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No Kings protests live updates: hundreds of thousands rally in cities around the world against Trump and his administration | Protest (US)
Key events
Fabiola Cineas
As one of DC’s No Kings marches wound down at the Southwest Waterfront, protesters said they want the country to remember that DC was the “guinea pig.”
“Donald Tump unleashed this on Washington DC first,” Ama’d, 27, said as a group of National Guard members stood a few feet away. “We need to rest of the country to know that we are being over-policed in our communities.
Ama’d, an activist and music artist, helped design protest music that he performed on a float. “No one man should have all that power! We need our rights back! We’re taking back ours,” one musician rapped as crowds of protesters chanted, “Free DC! Free DC!”
As protesters made their way to the Waterfront metro station, organizers distributed flyers for future protests, including a daily “Hands Off the Arts” protest to “keep the Kennedy Center open” and “save jobs,” organizers told the Guardian.
For a 1 May protest, activists are demanding a day of “No work. No School. No shopping,” another flyer states.
“Part of what we are trying to do is be in solidarity with other groups and movements that are being attacked and one of them is the labor unions and working people here in DC,” said Nachama Wilker, 64, a volunteer with Free DC, the local organization advocating for DC home rule and DC statehood. “The May action is in solidarity with all of these labor organizations as Trump guts union jobs in DC”.
Wilker added, “People come out to these big rallies, and they don’t know how to plug in after the rally. That’s a big reason why I am handing out these flyers”.
Rachel Leingang
Jane Fonda, Joan Baez and Maggie Rogers are closing out the day’s speakers in St. Paul.
“This is not the America I was told existed,” Fonda said. “I was told we are the people.”
Rogers praised Minnesotans for their resilience, saying it was inspiring. “So much love in the face of evil,” she said.
Baez praised Minnesota’a resistance, saying “thank you, Minneapolis”.
Then, Baez and Rogers ended the rally by singing “The Times They Are A-Changing.”
As No Kings protests begin to wrap up on the east coast, they’re just getting started in California.
Here’s a glimpse of the demonstrations under way in San Francisco and Los Angeles:
Lex McMenamin
The multiple No Kings contingents in Manhattan merged through Times Square, continuously flanked by photographers. Families carried LGBTQ pride flags and Palestinian flags, while older marchers held pun-heavy protest signs, and others handed out whistles. Across age groups and race — though the crowd did overall lean white and older, it was by no means homogenous — the consistent themes were anti-ICE, pro-LGBTQ, and, obviously, anti-Trump.
But perhaps the most consistent theme was anti-war. Multiple signs connected the Epstein files to the Trump administration’s decision to target Iran and spend immense amounts of funding on warfare. “This war has to stop,” said M.B., 55, who came in from Queens to protest. “American people do not want what this administration is doing. We don’t want it. We need healthcare, we need jobs. We need infrastructure.”
The front of the march reached the dispersal point at Madison Square Garden by 3:30 local time, and more than an hour later, protesters still streamed through the closed intersection. Leftist organizing groups and political parties set up shop to peel protesters off as they walked to the subway, flyering for future actions and ways to get involved in their work.
Rachel Leingang
Organizers in Minnesota estimate at least 200,000 are at the main march at the state capitol in St. Paul.
The crowd stretches back further than I can see in multiple directions.
“Fuck ICE” and “ICE OUT” signs and pins are a frequent site, an indicator of how much the federal government’s incursion into the state left a mark on its people.
Speakers on the stage talked about how they and their organizations responded on the ground to their neighbors’ needs during the surge.
Bernie Sanders riled up the crowd with remarks about the role of the ultra rich in politics.
My colleage Amy Qin is continuing to report live from Chicago, where a diverse slate of speakers, including faith leaders and legal advocates, have addressed a crowd gathered at Butler Field in Grant Park:
The loudest cheers came when two student protest leaders came on stage, including Leah Sophia Lopez, a student at Social Justice High School in Chicago’s Little Village neighborhood, a predominately Latino neighborhood that was a frequent target of Trump’s immigration enforcement campaign last fall.
“My fellow Americans: kids are being put into cages while our government funds war and genocides,” said Lopez, who led hundreds of students in a school walk out protesting ICE last year. “America is built off of protest, immigrants, slaves, we built this county.”
Illinois lieutenant governor Juliana Stratton closed out the rally to thunderous cheers from the crowd. “We came here to make it clear that we will never bow to a king,” she said. “Illinois will stand up and fight back like we always do.”
Fabiola Cineas
Thousands of protesters are rallying across the Washington, DC region as No Kings protests spread across the nation’s capital.
One protest group, made up of about a dozen Palestinian mothers, stood at the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and waved a massive 10-foot-tall Palestinian flag. One of the mothers, activist Hazami Barmada, 42, said she was protesting to draw attention to “Israel’s atrocities against the Palestinian people.”
“Most Americans don’t know that our tax dollars are being used to subsidize violence,” Barmada said. “This is happening while many Americans can’t afford housing, milk, school, or healthcare. Prices continue to go up as we are fighting Israel’s wars.”
Other protesters, led by local activist organizations including Free DC, gathered at the Frederick Douglass Bridge in southeast Washington, DC. The crowd marched across the bridge to Fort McNair in Southwest DC where White House senior advisor Stephen Miller resides. The protest’s organizers say Miller is “running the effort to take over DC.”
Protesters told the Guardian they wanted to draw attention to the occupation of Washington, DC. In August, President Trump issued an executive order that put the federal government in charge of the Washington, DC Metropolitan Police Department. Trump used an additional executive order to deployed more than 2,000 members of the National Guard to the nation’s capital. Trump said the Guard members were mobilized to fight crime, though violent crime in DC is at a 30-year low.
Bruce Springsteen headlines rally in Minnesota
Rachel Leingang
At the flagship protest in St Paul, Minnesota, many tens of thousands filled the streets around the state capitol to commiserate, mourn and speak out again the Trump administration.
Bruce Springsteen sang his song about the death and destruction brought by ICE to this state, Streets of Minneapolis, leading the crowd in chants of “ICE OUT NOW.”
Governor Tim Walz introduced Springsteen, saying it was clear America needed “no damn kings” but it needed The Boss.
Walz praised his state as the “freest” in the country and commended the state’s people for standing up for each other and for immigrants when Trump sent in thousands of federal agents, who killed two Minnesotans.
The names of Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti featured heavily in the No Kings protest and signs here in Minnesota.
“We will never forget what they did here,” Walz said of the Trump administration. “You’ll still be here when that orange clown is in the dustbin of history.”
Thousands of protesters are rallying at Butler Field in Grant Park, Chicago, where my colleage Amy Qin is reporting:
As they filed into the park, protesters chanted “ICE out” and “Trump must go now, facists gotta go now”.
Chicago mayor Brandon Johnson was the first to speak at the event, opening by addressing the size of the crowd: “Look around: Our movement is bigger, our resolve is bigger.”
“We’re sending a clear message: we’re gonna end these assaults against working people, against immigrants and end these endless wars,” Johnson said.
In the crowd, protesters held aloft signs reading “No country for orange men” and “Imagine hating immigrants more than pedophiles”. Others waved signs denouncing ICE, supporting voting rights and criticizing wars.
Later in the rally, Dian Palmer, president of SEIU Local 73, said, “Fascism is really just one thing: powerful people using force to keep everyone else down, and unions exist to push back against that.”
Also at the event, social worker and Chicago Therapy Collective executive director Iggy Ladden denounced the Trump administration’s attacks against transgender people.
“Trans people are a direct threat to fascism because depends on control telling people who they can and cannot be,” Ladden said. “When we build a world that protects trans people we build a world that’s better for everyone.”
As demonstrators gather across the United States, the White House and Republican leadership are denouncing the No Kings day events planned today as “Trump Derangement Therapy Sessions”.
In a statement, White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said the demonstrations were created by “leftist funding networks” and that “only people who care about these Trump Derangement Therapy Sessions are the reporters who are paid to cover them.”
The National Republican Congressional Committee echoed the White House. “These Hate America Rallies are where the far-left’s most violent, deranged fantasies get a microphone,” spokesperson Maureen O’Toole told the Associated Press.
Protesters are gathering in Minnesota’s Twin Cities for a flagship No Kings rally in St Paul. Bruce Springsteen is expected to headline the event and perform Streets of Minneapolis, which he wrote following the deaths of Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti earlier this year.
Joan Baez, Jane Fonda and senator Bernie Sanders are also expected at the St Paul rally, which organizers believe could attract about 100,000 people.
Lex McMenamin
Well before the main New York City No Kings march was set to touch off near Central Park’s south-west edge, protesters milled through the frigid midtown streets with posters and banners, donning costumes, keffiyehs and parkas.
By 1.50pm, Letitia James, the state attorney general, Jumaane Williams, the city public advocate, Robert De Niro, Rev Al Sharpton and Padma Lakshmi filed into the front of the crowd behind hand painted banners reading: “WE PROTECT OUR DEMOCRACY – PEOPLE OVER BILLIONAIRES – WE PROTECT OUR NEIGHBORS.” They joined union members in AFT merch and protesters of all ages.
Press photographers swarming the celebrities slowed the progress of the march down 7th Avenue, making it difficult for them to take off. “From Palestine to Mexico, all the walls have got to go,” someone boomed into a small speaker, half a block ahead of the celebrities. “Racist ICE, you can’t hide, we charge you with genocide!” Hundreds more people awaited the march in Times Square, while another march proceeded parallel down Broadway to convene.
Protest against the far-right underway in UK
With No Kings protests under way in the United States, my colleagues across the pond are covering a massive, although unrelated, demonstration against the far-right in the United Kingdom.
Organizers believe about half a million people gathered in London today in what was expected to be the biggest multicultural march in UK history, organized by the Together Alliance.
“Together was formed in response to last September’s far-right ‘unite the kingdom’ demonstration, when violent groups went on the rampage. The overwhelming majority of people reject the racism, Islamophobia, division, hatred and violence promoted by Tommy Robinson and the far right,” Sabby Dhalu, of Stand Up to Racism, one of the members of the Together Alliance, told the Guardian.
As crowds continue to gather in Washington DC and Minnesota’s Twin Cities – where two of the largest protests of the day are planned – demonstrations are underway across the country.
Here are some more images from protests in Georgia, Kansas, Texas and elsewhere.
What is the 3.5% protest rule and what does it mean for the US?
The number is frequently cited in leftwing circles, serving as a rallying cry for people who oppose Donald Trump: if 3.5% of a population protests against a regime, the regime will fail.
Left-leaning content creators, activists and media have boosted the 3.5% rule as the anti-Trump resistance has grown. A Pod Save America episode in June was headlined The 3.5% Protest Rule That Could Bring Down Trump. Social media posts from protest groups broke down the rule and its limitations.
In the lead-up to mass days of protest, organizers have referred to the target as a goal. After the No Kings protests in June 2025, for instance, the progressive activist group Indivisible sent an email to its supporters noting how “3.5% is a historically important target – but not a magic number”. Another day of protests is set for Thursday [July 2025], dubbed “Good Trouble”, a reference to the late congressman John Lewis on the fifth anniversary of his death.
The figure stems from research of prior mass movements, though it’s often oversimplified. Still, the gist is accurate: sustained mass participation in a resistance movement can topple authoritarianism.
Hundreds of demonstrators have gathered outside the Capitolio de Puerto Rico in San Juan where my colleage Joseph Gedeon is reporting.
Here’s a scene of the crowds:
In an op-ed published today, California congressman Ro Khanna said, “The Epstein class thinks it runs America. Today, No Kings protesters send their response.”
“As more Americans are sent to fight abroad and the survivors of abuse are silenced at home, people increasingly feel dispensable,” the California congressman wrote in MS NOW. Khanna co-sponsored the Epstein Files Transparency Act. “For too long, Americans have seen our leaders fight harder for the Epstein class than for the working class. They have watched our system shield elites instead of delivering fundamentals such as affordable health care, housing and education.”
Labour say they have suspended the whip from Hull East MP Karl Turner over his recent conduct.
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Trump tells UK ‘you’ll have to start learning to fight for yourself’ amid soaring oil prices – UK politics live | Politics
Trump tells UK ‘you’ll have to start learning how to fight for yourself’ in taunt over fuel oil shortages
Donald Trump has resumed his taunting of the UK, and Keir Starmer, over Britain’s Iran policy. The president (who regularly says things which are untrue) has just posted this on this Truth Social platform saying the British will “have to start learning how to fight for yourself” because the US won’t be there to help in future.
Key events
Yvette Cooper says Israel wrong to pass law imposing death penalty on Palestinians guilty of fatal attacks
Yvette Cooper, the foreign secretary, has criticised the Israeli parliament’s decision to a law imposing the death penalty on Palestinians convicted of fatal attacks. In a post on social media, she says the UK issued a joint statement with Germany, France and Italy condemning the legislation before the final vote.
My statement with France, Germany and Italy on our united opposition to Israel’s death penalty law.
The death penalty is wrong and we oppose it around the world.
Buckingham Palace confirms king’s state visit to US going ahead next month, with Charles addressing Congress
The king’s state visit to the US is to go ahead next month as planned, Buckingham Palace has finally confirmed. The Press Association says:
Charles and the queen’s long-expected historic trip to see Donald Trump will take place in late April despite calls for it to be postponed because of the ongoing conflict in the Middle East.
It will be the king’s first visit to the US as monarch and the first state visit by a British sovereign to America for nearly 20 years, since Queen Elizabeth II’s tour in 2007.
Charles and Camilla will commemorate the 250th anniversary of American independence, attend a glittering state dinner at the White House, and the king will address Congress, the Palace confirmed.
But exact dates and details have yet to be disclosed.
Buckingham Palace said:
On advice of His Majesty’s government, and at the invitation of the President of the United States, the king and queen will undertake a State Visit to the United States of America.
Their Majesties’ programme will celebrate the historic connections and the modern bilateral relationship between the United Kingdom and the United States, marking the 250th anniversary of American Independence.
The king will then continue to Bermuda to undertake His Majesty’s first Royal Visit as Monarch to a British Overseas Territory.
Greenpeace UK criticise Reform UK’s pledge to get rid of air passenger duty
Greenpeace UK has criticised Reform UK for proposing to get rid of air passenger duty. (See 11.23am.) Lily-Rose Ellis, a climate campaigner for Greenpeace, said:
As Trump’s war causes price spikes and flight cancellations, it won’t surprise anyone to see Farage rush to point the finger at taxes. This policy fits perfectly with Reform’s brand of rightwing populism, which seems surprisingly closely aligned to the commercial interests of their wealthy donors and the sleaze we saw from the last government.
Not only does Christopher Harborne, the UK’s biggest political donor who gave Reform £12m in the last financial year, sell aviation fuel, but Heathrow gave Reform £36,000 last year too.
The idea that this is the party that is going to take on the elites in defence of the common man is transparent nonsense, they’re the Tory plan B, with the same policies, the same scapegoats, the same rhetoric, the same donors and the same MPs.
Zack Polanski says Greens could be ‘kingmakers’ in Senedd after election because they are likely to hold balance of power
Zack Polanski, the Green party leader, has said that his party could be the “kingmakers” in the Senedd after the election because they are likely to hold the balance of power.
Speaking at the launch of his party’s campaign in Wales, Polanski said:
The Greens could be the kingmakers at this election.
What does that mean? That means we know there will be a new government in Cardiff Bay.
What the colour of that government looks like, and the mix is ultimately up to the voters, but we’re being very clear – every single Green that is elected to the Senedd will be a Green in those negotiations.
A YouGov MRP poll released last week suggests that Plaid Cymru will be the biggest party in the Senedd after the election (with 43 seats), but that to have a majority (49 seats) it will need the support of either Labour (on 12 seats, the poll predicts) or the Greens (10 seats).
These figures seem to imply that a Plaid/Labour deal of some sort would be just as appealing to Plaid as a Plaid/Green deal.
But Plaid are closer to the Greens on policy than they are to Labour. Even though Plaid has in the past been in coalition with Labour, and supported Labour in a cooperation deal, there is some acrimony in the relationship. And Plaid are promising “change” after 27-years of Labour-led government since devolution, and governing with Labour would make them look more like a continuity administration.
Anthony Slaughter, leader of the Greens in Wales, said Green MSs would be deciding the direction of the next Welsh government and said the party was “already shifting” Plaid Cymru’s position on some policy matters.
Trump tells UK ‘you’ll have to start learning how to fight for yourself’ in taunt over fuel oil shortages
Donald Trump has resumed his taunting of the UK, and Keir Starmer, over Britain’s Iran policy. The president (who regularly says things which are untrue) has just posted this on this Truth Social platform saying the British will “have to start learning how to fight for yourself” because the US won’t be there to help in future.
Streeting claims deal with BMA to avert resident doctors’ strike still possible
Wes Streeting, the health secretary, has insisted that a deal with the BMA to avert the resident doctors’s strike in England is still possible. In a post on social media responding to the BMA’s reaction to the PM’s article about the strike (see 9.36am), Streeting said:
The BMA seems surprised that if they reject the deal on offer and go on strike their members don’t get what the Government is offering.
We have time before Easter weekend to resolve this dispute.
A deal on jobs and pay is on the table.
Trump ‘not dictating policy to me’, says Farage
At the end of his press conference Nigel Farage was asked if he was worried that his association with Donald Trump would hurt him electorally.
Farage said that he could not pretend not to know Trump. He said he admired some of the things Trump had done, on the border and on energy policy in particular. There were other things Trump had done that he did not agree with, he said, without specifying what. He went on:
He is not dictating policy to me. I’m dictating policy to me.
Farage said he also thought close links between the UK and the US were “absolutely vital”.
Farage says he’s opposed to youth mobility deal with EU, claiming it’s ‘just attempt to completely undo Brexit’
Q: [From the Guardian] Would you keep the youth mobility scheme that the government is negotiating with the EU, or would you repeal it?
Farage says he does not support the proposals because “this will always be one way traffic”. He says there will be three or four times as many Europeans coming to Britain as Britons going to Europe.
There are more exciting parts of the world for young British people to visit, he says. “Europe isn’t actually very sexy any more,” he says.
He says the Spanish made a “catastrophic error” by granting an amnesty to migrants in the country illegally. He goes on:
We are living in an age of increased global insecurity where national borders and protecting national interests matters more and more. And I think the youth mobility scheme falls at that first hurdle, if at nothing else.
And it’s just an attempt by the government to completely undo Brexit.
And Jenrick says, instead of letting young European people come to the UK to work, the government should be prioritising finding jobs for British people.
Q: Are you worried that Reform UK’s support is mainly coming from older people, not younger people?
Farage does not accept this. He claims the polling shows that his party’s support among young people is almost as high as it is amongst voters as a whole.
And by the way, if [Labour] do lower the vote to 16, the Greens will do very well. We will do well and Labour will do terribly.
Farage rejects claim election candidate controversies mean Reform UK’s vetting procedures flawed
Q: Do you think Reform UK’s candidate vetting processes have been inadequate, given that a candidate in Wales has had to stand down after a picture emerged of him giving a Nazi salute?
Farage defends the party’s vetting process.
We vet people. We ask them to tell us the truth. We asked them for their social media handles. We do all those things.
Sometimes people lie to you and they might be using social media handles that you have no way of finding.
He says a Plaid Cymru candidate has already stood down, and he predicts the party will have more problems with candidates.
This is a problem for all parties. He goes on:
I think we’re dealing with it as effectively, if not more effectively, than the others.
(The questioner did not ask about Scotland, where five Reform candidates have already stood down or been suspended.)
Farage says he thinks Keir Starmer has been right to adopt a tough position with the BMA over the proposed resident doctors’ strike. He says:
Unusually Keir Starmer has taken a strong position. There’s a first time for everything I suppose.
It will be his first UK performance in over a decade and since he received criticism for antisemitic comments.
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