“Today as Americans we grieve the brutal murder, a horrific massacre of dozens of innocent people,” he said in a statement at the White House.

“Although it is still early in the investigation, we know enough to say that this was an act of terror and an act of hate,” Obama said.

“We will not give in to fear or turn against each other. Instead, we will stand united as Americans to protect our people and defend our nation, and to take action against those who threaten us.”

He ordered the flag at the White House to be flown at half staff to honour the victims.

The shooter, who was identified as Florida resident Omar S. Mateen was killed by police at the nightclub. A top U.S. congressman said Mateen may have pledged allegiance to the Islamic State militant group, but U.S. officials cautioned they had no direct evidence of a connection.

Fifty-three people were wounded in the rampage, which surpassed the 32 people killed in the 2007 massacre at Virginia Tech university.

Obama said it was appropriate for the FBI to investigate the massacre as an act of terrorism and said he would “spare no effort” to determine whether the assailant had been inspired or associated with an extremist group.

The president also termed the shooting a new reminder of “how easy it is for someone to get their hands on a weapon that lets them shoot people in a school or in a house of worship or a movie theatre or in a nightclub,” a reference to other mass killings that have punctuated recent U.S. history.

“We have to decide if that’s the kind of country we want to be,” he said.

(Reporting by Timothy Gardner, Sarah N. Lynch, Jason Lange, Ginger Gibson and David Morgan; Editing by Nick Zieminski and Chris Reese)

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In a statement, Lombardi said the Pope was shaken and saddened by the “homicidal folly and senseless hatred” of the attack.

“We all hope that ways may be found, as soon as possible, to effectively identify and contrast the causes of such terrible and absurd violence,” the statement said.

A gunman armed with an assault rifle carried out the attack on Sunday at a packed gay nightclub in what is the worst mass shooting in U.S. history.

(Reporting by Stephen Jewkes; Editing by Kevin Liffey)

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Afghan-born father of Omar Mateen, the man police identified as the gunman who killed 50 people at a packed gay nightclub in Florida on Sunday, is a fringe political commentator who rails against Pakistan and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani.

Seddique Mateen, who public records indicate is the father of Omar Mateen, had an occasional television show on a U.S.-based Afghan satellite channel for about three years, and has continued to post political commentaries on his Facebook page as recently as Sunday.

Omar Khatab, the owner of the California-based satellite channel Payam-e-Afghan, said in an interview that Seddique Mateen occasionally bought time on his channel to broadcast a show called “Durand Jirga,” which focused in part on the disputed Durand Line, the frontier between Afghanistan and Pakistan demarcated by the Indian subcontinent’s former British rulers.

In an interview with NBC News on Sunday, Seddique Mateen, also known as Mir Siddique, said his son’s rampage had “nothing to do with religion.”

He described an incident in downtown Miami in which his son, U.S.-born Omar Mateen, 29, of Florida, saw two men kissing in front of his wife and child and became very angry.

“We are saying we are apologising for the whole incident,” NBC News quoted Seddique Mateen as saying. “We weren’t aware of any action he is taking. We are in shock like the whole country.”

Seddique Mateen lives in Florida, according to public records, but it was not immediately known when he came to the United States. He did not return messages left on his phone, which appeared to be turned off, or respond to an email.

Khatab said Seddique Mateen would show up at his studio in Canoga Park, California, “three or four times a year” to tape his shows.

“He’d talk for about two to three hours,” Khatab said in a phone interview. “He’d buy his own time and come here and broadcast and leave within a day.”

CRITICAL OF PAKISTAN’S ISI

Khatab said Seddique Mateen’s political views were largely anti-Pakistan. A YouTube channel under Mateen’s name had more than 100 videos posted between 2012 and 2015.

One of the videos refers to the “killer ISI” – the acronym for Pakistan’s main military-run intelligence service – and says the agency is the “creator and father of the world’s terrorism.”

U.S. officials have accused Pakistani intelligence of backing violence against U.S. targets in Afghanistan, although Pakistan denies the allegations.

U.S. officials cautioned that they had no immediate evidence of any direct connection between the Florida attack and Islamic State or other foreign extremist group, nor had they uncovered any contacts between Omar Mateen and any such group.

Fifty-three people were wounded in the rampage. It was the deadliest single U.S. mass shooting incident, eclipsing the 2007 massacre of 32 people at Virginia Tech university.

Seddique Mateen interviewed Afghan President Ashraf Ghani in January 2014, according to a video posted on his YouTube channel. The interview touched on economic development and youth unemployment in Afghanistan. Khatab said Mateen conducted the interview in Kabul and brought it to California for broadcast.

During the interview Mateen praised Ghani but by the following year had changed his views, apparently angered by Ghani’s outreach to Pakistan in his bid to start peace talks with the Taliban. In a 2015 video, Mateen declared his own candidacy for the Afghan presidency, even though there was no election at that time.

In the videos, he wears a Western suit and tie and speaks Dari, a dialect of Persian spoken in northern Afghanistan. He harshly criticizes Ghani’s policies both at home and abroad and lashes out at Pakistan, its intelligence service, former Afghan President Hamid Karzai, and some senior Afghan government officials and jihadist figures.

In a February video on his Facebook page, he addresses Taliban members and castigates them for being the “servants” of the ISI.

In a June 11 video posted on Facebook, Mateen is dressed in military fatigues and says Afghanistan must “punish the traitors.”

“I wish a hero one day removes Ashraf Ghani’s turban and slaps this crazy man,” he said in the video. “This traitor has rolled up his sleeves to destroy our country.”

On Twitter, Ghani condemned the Orlando attack and called it an “act of terror.”

(Additional reporting by Yasmeen Abutaleb in San Francisco and Hamid Shalizi in Kabul; Editing by Bill Trott)

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ORLANDO, Fla. (Reuters) – A man armed with an assault rifle killed 50 people at a packed gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, on Sunday in the worst mass shooting in U.S. history, which President Barack Obama described as an act of terror and hate.

Police killed the shooter, who was identified as Omar Mateen, 29, a Florida resident and U.S. citizen who was the son of immigrants from Afghanistan.

Law enforcement officials were probing evidence that suggested the attack may have been inspired by Islamic State militants, although they cautioned there was no proof that Mateen had worked directly with the group.

“It has been reported that Mateen made calls to 911 this morning in which he stated his allegiance to the leader of the Islamic State,” said Ronald Hopper, the FBI’s assistant special agent in charge on the case.

Shots rang out at the crowded nightclub, in the heart of one the United States’ most popular tourist destination cities, as some 350 people had packed in during celebrations of gay pride week. Clubgoers described scenes of terror, with one man who escaped saying he hid under a car and bandaged a wounded stranger.

“Words cannot and will not describe the feeling of that,” clubgoer Joshua McGill said in a posting on Facebook. “Being covered in blood. Trying to save a guy’s life.”

Fifty-three people were wounded in the rampage. It was the deadliest single U.S. mass shooting incident, eclipsing the 2007 massacre of 32 people at Virginia Tech university.

“We know enough to say this was an act of terror, an act of hate,” Obama said in a speech from the White House. “As Americans, we are united in grief, in outrage and in resolve to defend our people.”

U.S. officials cautioned, however, that they had no conclusive evidence of any direct connection with Islamic State or any other foreign extremist group.

“So far as we know at this time, his first direct contact was a pledge of bayat (loyalty) he made during the massacre,” said a U.S. counter terrorism official. “This guy appears to have been pretty screwed up without any help from anybody.”

The attack came six months after a married couple in California fatally shot 14 people in San Bernardino in an attack inspired by Islamic State.

‘UNIMAGINABLE’

The shooting evolved into a hostage situation, which a team of SWAT officers ended around dawn when they used armoured cars to storm the club before shooting dead the gunman. It was unclear when the victims were killed.

The number of dead shocked officials in Orlando, a city of 270,000 people and home to tourist attractions including the Disney World resort. They had initially put the death toll at 20.

“We’re dealing with something that we never imagined and is unimaginable,” Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer said. He said 39 people died inside the club, two outside, and nine others died after being rushed to hospital.

Orlando Regional Medical Center hospital said it had admitted 44 victims, including nine who died, and had carried out 26 operations on victims.

The city of Orlando, which drew 62 million visitors in 2014,  began releasing names of the victims on Sunday, with the first four identified as Edward Sotomayor Jr., Stanley Almodovar, Luis Omar Ocasio-Capo and Juan Ramon Guerrero.

PRIOR FBI INTERVIEWS

Mateen had twice been interviewed by FBI agents, in 2013 and 2014, after making comments to co-workers indicating he supported militant groups, but neither interview led to evidence of criminal activity, the FBI’s Hopper said.

A dozen unmarked police cars had gathered around a Port Saint Lucie house that appeared to be linked to the gunman.

Likely Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, who has called for a temporary ban on Muslims entering the United States, said he was “right on radical Islamic terrorism” and called on Obama to resign because he did not say the words “radical Islam” in his statement responding to the shooting.

Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton tweeted a brief statement after the attacks, but did not speculate on the motives of the gunman.

Florida Governor Rick Scott called for Americans to hold a moment of silence at 6 p.m. EDT (2200 GMT) to commemorate the dead. World leaders including Pope Francis, Britain’s Queen Elizabeth and the leaders of Canada and Afghanistan condemned the attack.

Mateen was born in New York of parents who were immigrants from Afghanistan, according to a federal official who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

If confirmed as an act of terrorism, it would be the deadliest such attack on U.S. soil since Sept. 11, 2001, when al Qaeda-trained hijackers crashed jetliners into New York’s World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania, killing some 3,000 people.

Mateen also referenced the ethnic Chechen brothers who killed three people in a bombing attack at the Boston Marathon in 2013, according to law enforcement officials.

The Orlando attacker was carrying an AR-15 style assault rifle and a handgun, Orange County Sheriff Jerry Demings said. He also had an unidentified “device,” said Orlando Police Chief John Mina.

The choice of target was especially heart-wrenching for members of the U.S. lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community, said LGBT advocacy group Equality Florida.

“Gay clubs hold a significant place in LGBTQ history. They were often the only safe gathering place and this horrific act strikes directly at our sense of safety,” the group said in a statement. “We will await the details in tears of sadness and anger.”

(Additional reporting by Letitia Stein in Tampa, Fla., Zachary Fagenson in Port Saint Lucie, Fla., Colleen Jenkins in Winston-Salem, N.C. and Jonathan Landay and Mark Hosenball in Washington; Writing by Scott Malone and Daniel Wallis; Editing by Alistair Bell and Peter Cooney)

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FARMINGDALE, N.Y.:  Cemtrex Inc. a world leading industrial and manufacturing solutions company, announced today that India’s willingness to ratify the Paris Climate Accord, as indicated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s commitment to U.S. President Obama during his recent visit to the White House, further strengthens the Company’s prospects of opening up worldwide markets for its VAMOX Greenhouse gas reduction technology. In April of this year the Chinese government strengthened its commitment to reducing greenhouse gas emissions during the Chinese premier’s visit to the White House. The Company believes that these concrete efforts by India and China are potential catalysts for increased global demand for its existing methane (greenhouse gas) reduction technology, VAMOX. Cemtrex is one of only two companies in the world with the technology to supply this market.

So far, at least three dozen countries have said they will ratify the deal, and India’s participation will push the world over the threshold to ratification. “I think we are better-positioned than we ever have been to reach the goal of 55% of emissions and 55 countries by the end of this year, and I think this statement should provide significant additional momentum toward this global push,” said Brian Deese, Obama’s senior energy and climate adviser.

Cemtrex Chairman and CEO, Saagar Govil , commented, “We are delighted to see the world’s largest players working together towards improved climate control regulation and excited that VAMOX can play an important role in sustainability.”

Cemtrex is one of only two companies in the world with critical greenhouse gas reduction technology.

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HANOI (Reuters) – U.S. President Barack Obama is set to lay out more of his plan for a stronger alliance with Vietnam on Tuesday, after scrapping an arms ban that was the last big hurdle between two countries drawn together by concern over China’s military buildup.

The removal of a vestige of the Vietnam War suggests U.S. worries about Beijing’s building of man-made island in the South China Sea and deployment of advanced radars and missile batteries in the disputed region trumped concern about Vietnam’s human rights record.

Washington had for years said a lifting of the ban would require concrete steps by Vietnam in allowing freedom of speech, worship and assembly and releasing political prisoners.

In a joint news conference on Monday with his Vietnamese counterpart Tran Dai Quang, Obama said “modest” human rights improvements had been made and the decision to end the embargo was about the changing dynamic in ties and “not based on China”.

The Global Times tabloid, run by the Chinese Communist Party’s official People’s Daily, said that was a lie and made a point of the what it said was a U.S. willingness to relax standards on human rights for the sake of containing China.

The White House “is taking advantage of Vietnam to stir up more troubles in the South China Sea”, it said.

Obama is to meet civil society representatives on Tuesday, among them dissidents, who may disagree with his arms ban decision. Some Vietnamese activists have expressed disappointment that Obama may have given away leverage with the communist leadership.

A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said there was evidence engagement had worked in nudging Vietnam to make concessions, like its “unprecedented” commitment to set up independent labour unions under a U.S.-inspired Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal.

In a statement late on Monday, Communist Party chief Nguyen Phu Trong spoke of the importance of building relations of mutual respect while “not interfering in each other’s internal affairs”.

TRADE PUSH

Obama will give a speech in Hanoi about the development of relations since normalisation in 1995 and will champion his signature TPP, which would remove tariffs within a 12-nation bloc worth a combined $28 trillion of gross domestic product.

Vietnam’s manufacturing and export-led economy is seen as the biggest TPP beneficiary. Annual U.S-Vietnam trade has swelled from $450 million when ties were normalised to $45 billion last year, and Washington is a big buyer of Vietnam’s televisions, smartphones, clothing and seafood.

The TPP is not a done deal, with opposition expected in Washington amid concern about competition and a loss of U.S. jobs. Obama said he was confident the trade pact would be approved by legislators and he had not seen a credible argument that the deal would dent American business.

Obama will on Tuesday fly to Ho Chi Minh City, the country’s commercial hub, which was called Saigon until North Vietnamese tanks rolled into the city in April 1975 to bring U.S.-backed South Vietnam under communist rule.

He will meet young entrepreneurs at one of the co-working spaces that host Vietnam’s budget tech startups, which have been receiving attention from angel investors and Silicon Valley funds.

Obama spoke of a U.S. intention to work more closely in defence areas with Vietnam, which is keen to build a deterrent against China. Vietnam and the United States last year held coastguard and humanitarian training exercises.

Washington has longstanding defence alliances in the region with the Philippines, which is also at odds with China, and Thailand, and organises annual war games with both.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry attended a ceremony on Tuesday in which a deal was agreed with Vietnam to allow the U.S. Peace Corps to work there.

Tuesday’s English-language China Daily said Obama’s visit “bodes ill for regional peace and stability”, and would further complicate the situation in the South China Sea, and risk turning the region into a “tinderbox of conflicts”.

 (Additional reporting by My Pham, Ho Binh Minh and Mai Nguyen in HANOI and John Ruwitch in SHANGHAI; Editing by Robert Birsel)

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) – In April 2014, the administration of President Barack Obama announced the most ambitious clemency program in 40 years, inviting thousands of jailed drug offenders and other convicts to seek early release and urging lawyers across the country to take on their cases.

Nearly two years later the program is struggling under a deluge of unprocessed cases, sparking concern within the administration and among justice reform advocates over the fate of what was meant to be legacy-defining achievement for Obama.

More than 8,000 cases out of more than 44,000 federal inmates who applied have yet to make it to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) for review, lawyers involved in the program told Reuters. That is in addition to about 9,000 cases that are still pending at the DOJ, according to the department’s own figures.

Only 187 inmates have had their sentences commuted, far below the thousands expected by justice reform advocates and a tiny fraction of the 2.2 million people behind bars in the United States, which has the world’s highest incarceration rate.

The administration said it wanted to decide on all the applications before Obama’s term ends next January, when the program will automatically expire.

A senior DOJ official told Reuters it is calling on the lawyers’ group — Clemency Project 2014 — to simply hand over the outstanding cases without further vetting, saying it is not working fast enough. So far, the group estimates it has handed over around 200 cases.

But criminal justice experts say the administration itself should bear much of the blame. The idea to tap pro-bono attorneys to help vet the cases originated with the DOJ, and critics say it should have prepared its own staff to handle the large volume of applications.

“It’s unfair to criticize the volunteer group that you asked to help,” said Rachel Barkow, a criminal law professor at New York University who has studied clemency in U.S. prisons.

She estimates that about 1,500 prisoners should be eligible for commutation, saying the 187 granted so far does not “fulfill the promise of the program.”

The DOJ declined to comment when asked for its response to such criticism.

The delays have left prisoners like Linda Byrnes, 69, in limbo.

“I thought clemency was for people like me,” Byrnes told Reuters through an electronic messaging system from a federal prison in Alderson, West Virginia.

Byrnes, who has spent 20 years in prison for distributing marijuana and has two years left on her sentence, was recently diagnosed with mouth cancer and has yet to hear whether she has been assigned a lawyer after submitting her application to Clemency Project in August 2014.

Obama, who has commuted more sentences than the past five presidents combined, has been a stern critic of harsh U.S. sentencing policies that he says have disproportionately burdened minorities.

Federal life sentences have fallen since Obama took office, from 280 in fiscal year 2009 to 153 in 2013, according to the U.S. Sentencing Commission. About three quarters of the sentences were given to minorities and most were for non-violent offences, the report said.

Clemency Project 2014 said it does not comment publicly on the individuals it represents.

The group vets the applications, writes the petitions and sends them to the Justice Department’s Office of the Pardon Attorney, which oversees all pardons and sentence commutations and makes recommendations for the president’s approval.

So far, 25,000 of 34,000 applications received by Clemency Project have been rejected for failing to meet the basic criteria – no record of violence, no significant ties to a gang or drug cartel, good behavior in prison and completion of at least 10 years of sentence. About 10,000 inmates did not go through the Clemency Project and either applied directly to DOJ or through a paid attorney.  “It really would be a sad state of affairs if individuals who had asked for a lawyer weren’t considered in time because their petitions never reached the pardon attorney’s office,” a DOJ official told Reuters on the condition of anonymity.

(Graphic on the clemency bottleneck: http://tmsnrt.rs/1VThxVT)

“CRITICAL ROLE”

A large number of mostly unqualified applications, a shortage of lawyers and the complexity of the cases have slowed progress, said Cynthia Roseberry, project manager for Clemency Project 2014.

“There are a lot of gray areas,” said Roseberry, who estimates it takes 30 days for one lawyer to review one case on average. “We’ve got to unpack each of these applicants to see specifically what factors affect them… and so that takes a little more time.”

This includes finding pre-sentencing reports for each case, determining if the person would have received a shorter sentence under current law and reviewing prison behavior records.

Roseberry said the group was unaware of any request from the Justice Department to hand over the pending applications. Roseberry said the group’s initially slow pace has picked up in recent months.

The Justice Department declined to elaborate on its private communication with the lawyers.

The Pardon Attorney’s office has brought in personnel from other parts of the department to help to speed up reviews of petitions, the DOJ official said.

Roseberry said about 3,000 applicants still need to be assigned to a lawyer, and that it was not certain whether the group will be able to submit all of the applications it has received before Obama leaves office.

The group has more than 570 law firms and 30 law schools contributing to the effort.

Some rejected prisoners and those who have yet to hear a decision say they believe they would have had a better chance if they had sent their clemency petition directly to the government.

Josie Ledezma was sentenced to life for conspiracy to transport cocaine and applied for clemency through Clemency Project 2014. She said she did not hear from them for six months and later learned that her assigned lawyer had shut down her legal practice. In January, nearly one year after applying, she was told Clemency Project 2014 could not help her and encouraged her to apply directly.

“I wrote back and asked what was it that made me not qualify, but never got a response,” Ledezma told Reuters through an electronic messaging service for federal prisoners.

(Editing by Jason Szep and Stuart Grudgings)

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AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) – U.S. President Barack Obama on Friday made a passionate case for mobile devices to be built in a way that would allow the government to gain access to personal data if needed to prevent a terrorist attack or enforce tax laws.

Speaking at the South by Southwest festival in Texas, the president said he could not comment on the legal case in which the Federal Bureau of Investigation is trying to force Apple Inc. to allow access to an iPhone linked to San Bernardino, California, shooter Rizwan Farook.

But he made clear that despite his commitment to Americans’ privacy and civil liberties, a balance was needed to allow some government intrusion if necessary.

“If technologically it is possible to make an impenetrable device or system where the encryption is so strong that there is no key, there’s no door at all, then how do we apprehend the child pornographer, how do we solve or disrupt a terrorist plot?” he said.

“What mechanisms do we have available to even do simple things like tax enforcement because if in fact you can’t crack that at all, government can’t get in, then everybody is walking around with a Swiss bank account in their pocket.”

Last month, the FBI obtained a court order requiring Apple to write new software and take other measures to disable passcode protection and allow access to Farook’s iPhone.

Apple, which declined to comment on Obama’s remarks on Friday, has not complied. It said the government request would create a “back door” to phones that could be abused by criminals and governments, and that Congress has not given the Justice Department authority to make such a demand.

Obama’s comments were his most expansive on the subject since the dispute.

He acknowledged skepticism about the government in the wake of the revelations about U.S. surveillance programs by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden.

But he pressed his point that a compromise that respected civil liberties and protected security had to be found. That solution would likely be a system with strong encryption and a secure “key” that is accessible to the “smallest number of people possible” for issues that were agreed to be important.

“Setting aside the specific case between the FBI and Apple … we’re going to have to make some decisions about how do we balance these respective risks,” Obama said.

“My conclusion so far is you cannot take an absolutist view.”

Adding to his argument, the president listed airport security and stops for drunk drivers as examples of measures that were intrusive but accepted. He also warned against “fetishizing” phones.

“This notion that somehow our data is different and can be walled off from those other tradeoffs we make I believe is incorrect,” he said.

Top White House officials have lobbied the industry aggressively to work with the government on the issue, which was brought to a head by the California shootings.

The FBI says Farook and his wife were inspired by Islamist militants when they shot and killed 14 people on Dec. 2 at a holiday party in California. The couple later died in a shootout with police.

(Additional reporting by Timothy Gardner and Dustin Volz; Editing by Robert Birsel)

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama and new Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Thursday ended a frosty period in bilateral ties by agreeing to tackle climate change and strive to settle a long-lasting trade dispute over Canadian softwood lumber exports.

The neighboring countries are traditionally close but relations had soured under former prime minister Stephen Harper, who hectored the White House in a failed bid to push through U.S. approval for the Keystone XL oil pipeline.

Obama and Trudeau, whose Liberals came to power last November promising better cooperation with Washington, pledged joint steps to fight global warming, including cutting methane emissions from oil and gas operations.

The countries committed to cutting emissions of methane by 40 to 45 percent below 2012 levels by 2025, to take steps to fight climate change in the Arctic, and to speed development of green technologies.

They also told officials to look for solutions to a lengthy dispute over exports of Canadian softwood lumber, as well as promising to make it easier for goods and people to cross the long shared border.

“I am grateful that I have him as a partner … When it comes to the central challenges that we face, our two nations are more closely aligned than ever,” Obama told a news conference after talks with Trudeau.

“The President and I agree on many things including, of paramount importance, the direction we want to take our countries in to ensure a clean and prosperous future,” said Trudeau.

In another sign of friendlier bilateral ties, Trudeau invited Obama to address the Canadian Parliament this year.

Americans have been captivated by the photogenic Trudeau, 44, whose father, Pierre Trudeau, was prime minister from 1968 through 1979, and again from 1980 to 1984.

His visit will be capped by a state dinner on Thursday but that could be overshadowed by the race to succeed Obama in November’s presidential election. Candidates for the Republican nomination will hold a debate on Thursday night.

Trudeau declined to say what he would do in case the next president was Donald Trump, who has mused about tearing up the North American Free Trade Agreement.

“The friendship between our two countries goes far beyond any two individuals or any ideologies,” he said.

“I have tremendous confidence in the American people, and look forward to working with whomever they choose to send to this White House later this year.”

(Additional reporting by Roberta Rampton in Washington; Editing by James Dalgleish)

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By Luciana Lopez and Steve Holland

LAS VEGAS/COLUMBIA, S.C. (Reuters) – Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump rolled to victory on Saturday in South Carolina in a contest that saw former Florida Governor Jeb Bush drop out, while Democratic hopeful Hillary Clinton beat back a strong challenge from Bernie Sanders in Nevada.

The victories by Trump and Clinton solidified their positions as the front-runners to win their parties’ respective presidential nominations ahead of the Nov. 8 election.

Bush suffered a distant fourth place finish in the Republican contest and announced he had suspended his campaign, ending his dream of becoming a third Bush president after his father and brother.

“The people of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina have spoken, and I really respect their decision,” an emotional Bush said in Columbia. He finished far out of the running in each of the first three states.

By winning both South Carolina and New Hampshire and holding leads in the 11 states that vote on March 1, Trump was arguably on track to win the nomination, an outcome that seemed astounding to contemplate when he got into the race last summer.

“It’s going to be very difficult for him to be derailed at this point,” said Hogan Gidley, who was a senior adviser to former Republican candidate Mike Huckabee.

Trump, 69, was declared the victor about an hour after polls closed in South Carolina.

“Let’s put this thing away,” Trump said in his victory speech in Spartanburg.

Trump was as feisty and anti-establishment as ever, denouncing TV pundits for saying that if his remaining opponents consolidated around one Trump alternative, there would be enough anti-Trump votes to beat him.

“These geniuses,” he said. “They don’t understand that as people drop out, I’m going to get a lot of those votes also. You don’t just add them together.”

He easily defeated Florida Senator Marco Rubio and Texas Senator Ted Cruz, who were in a close fight for second place and the right to declare themselves the anti-Trump alternative.

With 73 percent of South Carolina precincts reporting, Trump had 33.1 percent, followed by Rubio with 22.3 percent and Cruz with 21.7 percent.

It was Trump’s second victory in a row, an outcome that frightens establishment Republicans but thrills the “throw-the-bums-out” conservative base of the party that has long been fed up with Washington.

The bellicose New York billionaire had created some last-minute drama in South Carolina after Pope Francis said on Thursday his views on U.S. immigration were “not Christian.” Trump initially called Francis “disgraceful,” but later called him “a wonderful guy.”

Trump, who has also advocated a ban on Muslim immigrants to counter domestic terror threats, stirred fresh controversy on Friday when he told a crowd about a U.S. general who was said to have dipped bullets in pigs’ blood to kill Muslim prisoners a century ago.

After South Carolina, the Republican presidential campaign is about to rapidly pick up steam in March when dozens of states hold nominating contests. Another candidate, Ohio Governor John Kasich, is concentrating on midwestern and northern states in the state-by-state contest to pick nominees for the Nov. 8 election.

Clinton’s victory in the Nevada Democratic caucuses, meanwhile, could help calm Democratic Party worries about the strength of her campaign.

Her win denied Sanders the breakthrough win he had sought in a state with a heavy minority population, but his ability to close a one-time double-digit polling lead for Clinton suggests the Democratic nominating race will be long and hard fought.

With 87 percent of precincts reporting, Clinton was leading with 52.5 percent of the vote to Sanders’ 47.4 percent. Vote counting was delayed in Nevada by heavy turnout.

Clinton’s victory buoyed worried supporters and gave her fresh momentum as she heads into the next contest in South Carolina on Feb. 27, where polls show her with a double-digit lead largely as a result of heavy support from black voters.

“Some may have doubted us, but we never doubted each other,” she told cheering supporters at a victory rally in Las Vegas. “This is your campaign.”

Sanders vowed to fight on and set his sights on the 11 states that vote on “Super Tuesday,” March 1. He predicted that when Democrats gather for their nominating convention in Philadelphia in July, “We are going to see the results of one of the great political upsets in the history of the United States.”

“The wind is at our banks,” he said. “We have the momentum.”

After routing Clinton in New Hampshire and finishing a strong second in Iowa, states with nearly all-white populations, Sanders had hoped to prove in Nevada that he could win over black and Hispanic voters and compete nationally as the race moves to states with more diverse populations.

But entrance polling in Nevada showed he badly lost among black voters, by 76 percent to 22 percent, a bad omen for South Carolina and other southern states with big black populations. He did win among Hispanics by 53 percent to 45 percent.

Clinton’s campaign has argued she would assert control of the Democratic race once it moved to more diverse states with black and Hispanic populations who have traditionally backed Clinton and have been slow to warm to Sanders.

(Reporting by Luciana Lopez and Steve Holland; Writing by John Whitesides, Steve Holland and Richard Valdmanis; Editing by Andrew Hay)

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