US Election 2016: Protests continue after Donald Trump's visit to the White House

• 12:12am on 12 Nov 2016

We're closing this blog off now and switching across to a new one for Saturday. 

We'd love to see you over here.

• 11:55pm on 11 Nov 2016

Man bashed 'for voting Trump'

A video has been posted online of a group of people appearing to beat a 49-year-old man while screaming phrases such as "You voted Trump" and "Don't vote Trump."

The man, David Wilcox, told the Chicago Tribune that the incident happened in Chicago on Wednesday when a black sedan scraped along the side of his Pontiac, scratching it.

"I stopped and parked. And I asked if they had insurance, and the next thing that I knew they were beating the (expletive) out of me," Wilcox told the paper.

In the video, Wilcox is thrown to the ground and repeatedly kicked.

Another video obtained by the paper showed one of the men climbing into Wilcox's car and driving off as Wilcox grabbed the open back window. 

"The guy took off. He was trying to have me fall off, and I knew if I somehow let go, I was going to die," Wilcox told the paper. "Then he slowed down. I was looking at oncoming traffic. God was watching over for me. I rolled about five or seven times into the oncoming traffic lanes."

Wilcox said he did vote for Donald Trump, but that no one would have known this  by just looking at his car.

He claims someone at a nearby bus stop yelled, "Yeah, it's one of them white boy Trump guys" during the attack.

The Washington Post

• 11:29pm on 11 Nov 2016

Could Trump be impeached?

We posted this story yesterday about the first post-election lawsuit facing Donald Trump. The judge has recommended Trump and the litigants – students who say Trump defrauded them over he now-defunct Trump University – settle the case. 

The case highlights just how important it is for Trump to settle all court cases like this (and others).

"In the United States, it is illegal for businesses to use false statements to convince consumers to purchase their services," explains University of Utah Law Professor, Christopher Peterson.

"The evidence indicates that Trump University used a systemic pattern of fraudulent representations to trick thousands of families into investing in a program that can be argued was a sham. Fraud and racketeering are serious crimes that legally rise to the level of impeachable acts."

That full story is here.

• 11:14pm on 11 Nov 2016

Trump speaks to Merkel

For the largest and most powerful country in Europe, Germany seems to have been well down the pecking order in terms of countries Donald Trump has reached out to so far.

According to a spokesperson for Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor spoke to Trump by phone on Thursday about "continuing longstanding ties between Germany and the United States". No other information about the conversation has been released. 

Merkel will meet President Barack Obama in Berlin on Thursday, in part to discuss stalled free trade talks between the United States and the EU.

How those talks will progress after Trump takes office is anyone's guess. This tweet was sent the day after the UK voted to leave the EU (though we'll ignore, for the moment, that Scotland actually voted to Remain).

• 11:06pm on 11 Nov 2016

Photos are filtering through showing the size of the protest in Portland overnight.

Pioneer Courthouse Square, Portland. Photo: AP

• 10:56pm on 11 Nov 2016

The year was 2012. Obama had just been re-elected...

• 10:49pm on 11 Nov 2016

Summary of protest cities

Protests have now flared in cities and towns from Portland and Seattle to Philadelphia and Richmond, along with Atlanta, Dallas, Omaha and Kansas City – all cities in Republican strongholds. The largest cities to see protests include New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Chicago.

• 10:26pm on 11 Nov 2016

The US Secretary of Health says 100,000 people signed up for health care plans under Obamacare in the 24 hours after Donald Trump was elected.

Annual enrolment for Obamacare, also known as the Affordable Care Act, opened on November 1.

However, it was only on November 9 that people rushed to sign up.

Trump has repeatedly pledged he will "repeal and replace" Obamacare on "day one" of his presidency.

One woman who signed up told USA Today that Trump's comments spurred her act.

"I'm horrified about the election results and extremely worried what will happen to my health care," Rita Gibbs said.

• 9:45pm on 11 Nov 2016

That figure of 29 arrested in Portland has just been revised to 26.

It's not known if the people arrested are those who were smashing cars and shop windows.

Here's a video of the kind of destruction that was happening in the city earlier in the evening:

Local news station KGW has also confirmed reports that a rioter attacked one of its camera crews with a bat.

The aggressor was chased off by the crowd.

• 9:01pm on 11 Nov 2016

At least 29 arrested in Portland riot

An update on the riots in Portland - at least 29 people have been arrested.

The worst appears to be over and other protesters have gone home. It's just after 2am there.

Videos from people at the scene showed police were using flash-bangs and smoke grenades to push people into one street.

They then converged on the street from all directions and declared: "We're arresting everybody that's here".

Portland police confirmed the arrests on Twitter.

• 8:15pm on 11 Nov 2016

Is there a way to stop fake news permeating sites like Facebook?

Adam Turner writes that it may not be possible to save people from "their own willing gullibility".

"The mainstream media has no-one to blame but itself, having engaged in a tabloid race to the bottom which devalued truth to the point that blatant liars are considered more honest," he says.

"To blame Facebook alone for this mess is to ignore the fact that we've created a world where people want to be lied to."

Read his full comment piece here

• 7:51pm on 11 Nov 2016

Speaking of billionaires ... Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg spoke today about whether his social network seriously impacted the election.

Facebook has been battling for months against fake news stories, which are often promoted by an automatic algorithm and widely shared.

In a question and answer session at a technology conference in San Francisco, Zuckerberg said the prospect that those stories changed the way people vote was a "pretty crazy idea".

"Voters make decisions based on their lived experience," he said.

"There is a profound lack of empathy in asserting that the only reason someone could have voted the way they did is because they saw fake news."

• 7:33pm on 11 Nov 2016

Bezos buries the hatchet

Jeff Bezos, the billionaire founder of shopping website Amazon, has belatedly congratulated Donald Trump on his election victory.

Bezos, who owns the Washington Post, had been in a feud with Trump since December.

He put that aside today, writing on Twitter that he wished Trump "great success".

Read the story here

• 7:05pm on 11 Nov 2016

As we mentioned earlier, Donald Trump is very unlikely to be impacted by these mass protests happening around the country.

His skyscraper home in New York has been fortified with concrete barriers, roadblocks and barricades, and the Federal Aviation Administration warned it will take deadly action against people who infringe on it from the air.

The sky above Trump Tower, on the intersection of Fifth Avenue and 56th Street in Manhattan, is now considered "national defense airspace" until January 21, the day after Trump moves to the White House.

In a notice to pilots, the FAA warned: "The United States government may use deadly force against the airborne aircraft, if it is determined that the aircraft poses an imminent threat".

No snags delivered to Donald using a drone, then.

• 6:55pm on 11 Nov 2016

Police are moving in on protesters in Portland, throwing flash-bangs which they have described as "less lethal munitions".

Arrests are expected soon.

Just a reminder- this is one of the more dramatic protests, having been declared a riot, but others are happening across the US.

Thousands of people took to the streets in cities like New York, Chicago, California and Denver, Colorado.

In Denver, like in many cities, demonstrators blocked off roads - they briefly shut down the Interstate 25 freeway.

• 6:31pm on 11 Nov 2016

'More vandalism occurring'

A large crowd is still walking and chanting on the streets.

Portland police say windows are still being smashed.

They also say a fatal crash on Thursday night, where a pedestrian was hit by a car, was "a completely unrelated, tragic event".

• 6:05pm on 11 Nov 2016

Around 1500 people remain on the streets in Portland, where it's just after 11pm local time, police say.

The crowd is marching through the streets, some of them with their faces covered and several carrying bats.

A large group of people are sitting on top of a four-wheel drive as it slowly drives along.

• 5:38pm on 11 Nov 2016

More vision coming out of the riot in Portland.

Glass rained to the pavement in the upscale Pearl district, as one of the rioters skipped down the middle of the road.

Some people have spray painted "f--- Trump" on the side of buildings.

A large crowd is now chanting "f--- Donald Trump" and "we reject the president-elect" as they march down the road.

• 5:18pm on 11 Nov 2016

Here's some of what's happening in Portland at the moment.

Reporter Mike Bivins took this vision of people smashing car windows.

Police earlier mentioned some protesters tried to stop those causing the damage, while others urged against interfering.

This appears to be the case in the video - most people are chanting "peaceful protest", while a loud voice is heard to say: "Do not interfere, we have to let them express themselves".

• 5:11pm on 11 Nov 2016

Police say a group of "anarchists" appear to be the ones causing the damage in Portland.

They have urged other protesters to get out of the area immediately, and others to avoid the area "for their own safety".