A senior U. S. intelligence official with direct knowledge confirmed to NBC News that the report on Russian hacking delivered to President Obama Thursday says that U. S. intelligence picked up senior Russian officials celebrating Donald Trump ‘s win.
The source described the intelligence about the celebration, first reported by the Washington Post, as a minor part of the overall intelligence report, which makes the case that Russia intervened in the election.
« Highly classified intercepts illustrate Russian government planning and direction of a multifaceted campaign by Moscow to undermine the integrity of the American political system, » said the official.
The source also noted, however, that communication intercepts are viewed with caution because they are subject to interpretation.
Some of the hacks were successful, say the officials, while others were thwarted.
The report, on which Obama was also orally briefed, explains what intelligence agencies believe are Moscow’s motives, including, in part, a desire to disrupt the American democratic process.
But the intelligence analysts who prepared the report also concluded that the hacks were payback for the Obama administration’s questioning of Vladimir Putin’s legitimacy as president.
The report tracks Russian cyber activity during the 2016 presidential campaign, but also goes back as far as 2008.
It does not speculate on whether Russian interference, including the alleged hacks of Democratic Party emails and the subsequent leaking on those emails on the internet, affected the outcome of the 2016 contest.
President Obama said today he has full faith in the report, but President-elect Trump, who’ll get the same briefing tomorrow, has been voicing skepticism about the intelligence community’s findings.
President Obama said he thought when his successor gets the details, he might change his mind.
« When the President-Elect receives his own briefings and is able to examine the intelligence, as his team is put together and they see how professional and effective these agencies are, some of those current tensions will be reduced.  »
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A parade of somber stars visited the next-door homes of Debbie Reynolds and daughter Carrie Fisher on a gloomy Thursday afternoon amid reports that a private memorial was scheduled at the compound to mourn the late actresses. Meryl Streep, Meg Ryan, Ellen Barkin and Ed Begley Jr. were among those entering the property in the Coldwater Canyon area of Los Angeles.
Press, private security and police assembled on the street outside of the homes, which are tucked away at the end of a long driveway and hidden by trees and shrubs in the tony neighborhood just north of Beverly Hills.
Streep, who starred in the adaptation of Fisher’s semi-autobiographical novel “Postcards from the Edge,” was carrying white flowers as she walked up the driveway, choosing to ignore questions from the media gathered on the street. Streep knew both mother and daughter — she had presented Reynolds with the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award at the film academy’s Governors Awards in 2015.
Also visiting the compound Thursday were Jamie Lee Curtis, who stars with Fisher’s daughter, Billie Lourd, on TV’s “Scream Queens,” and Eric Idle, a friend of Fisher’s who rented her his home during the filming of “The Empire Strikes Back.”
Fisher and Reynolds died last week, one day apart, casting a pall over Hollywood’s annual holiday break. Fisher, 60, an actress and writer who starred as Princess Leia in the original “Star Wars” trilogy, died Dec. 27 after suffering a medical emergency Dec. 23 aboard a flight from London. Reynolds, 84, an Oscar-nominated actress who shot to fame after starring in “Singin’ in the Rain” at age 19, passed away Dec. 28 after being briefly hospitalized.
“She said, ‘I want to be with Carrie,’” Reynolds’ son, Todd Fisher, told The Associated Press. “And then she was gone.”
Fisher and Reynolds will be buried together at Forest Lawn-Hollywood Hills, reportedly on Friday. The sprawling location is the resting place of numerous celebrities, including Lucille Ball, Dick Van Patten, Liberace, Florence Henderson, David Carradine and Bette Davis.
Todd Fisher and other family representatives did not immediately respond to requests for further details about the memorial and burial services.
Lourd, 24, made her first public comment on the deaths of her mother and grandmother on Instagram Monday.
“Receiving all of your prayers and kind words over the past week has given me strength during a time I thought strength could not exist,” Lourd wrote under a picture of the three women. “There are no words to express how much I will miss my Abadaba and my one and only Momby.”
People inside and outside of show business have continued to mourn the two Hollywood legends. Last week, fans created an impromptu star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame for Fisher, and peers like “Star Wars’” Mark Hamill have written heartfelt tributes.
HBO bumped up plans to air the new Fisher Stevens-directed documentary about the mother, daughter duo, “Bright Lights,” which is now set to air on Saturday.
Elsewhere Thursday, Broadway theaters announced plans to dim their marquee lights Friday night. The Broadway League says the lights will be dimmed for one minute at 7:45 p.m.
Reynolds and Fisher both made their Broadway debuts in 1973 in the musical comedy revival of “Irene,” which earned Reynolds a Tony Award nomination. She also appeared on Broadway in “Woman of the Year” and the musical revue “Debbie.”
Fisher’s Broadway credits include her one-woman show “Wishful Drinking,” ”Agnes of God” and “Censored Scenes From King Kong.”

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President Obama said « we appear to have seen » a hate crime in the alleged attack on a Chicago man captured on Facebook.
« It’s terrible, » he said about the incident, during an interview with ABC affiliate WLS in Chicago.
« We’ve seen over the last several years, when it comes to tensions between police and communities, the Internet, horrific hate crimes of the sort that we appear to have seen on Facebook today, » Obama said.
He said he believed technology can play a useful role in exposing racism and hatred that still exist in the country.
« Part of what technology allows us to see now is the terrible toll that racism and discrimination and hate takes on families and communities, » he said. « But that’s part of how we learn and how we get better. « 
In Thursday’s White House press briefing, press secretary Josh Earnest declined to say whether the alleged crime amounted to a hate crime but called it « disturbing » and said the images demonstrate « a level of depravity that is an outrage to a lot of Americans. « 
Though Obama said he thinks race relations have « gotten better » in the country for the most part, he said reports like this show the work still to be done. « In some ways, we have surfaced tensions that were already there but are getting more attention, » he said.
He also said that gun violence in Chicago, his adopted hometown, has been « a heartbreaking situation to see » and that he is committed to being « part of the solution » directly and through his presidential center after he leaves the White House.
After they leave the White House, the Obamas will be staying in Washington, D. C., until his younger daughter graduates from the high school she’s been attending. But Obama has said he plans to spend a lot more time in Chicago after his term is over.

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© Source: http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/president-obama-talks-race-relations-calls-alleged-hate/story?id=44583801
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January 5, 2017
Washington — U. S. President-elect Donald Trump targeted ToyotaMotor Corp on Thursday, threatening to impose a hefty fee on the world’s largest automaker if it builds its Corolla cars for the U. S. market at a plant in Mexico.
« Toyota Motor said will build a new plant in Baja, Mexico, to build Corolla cars for U. S. NO WAY! Build plant in U. S. or pay big border tax, » Trump said in a post on Twitter.
It was Trump’s latest broadside against automakers building cars in Mexico and first against a foreign automaker. The president-elect’s attacks on investments by companies in Mexico have cast a shadow over cross-border production networks central to more than $583 billion a year in trade between the two countries.
The value of the Mexican peso has skidded amid fears that Trump’s policies would harm Latin America’s second-biggest economy — and declined Thursday after Trump’s tweet.
Toyota, which announced plans to build a new Mexican facility in Guanajuato in April 2015, said it would not take away from U. S. employment.
« Toyota looks forward to collaborating with the Trump administration to serve in the best interests of consumers and the automotive industry, » Toyota spokesman Scott Vazin said.
Trump’s tweet confuses Toyota’s existing Baja plant with the planned $1 billion plant in Guanajuato, where construction got under way in November. A Trump spokeswoman did not return a request seeking additional comment.
Baja produces around 100,000 pickup trucks and truck beds annually. The Guanajuato plant will build Corollas and have an annual capacity of 200,000 when it comes online in 2019, shifting production of the small car from Canada.
The Japanese automaker’s American Depositary Receipts fell after Trump’s tweet and closed down 0.6 percent at $120.44 on the New York Stock Exchange.
Toyota President Akio Toyoda said in Japan on Thursday that the automaker has no immediate plans to curb production in Mexico, preferring to wait until after Trump’s Jan. 20 inauguration before deciding whether to make any changes.
« We will consider our option as we see what policies the incoming president adopts, » Toyoda said at an industry gathering in Tokyo on Thursday before Trump’s tweet, when asked whether his company was considering any changes to a production plant the automaker was building in Mexico.
Automakers in the United States have been slammed by Trump for building cars in lower-cost factories south of the border, which he said costs American jobs. Pressure to curb that production intensified this week after Ford Motor Co scrapped plans to build a $1.6 billion assembly plant in Mexico after Trump harshly criticized the investment.
Ford, however, still plans to shift production of small cars to Mexico from Michigan, even as it uses $700 million from the planned Mexico investment to expand its operations in Flat Rock, Michigan, and add 700 jobs.
During the campaign, Trump criticized barriers to U. S. auto exports to Japan and said the U. S. government did not do enough to open the market to more American-made vehicles.
« Until you open your markets, you’re not selling any more cars over here, » Trump said of Japan in an August 2015 interview with the Detroit News. « That’s going to force people to build in the United States.  »
Toyota has extensive U. S. investments, operates 10 U. S. plants in eight states and builds more than 1.3 million vehicles in the United States annually.
Between 1994 and 2013, U. S. auto factory jobs dropped by a third while jobs in Mexicorose almost five-fold over the same period as lower-wage production boomed.
Mexico now accounts for 20 percent of all vehicle production in North America and has attracted more than $24 billion in auto investment since 2010, according to the Ann Arbor, Michigan-based, Center for Automotive Research.
Based on current investment plans, Mexico’s auto production capacity will grow by another 50 percent over the next five years, according to the center, which draws funding from the auto industry.
It said Toyota imported fewer vehicles from Mexico than any other major automaker building cars there last year. Detroit’s Big Three automakers collectively exported more than 1.1 million vehicles to the United States from Mexico in 2016, while Toyota sent about 47,000 Mexican-made vehicles to the United States.
Trump has also said General Motors Co could become subject to tariffs on Mexico-made cars for the U. S. market, and that he would like to renegotiate terms of the North American Free Trade Agreement signed with Canada and Mexico, or scrap it altogether.
Trump criticized GM for importing Mexican-made versions of the Chevrolet Cruze, even as the automaker is laying off 1,200 workers in Ohio this month who assemble the car.

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© Source: http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2017/0105/Trump-hits-Toyota-in-latest-rant-against-carmakers-and-Mexico
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