2020 US Elections: What you need to know right now

For many Americans, this is the coronavirus election

Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden took a narrow lead over President Donald Trump in the battleground state of Georgia early on Friday, putting the White House within his reach as it and other undecided states continued to count votes.

-Timeline-Which states could tip US election and when will they report results?

-Trump backers, some carrying guns, ramped up demonstrations on Thursday night against what he has baselessly called a rigged election, in battleground states where votes were still being counted.

-Trump's campaign lost court rulings in the closely contested states of Georgia and Michigan on Thursday as it vowed to bring a new lawsuit challenging what it called voting irregularities in Nevada.

-Philadelphia police said on Friday they were investigating an alleged plot to attack the city's Pennsylvania Convention Center where votes are being counted.

-A federal judge denied an emergency request from Trump's campaign on Thursday to stop ballot counting in Philadelphia so long as Republican observers were not present.

-The US Postal Service said about 1,700 ballots had been identified in Pennsylvania at processing facilities during two sweeps Thursday and were in the process of being delivered to election officials.

-The US Office of Special Counsel has opened an investigation into allegations that the Trump campaign's use of the White House as an Election Day command center violated federal law, Democratic Representative Bill Pascrell said on Thursday.

-The pastor who holds the pulpit where slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. once preached was thrust into the spotlight this week when Georgia officials ruled his US Senate campaign would be decided by a January runoff. The Rev. Raphael Warnock, a Black Democrat, faces an uphill battle to unseat Republican Senator Kelly Loeffler, a wealthy businesswoman appointed to the seat in the conservative-leaning state after its former occupant retired.

-The US Senate race in Georgia between Republican Senator David Perdue and Democrat Jon Ossoff appeared to be heading for a January runoff on Thursday, potentially making a pair of delayed elections that could determine control of the chamber.

-Democrats spent $50 million trying to win control of state legislatures in 2020, but the effort mostly failed, cementing regional power with their more conservative Republican opponents over such issues as abortion, education and criminal justice.

-Some US House of Representatives Democrats on Thursday blamed Tuesday's election losses on colleagues who embraced defunding police departments and "socialist" policies, according to sources familiar with a phone call they held.

-Facebook removed on Thursday a fast-growing group in which Trump supporters posted violent rhetoric, as it and other companies tackled baseless claims and potential violence after a contentious election.

-Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg hit back at Trump on Twitter late on Thursday saying the president should "chill" about the election, a riposte to his tweet last year mocking the teenager over what he called her anger management issues. GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE -German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas on Friday urged both sides in the US election to show restraint until the results were available, adding it was irresponsible to aggravate tensions.

-For some Africans, Trump's actions in the aftermath of the US election have been a cause for dark humor, while others reacted with dismay or disbelief.

Investor View-A gauge of Asian shares rallied close to a three-year peak on Friday while the dollar stayed sluggish and US bond yields slipped on expectations that a divided US legislature would limit major policy changes and keep the status quo on economic policies.

-Some US stock investors had feared election week turmoil, but voters' decisions at the ballot box helped many stock picking hedge funds extend a year of gains and even set a daily record, according to managers and people familiar with their returns.

BY THE NUMBERS A bipartisan majority of Americans do not accept Trump's premature victory declaration in the election and most are willing to wait for all votes to be counted before deciding who won, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released Thursday.