The White House described it as the most acts of presidential clemency issued in a single day. It has not given the names of the people involved.

The US Constitution decrees that a president has the broad “power to grant reprieves and pardons for offences against the United States, except in cases of impeachment”.

Earlier this month, Biden issued a controversial pardon to his son Hunter, which continued a recent trend of presidents pardoning people close to them.

Announcing the move, Biden said those pardoned had “shown successful rehabilitation and have shown commitment to making their communities stronger and safer”. Their non-violent convictions included drug offences.

The commuted sentences were for hundreds of people who were placed in home confinement during the Covid-19 pandemic, and who were facing sentences which Biden deemed to be too long under outdated laws.

They have “shown that they deserve a second chance”, Biden said.

Giving further details of the move, the White House said those receiving relief included a decorated military veteran and pilot who helped fellow church members, a nurse who helped with the Covid vaccine rollout, and an addiction counsellor.

Biden promised “more steps in the weeks ahead”.

The president will leave the White House on 20 January 2025, when his successor Donald Trump is inaugurated.

Biden previously had a record of pardoning fewer people than most presidents in modern US history.

He had issued a few categorical pardons in the past, however. These are pardons given to a sweeping number of people who fall under a category outlined by the president.

In October 2022, Biden issued a full pardon for those who had been convicted of simple possession of marijuana, and later expanded that to include other marijuana-related offenses.

Earlier this year, Biden issued another full pardon to military personnel and veterans who were convicted of an offence based on their sexual orientation.

Trump granted 237 acts of clemency during his first term in the White House, according to the Pew Research Center. These included 143 pardons and 94 commuted sentences.

Many were in a flurry before he left office.

Biden’s decision earlier this month to pardon his son, Hunter, continued a trend of presidents on both sides of the US political divide – including Trump – granting clemency to people close to them.

Biden Jr was facing sentencing for two criminal cases.

The move has proven controversial, since the outgoing president previously ruled out doing it. But he claimed the cases against his son were politically motivated.

Biden has also weighed issuing pre-emptive pardons for prominent critics of his successor Trump in a bid to shield them from retribution after the president-elect takes office, but has reportedly been concerned about the precedent it would set.

“Does the Pardon given by Joe to Hunter include the J-6 Hostages, who have now been imprisoned for years? Such an abuse and miscarriage of Justice!” Trump posted on Truth Social.

The 45th president, who won back the White House last month, floated pardons during his campaign for the thousands of defendants either still facing trials or those already convicted for breaching the Capitol as Congress was voting to certify Biden’s 2020 election win over Trump.

Trump’s campaign earlier sent out a statement that blasted the Justice Department while vowing to fix the federal agency. It made no mention of President Biden or his son.

Hunter, 54, is now off the hook after he was scheduled to be sentenced on separate federal gun and tax evasion cases later this month.

Biden, 82, argued on Sunday his son was “selectively, and unfairly, prosecuted” — and issued a sweeping pardon that covered any offenses committed between Jan. 1, 2014, and Dec. 1, 2024.

He previously claimed he would not take action to help his son, telling reporters at a press conference during the G7 summit in June: “I said I’d abide by the jury decision. I will do that and I will not pardon him.”

In his Sunday night statement, the lame-duck president did an about-face, saying: “There has been an effort to break Hunter – who has been five and a half years sober, even in the face of unrelenting attacks and selective prosecution. In trying to break Hunter, they’ve tried to break me – and there’s no reason to believe it will stop here. Enough is enough.”

Sen. Chuck Grassley said he was “shocked” at the reversal.

“I’m shocked Pres Biden pardoned his son Hunter bc he said many many times he wouldn’t & I believed him,” the Iowa Republican posted on X. “Shame on me.”

House Republicans who led an impeachment inquiry into the president over his alleged involvement in his son’s foreign business dealings also decried the “blatant corruption.”

He told a Wisconsin radio station he made a “mistake” with his stumbling performance, but urged voters to instead judge him on his time in the White House.

On Wednesday, as reports suggested he was weighing his future, he worked to calm senior Democrats including state governors and campaign staff.

“I’m the nominee of the Democratic Party. No one’s pushing me out. I’m not leaving,” he said in a call to the broader campaign, a source told BBC News.

Mr Biden was joined on the call by Vice-President Kamala Harris, who reiterated her support.

Speculation has mounted over whether she could replace the president as the party’s candidate ahead of the November election.

A fundraising email sent after the call by the Biden-Harris campaign was also bullish. “Let me say this as clearly and simply as I can: I’m running,” Mr Biden said.

The damaging polling for Mr Biden has been compounded by some Democratic donors and lawmakers publicly calling on the president to stand aside.

The issue of immigration has proven an election-year headache for Mr Biden, who recently issued a sweeping executive action to curb record migrant arrivals at the US-Mexico border.

The new policy will apply to those who have been in the country for at least 10 years and will allow them to work in the US legally.

The White House believes more than 500,000 spouses will benefit.

Mr Biden has vowed to make the US immigration system “more fair and more just”. Polls show that the issue is a primary concern for many voters ahead of the presidential poll in November.

The White House also believes the new spouses policy will benefit 50,000 young people under 21 whose parent is married to an American citizen.

It marks the most significant relief programme for undocumented migrants already in the US since the Obama administration announced the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or Daca, in 2012.

The announcement comes ahead of an event on Tuesday marking the 12th anniversary of Daca, which shielded over 530,000 migrants who came to the US as children – known as Dreamers – from deportation.

On Monday, senior administration officials said that undocumented spouses of US citizens would qualify if they had lived in the country for 10 years and been married as of 17 June.

Those who qualify will have three years to apply for permanent residency and will be eligible for a three-year work permit.

On average, the White House believes that those eligible for the process have been in the US for 23 years. A majority will have been born in Mexico.

They will be “paroled in place” and allowed to remain in the US while their status is changed.

NumbersUSA, an organisation that advocates for tighter immigration controls, slammed the new policy as “unconscionable”.

The organisation’s chief executive, James Massa, said in a statement: “Rather than stopping the worst border crisis in history, President Biden has overreached his executive authority to use an unconstitutional process, circumventing voters and their elected representatives in Congress, to send a message that amnesty is available to those who enter illegally into the United States.”

Alex Cuic, an immigration lawyer and professor at Case Western Reserve University in Ohio, told the BBC that while the action affected a “narrow group”, it marked a “start” for a segment of the US immigrant population that historically would face complications normalising their status in the country, even when eligible.

“A good majority of them [would have] to leave the country in order to come back lawfully,” he said. “It’s like they physically enter the US, but their immigration ‘soul’ doesn’t come with them.”

By allowing beneficiaries to parole in place, Mr Cuic added, officials “kill off the need to separate families” when one spouse needs to leave the country to apply for lawful permanent residence.

The application process is likely to be open by the end of summer, a senior administration official said on Monday.

The White House is also planning to ease and speed up the visa process for highly skilled undocumented immigrants who have received degrees from US universities or who have received a job offer in their field, including Dreamers.

Mr Biden’s announcement comes two weeks after he issued a sweeping executive action that allows US officials to quickly remove migrants entering the US illegally without processing their asylum requests.

That will happen once a daily threshold is met and the border is “overwhelmed”, the White House said in a statement.

The American Civil Liberties Union, or ACLU, sued the Biden administration last week, arguing that it violated US immigration law with the action.

At the time of the announcement, Mr Biden urged those who consider the measure “too strict” to “be patient. [In] the weeks ahead, I will speak to how we can make our immigration system more fair and just,” he said.

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, policy director at the American Immigration Council, said that while the two announcements “don’t intersect with each other at all”, the more recent action may help the administration “get some positive headlines after the pushback” they received over the border announcement.

“The Biden administration has been receiving a lot of flak from people saying that their focus has all been on new arrivals, when there are so many long-term undocumented immigrants stuck trying to navigate our complicated immigration system,” he added.

“I think the actions you’ve seen the president taking over the last few weeks really go towards addressing both those concerns,” Mr Reichlin-Melnick added.

Kenyan President William Ruto will become the first African leader in more than 15 years to make an official state visit to the US.

This is an opportunity for President Joe Biden to demonstrate commitment to Africa at a time when Washington appears to be playing catch-up in its engagement with the continent.

But relations with other African allies are under strain, as strategic rivals including Russia and China challenge traditional areas of Western influence.

At one time Mr Ruto would have been an unlikely candidate to be feted at the White House with the pomp and ceremony granted to only a handful of close allies a year.

The International Criminal Court charged him with crimes against humanity related to the violence that followed Kenya’s 2007 election.

But the case collapsed and Mr Ruto has since reinvented himself as an indispensable partner to the US.

Lingering suspicions about his democratic credentials are not the reason that congress decided against inviting him to address a joint session, says US ambassador to Kenya, Meg Whitman. As far as she knows, it is a scheduling issue.

Ms Whitman, a former CEO of companies such as eBay and Hewlett Packard Enterprises, is a champion of Kenya and its investment potential as a tech hub, the so-called Silicon Savannah.

“If you really want to lean into Africa, then who would be the right choice to come to a state dinner?” she asks.

“Kenya has been a long-standing 60-year ally of the United States. It is certainly the most stable democracy in East Africa. President Ruto has stepped up and he’s a real leader.”

Under Mr Ruto Kenya has developed its role as the region’s diplomatic and business centre, an “anchor state” for the US in a tough neighbourhood.

Although domestically he has faced protests over his handling of the struggling economy, globally he has become an advocate for Africa on issues related to climate change and debt relief.

Kenya is also an important security partner in East Africa, and has pleased Washington by pledging to send Kenyan police to Haiti.

The only phone call President Biden made to a leader in sub-Saharan Africa last year was to Mr Ruto, about Nairobi’s promise to lead a multinational force to the troubled country.

Analysts suspect the state visit is partly meant to compensate for the fact that Mr Biden has failed to keep his own promise to visit Africa.

He made the pledge at a grand summit of African leaders in Washington two years ago, in which he assured his guests he was “all in” for the continent. But since then, he has been distracted by crises elsewhere, such as the wars in Ukraine and Gaza.

The administration has also won plaudits for investing in the Lobito Corridor, a rail line snaking through Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Zambia that will be used to transport critical raw materials.

“With that Lobito Corridor, [the Americans] decided to speak in the language that Africans understand,” says Kingsley Moghalu, a Nigerian political economist and former central bank governor.

“If you are seen to be delivering major projects that are beneficial to African economies, and to African people, then off the back of that you have leverage to talk about democracy and things like that.”

Alex Vines, head of the Africa Programme at the Chatham House think-tank in London, pushes back on the perception that Western power is fading in Africa.

“One African leader said to me: ‘We get tired of a Chinese buffet, we’d like to go a la carte, we want choice,’ ” he says.

“So, I do think what we’re increasingly seeing is [that] plenty of African countries want a bit of the United States, but they will want a bit of Russia or UAE or Turkey.”

The challenge is “patchy African leadership” with ambitious, long-term vision that can make the most of the competition.

President Ruto is seen as one of the figures who can, but all, including Niger, have options.

“There is a game of chess going on,” Dr Vines says. “There is a new scramble for Africa. The difference is that the chess board, the African continent is alive, it’s not passive. It can suck people in and really surprise them.”

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In recent weeks, Mr Trump and his campaign representatives had been pressing Mr Biden to debate earlier and more often than those scheduled by the debate commission.

Mr Trump’s tactic represents somewhat of a reversal, as both he and Republican officials had previously accused the debate commission, which also selects debate moderators, of being biased in favour of Democrats.

The Republican National Committee withdrew its involvement with the debate commission in April 2022, raising doubts about whether the Republican nominee would participate in 2024.

The former president declined to appear at any of his party’s five primary debates this election cycle, held between August and January, pointing to his polling lead as evidence that Republican voters clearly supported his campaign and that debates were not necessary.

He went on to win all but one of the Republican nomination contests and became the party’s presumptive nominee by March.Mr Biden and Mr Trump debated twice during the 2020 presidential campaign.

The first was particularly contentious, with the then-president frequently interrupting Mr Biden and debate moderator Chris Wallace of Fox News.

A third debate was scheduled, but Mr Trump withdrew after it was changed to a virtual event because of Mr Trump’s coronavirus diagnosis, which came shortly after the second debate.

The first televised US presidential debate was held between Richard Nixon and John F Kennedy in 1960 and is largely credited with helping Kennedy win the White House.

Thea two major party candidates have debated at least once every presidential election year since 1976.

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In a primetime speech to the nation from the White House, Mr Biden said too many everyday places in America had become “killing fields”.

He said if Congress could not outlaw such weapons, it should seek to raise the age to buy them from 18 to 21.

Mr Biden spoke after a string of mass shootings in the country.

The US president also called for expanding federal background checks and nationwide red flag laws, which allow law enforcement to remove weapons from anyone deemed dangerous.

But the prospects for Congress passing any gun control measures look uncertain, and the US Supreme Court could instead be poised to expand Americans’ gun rights in a landmark case that justices are considering.

“This is not about taking away anyone’s guns,” said Mr Biden.

“This isn’t about taking away anyone’s rights,” he added. “It’s about protecting children.”

“Why in God’s name should an ordinary citizen be able to purchase an assault weapon that holds 30-round magazines, that let mass shooters fire hundreds of bullets in a matter of minutes?” the Democratic president continued.

Mr Biden touted a 1994 ban on assault-style weapons that he helped pass. It lapsed after 10 years, and debate has raged ever since over whether it was effective in reducing gun violence.

His remarks come in the wake of mass shootings in Buffalo, New York, Uvalde, Texas, and Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Even as he prepared to speak on Thursday, multiple people were shot in an attack at a cemetery in Racine, Wisconsin.

Private gun ownership is enshrined in the Second Amendment of the US Constitution.

The extent of congressional gridlock on the issue was underscored earlier in the day during a hearing on Capitol Hill.

The House of Representatives Judiciary Committee held an emergency session to debate new gun control proposals.

The weapons, long requested by Ukraine, are to help it strike enemy forces more precisely from a longer distance.

Until now, the US had refused the request out of fear the weapons could be used against targets in Russia.

But on Wednesday, Mr Biden said the lethal aid would strengthen Kyiv’s negotiating position against Russia and make a diplomatic solution more likely.

Writing in the New York Times, he said: “That is why I’ve decided that we will provide the Ukrainians with more advanced rocket systems and munitions that will enable them to more precisely strike key targets on the battlefield in Ukraine.”

This is a fine balancing act for Mr Biden, as providing more powerful weapons could risk drawing the US and its Nato allies into direct conflict with Russia.

New weaponry will include the M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS), a senior White House official said – although he did not specify how many of them would be supplied.

The systems can launch multiple precision-guided missiles at targets as far as 70km (45 miles) away – far further than the artillery that Ukraine currently has. They are also believed to be more accurate than their Russian equivalents.

Last month, Ukraine’s army chief said that getting the HIMARS units would be “crucial” in allowing it to counter Russian missile attacks.

The US expects Ukraine to deploy the weapons in the eastern Donbas region, where the fighting is most intense, and where they can be used to strike Russian artillery units and forces targeting Ukrainian towns.

White House officials agreed to provide the rockets, they said, only after gaining assurances from President Volodomyr Zelensky that the weapons would not be used to attack targets inside Russia.

“We are not going to send to Ukraine rocket systems that can strike into Russia,” Mr Biden wrote on Wednesday.

The latest rockets will be the centrepiece of a $700m (£556m) support package for Ukraine that will be formally unveiled on Wednesday, White House officials said.

Helicopters, anti-tank weapons, tactical vehicles and spare parts are to be included in what will be the 11th package of military aid approved by the US for Ukraine since the invasion began in February.

In Wednesday’s article, Mr Biden wrote that the US’s goal was simply to see a “democratic, independent, sovereign” Ukraine, not to oust Mr Putin from his role as Russian president or to seek broader conflict with Moscow.

He blamed Russia’s continued aggression for the stalling of peace efforts, adding that the US would never put pressure on Ukraine to concede any of its territory in return for an end to the conflict.

Directly addressing the risk of nuclear weapons being used in Ukraine, Mr Biden said “we currently see no indication” of this being Russia’s intention – but warned that doing so would be unacceptable and bring with it “severe consequences”.

Soon after Mr Biden’s piece was published, Russian military officials announced that the country’s nuclear forces were holding drills in Ivanovo province near Moscow, Interfax news agency reported.

Previously Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has accused the West of “pumping up the Ukrainian nationalists with weapons” and said that any cargo of arms bound for Ukraine would become a legitimate target for Moscow.

The ministry has said that Nato countries are “playing with fire” by sending weapons to Ukraine.

Meanwhile in Ukraine, fighting is continuing in the eastern Donbas region.

On Tuesday, the governor of Luhansk said that one of Ukraine’s last holdouts in the region – the eastern city of Severodonetsk – was now mostly under Moscow’s control.

Russian forces now occupy almost all of Luhansk and are focusing on seizing neighbouring Donetsk, the two regions which collectively make up Donbas.

Among the 17 executive orders and presidential actions, President Biden signed on Wednesday were the order to end a travel ban from countries including Nigeria, Eritrea, Yemen, Sudan and nine other countries.

He has called the travel ban as biased and an insult to the country’s values.

President Biden has also sent a bill to Congress to overhaul the country’s immigration system, his team said earlier.

Refusing to abide by tradition and participate in the ceremonial transfer of power, Mr Trump will instead hold his own departure ceremony at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland before his final flight aboard Air Force One.

Officials are considering an elaborate send-off event reminiscent of the receptions he’s received during state visits abroad, complete with a red carpet, color guard, military band and even a 21-gun salute, according to a person familiar with the planning who spoke on condition of anonymity ahead of a formal announcement.

Trump will become only the fourth president in history to boycott his successor’s inauguration.

And while he has said he is now committed to a peaceful transition of power — after months of trying to delegitimise Biden’s victory with baseless allegations of mass voter fraud and spurring on his supporters who stormed the Capitol — he has made clear he has no interest in making a show of it.

He has not invited the Bidens to the White House for the traditional bread-breaking, nor has he spoken with Biden by phone. Vice President Mike Pence has spoken with his successor, Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, calling her on Thursday to congratulate her and offer assistance, according to two people familiar with the call. Pence will be attending Biden’s inauguration, a move Biden has welcomed.

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While Trump spends the final days of his presidency ensconced in the White House, more isolated than ever as he confronts the fallout from the Capitol riot, staffers are already heading out the door. Many have already departed, including those who resigned after the attack, while others have been busy packing up their offices and moving out personal belongings — souvenirs and taxidermy included.

On Thursday, chief of staff Mark Meadows’ wife was caught on camera leaving with a dead, stuffed bird. And trade adviser Peter Navarro, who defended the president’s effort to overturn the election, was photographed carrying out a giant photo of a meeting between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping. (Staff are allowed to purchase the photographs, said White House spokesman Judd Deere.) Also spotted departing the West Wing: a bust of Abraham Lincoln.

Stewart D. McLaurin, the president of the White House Historical Association, said he had reached out to the White House chief usher, who manages the building’s artifacts with the White House curator, because of questions raised by the images.

“Be reminded that staff have items of their own that they brought to the White House and can take those items home as they wish. Some items are on loan to staff and offices from other collections and will be returned to those collections,” he said in a statement.

Earlier this week, reporters covering the president’s departure from the South Lawn spotted staff taking boxes into the residence for packing up the first family’s belongings.

And on Friday the packing continued, with moving crates and boxes dotting the floor of the office suite where senior press aides work steps from the Oval Office in the West Wing. Walls in the hallways outside that once featured a rotating gallery of enlarged photographs of the president and first lady framed in gold suddenly were bare, with only the hooks that held the picture frames left hanging.

Moving trucks pulled in and out of the driveway outside.

While some people have been asked to stick around by the incoming administration, the White House has been reduced to a skeleton crew, with more scheduled to depart on Friday. That includes White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany. Come Monday, the press staff will be down to two.

Trump will leave Washington with his future deeply uncertain, two weeks after his supporters sent lawmakers and congressional staffers scrambling for safety as they tried to halt the peaceful transition of power.

While Trump was once expected to leave office as the most powerful voice in the Republican Party and the leading contender for its 2024 nomination, he has been shunned by much of the party over his response to the violence, which left five people dead, including a Capitol Police officer.

Trump is expected to be joined in Florida by a handful of aides as he mulls his future.

Biden, a former US vice-president running under the Democratic party, said he expected to end up with over 300 electoral votes, more than the 270 needed to claim the White House.

He also expressed satisfaction with his lead in the popular vote — in which he led Trump on Friday night by an estimated 4 million votes.

“My fellow Americans, we don’t have a final declaration of victory yet, but the numbers tell us it’s clear,” Biden said at a late nighttime speech in Wilmington, Delaware with vice presidential candidate Kamala Harris by his side.

“We are going to win this race,” Biden said. “Just look at what has happened since yesterday.

“Twenty-four hours ago, we were behind in Georgia, now we’re ahead, and we are going to win that state,” he said.

“Twenty-four hours ago, we were behind in Pennsylvania, and we are going to win Pennsylvania … We are winning in Arizona, we’re winning in Nevada. In fact, our lead just doubled in Nevada.”

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“We’re going to win this race with a clear majority, with the nation behind us,” he said. “We’ve gotten over 74 million votes — let me repeat that — 74 million votes. That’s more than any other presidential ticket in the history of the United States of America.

“And our vote total is still growing. We are beating Donald Trump by over 4 million votes. And that’s a margin that’s still growing as well.”

Biden also said he and Harris are already preparing to assume office, even though they haven’t been declared the winners.

“The pandemic, as you also know, is getting more worrisome across the country. Cases are skyrocketing,” he said.

“It’s believed we could see as many as 200,000 cases a day, and the death toll is approaching 240,000 lives lost — 240,000 empty chairs across America. We’ll never be able to measure that pain, the loss, the suffering, that so many families have experienced,” Biden said.

“We can’t save any of the lives that have been lost, but we can save a lot of lives in the months ahead.”

Biden said he and Harris also heard from experts “about how this recovery is slowing because of the failure to get the pandemic under control.”

“More than 20 million people are on unemployment. Millions are worried about making rent, and putting food on the table. Our economic plan will put a focus on a path to a strong recovery,” he promised.