this is bbc news, with the latest headlines for viewers in the uk and around the world. i'm lewis vaughan—jones. joe biden has addressed the american people, saying he will win the race for the white house. the numbers tell us it is clear, it tells us a clear and convincing story. we're going to win this race. mr biden isjust ahead in arizona and nevada. but, a recount is announced in georgia, wherejoe biden‘s lead over donald trump isjust four thousand votes. joe biden has a lead of more than 20,000 votes over donald trump in the crucial state of 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. just over an hour agojoe biden addressed the american people from his hometown of wilmington, delaware. once again he urged patience in terms of the vote counting and was confident that he would ultimately go on to win the election. we don't have a final declaration of victory yet, but the numbers tell us it's clear, it tells us a clear and convincing story. we are going

to win this race. just look at what has happened since yesterday. 2a hours, we were behind in georgia, now we are ahead. and we are going to win that state. 2a hours ago, we we re that state. 2a hours ago, we were behind in pennsylvania, and we are going to in pennsylvania. and now we're ahead, we are winning in arizona, and in nevada. in fa ct, arizona, and in nevada. in fact, our leadersjust arizona, and in nevada. in fact, our leaders just doubled in nevada. we are on track to over 300 electoral votes, electoral college votes. and look at the national numbers. we are going to win this race with a clear majority of the nation behind us. we have got over 7a million votes. let me repeat that. 7a million votes. that's more than any presidential ticket has ever got in the history of the united states of america. and oui’ united states of america. and our vote total is still growing. we are beating donald trump by over 4 million votes.

that margin is still growing as well. one of the things i am especially proud of his how well we have done across america. —— is. we are going to be the first democrat to win in arizona in 2a years. we are going to be the first democrat to win georgia in 28 years. and we've rebuilt the blue wall, in the middle of the country, that crumbled just four years ago. pennsylvania, michigan, wisconsin. the heartland of this nation. i know that watching these vote tallies on tv moves very slow, slow, as long as it goes, it can be numbing. but never forget, long as it goes, it can be numbing. but neverforget, the tallies aren't just numbers. they represent votes, and voters. men and women who exercised their fundamental right to have their voice heard. and what is becoming clearer each hour is that a record number of americans of all races, faiths, religions,

chose change over more of the same. they have given us a mandate for action on covid, the economy, climate change, systemic racism. they have made it clear they want the country to come together, not continue to come together, not continue to pull apart. the people spoke. more than 7a million americans. they spoke about before our ticket. —— loudly for our ticket. 0ur north america correspondent barbara plett usher is in wilmington, delaware, wherejoe biden spoke and told me what she made of his address. it was pretty much what i expected, really. he talked about how the voting was going and how it was giving him a broad mandate. he said that they had been a very large popular vote, 7a million votes for himself, but also, he said that he was proud of the range across the country where he was getting support, where the democrats were getting support, mentioning winning back the rust belt, in his words.

pennsylvania, michigan and wisconsin. it also being competitive in states like arizona and georgia which have been republican for a long time. so he talked a lot about people's right to vote, how every vote must be protected, saying he would make sure that happened, and that it could ta ke happened, and that it could take as long as it needed to take. and then he talked, finally, about his agenda. he has an ambitious agenda to deal with the crises facing the country, in particular, the pandemic itself, he noted that the numbers of cases where the highest they had been so far, in the past couple of days, and the number of deaths were high. and also, the economic recovery, that he had a plan for the economic recovery because of the impact of the pandemic. so he basically reached out to the american people, said he had quite a lot of support, said he would be a president for everybody, and put forward his agenda, saying

he would get to work on day one, once the race had been called. and let mejust add, finally, he repeated his beam, what has been his theme throughout the campaign, that he wants to bring people together. he again said we are opponents, maybe, but we should not be enemies. we need to put away the vitriol and have stability. we can work together. an optimistic message, he has an optimistic message, he has an optimistic message obviously if he does become president, it will be many difficulties, given the nature of the parties and divides in the country, but he was kind of putting in a holding speech until his victory speech. i think that is generally how it came across. what did you make of the balance he had to strike? i am sure that people in his team and perhaps he himself would have liked, clearly, a few more results to have come through, a few more states in his favour so he could be closer to that magic 270 number. he isn't there, he isn't the president yet, he is not the

president—elect, and yet he was clearly trying to sound presidential? you know, i think people might be impatient because they expect to be votes to be counted faster, and the race to be called sooner. but i do not think there is any doubt in the campaign and with mr biden that once the votes are counted, he will be president. and so i do not think it is a significant issue. all along, he has said that the democratic processes must be protected, but they were working, and that is the message he gave today, if he has to wait until tomorrow or the day after, for the right amount of votes counted in the most careful way, then that is what the campaign will do. sure, they would have liked to have a victory party tonight, and i have to say, the voting has not stopped, so we may get over the threshold, at some point, at which people feel comfortable to make that call, even

tonight. but it doesn't seem to be happening tonight. i think for be happening tonight. i think foer be happening tonight. i think for mr biden, he has waited decades for this. one of his childhood ambitions was to be president. this is his third presidential run, the closest he has ever got to the white house. i think he is probably prepared to wait 2a hours more, until he gets the result. the issueis until he gets the result. the issue is that he really believes the trajectory is that he will get there. one of the hotly co nstested states is pennsylvania. let's speak to the bbc‘s nomia iqbal, who is in philadelphia. what is happening there? well, pennsylvania is still counting the votes. it is taking its time because it started counting its on election day, so we are getting them later compared to other states. so this has become a critical state, and in the last hour, 7000 votes were counted, and they fell into joe biden‘s

margin. that means he is now ahead of donald trump by more than 29,000 votes. and that is with 99% of the total votes counted so far. so ifjoe biden carries the state of pennsylvania, and he will get the 20 electoral college votes to ta ke the 20 electoral college votes to take him over that magic number, 270, to go on and president of the us, that is a big gap for donald trump to catch up to, but mr trump is showing no sign of conceding to his opponent, in fact, he has been actively tweeting, he has been actively tweeting, he has been legally active since tuesday, contesting all the states where we still have to see the results. but as we heard from joe biden earlier in the evening, when he gave a speech, he believes he will win the state of pennsylvania and will go on to ultimately win the election. let'sjust repeat those numbers again, because people are more interested in vote counting numbers than they probably ever have been in their lives. i was reporting

just an hour or so ago, we were up just an hour or so ago, we were up to 20,000 votes injoe biden‘s favour, then up to a few more closer towards 30,000. remind us of the exact number and how many votes we think i still have to be counted? well, they have got lots of other balanced account as well. they could be provisional ballots, these are ballots which, these are done separately to the mail in ballots, and the in—person ballots. as i say, the votes are still coming through and it is really ha rd are still coming through and it is really hard to say when we will get a final result, but at the moment, we have got more than 29,000. and it is looking good forjoe biden at the moment. there are still lots of votes to be counted in pennsylvania, we are still waiting, it is a waiting game at the moment. any idea of timescales? you are testing me now! we don't know yet. i mean,

i don't want to say it could be this weekend, i don't want you to hold me to that, but i think given that we have got to 99% of the votes, i wouldn't be surprised if we got more details as the weekend comes along. i think it is safe to say that. very good. i have asked every correspondent across the state and nobody has had an answer, so don't worry, you are not alone. just remind us again, you are not alone. just remind us again, why is pennsylvania so crucial? well, pennsylvania has 20 electoral college votes. at the moment, joe biden is on 250 three electoral votes. he needs 270. once he gets that number, he will have won the election. and of course, do the maths, it is 273. he doesn't have to win any other states, i should add, just pennsylvania alone will guarantee him that a victory. for donald trump, even if he wins the other states,

let's say, joe was pennsylvania, it is pretty much obvious what the, which direction we are going in with the election. great stuff. good to talk to you. thank you, nomia. it's now certain that the balance of power in the us senate won't be known until january. neither of the two senate races in georgia produced a clear winner, with no—one securing more than the required 50% of votes. it means that two run—off elections will be held on the 5th of january. if the democrats were to win both races, there would be a 50—50 split in the senate. kim roosevelt is a constitutional law professor at the university of pennsylvania law school. he's in philadelphia. he also happens to be the great great grandson of teddy roosevelt. he talked about the legal arguments president trump is likely to pursue. president trump does have lots of legal challenges.

but really, none of them are any good. and even if he prevailed on some of them, they wouldn't change the outcome, so his strategy has been to make a lot of bold claims and to file a lot of lawsuits but to the extent that the lawsuits actually identify particular things that they want to change, they only affect a very small number of ballots and some of them are about things like the distance that counters can stand from the watchers. and that wouldn't affect any ballots. so we've got a vigorous legal attack being mounted but in the end i don't think it's going to amount to much. whether it amounts to much or not, what do you make of the fact that he has swung into action so vigorously? is this the constitution working effectively, is it every candidate's right to take things to court if they don't like them? well, it's always everyone's right to take something to court and it's certainly appropriate for candidates to do that if they think that there's been fraud or malfeasance. now, i'm not sure whether donald trump sincerely believes

that or not, it's very hard to tell with trump, whether he believes the things that he's saying, but we simply don't have any evidence that supports the kind of claims that he's been making. so the response in terms of what he's saying and in terms of the amount of litigation is really wildly out of proportion to any fraud that we have any reason to believe might have occurred. and that's are bad thing. it's not harmless, it's not harmless if biden ends up winning and the lawsuits amount to nothing. it's causing real damage to american faith in democracy. talk us through that, why is it doing damage? if they are nonsensical and don't amount to anything, why is it damaging? they‘ re nonsensical and they don't come to anything, but the thing about many of donald trump's supporters is they will believe anything he says and he can say nonsensical things, he can say we want to stop the counting in one state, we want to continue the counting in another state, we want to change the counting in a third state. they won't see any inconsistency. they really have a very strong

devotion to him and if he tells them that they are being cheated and that the democrats are the enemies who are perpetrating this fraud, they'll believe him and that's going to be very hard to overcome going forward. it's one thing lawyers are standing up for their constitution and legal affairs and the integrity of elections. who else would you like to see standing up for it? i would like to see republicans are standing up. i think we're seeing some of that now. so the election was in some ways a referendum on donald trump and it was not a repudiation. he got a lot of votes, he got more votes than he got in 2016, but there is a bit of a referendum going on now on his reaction to what seems to be a loss. that is a broader repudiation because some republicans are coming forward and distancing themselves from these unsupported broad claims of fraud and saying that this is not how we want our elections conducted in america. kim roosevelt there. you are watching bbc news, the headlines:

joe biden hasjust addressed the american people, saying he will win the race for the white house. he's inching ahead of donald trump in crucial states. a recount has been announced in georgia, wherejoe biden‘s lead over donald trump is just 4,000 votes or so. pollsters have come under criticism for getting the election wrong, but there is one professor who's been getting it right for a very long time. i spoke to allan lichtman a few weeks ago and asked him for his prediction. let's take a listen. 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 again 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 the legitimised our elections. we have never seen anything like that before. joe biden is no firebrand, he has no barack 0bama, but he has a 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 photography. despite everything you have just said, photography. despite everything you havejust said, many millions more people voted for donald trump this time than last time. lots of the regular polling organisations just didn't get that. that's right. i will give them advice to my friends in the journalistic

profession. never again publish a horse race whole. horserace poles are not predictors, they are snapshots, they may change, and they are abused as poles. moreover, they are way off in their estimation of the so—called likely voters. they we re so—called likely voters. they were often estimating the trump to the last time and even more off in estimating the trump voters this time but in truth this was 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 havejoe biden winning a decisive mandate of more than 4 million popular votes and he is likely to when over 300,000 electoral couege to when over 300,000 electoral college votes and the election was conducted smoothly and fairly in the middle of the worst pandemic and 100 years. the american people, our election administrators and those selfless volunteers need

to be applauded. there is an interesting takeaway has. you have predict that ten out of ten of the last presidents with your unique prediction method, which we may come back to if we have time, but ten out of ten. there is one anomaly within that, some may say it is only nine out of ten because back in 2000 you predicted gore to win and of course it went to bush. it was after a court legal challenge. 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 approved in may 2001 report to the us commission on 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 is why you had to have a court battle. there is absolutely no basis for that in any absolutely no basis for that in a ny state absolutely no basis for that in any state in the nation, whether it's won by trump or won by biden. there were no improprieties, there were no elections where the result are uncertain and there is not a scrap of evidence of voter fraud, despite all of donald trump's bluster and by the way, even studies 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 had by lightning as someone is to commit voterfraud. lightning as someone is to commit voter fraud. what about the nature of how close the battles are the nature of how close the battles a re in the nature of how close the battles are in some of these states ? battles are in some of these states? it at two that uncertainty. well, i don't think there are anywhere close and any state as far as i know bya and any state as far as i know by a few hundred votes stopping

the closest state is georgia which is a little over 4000, it's going to be many tens of thousands of votes in pennsylvania which would decide the election. it is 20000 in wisconsin. is over 100,000 the election. it is 20000 in wisconsin. is over100,000 in michigan, so there is no issue here about who really won the states and there is 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 moved votes in the hundred range not the thousand range. the bbc‘s clive myrie has been reporting on the battle for the white house over the past few weeks travelling through some of the key states that are deciding who wins the presidency. he reports from pennsylvania and looks at what this election has done to america. birdsong it's morning again in america. past presidential elections here herald a sense of hope, a peaceful dawn. but this is now america... count every vote,

count every vote! a land of ambient ugliness. divided, angry, frustrated. primed for trouble. there are many whose opinion we've canvassed in this disunited states of america in recent weeks. 0rdinary voters... i looked to track my ballot, and it wasn't there. now wondering, can the nation meet this moment to heal? you can'tjust find hundreds of thousands of votes. bridge the chasm between red and blue? we first came across kathryn kobor and her friend pam stumping for president trump in phoenix in arizona just before polling day. they endure the heat...

we love trump! ..and very public disapproval. i feel sorry for you! car horns if we lose the election, we're going to lose our way of life. we won't be free. we came across chris smith at a trump rally in tucson last month. and after touching down in philadelphia on election eve, we chatted with debbie smith, a democrat who voted forjoe biden. as the election draws to a close, she says america cannot tackle its most pressing problems without unity. our people need to get back to work, we need to heal this country. so, at the end of the day, it's going to come down to we need to recover from the coronavirus. people have lost sight

of what's happening. for some republicans, the coronavirus isn't the main election issue. ask chris smith. you think it's fraud? i mean, guys, we don't go to bed at ten, 11, 12 o'clock at night, two in the morning with leading all the key swing states, and wake up at seven o'clock in the morning and suddenly they've found hundreds of thousands of votes and they all happen to be forjoe biden. hello, catherine, greetings from philadelphia, it's good to see you again. the last word goes to kathryn. do you think the two halves of america can unite now? perhaps in the future we can start to work on it, but right now, no. the wound is too open. sobering words, but if it's winter in america, can spring be far behind? clive myrie, bbc news, in philadelphia. a reminder of our top story:

joe biden has addressed the american people a short time ago, saying he will win the race for the white house. he's 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 to win the presidency. he said during that speech, we are going to win the race and we are going to come together but it is not going to be easy. and these are life pictures of the white house, the counting of the votes to decide who will live there inside the white house for the next four years is still ongoing. biden leading infour is still ongoing. biden leading in four crucial states. if he wins pennsylvania, that will be enough, but he is not there

yet. that's it from me, i'm lewis vaughan jones. you can reach me on twitter — i'm @lvaughanjones. 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 patchier. 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 has addressed the american people, saying he will win the race for the white house. he's 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 to win the presidency. mr biden is leading in arizona and nevada. but a recount has been announced in georgia, wherejoe 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. the city's mayor says trump must admit defeat. pennsylvania is hugely important to both candidates as it's worth 20 electoral college votes. the first trial of

city—wide coronavirus