US POLICE have used "less lethal munitions" to help clear the streets after another night of nationwide protests against Donald Trump's election came to a head in Portland, Oregon.
Around 4,000 protesters surged into the downtown area late on Thursday night with chants like "we reject the president-elect". Some smashed store windows, lit firecrackers and started a fire causing police to term the protest as a riot.
Officers began physically pushing back against the crowd that at times threw objects at them as midnight approached, arresting several people and using types of smoke or tear gas to force them to disperse.
After several orders to leave, police said officers used "less lethal munitions", such as pepper spray and rubber projectiles. Live video footage showed officers firing what appeared to be the non-lethal items.
Protester numbers continued to dwindle through the night and as the early morning hours wore on, police told remaining clusters of demonstrators to immediately disperse or be "subject to arrest and the use of riot-control agents".
Around the country from New York to Chicago to California, in Republican-voting states as well as Democratic, hundreds of demonstrators marched through streets, many for the third straight night though in somewhat smaller numbers.
Mr Trump himself fired back late on Thursday, tweeting: "Just had a very open and successful presidential election. Now professional protesters, incited by the media, are protesting. Very unfair."
In Denver, protesters managed to shut down Interstate 25 near downtown Denver briefly on Thursday night. Police said demonstrators made their way onto the motorway and traffic was halted in the northbound and southbound lanes for about half an hour. Protesters also briefly shut down interstate highways in Minneapolis and Los Angeles.
In San Francisco, high-spirited high school students marched, chanting "not my president" and holding signs urging a Donald Trump eviction. They waved rainbow banners and Mexican flags, as bystanders in the heavily Democratic city gave high-fives to the marchers from the sidelines.
"As a white, queer person, we need unity with people of colour, we need to stand up," Claire Bye, a 15-year-old student at Academy High School, said.
"I'm fighting for my rights as an LGBTQ person. I'm fighting for the rights of brown people, black people, Muslim people."
In New York City, a large group of demonstrators once again gathered outside Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue on Thursday night. They chanted angry slogans and waved banners baring anti-Trump messages.
"You got everything straight up and down the line," demonstrator David Thomas said.
"You got climate change, you got the Iran deal. You got gay rights, you got mass deportations. Just everything, straight up and down the line, the guy is wrong on every issue."
In Philadelphia, protesters near City Hall held signs bearing slogans like 'Not Our President',' 'Trans Against Trump' and 'Make America Safe For All'.
Around 500 people turned out at a protest in Louisville, Kentucky, and in Baltimore, hundreds of people marched to the stadium where the Ravens were playing an American football game.
Hundreds of protesters demonstrated outside Trump Tower in Chicago and a growing group was getting into some shoving matches with police in Oakland, California.
As expected, the demonstrations prompted some social media backlash from Trump supporters accusing protesters of sour grapes or worse, though there were no significant counter-protests.
Mr Trump's supporters said the protesters were not respecting the democratic process.
