Image source, Getty Images

Corey Lewandowski, who was Trump's first campaign manager in 2016 and is now helping lead the legal effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election result, has tested positive for Covid-19.

Lewandowski had recently been in Philadelphia to oversee the legal case there, and had also been with Trump on election night. New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman says Lewandowski believes he may have caught it in Philadelphia.

According to CNN, Lewandowski plans to stay home while he recovers and does not feel unwell.

It comes a day after White House political director Brian Jack also tested positive.

Image source, Getty Images

In an interview with Fox News today, White House spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany refused to answer a question about when Biden will receive top secret briefings, and deferred the question to the White House.

As the White House spokeswoman, it's somewhat odd that she would defer a question to her own department.

McEnany has been working "in a personal capacity" for the Trump campaign for the past few weeks. A US law called the Hatch Act bans some White House employees - like her - from engaging in political campaigns. So her moonlighting role has already angered government ethicists and reporters.

White House reporters swiftly took to Twitter to point out that McEnany earns a six-figure salary from US taxpayers.

Senior Republicans have been responding in very different ways to Trump's refusal to concede, his insistence the election was stolen without offering evidence and his refusal to co-operate with the transition. The BBC's Ros Atkins has been examining them.

Image source, Reuters

It's been over a week since election day in the US, but the drama is far from over. Here's a reminder of the top stories so far today:

• President-elect Joe Biden has been speaking to foreign leaders by phone as he continues his preparations to take office in January
• Biden has named Ron Klain, a veteran Washington insider, as his White House chief of staff. Klain has been a top aide to Biden and also served under President Barack Obama and Vice-President Al Gore
• Donald Trump has still not admitted defeat and has vowed to continue legal action over the results of the 3 November election. However, his claims of election fraud have been unsubstantiated
• The outcome of the races in Arizona, Georgia and North Carolina is still unclear, but Biden has already secured the 270 electoral votes needed to become president, according to BBC projections

• The coronavirus pandemic continues to be a key issue in the US, with a record 140,000 new infections announced on Wednesday

Image source, Reuters

Vote counting is continuing in three states where no result has yet been projected.

Arizona - which some US networks have already called for Joe Biden - has 11 electoral college votes

Biden is on 49.4% with 1,663,447 votes

Donald Trump is on 49.1% with 1,651,812 votes

So far 99% of the votes has been counted.

Georgia - where Biden has overtaken Trump - has 16 electoral college votes

Biden is on 49.5% with 2,471,981 votes

Trump is on 49.2% with 2,457,924 votes

So far 99% of the vote has been counted. On Wednesday Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said there would be a full manual recount of voting. However this will not prevent the state from certifying its results on 20 November, he said.

North Carolina - where Trump is leading - has 15 electoral college votes

Trump is on 50% with 2,736,881 votes

Biden is on 48.7% with 2,663,605 votes

So far 98% of the vote has been counted. Thursday is the last day for postal votes postmarked by election day to arrive, US media report. More absentee ballots may also remain to be counted.

Ritu Prasad
BBC News writer, Florida

We've been asking our readers for their most pressing questions about the US election. Now it's our turn to respond.

Stéphane Longuet, 50, from London asks:Is it possible electors would designate another winner? Could some electors from Pennsylvania decide to vote for Donald Trump instead of Joe Biden or are they legally bound to follow the popular vote?

This is a great question - so let's dive into what the deal is with these "faithless electors".

The majority of states in the US, including this year's key battlegrounds of Arizona and Michigan, have laws that bind electors to vote for their state's majorities.

This year, the Supreme Court unanimously upheld those laws, saying electors have "no ground for reversing" the popular vote in their state, noting that in America, "We, the People rule".

Of course, this doesn't mean that we haven't seen faithless electors before, though it is rare.

In 2016, 10 electors reneged on their popular vote winner to vote for other candidates. And way back in 1796, one elector switched to vote for the opposing party.

But it's important to remember these faithless electors have never actually changed the outcome of a presidential election.

According to FairVote, an election reform nonprofit, across 58 presidential elections with more than 23,500 votes cast, only 90 electors have failed to honour the popular vote.

Now a quick look at Pennsylvania: the state doesn't require electors to vote in line with the popular result or penalise faithless electors. However, any swaps here are unlikely, as the party campaigns choose their electors in the state.

Click here to learn more about this project - or submit a question of your own.

President Trump still has not admitted defeat in the election - an election which conservative Fox News called for Joe Biden on Saturday.

Now Trump has retweeted more than a dozen posts on Twitter attacking or dismissing Fox News, before tweeting his own criticism of the network.

The US president said the network's daytime ratings had "completely collapsed".

"Very sad to watch this happen, but they forgot what made them successful, what got them there. They forgot the Golden Goose. The biggest difference between the 2016 Election, and 2020, was Fox News!"

Trump used to regularly appear for interviews on programmes like Fox & Friends and was widely backed by viewers and presenters on the channel.

But he has attacked the network for not supporting him more fervently in recent months, and reportedly reacted furiously when Fox News projected a victory in Arizona for Biden last week.

Image source, EPA

Two of the most senior Democratic leaders - House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer - have called on Republicans to "accept reality" and help them to tackle the coronavirus crisis.

Speaking first in televised remarks, Pelosi highlighted the soaring case numbers and deaths around the US due to Covid-19 - including eight straight days of more than 100,000 new infections recorded.

She accused President Trump and Republicans of "ignoring" the crisis and needlessly disputing the election.

"They’re engaged in an absurd circus right now refusing to accept reality," she said, making it "even harder" to face the crisis.

"Stop the circus and get to work on what really matters to the American people: their health and their economic security," she said.

Schumer agreed: "Instead of working to pull the country back together so that we can fight our common enemy, Republicans in congress are spreading conspiracy theories, denying reality, poisoning the well of our democracy. Republicans should stop their shenanigans about an election President Trump has already lost."

He called on Republicans to help the Democratic party to tackle the economic and health crisis.

"Republican refusal to deal with reality is hurting our country in many ways. It’s time to move on and get to work for the American people."

Image source, Reuters

One of President-elect Joe Biden's coronavirus advisers has said a nationwide lockdown of four to six weeks would help bring the outbreak under control in the US.

Dr Michael Osterholm - director of the Center of Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota - cited how New Zealand, Australia and several Asian countries had brought the virus under control.

He told CNBC: “We could pay for a package right now to cover all of the wages, lost wages for individual workers for losses to small companies to medium-sized companies or city, state, county governments. We could do all of that."

“We could really watch ourselves cruising into the vaccine availability in the first and second quarter of next year while bringing back the economy long before that,” the adviser added.

Biden himself has appeared to make conflicting statements on a possible national lockdown. In August he told ABC he would do "whatever it takes" to get on top of the virus, and would "shut it down", understood to mean a possible lockdown.

But in September he said there would be "no need, in my view, to shut down the whole economy". In October he told a town hall event "I don't think there's a need to lock down".

The top US virus expert Dr Anthony Fauci meanwhile told ABC that a national lockdown should not be necessary if people wear masks and follow social distancing guidelines.

Earlier this week Osterholm said the US was headed for "Covid hell".

A record number of Americans are in hospital receiving treatment for Covid-19. The US has seen ten straight days when coronavirus cases exceeded 100,000.

In New York, the state at the centre of infections early in the pandemic, Governor Andrew Cuomo is ordering that bars and restaurants shut at 22:00 and banning gatherings of more than 10 people. Meanwhile, Texas has become the first state to surpass a million cases.

Ritu Prasad
BBC News writer, Florida

We've been asking our readers for their most pressing questions about the US election. Now it's our turn to respond.

Teresa Lewis, 60, from Idaho asks: Can the president run again in 2024?

In a word: yes. In the US, presidents are allowed to serve two terms of four years each - and they don't have to be back to back.

As Trump now joins nine other US presidents who lost their re-election bids, he is within his rights to run again.

And he wouldn't be the first to do so.

America's 22nd president, Grover Cleveland, was first elected after the Civil War in 1885. He was defeated in his 1888 campaign after winning the popular vote but losing the electoral college.

But he moved back to the White House in 1892, serving out his second term after a four-year gap.

Our journalist Jessica Murphy took a look at what could be next for the business mogulhere.

And click here to learn more about this project - or submit a question of your own.

Tara McKelvey
BBC News, Washington

Image source, Reuters

He is the ultimate insider: Ron Klain has worked the Hill, briefed reporters and manoeuvred his way through Washington for decades.

As the newly named White House chief of staff, he will draw on his network and insider expertise to help his boss, Joe Biden, in his role as president.

For Trump supporters, Klain is the physical embodiment of the Swamp, the entrenched Washington that Trump set out to drain and demolish.

Yet for centrist Democrats, Klain’s presence is welcome. He is funny and quick on his feet, and they have known him for years. For them, the announcement that he would become Biden’s chief of staff was both expected and reassuring.

It was yet another sign that the new White House will be very much like the ones they knew in the past - and a dramatic departure from the topsy-turvy world that Trump created during his time in office.

Jessica Murphy, BBC News, Montreal

Donald Trump will remain in office until 20 January, when he'll hand the job over to his successor and join the exclusive club of former US presidents. So what next for the politician and business mogul?

Image source, The White House

There's a lucrative speakers' circuit, the penning of a memoir, the planning of a presidential library.

Jimmy Carter took up humanitarian causes, and George W Bush a paintbrush. But Mr Trump has never been a traditional politician.

"Donald Trump has broken many norms as president," says Tim Calkins, professor of marketing at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management.

"There's no reason to think that Donald Trump will act like any former president that we've ever seen."

From legal fights to potential returns to business and the media, find out more about some of the possibilities here

Image source, Reuters

Donald Trump may not have admitted defeat and Joe Biden may not yet be in the White House. But top infectious diseases expert Dr Anthony Fauci says the political limbo is having no effect on efforts to tackle the coronavirus.

"Certainly, it’s having no impact negatively on our ability, as well as our activity, in developing vaccines and developing countermeasures," Dra Fauci told ABC's Good Morning America on Thursday.

He said once vaccines start to be deployed at the end of the year they could have a "major positive impact", and was hopeful of a mass roll-out by late spring and early summer 2021.

But until then he urged people to keep wearing a mask, social distancing and washing their hands, saying it "really does make a difference".

On Wednesday the US reported a daily record number of new infections, with more than 140,000 cases in 24 hours. The White House coronavirus task force this week warned of "continued, accelerating community spread" of the virus as the weather gets colder.

As we mentioned earlier, Joe Biden has picked veteran political operative Ron Klain to be White House chief of staff.

There has been some very positive reaction on the Democrats' side to the appointment of the man whose job it is to manage the president's daily schedule and act as his gatekeeper.

Senate Democrat Elizabeth Warren called Klain a "superb choice":

Klain also served as Vice-President Al Gore’s top aide during Bill Clinton’s administration.

“He was always highly informed, and his advice was always grounded in exceptional command of the policy process, the merits of the arguments, and the political and justice context,” Mr Gore told Reuters news agency.

Ilhan Omar and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, members of the so-called “squad” of progressive congresswomen, respectively described Mr Klain as an "excellent" and "encouraging" choice.

Image source, Getty Images

A group of former world leaders founded by South African civil rights hero Nelson Mandela has condemned Donald Trump for refusing to admit defeat, saying it is "putting at risk the functioning of American democracy".

The Elders, created by the former South African president in 2007, said Trump's claims of electoral fraud had been made "as yet without any compelling evidence".

"Continued baseless accusations of subversion risk further deepening the instability and polarisation in American society, and eroding public faith in institutions that is the bedrock of democratic life," their statement reads.

The group's chair, former Irish president Mary Robinson, called on the Republican Party to "affirm their faith" in US democracy and accept Joe Biden's victory.

"It is shocking to have to raise concerns about US democratic processes as The Elders have previously commented on volatile and undemocratic situations in states such as Kenya, Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe," she wrote. "President Trump’s refusal thus far to facilitate a smooth transition weakens democratic values."

You can read the full statement here, external

The ghost writer of Donald Trump's book The Art of the Deal, Tony Schwartz, has told the BBC he believes President Trump will eventually be escorted out of the White House if he refuses to leave.

"He can't concede because to concede for him is to accept that he is a failure and that is an intolerable thing for him," Mr Schwartz told BBC World News.

"He is either a success or a failure. He either dominates or he submits... he has to keep this delusional idea alive that he was cheated," he added.

Mr Schwartz said ghost writing The Art of the Deal in 1987 was "the worst mistake" he ever made, explaining at the time he never thought there was any possibility of Mr Trump becoming US president.

Image source, Reuters

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has said his country is not expecting any major changes once President-elect Joe Biden takes office in January.

"When it comes to the [US] relations with Russia, frankly speaking, our political experts do not expect any revolutionary changes and I tend to agree with them," he said at a news conference on Thursday.

Lavrov added that Biden's policy announcements on issues including climate change and the Iranian nuclear appeared similar to the direction followed by President Barack Obama, but noted: "It seems natural, taking into account that Biden used to be his vice-president."

Russian President Vladimir Putin is one of the few world leaders yet to congratulate Biden on his election victory - a stark contrast to 2016, when Putin was among the first to reach out to Donald Trump.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the reason for the delay was the legal challenges being launched by the Trump campaign, but the BBC's Steve Rosenberg in Moscow says there is a suspicion that the lack of congratulations reflects the fact that Moscow is not excited by the outcome.

Mr Biden is a vocal critic of Moscow and recently identified Russia as the biggest threat to America.

Find out more about how Biden will change US foreign policy here

Matt McGrath
Environment correspondent

Image source, Reuters

Donald Trump's decision to withdraw from the Paris climate accords took effect on 4 November - the day after the election.

A month after the Biden administration informs the United Nations of its decision to re-join, the US will once again be part of the global effort to curb climate change - much to the delight of climate diplomats.

"It would definitely be a positive move, not only because they are a big player, but I think because it really emphasises the fact that the US believes in the science of climate change," says Carlos Fuller, the lead negotiator for the Alliance of Small Island States in annual UN climate meetings.

These annual conference-of-the-parties meetings are the mechanism by which countries agree to lower their carbon emissions. And US leadership is absolutely critical for this process.

With China, Japan and South Korea having set long-term goals to cut carbon, expectations are rising that the UN's COP26 climate summit, which convenes in Glasgow in November 2021, may turn out to be a success.

Read more

Joe Biden's election victory was built on overwhelming support from African Americans.

Almost nine in 10 black voters backed the Democrat, according to exit polls, although Donald Trump did increase his share compared with 2016.

Black voters were especially influential in Georgia, a long-time Republican state where a huge get-out-the-vote effort is credited with having given Biden the lead (the race is so close there will be a recount).

Image source, Getty Images

Former US President Barack Obama has warned that democracy in the US "seems to be teetering on the brink of crisis" in the preface of his new book, A Promised Land.

In the excerpt, published in the Atlantic, external ahead of the book's release next Tuesday, Obama said he hadsn't managed to "fully anticipate... the way events would unfold" after he left office, referring to the coronavirus pandemic, economic crisis and protests against racial injustice that have erupted in the US this year.

But he said that the challenges facing democracy were "perhaps most troubling of all".

The world is watching "to see if our experiment in democracy can work", Obama said, adding that he was "encouraged" by last week's record-breaking election turnout which saw his former Vice-President Joe Biden elected to the White House.

"But I also know that no single election will settle the matter. Our divisions run deep; our challenges are daunting. If I remain hopeful about the future, it’s in large part because I’ve learned to place my faith in my fellow citizens, especially those of the next generation," he continued.