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Russia causing cyber mayhem, should face retaliation: ex-UK spy chief

The director of Britain's GCHQ Robert Hannigan delivers a speech at Government Communications Headquarters in Cheltenham, November 17, 2015.

By Michael Holden

LONDON (Reuters) – Russia is causing cyberspace mayhem and should face retaliation if it continues to undermine democratic institutions in the West, the former head of Britain’s GCHQ spy agency said on Monday.

Russia denies allegations from governments and intelligence services that it is behind a growing number of cyber attacks on commercial and political targets around the world, including the hackings of recent U.S. and French presidential election campaigns.

Asked if the Russian authorities were a threat to the democratic process, Robert Hannigan, who stepped down as head of the UK’s intelligence service in March, said: “Yes … There is a disproportionate amount of mayhem in cyberspace coming from Russia from state activity.”

In his first interview since leaving GCHQ, Hannigan told BBC radio that it was positive that French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel had publicly “called this out recently”.

Standing alongside Russian President Vladimir Putin in May, Macron said state-funded Russian news outlets had sought to destabilize his campaign while the head of Germany’s domestic intelligence agency said last week it was expecting Russia to try to influence the German election in September.

“Ultimately people will have to push back against Russian state activity and show that it’s unacceptable,” he said.

“It doesn’t have to be by cyber retaliation, but it may be that is necessary at some time in the future. It may be sanctions and other measures, just to put down some red lines and say that this behavior is unacceptable.”

Hannigan also said it would be a mistake to force social media companies to allow intelligence agencies to access services protected by encryption through so-called “back door” access.

“The best you can do with end-to-end encryption is work with companies in a cooperative way to find ways around it frankly,” he said. He said such “back doors” would weaken systems.

Hannigan also said governments should wait to see how a global working group on tackling online extremism established by Facebook, Google’s YouTube, Twitter and Microsoft performed before seeking new laws.

“Legislation is a blunt last resort because frankly extremism is very difficult to define in law and you could spend all your time in court arguing about whether a particular video crosses the line or not,” he said.

Last month, Germany approved a plan to fine social media networks up to 50 million euros ($57 million) if they failed to remove hateful postings promptly. Britain has also mooted bringing in possible sanctions for tech firms that failed to remove extremist content.

(Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky)

Trump, in tweets, defends his sharing of information with Russians

FILE PHOTO: A combination of file photos showing Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov attending a news conference in Moscow, Russia, November 18, 2015, and U.S. President Donald Trump posing for a photo in New York City, U.S., May 17, 2016. REUTERS/Maxim Zmeyev/Lucas Jackson/File Photos

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday defended his decision to disclose information to Russian officials during a White House meeting last week, saying he had an “absolute right” to share “facts pertaining to terrorism and airline flight safety.”

The president took to Twitter to counter a torrent of criticism, including from his fellow Republicans, after reports that he had revealed highly classified information about a planned Islamic State operation.

Two U.S. officials said Trump shared the intelligence, supplied by a U.S. ally in the fight against the militant group, with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak during a meeting last Wednesday.

The disclosures late on Monday roiled the administration as it struggled to move past the backlash over Trump’s abrupt firing of FBI Director James Comey, who was investigating the president’s ties to Russia.

The turmoil overshadowed Republican legislative priorities such as healthcare and tax reform and laid bare sharp divisions between the White House and U.S. intelligence agencies, which concluded late last year that Russia had tried to influence the 2016 presidential election in Trump’s favor.

Russia has denied such meddling, and Trump bristles at any suggestion he owed his Nov. 8 victory to Moscow.

“As President I wanted to share with Russia (at an openly scheduled W.H. meeting) which I have the absolute right to do, facts pertaining to terrorism and airline flight safety,” Trump said on Twitter. “Humanitarian reasons, plus I want Russia to greatly step up their fight against ISIS & terrorism.”

Trump weighed in personally the morning after his secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, and national security adviser, H.R. McMaster, issued statements saying no sources, methods or military operations were discussed at the Russian meeting.

McMaster said the story, initially reported by the Washington Post, was false.

The U.S. officials told Reuters that while the president has the authority to disclose even the most highly classified information at will, in this case he did so without consulting the ally that provided it, which threatens to jeopardize a long-standing intelligence-sharing agreement.

Bob Corker, the Republican head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, called the allegations “very, very troubling.”

“Obviously, they’re in a downward spiral right now,” he said on Monday, “and they’ve got to come to grips with all that’s happening.”

(Reporting by Susan Heavey, Doina Chiacu, Patricia Zengerle, Jeff Mason, Mark Hosenball; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Lisa Von Ahn)

Venezuela replaces health minister after data shows crisis worsening

FILE PHOTO: A woman wearing a costume with medicine boxes that reads "Health crisis" shouts slogans during a rally of workers of the health sector due to the shortages of basic medical supplies and against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's government in Caracas, Venezuela February 7, 2017. REUTERS/Carlos Garcia Rawlins

By Girish Gupta

CARACAS (Reuters) – President Nicolas Maduro has abruptly dismissed Venezuela’s health minister days after the government broke a nearly two-year silence on data that showed the country’s medical crisis significantly worsening.

Gynecologist Antonieta Caporale, who held the post for just over four months, was replaced by pharmacist Luis Lopez, the government said.

Ministry data published this week showed cases of infant mortality rose 30 percent and maternal mortality 65 percent, while malaria shot up 76 percent last year. There was also a jump in illnesses such as diphtheria and Zika.

In the fourth year of a brutal recession, Venezuela is suffering widespread shortages of medicines and basic medical equipment. A leading pharmaceutical association has said the country is running short on roughly 85 percent of medicines.

Millions are also struggling with food shortages and soaring inflation, fuelling protests against Maduro.

In announcing the cabinet change late on Thursday night, Vice President Tareck El Aissami did not provide reasons for the minister’s ouster.

“President Nicolas Maduro is grateful to Doctor Antonieta Caporale for her work,” he wrote on Twitter.

“CRITICAL STEP”

The Health Ministry had stopped releasing figures after July 2015, amid a wider data blackout.

The data release was therefore significant, and welcomed by government critics.

“The publication of the data by the Ministry of Health is a crucial step in addressing health challenges in Venezuela,” read a statement from UNICEF, which had previously avoided criticizing the government.

“(It) provides stark evidence of the impact of the prolonged crisis on women and children in the country.”

Venezuela defines infant mortality as the death of children up to the age of 1 year and maternal mortality as death while pregnant or within 42 days of the end of a pregnancy.

The Venezuelan government provides only the number of cases and percentage changes, rather than rates per thousand people, as most countries do, making useful comparisons with other time periods and countries impossible.

(Additional reporting by Stephanie Nebehay and Tom Miles in Geneva; Editing by Marguerita Choy and Dan Grebler)

Families of San Bernardino shooting sue Facebook, Google, Twitter

FILE PHOTO: Weapons confiscated from the attack in San Bernardino, California are shown in this San Bernardino County Sheriff Department handout photo from their Twitter account released to Reuters December 3, 2015. REUTERS/San Bernardino County Sheriffs Department/Handout/File Photo

By Dan Whitcomb

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Family members of three victims of the December 2015 shooting rampage in San Bernardino, California, have sued Facebook, Google and Twitter, claiming that the companies permitted Islamic State to flourish on social media.

The relatives assert that by allowing Islamic State militants to spread propaganda freely on social media, the three companies provided “material support” to the group and enabled attacks such as the one in San Bernardino.

“For years defendants have knowingly and recklessly provided the terrorist group ISIS with accounts to use its social networks as a tool for spreading extremist propaganda, raising funds and attracting new recruits,” family members of Sierra Clayborn, Tin Nguyen and Nicholas Thalasinos charge in the 32-page complaint, which was filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles on Wednesday.

“Without defendants Twitter, Facebook and Google (YouTube), the explosive growth of ISIS over the last few years into the most feared terrorist group in the world would not have been possible,” the complaint said.

Spokeswomen for Twitter and Google declined to comment on the lawsuit. Representatives for Facebook could not immediately be reached by Reuters on Thursday afternoon.

Syed Rizwan Farook and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, opened fire on a holiday gathering of Farook’s co-workers at a government building in San Bernardino on Dec. 2, 2015, killing 14 people and wounding 22 others.

Farook, the 28-year-old, U.S.-born son of Pakistani immigrants, and Malik, 29, a Pakistani native, died in a shootout with police four hours after the massacre.

Authorities have said the couple was inspired by Islamist militants. At the time, the assault ranked as the deadliest attack by Islamist extremists on U.S. soil since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. In June 2016, an American-born gunman pledging allegiance to the leader of Islamic State shot 49 people to death at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida, before he was killed by police.

In December 2016 the families of three men killed at the nightclub sued Twitter, Google and Facebook in federal court on allegations similar to those in the California lawsuit.

Federal law gives internet companies broad immunity from liability for content posted by their users. A number of lawsuits have been filed in recent years seeking to hold social media companies responsible for terror attacks, but none has advanced beyond the preliminary phases.

(Reporting by Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles; Additional reporting by David Ingram and Julia Love in San Francisco; Editing by Dan Grebler and Grant McCool)

Severe storm kills one as it sweeps northern Georgia

By Gina Cherelus

(Reuters) – Strong winds, quarter-sized hail and lightning ripped through towns in northern Georgia, killing one man and leaving several cities with severe damage and power outages on Wednesday, local media and officials said.

The man died when a tree fell on a home near Braselton, about 53 miles northeast of Atlanta, just before 9 p.m. on Tuesday, according to Fox 5, a local news affiliate, citing the Jackson County Emergency Management office.

The name of the deceased was not immediately released.

As the storm slowly crossed the state on Tuesday afternoon, gusts of winds of about 60 miles per hour toppled trees and power lines, the National Weather Service said. Photos on social media showed large balls of hail and massive fallen trees.

A severe thunderstorm warning was issued until 10:30 p.m. on Tuesday for about 10 counties. By Wednesday morning there were no active storm watches, warnings or advisories for the area.

Several school systems in the north of the state said they would begin classes two hours late on Wednesday due to the power outages and large number of downed trees.

More than 170,000 residents in north Georgia and the Atlanta metro area lost power at the height of the storm, according to Georgia Power. Most of them were reconnected before dawn.

“Service restored to more than 135k overnight, additional crews moving in from other parts of state. Thank you for your continued patience,” Georgia Power (@GeorgiaPower) wrote on Twitter.

Georgia Electric Membership Corporation (EMC) reported that only about 15,000 customers were without power in north Georgia and the Atlanta area by early Wednesday.

(Reporting by Gina Cherelus; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)

‘It’s like kumbaya:’ Trump’s genial private meetings with CEOs jar with public attacks

FILE PHOTO - U.S. President Donald Trump (C) and Vice President Mike Pence (R) meet with pharmaceutical industry representatives at the White House in Washington, U.S. on January 31, 2017. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas/File Photo

By Ginger Gibson and David Shepardson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – When the bosses of some of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies headed to Washington in January to meet U.S. President Donald Trump, it had all the makings of a potentially hostile meeting.

Just weeks before, Trump had sent drug stock prices plummeting after accusing the companies of “getting away with murder” by charging too much for medicines.

But the Trump who greeted chief executives of Johnson & Johnson <JNJ.N>, Novartis <NOVN.S>, Merck <MRK.N>, Eli Lilly <LLY.N>, Celgene <CELG.O> and Amgen <AMGN.O> on Jan. 31 was a surprisingly genial host who even gave them a personal tour of the Oval Office, according to several participants in the breakfast.

“There is no question that it was better than it could have been or we thought it could be,” said one industry insider familiar with the meeting.

Trump did not repeat his public attacks on the industry. Instead, he focused on “outdated” regulations that drive costs up for drugmakers, according to participants interviewed by Reuters. The CEOs left with Trump’s word that he would streamline regulations and reform the high U.S. corporate tax rate.

Since taking office on Jan. 20, Trump has held at least nine meetings with groups of business leaders, including automakers, airlines, retailers and health insurers. In early morning or late-night tweets and in speeches, Trump has lambasted many of these companies for cost over-runs, or high prices, or foreign manufacturing, often knocking down their share prices. (See the effects of Trump’s tweets on stock prices here http://tmsnrt.rs/2ibdFSF)

But Reuters interviews with nearly a dozen executives and lobbyists who have taken part in these meetings or have been briefed on them reveal a Trump who is very different from his uncompromising and demanding @realDonaldTrump Twitter handle.

When he meets the nation’s top chief executives in person, he is a mix of charm and cajoling. This Trump is flexible and inquisitive, a schmoozer who remembers birthdays and often lavishes praise on their companies, said the people, who spoke on condition of anonymity so they could freely discuss private meetings.

This private side of Trump sheds light on why many CEOs have expressed confidence that the Republican president is good for business, despite his share-denting public attacks. As recently as Tuesday, Trump tweeted he was working on a system to increase competition in the health industry and lower drug pricing, sending pharma shares lower.

In the White House meetings, Trump focuses much of his talk on cutting regulations, the sources said, underscoring one of his administration’s key priorities – getting rid of rules imposed by his predecessor Barack Obama. He typically asks which regulations are holding businesses back from adding new jobs and promises to resolve the issues, executives say.

“He said one thing for the cameras and the door shuts and then it’s like kumbaya,” said one person who was briefed on a meeting between Trump and a group of CEOs.

“He likes to be seen as engaging and buddy buddy with other big important business leaders,” said this person.

A former businessman, Trump runs his closed-door meetings with CEOs as if they were a corporate board meeting, attendees said. In contrast to his doctrinaire tweets, he likes to seek input from everyone at the table, and compared to former presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush, conversations are less scripted.

Trump’s approach to these meetings is “one of listening and not lecturing”, said a senior White House official who has participated in industry meetings. “I’ve seen a president who is listening and asking questions to get to how he can create a thriving economy,” the official said.

An Amgen spokeswoman said Trump made it clear that he wanted to work with the company on U.S. job creation and biotech innovation. Representatives of the other drugmakers declined to comment.

SHOWING OFF THE DRAPES

Because so little is known about how Trump interacts privately with CEOs, trade groups and company officials have begun to swap tips on how to approach their meetings with him.

“There is this undercurrent of information sharing about what to expect, what to do,” said one trade group official who prepared CEOs for a recent meeting with Trump. He said he has gotten a flurry of calls from other industries next in line for a White House visit.

At the end of most meetings, Trump leads CEOs into the Oval Office, showing off paintings, sculptures and the furniture, as well as the rug and curtains he has picked out. He also points out a bust of Martin Luther King Jr., which he inherited from Obama. Then he takes a group photo behind the desk.

“He becomes tour guide and brings them over to the Oval Office,” the same official said. “He’s very proud of the Oval Office.”

The White House official said Trump recognized the “awe” of the Oval Office.

CHAIR FOR GM, BIRTHDAY WISH FOR FORD

Chief executives of Detroit’s top three automakers – General Motors Co <GM.N>, Ford Motor Co <F.N> and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV <FCHA.MI> – were pleasantly surprised when they went to the White House for a breakfast with Trump on Jan. 24.

Since his election, Trump has frequently attacked the car companies for building in Mexico and warned U.S. firms would no longer be able to move U.S. jobs abroad “without consequences.”

When Trump entered the Roosevelt Room, he greeted GM CEO Mary Barra with a playful tap on the shoulder as he gently prodded her to add jobs in the United States and later pulled out her chair before the meeting started, a review of the video transcripts of the first part of the meeting shows.

He greeted Ford CEO Mark Fields with a “Happy Birthday. It’s his birthday ladies and gentlemen.” Trump said it was a “great honor” to see Fiat Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne.

Trump did not specifically ask them to build plants in the United States – as he had tweeted he would before the meeting – but instead listened to their complaints about regulations and indicated a willingness to help them, people briefed on the meeting said.

Ford declined to comment and referred to Fields’ comments to dealers in January that Trump had asked for a list of regulations that automakers wanted cut or kept.

GM CEO Mary Barra said in a speech last week that Trump “really listened” to the automakers, while Marchionne told reporters at the Geneva auto show on Tuesday that Trump was “quite willing to make our lives easier” in terms of compliance and taxes in order to encourage U.S. job creation.

Trump has been complimentary of his high-profile guests – and at times playful.

After Denise Morrison, chief executive of Campbell Soup <CPB.N>, introduced herself in one of those meetings, Trump quickly responded: “Good soup.”

At another, after Target Corp <TGT.N> CEO Brian Cornell spoke, Trump responded by pronouncing the name of the company as “Tar-Jay,” a common joke to make the retailer sound more fancy.

(Reporting by Ginger Gibson and David Shepardson in Washington, Additional reporting by Emily Stephenson in Washington and Emily Flitter in New York, Editing by Soyoung Kim and Ross Colvin)

Pennsylvania man pleads guilty to using Twitter to help Islamic State

(Reuters) – A 20-year-old Pennsylvania man pleaded guilty on Monday to posting the names of approximately 100 U.S. military members online and exhorting his Twitter followers to kill them in an effort to support Islamic State.

Jalil Aziz faces up to 25 years in prison after pleading guilty to two terrorism-related charges in federal court in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

U.S. authorities have brought Islamic State-related charges against more than 100 individuals since 2013. An Arizona man was found guilty at trial on Monday of helping a New York City college student travel to Syria, where he died fighting for Islamic State.

Aziz used his Twitter account to release names, addresses, photographs and military branches for the U.S. service members, according to an indictment.

He told his followers to “kill them in their own lands, behead them in their own homes, stab them to death as they walk their street thinking that they are safe,” prosecutors said.

All told, Aziz used at least 71 Twitter accounts to disseminate messages in support of the radical group Islamic State, authorities said.

He was initially arrested in December 2015 and charged with trying to help others travel to the Middle East to join Islamic State fighters.

Prosecutors said investigators found a “go bag” at his home containing ammunition, a knife and a black mask.

(Reporting by Joseph Ax; Editing by Andrew Hay)

U.S. government scientists go ‘rogue’ in defiance of Trump

By Steve Gorman

(Reuters) – Employees from more than a dozen U.S. government agencies have established a network of unofficial “rogue” Twitter feeds in defiance of what they see as attempts by President Donald Trump to muzzle federal climate change research and other science.

Seizing on Trump’s favorite mode of discourse, scientists at the Environmental Protection Agency, NASA and other bureaus have privately launched Twitter accounts – borrowing names and logos of their agencies – to protest restrictions they view as censorship and provide unfettered platforms for information the new administration has curtailed.

“Can’t wait for President Trump to call us FAKE NEWS,” one anonymous National Park Service employee posted on the newly opened Twitter account @AltNatParkService. “You can take our official twitter, but you’ll never take our free time!”

The @RogueNASA account displayed an introductory disclaimer describing it as “The unofficial ‘Resistance’ team of NASA. Not an official NASA account.” It beckoned readers to follow its feed “for science and climate news and facts. REAL NEWS, REAL FACTS.”

The swift proliferation of such tweets by government rank-and-file followed internal directives several agencies involved in environmental issues have received since Trump’s inauguration requiring them to curb their dissemination of information to the public.

Last week, Interior Department staff were told to stop posting on Twitter after an employee re-tweeted posts about relatively low attendance at Trump’s swearing-in, and about how material on climate change and civil rights had disappeared from the official White House website.

Employees at the EPA and the departments of Interior, Agriculture and Health and Human Services have since confirmed seeing notices from the new administration either instructing them to remove web pages or limit how they communicate to the public, including through social media.

The restrictions have reinforced concerns that Trump, a climate change skeptic, is out to squelch federally backed research showing that emissions from fossil fuel combustion and other human activities are contributing to global warming.

The resistance movement gained steam on Tuesday when a series of climate change-related tweets were posted to the official Twitter account of Badlands National Park in South Dakota, administered under the Interior Department, but were soon deleted.

A Park Service official later said those tweets came from a former employee no longer authorized to use the official account and that the agency was being encouraged to use Twitter to post public safety and park information only, and to avoid national policy issues.

Within hours, unofficial “resistance” or “rogue” Twitter accounts began sprouting up, emblazoned with the government logos of the agencies where they worked, the list growing to at least 14 such sites by Wednesday afternoon.

An account dubbed @ungaggedEPA invited followers to visit its feeds of “ungagged news, links, tips and conversation that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is unable to tell you,” adding that it was “Not directly affiliated with @EPA.”

U.S. environmental employees were soon joined by similar “alternative” Twitter accounts originating from various science and health agencies, including the Food and Drug Administration, the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Weather Service. Many of their messages carried Twitter hashtags #resist or #resistance.

An unofficial Badlands National Park account called @BadHombreNPS also emerged (a reference to one of Trump’s more memorable campaign remarks about Mexican immigrants) to post material that had been scrubbed from the official site earlier.

Because the Twitter feeds were set up and posted to anonymously as private accounts, they are beyond the control of the government.

(By Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)

Young girl who tweeted from Aleppo asks Trump to help Syrian children

Aleppo's tweeting girl tweets to Donald Trump asking for help for children in syrian civil war

LONDON (Reuters) – The seven-year-old Syrian girl who gained a global following last year with her Twitter updates from Aleppo has written an open letter to U.S. President Donald Trump asking him to help other children her war-torn country.

Bana Alabed drew some 363,000 followers after she joined the micro-blogging site in September where she uploaded messages and pictures of daily life in Aleppo on the @AlabedBana handle, an account managed by her mother Fatemah.

Last month, the young girl and her family were evacuated from the rebel-held eastern part of the city following a government offensive. They arrived in Turkey, where they met President Tayyip Erdogan.

Turkey has supported rebels fighting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

On her own @FatemahAlabed Twitter account, Fatemah posted a picture of the handwritten letter where the young girl introduces herself to Trump as “part of the Syrian children who suffered from the Syrian war”.

“…Can you please save the children and people of Syria? You must do something for the children of Syria because they are like your children and deserve peace like you,” the letter reads. “If you promise me you will do something for the children of Syria, I am already your new friend.”

Britain’s BBC quoted Fatemah as saying Bana penned the letter before Trump’s inauguration last Friday.

In the letter, Bana also talks about losing friends in the nearly-six-year conflict and her new life outside Syria.

“Right now in Turkey, I can go out and enjoy. I can go to school although I didn’t yet. That is why peace is important for everyone including you,” she said.

“However, millions of Syrian children are not like me right now and suffering in different parts of Syria. They are suffering because of adult people.”

On Wednesday, Trump said he “will absolutely do safe zones in Syria” for refugees fleeing violence, without giving further details. His comments came after Russia, Turkey and Iran on Tuesday backed a shaky truce between Syria’s warring parties.

(Reporting By Eleanor Whalley and Marie-Louise Gumuchian Editing by Jeremy Gaunt)

Fights, disturbances shut down malls across U.S.

By Brendan O’Brien and Ian Simpson

(Reuters) – Fights, disturbances and false reports of gunfire caused chaotic scenes and shut down several malls across the United States on Monday during the typically busy post-Christmas shopping day.

Eight to 10 people suffered minor injuries during a melee in the food court at The Mills at Jersey Gardens in Elizabeth, New Jersey, the mayor there said on Twitter.

Panic followed when someone shouted “gun,” after a chair hit the ground, causing a loud noise in the mall’s food court, Elizabeth Mayor Chris Bollwage tweeted.

Photos and video clips posted on social media showed heavily armed police officers responding to the incident as shoppers raced to exits and alarms rang out inside the mall.

Similar disturbances unfolded across the United States on Monday at malls that were packed with shoppers returning gifts, using gift cards they received over the holiday weekend and searching for clearance deals.

Many involved calls of shots being fired and youths fighting. It was unclear if the incidents were connected.

A large fight between teenagers broke out in the food court at the Cross Creek Mall in Fayetteville, North Carolina. Police fielded several unconfirmed reports of shots fired, said a Facebook post by the Fayetteville Police Department, which also said the mall was evacuated.

The Hulen Mall in Fort Worth, Texas, was on lockdown, Fort Worth police said on Twitter. The CBS website there reported that police said officers responded to reports of gunshots but arrived to find that several fights had broken out involving 100-150 people. There were no injuries, police said.

At least one fight shut down the Fox Valley Mall in Aurora, Illinois, late on Monday, and police were called to quell the disturbance, the Chicago Daily Herald reported, citing managers of businesses in the building.

Online videos showed uniformed personnel directing mall patrons out of the building and customers fleeing down an escalator. Police and mall management could not be reached for comment.

The Town Center Aurora in Aurora, Colorado, was also closed early after multiple skirmishes were reported inside the mall, the Aurora Police Department said on Twitter.

In Monroeville, Pennsylvania, police arrested four youths after fights broke out at the Monroeville Mall, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported.

Police put the Arizona Mills mall in Tempe, Arizona, on lockdown after reports of shots fired inside the shopping center. Two people, including a juvenile, were arrested after two fights broke out at the mall, an ABC affiliate reported.

Police arrested one juvenile at the Beachwood Place mall in Beachwood, Ohio, where a large disturbance occurred, an ABC affiliate in Cleveland reported.

(Reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee and Ian Simpson in Washington, D.C.; Editing by Paul Tait)

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