Angry protesters from New York to Alaska assail Trump and Musk in 'Hands Off!' rallies
Crowds of people angry about the way President Donald Trump is running the country marched and rallied in scores of American cities Saturday in the biggest day of demonstrations yet by an opposition movement trying to regain its momentum after the shock of the Republican’s first weeks in office.
So-called Hands Off! demonstrations were organized for more than 1,200 locations in all 50 states by more than 150 groups, including civil rights organizations, labor unions, LBGTQ+ advocates, veterans and elections activists. The rallies appeared peaceful, with no immediate reports of arrests.
Thousands of protesters in cities dotting the nation from Midtown Manhattan to Anchorage, Alaska, including at multiple state capitols, assailed Trump and billionaire Elon Musk 's actions on government downsizing, the economy, immigration and human rights. On the West Coast, in the shadow of Seattle's iconic Space Needle, protesters held signs with slogans like “Fight the oligarchy.” Protesters chanted as they took to the streets in Portland, Oregon, and Los Angeles, where they marched from Pershing Square to City Hall.
Demonstrators voiced anger over the administration's moves to fire thousands of federal workers, close Social Security Administration field offices, effectively shutter entire agencies, deport immigrants, scale back protections for transgender people and cut funding for health programs.
Musk, a Trump adviser who runs Tesla, SpaceX and the social media platform X, has played a key role in the downsizing as the head of the newly created Department of Government Efficiency. He says he is saving taxpayers billions of dollars.
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Trump goes all in with bet that the heavy price of tariffs will pay off for Americans
WASHINGTON (AP) — Not even 24 hours after his party lost a key Wisconsin race and underperformed in Florida, President Donald Trump followed the playbook that has defined his political career: He doubled down.
Trump’s move Wednesday to place stiff new tariffs on imports from nearly all U.S. trading partners marks an all-in bet by the Republican that his once-fringe economic vision will pay off for Americans. It was the realization of his four decades of advocacy for a protectionist foreign policy and the belief that free trade was forcing the United States into decline as its economy shifted from manufacturing to services.
The tariff announcement was the latest and perhaps boldest manifestation of Trump’s second-term freedom to lead with his instincts after feeling his first turn in the Oval Office was restrained by aides who did not share his worldview. How it shakes out could be a defining judgment on his presidency.
The early reviews have been worrisome.
Financial markets had their worst week since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, foreign trade partners retaliated and economists warned that the import taxes may boost inflation and potentially send the U.S. into a recession. It's now Republican lawmakers who are fretting about their party’s future while Democrats feel newly buoyant over what they see as Trump’s overreach.
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Phone footage appears to contradict Israel's account in troops' killing of 15 Palestinian medics
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Phone video from one of 15 Palestinian medics killed by Israeli forces last month appears to contradict Israeli claims that the medics’ vehicles did not have emergency signals on when troops opened fire on them in southern Gaza.
The footage shows the Red Crescent and Civil Defense teams driving slowly with their emergency vehicles’ lights flashing, logos visible, as they pulled up to help an ambulance that had come under fire earlier. The teams do not appear to be acting unusually or in a threatening manner as three medics emerge and head toward the stricken ambulance.
Their vehicles immediately come under a barrage of gunfire, which goes on for more than five minutes with brief pauses. The owner of the phone can be heard praying.
“Forgive me, mother. This is the path I chose, mother, to help people,” he cries, his voice weak.
Eight Red Crescent personnel, six Civil Defense workers and a U.N. staffer were killed in the shooting before dawn on March 23 by Israeli troops conducting operations in Tel al-Sultan, a district of the southern Gaza city of Rafah. Troops then bulldozed over the bodies along with their mangled vehicles, burying them in a mass grave. U.N. and rescue workers were only able to reach the site a week later to dig out the bodies.
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Trump and Netanyahu will meet again Monday on Gaza, tariffs and more
PALM BEACH GARDENS, Fla. (AP) — President Donald Trump plans to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday in what would be their second White House sit-down since Trump's return to office.
The visit, confirmed by a White House official and Netanyahu's office Saturday, comes as Israel deploys troops in a new security corridor across Gaza to pressure the Hamas militant group. Netanyahu's defense minister has said Israel will seize large areas of the territory and add them to its so-called security zones.
Last month, Israel shattered the ceasefire with a surprise bombardment in Gaza after trying to pressure Hamas to accept proposed new terms for the ceasefire, a move supported by the White House. Hundreds of Palestinians have since been killed.
Israel has pledged to escalate the war in Gaza until Hamas returns the remaining hostages seized in the Oct. 7, 2023, attack that sparked the war, disarms and leaves the territory. Israel also has halted all supplies of food, fuel and humanitarian aid into Gaza.
Netanyahu's office in a statement on social media said he and Trump would discuss “the tariff issue, the efforts to return our hostages, Israel-Turkey relations, the Iranian threat and the battle against the International Criminal Court.” Israel faces a 17% tariff.
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At least 16 dead in flooding and tornadoes as storms slash from Texas to Ohio
DYERSBURG, Tennessee. (AP) — Another round of torrential rain and flash flooding came Saturday for parts of the South and Midwest already heavily waterlogged by days of severe storms that also spawned deadly tornadoes. Forecasters warned that rivers in some places would continue to rise for days.
Day after day of heavy rains have pounded the central U.S., rapidly swelling waterways and prompting a series of flash flood emergencies in from Texas to Ohio. The National Weather Service said dozens of locations in multiple states were expected to reach what the agency calls “ major flood stage,” with extensive flooding of structures, roads, bridges and other critical infrastructure possible.
At least 16 weather-related deaths have been reported since the start of the storms, including 10 in Tennessee.
A 57-year-old man died Friday evening after getting out of a car that washed off a road in West Plains, Missouri. Flooding killed two people in Kentucky — a 9-year-old boy swept away that same day on his way to school, and a 74-year-old whose body was found Saturday inside a fully submerged vehicle in Nelson County, authorities said.
Also Saturday a 5-year-old died at a home in Little Rock, Arkansas, in a weather-related incident, according to police. No details were immediately provided.
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Takeaways from the Senate budget vote: Tariff pressure, debt worries and signs of GOP unease
WASHINGTON (AP) — The political battle lines are drawn for a debate in Washington and beyond over a Republican budget plan that's a cornerstone of President Donald Trump's domestic agenda.
With the plan's approval by the GOP-controlled Senate in a vote that ended early Saturday, Republicans hope to leverage their position of power in Washington to enact as much as $7 trillion in tax breaks, boost border security for mass deportations and cut government funding — and do so “without one single Democratic vote,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., the Senate Budget Committee chairman.
Democrats, as the minority party, were unable to halt the budget plan. But during the late-night session, they offered a preview of the political attacks likely coming not just during the lead-up to the final vote this summer, but through the 2026 campaign.
“We may not have the votes to stop them all by ourselves," Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., told The Associated Press, “but we can use what the Republicans are trying to do with this tax bill to ignite a fire all across this country.”
Here's a look at what happened and what comes next:
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Zelenskyy meets European military leaders to plan for a peacekeeping force
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met the leaders of the British and French armed forces in Kyiv Saturday to discuss the potential deployment of a multinational peacekeeping force to Ukraine, despite the reluctance of U.S. President Donald Trump to provide security guarantees.
The U.K. Ministry of Defense said that officials addressed the structure, size and composition of any future “reassurance force,” while the chief of the defense staff, Adm. Antony Radakin, emphasized that the U.K. would look to “build on the formidable capabilities of the Ukrainian army and put them in the strongest possible position to deter Russian aggression.”
The weekend discussions are planned to set the ground for a further meeting between defense ministers in Brussels and the Ukraine Defense Contact Group on Friday.
Britain has been promoting the idea of a European-led peacekeeping force for Ukraine in the event of a ceasefire but it has said such a force needed a U.S. “backstop" to make it credible in the face of possible Russian reprisals.
Building a force big enough to act as a credible deterrent — U.K. officials have talked about possibly 10,000 to 30,000 troops — would be a considerable effort for nations that shrank their militaries after the Cold War but are now rearming.
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UN urges relief efforts in Myanmar as earthquake death toll rises
BANGKOK (AP) — The death toll from last week’s massive earthquake in Myanmar rose to 3,455, state media said Saturday, as U.N. agencies and foreign aid donors ramped up their emergency relief efforts.
The 7.7 magnitude quake hit a wide swath of the country, causing significant damage to six regions and states including the capital Naypyitaw. The earthquake left many areas without power, telephone or cell connections and damaged roads and bridges, making the full extent of the devastation hard to assess.
It also worsened an already dire humanitarian crisis triggered by the country’s civil war that has internally displaced more than 3 million people and left nearly 20 million in need, according to the United Nations.
The military government’s leader, Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, has said the earthquake was the second most powerful in the country’s recorded history after a magnitude 8 quake east of Mandalay in May 1912.
Min Aung Hlaing told Cabinet members Saturday that the quake’s death toll has reached 3,455, with 4,840 injured and 214 missing, according to a report on state television MRTV.
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Alex Ovechkin ties Wayne Gretzky's NHL record with his 894th goal
WASHINGTON (AP) — Alex Ovechkin skated over to his son Sergei at the glass. He bowed to Wayne Gretzky standing in a suite. He blew kisses to his wife, mother and family on the other side of the arena.
In signature dramatic fashion, Ovechkin scored the 894th goal of his career — and second of the game — to tie Gretzky's NHL record and set off a wild celebration among his Washington Capitals teammates on the ice and in the stands of the only building he has called home for the past two decades.
“I’m still a little shaking and still can’t believe it,” Ovechkin said with Gretzky sitting beside him after Washington's 5-3 win over Chicago on Friday night. "It’s history. It’s great for the game. It’s great to do it here. It’s special.”
Another special moment awaits if and when Ovechkin scores his 895th goal to break one of hockey's records that looked unbreakable. But the chance to celebrate at home with Capitals players past and present and match Gretzky made it a moment Ovechkin will never forget.
Neither will Gretzky, who along with Ovechkin is the league's co-leading goal-scorer for the time being.
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Iran's currency falls to a record low against the dollar as tensions run high
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran ’s rial currency traded Saturday at a record low against the U.S. dollar as the country returned to work after a long holiday, costing over 1 million rials for a single greenback as tensions between Tehran and Washington likely will push it even lower.
The exchange rate had plunged to over 1 million rials during the Persian New Year, Nowruz, as currency shops closed and only informal trading took place on the streets, creating additional pressure on the market. But as traders resumed work Saturday, the rate fell even further to 1,043,000 to the dollar, signaling the new low appeared here to stay.
On Ferdowsi Street in Iran’s capital, Tehran, the heart of the country’s money exchanges, some traders even switched off their electronic signs showing the going rate as uncertainty loomed over how much further the rial could drop.
“We turn it off since we are not sure about the successive changes of the rate,” said Reza Sharifi, who works at one exchange.
Iran’s economy has been severely affected by international sanctions, particularly after U.S. President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew America from Tehran’s nuclear deal with world powers in 2018. At the time of the 2015 deal, which saw Iran drastically limit its enrichment and stockpiling of uranium in exchange for lifting of international sanctions, the rial traded at 32,000 to the dollar.
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