Trump’s Economic Cabinet Picks Signal Embrace of Wall St. Elite - New York Times

In a campaign commercial that ran just before the election, Donald J. Trump’s voice boomed over a series of Wall Street images. He described “a global power structure that is responsible for the economic decisions that have robbed our working class, stripped our country of its wealth, and put that money into the pockets of a handful of large corporations.”

The New York Stock Exchange, the hedge fund billionaire George Soros and the chief executive of the investment bank Goldman Sachs flashed across the screen.

Now Mr. Trump has named a former Goldman executive and co-investor with Mr. Soros to spearhead his economic policy.

With Wednesday’s nomination of Steven Mnuchin, a Goldman trader turned hedge fund manager and Hollywood financier, to be Treasury secretary, a new economic leadership is taking shape in Washington.

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Trump Taps Hollywood’s Mnuchin for Treasury and Dines With Romney NOV. 29, 2016

DEALBOOK

Steven Mnuchin, Expected Treasury Pick, Is an Outsider to Public Policy NOV. 30, 2016

Mr. Mnuchin will join Wilbur L. Ross Jr., a billionaire investor in distressed assets, who has been chosen to run the Commerce Department, and Todd Ricketts, owner of the Chicago Cubs, who has been picked to be deputy commerce secretary. All are superwealthy and to be overseen by the first billionaire president in United States history.

That two investors — Mr. Mnuchin and Mr. Ross — will occupy two major economic positions in the new administration is the most powerful signal yet that Mr. Trump plans to emphasize policies friendly to Wall Street, like tax cuts and a relaxation of regulation, in the early days of his administration.

While that approach has been cheered by investors (the stocks of Bank of America, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley have been on a tear since the election), it stands in stark contrast to the populist campaign that Mr. Trump ran and the support he received from working-class voters across the country.

Anthony Scaramucci, a hedge fund executive and member of the Trump transition team, insisted on Wednesday that appointing wealthy investors did not contradict the campaign’s populist message.

“The working-class people of the United States, they need a break,” Mr. Scaramucci said. “And we need to switch them from going from the working class into the working poor into what I call the aspirational working class, which my dad was a member of.”

Still, Democrats were quick to attack the latest nomination.

“Steve Mnuchin is just another Wall Street insider,” Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts said in a joint statement. “That is not the type of change that Donald Trump promised to bring to Washington — that is hypocrisy at its worst.”

So far, none of the nominees who will be shaping economic policy have any significant experience in government.

Mr. Mnuchin, 53, and Mr. Ross, 79, are both familiar with buying distressed properties and selling for a profit. But they are political neophytes with scant experience in managing large organizations. They will oversee two government agencies that together employ about 130,000 people around the world.

In the case of Mr. Mnuchin at Treasury, his experience as a principal investor who made large sums of money through high-risk, high-return wagers suggests that he will look critically at the thicket of regulations that now constrain the risk-taking activities of investment banks.

That could mean a reassessment of what has come to be known as the Volcker Rule, part of the Dodd-Frank financial overhaul that followed the 2008 financial crisis. The rule forbids banks to make certain speculative investments with their own capital.

“I would say the No. 1 problem with the Volcker Rule is it’s too complicated and people don’t know how to interpret it,” Mr. Mnuchin said in an interview with CNBC on Wednesday. “So we’re going to look at what to do with it as we are with all of Dodd-Frank. The No. 1 priority is going to be to make sure that banks lend.”

In the interview, Mr. Mnuchin also said he would look to cutting corporate tax rates as a way to increase economic growth. And he said the wealthy would not see a big tax cut.

“Any reductions we have in upper-income taxes will be offset by less deductions so that there will be no absolute tax cut for the upper class,” Mr. Mnuchin said in the interview. “There will be a big tax cut for the middle class, but any tax cuts we have for the upper class will be offset by less deductions that pay for it.”

There is a Washington tradition of presidents calling on a Goldman Sachs luminary to take the reins of the economy, including the Democrat Robert E. Rubin in 1995 and Henry M. Paulson Jr., a Republican, in 2006.

Mr. Mnuchin’s Goldman pedigree is as good as it gets, given that his father, Robert, was a pioneer in stock trading who spent 35 years at the firm.

While the Goldman brand may have initially attracted Mr. Trump, for the broader financial community it is Mr. Mnuchin’s track record at hedge and private equity funds, which is where the real money is made on Wall Street these days, that makes him appealing.

“Mnuchin as Treasury secretary is somebody who can speak to bankers — Jamie Dimon, Lloyd Blankfein, James Gorman and Brian Moynihan. He can speak their language,” said Gary Kaminsky, a former vice chairman at Morgan Stanley, referring to the chief executives of JPMorgan Chase, Goldman, Morgan Stanley and Bank of America. “He comes from a trading desk, and that’s something that is very strong,” Mr. Kaminsky, who has attended fund-raisers for Mr. Trump, added.

While there is little doubt that Mr. Mnuchin can speak the language of Wall Street, he has had little experience running large, complex bureaucracies. Mr. Rubin and Mr. Paulson had ascended to the top at Goldman, and had many years of experience managing people and organizations under their belt.

Mr. Mnuchin did assume a leading role in the restructuring and reinventing of IndyMac, now known as OneWest, a California mortgage giant that collapsed in 2008. He and partners acquired the firm and later made billions.

After he moved from New York to the West Coast, Mr. Mnuchin was targeted by protesters who claimed that the bank was too quick to foreclose on struggling homeowners. Last year the bank was sold to the CIT Group, a small-business lender run at the time by another Goldman Sachs alumnus, John A. Thain.

In a statement announcing his economic appointments, Mr. Trump highlighted the deal. “He purchased IndyMac Bank for $1.6 billion and ran it very professionally, selling it for $3.4 billion plus a return of capital,” he said of Mr. Mnuchin. “That’s the kind of people I want in my administration representing our country.”

Mr. Mnuchin has faced other controversies. In 2010, he and his brother, Alan, were sued over their mother’s early investment with Bernard L. Madoff, an investor who was convicted of running a Ponzi scheme. The lawsuit, filed by a trustee for Madoff victims, alleged that $3.2 million of the money Mr. Mnuchin withdrew from his mother’s account shortly after she died belonged to other victims. The lawsuit was dropped last year because of a time limit.

Hollywood has been another reinvention for Mr. Mnuchin.

In 2006, he and a partner, Chip Seelig, struck a deal through their company Dune Entertainment to invest $325 million in 28 movies produced by 20th Century Fox. It was a successful partnership; Fox delivered hits (made in part with Dune’s money) like “Avatar,” which took in $2.8 billion worldwide in 2009.

After breaking with Mr. Seelig in 2012, Mr. Mnuchin teamed up with a company called RatPac, owned by the rowdy filmmaker Brett Ratner and the Australian billionaire James Packer. Mr. Ratner was then notorious in Hollywood; he resigned as a producer of the Academy Awards in 2011 after using an anti-gay slur at a public event and making frank remarks about his sex life on Howard Stern’s radio show. (He apologized.) But together the three men formed a vehicle to invest $450 million in an extensive array of Warner Bros. movies.

Some have been major hits, like “Gravity,” which took in $723.2 million. But there have also been money losers, including “Pan” and “In the Heart of the Sea.”

Still, Mr. Mnuchin has clearly enjoyed a Hollywood lifestyle, whether attending celebrity-filled parties at the Hôtel du Cap-Eden-Roc during the Cannes Film Festival or going in with a movie industry friend to buy a Dassault Falcon 50 jet (since sold). He can currently be seen in a cameo — playing a Merrill Lynch executive — in Warren Beatty’s new movie “Rules Don’t Apply.”

Beyond the entertainment industry, there other similarities between Mr. Trump and Mr. Mnuchin. They are both twice divorced, and their third partners are decidedly younger. (Mr. Mnuchin’s fiancée is Louise Linton, a 34-year-old actress from Scotland.) They also both have a taste for landmark Manhattan real estate: Trump Tower for the president-elect and 740 Park Avenue for Mr. Mnuchin.

But there are differences, too. Despite his Hollywood appetites, Mr. Mnuchin is described by people who know him as slightly awkward and not one to command a room. Friends of the two men describe them more as social and professional acquaintances than close friends.

The names of flashier prospects had been floated as possible candidates for Treasury, according to a fund manager close to the president-elect’s economic brain trust. Among them: Henry Kravis of Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Company, Jonathan Gray of Blackstone, Jamie Dimon, Mitt Romney, and Thomas J. Barrack Jr. of Colony Capital, a Los Angeles-based real estate investor who has been close to Mr. Trump for decades.

Brooks Barnes and Neil Irwin contributed reporting.

Trump and the US constitution - New York Times

Trump vs. the
Constitution
By ADAM LIPTAK NOV. 29, 2016
In his campaign and as
president-elect, Donald J. Trump has
made statements that are at odds
with the United States Constitution.
“Nobody should be allowed to burn the American flag - if they do, there must be consequences - perhaps loss of citizenship or year in jail!”
NOV. 29, 2016 ON TWITTER
The Supreme Court has ruled that flag burning is protected by the First Amendment. It has also said that the government may not strip Americans of their citizenship.
FIRST AMENDMENT
“Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.”
14TH AMENDMENT, SECTION 1
“All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”
“Prior to the election it was well known that I have interests in properties all over the world.Only the crooked media makes this a big deal!”
NOV. 21, 2016 ON TWITTER
The Constitution bars federal government officials from receiving gifts and payments from foreign governments, Mr. Trump’s business dealings with entities controlled by foreign states could test that limitation.
ARTICLE I, SECTION 9
“No title of nobility shall be granted by the United States: and no person holding any office of profit or trust under them, shall, without the consent of the Congress, accept of any present, emolument, office, or title, of any kind whatever, from any king, prince, or foreign state.”
On conceding the election: “What I’m saying is that I will tell you at the time. I’ll keep you in suspense.”
OCT. 19, 2016 AT THE THIRD PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE
For more than 200 years, presidential elections in the United States have been settled according to the procedures set out in the Constitution and other laws, and they have concluded with the peaceful transfer of power from one administration to the next. Mr. Trump’s statement leaves open the possibility that he will try to break from those precedents.
12TH AMENDMENT
“The person having the greatest number of votes for president, shall be the president, if such number be a majority of the whole number of electors appointed.”
“Because you’d be in jail.”
OCT. 9, 2016 AT THE SECOND PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE
Mr. Trump has said that, if elected, he would instruct his attorney general to reopen criminal investigations into Mrs. Clinton’s use of a private email server. (After the election, he appeared to soften his position, saying, “I don’t want to hurt the Clintons.”) Mr. Trump will have the legal power to tell his attorney general to open or close investigations, though doing so would violate political norms. But his suggestion that the president has the unilateral power to jail people for federal crimes overstates the president’s authority. Presidents acting alone do not adjudicate criminal cases or send people to jail. By contrast, the Constitution does grant the president the unilateral power to show leniency.
ARTICLE II, SECTION 2
The president “shall have power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States.”
“I want to protect Article I, Article II, Article XII — go down the list.”
JULY 8, 2016 AT A PRIVATE MEETING WITH HOUSE REPUBLICANS
But the Constitution has only seven articles. There is no Article XII.
ARTICLE II, SECTION 1
The president must promise to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
“We’re going to open up those libel laws. So when The New York Times writes a hit piece which is a total disgrace, or when The Washington Post, which is there for other reasons, writes a hit piece we can sue them and win money instead of having no chance of winning because they’re totally protected.”
FEB. 26, 2016 AT A RALLY IN FORT WORTH, TEX.
Libel is a state-law tort constrained by constitutional principles. A president’s views do not figure in its application. The Supreme Court has said that the First Amendment erects significant hurdles to libel suits from public officials, candidates for public office and public figures, but it has never said that newspapers are “totally protected.”
FIRST AMENDMENT
“Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.”
“One of the first things I’d do in terms of executive order, if I win, will be to sign a strong, strong statement that would go out to the country … anybody killing a police officer, the death penalty is going to happen.”
DEC. 10, 2015 SPEAKING TO A POLICE ASSOCIATION
Again, Mr. Trump overstates the president’s role in the constitutional order. In addition, the Supreme Court has said that laws calling for mandatory death sentences violate the Constitution’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
FIFTH AMENDMENT
“No person shall be ... deprived of life, liberty or property, without due process of law.”
Additional work by Josh Williams and K.K. Rebecca Lai

Bank of England says Trump election " reinforced existing vulnerability in financial system " - Financial Times

3 HOURS AGO by: Caroline Binham and Martin Arnoldin London
The US election outcome has “reinforced existing vulnerabilities” in the financial system, the Bank of England has warned, adding that the outlook for financial stability in the UK remains challenging.
The BoE said on Wednesday that vulnerabilities that were already considered “elevated” have worsened since its last report on financial stability in July, in the weeks following the UK’s vote to leave the EU.
The election of Donald Trump as US president has pushed up yields on sovereign bonds from advanced economies, while also weighing on expectations around global trade.
“The US election has reinforced existing vulnerabilities,” said the BoE in its twice-yearly Financial Stability Report. “Following the US election, there have been significant changes in global asset prices. Expectations of expansionary US fiscal policy have contributed to an increase in advanced economy sovereign yields, reversing much or all of their falls observed earlier in the year.”
UK banks are particularly exposed to China, Hong Kong and emerging markets — around 20 per cent of UK banks’ total assets. The report highlighted the difficulty of emerging markets servicing their debts in the new environment.

What does Brexit mean for London in 2017 ? - Economist

Barber
FINANCE
This is a deal which has no precedent. Plenty of countries (28, to be precise) have joined the European Union, but none has asked to leave. In the summer of 2016 David Cameron, casually assuming the British people would stick with the status quo, made no contingency plans for Brexit. In 2017 the City of London, with some trepidation, will face the consequences.
Not even the smartest quant can predict the precise terms of divorce or the exact date of British withdrawal. A few brave souls say it may never happen. Yet in 2017 a degree of clarity will come when Theresa May’s government formally invokes Article 50 of the treaty on European Union, declaring Britain’s intention to leave the EU. She has said she will do so by the end of March.
Once Article 50 is triggered, a two-year clock starts ticking for the completion of talks on separation. The government will spell out the trade-offs, such as access to the single market and accepting the principle of freedom of movement and the supremacy of the European Court of Justice. In 2016 immigration fears trumped business as usual; in 2017 the ledger may look a little different.
The tension between being a rule-maker and a rule-taker will become evident. The City will press for certainty on divorce terms; Mrs May will want to retain flexibility. She will have one eye on the French presidential election in April-May. Victory for the far-right Marine Le Pen, though improbable, would signal “Frexit” and the possible end of the EU.
The City is an ecosystem where big beasts such as the wholesale banks (JPMorgan Chase, HSBC, Goldman Sachs, Barclays and Standard Chartered) roam alongside omnivores such as the insurers Aviva, Prudential and Legal & General. Asset managers, footloose private-equity firms and hedge funds are in the mix, supported by thousands of accountants, lawyers and tax advisers of every national stripe.
Each will weigh closely whether to sit tight in 2017. They will watch to see if Brexit negotiations tilt towards a clean break (short, sharp but risky), an amicable mutual adjustment (positive but protracted) or a hostile divorce (messy and very expensive). “The closer to the real economy, the more exposed you are to Brexit. The more you play a financial game, the less you care,” says one City executive involved in Brexit preparations, though small, domestic insurgents like Virgin Money and Metro Bank will also be less exposed as long as they do not grow by much.
In 2017 three words will enter the vernacular: “equivalence”, “passporting” and “transition”. Wholesale banks, which provide loans, debt financing, bond and equities trading, and deposit-taking, are highly regulated under EU law. They will seek to preserve their passporting rights to trade in EU jurisdictions or secure something equivalent. At a minimum, they will want transition arrangements to ensure that commercial deals struck with clients do not slide into a legal no-man’s-land between, say, 2019 and 2021.
Some firms, fearing that their access to the single market risks being compromised, may simply bolt. No one expects a collective rush for the exit. (People still love living in cool London, despite the cost of housing.) But lines of business will trickle away, with Dublin, Luxembourg, Amsterdam and Paris among those already holding out enticements.

Re-bonjour, Barnier

A familiar Gallic face will re-emerge in 2017. Michel Barnier, the ski-loving scourge of the City in his earlier guise as the internal-market and services commissioner in Brussels, will make a comeback as the EU’s chief negotiator for Brexit. He will encounter David Davis, a bruiser with no love for bankers, who will handle negotiations under supervision from the Cabinet Office.
Expect few breakthroughs and plenty of brinkmanship. A bespoke deal will be hugely complicated. The City risks forfeiting advantages such as euro-clearing, but can counter with a bid for offshore renminbi. As a whole, financial activity in London will slowly shrink, though that was happening anyway as a result of post-crash regulation and low interest rates. “It will be more like a slow puncture,” says one business leader.
Many will be surprised at the City’s willingness to retain EU legislation once dismissed as intrusive, such as MIFID II (covering financial markets) and, less so, Solvency II (for insurance). That will be the price of something close to the associate eu membership for Britain, which some technocrats have in mind—unless opinion hardens and the government opts for a “naked exit”.
Neither Britain nor the City can expect a better deal from the eu than was previously offered by membership. On that point, there is unanimity in Brussels, Berlin and Paris. To paraphrase Voltaire, the price of Brexit must be high enough pour décourager les autres.
Lionel Barber
Lionel Barber: 
editor, 
Financial Times

Trump won't change - CNN

CNN)Winning the presidency didn't change Donald Trump -- and it's increasingly clear that actually being president won't change him either.
Dramas roiling the president-elect's transition process in recent days show him to be the same, mercurial, sometimes thin-skinned, gregarious, truth-challenged, media taunting and unpredictable figure who won a stunning election upset.
From the outside, the intrigue and internal feuding between competing power factions in the Trump orbit, his explosive tweeting and wrenching changes of political positions suggest a chaotic approach to forming a government. But there's a simple truth that links all the controversies that have gathered around the President-elect in the three weeks since he won the election: Trump is determined to be Trump.


The latest sign that Trump has no intention of changing, despite his new responsibilities, emerged on Sunday, when he fired off a tweet alleging electoral fraud and ignited a media storm.
"In addition to winning the Electoral College in a landslide, I won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally," the President-elect fumed in a tweet -- based on a falsehood -- that underscored his enduring addiction to conspiracy theories.
Trump turned to social media again late Monday when he retweeted supporters who blasted CNN's Jeff Zeleny for reporting that debunked the President-elect's claims of voter fraud as baseless.
Source: Trump 'irritated' by Conway attacks on Romney
Washington establishment types, analysts and reporters long waited in vain for Trump's pivot to a more conventional style, looking for change when he became the GOP's frontrunner, its nominee and president-elect. But apart from a few periods of restraint, he has appeared most comfortable sticking to the bulldozing style that has been his trademark as a real estate mogul, a reality star and a political candidate.
Not a campaign
But the presidency is not a campaign. So Trump's behavior during his transition so far is beginning to raise questions about how he will adapt to the constraints of the office he is about to inherit.
They include unknowns about how his impulsive, gut-driven style of leadership and considerable ego will fit in a job dripping with centuries of custom and history. Americans will have to judge whether outbursts on Twitter or false claims, such as Sunday's on the popular vote, are appropriate for someone who will soon be a democratic head of state and the commander-in-chief.
Nightcap: Recount begins in Wisconsin; two more could come soon | Sign up
Then there is the question of whether Trump's tongue will get him into trouble in a job in which an intemperate word by a president can cause an immediate foreign policy crisis. In short, will Trump change the presidency, or will the presidency change him?
"While I think that the President shapes the office to some extent, I also think the office shapes the President," said John Burke, a University of Vermont professor who has written several books on presidential transitions. "He is going to be more constrained than he has been as a candidate. The big question is how constrained is he going to be? That we don't know."
Trump falsely claims 'millions of people who voted illegally' cost him popular vote
Those hoping Trump will become a more responsible, conventional figure when he is actually in the Oval Office include President Barack Obama himself, whose most recent encounter with his successor came over the phone Saturday.
"Campaigning is different from governing. I think he recognizes that," Obama said in a pre-Thanksgiving press conference. "I think what will happen with the President-elect is there are going to be certain elements of his temperament that will not serve him well unless he recognizes them and corrects them."
Trump says he is ready to face the awesome responsibilities of the presidency, but has given few signs he will moderate his firebrand persona when he reaches the White House.
"I feel comfortable. I feel comfortable. I am awed by the job, as anybody would be," Trump told The New York Times editorial board last week.
Still, no one can be fully prepared for the sudden shock of responsibility that will hit them when they became president — and Trump, as a political neophyte, faces a steeper learning curve than most.
Attitudes and demeanor
So it's possible that Trump's attitudes and demeanor in the transition period may not be a foolproof guide to his conduct while president — however much he is determined not to change.
"He will be shaped by the duties, he will be shaped by the speed and unpredictability by the speed at which everything happens," said Professor Karen Hult, a presidential scholar and transition expert at Virginia Tech University. "At least since Richard Nixon, presidents have found that there is nothing that prepares you to be president until you get there."
Sunday's outburst was not the only sign that the unorthodox approach that Trump brought to the campaign is not being tempered as his presidency nears.
Sanders calls for assessment of Electoral College
He went on a tirade against the cast of "Hamilton" for, in his eyes, insulting his vice presidential nominee Mike Pence. He's tolerated leaks and public sparring among aides on cable television about his possible choice of Mitt Romney, an ultimate establishment figure, as secretary of state. His choice of Stephen Bannon for a top White House post stirred disbelief among critics worried about links to the white nationalist movement.
In a stunning move on Sunday, Trump's campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, speaking on CNN's "State of the Union" slammed her boss's flirtation with Romney for the State Department as an insult to his political base.
Trump has seemingly changed policy on a dime, apparently rowing back from support for waterboarding and watering down his plan for a wall all the way across the Mexican border, leading to confusion as to exactly what he plans to do as President.
Jaw droppers
Trump's own carefully restricted media appearances have also contained jaw droppers.
For instance, he brazenly suggested that even though he is willing to set up a firewall between his vast business empire and his White House to ward off possible conflict of interest concerns, he may be under no obligation to do so.
"The law is totally on my side, meaning, the President can't have a conflict of interest," Trump told the Times, alarming critics who fear he has authoritarian tendencies and will breach ethical norms.
In another unprecedented move, Trump invited his daughter Ivanka — who he has tapped to run his businesses when President — into a meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
The President-elect is also running his search for top talent like a reality show.
He relishes being the center of attention as he herds potential cabinet picks past a gallery of cameras at Trump Tower or his New Jersey golf resort. Some potential appointees, like Romney, former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani and others are left hanging in a media frenzy with no clear word on their fate.
Far from quieting the storm, Trump is whipping it up.
Who could be in Trump's Cabinet?
"Just met with General Petraeus -- was very impressed!" Trump tweeted on Monday, thickening the intrigue over the jockeying for position over the post of secretary of state and other cabinet positions.
Soon after he met Petraeus, Trump sources said that the President-elect would sit down with Romney for dinner on Tuesday night — stirring the pot of speculation a little more.
The period between now and the Christmas holiday will be crucial to Trump's hopes of quickly assembling a government ready to spring into action on day one of his presidency. With that in mind, there are some concerns that the drama and discord surrounding the transition might be undermining Trump's task in uniting nation after a campaign in which he tore at racial and societal divides.
"Transitions are important for a number of reasons," said Burke. "One of the reasons is to reintroduce the person not as a political candidate but as a president-elect — a recasting of how both the public and Congress perceive this president."
"And," Burke said, "I don't think we are seeing a lot of change."
CNN's Dana Bash and Gloria Borger contributed to this story

Trump lunched with New York Times showing changes in his views - New York Times

Thomas L. Friedman
Well, that was interesting … Donald Trump came to lunch at The New York Times. You can find all the highlights on the news pages, but since I had the opportunity to be included, let me offer a few impressions of my first close encounter with Trump since he declared for the presidency.
The most important was that on several key issues — like climate change and torture — where he adopted extreme positions during his campaign to galvanize his base, he went out of his way to make clear he was rethinking them. How far? I don’t know. But stay tuned, especially on climate.
There are many decisions that President-elect Trump can and will make during the next four years. Many of them could be reversible by his successor. But there is one decision he can make that could have truly irreversible implications, and that is to abandon America’s commitment to phasing out coal, phasing in more clean energy systems and leading the world to curb CO2 emissions before they reach a level that produces a cycle of wildly unpredictable climate disruptions.
When asked where he stood on that climate change issue — which in the past he dismissed as a hoax — and last December’s U.S.-led Paris emissions-reduction accord, the president-elect did not hesitate for a second: “I’m looking at it very closely. … I have an open mind to it. We’re going to look very carefully. … You can make lots of cases for different views. … I will tell you this: Clean air is vitally important. Clean water, crystal-clean water is vitally important.”
Do you think climate change is caused by human activity?
“I think there is some connectivity,” Trump answered. It is not clear “how much,” and what he will do about it “depends on how much it’s going to cost our companies.” Trump said he would study the issue “very hard” and hinted that if, after study, he was to moderate his views, his voice would be influential with climate skeptics.
On the question of whether the U.S. military should use waterboarding and other forms of torture to break suspected terrorists — a position he advocated frequently during the campaign to great applause — Trump bluntly stated that he had changed his mind after talking with James N. Mattis, the retired Marine Corps general, who headed the United States Central Command.
Trump said Mattis told him of torture: “I’ve never found it to be useful.” (Many in the military and the C.I.A. have long held this view.)

S&P 500, Dow Hit Hit Record Highs on Black Friday - TIME

S&P 500, Dow Hit Hit Record Highs on Black Friday Posted: 25 Nov 2016 06:45 AM PST (New York) — Key stock indexes on Wall Street swept to record intraday and closing highs on Black Friday thanks to gains in consumer staple and technology shares, while European stocks climbed and a stabilization in U.S. Treasury yields promoted investors to sell the dollar. The Dow, S&P 500 and Nasdaq indexes, as well as the small cap Russell 2000, hit record closing and intraday highs in thin trading, with the U.S. stock market closing at 1:00 p.m. ET (1700 GMT). For the week, the Dow and Nasdaq gained 1.5 percent, while the S&P 500 rose 1.4 percent. The S&P 500 consumer staples index’s 0.8 percent gain boosted shares on Black Friday, which traditionally kicks off the U.S. holiday shopping season. European stocks notched a third straight week of gains, even as a tumble in oil prices dragged commodities shares lower. Uncertainty over whether OPEC will agree to cut production at the group’s meeting next week weighed on crude prices. Expectations that U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s promises of tax cuts, higher infrastructure spending and reduced regulation would benefit certain industries, including banking, industrials and healthcare, have underpinned multiple recent all-time highs in U.S. shares. “While many stocks have risen quite briskly, investors are looking for some forgotten names in the rally,” said Andre Bakhos, managing director at Janlyn Capital in Bernardsville, New Jersey. MSCI’s all-country world equity index was last up 1.86 points, or 0.45 percent, at 414.99. The Dow Jones industrial average closed up 68.96 points, or 0.36 percent, at 19,152.14. The S&P 500 ended up 8.63 points, or 0.39 percent, at 2,213.35. The Nasdaq Composite closed up 18.24 points, or 0.34 percent, at 5,398.92. Europe’s broad FTSEurofirst 300 index closed up 0.29 percent at 1,351.66. While positive for stocks, Trump’s surprise victory in the Nov. 8 election has sent U.S. Treasury yields higher as investors bet his pro-growth and inflationary policies will erode the value of U.S. bonds. U.S. Treasuries were last steady after two-year yields hit a 6-1/2-year high of 1.17 percent overnight as investors evaluated how much further the selloff had to run. “There are a number of people that want to buy in but also don’t want to get whipped by the next 25-to-30 basis point selloff,” said Gennadiy Goldberg, an interest rate strategist at TD Securities in New York. The dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of six major currencies, was last down 0.3 percent at 101.430 as investors took advantage of the pullback in U.S. bond yields to lock in gains after the dollar hit a nearly 14-year peak on Thursday. Despite Friday’s steep losses, U.S. and benchmark Brent crude oil prices eked out a second straight week of gains. Brent crude settled down $1.76, or 3.59 percent, at $47.24 a barrel. U.S. crude settled down $1.90, or 3.96 percent, at $46.06 a barrel. Gold prices tumbled to a 9-1/2 month low of $1,171.2100 an ounce, partly on expectations of a U.S. interest rate increase by the Federal Reserve next month. (Additional reporting by Yashaswini Swamynathan in Bengaluru, Jessica Resnick-Ault in Boston and Karen Brettell and Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss in New York; Editing by Bernadette Baum and Meredith Mazzilli)

Black Friday Shoppers Hunt for Deals and Hit the Stores - TIME Business

Black Friday Shoppers Hunt for Deals and Hit the Stores

Posted: 25 Nov 2016 10:07 AM PST

NEW YORK (AP) — Shoppers were on the hunt for deals and were at the stores for entertainment Friday as malls opened for what is still one of the busiest days of the year, even as the start of the holiday season edges ever earlier.
Julie Singewald’s Black Friday started at 4 a.m. at a Twin Cities outlet mall. By 6 a.m., she and her two teenagers made it to the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota. Singewald said she was merely the vehicle — “and sometimes the credit card” — as her daughters worked on their shopping lists.

Increasingly, the 44-year-old is doing more of her shopping online.
“I’m a point-and-click person,” she said. “If it were up to me, I would be in my pajamas and on my computer at home.”
Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, used to launch the holiday season, but the competition to grab customers first is keen. Stores like Macy’s, Walmart, Target and more were open Thursday evening in what they hope will be a new holiday tradition as they try to fight off competition from online juggernaut Amazon.
Retailers have also been spreading deals out more throughout the week.
“It was a really good start. But I have never seen Black Friday morning so calm,” said Marshal Cohen, chief industry analyst at NPD Group, a market research firm, who visited malls on Long Island on Friday. He believes the weekend’s sales will likely rise from last year because shoppers did lots of buying, including pricey flat-screen TVs.
This weekend is crucial to set the tone for the holiday season. Around 137 million people plan to or are considering doing their shopping during the Thanksgiving weekend, according to a survey conducted for the National Retail Federation. That includes online and store shopping.
The NRF, the nation’s largest retail group, expects holiday sales to rise 3.6 percent for November and December, better than the 3 percent growth seen for those months last year. That excludes car sales, gas and restaurant receipts. But it includes online spending and other non-store sales such as catalog spending.
In Rhode Island, shoppers who arrived after sunrise at the Garden City outdoor shopping mall in Cranston said they were glad their state, along with Massachusetts and Maine, doesn’t let retailers open on Thanksgiving Day.
“I don’t like the idea of it,” said Lauren Glynn. “I feel bad for the people who have to work.”
She and her husband, who are restaurateurs, came to the Cranston mall for fun, to soak up the experience and maybe find a few deals, but they said they plan to do most of their gift shopping online and at locally owned shops where they live in Bristol, Rhode Island.
It’s at local shops, Sam Glynn said, where they’ll look for “cool knives and glassware, things that have meaning.”
In Virginia, Dana Sari says she prefers buying gifts from online catalogues and boutique retailers rather than larger corporations, which she says value her less as a customer. She’s finished all of her holiday shopping online, but she and her mother continued their decades-old tradition of spending Black Friday together. They arrived at the relatively quiet MacArthur Center mall in Norfolk shortly after 8 a.m. where each bought a coffee and sat near a Nordstrom.
“It’s not so much about the consumerism as it is the quality time with my mother during the holiday season,” said Sari, 43, a neuropsychologist who lives in Norfolk.
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. said in addition to Black Friday favorites like televisions and toys, shoppers were looking for drones, virtual reality products and hoverboards.
Macy’s CEO Terry Lundgren tells The Associated Press that clothing sales have been good, with sportswear, dresses and even social occasion fashions doing well. But he’s hoping for some cold weather to help fuel more sales of winter items.
Leah Olson was at Mall of America Friday morning, following some Thanksgiving night trips to Target and a local mall. Olsen said she had done some online shopping, but preferred making in-person stops.
“I always like to walk, go to the mall,” said the Chanhassen, Minnesota resident. “I just like shopping.”
____
Associated Press writers Kyle Potter in Bloomington, Minnesota, Ben Finley in Norfolk, Virginia, and Matt O’Brien in Cranston, Rhode Island, contributed to this report.

Fidel Castro revolutionary or dictator - New York Times

Fidel Castro, the fiery apostle of revolution who brought the Cold War to the Western Hemisphere in 1959 and then defied the United States for nearly half a century as Cuba’s maximum leader, bedeviling 11 American presidents and briefly pushing the world to the brink of nuclear war, died on Friday. He was 90.

Cuban state television announced the death but gave no other details.

In declining health for several years, Mr. Castro had orchestrated what he hoped would be the continuation of his Communist revolution, stepping aside in 2006 when a serious illness felled him. He provisionally ceded much of his power to his younger brother Raúl, now 85, and two years later formally resigned as president. Raúl Castro, who had fought alongside Fidel Castro from the earliest days of the insurrection and remained minister of defense and his brother’s closest confidant, has ruled Cuba since then, although he has told the Cuban people he intends to resign in 2018.

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Fidel Castro had held on to power longer than any other living national leader except Queen Elizabeth II. He became a towering international figure whose importance in the 20th century far exceeded what might have been expected from the head of state of a Caribbean island nation of 11 million people.

He dominated his country with strength and symbolism from the day he triumphantly entered Havana on Jan. 8, 1959, and completed his overthrow of Fulgencio Batista by delivering his first major speech in the capital before tens of thousands of admirers at the vanquished dictator’s military headquarters.



A spotlight shone on him as he swaggered and spoke with passion until dawn. Finally, white doves were released to signal Cuba’s new peace. When one landed on Mr. Castro, perching on a shoulder, the crowd erupted, chanting: “Fidel! Fidel!” To the war-weary Cubans gathered there and those watching on television, it was an electrifying sign that their young, bearded guerrilla leader was destined to be their savior.

Most people in the crowd had no idea what Mr. Castro planned for Cuba. A master of image and myth, Mr. Castro believed himself to be the messiah of his fatherland, an indispensable force with authority from on high to control Cuba and its people.

He wielded power like a tyrant, controlling every aspect of the island’s existence. He was Cuba’s “Máximo Lider.” From atop a Cuban Army tank, he directed his country’s defense at the Bay of Pigs. Countless details fell to him, from selecting the color of uniforms that Cuban soldiers wore in Angola to overseeing a program to produce a superbreed of milk cows. He personally set the goals for sugar harvests. He personally sent countless men to prison.

But it was more than repression and fear that kept him and his totalitarian government in power for so long. He had both admirers and detractors in Cuba and around the world. Some saw him as a ruthless despot who trampled rights and freedoms; many others hailed him as the crowds did that first night, as a revolutionary hero for the ages.

Even when he fell ill and was hospitalized with diverticulitis in the summer of 2006, giving up most of his powers for the first time, Mr. Castro tried to dictate the details of his own medical care and orchestrate the continuation of his Communist revolution, engaging a plan as old as the revolution itself.

By handing power to his brother, Mr. Castro once more raised the ire of his enemies in Washington. United States officials condemned the transition, saying it prolonged a dictatorship and again denied the long-suffering Cuban people a chance to control their own lives.

But in December 2014, President Obama used his executive powers to dial down the decades of antagonism between Washington and Havana by moving to exchange prisoners and normalize diplomatic relations between the two countries, a deal worked out with the help of Pope Francis and after 18 months of secret talks between representatives of both governments.

Though increasingly frail and rarely seen in public, Mr. Castro even then made clear his enduring mistrust of the United States. A few days after Mr. Obama’s highly publicized visit to Cuba in 2016 — the first by a sitting American president in 88 years — Mr. Castro penned a cranky response denigrating Mr. Obama’s overtures of peace and insisting that Cuba did not need anything the United States was offering.

To many, Fidel Castro was a self-obsessed zealot whose belief in his own destiny was unshakable, a chameleon whose economic and political colors were determined more by pragmatism than by doctrine. But in his chest beat the heart of a true rebel. “Fidel Castro,” said Henry M. Wriston, the president of the Council on Foreign Relations in the 1950s and early ’60s, “was everything a revolutionary should be.”

Mr. Castro was perhaps the most important leader to emerge from Latin America since the wars of independence in the early 19th century. He was decidedly the most influential shaper of Cuban history since his own hero, José Martí, struggled for Cuban independence in the late 19th century. Mr. Castro’s revolution transformed Cuban society and had a longer-lasting impact throughout the region than that of any other 20th-century Latin American insurrection, with the possible exception of the 1910 Mexican Revolution.

His legacy in Cuba and elsewhere has been a mixed record of social progress and abject poverty, of racial equality and political persecution, of medical advances and a degree of misery comparable to the conditions that existed in Cuba when he entered Havana as a victorious guerrilla commander in 1959.

That image made him a symbol of revolution throughout the world and an inspiration to many imitators. Hugo Chávez of Venezuela considered Mr. Castro his ideological godfather. Subcommander Marcos began a revolt in the mountains of southern Mexico in 1994, using many of the same tactics. Even Mr. Castro’s spotty performance as an aging autocrat in charge of a foundering economy could not undermine his image.

But beyond anything else, it was Mr. Castro’s obsession with the United States, and America’s obsession with him, that shaped his rule. After he embraced Communism, Washington portrayed him as a devil and a tyrant and repeatedly tried to remove him from power through an ill-fated invasion at the Bay of Pigs in 1961, an economic embargo that has lasted decades, assassination plots and even bizarre plans to undercut his prestige by making his beard fall out.

Mr. Castro’s defiance of American power made him a beacon of resistance in Latin America and elsewhere, and his bushy beard, long Cuban cigar and green fatigues became universal symbols of rebellion.

Mr. Castro’s understanding of the power of images, especially on television, helped him retain the loyalty of many Cubans even during the harshest periods of deprivation and isolation when he routinely blamed America and its embargo for many of Cuba’s ills. And his mastery of words in thousands of speeches, often lasting hours, imbued many Cubans with his own hatred of the United States by keeping them on constant watch for an invasion — military, economic or ideological — from the north.

Over many years Mr. Castro gave hundreds of interviews and retained the ability to twist the most compromising question to his favor. In a 1985 interview in Playboy magazine, he was asked how he would respond to President Ronald Reagan’s description of him as a ruthless military dictator. “Let’s think about your question,” Mr. Castro said, toying with his interviewer. “If being a dictator means governing by decree, then you might use that argument to accuse the pope of being a dictator.”

He turned the question back on Reagan: “If his power includes something as monstrously undemocratic as the ability to order a thermonuclear war, I ask you, who then is more of a dictator, the president of the United States or I?”

After leading his guerrillas against a repressive Cuban dictator, Mr. Castro, in his early 30s, aligned Cuba with the Soviet Union and used Cuban troops to support revolution in Africa and throughout Latin America.

His willingness to allow the Soviets to build missile-launching sites in Cuba led to a harrowing diplomatic standoff between the United States and the Soviet Union in the fall of 1962, one that could have escalated into a nuclear exchange. The world remained tense until the confrontation was defused 13 days after it began, and the launching pads were dismantled.

With the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Mr. Castro faced one of his biggest challenges: surviving without huge Communist subsidies. He defied predictions of his political demise. When threatened, he fanned antagonism toward the United States. And when the Cuban economy neared collapse, he legalized the United States dollar, which he had railed against since the 1950s, only to ban dollars again a few years later when the economy stabilized.

Mr. Castro continued to taunt American presidents for a half-century, frustrating all of Washington’s attempts to contain him. After nearly five decades as a pariah of the West, even when his once booming voice had withered to an old man’s whisper and his beard had turned gray, he remained defiant.

He often told interviewers that he identified with Don Quixote, and like Quixote he struggled against threats both real and imagined, preparing for decades, for example, for another invasion that never came. As the leaders of every other nation of the hemisphere gathered in Quebec City in April 2001 for the third Summit of the Americas, an uninvited Mr. Castro, then 74, fumed in Havana, presiding over ceremonies commemorating the embarrassing defeat of C.I.A.-backed exiles at the Bay of Pigs in 1961. True to character, he portrayed his exclusion as a sign of strength, declaring that Cuba “is the only country in the world that does not need to trade with the United States.”

How to spot fake news on Facebook - NBC News

How to spot fake news on Favebook

No, Pope Francis didn't endorse Donald Trump. And no, Trump didn't beat Hillary Clinton in the popular vote. But a surge in fake news sites would like you to think that both those things are true.
A growing number of websites are espousing misinformation or flat-out lies, raising concerns that falsehoods are going viral over social media without any mechanism to separate fact from fiction. And there is a legitimate fear that some readers can't tell the difference. A study released by Stanford University found that 82 percent of middle schoolers couldn't spot authentic news sources from ads labeled as "sponsored content."
The disconnect between true and false has been a boon for companies trying to turn a quick profit.
"There are more of these sites now because there's an awareness that people can create fake news sites and make money from the ads," explained Claire Wardle, an expert from the Tow Center for Digital Journalism. "A few years ago, we were mostly dealing with people who were misinformed, but not malicious."
The rise of scammers has ensnared two of the world's largest internet companies, Facebook and Google, in controversy over their role in giving fake news such an influential platform.
Melissa Zimdars, a communications and media professor at Merrimack College, compiled a comprehensive take down of fake news sites after she discovered that one of the top stories on Google News was spreading false information from a fake website.
Here are some tips from Zimdars on how to spot fake news:
1. Stay away from sites with suspicious-looking web addresses, like those ending in .lo or .co.com.

2. Pay attention to the article's author. If there's no byline on a story, or there is only one author for every post on the entire website, watch out. It may be an imposter.

3. Be wary of news sites that host bloggers without any clear editorial or fact-checking process.

4. Check if there's an "about me" section on the website. This makes it easier to spot whether the news source is legitimate.

5. Get your news from a variety of places. The best way to ensure that you're not scammed by fake news is to read from a diverse array of news sources, and not just what pops up on a Facebook feed.

6. NBC News

A Look at Five Donald Trump Business Ties That Could Pose Conflicts - TIME

A Look at Five Donald Trump Business Ties That Could Pose Conflicts

Posted: 23 Nov 2016 06:01 PM PST

(NEW YORK) — After Ivanka Trump appeared on CBS’s “60 Minutes” wearing a $10,800 bracelet from her jewelry line, someone at her company sent photos from the interview to fashion writers to drum up free publicity. A firestorm of criticism erupted over the impropriety of profiting off the presidency, and the company apologized.
If only the bracelet brouhaha was the end of it.
Experts on government ethics are warning President-elect Donald Trump that he’ll never shake suspicions of a clash between his private interests and the public good if he doesn’t sell off his vast holdings, which include roughly 500 companies in more than a dozen countries. They say just the appearance of conflicts is likely to tie up the new administration in investigations, lawsuits and squabbles, stoked perhaps by angry Oval Office tweets.

“People are itching to sue Donald Trump and stick him under oath,” said Richard Painter, chief White House ethics lawyer for George W. Bush.
In an interview with The New York Times on Tuesday, Trump insisted that the “law’s totally on my side,” and ethics experts agree that federal conflicts of interest rules don’t apply to the president so he can run his business pretty much the way he pleases while in office. His company, The Trump Organization, had no comment on the conflicts issue, other than a statement reiterating its plans to transfer control of the company to three of the president-elect’s adult children.
Painter doesn’t think that goes far enough. In a letter to Trump last week, he joined watchdog groups and ethics lawyers from both Democratic and Republican administrations in predicting “rampant, inescapable” conflicts that will engulf the new administration if the president-elect does not liquidate his business holdings.
A look at five areas where conflicts may arise:
New hotel
For use of the government-owned Old Post Office for his new Washington hotel, Trump agreed on annual rent to the government in a contract that was signed more than three years ago.
So what possibly could be the problem now?
Plenty, according to Steven Schooner, a professor of government procurement law at George Washington University who has studied the contract. In addition to base rent, the president-elect agreed to additional annual payments based on various financial measures of how well the hotel is doing. Schooner says such payments typically require drawn out negotiations each year.
“How can anyone expect a government employee to negotiate with the Trump family at arm’s length and treat the Trump family like any other contractor?” Schooner asks.
Schooner thinks Trump should terminate the contract because, even if the Trump family acts honorably, the appearance a conflict will spread doubt throughout the contracting system. Federal rules prohibit government employees and elected officials from striking contracting deals with the government for just this reason, though the president is exempted.
“The U.S. government pays over $400 billion in contracts a year,” Schooner says. “Why should other contractors have to follow the rule if the President of the United States doesn’t have to?”
As president, Trump will have the authority to appoint a new head to the General Services Administration, the federal agency that signed the lease with Trump and will negotiate the rent each year.
Business at the hotel could get a lift if foreign dignitaries decide to stay at the new hotel to curry favor with the new president.
In addition to the Washington hotel, Trump Organization leases land from some local governments, including for a golf course in New York City and one in Florida.
Foreign affairs
Trump’s extensive operations abroad raise the possibility that his foreign policy could be shaped by his business interests, and vice versa. Trump has struck real estate deals in South Korea, the Philippines, Indonesia, Uruguay, Panama, India and Turkey, among other countries.
In June, Turkish media reported that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called for Trump’s name to be removed from the Trump Towers in Istanbul because of what Erdogan characterized as anti-Muslim comments by the candidate. A NATO member, Turkey is a key ally in fighting the Islamic State group in Syria.
In India, the newspaper Economic Times reported that Trump held a meeting in New York a week after his election with business partners who put up the Trump Towers Pune in the western part of the country. The president-elect also has a Trump-branded residential tower in nearby Mumbai with another company.
Kenneth Gross, head of political law at the firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, says Trump’s business ties will raise suspicions that he is getting special deals abroad because he is president, and that this runs the risk of violating the Emolument Clause. That is a section of the U.S. Constitution that forbids public officials from receiving gifts from foreign governments and foreign-controlled companies without the consent of Congress.
“He can’t avoid conflicts,” said Gross, “unless he sells his assets.”
Trump lender
One of Trump’s biggest lenders is Deutsche Bank, a German giant in settlement negotiations with the Department of Justice on its role in the mortgage blowup that triggered the 2008 financial crisis. The hit to Deutsche could be substantial, with the government reportedly demanding $14 billion.
Will a Justice Department under Trump go easy on the bank? It’s not clear anyone will know. Trump will nominate the head of that agency, too.
One possible response is for Trump to make sure the Deutsche case is handled by career civil servants at Justice, and any appointee like the Attorney General is recused. A career civil servant doesn’t have to worry about being fired if he goes against Trump wishes, but may still worry about displeasing bosses connected to the president.
More than 300 positions at Justice are currently held by presidential appointees.
Tax audit
The odds that the IRS will rule against Trump may be no different than before he was elected, but it’s difficult to know for sure.
Trump has cited a long running audit by the Internal Revenue Service in refusing to release his tax returns. If he is under scrutiny, it’s not surprising. In his Oct. 9 debate with Hillary Clinton, Trump confirmed he used a $916 million loss in 1995 to avoid paying federal taxes for years.
The president nominates the commissioner of the IRS who, assuming the Senate approves, serves for five years.
Trump will also get to make appointments to the National Labor Relations Board, which rules on labor disputes. In July, the board ruled against Trump in a case involving workers trying to unionize at the Trump Hotel Las Vegas. The Trump Organization lists six other hotels in the U.S. on its website.
Flurry of lawsuits
Trump said Friday that he agreed to pay $25 million to settle three lawsuits alleging fraud at his Trump University so he could focus on preparing for his presidency. But this could also bring problems, as Trump himself has acknowledged previously.
“When you start settling cases, you know what happens?” the president-elect said earlier this year. “Everybody sues you because you get known as a settler.”
Painter, the ethics lawyer for George W. Bush, predicts the political divide in Washington is going to make things worse.
“The plaintiff’s lawyers are going to get in there because they can get a good settlement, and Trump’s political enemies are going to egg it on,” says Painter. “You put that all together and you’re going to have a lot of potential for litigation.”
Painter says Trump should sell his ownership stakes to minimize the danger the new president gets distracted by lawsuits. He adds, though, that this is just a partial fix. The famously litigious Trump already is facing numerous lawsuits.
Asked to sum up his view on Trump’s situation, Painter replies, “A mess, a mess.”

After the Turkey, Some Hit the Shops to Start the Holiday Season - TIME Business

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After the Turkey, Some Hit the Shops to Start the Holiday Season Posted: 24 Nov 2016 09:31 PM PST NEW YORK (AP) — After enjoying the Thanksgiving turkey, some Americans hit the stores for what retailers hope will be a new tradition to start the holiday shopping season. Throngs of shoppers lined up at Macy’s Herald Square in Manhattan for its evening opening, looking for deals, and Target estimated hundreds were waiting outside a store in Jersey City, New Jersey. The competition to grab customers first is keen. “It’s manic. It’s crazy, but it is fun,” said Maria Elfes of Sydney, Australia, who was at Macy’s. It was her seventh visit to New York but her first time shopping on Thanksgiving. Lots of stores are offering the same deals as in previous years, like $19.99 boots that remain a big attraction, cashmere sweaters, and sheets. For some shoppers, electronics at a big discount was the draw. “Televisions, man, televisions. Beautiful big screens so I can watch sports,” said William Junkin, a recently retired longshoreman shopping at Best Buy in Howell, New Jersey. “I’m hoping to buy two of them, and I saw they had some real good prices, so maybe I’ll splurge on some other stuff as well.” Martin McDuffie, 34, came to a Walmart in suburban Columbia, South Carolina, for just one thing — a 60-inch television for $398. He’s been saving to replace his 32-inch TV. “This is going to be a big upgrade,” McDuffie said. Other items that drew crowds at the store were cellphones, bargain DVDs and video games and Hatchimals — eggs with a small, animated animal inside that hatch when given attention. As the beginning of the holiday season creeps ever earlier, retailers have been offering discounts on holiday merchandise since late October. The start used to be the day after Thanksgiving, but many mall operators and the big stores that anchor them are sticking with going earlier. “Most of the time Black Friday deals start the day of: Thanksgiving,” said Ashley Shelton of Columbia, Missouri, who was as Kohl’s with her boyfriend after dinner with family and then going to Walmart for a Roku and security cameras. “So tomorrow we’re not really going to do as much shopping. Shopping starts on Thursday.” Target CEO Brian Cornell, who was at the store in Jersey City, told The Associated Press he’s encouraged by early reports from stores around the country, and cited lower food and fuel prices and a solid job market as reasons to be optimistic. “It’s really a good time to be a consumer,” said Cornell. Hot items online and in the stores were sleepwear, Apple products and board games. Shoppers also filled their carts with items besides doorbusters, like holiday trees and high-end chocolates. “They were up and down the aisles,” Cornell said. “They took time to shop.” Leslie Lopez, a project coordinator from Jersey City, was pushing a cart of “Star Wars” and “Frozen” toys. Her friend Bariah Watt bought a Samsung TV for $247, slashed from about $400, but had no luck finding the white-hot Nintendo NES Classic system, originally priced at $60. Watt says she would have paid several hundred dollars on eBay or other sites to get her hands on it. “I’m a Nintendo kid,” she said. “It takes me back to my childhood.” But many workers complain that stores are putting profits over workers’ time to be with their families, and some shoppers vow never to shop on the holiday. At the Walmart in suburban Columbia, Tonjua Calhoun had studied the 36-page ad carefully and planned to buy a pressure cooker, some sheets, and a portable DVD player. Calhoun, 52, also planned to go to J.C. Penney and maybe Target. But she wishes they were after-Thanksgiving sales. “I think they ought to give everyone a whole day with their families,” Calhoun said. “It was a lot more fun when you woke up Friday, grabbed an early breakfast and went all day.” Some stores believe it’s not worth opening on Thanksgiving since the sales are spread out. Consumer electronics chain hhgregg Inc. and the Mall of America in Minnesota are closed on Thanksgiving after opening on the holiday in the past. The National Retail Federation, the nation’s largest retail group, expects holiday sales to rise 3.6 percent for November and December, better than the 3 percent growth seen for those months last year. That excludes car sales, gas and restaurant receipts but includes online spending and other non-store sales like catalog spending. This weekend is crucial to set the tone for the season. Around 137 million people plan to or are considering doing their shopping during the Thanksgiving weekend, according to a survey conducted for the NRF. That includes online and store shopping. Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, vies with the Saturday before Christmas as the busiest shopping day of the year. ___ Associated Press writers Bruce Shipkowski in Howell, New Jersey, Jeffrey Collins in Columbia, South Carolina, and Summer Ballentine in Columbia, Missouri, contributed to this report.

Minority rush to buy pistols and guns after Trump won election - NBC News

Yolanda Scott is upgrading the crowbar she keeps in her purse to a small-caliber pistol. 

Scott, an African-American, is one of many minorities who have been flocking to gun stores to protect themselves, afraid Trump's victory will incite more hate crimes. 

"You feel that racists now feel like they can attack us just because the president is doing it," one gun shop owner told NBC News. 

Gun store owners told NBC News that since November 8 they're seeing up to four times as many black and minority customers — and black gun groups are reporting double the normal number of attendees at their meetings since the election.

high during the election, with a spate of videoed shootings and deaths of black men by police officers, followed by ardent protests and the fatal targeting of white police officers. 

In one high-profile incident, the live-streamed aftermath of the shooting of Philando Castile at a traffic stop at the hands of police in Minnesota sparked country-wide outrage and was ruled manslaughter. That and another death in Louisiana sparked a protest in Dallas, which a sniper took advantage of to kill five police officers. 

"YOU FEEL THAT RACISTS NOW FEEL LIKE THEY CAN ATTACK US JUST BECAUSE THE PRESIDENT IS DOING IT."

From Ferguson to Chicago to Baltimore, African-Americans felt targeted and angry, sending marchers into the streets and communities on edge. 

And Donald J. Trump's surprise victory in November has done nothing to abate the racial violence — it even seems to have encouraged more open displays of hatred. More than 700 instances have already been reported to the Southern Poverty Law Center just since November 8, and LGBT hotlines are seeing an "all-time peak" in calls from people reporting harassment.

Swastikas have been found spray-painted on churches, playgrounds, and college walls. White Texas high school students chanted "Build that wall" during a volleyball game with a predominantly Hispanic rival school. Internet personality and model Tila Tequila was suspended from Twitter after she was photographed giving a "Heil Hitler" sign at a restaurant following the post-election gathering in Washington, D.C., of the National Policy Institute, an "alt-right" organization. 

"It's best that I be proactive," said Scott, a fiery 49-year-old financial analyst. "I know where I live." 

She's from Alpharetta, Georgia. It borders Forsyth County, which in 1912 systematically drove out nearly all its black residents for the next quarter century. After two alleged attacks on white women, a black suspect was lynched and two more were hanged after a short trial. Armed bands of whites began terrorizing blacks, torching homes and churches in night raids, firing through the door, telling them it was time to "get" [out of America] and then seized their homes and land. As recently as 1987 the county saw the marching of 5,000 white supremacists.

and large Confederate flags flying from the backs of pickup trucks when she ventures across the county line there to go outlet mall shopping. And she pauses to wonder what motivates her white neighbor to tuck a handgun in his pants before driving to the grocery store. 

Gun Run

October saw 2.3 million FBI background checks for gun sales, an all-time record; and the 18th month in a row to set a new high. November could be on pace to break that. 

But while gun company stocks and firearm sales saw a run-up before the election — based on fears a Hillary Clinton victory would result in increased gun-control measures — shares in gun companies fell as much as 20 percent after Trump's win.

up overall, the new rush of minority customers arming themselves is something of an unexpected glimmer for the industry. 

"They thought Trump won't win," said Earl Curtis, the 53-year-old owner of two Blue Ridge Arsenal gun stores and shooting ranges in western Virginia who has noticed an "uptick" in the number of black and minority customers. 

Largely, says Curtis, they're "shell-shocked" first-time shooters looking to get a handgun to protect themselves from "race riots and being attacked by racists" — afraid that what Trump and his supporters have already done is just the beginning. 

Trump already had a checkered past with the black community. Though he once donated office space to Jesse Jackson's civil rights group and hosted a NAACP party, he was also sued by the Justice Department in 1975 for refusing to rent to black people. Trump countersued for defamation, demanding $100 million, and the case was settled without admission of guilt. 

In 1978, he was sued again by the Justice Department for denying rentals to black people and steering them into mixed race housing. The case was closed in 1982. 

Seven years later, he took out full-page ads to suggest the death penalty for black suspects in a rape trial who years later were released after the introduction of new DNA evidence. 

His position doesn't seem to have softened since then. 

On the campaign trail this year, Trump hired Steve Bannon, the executive editor of Breitbart, a far-right news website the Southern Poverty Law Center called a "white ethno-nationalist propaganda mill." Bannon has since been named chief strategist and Senior Counselor for the Trump administration.

In a February TV interview, Trump blamed his failure to condemn the Ku Klux Klan's support on a "bad earpiece." 

After he suggested African-American protesters should be "roughed up," attacks on minority protesters at his rallies followed. 

Even Trump's Twitter slam last weekend on the Broadway musical Hamilton is ringing alarm bells for minorities. After Vice-President-elect Mike Pence's attendance was met with boos and cheers in the audience, a cast member read a short speech to Pence at the curtain call. Trump blasted the show in several tweets and demanded an apology. Trump supporters lobbed their own negative tweets and sent two different "boycott Hamilton" hashtags trending.

foreboding sign of how Trump can whip up his fans to magnify and echo messages of intolerance. And when they compare his full-throated denunciation of a piece of musical theater to his garbled, terse, and delayed disavowals of the support by white supremacists, they see a wink and a nod, and fear it's a nudge. 

"MOST FOLKS ARE PRETTY NERVOUS ABOUT WHAT KIND OF AMERICA WE'RE GOING TO SEE OVER THE NEXT 5-10 YEARS. EVERYONE HAS TO FEND FOR THEMSELVES."

Newly Targeted

Michael Cargill, the owner of Central Texas Gun Works in Austin, told NBC News he had given up on advertising to African-Americans — but now he's seeing as many as 20 a month, and they're filling up his training classes; along with Muslim, Hispanic, and LGBT patrons with heightened worries about being targeted. 

Black gun owner groups are seeing an uptick too, led by African-American women. They report receiving an increased number of emails from across the country from concerned minorities looking to learn more about gun safety, training, and firearm access. 

Texas gun store owner Michael Cargill fires a handgun at a shooting range. Courtesy of Michael Cargill

Philip Smith, founder of the 14,000-member National African American Gun Association said his members are buying up every kind of gun, from Glock handguns to AR-15 rifles to AK-47 semi-automatic weapons — though most first-time buyers gravitate toward a nine-millimeter pistol or .38 revolver. He said that twice the usual attendees have RSVP'd for the next meeting of the Georgia chapter, which he heads. 

"Most folks are pretty nervous about what kind of America we're going to see over the next 5-10 years," he said. That includes members apprehensive about protests against Trump becoming unruly, as well as an "apocalyptic end result where there's anarchy, jobs are gone, the economy is tipped in the wrong direction and everyone has to fend for themselves." They don't know who might be busting down their door at 2 a.m. 

He hopes people are just overreacting. 

"I tell everyone don't panic, use your head. If you see something not normal, get out. You're probably right. And if you're not able to get out, you're prepared to do what you need to do," said Smith. 

Being Prepared

Since the election, Scott and her family and friends have tried not to venture outside except to go to work and come back home. When she had to get gas for her car, she made sure she stopped at a station where other people were around. 

"I'M GOING TO PROTECT MYSELF, WHATEVER THAT MEANS"

Scott fears a scenario where she's approached with a gun just because she's black. She hopes a "few choice words that I learned from my grandfather" would be enough to scare anyone off, but she's prepared if the situation escalates. 

"I'm not the type of person who is afraid of my own shadow. I'm going to protect myself, whatever that means," Scott told NBC News by phone on her way to the police station to apply for a firearms license.