U.S. judge temporarily blocks Trump's travel ban

A U.S. judge has imposed a nationwide hold on Donald Trump's ban on travellers and immigrants from seven majority-Muslim countries, siding with two states that had challenged the executive order that has launched legal battles across the country.

In Seattle, U.S. District Judge James Robart ruled that Washington state and Minnesota had standing to challenge Trump's order, which government lawyers disputed, and said they showed their case was likely to succeed.

About 60,000 people from the affected countries had their visas cancelled.

"The state has met its burden in demonstrating immediate and irreparable injury," Robart said. "This TRO [temporary restraining order] is granted on a nationwide basis ..."

It wasn't immediately clear what happens next for people who had waited years to receive visas to come to the U.S., however an internal email circulated among Homeland Security officials told employees to comply with the ruling immediately. 

U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials have also informed U.S. airlines that they can once again board travellers who had been barred by the executive order. Canada's WestJet was told the same thing.

White House responds

White House spokesperson Sean Spicer released a statement late Friday saying they "will file an emergency stay of this outrageous order and defend the executive order of the president, which we believe is lawful and appropriate."

Soon after, the White House sent out a new statement that removed the word "outrageous."

"The president's order is intended to protect the homeland and he has the constitutional authority and responsibility to protect the American people," the statement said.

Trump's order last week sparked global protests and confusion at U.S. airports as some travellers were detained. The White House has argued that it will make the country safer.

Washington became the first state to sue over the order that temporarily bans travel for people from Iran, Iraq, Syria, Sudan, Somalia, Libya and Yemen and suspends the U.S. refugee program.

State Attorney General Bob Ferguson said the travel ban significantly harms residents and effectively mandates discrimination. Minnesota joined the lawsuit two days later.

'The law is a powerful thing'

After the ruling, Ferguson said people from the affected countries can now apply for entry to the U.S.

"Judge Robart's decision, effective immediately … puts a halt to President Trump's unconstitutional and unlawful executive order," Ferguson said. "The law is a powerful thing — it has the ability to hold everybody accountable to it, and that includes the president of the United States."

Gillian M. Christensen, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, said the agency doesn't comment on pending litigation. The judge's ruling could be appealed the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

The judge's written order, released late Friday, said it's not the court's job to "create policy or judge the wisdom of any particular policy promoted by the other two branches" of government.

The court's job "is limited to ensuring that the actions taken by the other two branches comport with our country's laws."

Robart ordered federal defendants "and their respective officers, agents, servants, employees, attorneys and persons acting in concert or participation with them are hereby enjoined and restrained from" enforcing the executive order.

Federal attorneys had argued that Congress gave the president authority to make decisions on national security and immigrant entry.

The two states won a temporary restraining order while the court considers the lawsuit, which aims to permanently block Trump's order. Court challenges have been filed nationwide from states and advocacy groups.

In court, Washington Solicitor General Noah Purcell said the focus of the state's legal challenge was the way Trump's order targeted Islam.

Trump has called for a ban on Muslims entering the country, and the travel ban was an effort to make good on that campaign promise, Purcell told the judge.

"Do you see a distinction between campaign statements and the executive order?" Robart asked. "I think it's a bit of a reach to say the president is anti-Muslim based on what he said in New Hampshire in June."

Purcell said there was an "overwhelming amount of evidence" to show that the order was directed at the Muslim religion, which is unconstitutional.

No attacks from 7 banned countries

When the judge questioned the federal government's lawyer, Michelle Bennett, he repeatedly questioned the rationale behind the order.

Robart, who was appointed the federal bench by President George W. Bush, asked if there had been any terrorist attacks by people from the seven counties listed in Trump's order since 9/11. Bennett said she didn't know.

"The answer is none," Robart said. "You're here arguing we have to protect from these individuals from these countries, and there's no support for that."

Bennett argued that the states can't sue on behalf of citizens and the states have failed to show the order is causing irreparable harm.

Robart disagreed.

Up to 60,000 foreigners from the seven majority-Muslim countries had their visas cancelled because of the executive order, the State Department said Friday.

That figure contradicts a statement from a Justice Department lawyer on the same day during a court hearing in Virginia about the ban. The lawyer in that case said about 100,000 visas had been revoked.

The State Department clarified that the higher figure includes diplomatic and other visas that were actually exempted from the travel ban, as well as expired visas.

Ferguson, a Democrat, said the order is harming Washington residents, businesses and its education system.

Washington-based businesses Amazon, Expedia and Microsoft support the state's efforts to stop the order. They say it's hurting their operations, too.

Bye bye downtown Vancouver stations. It was nice gassing up at you

Gas stations in downtown Vancouver are quickly going the way of the dodo bird, driven out by the city's astronomical real estate values.

Chevron announced last year it was considering selling off one of the last two remaining downtown stations on West Georgia Street near Bidwell.

That would leave the Esso at Davie Street and Burrard Street as the last downtown gas station standing, although word is a "for sale" sign may soon go up at that location as well.  

"My understanding is that station is also being marketed so we're likely to have zero in the near future," said Mehdi Shokri of Avison Young Real Estate.

"We've has such a bull market here on the residential land side ... the numbers are getting so incredibly high that gas stations can't make sense of their business model any more," he said.

The land value of the West Georgia Chevron was pegged at $32.8-million by B.C. Assessment earlier this month, more than triple the value of its 2016 assessment of $10.2-million.

New tax, same story

Mehdi says the drag that was expected on real estate prices when the 15 per cent foreign buyers tax was introduced this past summer hasn't materialized in the Coal Harbour neighbourhood where the Chevron station is located. 

"A block away [developer] Bosa went to market with their Cardero project just after the 15 per cent tax so everyone was looking at that project as a sign of where land and condos could be going," said Mehdi. "They basically sold out that project averaging $1,800 a square foot.

"You're still seeing presales at historic levels."

Mehdi says downtown grocery stores and banks are also changing the way they evaluate their businesses as the value of the land they occupy soars.

"Some of the traditional stores like Safeway are sitting on sizable properties ... and they realize there's a lot of value there. So you're finding a lot of pension funds and development partners giving them an understanding of how they can realize more value by not only selling it, but by becoming part of the development."

Gone for good?

While online banking is making brick and mortar banks less relevant, and grocery stores are moving into ground floors of new high rises, Mohdi believes the downtown Vancouver gas station may truly be on the verge of extinction. 

"There's been a trend here with a lot of the downtown condos that parking isn't being used any more. Most of the people who chose to live here do so because of the amenities and, frankly, they don't want to be in a car — they want to walk or ride their bike," he said.

"I really don't think there will be much of an impact from not having a gas station downtown, particularly for local residents."

SpaceX and Lockheed CEOs meet with Donald Trump

Lockheed Martin CEO Marillyn Hewson and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk were among a dozen business leaders who met with the president to discuss manufacturing and related issues.

Trump said he would seek to keep manufacturing jobs in the United States and cut down on regulations.

Defeated Gambian leader Yahya Jammeh made off with government money, luxury cars

Exiled Gambian ruler Yahya Jammeh stole millions of dollars in his final weeks in power, plundering the state coffers and shipping out luxury vehicles by cargo plane, a special adviser for the new president said Sunday.

Meanwhile, a regional military force rolled in, greeted by cheers, to secure this tiny West African nation so that democratically elected President Adama Barrow could return home. He remained in neighbouring Senegal, where he took the oath of office Thursday because of concerns for his safety.

At a press conference in the Senegalese capital, Barrow's special adviser Mai Ahmad Fatty told journalists that the president "will return home as soon as possible.

Underscoring the challenges facing the new administration, Fatty confirmed that Jammeh made off with more than $11.4 million US during a two-week period alone. That is only what they have discovered so far since Jammeh and his family took an offer of exile after more than 22 years in power and departed late Saturday.

People celebrate the arrival of the regional ECOWAS force in Banjul, Gambia, on Sunday. The soldiers are clearing the way for newly elected President Adama Barrow to arrive. (Afolabi Sotunde/Reuters)

'Gambia is in financial distress'

"The Gambia is in financial distress. The coffers are virtually empty. That is a state of fact," Fatty said. "It has been confirmed by technicians in the ministry of finance and the Central Bank of the Gambia."

Fatty also confirmed that a Chadian cargo plane had transported luxury goods out of the country on Jammeh's behalf in his final hours in power, including an unknown number of vehicles.

'The coffers are virtually empty. That is a state of fact.'- Mai Ahmad Fatty, presidential adviser 

Fatty said officials at the Gambia airport have been ordered not to allow any of Jammeh's belongings to leave. Separately, it appeared that some of his goods remained in Guinea, where Jammeh and his closest allies stopped on their flight into exile.

Fatty said officials "regret the situation," but it appeared that the major damage had been done, leaving the new government with little recourse to recoup the funds.

Exiled in Equatorial Guinea

The unpredictable Jammeh, known for startling declarations like his claim that bananas and herbal rubs could cure AIDS, went into exile under mounting international pressure, with a wave to supporters as soldiers wept. He is now in Equatorial Guinea, home to Africa's longest-serving ruler and not a state party to the International Criminal Court.

Jammeh's dramatic about-face on his December election loss to Barrow, at first conceding and then challenging the vote, appeared to be the final straw for the international community, which had been alarmed by his moves in recent years to declare an Islamic republic and leave the Commonwealth and the ICC.

A security officer of former Gambian president Yahya Jammeh cries as he arrives at the airport before flying into exile from Gambia on Saturday. The new administration says he left government coffers empty when he took off. (Thierry Gouegnon/Reuters)

Barrow's adviser disavowed a joint declaration issued after Jammeh's departure by the United Nations, African Union and the Economic Community Of West African States (ECOWAS) that bestowed a number of protections upon Jammeh, his family and his associates — including the assurance that their lawful assets would not be seized.

"As far as we're concerned, it doesn't exist," Fatty said.

The declaration also said Jammeh's exile was "temporary" and that he reserved the right to return to Gambia at the time of his choosing.

Although the declaration was written to provide Jammeh with maximum protection, it doesn't give him amnesty, according to international human rights lawyer Reed Brody.

"Under international law in fact you can't amnesty certain crimes like torture and massive or systematic political killings," he said in an email. "Depending where Jammeh ends up, though, the real obstacles to holding him accountable will be political."

Clearing the way for Barrow

Barrow will now begin forming a cabinet and working with Gambia's national assembly to reverse the state of emergency Jammeh declared in his final days in power, said Halifa Sallah, spokesman for the coalition backing the new leader.

The president's official residence, State House, needs to be cleared of any possible hazards before Barrow arrives, Sallah added.

Members of the regional ECOWAS force are seen at the Denton Bridge check point in Banjul. Gambia's defence chief said he welcomes the West African soldiers 'wholeheartedly.' (Thierry Gouegnon/Reuters)

The regional military force that had been poised to force out Jammeh if diplomatic efforts failed rolled into Gambia's capital, Banjul, on Sunday night to secure it for Barrow's arrival.

Hundreds greeted the force's approach to State House, cheering and dancing, while some people grabbed soldiers to take selfies.

Truth and reconciliation 

With Jammeh gone, a country that had waited in silence during the crisis sprang back to life. Shops and restaurants opened, music played and people danced in the streets.

A woman selling tomatoes laughs in a market at Serekunda, Gambia, on Sunday. Since the exile of defeated leader Yahya Jammeh, people are returning to the country.

Defence chief Ousmane Badjie said the military welcomed the arrival of the regional force "wholeheartedly." With proper orders, he said, he would open the doors to the notorious prisons where rights groups say many who have disappeared over the years may be kept.

"We are going to show Barrow we are really armed forces with a difference, I swear to God," Badjie said. "I have the Qu'ran with me."

Some of the 45,000 people who had fled the tiny country during the crisis began to return. The nation of 1.9 million, which promotes itself to overseas tourists as "the Smiling Coast of Africa," has been a major source of migrants heading toward Europe because of the situation at home.

Barrow, who has promised to reverse many of Jammeh's actions, told The Associated Press on Saturday he will launch a truth and reconciliation commission to investigate alleged human rights abuses of Jammeh's regime. Rights groups say those include arbitrary detentions, torture and even killing of opponents.

"After 22 years of fear, Gambians now have a unique opportunity to become a model for human rights in West Africa," Amnesty International's deputy director for West and Central Africa, Steve Cockburn, said in a statement Sunday.

Trump overstates inauguration crowd as Women's March appears to draw bigger turnout

There were strong signs across the U.S. that the number of people who attended the Women's March on Washington on Saturday topped those who gathered on Friday to watch U.S. President Donald Trump's inauguration. 

But as over a million people around the world protested in solidarity with events in Washington, both the president and his press secretary took aim Saturday at the media for "attempts to lessen the enthusiasm of the inauguration" and claimed a bigger turnout than the available data suggests. 

The U.S. capital's metro subway stations and train cars were full in many locations on Saturday, while ridership on Friday was well off the numbers from Obama's first inaugural.

Interim D.C. Police Chief Peter Newsham said on Independence Avenue, "The crowd stretches so far that there's no room left to march."

Metro tweeted Sunday that 1,001,616 trips were taken on the rail system the day of the Women's March on Washington. Metro spokesman Dan Stessel had said that on Friday, the day of Trump's inauguration, just over 570,000 trips were taken on the rail system.

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No official estimates of the crowd size at the march were immediately available, but the demonstrators appeared to easily exceed the 200,000 organizers had initially expected.

Kevin Donahue, Washington's deputy mayor for public safety and justice, said on Twitter that organizers of the march increased the turnout estimate to over half a million.

On Sunday, Trump and his staff continued their attacks on the media, with adviser Kellyanne Conway saying it was unfair for the media to compare the crowds to President Barack Obama's 2009 inauguration.

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"Photographs of the inaugural proceedings were intentionally framed in a way, in one particular tweet, to minimize the enormous support that had gathered on the National Mall," Spicer's statement readTrump's press secretary said, without evidence, in a statement released Saturday, that the media intentionally framed pictures and video to make the event look smaller.

"These attempts to lessen the enthusiasm of the inauguration are shameful and wrong."

Trump said the inauguration crowd looked to be about 1.5 million people. The National Park Service doesn't provide an official estimate, but such a figure is highly dubious. Other events that filled more of the Mall have not drawn a crowd of that size.

Spicer also stated: "This was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration — period — both in person and around the globe."

It is not known how many people watched the ceremony on television around the globe, but in the U.S., Nielsen estimates 31 million viewers watched TV coverage.

The 2009 inauguration of Obama, who became the nation's first black president that year, was watched by nearly 38 million viewers, the second-highest number since Nielsen began compiling such figures with Richard Nixon's 1969 oath of office.

Only Reagan drew a bigger U.S. TV inauguration audience, with nearly 42 million viewers tuning in to see the California Republican sworn in for his first term in 1981. 

Trump's total was greater than both swearings-in of Democrat Bill Clinton — 29.7 million and 21.6 million — and the second inauguration of Obama, who drew an average audience of over 20.5 million in 2013, Nielsen said.

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Over 1 million protested Trump worldwide

In a global exclamation of defiance and solidarity on Saturday, more than a million people had rallied at women's marches in the Washington, D.C., and cities around the world. The more than 600 "sister marches" around the world were held in conjunction with the main Women's March on Washington.

Many of the women came wearing pink, pointy-eared "pussyhats" to mock the new president. Plenty of men joined in, too, contributing to surprising numbers everywhere from New York, Philadelphia, Chicago and Los Angeles, to Mexico City, Paris, Berlin, London, Prague and Sydney.

LG G6 will have Google Assistant built-in, rumor says

Samsung's Galaxy S8 has long been rumored to feature a revamped virtual assistant called Bixby, and LG's G6 can't afford not to play the AI game. A new rumor out of both companies' home country of South Korea now claims that LG has done something that's pretty surprising in the Android world.

Instead of building its own sub-par virtual assistant, LG has apparently turned to Google for help. As such, the G6 will come with the Google Assistant built-in. Previously, the Google Assistant was exclusive to Google's own Pixel and Pixel XL smartphones (at least in the form that's integrated into the Android system, since it also lives in the Allo chat app and the Google Home device).

The Google Assistant is also an integral part of the upcoming Android Wear 2.0 release, which will be running on the LG Watch Sport and Watch Style, the first wearables to have the new OS version on board. These were co-developed with Google in a program not dissimilar to what the Nexus line used to be for smartphones. The two smartwatches will be unveiled on February 9, it's been rumored.

The LG G6 will be made official on February 26 at MWC in Barcelona. It's reportedly going to become available in early March, beating the Galaxy S8 to the market by about a month.

Apple sues Qualcomm over unfair licensing terms

Apple's latest lawsuit target? Qualcomm.

The iPhone maker on Friday filed suit against Qualcomm, alleging the wireless chipmaker didn't give fair licensing terms for its processor technology. Apple also said Qualcomm sought to punish it for cooperating in a South Korean investigation into Qualcomm's licensing practices by withholding a $1 billion rebate.

Apple wants a court to lower the amount it pays Qualcomm in licensing fees, as well as order the return of the $1 billion. The company said in its suit that Qualcomm should be paid royalties based on the value of its particular contribution, not for contributions from other patent holders. Currently, Qualcomm's royalties are based off the selling price of a phone, rather than what portion Qualcomm's technology enabled.

"For many years Qualcomm has unfairly insisted on charging royalties for technologies they have nothing to do with," Apple said in a statement. "The more Apple innovates with unique features such as TouchID, advanced displays, and cameras, to name just a few, the more money Qualcomm collects for no reason and the more expensive it becomes for Apple to fund these innovations."

Qualcomm, meanwhile, fired back at Apple's allegations, calling them "baseless." Don Rosenberg, Qualcomm executive vice president and general counsel, said in a statement:

Apple has intentionally mischaracterized our agreements and negotiations, as well as the enormity and value of the technology we have invented, contributed and shared with all mobile device makers through our licensing program. Apple has been actively encouraging regulatory attacks on Qualcomm's business in various jurisdictions around the world, as reflected in the recent [South Korean Fair Trade Commission] decision and FTC complaint, by misrepresenting facts and withholding information. We welcome the opportunity to have these meritless claims heard in court where we will be entitled to full discovery of Apple's practices and a robust examination of the merits.

Qualcomm is the world's biggest provider of mobile chips, and it created some of the essential standards for connecting phones to cellular networks. The company derives a significant portion of its revenue from licensing that technology to other chipmakers. Apple designs the processors in its iPhones and iPads, but it buys chips from Qualcomm to connect to 4G LTE and other cellular networks. Under Qualcomm's licensing structure, Apple pays it a fee for its chips and another fee for the intellectual property included in those chips. Most components suppliers bundle the IP cost in with the chip sales price.

See Also

• Qualcomm forced Apple into exclusive chip deal, FTC says
• Qualcomm hit with $850M fine in South Korea antitrust probe
• Why your AT&T iPhone 7 won't work well on Verizon's network

For the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus introduced this year, Apple also started buying 4G LTE chips from another supplier, Intel. Because Intel's chips use some of Qualcomm's essential technology, Apple pays Qualcomm a licensing fee for those processors, as well, which is based off the total value of the iPhone ($650) versus the value of the Intel chip (closer to $20).

Apple says Qualcomm's practices are unfair, as are the clauses in Qualcomm's licensing terms that prevent Apple from seeking out other suppliers or participating in government inquiries into Qualcomm's practices.

In its heavily redacted complaint (PDF), the FTC said the patents Qualcomm held are standard-essential patents -- technology that is essential to the industry and must be licensed to competitors under fair, reasonable and nondiscriminatory terms (FRAND). But the complaint alleges that Qualcomm consistently refused to license some standard-essential patents to rival chipmakers, in violation of its FRAND commitments.

Qualcomm said in response to the FTC complaint earlier this week that it "has never withheld or threatened to withhold chip supply in order to obtain agreement to unfair or unreasonable licensing terms."

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Apple, meanwhile, has been involved in plenty of litigation of its own. The company faced off against Samsung at the Supreme Court in October over a design patent case. Ironically, at issue in that suit was whether Samsung had to pay damages based on the entire value of its infringing phones or only on the portion that infringed. The Supreme Court ultimately decided that damages don't have to be based on an entire device and sent the case back to the lower court.

Apple on Friday said Qualcomm charges it "at least five times more in payments than all the other cellular patent licensors we have agreements with combined." The company added that Qualcomm recently withheld nearly $1 billion in payments from Apple "as retaliation for responding truthfully to law enforcement agencies investigating them."

"Apple believes deeply in innovation and we have always been willing to pay fair and reasonable rates for patents we use," the company said in its statement. "We are extremely disappointed in the way Qualcomm is conducting its business with us and unfortunately after years of disagreement over what constitutes a fair and reasonable royalty we have no choice left but to turn to the courts."

Apple filed the lawsuit in federal district court in the Southern District of California, Qualcomm's backyard instead of Apple's home in Northern California. The company has asked for a jury trial.

Updated at 1:15 p.m. PT with additional details and Apple's comment.

Anti-Trump protesters clash with riot police in Washington

Protesters and an Associated Press photographer say police fired rubber projectiles at them during demonstrations against U.S. President Donald Trump in downtown Washington.

An AP photographer says he was hit three times by projectiles — once on his left shin and twice on his right — while covering demonstrations Friday.

A photo of a spent canister appears to show the bottom part of a "rubber sponge." The foam-nosed projectile is launched at high-speed by police as a form of less lethal force. 

District of Columbia police spokesman Dustin Sternbeck said police did not use rubber bullets but would not comment on whether they used rubber sponges. He said he will "gladly provide" a comprehensive after-action report once the demonstrations wrap up.

Demonstrations broke out across the U.S. as Trump was sworn in as America's 45th president on Friday.

Black-clad anarchists smashed windows and clashed with police in Washington, D.C., less than a kilometre from where Trump took the oath of office, smashing store and car windows and fighting with officers in riot gear who responded with pepper spray and stun grenades. Police said at least 200 people have been arrested. 

About 500 people, some wearing masks and kerchiefs over their faces, marched through the city's downtown, breaking the windows of a Bank of America branch, a McDonald's outlet and a Starbucks shop, all symbols of the American capitalist system. 

• Donald Trump is sworn in as president

The crowd, which carried banners and at least one sign that read "Make Racists Afraid Again," largely dispersed after police responded in force. 

D.C. police said two uniformed officers sustained "minor injuries" in the altercations and that numerous arrests had been made and suspects charged with rioting. 

Shortly after, workers were on the scene cleaning up the broken windows and debris.  

In San Francisco, around 3,000 people staged a protest on the Golden Gate Bridge. Demonstrators say it was a symbol of love rather than an anti-Trump event and held hands as a show of unity. Eight people were arrested.

Hundreds gathered in Houston where immigrant communities and labour groups came together and marched through downtown after gathering in Sesquicentennial Park. Organizers described the event, attended by a range of groups including interfaith Justice Coalition and Planned Parenthood, as "the start of the resistance movement" to keep communities safe, free and thriving.

Similarly, hundreds gathered in Denver and Phoenix carrying anti-Trump signs. Both were peaceful and didn't result in any arrests.

Protests around the world

On his inauguration day, Trump faced protests not just at home but in cities from Toronto to Sydney, Addis Ababa and Dublin over his politics, which critics say are divisive and dangerous.

​Protesters in Montreal burned an American flag and an effigy of Trump in the first of several planned demonstrations against the new U.S. president.

About 200 people marched through downtown, waving signs and chanting slogans, most commonly "No Trump, No Hate, America was Never Great!"

They stopped outside the offices of the U.S. Consulate, where they set fire to a cardboard replica of Trump as a dozen police officers guarded the door.

Organizer Nicole LeBlanc said despite the focus on Trump, the protest was less about him than the values he stands for.

"We want to start a conversation about the fact that the sexist, anti-immigrant, Islamophobic, xenophobic policies that Trump represents are not just limited to Trump," she said. "There are far-right groups with very similar policies operating here in Quebec."

A lone Trump supporter who showed up wearing a shirt reading "Hillary for Prison" was chased and knocked to the ground before police intervened.

'Build bridges not walls'

A banner reading "Build Bridges Not Walls" was draped across London's Tower Bridge Friday. Protesters on the iconic bridge held up pink letters reading  "Act Now!" soon after sunrise, while others unfurled the banner over the railings and a speedboat with a black flag reading "Build Bridges Not Walls" raced down the River Thames. 

The protest in London was organized by the campaign group also called Bridges not Walls, in reference to Trump's pledge to build a wall on the Mexican border. 

Hundreds marched in Madrid, making their way the city's Opera House to the emblematic Sol Square, waving placards calling Trump a racist and homophobic, and hundreds more gathered in protest in central Brussels, lighting candles in defence of women's rights in the bitter cold on Friday evening.

​"It's as important as anything is important, to have respect for everyone. Because women are oppressed and have been oppressed and will continue to be oppressed unless we do something about it," said U.S. citizen David Berstein, who lives in the Belgian capital.

Along with demonstrations in other parts of Europe, protests erupted in Latin American countries including Bolivia, Peru and Mexico.

Massive protest actions against Trump — including a Women's March on Washington — are planned for Saturday and are expected to draw more than a hundred thousand participants.

U.S. embassies and consulates in at least 10 countries in Asia, Europe and Latin America were warning of potentially violent protests through the weekend, as well. 

Security notices posted by U.S. diplomatic missions in Chile, Denmark, France, Greece, Haiti, Italy the Netherlands, Paraguay, Portugal and the Philippines advised American in those countries to steer clear of embassies and consulates on Friday and, in some cases, on Saturday and Sunday, due to the possibility of unrest and clashes with police.

The notices said the planned demonstrations are either focused on "U.S. politics" or are "inauguration-related."

'Great moment in history'

Ahead of the inauguration, Trump supporters flooded into the American capital, many sporting shirts and hats bearing his "Make America Great Again" campaign slogan. 

Carl Beams, 36, from Howell, New Jersey, stood in line with thousands of Trump supporters waiting to enter the National Mall to view the midday inauguration. 

"This is a great moment in history. I wanted to be able to say I was here first-hand," said Beams, who runs a martial-arts school. 

Mexican drug lord 'El Chapo' faces life sentence in U.S. prison

Mexican drug kingpin Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman will spend the rest of his life in a U.S. prison if convicted on charges he ran the world's largest drug-trafficking organization during a decades-long criminal career, U.S. prosecutors said on Friday.

El Chapo (Shorty), once one of the world's most wanted drug lords, was set to appear at 2 p.m. ET in federal court in Brooklyn, N.Y., to be arraigned on 17 criminal counts, a day after his surprise extradition from Mexico.

The charges carry a mandatory minimum sentence of life in prison, Robert Capers, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, said at a news conference.

"Who is Chapo Guzman? In short, he's a man known for no other life but a life of crime, violence, death and destruction, and now he'll have to answer to that," Capers said.

Guzman, 59, arrived in a small jet at Long Island's MacArthur Airport after nightfall on Thursday from a prison in the city of Juarez in the northern state of Chihuahua, where his Sinaloa cartel rules.

A few hours earlier, he was bundled out of the Mexican cell block with his hands cuffed above his bowed head, Mexican television footage showed.

Guzman is charged in six separate U.S. indictments. He is accused of money laundering and drug trafficking, kidnapping and murder in Chicago, Ill., Miami, Fla., New York and other cities.

More than 40 witnesses

Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn, N.Y., have more than 40 witnesses ready to testify against Guzman, Capers told reporters, adding that the trial will likely last "many" weeks.

U.S. prosecutors gave assurances to Mexican officials that they would not seek the death penalty in order to secure his extradition, Capers said. Mexico opposes capital punishment.

One of Guzman's lawyers was surprised at the extradition, saying that four appeals in Mexico were outstanding to stop it.

U.S. authorities did not have much notice, either, although they had long planned for Guzman's arrival, Justice Department official Kenneth Blanco said at the news conference. "We were notified yesterday that he would be on his way," he said.

Leading the Sinaloa cartel, Guzman oversaw perhaps the world's largest transnational cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine smuggling operation, playing a key role in Mexico's decade-long drug war that has killed over 100,000 people.

"Guzman and the Sinaloa cartel had a veritable army, ready to war with competitors and anyone Guzman deemed to be a traitor," U.S. prosecutors said. He was known to carry a gold-plated AK-47 rifle.

$14 billion in drug proceeds and profits

The indictment of Guzman seeks to recover more than $14 billion in drug proceeds and illicit profits.

"We can't say how much we have eyes on or how much we'll recover but what we do know is that the government will be vigilant in trying to recover as much of those assets as we can," Capers said.

The extradition came on the eve of Donald Trump's inauguration, a coincidence that some officials said was an olive branch to the incoming president who declared he would kick Guzman's "ass" on taking office.

The Mexican attorney general's office rejected claims the move was related to Trump's swearing-in, noting that Guzman faces 10 pending cases in Mexico following his U.S. sentence.

He was captured a year ago after he had fled a high-security penitentiary in central Mexico through a mile-long tunnel, his second dramatic prison escape.

U.S. authorities, citing security concerns, declined to say where he would be held while awaiting trial, but they vowed to prevent any further escapes.

"I assure you, no tunnel will be built leading to his bathroom," Special Agent In Charge Angel Melendez of U.S. Homeland Security Investigations said at the news conference.

Melendez said he was present when Guzman deplaned in Long Island.

"As you looked into his eyes you could see the surprise, you could see the shock, and to a certain extent you could actually see the fear as the realization started to kick in that he's about to face American justice," he said. 

THE INCREASINGLY LONELY HOPE OF BARACK OBAMA

You can tell I’m a lame duck,” Barack Obama joked before his farewell address, on Tuesday night, in Chicago, “because nobody’s following instructions.” This was a teasing reference to the unbridled whoop of cheers that had gone up as he’d appeared at the podium; despite his best efforts, the President couldn’t convince the twenty-thousand-person congregation of true believers and long-standing aides to quiet down and take a seat. The quip also worked as a mordant description of the wider atmosphere of chaos and unpredictability that has taken hold during the two months since Donald Trump’s still-shocking election as Obama’s successor. To the extent that there exist “instructions” for a dignified transfer of power in America, they would seem to include the principle of “one President at a time,” a willingness on the part of the President-elect to communicate at reasonable intervals via press conference rather than Twitter outburst, and a general disinclination to comment on the fortunes of once-storied reality shows or the Golden Globes. Trump, in shredding these unwritten rules to ribbons, has made them seem instantly outdated. In the hours before Obama’s speech, a series of news reports and document dumps concerning the role of Russian interference on Trump’s behalf only served to deepen the impression of disorder.

The farewell address gave Obama one last opportunity to exert control, if only of the rhetorical kind, over national events. Eventually, the crowd quieted, and Obama insisted, as has been his habit recently, on recalling the accomplishments of his Administration. “If I had told you eight years ago that America would reverse a great recession, reboot our auto industry, and unleash the longest stretch of job creation in our history,” he began, “if I had told you that we would win marriage equality, and secure the right to health insurance for another twenty million of our fellow-citizens, you might have said our sights were set a little too high.” That last phrase was an echo of Obama’s victory speech after the 2008 caucus in Iowa. “They said our sights were set too high,” he said that night, inaugurating a tradition of smilingly chiding his doubters—“cynics,” he called them—that has continued, essentially unchanged, for the past nine years.

The coming Trump Administration will be a monumental test of Obama’s enduring optimism, and, perhaps, of his impatience with those who don’t share it. On Tuesday night, Obama carried on his long-running argument in favor of positive thinking, not as a perfect analytical tool—“there will be times when the process disappoints you,” he said—but, instead, as a moral obligation, and an instrument in the work of continual American renewal. Trust me, he seemed to be saying: you’ll need it.

Obama said the name Trump precisely once, and then only to extol the glories of the peaceful Presidential transfer. Still, it was impossible to interpret the speech without reference to the man who will be remembered by history as Obama’s foil. The President cannily framed his successor’s stated policy preferences not only as ill-advised but as directly opposed to the health of American cohesion. The most conspicuous spoke of this argument was a passage about race. For all his restraint, and despite his sometimes maddening insistence upon rhetorical balance, Obama, has, since his “race speech” of 2008, been uncommonly willing to wade into the intricacies of the subject. This time, with Trump as the implied target, he trained his focus on the country’s capacity to welcome the children of immigrants. “If we decline to invest” in them, he said, “we diminish the prospects of our own children—because those brown kids will represent a larger share of America’s workforce.” He reminded those who cheer Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric that “the stereotypes about immigrants today were said, almost word for word, about the Irish, Italians, and Poles.” America, he said, “wasn’t weakened by the presence of these newcomers; they embraced this nation’s creed, and it was strengthened.”

Obama also levelled particularly pointed challenges to both sides of the black-white dialectic that has guided and determined so much of the country’s history. From blacks “and other minorities”—one imagined that he had youthful, campus-grown activists, affiliated with Black Lives Matter and other related movements, in mind—he requested an interesting bit of imaginative enlargement. We should link “our own struggles for justice to the challenges that a lot of people in this country face—the refugee, the immigrant, the rural poor, the transgender American, and also the middle-aged white man who from the outside may seem like he’s got all the advantages, but who’s seen his world upended by economic, cultural, and technological change.” On the other hand, he continued, white Americans should acknowledge that “the effects of slavery and Jim Crow didn’t suddenly vanish in the sixties; that when minority groups voice discontent, they’re not just engaging in reverse racism or practicing political correctness; that when they wage peaceful protest, they’re not demanding special treatment but the equal treatment our Founders promised.”

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This opposition laid bare an aspect of Obama’s analysis that puts him increasingly out of step with much of the current thinking. For Obama, racism is real, and still pervasive—his background means that he could never have been shielded from this fact—but it is not a necessarily permanent feature of American life. While he is not shy about invoking the horrors of slavery, he never drops the word “racism”—with its civil-rights-era-descended promise of eventual eradicability—in favor of the phrase “white supremacy,” which has lately come to signal an almost mystical belief in racial oppression as our founding national fact. Obama does subscribe to a civic metaphysics, but it is centered instead on the bonds between people and the perennial American ability to change. He spoke last night of “the sacred ties that make us one,” and this was the closest he came to religious language, apart from the perfunctory “God bless” toward the end.

It is not, Obama said, “that our nation has been flawless from the start but that we have shown the capacity to change and make life better for those who follow.” This version of American exceptionalism, he suggested, might prove more lasting than our oldest and bloodiest divisions. The President is an increasingly lonely torchbearer for the “We Shall Overcome” generation. It is striking, in this regard, that the lone literary reference in the speech was not to someone like James Baldwin—who often spoke of an American religion, centered on white skin—but to Atticus Finch, the hero of Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird.” “You never really understand a person,” Obama said, quoting Finch, “until you consider things from his point of view . . . until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.”

Obama’s faith in the eventual solubility of things is closely related to his reverence for the Enlightenment, which he name-checked while speaking of another good that Trump threatens to destroy: the truth. Obama posited reason as the link between challenges as diverse as climate change and international terrorism, placing it as a counterpoint to fear, which might tempt our citizenry to shake off, or take “for granted,” the freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution.

But the most moving portion of the speech was more personal: a tribute to Michelle Obama, “girl of the South Side.” While the President spoke to his wife, he briefly lost his cool—that prized possession—and dabbed away a tear or two with a handkerchief. He went on to thank his daughters; Malia was seated next to her mother, also wiping away tears, while Sasha was reportedly back in Washington, because she had a midyear exam on Wednesday morning. The President thanked his Vice-President, Joe Biden, and the rest of the people who had made possible his time in office. And here, too, was a contrast with Trump, who has yet to demonstrate an ability ardently and earnestly to praise a person other than himself. We were reminded, once again, that part of the “soft power” that accompanies the Presidency, for good or ill, is the appearance of wholesomeness, of moral capacity, of love. For eight years, putting policy aside, Obama has displayed those qualities. It remains to be seen—but gets clearer as the transition daily shortens—which attributes of Trump’s will fill the void.