LA Times says: For years, political analysts have predicted that Latino voters will determine who wins the White House, and this election is no different. So what should we expect Tuesday?

AP reports: Americans took to Twitter indroves today to post photos of themselves casting ballots in the long-awaited presidential election, sporting "I voted" stickers and urging others to do the same.

"Hi, is this Jyl? This is Barack Obama. This is your president. You're working so hard I had to say thanks," Obama said, according to a pool report of the visit to the Hyde Park office, where he made the call. "No, it is. I'm calling some of our best volunteers up in Madison, Usa Today reports.

Reuters reports:

An emotional US President Barack Obama concluded his final speech of his aggressive re-election campaign against rival Mitt Romney with a tear rolling down his cheek.

The Bharatiya Janata Party has said it has full confidence in its president Nitin Gadkari, and asked its party workers not to air views that hurt party's image, its national spokesperson Ravi Sankar Prasad said at the end of a crucial meeting.

And, if you were wondering what the official ballot from New York looks like, here it is.

AP reports: After months of campaigning and billions of dollars spent in the battle for leadership of the world's most powerful country, Obama and Romney were in a virtual nationwide tie ahead of Tuesday's election, an overt symptom of the vast partisan divide separating Americans in the early years of the 21st century.

BBC reports: Republican vice-presidential nominee Paul Ryan has cast his vote at the Hedberg Public Library in Janesville Wisconsin.

BBC says: Voters in this election say their highest priorities are jobs and economic recovery, as well as taxes and healthcare. 

BBC reports that voting is well underway in Washington, DC, with voters turning out in large numbers.

Belfast Telegraph says: If Barack Obama's team needed a Clintonesque campaign mantra to keep the faithful motivated down to the wire, it would have to be: It's the turn-out, stupid.Boots entering polling station grounds have always been Obama's best chance of countering Mitt Romney's big-bucks advertising blitz, bankrolled by the likes of the billionaire Koch brothers and Karl Rove's deep-pocketed American Crossroads political action committee.

BBC reports: Mitt Romney has now voted in Belmont, Massachusetts, before heading to his final two campaign stops.

Mitt Romney's running-mate Paul Ryan will vote in his home state of Wisconsin and then head to Boston, where the Romney campaign has made the convention centre in the city their home for election night, reports BBC.

Follow our live updates on the US elections through the night and all through tomorrow.  

Romney to keep campaigning on polling day while Obama heads home to Chicago.

Back in the 2008 election, 131 million Americans cast a ballot for president. That's about two-thirds of eligible voters, which seems like a lot. Yet that still left more than 15 million people who were registered but didn't vote. An additional 30 million Americans weren't even registered. Why is that? The answer lies here.

This year, the states to watch closely -- the ones that will likely determine the outcome -- include Ohio (18 electoral votes), Florida (29), Pennsylvania (20), North Carolina (15), Virginia (13), Wisconsin (10), Colorado (9), Iowa (6), Nevada (6) and New Hampshire (4). Each side is plotting the various combinations of states they could win to get 270 electoral votes.

Pictured: A little girl in a stetson wants to know who will win the elections -- the inimitable Amul ad

After all the fundraising, political ads, rallies, meetings and get-out-the vote efforts, a few counties in just one state - Ohio - could have an outsized say in the outcome of Tuesday's presidential election.

At a national level polls show President Barack Obama and Republican rival Mitt Romney tied. Under most calculations, Ohio is currently the most critical battleground in the candidates' state-by-state race to capture the 270 electoral votes needed to win the White House.

A Reuters/Ipsos poll on Sunday showed Obama leading the former Massachusetts governor 48 percent to 44 percent in Ohio. Other polls show a similar tight race in the Midwestern state of 11.5 million people.

Obama won the state by 4.6 percentage points in his defeat of Republican John McCain in 2008.Here is what election analysts say the campaigns need to do to win longtime swing state Ohio and its 18 electoral college votes.
Read the report on Reuters.

In the 'land of the free' Native Americans could not vote till 1924. Even though Native Americans were born in the United States, they were denied the right to vote because they were not considered citizens by law and were ineligible to vote.

Many Native Americans were told that they would become citizens if they gave up their tribal affiliations in 1887, but this still did not guarantee their right to vote. It was only in 1924 that many became United States citizens. However, many western states continued to deny the right to vote through property requirements, economic pressures, hiding the polls, and condoning of physical violence against those who voted.

Tweets indicate long queues at polling stations, few machines, small overcrowded rooms indicating that people are already frustrated. The BBC reports that in 34 states, plus the District of Columbia, early voting has been under way for several days, even weeks. Some 31 million ballots have already been cast - but none will be counted until today.

Eve-of-poll voter surveys mostly point to a narrow US presidential election victory for Barack Obama. But with the contest finely balanced in a few key states, it would not take much to shift the advantage to Mitt Romney. A last-minute slip, a neglected minority voter bloc, or simply a piece of bad luck could be enough to ditch Obama and send the Republican to the White House. Read more here.

As voting gets underway in the US, here's what some of the tweets are saying

Eddie Scarry Happy Election Day! Or, as they call it in the Middle East and parts of Africa, National Day of Bloodshed.

obermanmira Happy election day! Sun is up and people are voting in #obama's chilly hometown of Chicago. #usa2012

Alessandra T Codinha Happy Election day, America! DON'T FORGET TO VOTE!

BigAppleInnAtl Happy Election Day to ALL!!! ROCK your power to VOTE!! 

Every other tweet on the US elections, in the last few hours, have been prodding people to vote.
New York Magazine '@NYMagHappy Election Day! Remember: "Bad politicians are sent to Washington by good people who don't vote

The US is notorious for a low voter turnout and glitches. According to a local election official interviewed by CBS News, the last early voter in line for Saturday's truncated early voting in Palm Beach County, Atlanta, finally got to cast a ballot at 2:30 am Sunday morning, which means that voter waited in line for more than seven hours.

In Miami, another traditional Democratic stronghold, the wait was said to be nearly as long. On Sunday, voters all over the state were begging judges and county officials for more time to vote.

That's a picture tweeted by voter Michael Finnigan

Vice President Joe Biden and Barack Obama's running mate has cast his vote in Delaware. Appearing at the final rally of the 2012 campaign, Biden said yesterday that the nation was hungry for bipartisan solutions, such as those demonstrated by governors and mayors of both parties during Superstorm Sandy. Read more

The first polling results of the day in New Hampshire's Dixville Notch did nothing to change the notion that this will be one of the closest presidential elections in history, reports cnn.com.

It was a tie.

Obama and Romney each received five votes. The town in the state's northeast corner has opened its polls shortly after midnight each election day since 1960 - but Tuesday's draw was the first in its history.

New Hampshire laws allow towns with less than 100 citizens to vote at midnight.

As campaigning ends and polling begins in just under three minutes, Barack Obama tweets: Election Day is here! Confirm your polling place and bring a friend with you to vote.

And this is what Mitt Romney says: We know we can bring this country back, but we need your help. Find out where to vote today. 

Similar tweets, in elections that promise to be nothing short of a cliffhanger. Don't disappoint us, guys.

The first polling stations have opened as the US goes to vote. Polling has opened in New Hampshire, Virginia (both battleground states)  apart from New Jersey, Connecticut, Indiana, New York, Maine, Vermont and Kentucky.

Meanwhile, see our slideshow on closely contested elections: Obama, Romney TOO close for comfort

This is the full text of the Election Commission's order rejecting Subramanian Swamy's plea. Read

Subramanian Swamy reacts to the EC order rejecting his plea for derecognising the Congress party.

On Twitter: Way forward is by going to Court. The vigilant citizen duty is to strive. Make the system work. Never give up.

The Election Commission website has crashed after news regarding the order rejecting Dr Subramanaian Swamy's plea to derecognise the All India Congress Committee broke. There was an electricity trip in the main server of  the National Informatics Centre at Lodhi Road Complex. The EC office has now got in touch with the NIC to restore the power at the earliest so that TV news channels can get the copy of EC order.

The battle between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney for the White House might be hogging the limelight, but US voters will also elect the entire House of Representatives, one-third of the Senate and 13 governors in key elections today. Republicans are expected to keep control of the House of Representatives, while Democrats were tipped to remain in sway of the Senate in today's elections, media here reported.

The Senate's 100 members serve six-year terms and one third of the seats are up for election every two years. Republicans hold 47 seats. To retake control of the Senate, the Republican Party needs a net gain of four. With 23 Democratic seats up for grabs in a terrible economy, it seemed like a no-brainer that Republicans would be able to flip four. But it's now a struggle for the GOP, CNN reported.

In other news, Neil Heywood, the British businessman murdered in China, regularly provided information on Bo Xilai, the powerful politician, to MI6 before he was killed, a new report has claimed. Read 

The father-son duo of Ram and Mahesh Jethmalani may not be powerful enough inside the BJP to shape the party's public policy, but they certainly work a lot on the party's public purposes. Read

As US heads to a neck-to-neck battle between the two presidential candidates, the state of Ohio may hold the key to the eventual outcome, says Rediff.com's Bikash Mohapatra. Read

And another opinion piece by P Sainath on the US polls. How victorious campaign in the U.S. presidential elections will have spent over $1.25 billion by November and the winner will spend his term repaying his funders in many ways. Read

The polarisation that is emerging between the U.S. presidential camps, with colour as a major element, will haunt America in elections to come. The brilliant P Sainath on the Hindu. Read

The Election Commission has rejected Janata Party president Subramanian Swamy's plea seeing derecognition of the Congress party.  In a letter to the Election Commission, Swamy said that the Congress has "prima facie" committed an offence under electoral law as well as Income Tax law for which it is necessary to hold hearings and decide on derecognising the party.

Superstar Shah Rukh Khan finds the ongoing controversy regarding the number of screens alloted for the release of his film Jab Tak Hai Jaan and Ajay Devgn's Son of Sardar "silly and strange" and insists that it is a free market and not "monopolistic".

Ajay Devgn Films Pvt Ltd (ADF) had moved the Competition Commission Of India (CCI) claiming that Yash Raj Films (YRF) was using its dominant position to ask exhibitors to dedicate more screens to its upcoming release 'Jab Tak Hai Jaan' than for his film 'Son of Sardaar' on November 13.

"Instead of being disheartened, it is silly, it is not just right. I don't know how it gets resolved. Is someone going to tell me not to release my film on Friday," Shah Rukh said.

"I don't understand it... It is amusing. I find it very strange rather than disheartening. What is the meaning of all this? The film is coming out, let's pray for each other's film. I think both the movies will do well," the actor added.

Ajay had said that he had filed the notice much before the demise of veteran filmmaker Yash Chopra (October 21) but the news came up only a few days after his death. Shah Rukh feels it is amusing to talk about all this as it does not seem logical, considering that the makers of both the films are adamant on releasing their respective movies on the same date. 

A video showing Mitt Romney discussing his Mormon faith has become a viral sensation in the days leading up to the election.Watch the video here.

Anant Rangaswami tweets: Bob Dylan says Obama is going to win. The pollsters say it's blowing in the wind.

With four deaths over the past five days, Indians question the safety of the Noida expressway. Read

Ramesh Srivats tweets: Actually, I'm quite fond of Nitin Gadkari. When I see him only, I feel like laughing. We need people like that.

BJP core group meet at 5 pm to decide the party president's fate. ,

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has again faced pressure to release more information about his finances from President Barack Obama's campaign, as campaigning for the White House race draws to close.

The former governor has previously been also asked to release his tax returns, and it was widely presumed that at some point he would buckle and follow a tradition started by his father, who released 12 years of tax returns. People who knew him, however, warned that there was no chance he'd release the returns. 

Back to the upcoming US polls -- Five Things You Need to Know About Mitt Romney (Before You Vote). Read

Here's the full text of Nitin Gadkari's apology over the Vivekananda-Dawood IQ comparison. "I would like to reiterate that I never compared Swami Vivekananda with anyone. I had absolutely no no intention to project Swami Vivekananda in bad light. If my words about Swami Vivekananda have hurt the public sentiments in any manner, I express my sincere regrets," he said in a statement.

The 26-year-old Spanish woman who was raped at knifepoint in suburban Bandra on Sunday has identified one of 24 men in a lineup. According to the police complaint that the woman filed, the accused broke into her home at 4:30 am, and raped her at knifepoint. The foreign national further alleged in the police complaint that the culprits also stole foreign currency and a video camera from her home in a posh locality in Mumbai. Following the complaint, the police have formed eight teams to probe into the case.

Congress obviously has been making electoral hay while the sun still shines on Nitin Gadkari and his Vivekananda remarks.
Today, the Madhya Pradesh Congress has demanded an apology from the BJP president for his remarks on the IQ levels of Swami Vivekananda and fugitive don Dawood Ibrahim.

"Gadkari's statement showed that the BJP chief had lost his mental balance after corruption charges were levelled against him," Leader of Opposition in Madhya Pradesh Assembly Ajay Singh said in a statement here.

The BJP chief's statement also proves Congress general secretary Digvijay Singh's allegation that the "RSS is in league with fundamentalist organisations."

Addressing an award ceremony in Bhopal on Sunday, Gadkari had said, "As per psychology, if we can compare the IQ level of Swami Vivekananda and that of Dawood Ibrahim, then it could have been almost the same. But Vivekananda used it in nation building, brotherhood and spiritualism, while Dawood used that in excelling in crime world."

If Gadkari indeed remains as the BJP president till his term expires, as the RSS wants him too, it will be more fodder for the Congress.

Nitin Gadkari, meanwhile, has expressed his  "sincere regrets" over his statement on Swami Vivekananda, but denies comparing him with Dawood Ibrahim. BJP MP Ram Jethmalani has also slammed Gadkari for his comments and termed it as a "silly statement".

Interesting reading on corruption in India encompassing Nitin Gadkari, Robert Vadra and Reliance Industries. Here you go.

Despite the media reports, that Sushma Swaraj has told Nitin Gadkari that the party will not support him anymore, her tweet today runs contrary to the story.
@SushmaSwarajbjp: The media reports that I am not supporting Shri Nitin Gadkari are absolutely false. I have always supported him and I reiterate my support.
It doesn't seem to be fake account, either.. 

The BJP core group is expected to meet at LK Advani's residence at 5 pm. The meeting is not on whether Gadkari should quit (that's a given now) but on when he should quit -- post or pre Diwali. And of course, a discussion on who should be the next president.

Back to the Nitin Gadkari drama in New Delhi. Times Now has a letter written by Ram Jethmalani to LK Advani asking for Nitin Gadkari's removal as the BJP president.

In the letter, Jethmalani says that the party cannot wait for the next Parliament session to take a decision on whether Gadkari should stay or go as it would damage the party's reputation irreparably.

Jethmalani's letter also says how Yashwant Sinha, Jaswant Singh and Shatrughan Sinha were with him on their decision to demand for Gadkari's resignation. Gadkari is a disaster for the party and the nation. History will never forgive us if we allow Gadkari to continue. 

The race to the White House might be too close to call, but non-Americans from across the globe, including India, want incumbent President Barack Obama to emerge victorious over his Republican rival Mitt Romney.

A poll of more than 570,000 people across the globe has found that non-Americans wanted 51-year-old Obama to remain the President of the United States, the Daily Mail reported.

Research, conducted across 36 countries outside the US, revealed 81 per cent were in favour of Obama spending another four years in office. And only 19 per cent preferred 65-year-old Romney, according to the findings from MSN.

In India 64 per cent were in favour of Obama while 36 percent backed Romney, according to the poll. People in Germany, Russia and Japan also backed Obama over his Republican challenger. Interestingly, the only country that would prefer Romney as the next President was China, with 52 per cent voting in his favour.

In the UK, Obama came out with a huge 85 per cent of the vote. Romney's failure to win fans here has been put down to his comments over Britain being unready for the Olympics this summer.

It's possible that Barack Obama and Mitt Romney snag the exact same number of electoral votes. In that case, the 12th Amendment says the House of Representatives gets to pick the president. And since analysts expect Republicans to maintain control of the House, Romney would likely win the presidency.

Back to our focus on the US presidential elections.
Why are presidential elections always in November, and always on Tuesdays? Read the answer here.

A while ago, Nitin Gadkari visited Arun Jaitley, to drum up up support for his candidature. Remember, Jaitley had organised a presser with Sushma Swaraj in the aftermath of Arvind Kejriwal's allegations against him. While there is no love lost between Jaitley and Gadkari, he has never been really vocal about lending his support for Gadkari.

Sushma Swaraj is believed to have told Nitin Gadkari that the oldest and wisest in the party should take over, possibly an indicator that LK Advani will be the new BJP president. 

BJP senior leader Sushma Swaraj has indicated that she cannot support Nitin Gadkari as the party president any more.

More information on the US polls, so very different from our elections.
In the US most states have a history of voting for a particular party and the presidential candidates will count on their votes again.

This leaves a handful of states where the election will be decided. These are the election battlegrounds. Presidential elections are run using an electoral college. Each state is given a number of votes based on its population. This means some states are worth much more than others. Here's more

21 moments that defined the campaign and America. Read it here.

Party veteran Yashwant Sinha today met Jaswant Singh and RSS ideologue Gurumurti and the two are expected to meet Ram Jethmalani later today, reports Zee News.

Gadkari also held close door consultations with senior party leader Sushma Swaraj this morning. A section of the BJP leaders are unhappy with the current state of affairs and want Gadkari to quit as soon as possible.

They believe that corruption charges against him has dented BJP's credibility and hurt its stand on the issue of corruption. The meeting of anti-Gadkari camp leaders comes a day after Ram Jethmalani's son Mahesh Jethmalani resigned from the party national executive saying he simply could not continue with Gadkari at the helm on moral ground.

Expressing his objection with Gadkari being the party president in a strong manner, Mahesh wrote a letter to him saying, "I deem it morally and intellectually inappropriate to continue to serve on the party's National Executive Committee as long as you are the President of the BJP. I hereby tender my resignation from the same."

Ram Jethmalani has reiterated that he backs Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi as the NDA's PM candidate for 2014. He also said that he is ready to be expelled from the party if his statements were constituted to be anti-party. "But the fact remains that the BJP's image will be dented if Gadkari remains in the party."

BJP Rajya Sabha MP Ram Jethmalani has stepped up the heat on Nitin Gadkari. Speaking to CNN IBN, Jethmalani said, "I thought my party president would quit voluntarily. I wanted to meet Mr Nitin Gadkari, but the meeting has not been possible. I have written to both Gadkari and Mr LK Advani. Mr Gadkari should remember that resignation is not a confession of guilt, but Gadkari should not get second term as party president. Jaswant Singh, Yashwant Sinha, Shatrughan Sinha and I want Gadkari's resignation."

This is what happened yesterday. Read: Mahesh Jethmalani quits BJP post over Gadkari graft     

In India, Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde addresses the longstanding issue of bringing 26/11 terrorists holed up in Pakistan to justice. Shinde says India faces a high degree of terrorist threats on several fronts, particularly cross-border terrorism and masterminds of the 26/11 attack are still sitting in safe havens and their presence in a neighbouring country is well known.

Ironically, this comes days after his statement on the Pakistan cricket team's visit to India when he said, "We must have friendly relations [with Pakistan]. What has happened in the past, is the past. We don't need to harp on it all the time."

Election results will start trickling in on Wednesday morning in India. CNN is broadcasting the returns in Asia. You'll have to be an early bird if you want to catch all the key action: the polls in Florida and Virginia close at 5:30 a.m. IST, while Ohio and North Carolina are among those that close at 6:00 a.m., and Pennsylvania and Michigan are in the 6:30 a.m. batch. 

Once polls close, the vote counting starts and the TV anchors will inform the public of whether they can make a "projection' or call on who is going to win. It's possible that at least a few states will be "too close to call,' meaning the media number-crunchers have to gather more data before they can make a projection.

Some of the pundits will read a lot into this. If one candidate was thought to be far behind in a given state and the initial read is "too close to call' that could be a positive sign for that candidate.Polls in Colorado, another state that could play a major role in deciding the outcome, close at 7:30 a.m. IST.

More on the WSJ

A busy, lawsuit-filled early voting period ended Monday, with state election officials estimating that Ohio set a record for pre-Election Day turnout.

More than 87 percent of the 1.3 million absentee ballots mailed to Ohio voters during the absentee voting period have been returned, and that surpasses the absentee voter turnout in the 2008 presidential election, Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted said Monday.

His office released the final round of absentee voting data for Ohio ahead of today's presidential election. The data was based on an informal survey of Ohio's 88 boards of elections.

As of Monday, nearly 1.8 million Ohioans had already cast their ballots. Of the more than 1.3 million absentee ballots mailed to voters during the absentee voting period, more than 1.1 million have been returned '" that's a rate of 87.1 percent. Additionally, more than 592,000 voters cast their ballots in person at their board of elections or designated vote center, Husted said.
Read more on this here.

Here's a website that allows to voters for the US elections to register and cast early votes. Have a look.

In the US, the winning candidate does not need to win the national popular vote. To become president, a candidate needs 270 of the 538 Electoral College votes apportioned to each state according to how many House of Representatives members and senators they have in the US Congress.

Voting in the US elections begins at 5.30 pm IST, so how is it that leads have already started coming in? Here's the answer: Early voting takes place in person before Election Day. Thirty-two states and the District of Columbia offer early voting. Voters in these states do not need an excuse to vote early - they can take advantage of early voting even if they are capable of voting at the polls on Election Day.  A handful of states allow voters to vote by absentee ballot in person, provided they have a valid excuse for not voting on Election Day.  This is technically NOT early voting, although it does serve the same purpose.  

Based on recent poll averages, Obama is a lock in 18 states totaling 201 electoral votes. He has notable leads in Michigan (16 electoral votes) Pennsylvania (20) and Wisconsin (10). If Obama holds those states, he needs just Ohio (18) and Iowa (6) to win re-election. Or just Florida (29). Look for Virginia (13) and North Carolina (15) as key early tests; if Obama wins one of them, it'll be a long night for Romney, reports the Wall Street Journal.

This year, the nation's broadcast networks ABC, CBS and NBC, plus cable giants CNN and FOX, are conducting exit polls of some 25,000 voters, mainly in key states. Those figures, together with telephone polls and vote counts from precincts, will be used in formulating state predictions, which are made only after polls close. Partial results will be posted by some states, and networks will show such results ahead of predicting the state's winner.

Right now, Barack Obama is leading with 49 per cent votes as against Mitt Romney's 48 per cent. 

Also read Seema Sirohi's piece for the TOI: A stark choice between two very contrasting futures lies before the US. Read

President Obama and Mitt Romney may be in a dead heat as Americans head to the polls on Election Day, but the former Massachusetts governor is an overwhelming favorite of Wall Street.Twelve out of 18 investment strategists and money managers surveyed by CNNMoney said the stock market would perform better with Romney in the White House than during a second Obama term.
Read the full story here

Meanwhile, 1/3rd of votes have already been cast.

In other news, the Competition Commission has rejected the complaint from actor Ajay Devgn against Yash Raj Films for alleged abuse of dominant position in the Hindi film industry, saying that the plea does not have any merit.

Actor-producer Devgn's complaint came ahead of the release this month of films by both the parties involved.

"The Commission has rejected the complaint of Ajay Devgn against Yash Raj Films as there was no merit in it. The complaint does not fall under any area that violates Competition rules," said a senior official of the Competition Commission of India (CCI). The fair trade regulator has not found any violation of Section 3 of the Competition Act that relates to anti- competitive agreements.

Some polls suggest that Barack Obama and Mitt Romney are neck and neck in the 2012 US presidential race, but for a Peruvian group the Democrat has already won it. 

Veteran social activist Anna Hazare''s close aide Sunita Godara on Tuesday informed that some organisations in tune with the former's ideology are meeting him later in the day, which would be followed by a meeting with the volunteers. 

 The management of Mumbai's iconic Sufi shrine, Haji Ali dargah, has restricted the entry of women.

Barack Obama and Mitt Romney have both won five votes each in New Hampshire hamlet of DixvilleNotch, according to the BBC.

Senior BJP leaders Ram Jethmalani, Yashwant Sinha and Jaswant Singh will meet later today to discuss the issue of BJP president Nitin Gadkari being elected for a second term.

In his final campaign speech before the country heads for the US presidential polls today, incumbent Barack Obama reiterated that people should vote for him as America "needed to move forward".

Republican Mitt Romney will continue with his election campaigning even on poll day today as he plans to woo the voters in the key battleground states of Ohio and Pennsylvania.       

Thousands have been evacuated across Andhra Pradesh, which has been reeling under heavy rains.

Both President Obama and Mitt Romney were heading to Ohio yet again on the eve of the election, with final polls showing the Democratic incumbent just a sliver ahead of his Republican rival in the most fiercely contested of the battleground states.

Both were bringing big-name entertainers as warm-up acts to maximize crowd size at their closing events in Columbus -- Bruce Springsteen for the president and, just a couple of hours later, the Marshall Tucker Band for Romney.

 

Read more on Los Angeles Times

Visit to city outside of Orlando illustrates how Hispanics are reshaping Florida electoral politics.

More on Al Jazeera

They stand no chance of winning, but third-party candidates could sway US election result in tight battleground states.

 

Read more on Al Jazeera

As President Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney spent election eve rushing from one swing state to another, their campaigns were already preparing for a complicated and possibly long battle over Tuesdays vote.

 

Read more on Washington Post

The presidential campaign of 2012 is now measured in hours and minutes.

Early voting has been under way for weeks across the country, but with Election Day almost here, the presidential candidates and their supporters are offering one last burst of activity in a handful of swing states that will determine the occupant of the Oval Office next year.

Read more on New York Times

When the US presidential election is over estimates say it will end up costing $2.5bn.

That works out to about $20 per vote.

The money comes from a variety of sources: from the candidates' own fund raising, to money collected by groups called Super PACs.

Read more on BBC

In the last few hours of campaigning before Tuesday's US presidential election, Barack Obama was interrupted twice by hecklers at a supporters' rally in Cincinnati, Ohio.

The first man is believed to have shouted several statements about abortion while holding up a placard showing images of foetuses.

Many in the crowd applauded when police officers eventually prised his fingers from a railing and carried him from the venue.

Read more on BBC

AFP: At least 26 people were killed in the Sao Paulo metropolitan area over the past three days amid worsening violence that appears to be targeting state military police officers, local press reports said today. 

 

Overnight, four people, including a prison guard and a 10-year-old girl, were reportedly gunned down and 11 others wounded in Brazil's most populous city and nearby towns.         

 

During the night of Saturday to Sunday, a 44-year-old female military officer died after being shot in the back 10 times in front of her 11-year-old daughter as she stepped out of her car, a spokeswoman for the state public security secretariat said. The victim was one of around 100 officers, including 90 military police, killed in the state since the beginning of the year. Forty-one of the officers were executed by gunmen, the source added.  

 

Many of the police killings have been followed by the shooting deaths of suspected drug traffickers or robbers, which families of the victims claim, without proof, were retaliation by military police. 

 

The violence in this metropolitan area of 20 million people has been linked in press reports to an alleged undeclared war between the military police and a prison drug-trafficking gang known as PCC (First Command of the Capital).  

In view of communal tension prevailing in parts of old Hyderabad, prohibitory orders have been clamped for three days starting Tuesday under seven police station limits.        

 

Hyderabad Police Commissioner Anurag Sharma, in a notification issued in Hyderabad tonight, said the prohibitory orders under Section 144 of CrPC would come into force from Tuesday and will end on November 8.         "Communal tension is still continuing between two groups in some parts of old city...which may cause disturbance to public peace and order," the police commissioner said.        

 

"In order to maintain public order, peace and tranquillity, prohibitory orders have been imposed banning assembly of five or more persons in the limits of five police stations in South Zone and two police station in West Zone," Sharma said.        

 

The police stations where prohibitory orders have been imposed are Charminar, Hussaini Alam, Mirchowk, Shalibanda and Moghalpura in South Zone and Kulsumpura and Tappachabutra police stations limits of West Zone.

5 sailors killed on vessel due to gas leak off Gujarat

Romney's campaign lays groundwork for transition team

Digging Vadragate: The friends in law

Cyclone 'Nilam': Over 100 rescued from two AP districts

Best Bakery case: 4 convicts shifted to Vadodara jail

PIX: Canadian PM in India; visits Taj, Humayun's tomb

I am now disagreeing with Gadkari's actions: Jethmalani

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