A MAN who smashed up Donald Trump’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame has avoided jail.

James Lambert Otis, 53, was filmed attacking the star with a pickaxe and a sledgehammer on October 26, two weeks before Mr Trump won the US presidential election.

Otis was charged with one count of vandalism and entered a plea of no contest at a court hearing overnight, the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office said.

He was sentenced to three years of formal probation and 20 days work with the California Department of Transportation.

He was also ordered to pay $US3700 ($A4816) dollars to the Hollywood Historic Trust and $US700 to the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, which manages the Walk of Fame.

Otis had faced three years in jail if convicted of the offence at trial, the district attorney’s office had previously said.

During the attack, Otis removed a brass medallion from the middle of Trump’s star, according to prosecutors.

TRUMP’S IMMIGRATION CRACKDOWN BEGINS

Donald Trump’s team has unveiled plans for a sweeping crackdown on illegal immigrants, releasing two memos which expand the pool of people targeted for detainment and deportation.

The Homeland Security Department guidance memos, signed by Secretary John Kelly, lay out that any immigrant living in America illegally who has been charged or convicted of any crime — and even those suspected of a crime — will now be an enforcement priority. That could include people arrested for shoplifting or minor traffic offences.

The memos eliminate far more narrow guidance issued under the Obama administration that resources strictly on immigrants who had been convicted of serious crimes, threats to national security and recent border crossers.

Secretary Kelly’s memos also describe plans to enforce a longstanding but obscure provision of the US Immigration and Nationality Act that allows the government to send some people caught illegally crossing the Mexican border back to Mexico, regardless of where they are from.

One of the memos says that foreigners sent back to Mexico would wait for their US deportation proceedings to be complete. This would be used for people who aren’t considered a threat to cross the border illegally again, the memo said.

The memos, which provide guidance on the implementation of two executive orders signed by Mr Trump in January, do not change US immigration laws, but take a far harder line toward enforcement.

TRUMP DENOUNCES ‘HATE, EVIL’

Mr Trump on Tuesday denounced recent threats against Jewish community centres as “horrible ... painful” and said more must be done “to root out hate and prejudice and evil.”

He made the remarks after touring the newly-opened National Museum of African-American History and Culture with Housing and Urban Development nominee Dr Ben Carson and his daughter, Ivanka Trump.

“This tour was a meaningful reminder of why we have to fight bigotry, intolerance and hatred in all of its very ugly forms,” Mr Trump said.

On Monday, 11 Jewish community centres across the country received phoned-in bomb threats, according to the JCC Association of North America. Like three waves of similar calls in January, Monday’s threats proved to be hoaxes, the association said in a statement.

“The anti-Semitic threats targeting our Jewish community and community centres are horrible and are painful and a very sad reminder of the work that still must be done to root out hate and prejudice and evil,” Mr Trump said. He did not outline what that might include.

The president’s comments marked the first time he had directly addressed recent incidents of anti-Semitism and followed a more general White House denouncement of “hatred and hate-motivated violence.”

America is a nation built on the principle of religious tolerance. We must protect our houses of worship & religious centers. #JCC — Ivanka Trump (@IvankaTrump) February 20, 2017

On Monday, Mr Trump’s daughter Ivanka Trump wrote on Twitter, “We must protect our houses of worship & religious centres,” and used the hashtag (hash)JCC. She converted to Judaism ahead of her 2009 marriage to Jared Kushner.

During the museum visit to mark black history month, Mr Trump “pledged” to do “everything I can” to protect the freedom of African Americans and praised Dr Carson, calling him a “great guy” a “a tremendous fighter for justice”.

Mr Trump vowed to “bring this divided country together,” and gloated about his “double-digit” election victory in South Carolina.

CLOONEY SLAMS ‘ELITIST’ TRUMP, BANNON

Actor George Clooney has hit back at critics who slam Hollywood stars for getting political, saying President Trump and White House chief strategist Stephen Bannon are the real “Hollywood elitists”.

“When Meryl [Streep] spoke, everyone on that one side said, ‘Well that’s elitist Hollywood speaking.’ Donald Trump has 22 acting credits in television,” Clooney said in an interview with the French network Canal Plus, referring to Streep’s Golden Globes speech last month.

He said the actress has “every right to speak up”, adding: “She was an American citizen long before she was an icon.”

Of Mr Trump, Clooney said: “(Trump) Collects $120,000 a year from his Screen Actors Guild pension fund. He is a Hollywood elitist.”

The 55-year-old also called out Mr Trump’s senior adviser: “Steve Bannon is a failed film writer and director. That the truth, that’s what he’s done. He wrote a Shakespearean rap musical about the LA riots that he couldn’t get made. He made a lot of money off of Seinfeld. He’s elitist Hollywood, I mean that’s the reality.”

Clooney called on journalists to continue to independently report on Mr Trump.

“We have a demagogue in the White House. We need the fourth estate, which is journalists, to hold his feet to the fire,” he said.

“They didn’t do a very good job during the campaign. And they haven’t done a particularly good job yet. But those things will change.”

CONSERVATIVE EDITOR’S ‘PAEDOPHILIA SCANDAL’

Breitbart editor and Trump supporter Milo Yiannopoulos’ book deal has been shafted after videos surfaced of him on Monday appearing to defend paedophilia.

Simon & Schuster cancelled publication of Dangerous, hours after the American Conservative Union rescinded the alt-right proponent’s upcoming talk.

In the shocking videos, the openly-gay writer flippantly said young boys “discover who they are” through relationships with older men, later implying that those relationships can be sexual in nature, and can “give them security and safety and provide them with love and a reliable rock where they can’t speak to their parents.”

Following the backlash, the 33-year-old Brit hit back on Facebook: “I’ve gone through worse. This will not defeat me.” He also said he was a sex abuse victim and devoted his career to “out” paedophiles.

TRUMP TO REVERSE OBAMA’S ENVIRONMENT RULES

Mr Trump is set to reverse a handful of Obama-era environmental regulations in executive orders that could be signed as early as this week, the Washington Post reports, citing unnamed sources with knowledge of the orders.

The orders will instruct the Department of the Interior to lift a ban on new coal mining leases on federal lands and will instruct the Environmental Protection Agency to make changes to greenhouse gas emissions curbs on electric utilities, according to the report on Tuesday.

EPA employees had been told that Mr Trump could sign some executive orders shortly after his pick to head the agency, Scott Pruitt, was confirmed by the US Senate, but they were not given the details of the orders, two EPA sources have told Reuters.

TRUMP MYSTERIOUSLY DELETES TWEET

Mr Trump posted and then quickly deleted a tweet about meeting generals at “Southern White House” Mar-a-Lago on Monday.

The US President, who has just returned from his estate in Palm Beach, Florida, tweeted: “Meeting with Generals at Mar-a-Lago, Florida. Very interesting!”

But within a few hours, the post had disappeared from social media.

Some legal experts say deleting tweets from official accounts is illegal, as the Presidential Records Act of 1978 states all presidential records must be preserved.