welcome to bbc news. i'm lewis vaughan jones. our top stories: joe biden is expected to address the american people shortly, after inching ahead of donald trump in crucial states. mr biden isjust ahead in arizona and nevada. but, a recount is announced in georgia — wherejoe biden‘s lead over donald trump isjust 4,000 votes. this is going to be a razor—thin margin and a recount will likely be in order and i do think it's appropriate, just to ensure the integrity of the election, but i am very confident that these results will stand. joe biden has built up a lead of nearly 20,000 votes over donald trump in the crucial vote count in pennsylvania. the city's mayor says

trump must admit defeat. i think what the president needs to do is, frankly, put his big boy pants on. he needs to acknowledge the fact that he lost and he needs to congratulate the winner. almost four days after voters went to the polls in the us, an official result has yet to be called. counting is continuing in several states, including pennsylvania and georgia. joe biden, has a slender lead over donald trump in both — and appears to be on course to win the presidency. the former vice—president needs just 17 more electoral college votes in order to reach the magic number of 270 and mr biden is expected to make a televised address shortly. 0ur north america editor, jon sopel, reports from washington.

joe biden takes the lead in pennsylvania... donald trump is now trailing... joe biden has just taken the lead. joe biden is winning the overwhelming share... this mightjust be the moment, the whole ballgame. the seemingly overwhelming lead that donald trump had in pennsylvania the day after the election this morning finally evaporated and has become a biden lead. if the democratic challenger wins here, it's game over for the president. pretty soon, the hyphen will be gone from vice—president to president—electjoe biden. it's a happy day for our country. and the march of the maths has been played out in small government buildings and windowless offices in arizona, pennsylvania, nevada and georgia. 1,000 votes here, a few hundred there, all the time chipping away at donald trump's grip on the white house. there will, though, be a recount in georgia, where margins are so tight. in pennsylvania today from the pro—joe biden

supporters, the party has already started. there's growing confidence and yes, there will be dancing in the streets. donald trump, you got to give it up, man. it's over for you! but from donald trump supporters, increasing anxiety and lots of chants of usa! all chant: usa! and in las vegas, nevada, the trump supporters resorted to prayer. "please let our luck change" — not the first time that prayer has been offered in sin city. last night, a disconsolate president made a long, unhappy statement, again alleging without evidence that he was being robbed of a victory that was his. if you count the legal votes, i easily win. if you count the illegal votes, they can try to steal the election from us. and we think we will win the election very easily. we think there's going to be a lot of litigation, because we have so much evidence, so much proof, and it's going to end up, perhaps, at the highest court in the land.

astonishingly, all the main us networks pulled away before he'd finished. 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. this morning, the president issued this statement: but holed up in the white house, the president isn't enjoying that much support for his legal battle from his party. this is the republican senator from pennsylvania... the president's speech last night was very disturbing to me because he made very, very serious allegations without any evidence to support it. i am not aware of any significant fraud, any significant wrongdoing.

if it's happened, then the evidence needs to come out, we need to go to court. ..and the democrat mayor of philadelphia has also weighed in colourfully. you know, i think what the president needs to do is, frankly, put his big boy pants on. he needs to acknowledge the fact that he lost and he needs to congratulate the winner — just asjimmy carter did, just as george hw bush did and, frankly, just as al gore did — and stop this and let us move forward as a country. horns blare. meanwhile, in wilmington, delaware, the stage was set for a declaration on election night. it did not happen then, but it might very soon. a declaration thatjoe biden has won and that he is now the president—elect. he's marching to the drumbeat of america's long—established democratic traditions, determined to be unaffected by the noise coming from the white house. jon sopel, bbc news, washington. and in the last few hours donald trump has been tweeting again, attempting to cast doubt on the vote counting process. he said: i had such a big lead

in all of these states late into election night, only to see the leads miraculously disappear as the days went by. perhaps these leads will return as our legal proceedings move forward! 0ur north america correspondent barbara plett usher is atjoe biden‘s campaign headquarters in delaware. we will come tojoe biden in a second but i want to start with that tweet from donald trump. what is going on there? i don't know whether you heard me or not. lewis here in the studio. we live. i'm hoping you can hear me. maybe we have lost communications with you there. can you hear me, barbara? yes. iam glad can you hear me, barbara? yes. i am glad we persevered. ijust read the latest tweet from

donald trump, talking about the fa ct donald trump, talking about the fact that he had a such a big lead in the states in election night only to see these leads disappear as the days went by. what is he aiming at in these tweets ? what is he aiming at in these tweets? well, he did have a lead on election night which had an expected because the votes that were counted were in person ballots and it was the majority of people who cast in person ballots were republicans, his supporters, partly because he had been claiming for months that postal ballots would lead to fraud and wouldn't be counted. it had been expected he would come out in the lead and you would see what you would call a blue shift. as the postal ballots we re shift. as the postal ballots were counted, mr biden would start to rise in numbers has now overtaken vista trump. it is something the democratic camp has been signalling strongly over the last couple of days. —— mr trump. strongly over the last couple

of days. —— mrtrump. mrtrump has over the past few days continued his claims that the voting process has been fraudulent, some of the ballots are illegal and that the election is being stolen, or without any evidence at all. he has, however, continued his litigation processes, his lawsuits, but the camp here, the biden campaign, is quite confident in the voting process. it has been signalling that, as have people at the state level and they are waiting, they have overtaken mr trump here now in key battleground states and are waiting for news organisations to call the race in mr biden‘s favour. barbara, as you said, he has a few thousand —— is a few thousand votes ahead in some states, up into double figures, tens of thousands ahead in others was a bit is still pretty close and joe biden is still a 17 electoral couege biden is still a 17 electoral college votes short, he is not there yet. no, he isn't, but

there yet. no, he isn't, but the trigger —— trajectories look very positive for him because many of the votes being counted whether postal ballots and we know that he was leading by large numbers amongst people who mailed their ballots in and also in some of the states like pennsylvania, the areas that are being counted are heavily democratic so it is expected the numbers will rise over the next few hours, over the night, perhaps. they haven't stopped counting yet so we can't say for certain when the number will reach that crucial point where news organisations feel co mforta ble where news organisations feel comfortable to call the race but the expectation at this point, certainly here, is that when the votes are counted, he will be declared president. now, he was prepared to give a week free speech tonight when it was seen that he had pulled into the lead in these crucial states. but isn't going to

happen now but we are expecting him to make a statement in the next little while, probably thanking his supporters, giving an update, a status update. the last time he spoke he wasn't ahead in the way that he is now on we are expecting that to come through quite shortly but ultimately, the campaign has planned an election addressed to the nation when the race is called. if and when we hear from him, we would be back, thanks, barbara. 0ur correspondent michelle fleury is in philadelphia in the state of pennsylvania and gave this update on the situation there. we have seenjoe biden‘s lead grow as the days — as the day has gone on and if you remember at 9am this morning, for the first time, joe biden took the lead from donald trump with about 5000 votes and now as things currently stand, his lead is about 20000 and in some ways, it isn't too surprising because many of the outstanding postal votes that were left

to be counted were in areas favourable to the democrats, talking about philadelphia, the surrounding suburbs and also allegheny county, home to pittsburgh. they're waiting for the race to be declared and many questions about why it is taking so long, in part because of the unprecedented nature of the fact that you saw pennsylvania those huge numbers voting by mail for the first time and those take longer to process, but there are other reasons — from military absentee ballots that are still coming in and have until november 10 to come in and also provisional ballots, which are onlyjust starting to be counted. those are ballots which there is some question about the eligibility of the vote. those take longer to process because they need to be double—checked. but they are also more likely to be subject to challenges and we understand there are about 100,000 of those outstanding. 0ur correspondentjames clayton is in nevada

where the atmosphere is still very tense. this is a close election in nevada. we are near clark cou nty nevada. we are near clark county where they are counting the vast majority of the votes left to be counted and there is a trump demonstration just outside. people are carrying flags, people are carrying signs saying stop the steel. 0bviously signs saying stop the steel. obviously this is a crowd that is extremely annoyed about what they see as a grievance of voterfraud. i they see as a grievance of voter fraud. i have they see as a grievance of voterfraud. i have to they see as a grievance of voter fraud. i have to say, there is no evidence presented of voter fraud here so far but that's watch this crowd passionately believe. there we re passionately believe. there were also, i have to say, 0 anon flags here and proud boys flags here, the group linked to white supremacy. a lot of guns here. i'm notan

white supremacy. a lot of guns here. i'm not an expert but it looks like a semi automatic gun. as you can looks like a semi automatic gun. as you can see... chanting: four more years!. they feel passionately that donald trump can still win this was not when people are carrying guns, when things are this angry, tensions can rise was there are worries that perhaps in the next few days, because at the moment, this fairly good natured, in the next few days, this could turn, the mood could get sour and things could really boil over. it is the worry was about the moment, it is ok here. next, i'm joined now by corey brettschneider, a professor of political science at brown university in new york. he's also the author of ‘0ath and the 0ffice' and decisions and dissents ofjustice ruth bader ginsberg. thank you for coming on the programme. we are at an

interesting situation wherejoe biden is inching towards victory but by no means there, i7 electoral college votes short. let's play hypothetical. if, and it is still a big if, he were to win, how difficult do you think his first period in office would be, given the fa ct in office would be, given the fact that we have had this protracted election day, now days, and still very, very close in lots of areas? i think the first step is to try to heal this country. we have had four years of a car president who is lawless, —— president. he sees the truth as something that can be avoided, if he can manage it. how do you recover from that question but thatis recover from that question but that is a question for a biden

presidency. and to make it clear, as biden has been, the presidency is about representing all americans, not just your political party. second thing i think he has to do and! second thing i think he has to do and i think we'll do is to restore the office of the presidency to its constitutional meaning, restore its constitutional meaning. the president in the first few seconds in office takes an oath to preserve, protect and defend the constitution of the united states and that means going beyond not just states and that means going beyond notjust violating the laws, as this president has, but really speaking on behalf of the idea that he and the country are subsumed by law. that's going to be a hard concept to put back but essential if we are going to recover our democracy. there is a lot of points you made was that i think we can draw out one of them in a kind of slightly more neutral way which is this idea of aquatic norms. i don't think —— democratic norms. i don't think his supporters would argue, in fact they are very pleased, they

don't have the same regard for lots of the norms of office and they wanted to send a vote for someone they wanted to send a vote for someone different to shake things up and act differently. a lot of them are in favour of the way he behaved and other people are obviously appalled by his breaking of those democratic norms. they rely on traditions and customs. do you think people going in now like joe biden would change and have to make legal changes to try and and prevent some of those norms been changed in their eyes? what is helpful is try to specify what the norms are and when we do, we can't be neutral about them because they are the foundation of what it means to have a democracy. you can't have a democracy. you can't have a democracy without a rule of law and that means not using the office for personal profit for instance. that means not trying to subvert, as this president did, an investigation into your criminal wrongdoing with criminal actions itself as this president did when it came

to the ten instances of obstruction of justice to the ten instances of obstruction ofjustice as you rightly say well, how can we restore those norms? it is partly a question of the discretion of the president himself and president's actions and commitments, but it is also and commitments, but it is also a question of changing the law andi a question of changing the law and i think for instance that we need to restore the independent counsel law i which the person investigating the possible criminal actions of the president's close associates doesn't work for the president and that would mean joe biden doing what president carter did which is to try to put legal restraints on the office when it comes to investigation, when it comes to work hours and that really is the challenge for this president, to give up some power to —— president, to give up some powerto —— in president, to give up some power to —— in order to recognise the rule of law. just on the theme of changing the laws, what about electoral laws ? laws, what about electoral laws? lots of countries are popular votes to elect their president. in this case we have

one candidate that is millions of votes ahead of the other and the result would be fairly straightforward. given what has happened over the last few days, do you think that system is under strain or that our system, based on the states is so system, based on the states is so ingrained that it will stay? i think it is absolutely under strain. when you have the electoral college correspond to the popular vote there was no pressure but now that you have seen pressure but now that you have seen this repeated divergence there is pressure to change it. the problem is that you need either a constitutional amendment to change it, which is hard to get, but this might be the time to push for it, maybe we could gather bipartisan support for that idea ina bipartisan support for that idea in a biden presidency. the other possibility is a compact of states to agree to give their electors within the existing system to whoever who wins the majority vote in the country and that is also a possibility that i would see a biden presidency in —— that i would love to see a biden presidency push. ijust to move onto the free speech issue as we have had such a clear example of it with the donald

trump speech. some of the us networks cut away from it and they were not happy in their ides of the false sorts being said. 0thers ides of the false sorts being said. others are stuck with that and said this is the president of the united states and we should hear what he had to say. as i argue in a recent piece in the guardian that was a very perilous moment for american democracy. it was absolutely essential that they cut away in order to report the fa cts . cut away in order to report the facts. they said what the president was saying and then the networks said the truth, that this was a falsehood that he was spreading, that he claimed to have evidence that the votes were tainted and there was mass fraud when he had no evidence and had never shown any evidence. his own party senators have now been saying that that is the case. it isn't censorship. we have a robust law of free speech but when it comes to incitement, we do not allow that. the president has come very close or has maybe gone over the line in some cases in a rally during the first election, when he

screamed to throw a protest out and that protester was injured. those are acts of incitement. here there is a danger to the system as a whole collapsing if the president is lying about the president is lying about the legitimacy of the system as a whole. so the only way to deal with that is to do what mainstream media has done, which is to fact check him in real time and to do what we do has done, which is to declare the tweets false before we see them and not do what facebook has done which is basically allow it with a little bit of information on the side. 0k. thank you so much. it was really interesting to get your thoughts. thank you. thank you. pollsters have come under criticism for getting the election wrong, but there is one professor who has been getting it right for a very long time. we spoke to allan lichtman a few weeks ago and asked him for his prediction. so how did he do? my prediction is this time, donald trump will become the first sitting president since george h w bush in 1992

to lose a re—election bid. well, allan lichtman, presidential historian from the american university in washington, spoke to me a short time ago. i asked him how he was feeling about that prediction. i'm feeling pretty good, not for myself, but for our country. look, our country is in deep trouble. donald trump exhibited the most shameful moment in the history of the us presidency when he went on national television and trashed our democracy and delegitimised our elections. we have never seen anything like that before. joe biden is no firebrand, no barack 0bama, no orator, but he is a nonthreatening, reconciling figure which is what america may need right now to heal and come together. it's not so much the american people that's polarised, it's donald trump who fans the flames of polarisation and hatred and autocracy. despite everything you have just said, many millions more

people voted for donald trump this time it than they did last time. lots of the regular polling organisations just didn't get that. that's right. i will give some advice to my friends in the journalistic profession, never again publish a horse race poll. horse race polls are not predictors, they are snapshots and they change, and they are abused as polls. moreover, they are way off in their estimation of the so—called likely voters. they were off in estimating the trump voters last time and more off in estimating the trump voters this time. but in truth, this is one of the best american elections we have ever had. forget about donald trump's false charges of fraud. as you point out, we have had a record turnout. we had joe biden winning a decisive mandate of more than 4 million popular votes and he is likely to win over 300,000 electoral college

votes, and the election was conducted smoothly and fairly in the middle of the worst pandemic in a hundred years. the american people, our election administrators and the selfless volunteers need to be applauded. there is an interesting takeaway here. you have predicted 10 out of 10 of the last presidents with your unique prediction methods, which we may come back to if we have time. anyway, 10 out of 10 — there is one of anomaly in that. some would say only nine out of 10 because back in 2000, you predicted gore to win but, of course, it went to bush. it went to bush after a court legal challenge. now, what donald trump is saying right now is that he will go to court and have a legal challenge — a potential parallel or not? zero parallel. i predicted gore would win the popular vote and he did,

the election was then stolen in florida as i proved in my 2001 report to the us commission of civil rights because of the suppression of tens of thousands of african—american votes. bush won by 537 votes. there was a necessary court battle because no—one knew because the vote count was only a couple of hundred votes apart, who actually won in florida. that's why you had to have a court battle. there is absolutely no basis for that in any state in the nation, whether it is won by trump or won by biden. there were no improprieties, no elections where the results are uncertain, and there is not a scrap of evidence for voter fraud, despite all donald trump's blustering. even publications by the republican national lawyers association and the conservative heritage foundation have found almost no evidence of fraud. you are about as likely to be hit by lightning as someone is to commit voter fraud.

what about the nature of how close some of these battles are in these states and how that adds to the uncertainty? i don't think they are anywhere near as close in any state as far as i know by a few hundred votes. the closest state is georgia, which is a little over 4,000. it will be many tens of thousands of votes in pennsylvania, which would decide the election. it's 20,000 in wisconsin. it's over 100,000 in michigan. so there is no issue here about who really won the state and there's going to be a recount. and a recount has nothing to do with fraud, a recount simply means you have gone under the necessary trigger to have the votes recounted and they almost never change anything. they move votes in the low hundred range, not in the thousand range. that is it from me, but we are standing by from a speech from

joe biden. if and when that happens, of course we will bring that to you. you can reach me on twitter. i'm @lvaughan jones this is bbc news. hello there. after a couple of cold and frosty mornings with a bit of mist and fog around, we'll start to see some changes to the weather this weekend. that's because lower pressure will be moving in, bringing milder weather to all areas by the end of the weekend, but also outbreaks of rain mostly across southern and western areas. 0ur big area of high pressure which brought the settled weather will be dominating the scene this weekend across the near continent. this area of low pressure will start to push up into southern and western areas, and the breeze will be increasing as well. already a breezy start across the far south west. elsewhere, it's a chilly start to saturday with some mist and fog through central scotland, north east england, eastern wales and the midlands. the best of the sunshine will be across northern and western areas, and some sunshine also pushing

into southern counties of england by the end of the day. we'll also see some rain arriving across cornwall and devon, too, the first of a series of weather fronts. here, it will be windy. elsewhere, the winds light, but certainly stronger than they have been of late. so it will be a milder day across southern areas, 14—16 degrees. another chilly one further north. now, through saturday night, looks like it'll be chilly and dry to start with across northern areas, where that band of rain spreads its way northwards. and by the end of the night, it'll be lying across northern ireland, wales, the midlands and into the south east. here, it will be milder because of the rain. fairly chilly in the north for a while, but those temperatures will start to rise as we move into sunday morning. that band of rain moves northwards across the country on sunday, and this next one will arrive later on sunday into monday. so, it'll be much a cloudier day across the country. that band of rain across central and northern areas will push into scotland, turning lighter and patch year. behind it, we could start to see some sunshine developing across northern ireland, wales and the south west. but here, it will be breezier, and in fact further north

the winds will be a little stronger than they have been of late. the milder air reaching as far north as northern ireland, so northern ireland up to northern england, southwards, 14—16 degrees, 10—11 degrees across scotland. but the mild air reaches scotland as we move into monday. we'll see more weather fronts pushing into mainly southern and western areas to bring outbreaks of rain. some of it could be on the heavy side. but the theme as we move through the week is for higher pressure to keep eastern areas generally drier. the further west that you are, likely to see the influence of that area of low pressure, which will bring further spells of rain at times.

this is bbc news, the headlines: joe biden is expected to speak soon, after inching ahead of donald trump in crucial states. 0verall, mr biden needsjust 17 more electoral college votes in order to reach the magic number of 270. mr biden is leading in arizona and nevada. but, a recount has been announced in georgia — where joe biden's lead over donald trump is just 4,000 votes. the mayor of atlanta has said she is positive that the results will stand. in pennsylvania, joe biden has built up a lead of more than 20,000 votes over donald trump in the crucial count there. however, the city's mayor says trump must admit defeat. pennsylvania is hugely important to both candidates as it's worth 20 electoral college votes.