US election 2024: American voters head to polls - in pictures

Latest updates: Follow our full coverage on the US election

Polls have opened in America's knife-edge presidential election, with voters on the East Coast among the first to deliver their verdict early on Tuesday.

The first polling stations began to receive voters at 5am Eastern Time (2pm Abu Dhabi time) in Vermont. In a staggered start, voting began in parts of Virginia, New York and Maine from 6am local time.

While more than 80 million Americans have cast their ballots before November 5, mainly by post, the frenetic last-ditch campaigning by Donald Trump and Kamala Harris showed how much remained at stake ahead of election day itself.

Balloting continues throughout the day until the first polling stations close at 6pm in Indiana and Kentucky (3am UAE time). The first results from battleground states will start to come in after polls close in Georgia at 7pm and North Carolina at 7.30pm. Voting ends in Pennsylvania at 8pm.

Some states have introduced measures to speed up the counting of votes after a nail-biting 2020 election took five days to be called for Democrat Joe Biden.

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Family: He is the youngest of five brothers, of whom two are dentists.

Celebrities he worked on: Fabio Canavaro, Lojain Omran, RedOne, Saber Al Rabai.

Where he works: Liberty Dental Clinic

$1,000 award for 1,000 days on madrasa portal

Daily cash awards of $1,000 dollars will sweeten the Madrasa e-learning project by tempting more pupils to an education portal to deepen their understanding of math and sciences.

School children are required to watch an educational video each day and answer a question related to it. They then enter into a raffle draw for the $1,000 prize.

“We are targeting everyone who wants to learn. This will be $1,000 for 1,000 days so there will be a winner every day for 1,000 days,” said Sara Al Nuaimi, project manager of the Madrasa e-learning platform that was launched on Tuesday by the Vice President and Ruler of Dubai, to reach Arab pupils from kindergarten to grade 12 with educational videos.

“The objective of the Madrasa is to become the number one reference for all Arab students in the world. The 5,000 videos we have online is just the beginning, we have big ambitions. Today in the Arab world there are 50 million students. We want to reach everyone who is willing to learn.”