with co-ordinating funding and access to federal agencies for incoming administrations.

But the body has so far declined to formally recognise Biden as president-elect, meaning that he is unable to access information such as the president's daily brief or obtain security clearances for key members of his transition team, as is usually the case after an election.

The former officials noted that the 9/11 Commission had found that delays in transition after the 2000 election had led to key national security bodies not being fully staffed for six months, leaving "our country more vulnerable to foreign adversaries".

"In this moment of uncertainty, we must put politics aside," the letter concluded, warning that further delays would compromise "the continuity and readiness of our national leadership, with potentially immense consequences for our national security".

The letter was signed by dozens of former officials, including former Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel, former CIA and NSA Director Gen Michael Hayden and former U.N. Ambassador Samantha Power.

Other key former officials in the US and abroad have warned over the delay in transition, including former heads of the Department for Homeland Security and the Elders, a group of former heads of state founded by Nelson Mandela.

Image source, Getty Images

Trump's own relationship with the leader of the Catholic faith got off to a rocky start during his 2016 campaign, after the Pope questioned whether Trump was really a Christian.

"A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not of building bridges, is not Christian," Pope Francis said when asked about Trump and his policy proposal of constructing a wall on the US-Mexico border.

Trump hit back, calling it "disgraceful" that the Pope would say such a thing about him. "No leader, especially a religious leader, should have the right to question another man's religion or faith," he said. He also blamed the Mexican government, which he claimed "convinced him that Trump is not a good guy".

Despite their differences, Trump travelled to Rome in 2017 where he held a 30 minute private meeting with the pontiff.

The two men have disagreed on many subjects, such as immigration, but on the topic of abortion, they seemed to agree.

The Vatican statement after the meeting highlighted “the joint commitment in favour of life, and freedom of worship and conscience”.

Dr Anthony Fauci, America's top US infectious diseases expert, has said the country needs to "double down" on public health measures such as mask-wearing and social distancing.

Dr Fauci warned that the cold weather made for a "challenging and ominous situation".

His comments come as the US is seeing a surge in coronavirus cases, with more than 100,000 new infections per day for the past week.

President-elect Joe Biden says he will make tackling the virus his top priority when he takes office. One of his coronavirus advisers has suggested a 4-6-week national lockdown.

Image source, Getty Images

Joe Biden, who is to be only the second Catholic president in US history after John F Kennedy, spoke on the phone with Pope Francis this morning, his transition team just announced.

Biden, who is a devout member of the faith, "thanked His Holiness for extending blessing and congratulations and noted his appreciation for His Holiness' leadership in promoting peace, reconciliation, and the common bonds of humanity around the world," according to the readout of their call.

"The president-elected expressed his desire to work together on the basis of a shared belief in the dignity and equality of all humankind on issues such as caring for the marginalized and the poor, addressing the crisis of climate change, and welcoming and integrating immigrants and refugees into our communities."