Tag Archives: Election

U.S. electors expected to officially confirm Trump victory

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump speaks during a USA Thank You Tour event in Hershey, Pennsylvania, U.S

By David Morgan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Electoral College is expected on Monday to officially select Republican Donald Trump as the next president in a vote that is usually routine but takes place this year amid allegations of Russian hacking to try to influence the election.

At meetings scheduled in every state and the District of Columbia, the institution’s 538 electors, generally chosen by state parties, will cast official ballots for president and vice president.

It is highly unlikely the vote will change the outcome of the Nov. 8 election, which gave the White House to Trump after he won a majority of Electoral College votes. The popular vote went to Democrat Hillary Clinton.

But the conclusion by U.S. intelligence agencies that Russia hacked into the emails of the Democratic National Committee in an attempt to sway the election for Trump has prompted Democrats to urge some electors not to vote as directed by their state’s popular ballot.

The leaked emails disclosed details of Clinton’s paid speeches to Wall Street, party infighting and inside criticism about Clinton’s use of a private server to send emails while U.S. secretary of state. The disclosures led to embarrassing media coverage and prompted some party officials to resign.

Trump and his team dismiss intelligence claims of Russian interference, accusing Democrats and their allies of trying to undermine the legitimacy of his election victory.

Russian officials have denied accusations of interfering in the election.

On Sunday, Clinton’s campaign chairman, John Podesta, said it was an open question whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russia about the emails, an allegation that Trump’s incoming White House chief of staff, Reince Priebus, denied. A bipartisan group of U.S. senators called for a special committee probe of cyber attacks by Russia and other countries.

The number of Electoral College electors equals the number of representatives and senators in Congress, with each state receiving a share roughly proportional to its population size.

When voters go to the polls to cast a ballot for president, they are actually choosing a presidential candidate’s preferred slate for their state.

A candidate must secure 270 votes to win. Trump won 306 electors from 30 states.

The electors convene meetings in each state to cast ballots about six weeks after each presidential election.

If no candidate reaches 270 in the Electoral College, the president is chosen by the U.S. House of Representatives – currently controlled by Republicans.

(Additional reporting by Julia Harte in Washington; Editing by Peter Cooney)

Exclusive: Top U.S. spy agency has not embraced CIA assessment on Russia hacking – sources

Padlock with the word hack, a representation of cyber attacks

By Mark Hosenball and Jonathan Landay

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The overseers of the U.S. intelligence community have not embraced a CIA assessment that Russian cyber attacks were aimed at helping Republican President-elect Donald Trump win the 2016 election, three American officials said on Monday.

While the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) does not dispute the CIA’s analysis of Russian hacking operations, it has not endorsed their assessment because of a lack of conclusive evidence that Moscow intended to boost Trump over Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton, said the officials, who declined to be named.

The position of the ODNI, which oversees the 17 agency-strong U.S. intelligence community, could give Trump fresh ammunition to dispute the CIA assessment, which he rejected as “ridiculous” in weekend remarks, and press his assertion that no evidence implicates Russia in the cyber attacks.

Trump’s rejection of the CIA’s judgment marks the latest in a string of disputes over Russia’s international conduct that have erupted between the president-elect and the intelligence community he will soon command.

An ODNI spokesman declined to comment on the issue.

“ODNI is not arguing that the agency (CIA) is wrong, only that they can’t prove intent,” said one of the three U.S. officials. “Of course they can’t, absent agents in on the decision-making in Moscow.”

The Federal Bureau of Investigation, whose evidentiary standards require it to make cases that can stand up in court, declined to accept the CIA’s analysis – a deductive assessment of the available intelligence – for the same reason, the three officials said.

The ODNI, headed by James Clapper, was established after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the recommendation of the commission that investigated the attacks. The commission, which identified major intelligence failures, recommended the office’s creation to improve coordination among U.S. intelligence agencies.

In October, the U.S. government formally accused Russia of a campaign of cyber attacks against American political organizations ahead of the Nov. 8 presidential election. Democratic President Barack Obama has said he warned Russian President Vladimir Putin about consequences for the attacks.

Reports of the assessment by the CIA, which has not publicly disclosed its findings, have prompted congressional leaders to call for an investigation.

Obama last week ordered intelligence agencies to review the cyber attacks and foreign intervention in the presidential election and to deliver a report before he turns power over to Trump on Jan. 20.

The CIA assessed after the election that the attacks on political organizations were aimed at swaying the vote for Trump because the targeting of Republican organizations diminished toward the end of the summer and focused on Democratic groups, a senior U.S. official told Reuters on Friday.

Moreover, only materials filched from Democratic groups – such as emails stolen from John Podesta, the Clinton campaign chairman – were made public via WikiLeaks, the anti-secrecy organization, and other outlets, U.S. officials said.

“THIN REED”

The CIA conclusion was a “judgment based on the fact that Russian entities hacked both Democrats and Republicans and only the Democratic information was leaked,” one of the three officials said on Monday.

“(It was) a thin reed upon which to base an analytical judgment,” the official added.

Republican Senator John McCain said on Monday there was “no information” that Russian hacking of American political organizations was aimed at swaying the outcome of the election.

“It’s obvious that the Russians hacked into our campaigns,” McCain said. “But there is no information that they were intending to affect the outcome of our election and that’s why we need a congressional investigation,” he told Reuters.

McCain questioned an assertion made on Sunday by Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus, tapped by Trump to be his White House chief of staff, that there were no hacks of computers belonging to Republican organizations.

“Actually, because Mr. Priebus said that doesn’t mean it’s true,” said McCain. “We need a thorough investigation of it, whether both (Democratic and Republican organizations) were hacked into, what the Russian intentions were. We cannot draw a conclusion yet. That’s why we need a thorough investigation.”

In an angry letter sent to ODNI chief Clapper on Monday, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes said he was “dismayed” that the top U.S. intelligence official had not informed the panel of the CIA’s analysis and the difference between its judgment and the FBI’s assessment.

Noting that Clapper in November testified that intelligence agencies lacked strong evidence linking Russian cyber attacks to the WikiLeaks disclosures, Nunes asked that Clapper, together with CIA and FBI counterparts, brief the panel by Friday on the latest intelligence assessment of Russian hacking during the election campaign.

(Editing by Yara Bayoumy and Jonathan Oatis)

Eyeing re-election, Germany’s Merkel takes tougher tone on migrants

German Chancellor and leader of the conservative Christian Democratic Union party CDU Angela Merkel delivers her closing speech of the CDU party convention in Essen, Germany,

By Paul Carrel

ESSEN, Germany (Reuters) – German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives toughened their tone on integrating migrants on Wednesday, passing a resolution on tackling forced marriage and honor killings, and cracking down on dual citizenship.

A day after Merkel called for a ban on full-face Muslim veils “wherever legally possible”, her Christian Democrats (CDU) endorsed that message and stressed the values they want the 890,000 migrants who arrived in Germany last year to adopt.

Merkel, who implored the party on Tuesday to help her win a fourth term in office at federal elections next year, told N-TV at the end of a two-day CDU party conference that individual criminals among the migrants must be found and prosecuted.

But she was quick to say: “We must not draw conclusions about the whole group of people seeking protection.”

Neighboring Austria on Sunday rejected a candidate vying to become the first freely elected far-right head of state in Europe since World War Two, halting – at least temporarily – the wave of populism sweeping Western democracies.

In a sign of how much Germany’s “Willkommenskultur”, or welcoming culture, has faded since the 2015 influx, Jens Spahn, a deputy finance minister and senior CDU member, said legal barriers for deportation must be lowered.

“Those who are not refugees, who are not fleeing from Iraq or Syria from war and persecution, must return to their homelands – and that needs to be done consistently,” he told Deutschlandfunk radio.

SWING TO THE RIGHT

Ahead of next year’s election, the CDU is trying to mend fences with its Bavarian ally, the Christian Social Union (CSU), which is tougher on immigration, to try to claw back support lost to the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD).

But Merkel is reluctant to move too far from the center.

In a sign the CDU base is moving to her right, party members adopted a motion to oblige young people who grow up in Germany to foreign parents to decide by the age of 23 whether they will take German nationality or that of their parents’ home country.

The CDU leadership had urged members to reject the motion, which went back on a compromise reached in 2014 with the Social Democrats (SPD), junior party in Merkel’s ruling coalition, allowing those concerned to take two passports at 23 years old.

“Such a step backward into the past will not take place with the SPD,” Katarina Barley, secretary general of the center-left Social Democrats, told the Funke media group. “The CDU has swung to the right at its party congress,” she said.

Reacting to the vote, Merkel showed she is not in lock step with her party base by insisting the 2014 double-passport agreement with the SPD would not be abandoned before next year’s election and that campaigning should not focus on the issue.

She was re-elected chairwoman of the CDU by 89.5 percent of the delegates present at the conference in the western city of Essen, where she was first elected party chairwoman in 2000.

Her score was down from 96.7 percent two years ago but above her lowest winning score of 88.4 percent in 2004, and daily newspaper Bild dubbed the winning margin “Merkel’s little victory”.

An Emnid poll on Sunday showed support for the CDU and CSU at a 10-month high of 37 percent, 15 points ahead of the SPD.

Seeking to claw back ground lost to the AfD, CDU members at the conference adopted a measure calling for forced marriage and honor killings to be “prevented and prosecuted rigorously”.

German police this week detained an Iraqi migrant for suspected rape only days after an Afghan refugee was held in a separate rape and murder case.

Germany has registered some 1,475 child marriages, according to interior ministry figures collected since last year’s influx of migrants. The Justice Ministry said its latest statistics showed there was a conviction for forced marriage in 2014, but that did not necessarily reflect the scale of such crimes.

(Additional reporting by Madeline Chambers; Editing by Louise Ireland)

Wall Street hits new high as post-election rally roars ahead

Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York City, U.S.,

By Yashaswini Swamynathan

(Reuters) – Wall Street’s post-election rally showed no signs of fatigue as the three major indexes hit all-time highs on Thursday.

Donald Trump’s election as U.S. president last month sparked euphoria on Wall Street, with investors chasing stocks that are likely to gain from his proposals to spend more on infrastructure and simplify industry regulation.

“Investors are getting excited over the prospects of a new administration, a fresh mindset and a man who knows how to do business,” said Andre Bakhos, managing director at Janlyn Capital in Bernardsville, New Jersey.

“While there was also a technical aspect to the move yesterday … the mindset right now is that any pullback is seen as bullish. It’s an opportunity to buy into the market, not sell.”

The Dow industrials, the Dow Transport, the S&P 500 and the Russell 2000 indexes closed at record levels on Wednesday.

The European Central Bank unexpectedly reduced its asset purchase plans to 60 billion euros ($64 billion) from the current 80 billion euros on Thursday, but reserved the right to increase buying once again.

Adding to the bullish tone was a report that showed the number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits fell from a five-month high last week, pointing to a robust labor market and building on a recent spate of strong economic data.

At 9:42 a.m. ET the Dow Jones industrial average was up 39.58 points, or 0.2 percent, at 19,589.2. It hit a record high of 19,592.95 – its 10th since the Nov.8 election.

The S&P 500 was up 2.13 points, or 0.1 percent, at 2,243.48, slightly below its high of 2,243.56.

The Nasdaq Composite was up 8.60 points, or 0.16 percent, at 5,402.36, easing from a high of 5,403.88.

Eight of the 11 major S&P 500 sectors were lower, but the losses were offset by a 0.85 percent rise in financials and gains in materials and energy.

Bank of America, JPMorgan and Wells Fargo rose between 0.9 percent and 1.6 percent, boosting the S&P 500.

Investors, however, are likely to tread cautiously ahead of the Federal Reserve’s meeting next week, where traders see a more than 90 chance of an interest rate hike.

Lululemon soared 17.3 percent to $70.20 following the yoga and leisure apparel retailer’s reported of a better-than-expected quarterly profit.

Costco rose 2.5 percent to $157.86 in thin trading after the warehouse club retailer reported a quarterly profit that beat analysts’ expectations.

Declining issues outnumbered advancers on the NYSE by 1,317 to 1,289. On the Nasdaq, 1,141 issues rose and 1,126 fell.

The S&P 500 index showed 83 new 52-week highs and two new lows, while the Nasdaq recorded 173 new highs and five new lows.

(Reporting by Yashaswini Swamynathan in Bengaluru; Editing by Anil D’Silva)

Germany sees increase in Russian propaganda, cyber attacks

hand in front of computer

BERLIN (Reuters) – Germany’s domestic intelligence agency on Thursday said it had seen a striking increase in Russian propaganda and disinformation campaigns aimed at destabilizing German society, and targeted cyber attacks against political parties.

“We see aggressive and increased cyber spying and cyber operations that could potentially endanger German government officials, members of parliament and employees of democratic parties,” Hans-Georg Maassen, head of the domestic BfV intelligence agency, said in statement.

Maassen, who raised similar concerns about Russian efforts to interfere in German elections in an interview with Reuters last month, cited what he called increasing evidence about such efforts and said further cyber attacks were expected.

The agency said it had seen a wide variety of Russian propaganda tools and “enormous use of financial resources” to carry out “disinformation” campaigns aimed at the Russian-speaking community in Germany, political movements, parties and other decision makers.

The goal of the effort was to spread uncertainty in society,”to weaken or destabilize the Federal Republic of Germany,” and to strengthen extremist groups and parties, complicate the work of the federal government and influence political dialogue.

The agency said it had seen a “striking increase” in spea-phishing attacks attributed to a Russian hacking group APT 28, also known as “Fancy Bear” or Strontrium, the same group blamed for the hack of the U.S. Democratic National Committee this year and a cyber attack on the German parliament in 2015.

The attacks were directed against German parties and members of parliament, the agency said, adding they were carried out by government bodies posing as “hacktivists”.

“Propaganda and disinformation, cyber attacks, cyber espionage and cyber sabotage are part of the hybrid threat facing western democracies,” Maassen said.

German officials have accused Moscow of trying to manipulate German media to fan popular angst over issues like the migrant crisis, weaken voter trust and breed dissent within the European Union so that it drops sanctions against Moscow.

But intelligence officials have stepped up their warnings in recent weeks, alarmed about the number of attacks.

Last month, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she could not rule out Russia interfering in Germany’s 2017 election through Internet attacks and misinformation campaigns.

Russian officials have denied all accusations of manipulation and interference intended to weaken the European Union or to affect the U.S. presidential election.

U.S. intelligence officials had warned in the run-up to the Nov. 8 presidential election of efforts to undermine the credibility of the vote that they believed were backed by the Russian government.

(Reporting by Andrea Shalal and Sabine Siebold; Editing by Janet Lawrence)

U.S. protesters march against Trump presidency for fifth day

Protests on Las Vegas Strip

By Alexander Besant

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Demonstrators in major U.S. cities took to the streets on Sunday for a fifth straight day to protest President-elect Donald Trump, whose campaign manager said President Barack Obama and Democrat Hillary Clinton should do more to support a peaceful transition.

Following several nights of unrest, crowds of people marched in parks in New York City, San Francisco and Oakland, California, according to social media.

A few thousand joined a march at the south end of Manhattan’s Central Park, beginning at a Trump property on Columbus Circle and walking toward the real estate mogul’s skyscraper headquarters less than a mile (1.6 km) away.

They chanted: “Say it loud, say it clear, immigrants are welcomed here,” and held signs such as “White silence = violence” and “Don’t mourn, organize.”

One protester said demonstrators were reclaiming what the American flag he was holding stood for.

“The flag means freedom of speech, freedom of religion, equal protection under the law and other values like diversity, respecting differences, freedom of assembly and freedom of the press,” said Daniel Hayman, 31, of Seattle, who was in New York for work. “We’re trying to reclaim the flag and push forward those values.”

Thousands in several cities have demonstrated since the results from Tuesday’s election showed Trump, a Republican, lost the popular tally but secured enough votes in the 538-member Electoral College to win the presidency, surprising the world.

Largely peaceful demonstrators in urban areas have said Trump threatens their civil and human rights. They have decried Trump’s often inflammatory campaign rhetoric about illegal immigrants, Muslims and women, as well as allegations, which he denies, that the former reality TV star sexually abused women.

Dozens have been arrested, including 71 in Portland, Oregon, on Saturday night, according to police, and a handful of police injured.

‘LET’S MAKE WAVES’

In San Francisco on Sunday, about 1,000 people marched through Golden Gate Park toward a beach where they chanted: “Let’s make waves.” They held signs such as “I resist racism” and “Down with the Trumps.”

Across the bay in Oakland, thousands of protesters joined a festival-like atmosphere, holding peace signs and blowing soap bubbles in the sunshine. Many had brought their children, aiming to hold hands around the 3.4-mile (5.5-km) circumference of Lake Merritt in a popular urban park.

Civil rights groups have monitored violence against U.S. minorities since Trump’s win, citing reports of attacks on women in Islamic head scarves, of racist graffiti and of bullying of immigrant children. They have called on Trump to denounce the attacks.

Trump said he was ‘so saddened’ to hear of instances of violence by some of his supporters against minorities, according to a transcript released on Sunday of an interview with the CBS program ’60 Minutes.’

‘THIS MAN IS OUR PRESIDENT’

Kellyanne Conway, Trump’s campaign manager, said on Fox News on Sunday that she was sure many of the protesters were paid professionals, although she offered no proof.

Suggesting a double standard, Conway said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that if Clinton had won the election and Trump supporters had protested, “people would be freaking out that his supporters were not accepting election results.”

“It’s time really for President Obama and Secretary Clinton to say to these protesters: ‘This man is our president,'” she said.

Republican House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan told CNN on Sunday that protests were protected by the First Amendment as long as they were peaceful.

Neither Obama nor Clinton has called for an end to the protests. Obama told Trump at the White House on Thursday that he was going to help Trump succeed, “because if you succeed, then the country succeeds.”

Clinton told supporters at a New York hotel on Wednesday: “Donald Trump is going to be our president. We owe him an open mind and the chance to lead.”

Trump on Sunday attacked the New York Times for coverage he said was “very poor and highly inaccurate.”

“The @nytimes sent a letter to their subscribers apologizing for their BAD coverage of me. I wonder if it will change – doubt it?” Trump wrote on Twitter.

The newspaper published a letter in Sunday’s editions from publisher Arthur Sulzberger and executive editor Dean Baquet, not apologizing, but thanking readers for their loyalty and asking how news outlets underestimated Trump’s support.

The Times plans to “hold power to account, impartially and unflinchingly” during the Trump presidency, they wrote.

(Additional reporting by Alana Wise in Washington, Beck Diefenbach in San Francisco and Noah Berger in Oakland, Calif.; Writing by David Ingram; Editing by James Dalgleish and Peter Cooney)

Russian hackers accused of post-election attacks on U.S. think tanks

padlock graphic

By Jim Finkle and Dustin Volz

(Reuters) – A Russian hacking group began attacking U.S.-based policy think tanks within hours of Donald Trump’s presidential election victory, according to cyber experts who suspect Moscow is seeking information on the incoming administration.

Three cyber security firms told Reuters that are tracking a spear-phishing campaign by a Russian-government linked group known as Cozy Bear, which is widely suspected of hacking the Democratic Party ahead of the election.

“Probably now they are trying to rush to gain access to certain targets where they can get a better understanding on what is going on in Washington after the election and during the transition period,” said Jaime Blasco, chief scientist with cyber security firm AlienVault.

Targets included the Council for Foreign Relations, said Adam Segal, a security expert with the think tank. His colleagues include former U.S. Senator John D. Rockefeller IV and former Reagan administration State Department official Elliott Abrams.

Representatives with the Russian Embassy in Washington could not be reached for comment. Moscow has strongly denied that it was behind the hacks.

Spear-phishing campaigns use malware-tainted emails to infect computers of carefully selected staff at target organizations. They typically appear to be from people whom the victims know and on subjects of interest to them.

Some of the emails appeared to be from Harvard University under the subject line, “Why American Elections are flawed,” according to Washington-based cyber security firm Volexity.

The attacks began as the Obama administration was weighing if and how it might respond in its final two months to a series of high-profile hacks on Democratic Party organizations that U.S. intelligence officials have publicly blamed on Moscow.

A former senior Obama administration official said on Thursday that the White House had decided to take action against Russia after the election but no decision had been made on exactly how to respond.

Options included U.S. prosecutors indicting Russians believed to be behind the attacks, applying new economic sanctions against Moscow and the United States launching a retaliatory cyber attack against Russia, said the former official who asked not to be named.

White House officials feared that retaliating before the election could have led Russia to launch a major cyber attack on the United States that would have disrupted the banking system, power grid or internet service. But they said administration officials had decided that the United States needed to show after the election that it would respond to state-sponsored cyber attacks, said the former official.

Trump has said he is not convinced Russia was behind the attacks. He has yet to fill key national security posts, which makes it difficult to assess how his administration might handle the issue.

Harvard’s chief information security officer, Christian Hamer, warned staff about the attacks on Thursday afternoon, saying that federal law enforcement was investigating.

He said some of the emails used in the campaign appeared as if they were sent from members of Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences, using the school’s branding.

An FBI representative declined comment.

(Reporting by Jim Finkle in Boston and Dustin Volz in Washington. Additional reporting by David Rohde in New York and Steve Holland in Washington.; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

Protesters take to streets for a second day to decry Trump election

Protesters of Trump as President

By Gina Cherelus and Ian Simpson

NEW YORK/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Police put up security fences around U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s new Washington hotel on Thursday and a line of concrete blocks shielded New York’s Trump Tower as students around the country staged a second day of protests over his election.

A day after thousands of people took to the streets in at least 10 U.S. cities from Boston to Berkeley, California, chanting “not my president” and “no Trump,” fresh protests were held in Texas to San Francisco.

A Trump campaign representative did not respond to requests for comment on the protests but Rudy Giuliani, the former New York City mayor and a high-profile Trump supporter, called the demonstrators “a bunch of spoiled cry-babies.”

“If you’re looking at the real left-wing loonies on the campus, it’s the professors not the students,” Giuliani said on Fox News on Thursday. “Calm down, things are not as bad as you think.”

The protesters blasted Trump for campaign rhetoric critical of immigrants, Muslims and allegations of sexual abuse of women. More than 20 people were arrested for blocking or attempting to block highways in Los Angeles and Richmond, Virginia, early Thursday morning.

White House spokesman Joshua Earnest said Obama supported the demonstrators’ right to express themselves peacefully.

“We’ve got a carefully, constitutionally protected right to free speech,” Earnest told reporters. “The president believes that that is a right that should be protected. It is a right that should be exercised without violence.”

In San Francisco, more than 1,000 students walked out of classes on Thursday morning and marched through the city’s financial district carrying rainbow flags representing the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities, Mexican flags and signs decrying the president-elect.

Several hundred students at Texas State University in San Marcos took to the campus to protest Trump’s election, with many students saying they fear he will infringe the civil rights of minorities and the LGBT community.

“NOT MY PRESIDENT”

In New York’s Washington Square park, several hundred people gathered to protest Trump’s election. Three miles (5 km) to the north at the gilt Trump Tower, where Trump lives, 29-year-old Alex Conway stood holding a sign that read “not my president.”

“This sign is not to say he isn’t the president of the United States, but for two days I can use my emotion to be against this outcome and to express that he’s not mine,” said Conway, who works in the film industry. “The only thing I can hope for is that in four years I’m proved wrong.”

In Washington, a jogger shouted an expletive about Trump as he passed the Trump International Hotel on Thursday, just blocks from the White House, where the former reality TV star had his first meeting with President Barack Obama to discuss transition plans.

More anti-Trump demonstrations are planned heading into the weekend, according to organizers’ online posts. One urged protesters to rally in Washington, D.C., on Inauguration Day, Jan. 20.

Supporters of Trump, who surprised many in the political and media establishment with Tuesday’s win, urged calm and recommended that Americans wait to see how he performed as president.

The United States has seen waves of large-scale, sometimes violent protests in the past few years. Cities from Ferguson, Missouri, to Berkeley have been rocked by demonstrations following high-profile police killings of unarmed black men and teens. Those followed a wave of large-scale protest encampments, starting with the Occupy Wall Street movement in New York in 2011.

Trump said in his victory speech, which was delivered in a far calmer manner than he displayed in many campaign appearances, that he would be president for all Americans. Some of his most controversial campaign proposals, including the call to ban Muslims from entering the United States, had been removed from his campaign website by Thursday.

A spate of isolated attacks on women and members of minority groups by people wearing Trump hats or saying his name were reported by police and U.S. media.

A hijab-wearing female student at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette was assaulted on Wednesday morning by a man wearing a white “Trump” hat, who knocked her to the ground and took her head scarf and wallet, university police said in a statement.

Reports also showed other cases in which Trump opponents lashed out violently against people carrying signs indicating they supported him.

(Reporting by Gina Cherelus in New York, Ian Simpson in Washington, Jon Herskovitz in Austin, Texas, and Curtis Skinner in San Francisco; Writing by Scott Malone; Editing by Daniel Wallis and Bill Trott)

Wall Street swings in post-U.S. election rollercoaster

Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange

By Chuck Mikolajczak

NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. stocks were little changed on Wednesday, rebounding from stunning overnight losses fueled by the U.S. election as sectors that appeared poised to benefit from a Donald Trump presidency led the charge.

After tremendous losses in the overnight session, the Dow and S&P 500 briefly turned positive shortly after the open. Strong gains in the heavily weighted healthcare sector. SPXHC, up 2.9 percent, and financials. SPSY, up 2.5 percent, kept the market within striking distance of the unchanged level.

A curb on drug pricing was one of the key campaign themes for Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, while Republican President-elect Donald Trump has called for repealing the Affordable Care Act and loosening restrictions on banks enacted after the financial crisis.

“There was the potential for, maybe not all the way to price controls, but certainly more pressure on some of the pharma names and that has likely gone away,” said Peter Jankovskis, co-chief investment officer at OakBrook Investments LLC in Lisle, Illinois.

“It remains to be seen what President Trump and the Republicans will do on the healthcare side, certainly that has been a drumbeat for eight years now about the repeal of Obamacare”

The Dow Jones industrial average. DJI rose 20.78 points, or 0.11 percent, to 18,353.52, the S&P 500 .SPX lost 2.1 points, or 0.1 percent, to 2,137.46 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 12.34 points, or 0.24 percent, to 5,181.15.

Through the night, financial markets reacted violently to poll results and as Clinton’s path to victory narrowed. The S&P slid 5 percent and hit a limit down, meaning the contract could not trade lower, only sideways or up. Dow Industrials futures briefly fell 800 points.

Republicans also maintained their majorities in both chambers of the U.S. Congress, enabling the party to reshape Washington with two years of “unified” government.

“The reality is the President doesn’t dominate everything and we are still going to have a fairly split and divided Congress because even though the Republicans technically have control of the House and the Senate, they don’t have strong control,” said Jason Pride, director of investment strategy at Glenmede in Philadelphia.

“The lack of strong control kind of handicaps their ability to push through, or handicaps any one person, particularly the President’s ability, to push through extreme policies,” he said.

Wall Street is typically seen as preferring gridlock, or shared control of the White House and Congress, than a sweep of both chambers of Congress and the presidency.

The CBOE Volatility index futures shot nearly 40 percent higher at one point, reflecting investors’ reservations over a Trump presidency, but sharply retraced that advance after Trump’s acceptance speech. During the session the CBOE Volatility index. VIX was down 11.5 percent.

“Certainly (the trading floor) has a much different tone than what it did just several hours ago, but for now things remain very orderly and we would anticipate that tone to continue or improve as we get closer to the open,” said Ryan Larson, head of equity trading, U.S. at RBC Global Asset Management in Chicago, Illinois.

Big pharmaceutical names gained, with Pfizer PFE jumping 7.8 percent to $32.34. The iShares Nasdsaq Biotechnology ETF  climbed 7.2 percent and was on track for its biggest daily percentage gain in eight years.

(Additional reporting by Rodrigo Campos and Tanya Agrawal and Yashaswini Swamynathan; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Meredith Mazzilli)

Futures down sharply as greater chance of Trump victory seen

Supporters of Hillary Clinton react as a state is called in favor of Donald Trump during a watch party at the University of Sydney in Australia.

By Rodrigo Campos

NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. stock index futures tumbled in choppy trade on Tuesday as tight races in key states including Florida and Ohio stoked bets that Republican Donald Trump could win the U.S. presidential election, spooking investors who have been counting on a victory by Democrat Hillary Clinton.

Trump and Clinton were locked in close battles in several battleground states, although opinion polls gave Clinton an edge in the closing hours of the campaign.

Financial markets reacted violently to the preliminary results, with S&P futures rising as much as 0.8 percent and falling more than 3 percent at one point.

A risk-off mood pervaded financial markets, driving down stock index futures and the Mexican peso, while gold and Treasuries prices rose.

“Donald Trump has stunned the consensus thinking, thus far,” said Peter Kenny, senior market strategist at Global Markets Advisory Group in New York.

“Ahead in Florida, Virginia, Ohio and North Carolina, in addition to being ahead in the electoral count and popular vote has triggered the onset of panic in global financial markets,” said Kenny. “Too early to call, obviously, but clearly markets were tentative today and seem to being growing increasingly concerned..”

Wall Street sees former Secretary of State Clinton as a status quo candidate who would lend stability to the markets, while Trump’s stances on foreign policy, trade and immigration are more conducive to volatility.

At 9:43 p.m. EST, S&P 500 e-minis were down 65 points, or 3.04 percent, with 719,267 contracts changing hands. Nasdaq 100 e-minis were down 139.5 points, or 2.9 percent, on volume of 92,108 contracts, and Dow e-minis were down 458 points, or 2.5 percent, with 127,944 contracts changing hands.

The Mexican peso slumped versus the U.S. dollar to near historic lows hit in September. It was last down more than 7 percent, near 19.7 to the dollar, after earlier touching 18.1475, its strongest level since Aug. 6.

“The chance of a Republican sweep is now very real,” said Brad McMillan, chief investment officer at Commonwealth Financial in Waltham, Massachusetts.

“With a Republican House and Senate, Trump now has a great deal more policy freedom – and it remains to be seen what he might do with it. Markets have reacted in the past with a decline as Trump’s probability of victory rose, and that is very likely to happen (Wednesday) if he wins.”

(Additional reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak, Saqib Ahmed, Caroline Valetkevitch, Sinead Carew and Trevor Hunnicutt; Editing by Leslie Adler)