WorldPride rally in Washington, DC takes aim at Donald Trump's ‘deeply personal attacks' on LGBTQ+ community
Today at 21:30
LGBTQ+ people and their allies gathered yesterday at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC – the site of Martin Luther King's 1963 'I Have a Dream' speech – to rally for preserving decades of progress while protesting setbacks under US president Donald Trump.
After the festive nature of a parade on Saturday through the streets of the capital, the rally, one of the main events of the weeks-long WorldPride celebration, turned more overtly political.
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The Journal
an hour ago
- The Journal
Tear gas fired on protestors after National Guard arrive in LA
MEMBERS OF THE US National Guard fired tear gas at protesters in Los Angeles yesterday, hours after the troops arrived in the city on President Donald Trump's orders. The confrontation broke out in front of the Metropolitan Detention Centre in central Los Angeles, as a group of demonstrators shouted insults at troops lined shoulder to shoulder behind plastic riot shields. About 300 National Guard troops arrived in Los Angeles yesterday on orders from President Trump, in response to clashes in recent days between federal immigration authorities and protesters seeking to block them from carrying out deportations. Trump has said he is deploying 2,000 California National Guard troops to Los Angeles to quell the protests, which he called 'a form of rebellion'. Demonstrators told AFP the purpose of the troops did not appear to be to keep order. 'I think it's an intimidation tactic,' Thomas Henning said. 'These protests have been peaceful. There's no one trying to do any sort of damage right now and yet you have the National Guard with loaded magazines and large guns standing around trying to intimidate Americans from exercising our First Amendment rights.' Marshall Goldberg, 78, said that deploying the troops made him feel 'so offended.' 'We hate what they've done with the undocumented workers, but this is moving it to another level of taking away the right to protest and the right to just peaceably assemble,' he said. U.S. National Guard are deployed around downtown Los AngelesSource: Alamy Stock Photo Members of California's National Guard had assembled at the Metropolitan Detention Centre, one of several sites that have seen confrontations involving hundreds of people in the last two days. A social media post from the Department of Defence that showed dozens of National Guard members with long guns and an armoured vehicle. The deployment was limited to a small area in central Los Angeles. The protests have been relatively small and limited to that area. The rest of the city of four million people is largely unaffected. Their arrival follows clashes near a Home Depot in the heavily Latino city of Paramount, south of Los Angeles. As protesters sought to block Border Patrol vehicles, some hurling rocks and chunks of cement, federal agents unleashed tear gas, flash-bang explosives and pepper balls. Protesters confront police on the 101 Freeway in LA Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo Tensions were high after a series of raids by immigration authorities the previous day, as the weeklong tally of immigrant arrests in the city climbed past 100. Advertisement A prominent union leader was arrested while protesting and accused of impeding law enforcement. Yesterday, homeland security secretary Kristi Noem said the National Guard would 'keep peace and allow people to be able to protest but also to keep law and order'. In a signal of the administration's aggressive approach, defence secretary Pete Hegseth also threatened to deploy active-duty marines 'if violence continues'. Police fire non-lethal ammunition during a protest in LA Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo The move came over the objections of governor Gavin Newsom, marking the first time in decades that a state's national guard was activated without a request from its governor, according to the Brennan Centre for Justice. In a directive on Saturday, Trump invoked a legal provision allowing him to deploy federal service members when there is 'a rebellion or danger of a rebellion against the authority of the Government of the United States'. Newsom, a Democrat, said Trump's decision to call in the National Guard was 'purposefully inflammatory'. He described Hegseth's threat to deploy marines on American soil as 'deranged behaviour'. A police officer fires a soft round near the metropolitan detention center of downtown Los Angeles Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo In a statement yesterday, assistant homeland security secretary Tricia McLaughlin accused California's politicians and protesters of 'defending heinous illegal alien criminals at the expense of Americans' safety'. 'Instead of rioting, they should be thanking Ice (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) officers every single day who wake up and make our communities safer,' McLaughlin added. A protester throws a scooter at a police vehical near the metropolitan detention center of downtown Los Angeles Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo Vermont senator Bernie Sanders said the order by Trump reflected 'a president moving this country rapidly into authoritarianism' and 'usurping the powers of the United States Congress'. Trump's order came after clashes in Paramount and neighbouring Compton, where a car was set on fire. Protests continued into the evening in Paramount, with several hundred demonstrators gathered near a doughnut shop, and authorities holding up barbed wire to keep the crowd back. Crowds also gathered again outside federal buildings in central Los Angeles, including a detention centre, where police declared an unlawful assembly and began to arrest people. With reporting from AFP
Irish Examiner
2 hours ago
- Irish Examiner
Protests intensify in Los Angeles after Trump deploys National Guard troops
Tensions in Los Angeles escalated on Sunday as thousands of protesters took to the streets in response to US President Donald Trump's deployment of the National Guard. They blocked off a major road and set self-driving cars on fire as law enforcement used tear gas, rubber bullets and flash bangs to control the crowd. Many protesters dispersed as evening fell and police declared an unlawful assembly, a precursor to officers moving in and making arrests of people who do not leave. Some of those remaining threw objects at police from behind a makeshift barrier that spanned the width of a street and others hurled chunks of concrete, rocks, electric scooters and fireworks at California Highway Patrol officers and their vehicles parked on the closed southbound 101 freeway. Officers ran under an overpass to take cover. People take cover as a firework explodes during a protest near the Metropolitan Detention Centre in Los Angeles (Ethan Swope/AP) Sunday's protests in Los Angeles, a sprawling city of four million people, were centred in downtown several blocks. It was the third and most intense day of demonstrations against Mr Trump's immigration crackdown in the region, as the arrival of around 300 Guard troops spurred anger and fear among many residents. The Guard was deployed specifically to protect federal buildings, including the detention centre where protesters concentrated. Los Angeles Police Chief Jim McDonnell said officers were 'overwhelmed' by the remaining protesters. He said they included regular agitators who appear at demonstrations to cause trouble. Several dozen people were arrested throughout the weekend of protest. One was detained on Sunday for throwing a Molotov cocktail at police, and another for ramming a motorcycle into a line of officers. Let's get this straight: 1) Local law enforcement didn't need help. 2) Trump sent troops anyway — to manufacture chaos and violence. 3) Trump succeeded. 4) Now things are destabilized and we need to send in more law enforcement just to clean up Trump's mess. — Gavin Newsom (@GavinNewsom) June 9, 2025 Mr Trump responded to Mr McDonnell on Truth Social, telling him to arrest protesters in face masks. 'Looking really bad in L.A. BRING IN THE TROOPS!!!' he wrote. Starting in the morning, the troops stood shoulder to shoulder, carrying long guns and riot shields as protesters shouted 'shame' and 'go home'. After some closely approached the guard members, another set of uniformed officers advanced on the group, shooting smoke-filled canisters into the street. Minutes later, the Los Angeles Police Department fired rounds of crowd-control munitions to disperse the protesters, who they said were assembled unlawfully. Much of the group then moved to block traffic on the 101 freeway until state patrol officers cleared them from the roadway by late afternoon. Nearby, at least four self-driving Waymo cars were set on fire, sending large plumes of black smoke into the sky and exploding intermittently as the electric vehicles burned. By evening, police had issued an unlawful assembly order shutting down several blocks of downtown Los Angeles. A protester stands on a burning Waymo taxi in Los Angeles (Eric Thayer/AP) Flash bangs echoed out every few seconds into the evening. Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom requested that Mr Trump remove the guard members in a letter on Sunday afternoon, calling their deployment a 'serious breach of state sovereignty'. He was in Los Angeles meeting local law enforcement and officials. The deployment appeared to be the first time in decades that a state's national guard was activated without a request from its governor, a significant escalation against those who have sought to hinder the administration's mass deportation efforts. Mr Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass blamed the increasingly aggressive protests on Mr Trump's decision to deploy the Guard, calling it a move designed to inflame tensions. They have both urged protesters to remain peaceful. 'What we're seeing in Los Angeles is chaos that is provoked by the administration,' she said in an afternoon press conference. 'This is about another agenda, this isn't about public safety.' But Mr McDonnell, the LAPD chief, said the protests were following a similar pattern for episodes of civil unrest, with things ramping up in the second and third days. He pushed back against claims by the Trump administration that the LAPD had failed to help federal authorities when protests broke out on Friday after a series of immigration raids. A California Highway Patrol officer pulls an electric scooter off a vehicle as protesters throw objects at the police vehicles near the Metropolitan Detention Centre in Los Angeles (Ethan Swope/AP) His department responded as quickly as it could, and had not been notified in advance of the raids and therefore was not pre-positioned for protests, he said. Mr Newsom, meanwhile, has repeatedly said that California authorities had the situation under control. He mocked Mr Trump for posting a congratulatory message to the Guard on social media before troops had even arrived in Los Angeles, and said on MSNBC that Mr Trump never floated deploying the Guard during a Friday phone call. He called Mr Trump a 'stone cold liar'. The admonishments did not deter the administration. 'It's a bald-faced lie for Newsom to claim there was no problem in Los Angeles before President Trump got involved,' White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said in a statement. The arrival of the National Guard followed two days of protests that began Friday in Los Angeles before spreading on Saturday to Paramount, a heavily Latino city south of the city, and neighbouring Compton. Federal agents arrested immigrants in LA's fashion district, in a Home Depot parking lot and at several other locations on Friday. The next day, they were staging at a Department of Homeland Security office near another Home Depot in Paramount, which drew out protesters who suspected another raid. Federal authorities later said there was no enforcement activity at that Home Depot. The weeklong tally of immigrant arrests in the LA area climbed above 100, federal authorities said. Many more were arrested while protesting, including a prominent union leader who was accused of impeding law enforcement. The protests did not reach the size of past demonstrations that brought the National Guard to Los Angeles, including the Watts and Rodney King riots, and the 2020 protests against police violence, in which Mr Newsom requested the assistance of federal troops. The last time the National Guard was activated without a governor's permission was in 1965, when President Lyndon B Johnson sent troops to protect a civil rights march in Alabama, according to the Brennan Centre for Justice. In a directive on Saturday, Mr Trump invoked a legal provision allowing him to deploy federal service members when there is 'a rebellion or danger of a rebellion against the authority of the Government of the United States'. He said he had authorised the deployment of 2,000 members of the National Guard. Mr Trump told reporters as he prepared to board Air Force One in Morristown, New Jersey, Sunday that there were 'violent people' in Los Angeles 'and they're not going to get away with it'. Asked if he planned to send US troops to Los Angeles, Mr Trump replied: 'We're going to have troops everywhere. We're not going to let this happen to our country.' He did not elaborate. About 500 marines stationed at Twentynine Palms, about 125 miles (200 kilometres) east of Los Angeles were in a 'prepared to deploy status' on Sunday afternoon, according to the US Northern Command.
Irish Times
2 hours ago
- Irish Times
Trump's US travel ban on citizens from 12 countries comes into effect
US president Donald Trump's order banning citizens of 12 countries from entering the United States came into effect at midnight, US eastern time, on Monday. The countries affected by the latest travel ban, which the president claims will protect the US from 'foreign terrorists', are Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen. The entry of people from seven other countries – Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela – will be partially restricted. Mr Trump said the countries subject to the most severe restrictions were determined to harbour a 'large-scale presence of terrorists,' fail to co-operate on visa security, have an inability to verify travellers' identities, as well as inadequate record-keeping of criminal histories and high rates of visa overstays in the United States. READ MORE He cited last Sunday's incident in Boulder, Colorado, in which an Egyptian national tossed a gasoline bomb into a crowd of pro-Israel demonstrators as an example of why the new curbs are needed. Egypt is not part of the travel ban. The travel ban forms part of Mr Trump's policy to restrict immigration into the United States and is reminiscent of a similar move in his first term when he barred travellers from seven Muslim-majority nations. Officials and residents in countries whose citizens will soon be banned expressed dismay and disbelief. Chad president Mahamat Idriss Deby Itno said he had instructed his government to stop granting visas to US citizens in response to Mr Trump's action. 'Chad has neither planes to offer nor billions of dollars to give, but Chad has its dignity and its pride,' he said in a Facebook post, referring to countries such as Qatar, which gifted the US a luxury airplane for Mr Trump's use and promised to invest billions of dollars in the United States. [ Los Angeles protests: opposition to Trump immigration crackdown intensifies amid clashes with police Opens in new window ] Afghans who worked for the United States or US-funded projects and were hoping to resettle in the United States expressed fear that the travel ban would force them to return to their country, where they could face reprisal from the Taliban. Democratic US lawmakers also voiced concern about the policies. 'Trump's travel ban on citizens from over 12 countries is draconian and unconstitutional,' said Representative Ro Khanna on social media late on Thursday. 'People have a right to seek asylum.' – Reuters
