US Elections 2020 Highlights: There will be no red, blue states, only United States. Will be President who unites, not divides, says Biden

We're continuing our US election live coverage on our fresh live blog that you can find right here .

. Now that the campaign is over—what is the people’s will? What is our mandate? I believe it is this: Americans have called on us to marshal the forces of decency and the forces of fairness. To marshal the forces of science and the forces of hope in the great battles of our time: Biden

. We cannot repair the economy, restore our vitality, or relish life’s most precious moments — hugging a grandchild, birthdays, weddings, graduations, all the moments that matter most to us — until we get this virus under control: Biden

. For all those of you who voted for President Trump, I understand the disappointment tonight. Now let's give each other a chance. It's time to put away the harsh rhetoric, lower the temperature, see each other again, listen to each other again: US President-elect Joe Biden

. The people of this nation have spoken. They have delivered us a clear victory. A convincing victory. A victory for “We the People.” says Biden

. The citizens of Washington, D.C., voted to decriminalize psilocybin, the organic compound active in psychedelic mushrooms. Oregon voters approved two drug-related initiatives. One decriminalized possession of small amounts of illegal drugs including heroin, cocaine and methamphetamines. (It did not make it legal to sell the drugs.) Another measure authorized the creation of a state program to license providers of psilocybin.

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. US Vice-President-elect Kamala Harris on Saturday called on Americans to "get started" with the work ahead after networks projected that Democrat Joe Biden, her running mate, defeated Republican incumbent Donald Trump.

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. The election of Kamala Harris as the first Black and the first Asian-American woman vice president of the US is a "momentous thing", a top advisor to president-elect Joe Biden said on Saturday. The Biden-Harris ticket has defeated incumbent President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence in a bitterly-fought election that attracted a record number of Americans to cast their votes.

"I think it's another not only have we elected the next president of the United States of America, we've elected the first black woman, Asian American woman to serve as vice president," said Symone Sanders, a top advisor to Biden.

"I think it's a momentous thing. It's a historic day for a number of various reasons. We are all just very excited. I know I can. I don't think it comes as a surprise to anyone that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris cannot wait to get to work for the American people," Sanders told reporters in Wilmington, Delaware.

"We did it. We did it Joe," Harris is seen as saying to President-elect Biden in a video posted on social media.

"You are going to be the next president of the United States," Harris said in the short video that immediately went viral on the social media. Former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney extend his congratulations to President-elect Biden and Vice President-elect Harris.

"We know both of them as people of good will and admirable character. We pray that God may bless them in the days and years ahead,” Romney said. Popular African American singer Mary Millben said Vice President-elect Harris has made history.

"Today you make history as our first African American and Indian American female Vice-President. This is a great moment for America,” she said. "You are now a voice for all women, Republicans and Democrats. Help heal America,” Millben said. (PTI)

. Congress president Sonia Gandhi congratulated Joe Biden for winning the US presidential election on Saturday, saying India looked forward to a close partnership beneficial to peace and development.

In a statement late in the night, Gandhi also extended warm greetings to vice president-elect Kamala Harris.

Under the "wise and mature" leadership of Biden and Harris, Gandhi said "India looks forward to a close partnership that will be beneficial to peace and development in our region and around the world".

Biden defeated incumbent Republican US President Donald Trump in the closely-fought presidential election, according to American media projections. (PTI)

. Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Saturday congratulated Joe Biden on winning the White House, shortly after US media called the race for the Democrat over Donald Trump.

"I look forward to working with President-elect Biden, Vice President-elect (Kamala) Harris, their administration, and the United States Congress as we tackle the world's greatest challenges together," Trudeau said in a statement.

Trudeau has had a frequently stormy relationship with Trump, who once tweeted the Canadian leader was "very dishonest & weak" over a dispute on US tariffs.

Trump imposed punitive tariffs on imports of Canadian aluminum and steel in June 2018, in the midst of negotiating the new free trade deal between the US, Canada and Mexico known as the USMCA.

Ottawa hit back at the time with tariffs on American aluminum and steel, as well as whiskey, ketchup, orange juice, lawn mowers, sailboats and more.

Trudeau declined to travel to Washington to join in the USMCA launch ceremony earlier this year, after Trump floated the idea of again hitting the country with tariffs.

The United States is Canada's largest trading partner, with Can$2.4 billion (US$1.8 billion) flowing across the border each day. (AFP)

. French President Emmanuel Macron congratulated Joe Biden on Saturday for winning the US presidency, saying they had many challenges to face.

"The Americans have chosen their President. Congratulations @JoeBiden and @KamalaHarris! We have a lot to do to overcome today's challenges. Let's work together!," Macron said on Twitter. (Reuters)

. German Chancellor Angela Merkel congratulated Joe Biden and his running mate Kamala Harris after major networks declared them the winners of the US presidential election on Saturday.

"I look forward to future cooperation with President Biden," she said in a statement posted on Twitter. "Our transatlantic friendship is irreplaceable if we are to master the great challenges of our time."

Merkel, the first female leader of Germany, stressed that Harris would be her country's first elected female Vice-President. (Reuters)

. AFP Photo

.US president-elect Joe Biden is expected to address the nation after 8 p.m. on Saturday night, according to a campaign aide. Reuters. “We all know why Joe Biden is rushing to falsely pose as the winner, and why his media allies are trying so hard to help him: they don’t want the truth to be exposed. The simple fact is this election is far from over. Joe Biden has not been certified as the winner of any states, let alone any of the highly contested states headed for mandatory recounts, or states where our campaign has valid and legitimate legal challenges that could determine the ultimate victor. In Pennsylvania, for example, our legal observers were not permitted meaningful access to watch the counting process. Legal votes decide who is president, not the news media.

“Beginning Monday, our campaign will start prosecuting our case in court to ensure election laws are fully upheld and the rightful winner is seated. The American People are entitled to an honest election: that means counting all legal ballots, and not counting any illegal ballots. This is the only way to ensure the public has full confidence in our election. It remains shocking that the Biden campaign refuses to agree with this basic principle and wants ballots counted even if they are fraudulent, manufactured, or cast by ineligible or deceased voters. Only a party engaged in wrongdoing would unlawfully keep observers out of the count room – and then fight in court to block their access.

“So what is Biden hiding? I will not rest until the American People have the honest vote count they deserve and that Democracy demands.”

. Reuters Photo

. Democrat Joe Biden has won the White House, US media said Saturday, defeating Donald Trump and ending a presidency that convulsed American politics, shocked the world and left the United States more divided than at any time in decades.

CNN, NBC News and CBS News called the race in Biden's favor just before 11:30 am (1630 GMT) as an insurmountable lead in Pennsylvania took the 77-year-old over the top in the state-by-state count that decides the presidency.

. Biden's lead in Arizona shrunk to 20,573 from 29,861, according the AP tally that has already declared Arizona for the democratic nominee

. US President Donald Trump left the White House Saturday for the first time since Election Day, heading to his golf club in suburban Virginia as the vote count dragged on with Joe Biden leading the Republican incumbent in decisive states.

After appearing twice at the White House in recent days to address the nation, Trump left the presidential residence for the Trump National Golf Club in Sterling, Virginia.

. As Biden inches towards victory, Twitter has continued to aggressively clamp down on Donald Trump's misleading or inaccurate tweets since the election night. On Saturday, Trump tweeted a serious of tweets continuing his allegations that there was an election fraud, producing no evidence whatsoever.

Each Tweet was flagged, “might be misleading about an election or other civic process.”

Donald Trump continues to trail behind Joe Biden in the key state ofPennsylvania by over 28,000 votes. If Biden manages to wins the state, Trump would have no chance in wining the presidential race.

. President Donald Trump has repeatedly said there's one place he wants to determine the outcome of the presidential election: the US Supreme Court. But he may have a difficult time ever getting there.

Over the last two days, Trump has leaned in to the idea that the high court should get involved in the election as it did in 2000. Then, the court effectively settled the contested election for President George W. Bush in a 5-4 decision that split the court's liberals and conservatives.

. South Carolina Democrat Jaime Harrison shattered US Senate campaign fundraising records this year, as he amassed a stunning $109 million war chest for an election drive intended to unseat three-term Republican Senator Lindsey Graham.

That financial firepower failed to deliver when Harrison, like Senate Democratic hopefuls in five other states, met a surge of voter support for Republicans.

For Harrison, 44, it meant a loss by more than 10 percentage points after largely running neck and neck with Graham in pre-election polls. Other Democrats lost in Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Montana and Texas.

. As President Donald Trump fumes over the unfolding US presidential election results, some of his fellow Republicans in Congress have hinted that he ought to tone down his rhetoric.

Three days after the election, votes are still being tallied in the closely fought battleground states of Pennsylvania, Nevada, Arizona, Georgia and North Carolina. Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden is riding an expanding lead over Trump, a Republican, that could bring him victory.

Reuters

. AFP Photo

. Republicans are trying to raise at least $60 million to fund legal challenges brought by President Donald Trump over the US presidential election's results, three sources familiar with the matter said on Friday.

Trump's campaign has a filed lawsuits in several states over Tuesday's election, as Democratic challenger Joe Biden edged closer to winning the White House, extending his leads in battleground states.

Reuters

. Joe Biden's Georgia lead against Donald Trump surprassed 7,000, however, due to the small margin the state isheading towards a recount.

In Pennsylvania , the Democratic nominee maintains the lead and the state's victory for Biden could grant him the White House. The remaining mail ballots are said to be favoring Biden and through the day more counties are likely to report updates. However, the process could continue for a few days.

Nevada continues to lean towards Biden where he maintains a steady lead of22,657 votes.

. The most direct attempt to undermine the integrity of the US election with bad information came not from overseas sources or online liars but from a president standing behind the presidential seal at the White House and facing defeat.

President Donald Trump spoke of “horror stories” in voting and counting across the land but his stories were wrong. Election officials, Democrats and some Republicans blanched at his baseless recitation of sinister doings and his effort to delegitimize democracy's highest calling. Since the tide turned after election night and

. Supporters of Joe Biden danced in the streets outside a ballot-counting centre in Philadelphia on Friday as the steadily growing vote tallies showed the Democratic former vice president could soon be declared winner of the US presidential election.

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. Spanish-language misinformation flourished online in the days surrounding the US election, even as social media companies moved to stem falsehoods that could affect the vote or spark violence.

Spanish-language social media posts from online celebrities, radio commentators and others have repeatedly questioned the reliability of mail-in voting and falsely described presidential candidate Joe Biden as a socialist, according to Spanish-language disinformation experts and posts seen by Reuters.

. The United States reported record new coronavirus cases for the third day in a row, as Joe Biden vowed to act against the pandemic on "day one" if he wins the presidential election in the world's worst-hit nation.

Global infections have surged past 49 million and Europe has become the new pandemic epicenter in recent weeks with more than 300,000 deaths -- nearly a quarter of the global total.

More than 127,000 new infections were reported in the US on Friday, the third straight day of record cases, as votes from the bitterly fought election were still being counted.

. World markets lost momentum Friday after four straight days of gains on Wall Street, as vote counting across US battleground states showed Democrat Joe Biden poised for victory.

US stocks from Monday to Thursday posted the best four-day streak since April, and Friday featured positive economic data for traders to peruse as unemployment dropped a full point to 6.9 per cent in October, a bigger-than-expected fall.

. President Donald Trump and some of his Republican supporters are testing out a rallying cry for his uphill fight to reverse the lead that Joe Biden holds in key battleground states: count all “legal” votes.

The language is freighted with a clear implication, namely that Democrats want illegal votes counted, a claim for which there is no evidence.

But it underscores Trump's strategic imperatives as Biden closes in on securing the 270 Electoral College votes needed to win the presidency, tactics that are rooted more in political messaging than legal precedent.

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. Two heavily armed men "coming to deliver a truck full of fake ballots" have been arrested near the Philadelphia convention center where election workers were counting votes from the undecided US presidential election, police said.

Antonio LaMotta, 61, and Joshua Macias, 42, both of Chesapeake, Virginia, were arrested on Thursday night outside the center on suspicion of carrying handguns in Pennsylvania state without permits, according to US media reports.

. Iran's President Hassan Rouhani said Saturday he hoped the next US administration will have learnt that sanctions cannot make Tehran bow to American policy.

US President Donald Trump, who appears to be on the verge of having lost Tuesday's election to challenger Joe Biden, has applied a "maximum pressure" policy and punishing sanctions against Iran since his 2018 withdrawal from a landmark nuclear agreement with Iran.

. There is a pervasive sense among current and former GOP officials that the president's behaviour is irresponsible if not dangerous, but a divide has emerged between those influential Republicans willing to call him out publicly and those who aren't.

Read more here.

. Cable news networks had their A-list anchors at the ready in anticipation of a historic call, but the urgency of the morning gave way to a hurry-up-and-wait mood as ballot counters in Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and Pennsylvania continued their work.

Read more here.

. Biden is on the cusp of being declared as the winner of the November 3 presidential elections, as the 77-year-old former US vice president was leading in the key battleground states of Pennsylvania and Georgia where counting of votes is continuing.

Read more here.

. Over the last two days, Trump has leaned into the idea that the high court should get involved in the election as it did in 2000. Then, the court effectively settled the contested election for President George W Bush in a 5-4 decision that split the court's liberals and conservatives.

. Credit: AFP Photo

. "I want everyone, everyone to know on day one we're going to put our plan to control this virus into action,"Bidensaid in a late-night address from his hometown Wilmington, in Delaware.

Bidenexpressed confidence that he would defeat President Donald Trump as vote counting dragged on from Tuesday's election but stopped short of declaring himself the winner.

He pledged to unite a bitterly divided nation.

"It's time for us to come together as a nation to heal,"Bidensaid.

. Democratic presidential candidate JoeBidenvowed on Friday the vote count would continue as he took the lead in several battleground states and appeared poised to win the White House in the election, even as U.S. President Donald Trump remained defiant about the results.

"Your vote will be counted. I don't care how hard people try to stop it. I will not let it happen,"Bidentold reporters and aides. He added that he would try to bridge the country's partisan divide and attack major issues like the coronavirus pandemic.

. Joe Biden on Friday took the lead in Pennsylvania, where a victory would give him the presidency, and was ahead in three other critical battlegrounds as his campaign focused on a presidential transition process and states worked to tally the remaining votes.

President DonaldTrumpand his political lieutenants spent the day continuing to float baseless conspiracy theories about the legitimacy of the election, and Republicans in several states threatened or took legal action aimed at slowing or halting the counting of ballots. But there were also mounting indications thatTrumpwould not have the full support of his party if he persisted in a scorched-earth effort to impede the electoral process.

Biden and his team projected confidence, after overtakingTrumpin the vote count in both Pennsylvania and Georgia early Friday.

But in both states, as well as in Arizona and Nevada, Biden was not yet leading by a sufficiently wide margin to completely foreclose any possibility — however remote — that the count could still turn against him. On Friday evening, Biden was ahead in Pennsylvania and Georgia by less than 1 percentage point, and by not much more than that in the two Western states.

NYT

. Those put Biden in a stronger position to capture the 270 Electoral College votes needed to take the White House. The winner will lead a country facing a historic set of challenges, including a surging pandemic and deep political polarisation.

. Amid Trump's repeated and unfounded allegations of election fraud, Senator Roy Blunt, a member of the Republican leadership, told reporters that "at some point" the White House will have to be able to take such allegations to court and lay out the evidence.

Read more here

. As election results stand as of Friday, the Democrats and the Republicans will each hold 48 seats in the 100-member Senate. Two other races in addition to Georgia are still outstanding, but both are widely expected to be won by Republicans.

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. Nearly a dozen suits were already making their way through the courts in Nevada, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Georgia, four key states where Biden leads or has won the vote count.

. Ten years ago, Maricopa County was the place that spawned the political careers of Republican hard-liners like Joe Arpaio, the sheriff who demonized immigrants and placed inmates in a tent camp. Politicians from Phoenix and its suburbs thrived with appeals to voters on guns, religion and taxes.

But these days, the county’s scorching growth has produced a battleground in which Republicans suddenly find themselves on the defensive. The children of the immigrants targeted by Arpaio, as well as an influx of outsiders from places like California, are reshaping the political landscape of this part of the West.

As Arizona now stands to become a coveted prize for Democrats, Maricopa County is undergoing what may amount to one of the biggest political shifts of any major county in the United States in recent years. The last time Maricopa County came this close to siding with a Democratic presidential candidate was in 1948.

NYT

. Donald Trump's unfounded accusations of fraud in the US presidential election have been condemned by some of his fellow Republicans, but top party figures have maintained their support.

With results showing Democratic challenger Joe Biden edging closer to victory, Trump made a series of allegations without evidence on Thursday night in a speech that was widely condemned.

Senator Mitt Romney, the former Republican presidential candidate who has been strongly critical of Trump, was among those speaking out.

"He is wrong to say that the election was rigged, corrupt and stolen," Romney said in a statement, while noting that Trump nevertheless had the right to pursue legal remedies if he had evidence of fraud.

"Doing so damages the cause of freedom here and around the world, weakens the institutions that lie at the foundation of the republic, and recklessly inflames destructive and dangerous passions."

But his stance was not shared by party leaders.

On Friday morning, one of the country's most powerful Republicans, Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell, released a vague statement that did not condemn the president's bid to sow doubt over the counting process.

"Here's how this must work in our great country: Every legal vote should be counted," he tweeted.

"Any illegally submitted ballots must not. All sides must get to observe the process. And the courts are here to apply the laws & resolve disputes."

The top Republican in the House of Representatives, Kevin McCarthy, said on Twitter it was "far from over. Republicans will not back down from this battle."

Other Republicans who have also been strong supporters of Trump offered unqualified backing, including Senator Lindsey Graham, who said he was donating $500,000 to the president's legal defense fund.

Senator Ted Cruz of Texas repeated some of the Trump team's allegations on the Fox News show hosted by Sean Hannity -- among the president's favorites.

"I am angry and I think the American people are angry," Cruz said.

(AFP)

. The outcome of the US presidential election remained in the balance Friday as a handful of battleground states complete their vote counts, but Joe Biden was edging toward victory -- barring a surprise.

The Democrat has racked up at least 253 of the 270 electoral votes that he needs, according to US network projections, and has taken the lead in Pennsylvania, which would put him over the top.

Donald Trump has amassed 214 electoral votes so far, and while the Republican incumbent was still in contention in several states that could afford him a path to reelection, that path was narrowing.

In addition to Pennsylvania, Biden has pulled ahead in the southeastern state of Georgia, which has 16 electoral votes, but it remains too close to call.

(AFP)

. Supporters of Joe Biden danced in the streets outside a ballot-counting center in Philadelphia on Friday as the steadily growing vote tallies showed the Democratic former vice president could soon be declared winner of the U.S. presidential election.

In Detroit, several hundred supporters of President Donald Trump, some visibly armed with guns, raised premature chants of "We won!" outside a counting center, despite it looking increasingly unlikely that this would prove true.

Philadelphia appeared to relish its turn as the center of the nation's attention, even if it was earned only by the relative slowness of its vote counting as the biggest city in the closely fought state of Pennsylvania.

It is one of a handful of pivotal states where the outcome of Tuesday's presidential election was still too close to call, and Philadelphians delighted in parading past the assembled news cameras playing violins and trombones or dressed up in election-themed costumes.

Sean Truppo, a 37-year-old social studies teacher, said he lit fireworks upon awaking to the news that Biden had overtaken Trump in the state's count before putting his 4-year-old daughter in a stroller to join the growing crowds outside the Philadelphia Convention Center.

"My daughter was born under Trump and I wanted her to witness the end of Trump," he said.

Biden has a 253 to 214 lead in the state-by-state Electoral College vote that determines the winner, according to Edison Research. Winning Pennsylvania's 20 electoral votes would put the former vice president over the 270 he needs to secure the presidency.

(Reuters)

. "Right now we don't have faith in the system that Jocelyn Benson and Gretchen Whitmer have set up for Michigan. Democrats should not be okay with ballots being backdated against election law," tweets RNC's Ronna McDaniel.

. The Republican National Committee is looking to raise at least $60 million to fund legal challenges brought by President Donald Trump over the results of the U.S. presidential election, two sources familiar with the matter said.

The Trump campaign has filed lawsuits in several states following the Nov. 3 election ptting the president against Democrat Joe Biden.

(Reuters)

. The thin margins that separated U.S. President Donald Trump from Joe Biden in several swing states raised the question: Was the Republican incumbent hurt by the third-party run of Libertarian candidate Jo Jorgensen?

At midday Friday, the vote spreads between Biden and Trump in Georgia, Pennsylvania and Arizona were smaller than the number of votes Jorgensen won in those states. In Nevada and Wisconsin, Jorgensen's total plus the number who selected "none of the above" surpassed the gap.

It's tempting to assume Jorgensen's votes came at Trump's expense given past alliances between conservative Republicans and some Libertarians - not to mention the president recently said he considered himself "somewhat Libertarian."

But most analysts said that's simply not the case.

"We just don't know what would have happened if the Libertarians had not run a candidate," said David Boaz of the Cato Institute, who has authored books on the movement. "Libertarians also get votes of people who just would not bother voting if they didn't have another choice."

(Reuters)

. Joe Biden now leads in states worth 306 electoral votes.

. The US Postal Service (USPS) delivered about 40,000 ballots on Thursday as it continues to conduct court-ordered twice-daily sweeps before various state deadlines to receive ballots, a lawyer said Friday.

In a court filing early Friday, USPS said 1,076 ballots, had been found at the USPS Philadelphia Processing and Distribution Center. About 300 were found at the Pittsburgh processing center, 266 at a Lehigh Valley facility and others found at other Pennsylvania processing centers.

In court, a Justice Department lawyer said it appears 668 of the 1,076 ballots in Philadephia were discovered on Wednesday and not Thursday.

Ballots must be received by Friday evening in Pennsylvania in order to be counted. The vote for the US president remains extremely close and Pennsylvania is one of the states that remains undecided.

(Reuters)

. “This is what we know. We have to go back to the state level and how this morass came to be in the first instance. The Governor, Wolf, and the State Supreme Court, flagrantly violated the Constitution of the US.

The power to set these rules and regulations is vested in the Legislature. They just ignored that, ignored the Constitution. Now we bring it down to the counting houses, and outrageously, observers, who are the sentinels of integrity & transparency, were excluded.

Pennsylvania has conducted itself in a horrible, lawless way, and hopefully this will be corrected at the Supreme Court of the United States.

Also, these late ballots past Election Day are illegal, exactly what the President has been saying. The Supreme Court, in extraordinary circumstances, has been able to render decisions in a matter of days.” Ken Starr, former Independent Counsel

. Per GA Secretary of State, remaining 8,197 absentees left to count include:

Cobb Co.: 700

Floyd Co.: 444

Gwinnett Co.: 4,800

Laurens Co.: 1,797

Taylor Co.: 456

Plus up to 8,900 military ballots.

Once Gwinnett counts, I think it'll be tough for Trump to overcome Biden's lead. - Dave Wasserman

. Democrat Joe Biden pulled ahead of President Donald Trump in the potentially decisive state of Pennsylvania on Friday, putting him on the brink of victory in an increasingly tense White House race.

. Biden campaign statement in response to concerns that President Trump may not concede the race: "As we said on July 19th, the American people will decide this election. And the United States government is perfectly capable of escorting trespassers out of the White House.”

. Report from inside Philadelphia vote counting room: GOP monitors are challenging every single vote they think was cast for Biden. This may be why they’re demanding to be allowed to violate social distancing: so they can make sure they don’t accidentally do that for a Trump ballot - Kurt Eichenwald

.Per 2 memos obtained by CNN, Fox News is instructing its talent not to call Biden the "President-elect" when network calls the race. The memos say anchors should say something such as Biden has "enough electoral votes to win the presidency." - Lisa Mirando. The President has spent four years trying to undermine our democratic institutions. Last night’s WH meltdown was a direct attack on counting the votes - the very essence of representative democracy. History will harshly judge elected officials who defend these baseless attacks. - Rep. Ted Deutch

. In Arizona, Trump continues to gain at a pace that's just shy of what he needs to take the state, but close enough that you can't rule out the possibility that he squeaks it out. We'll have a better idea with the next wave of Maricopa votes. - Nate Cohn

. There's just not much left in Georgia at this point, where we have a scattering of absentee votes and then the provisional/cured/abs/military extraneous stuff. It's really close. There won't be a call. But right now I just don't see the votes for Trump without errors or surprises. - Nate Cohn

. NPR follows the Associated Press who has NOT yet called the race for PA. But given what we know about the ballot trends in PA, it is hard to see Biden giving up this lead. - Scott Detrow

. With counting continuing in numerous counties throughout Georgia, as of 8:15 a.m. today there are approximately 8,197 ballots still outstanding. Approx. 8,900 requested military/overseas ballots have not been returned, but can be today if postmarked by Election Day. - Georgia Secertary of State

. You can’t just tell the Black, Brown, & youth organizers riding in to save us every election to be quiet or not have their reps champion them when they need us. Or wonder why they don’t show up for midterms when they’re scolded for existing. Esp when they’re delivering victories. - Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

. The outcome of the US presidential election remained in the balance early Friday as a handful of battleground states complete their vote counts.

Democrat Joe Biden has racked up at least 253 of the 270 electoral votes that he needs, according to US network projections -- and 264 if Arizona is included, which Fox News and The Associated Press have called in his favor.

DonaldTrumphas amassed 214 electoral votes so far, and is still in contention in several states that would afford the Republican incumbent a path to reelection.

AFP

. A Joe Biden presidency, checked by a Republican-controlled Senate, may be just what emerging-market investors are looking for.

. Backers of President DonaldTrump, 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.

The demonstrations were largely peaceful, althoughTrumpsupporters occasionally shouted with counterprotesters.Trumpsays the election is being stolen but there has been no evidence of fraud.

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

The losses also mean that in most of the 29 states with Republican-controlled legislatures, Democrats will not have a say in how Congressional districts are drawn when the once-a-decade process kicks off in 2021. That will make it more difficult for voters in more liberal areas of those states to elect their party's candidates to both the House of Representatives and statehouses for another 10 years.

. I easily WIN the Presidency of the United States with LEGAL VOTES CAST. The OBSERVERS were not allowed, in any way, shape, or form, to do their job and therefore, votes accepted during this period must be determined to be ILLEGAL VOTES. U.S. Supreme Court should decide!: Trump

.Presidential elections can be revealing moments that convey the wishes of the American people to the next wave of elected officials.So far, the big reveal in the contest between President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden is the extent of the cavernous divide between Republican and Democratic America, one that defines the nation, no matter which candidate ultimately wins.. President Donald Trump launched a tirade of unsubstantiated claims that he had been cheated out of winning the US election, as vote counting across battleground states early Friday showed Democrat Joe Biden closing in on victory.

. Joe Biden gained ground in Pennsylvania, Nevada and Georgia on Thursday as the slow-moving vote count in those contested battleground states moved him closer to capturing an electoral majority and defeating President Donald Trump.

. As former Vice President Joe Biden moved closer to winning the White House, President Donald Trump adopted a fighting posture on Thursday, making false claims to undermine a vote that was not going his way.

While Biden, a Democrat, called for calm and patience, Republican Trump, without offering evidence, said his opponents were engaging in fraud and election theft, accusations he has been making long before Election Day.

"If you count the legal votes I easily win," Trump said during remarks the White House, his first public appearance since Wednesday morning. "This is a case where they're trying to steal an election. They're trying to rig an election, and we can't let that happen."

Trump suggested he had won states that have been called in favor of Biden and sharply criticized polling before the election that he said was designed to suppress the vote because it favored the Democrat.

Polls this year, similar to the 2016 election that he won, predicted a much weaker electoral performance by Trump than he achieved.

Reuters

. In a court filing early Friday, USPS said about 1,070 ballots, had been found at the USPS Philadelphia Processing and Distribution Center. About 300 were found at the Pittsburgh processing center, 266 at a Lehigh Valley facility and others found at other Pennsylvania processing centers.

Read more here.

. Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden gained more ground on President DonaldTrumpin the battleground states of Georgia and Pennsylvania on Friday, edging closer to the White House hours afterTrumpfalsely claimed the election was being "stolen" from him.

Biden had a 253 to 214 lead in the state-by-state Electoral College vote that determines the winner, according to most major television networks, and was inching toward securing the 270 votes needed to win the state-by-state Electoral College in four undecided swing states.

Biden, 77, would become the next president by winning Pennsylvania, or by winning two out of the trio of Georgia, Nevada and Arizona.Trump's likeliest path appeared narrower - he needed to hang onto both Pennsylvania and Georgia and also to overtake Biden in either Nevada or Arizona.

In Pennsylvania, which has 20 electoral votes, Biden cutTrump's lead to just over 18,000 by the early hours of Friday, while his deficit in Georgia, which has 16 electoral votes, shrunk to about 650.

Reuters

. Some members had called for violence, while many falsely claimed that Democrats are “stealing” the election from Republicans.

Though the group amassed more than 350,000 members before Facebook took it down, it was just one of several smaller groups that popped up as vote counting extended for days in several battleground states.

Read more here.

. Philadelphia police said on Friday they are investigating an alleged plot to attack the city's Pennsylvania Convention Center, where votes from the hotly contested presidential election are being counted.

Local police received a tip about a Hummer with armed people driving up from Virginia with plans to attack the convention center, a police representative said.

Police took at least one man into custody and seized a weapon as well as the Hummer about which they had received a tip. No injuries were reported and no further details about the alleged plot were disclosed.

Reuters

. “Democracy is sometimes messy,” Biden told reporters Thursday in Wilmington, Delaware, where he called for every ballot to be counted. “It sometimes requires a little patience as well.”

President Donald Trump called a news conference at the White House, where he made false and baseless claims about “illegal” votes, secret counts and how forces were working to “steal” the election from him.

Read more here.

. Trump asserted that he should be ahead in most of the states that are still counting ballots and prematurely declared victory in a rambling early morning speech that misread vote tallies across the country.

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. Donald Trump Jr., the eldest, called on his father in a tweet to wage "total war" against the cheating that he believes is tainting the presidential election.

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. Results in Pennsylvania (20 electoral votes), Georgia (16), North Carolina (15), Arizona (11) and Nevada (6) remained uncertain, according to Edison Research.

Read more here.

. With the winner of the presidency yet to be declared, attention shifted Thursday to a handful of states that remained too close to call but where, on balance, Joe Biden seemed to have an advantage, and the candidates pressed their cases on the state of the race.

“Democracy is sometimes messy,” Biden told reporters Thursday in Wilmington, Delaware, where he called for every ballot to be counted. “It sometimes requires a little patience as well.”

PresidentDonaldTrumpcalled a news conference at the White House, where he made false and baseless claims about “illegal” votes, secret counts and how forces were working to “steal” the election from him.

“It’s amazing how those mail-in ballots are so one-sided,” he said at one point. ABC, CBS and NBC all cut away as his false statements mounted.

NYT

. Democratic party presidential candidate Joe Biden has been gaining ground in the battleground state of Georgia in what almost looks like a tie between him and President Trump.

Trump is slightly ahead of Biden inPennsylvania and the gap seems to be shrinking in Arizona.

Currently, Biden stands at 264electoral votes, while Trump has 214.

. Several US TV networks late Thursday halted live coverage of DonaldTrump's first public appearance since election night after concluding that the president was spreading disinformation.

Trumpunleashed a flood of incendiary and unsubstantiated claims in a 17-minute address, insisting that Democrats were using "illegal votes" to "steal the election from us."

The president spoke as late vote-counting in battleground states showed Democrat Joe Biden steadily closing in on victory.

"OK, here we are again in the unusual position of not only interrupting the president of the United States but correcting the president of the United States," said MSNBC anchor Brian Williams, as the network quickly ended its live coverage.

AFP

. In Russia, the drawn-out aftermath of America’s Election Day has become the focus of a domestic political struggle in its own right, feeding a debate over whether Russia’s tightly scripted political landscape has unique advantages over U.S. democracy.

Read more here.

. The Trump campaign has also filed lawsuits in Pennsylvania and Nevada. It has demanded recounting of votes in Wisconsin.

Read more here.

. US voters went to the polls starkly divided on how they see President DonaldTrump's response to the coronavirus pandemic, with a surprising twist: In places where the virus is most rampant now,Trumpenjoyed enormous support.

An Associated Press analysis reveals that in 376 counties with the highest number of new cases per capita, the overwhelming majority — 93 per cent of those counties — went forTrump, a rate above other less severely hit areas. Most were rural areas in the Dakotas, Montana, Nebraska, Wisconsin and Iowa.

Taking note of the contrast, state health officials are pausing for a moment of introspection. Even as they worry about rising numbers of hospitalisations and deaths, they hope to reframe their messages and aim for a reset on public sentiment now that the election is over.

AP

. In Maricopa County, Arizona, with 89.2% of the estimated vote tallied so far, Trump has 47.6% and Biden has 51.0% of vote.

. Joe Biden gained ground in Pennsylvania, Nevada and Georgia on Thursday as the slow-moving vote count in those contested battleground states moved him closer to capturing an electoral majority and defeating President DonaldTrump.

As an anxious country waited to learn the winner, the two candidates emerged toward the day’s end to make remarks that were dramatically different in tone and content.

In a brief appearance before reporters in Wilmington, Delaware, Biden said he remained confident that he would ultimately prevail but did not lay claim to the White House.

“Democracy’s sometimes messy,” Biden said. “It sometimes requires a little patience as well. But that patience has been rewarded now for more than 240 years with a system of governance that’s been the envy of the world.”

He urged calm and emphasized that “each ballot must be counted.”

NYT

. US President Donald Trump's campaign on Thursday sued Philadelphia County's Board of Elections, seeking an emergency injunction barring it from counting ballots so long as Republican observers are not present as it said was required under Pennsylvania law.

. President Donald Trump called in his lawyers to shore up his dimming re-election prospects, but legal experts said the flurry of lawsuits had little chance of changing the outcome but might cast doubt on the process.

. Every four years, an American tradition is to watch the presidential election results roll in on one of several news networks, which project the winner of each US state.

. US President Donald Trump scored the first legal battle in the battleground state of Pennsylvania wherein an appellate judge has ordered that poll watchers must be allowed within six feet of counting of votes.

. In Joe Biden's hometown of Wilmington, residents anxiously check their phones for updates and run errands to keep themselves busy, as journalists twiddle their thumbs in hotel lobbies -- all waiting for the winner of the knife-edge presidential election to be announced.

. The Trump Campaign on Thursday filed a lawsuit in the battleground state of Nevada, alleging mass level electoral malpractice.

. With the election result still hanging in the balance on Thursday, the 2020 US presidential race is shaping up to be one of the closest in American history. As it stands, it could come down to one state and a few electoral votes to determine who is going to be the next president of the United States. Source: Statista

. Latest mail in ballot numbers in Pennsylvania:

-581,167 Mail-in-Ballots remaining (22.25%)

-2,031,074 Mail-in-Ballots counted (77.25%) About half of outstanding ballots are in: Philadelphia, Bucks, Chester, Lehigh, and Allegheny counties accounting for 267,870 ballots.

. The US presidential election could be settled Thursday as a handful of battleground states complete their vote counts.

Democrat Joe Biden has racked up 264 of the 270 electoral votes that he needs -- if Arizona is included, which Donald Trump's team says could still swing in his direction. Without Arizona, he has 253.

Republican President Trump only has 214 electoral votes.

Expected to report Thursday are Georgia (16 electoral votes), North Carolina (15), and Nevada (6).

. Biden campaign lawyer Bob Bauer: We have "not seen any indication" of Attorney General Bill Barr getting involved in the election disputes the Trump campaign is trying to gin up. "Not a matter for the Department of Justice."

. Biden campaign attorney Bob Bauer says the Trump campaign legal challenges are about misinformation and political theater. “These lawsuits don’t have to have merit,” he says. “It’s to create an opportunity for them to message falsely what is happening in the election process.”

. Former vice president Joe Biden, making his third run at the White House, was tantalizingly close to victory on Thursday as President Donald Trump sought to stave off defeat with scattershot legal challenges.

. Democratic presidential challenger Joe Biden on Thursday edged toward the magic number of 270 electoral votes needed to win the White House, but several battleground states were still in play, as incumbent President Donald Trump cried foul over the ongoing vote count.

As it stands, there are five states still left uncalled, including major prizes such as Pennsylvania, and key small state Nevada -- meaning both Trump and Biden still have a path to victory.

US media outlets have projected wins for the Republican incumbent in 23 states including big prizes Florida and Texas, as well as Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri and Ohio -- all states he won in 2016.

. President Trump's lead has narrowed to 18,586 in Georgia, which explains perfectly why he visited this red state in the final hours of the race. There are about 61,000 ballots to still be counted -- many from areas that trended heavily toward Joe Biden. Stay tuned to this, folks. - Jeff Zeleny

. Georgia elections official Gabriel Sterling on the slow ballot counting process: Some county staffers sometimes “forget to press the upload button" accounting for some delays. Stresses patience. “Fast is great. We appreciate fast. We more appreciate accuracy.”

. County election offices have counted advance by mail ballots that were postmarked on or before Election Day and have been returned to their office, and will continue to do so with ballots received until November 6. Ballots that are reported as accepted have been counted.- Kansas Secretary of State

. Georgia: it's going to be close, but the higher-end estimates for mail ballots will probably get it done for Biden. And don't forget about provisionals here, either. Not very many in this state, but even if Trump holds a nominal lead at the end, Biden could still have a shot - Nate Cohn

. The head of an international observer mission to the US elections accused Donald Trump on Thursday of a "gross abuse of office" after the president alleged he was being cheated and demanded that vote counting be halted.

. Per Amy Gardner this morn, "61k votes are outstanding in Georgia. 17,157 from Chatham; 11,200 from Fulton; 7,338 from Gwinnett; 4,713 from Forsyth; 3,641 from Harris; 1,797 from Laurens; 1,552 from Putnam; 1,202 from Sumter; 700 from Cobb."

. Latest 2020 election results:

NV: Biden +0.6% w/ 86% in

AZ: Biden +2.4% w/ 86% in

GA: Trump +0.4% w/ 96% in

NC: Trump +1.5% w/ 95% in

PA: Trump +2.6% w/ 89% in

. With the US presidential election between Republican President Donald Trump and Democratic challenger Joe Biden too close to call, the Trump campaign and Republicans turned to the courts to try to invalidate votes in Pennsylvania and block Michigan officials from counting ballots.

. Wall Street was set to jump on Thursday as investors bet on a Republican held Senate that would block any moves by a Joe Biden administration to tighten regulation and raise taxes on corporate America, even as the presidential election remained too close to call.

Futures tracking the benchmark S&P 500 surged as much as 2%, while Nasdaq 100 futures gained 2.6% a day after Wall Street's main indexes closed at more than one-week highs.

. Villagers in the Indian ancestral home of Kamala Harris painted slogans on roads wishing her victory on Thursday, as Joe Biden, her Democrat running mate in the US presidential election, moved closer to the White House.

. Democrats always planned to use mail-in ballots to sway this election. That’s why they intro’d & passed HR1 (their #1 priority) when Pelosi took House majority in early 2019 (long before pandemic). If it had passed every state election would look like PA, WI and MI right now!! - Jim Banks

. Young electors in the US have been making their voices heard and although the votes are being counted, their choice could shape the outcome of the closely-fought 2020 presidential election and decide the presidency of the world’s oldest democracy.

. A wary China on Thursday hoped the presidential poll process in the US would end smoothly and successfully and said that there is a room for cooperation between the two nations despite "some differences," as observers forecast heightening of the rivalry between the top two economies no matter whoever emerges victorious.

. Russia's rouble suffered on Thursday while China's yuan and emerging market stocks scaled multi-year highs as Joe Biden moved closer to victory in a tight US election race.

. Police in Portland declared riots, arrested 11 people and seized fireworks, hammers and a rifle, as Oregon Governor Kate Brown activated the National Guard in response to protests on the night after voting in the US presidential election.

In New York, police said they had made about 50 arrests in protests that spread in the city late on Wednesday.

Demonstrations, mostly small and peaceful, were held in cities across the United States by supporters of Democratic nominee Joe Biden. President Donald Trump has claimed victory and called for a halt to the counting of ballots in states that will determine the outcome of Tuesday's election. Biden has said he believes he is on course to win once the votes are counted.

. The yuan ended the domestic trading session at a 28-month high on Thursday as growing prospects of a Joe Biden presidency in the United States raised investor expectations of a less problematic trade relationship between the world's two largest economies.

Victories in Michigan and Wisconsin gave Biden a critical boost in the race against President Donald Trump to obtain 270 votes in the state-by-state Electoral College needed to win the White House.

The onshore spot yuan finished domestic trading session at 6.64 per dollar, its strongest such close since July 10, 2018.

The yuan had a roller-coaster ride in the previous two days, swinging from an over-three-week low to a near-28-month high, as investor sentiment was heavily affected by the dollar's reaction to the fast-changing election dynamics.

"The USD/CNH was perhaps the most reactive pair to the odds of a Trump upset," said Terence Wu, FX strategist at OCBC Bank.

. The Kremlin said on Thursday that the lack of clarity after the Nov. 3 US presidential election so far could have a negative impact on the global economy and world at large, but declined to comment further.

Democrat Joe Biden moved closer to victory in the US presidential race on Thursday as election officials tallied votes in the handful of states that will determine the outcome and protesters took to the streets.

. Police in Portland declared riots, arrested 11 people and seized fireworks, hammers and a rifle, as Oregon Governor Kate Brown activated the National Guard in response to protests on the night after voting in the U.S. presidential election.

In New York, police said they had made about 50 arrests in protests that spread in the city late on Wednesday.

Demonstrations, mostly small and peaceful, were held in cities across the United States by supporters of Democratic nominee Joe Biden. President Donald Trump has claimed victory and called for a halt to the counting of ballots in states that will determine the outcome of Tuesday's election. Biden has said he believes he is on course to win once the votes are counted.

Four arrests were made in Denver as protesters clashed with police, the Denver Police Department said. Arrests were also made during demonstrations in Minneapolis after protesters blocked traffic, local police there said.

Activists also staged rallies in Atlanta, Detroit and Oakland demanding that vote counts proceed unimpeded.

"All of the gatherings that were declared riots were downtown," a Portland Police spokesman told Reuters in an emailed statement. "There have been 11 arrests tonight and we have not received any reports of injuries."

. Republican US President Donald Trump and his Democratic challenger Joe Biden have both claimed to be ahead in the closely fought presidential election, even as the final outcome hinged on a handful of states on Thursday where a flood of mail-in ballots triggered by the raging coronavirus pandemic remained to be counted.

Trump and Biden both won key American states they were expected to win in their bid for a majority in the 538-member Electoral College that determines who wins the race for the White House in Tuesday's election.

But the results in four states — Georgia, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Nevada — was yet to be declared as officials counted millions of votes, some that were cast on Tuesday and many more during weeks of early voting amidst the surging pandemic.

. After an extraordinary election night that put the country’s democracy to the test, the presidential election Wednesday tilted toward Joe Biden, who claimed Wisconsin and Michigan and was leading in Nevada and Arizona, two states that will get him to 270 electoral votes if his advantage holds.

Top aides to both Biden, the Democratic nominee, and President Donald Trump argued that they were on a winning trajectory. But Biden was far better positioned because he had more routes to victory among the seven battleground states that were still counting votes.

After a campaign finale that riveted the country and saw the highest level of turnout in more than a century, Biden sought to balance a tone of conciliation with an attitude of confidence. In an afternoon speech in Wilmington, Delaware, he said that he believed he was on track to secure the presidency and that it would soon be time to “put the harsh rhetoric of the campaign behind us.”

While he did not claim outright victory the way Trump sought to do late on election night, Biden listed the states he had seized from the president and predicted that Pennsylvania would soon be among them.

“I’m not here to declare that we’ve won,” he said, “but I am here to report that when the count is finished, we believe we will be the winners.”

Biden also issued a warning to the Trump campaign, which was once again threatening to go to court to stop the counting of votes.

. In a reprise of the violent street altercations that erupted at times in New York over the summer, a day of peaceful demonstrations in Manhattan on Wednesday turned into clashes between protesters and the police after night fell, leading to nearly 60 arrests.

The protests and subsequent confrontations came as the city and much of the rest of the United States remained on edge amid the presidential election’s uncertain outcome and with the Police Department prepared to quell any potential unrest.

At around 8:30 p.m. in the West Village, a phalanx of officers moved on a group of several hundred people who had gathered earlier outside the New York Public Library in midtown before marching to Washington Square Park.

The protesters had briefly shut down traffic in the neighborhood while chanting slogans like “every city, every town, burn the precincts to the ground” as they passed boutique restaurants where patrons were enjoying dinner on an unseasonably warm evening.

Employing the law enforcement tactic known as kettling, the officers pushed protesters out of the street and sought to contain them on sidewalks. At one point, as a few dozen demonstrators walked down an empty side street near the park, police on bicycles raced past them and blocked them at the next cross street.

As the protesters banged against signposts and shouted at the police to move, more officers in riot gear joined the fray. Yet another group of police, their bright blue and black helmets bobbing beneath the lights from apartments above, approached from behind.

With the protesters surrounded, dozens of officers in riot gear moved in, encircling the group and pushing protesters to the ground as they made arrests.

. US stock futures extended gains in after-hours trade on Wednesday, as ballots were tallied in several states that should decide whether Democratic challenger Joe Biden unseats President Donald Trump in an election that remains too close to call.

S&P e-mini futures were up 0.9% on the heels of a 2.3% rally in the S&P 500 on Wednesday, driven by the prospect of gridlock in Congress after Democrats appeared to have failed to take control of the US Senate.

That raised optimism that disruptive policy changes would be hard to implement, regardless of the winner in the presidential contest.

. Calling on election officials to “count every vote,” protesters marched through the streets of several American cities Wednesday in response to President Donald Trump’s aggressive effort to challenge the vote count in Tuesday’s presidential election.

In Minneapolis, protesters blocked a freeway, prompting arrests. In Portland, hundreds gathered on the waterfront to protest the president’s attempted interventions in the vote count as a separate group protesting the police and urging racial justice surged through downtown, smashing shop windows and confronting police officers and National Guard troops.

In Phoenix, about 150 pro-Trump protesters, some of them armed, gathered outside the county recorder’s office where a closely watched count of votes that could help determine the outcome of the election was being conducted.

Another group of pro-Trump poll watchers gathered earlier outside a ballot-counting center in Detroit, demanding that officials “stop the count” of ballots after the Trump campaign filed suit to halt the count in Michigan.

Trump claimed early Wednesday that he had won the election long before key states had counted all their ballots. He spent much of the day asserting, without evidence, that people were trying to “steal” the election from him and cast doubt on the legitimacy of the many ballots sent through the mail because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Early Thursday, former Vice President Joe Biden was only a handful of electoral votes from winning the election, and Trump’s campaign was mounting an aggressive legal effort to challenge the tally, filing lawsuits in Michigan, Georgia and Pennsylvania.

. Democrats faced increasingly long odds as the the battle for Senate control hangs in balance, and Republicans brushed back multiple challengers to protect their majority. Still, it was too soon for the GOP to declare victory.

In Michigan, Democrats were spared a loss late Wednesday when Sen. Gary Peters beat back a tough challenge from Republican John James. But Republicans held on to Susan Collins in Maine and other key seats across the map.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said President Donald Trump's campaign helped his GOP allies, but that state election officials were still counting ballots. Key Senate races in North Carolina, Alaska and Georgia remained undecided.

The races attracted an unprecedented outpouring of small-dollar donations for Democrats, from Americans apparently voting with their pocketbooks to propel long-shot campaigns.

The voters' choices will force a rethinking of Democratic Party strategy, messaging, and approach in the Trump era.

. Many Venezuelans are hoping for the re-election of U.S. President Donald Trump, whose campaign of aggressive sanctions against the South American nation's ruling Socialist Party has won over a broad swathe of President Nicolas Maduro's critics.

The Trump administration has promised that sanctions will cause the ouster of Maduro, who has overseen a catastrophic economic meltdown that fueled a mass exodus of migrants.

. On election night, tens of millions of Americans turned to their cable networks of choice for returns and projections. Meanwhile, millions of young viewers — some first-time voters and many too young to cast ballots — turned instead to TikTok for virtual watch parties, political analysis and a bit of manifesting.

. A source familiar with the matter told CNN that if Georgia is close, “of course” the Trump camp will ask for a recount if he loses.It’s currently a 33,000 vote margin and there’s around 90,000 remaining to be counted.

Georgia’s most populated county will continue to count the votes through the night, tallying the last tranche of the remaining absentee ballots, CNN reports.

. The Federal Reserve is scheduled to release its latest policy statement on Thursday after two days of debate in which policymakers lacked a critical piece of information: who will run the United States for the next four years.

With the final result of Tuesday's presidential election still uncertain, the US central bank's policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee is expected to stick closely to its last statement and repeat its pledge to do whatever it can to help the economy through the coronavirus-triggered recession.

Until it's clear who the next US president will be, "it is the wrong time to be in the public eye," said William English, a former head of the Fed's monetary affairs division and now a professor at the Yale School of Management.

. Allegations of fraud and foul play in the 2020 election spread across the internet on Wednesday as officials counted ballots in battleground states that will determine the outcome of the closely fought vote between Donald Trump and Joe Biden

. As vote counting continued in an election with record-breaking turnout where most ballots were cast before Election Day but many could not be counted until afterward, the presidency continued to hang in the balance late Wednesday morning, with the hopes of former Vice President Joe Biden and President Donald Trump resting in a handful of key states.

. A spokesperson for UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has said that he has no comments as of now on the 2020 US Presidential Election and the process is being watched closely.

“No, not at this point. I mean, we're all watching, obviously, closely. The process is still… is playing itself out. We do not have a comment at this point,” Spokesman for the Secretary-General Stéphane Dujarric said on Wednesday.

. On Wednesday, Republicans looking to cast doubts on the legitimacy of election results in Arizona, where former Vice President Joe Biden was running ahead of President Donald Trump, began circulating a conspiracy theory about the use of felt-tip pens at the state’s polling stations.

The viral rumor, which was shared by one of Trump’s sons, Eric, and other prominent Republicans, including some who called it “Sharpiegate,” alleged that poll workers had provided Trump voters with felt-tip pens to mark their ballots, which some claimed invalidated those ballots by making them unreadable by voting machines.

But Arizona officials said that there was no truth to that claim and that votes recorded with felt-tip pens would still be counted.

“Those ballots are being counted,” Arizona’s secretary of state, Katie Hobbs, said in a local TV interview Wednesday.

. Democratic nominee Joe Biden has won more votes than any other presidential candidate in the US history, shattering a record set by former President Barack Obama, according to a media report.

As of November 4, Biden had got over 70.7 million votes, more than anyone who has ever run for president, the National Public Radio (NPR) reported.

This count includes 300,000 more votes than what Obama got in 2008, which was the previous record. Biden surpassed the popular vote record of 69,498,516 set by Obama in 2008.

Biden, in a tight electoral vote fight to the White House against incumbent President Donald Trump, is 2.7 million votes ahead of the Republican leader in the popular vote. His lead is growing as counting picks pace in key battleground states.

. "It's clear that we're winning enough states to reach (the) 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency," Biden, appearing with his running mate Kamala Harris, said in his home state of Delaware. "I'm not here to declare that we've won. But I am here to report that when the count is finished we believe we will be the winners."

. Pennsylvania, the state with the largest trove of electoral votes still up for grabs, inched ahead in its counting of more than 1 million outstanding mail-in ballots Wednesday, a majority of them from Democratic strongholds, as Joe Biden cut into his deficit with President Donald Trump.

With narrow wins in Wisconsin and Michigan called on Wednesday afternoon, Biden has flipped two of the three northern industrial states that handed Trump the White House in 2016. Pennsylvania, the last of those so-called blue-wall states, loomed as a battleground that Trump must win again to secure reelection. Biden has a slightly broader path to attaining 270 electoral votes, but a Pennsylvania victory would put him over the top.

Officials from both parties vigorously made their cases that the composition of the uncounted mail-in votes ensured that a Pennsylvania victory was at hand for their candidate.

. The US Postal Service on Wednesday disclosed it had found just 13 undelivered ballots in Pennsylvania after it completed required sweeps of mail processing facilities late Tuesday in about a dozen states.

. Republican Lauren Boebert has won the Colorado House seat held by five-term GOP Rep. Scott Tipton.

Boebert is the owner of Shooters Grill, an open carry “family friendly” restaurant.

Boebert defeated Democrat Diane Mitsch Bush, a former state lawmaker and Routt County commissioner.

Boebert was a first-time candidate for public office. She soundly defeated Tipton, a co-chair of President Donald Trump's Colorado reelection campaign, in the Republican primary in June.

Boebert closely allied herself to Trump, assailing Democrats on everything from what she called job-killing proposals on fossil fuels to coronavirus restrictions to unrest in Democratic-led cities. She voiced praise for the QAnon conspiracy theory during the primary but has since distanced herself from it.

She pledged to protect gun rights and appeared at her rallies with a Glock pistol strapped to her hip. (AP)

. Jen O'Malley Dillon, Joe Biden's campaign manager, said in briefing: "The US President falsely claimed that he had won this race and then demanded that votes stopped being counted. Let's be extremely clear about something, if Donald Trump got his wish, Joe Biden would be the next President."

. Twitter on Wednesday labeled as "misleading" a tweet from President Donald Trump claiming ballot irregularities, as a tight vote count in the presidential election was evolving.

Trump alleged that there had been "surprise ballot dumps" in states where he had been leading Democrat Joe Biden in the race for the White House.

Twitter had also taken a similar action against an earlier tweet by the president.

Users were able to read the tweets after clicking through a warning that "some or all of the content shared in this Tweet is disputed and might be misleading." (AFP)

. More than 1.1 million New York City residents voted before Election Day, waiting hours in lines that snaked around city blocks. Hundreds of thousands of people mailed absentee ballots, hoping they would arrive at the elections board and would be counted. And on Election Day, voters came to the polls in droves.

Read more here

. Americans woke up on Wednesday not knowing who the next US president would be as votes were still being counted in six key states that could swing the bitterly contested election to Republican incumbent Donald Trump or Democrat Joe Biden.

Read more here

. With no winner declared in the presidential election last night, all eyes are on the outcome in a few remaining swing states to determine whether Donald Trump will get another four years or if Joe Biden will become the next president of the United States. The counting of ballots in Pennsylvania continued through the night with no winner yet announced.

. One must remember that Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin election officials were not allowed to begin processing absentee ballots until on or just before Election Day, after Republican-led state legislatures opposed changing laws to allow earlier preparations like other states.

. US President Donald Trump and Democratic challenger Joe Biden are battling it out for the White House, with polls closed across the United States -- and the American people waiting for results in key battlegrounds still up for grabs.

Read more here

. Close contests in five key states mean the US presidential election may not be decided for days, or longer, even as President Donald Trump’s falsely claimed victory over Democrat Joe Biden with millions of ballots still to be counted.

Read more here

. I don’t mean the big things — the absurd twists in the ugly, never-ending, pandemic-blurred, possibly world-ending presidential election of 2020. No, I’m referring to the smallest, most particular act of this saga: the way we voted. The process of registering your democratic preference, the citizen’s core duty in a democracy. Can we take a moment to acknowledge how terribly inefficient, inaccessible, unfair and just plain backward this process remains in the United States?

Read more here

. In a wee-hours appearance from the East Room of the White House early Wednesday, Trump claimed without evidence that the election was being taken from him by “a very sad group of people.” His baseless statements — including an unfounded claim that the election was “a major fraud on our nation” — stirred up anchors at major networks, some of which cut away from his remarks before he was finished.

Read more here

. A former diplomat who served in Iraq, Russia, Israel and Taiwan, Kulkarni in March had secured an easy victory in the Democratic primary for Texas' 22nd Congressional district against former Pearland city council member Derrick Reed and attorney Nyanza Davis Moore.

Read more here

. "With Donald Trump already claiming victory even though millions of votes are still uncounted, investors may have to belt up and brace themselves for some volatile sessions of trading ahead," noted Susannah Streeter, senior investment and markets analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown.

Read more here

. So waking up to the news on Wednesday that the winner of the US election might not be known for hours, days or weeks — pundits filled global airwaves with their best guesses — came as a shock to a planet weaned on that most American of exports: speed.

Read more here

. The premature move confirmed worries Democrats had voiced for weeks that Trump would seek to dispute the election results. That could set off any number of legal and political dramas in which the presidency could be determined by some combination of the courts, state politicians and Congress.

Read more here

. Slovenian Prime Minister Janez Jansa congratulated Donald Trump on what he described in a tweet as a clear victory in the US presidential election, becoming the first European Union leader to do so.

"It’s pretty clear that American people have elected @realDonaldTrump @Mike_Pence for #4moreyears," said the leader of the tiny Alpine country, which is homeland of first lady Melania Trump.

"More delays and facts denying from #MSM, bigger the final triumph for #POTUS," tweeted Jansa, a rightist politician who had supported Trump ahead of the US vote. "Congratulations @GOP for strong results across the #US." (Reuters)

. Donald Trump is projected to win Texas, Florida, Ohio, South Carolina, Alabama, Louisiana, Wyoming, Missouri, Indiana, Arkansas, Nebraska, Mississippi, North Dakota, South Dakota, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Kentucky, West Virginia and Kansas, according to AP, ABC and NBC.

. Wall Street and global financial executives are waiting anxiously for a clear winner in the 2020 US election after President Donald Trump called foul play, stoking fears of a drawn-out count that keeps markets and businesses hanging.

Read more here

. Randy Feenstra, a Republican state senator, won election to represent northwest Iowa in Congress on Tuesday, five months after his primary victory over Rep. Steve King, whose history of racist comments had made him an embarrassment to the party.

According to The Associated Press, Feenstra, 51, a social conservative, was turning back by a large margin a spirited campaign from J.D. Scholten, 40, a Democrat and supporter of Sen. Bernie Sanders who nearly defeated King two years ago.

While Republican leaders saw Feenstra as less incendiary than King, the incoming congressman shares many of his predecessor’s policy views.

Feenstra has pledged to fight to build President Donald Trump’s border wall with Mexico, ban “sanctuary cities,” “fight against the liberal agenda” and defund Planned Parenthood. In a recent debate, he said marriage was “between one man and one woman.” He also sought to paint Scholten, a former professional baseball player who at 6-foot-6 stands one inch taller than Feenstra, as beholden to “liberal coastal elites.”

Feenstra’s victory over Scholten was a bright spot for Republicans. (NYT)

. Rep. Collin C. Peterson, D-Minn., the chairman of the Agriculture Committee who has represented his large agrarian district for three decades, lost his reelection bid early Wednesday, handing Republicans a pickup in the House.

Peterson, 76, had bucked political trends for years, winning reelection in a rural district that was increasingly shifting toward the Republican Party. Michelle Fischbach, 55, a former lieutenant governor who vowed to “fire” Speaker Nancy Pelosi upon arriving in Washington and sought to tie the congressman to his party’s left flank, finally ended his run, according to The Associated Press.

“It really is the death knell for the moderate rural Democrat,” said Tim Lindberg, an assistant professor of political science at the University of Minnesota Morris. “It was clear he knew he was in trouble.”

President Donald Trump won the district by 31 points in 2016, and Republican strategists had theorized that should Peterson face tough competition during the president’s reelection year, they could flip the seat. His defeat underscored a growing divide between suburban areas that are increasingly aligning with Democrats and the white working-class rural districts that are shifting ever more sharply toward Republicans. (NYT)

. In a freak incident, a ballot scanner in the Iowa stopped working after getting moisture from voters applying hand sanitiser, leading to a disruption in polling, a media report said.

The voters who applied hand sanitiser caused excess moisture to get into the machine and put it out of commission for about an hour in Iowa’s Des Moines, New York Daily News quoted spokesperson for the Iowa secretary of state Kevin Hall as saying.

The hand sanitiser dispenser was moved away so that voters' hands would be drier when they got up to the ballot scanners, in a bid to prevent the issue from recurring.

Iowa has seen a surge in coronavirus cases recently and has reported nearly 135,000 cases since March.

According to Johns Hopkins coronavirus tracker, the coronavirus has so far infected more than 47 million people and killed over 1.2 million people globally. The US is the worst affected country with over 9.3 million cases and 232,000 deaths. (PTI)

. German Defence Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer on Wednesday warned the United States was facing a "very explosive situation" and a possible systemic crisis after President Donald Trump prematurely declared election victory.

Following Trump's remarks that he will go to the Supreme Court to stop ballots from being tallied, Kramp-Karrenbauer told public broadcaster ZDF "this election has not been decided... votes are still being counted".

She said Trump could create "a constitutional crisis in the USA". (AFP)

. President Donald Trump's aides pored over election maps in the White House West Wing and cheered their candidate in the East Room as Election Day results in critical states such as Florida and Ohio came in favouring the Republican leader on Tuesday.

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. During the 2012 presidential campaign, when Trump championed the notorious "birther" theory that Barack Obama was not American, the property developer claims voting machines wiped ballots for Republican candidate Mitt Romney.

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. Nearly 69 per cent Muslim voters cast their ballot for Democratic Presidential nominee Joe Biden while 17 per cent supported President Donald Trump, according to a survey conducted by Muslim civil liberties and advocacy organisation in the US.

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. The eldest son of the US President tweeted the image saying, “Okay, finally got around to making my electoral map prediction,” which showed most of the countries in the world were coloured red, while India, Sri Lanka, Mexico, Cuba, Chinaand some other states inblue (Democratic colours). Those marked red show Trump-favouring countries and those in blue show those that would vote for Biden's presidency.

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. President Donald Trump won a series of key battlegrounds early Wednesday morning, including Florida, Ohio and Iowa, as Joe Biden expressed confidence he would ultimately prevail across key Northern states and Arizona as the presidential contest turned into a state-by-state slog that could drag deeper into the week.

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. Two federal lawsuits aim to prevent absentee votes from being counted. The GOP already has laid the groundwork at the Supreme Court for an effort to exclude ballots that arrive after polls close Tuesday. Trump has railed over several days about the high court's pre-election refusal to rule out those ballots.

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. Iran's President Hassan Rouhani said on Wednesday the result of the US election was not important for the country's clerical rulers, but that the next president in Washington should respect international treaties and laws.

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. Joe Biden's supporters turned up hoping for a victory party. They left none the wiser as Biden told them he was confident of defeating Donald Trump -- but urged patience, with the nail-biting contest hanging in the balance.

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. "If the president makes good on his threat to go to court to try to prevent the proper tabulation of votes, we have legal teams standing by ready to deploy to resist that effort. And they will prevail, " says Biden campaign manager Jen O'Malley Dillon.

Biden campaign says President Trump's comments about 'shutting down the counting' are 'outrageous, unprecedented, and incorrect'.

. Democrats entered the 2020 elections looking to win back much of the commanding presence Republicans gained in state government, but with voting results complete in more than 30 states, there were no changes in control of any lawmaking bodies by late early Wednesday.

In fact, Republicans took back a governor's mansion in Montana that had been held by a retiring Democrat, giving them a total of 27, as Republican Greg Gianforte defeated Democrat Mike Cooney.

Republicans began Election Day with 59 state legislative chambers. Democrats, with only 39 chambers, jacked up their spending this year on campaigns in eight states, including Arizona, North Carolina, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Texas.

. German Defence Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer said on Wednesday that the situation in the United States after the election is explosive and that she is concerned it could lead to a constitutional crisis.

"This is a very explosive situation. This is a situation that can lead to a constitutional crisis in the US., as experts are rightly saying. And it is something that must cause us great concern," she said on German television channel ZDF.

. AP projects Biden victory in Arizona. Joe Biden has flipped the state. Republicans lost some voters in the state in the 2018 mid-term election and lost more this year. Biden leads by 4.9% after 80% of the votes have been counted.

. Pennsylvania is not even close, says Trump as he declares victory in the state.

Let's go to court, says Trump. This is an embarassment to our country.

. I want to thank the American people for their tremendous support. A very sad group of people are trying to disenfranchise that group of people, we won't stand for it, says Trump. He thanks Mike Pence, the First Lady. We were all set to celebrate, it was all called off. Results tonight have been phenomenal, says the President. We won the great state of Ohio, Texas. It is also clear that we have won Georgia. Trump claims victory in North Carolina and Georgia.

. Incumbent President Donald Trump wins Florida, projects AP. A battleground state. It is often the state that decides the election. Florida has voted with the eventual winner in all but one presidential election since 1964. It is also the battleground state with the largest population and the most electoral college votes.

. AP projects win for Trump in Iowa, Ohio and Montana. Trump closes in on Biden's Electoral College lead. Biden is now projected to win 223 electoral college votes,Trump 145. Trump leads in most battleground states, while Biden regains some lost ground as more votes are counted.

. Florida has voted with the eventual President in all but one presidential election since 1964. It is also the battleground state with the largest population and the most electoral college votes. Hence, it could be the state that decides the winner. Trump leads in the state by 3.3%.

. A judge ordered the US Postal Service to sweep some mail processing facilities for delayed ballots and immediately dispatch them for delivery in election battlegrounds including Pennsylvania, Florida, and Arizona: Reuters

. I promise you this, as I'm running as a proud Democrat, if you elect me I'm going to be an American President, there will be no red states or blue states just the United States of America: Joe Biden, US Democratic presidential nominee

. We have an enormous opportunity as a country. Not only we're going to be able to overcome this virus by taking some smart moves but we're going to rebuild the middle class. It built this country & Unions built the middle class: US Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden

. Think about a long-overdue reckoning on racial injustice in the US. Joe has the courage to say 'Black Lives Matter'. He understands it may be difficult to think about/speak up/hear but we've to confront the truth of things. Need to deal with racial disparities: Kamala Harris, US VP candidate

. President Donald Trump said he felt good about his chances for victory as US election day opened Tuesday, predicting that he would register big wins in keystatessuch as Florida and Arizona.

"We feel very good," a hoarse-voiced Trump told Fox News in a phone interview.

. For countries around the planet, the presidency of Donald Trump in its first term has been, it is safe to say, a singular experience to watch. Now that an inflection point in Trump's time in office is at hand with Tuesday's US election, what's at stake if his presidency ends — or if it continues? Nation by nation, how is Election Day in the United States being watched, considered, assessed?

. Voters stand in line at dawn as the polls open on November 3, 2020 in Crawfordville, United States. After a record-breaking early voting turnout, Americans head to the polls on the last day to cast their vote for incumbent USPresident Donald Trump or Democratic nominee Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election. Mark Wallheiser/Getty Images/AFP.

. The coronavirus pandemic, an unprecedented number of ballots cast early, the lack of consistency about how these votes will be counted, and ongoing legal battles have made the outcome of the 2020 USpresidential election one of the hardest to predict.

. As the tumultuous US election campaign draws to a close, Americans head to the polls to decide who will occupy the White House for the next four years - incumbent Republican President Donald Trump or his Democratic rival, former vice president Joe Biden.

. More than 100 million Americans have voted nationwide before polls opened on Election Day, according to a survey by CNN, Edison Research, and Catalist. The 100.2 million ballots represent 73% of total ballots cast in 2016. - Jim Sciutto.

. What's all this hubbub about 270? It's not about the 270 whales stranded this fall on Australia's island state of Tasmania. It's not about congestion on Interstate 270 feeding commuters into Washington, DC,It's about who's going to sit in the White House for the next four years.

US Elections 2020 Highlights: There will be no red, blue states, only United States. Will be President who unites, not divides, says Biden

Thank you for following our live coverage of the US election result, move to our new live blog

Americans have called on us to marshal the forces of decency and the forces of fairness. To marshal the forces of science and the forces of hope in the great battles of our time: Biden

We must restore the soul of America, says President-elect Biden

For all those of you who voted for President Trump, I understand the disappointment tonight: Biden

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