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OpenAI is ordering hundreds of billions of dollars worth of chips in the artificial intelligence race, raising questions among investors about how the startup will finance these purchases.In less than a month, the San Francisco startup behind ChatGPT has committed to acquiring a staggering 26 gigawatts of sophisticated data processors from Nvidia, AMD, and Broadcom — more than 10 million units that would consume power equivalent to 20 standard nuclear reactors.”They will need hundreds of billions of dollars to live up to their obligations,” said Gil Luria, managing director at D.A. Davidson, a financial consulting firm.The challenge is daunting: OpenAI doesn’t expect to be profitable until 2029 and is forecasting billions in losses this year, despite generating about $13 billion in revenue.OpenAI declined to comment on its financing strategy. However, in a CNBC interview, co-founder Greg Brockman acknowledged the difficulty of building sufficient computing infrastructure to handle the “avalanche of demand” for AI, noting that creative financing mechanisms will be necessary.- Creative financing -Nvidia, AMD, and Broadcom all declined to discuss specific deals with OpenAI.Silicon Valley-based Nvidia has announced plans to invest up to $100 billion in OpenAI over several years to build the world’s largest AI infrastructure. OpenAI would use those funds to buy chips from Nvidia in a game of “circular financing,” with Nvidia recouping its investment by taking a share in OpenAI, one of its biggest customers and the world’s hottest AI company.AMD has taken a different approach, offering OpenAI options to acquire equity in AMD — a transaction considered unusual in financial circles and a sign that it is AMD that is seeking to seize some of OpenAI’s limelight with investors.”It represents another unhealthy dynamic,” Luria said, suggesting the arrangement reveals AMD’s desperation to compete in a market dominated by Nvidia.- Crash or soar? -The stakes couldn’t be higher. OpenAI co-founder and CEO Sam Altman “has the power to crash the global economy for a decade or take us all to the promised land,” Bernstein Research senior analyst Stacy Rasgon wrote in a note to investors this month. “Right now, we don’t know which is in the cards.”Even selling stakes in OpenAI at its current $500 billion valuation won’t cover the startup’s chip commitments, according to Luria, meaning the company will need to borrow money. One possibility: using the chips themselves as collateral for loans.Meanwhile, deep-pocketed competitors like Google and Meta can fund their AI efforts from massive profits generated by their online advertising businesses — a luxury OpenAI doesn’t have.The unbridled spending has sparked concerns about a speculative bubble reminiscent of the late 1990s dot-com frenzy, which collapsed and wiped out massive investments.However, some experts see key differences. “There is very real demand today for AI in a way that seems a little different than the boom in the 1990s,” said Josh Lerner, a Harvard Business School professor of investment banking.CFRA analyst Angelo Zino pointed to OpenAI’s remarkable growth and more than 800 million ChatGPT users as evidence that a partnership approach to financing makes sense.Still, Lerner acknowledges the uncertainty: “It’s a real dilemma. How does one balance this future potential with the speculative nature” of its investments today?

“Black Phone 2,” a horror sequel starring Ethan Hawke, captured the top spot at the North American box office with $26.5 million as spooky season shifts into high gear in the run-up to Halloween, industry estimates showed Sunday.The film from Universal and low-budget horror specialists Blumhouse has excellent critical and audience scores, said analyst David A. Gross of Franchise Entertainment Research.”This is an excellent opening for the second episode in a horror series,” Gross said.”Tron: Ares,” the latest installment in the Disney sci-fi franchise, followed up a disappointing debut with $11.1 million in its second week for second place in the United States and Canada, Exhibitor Relations reported.The action flick — which stars Jared Leto, Greta Lee and Evan Peters — tells of mankind’s first encounter with artificial intelligence in the real world. Experts and industry press said it cost $180 million to make.”Good Fortune,” comedian Aziz Ansari’s directorial debut, opened in third place at $6.2 million. The Lionsgate film — a body-swap comedy — stars Seth Rogen, Keanu Reeves and Ansari. Paul Thomas Anderson’s action thriller “One Battle After Another,” starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Sean Penn, ended the Friday to Sunday period in fourth place with $4 million.DiCaprio stars as a washed-up far-left revolutionary who is dragged back into action to help his daughter, while Penn plays his ruthless military nemesis. And “Roofman,” starring Channing Tatum in the real-life tale of a former soldier-turned-thief who breaks out of prison and finds himself hiding out in a toy store, finished in fifth place with $3.7 million. Rounding out the top 10 are:”Truth & Treason” ($2.7 million)”Gabby’s Dollhouse: The Movie” ($1.7 million) “The Conjuring: Last Rites” ($1.6 million)”After the Hunt” ($1.56 million)”Soul on Fire” and “Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle” (tied at $1.3 million)

British police said Sunday they were probing claims that Prince Andrew asked an officer to dig up dirt for a smear campaign against his sexual assault accuser Virginia Giuffre.The development comes after Andrew on Friday renounced his royal title under pressure from King Charles III, following further revelations about his ties to late US sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.London’s Metropolitan Police force said it was looking into allegations in the Mail on Sunday that Andrew tried to smear Giuffre, who accused the prince of sexually assaulting her when she was 17.Andrew, 65, has long denied the assault accusations, which have caused considerable embarrassment to the British monarchy and seen the prince virtually banished from royal life in recent years.The Mail on Sunday reported that Andrew passed on Giuffre’s date of birth and social security number to his state-funded police protection in 2011 and asked him to investigate.”We are aware of media reporting and are actively looking into the claims made,” a spokesperson for the Met said in a statement emailed to AFP.Andrew’s request came shortly before the publication of a now-infamous photo taken in London appearing to show the prince with his arm around Giuffre’s waist, the paper said.Andrew reportedly emailed the late queen Elizabeth II’s then-deputy press secretary and told him of his request to his bodyguard, which the officer is not said to have acted upon.The newspaper said it obtained the email from documents held by a US congressional committee.Giuffre, who accused Epstein of using her as a sex slave, says that she had sex with Andrew on three separate occasions, including when she was under 18.Andrew has repeatedly denied Giuffre’s accusations and avoided a trial in a civil lawsuit by paying a multimillion-dollar settlement.The allegations have received renewed focus ahead of the publication next week of Giuffre’s posthumous memoirs.Giuffre, a US and Australian citizen, took her own life in April. Epstein died by suicide in a New York jail in 2019 while awaiting trial on charges of trafficking underage girls for sex.Andrew has also given up membership of the prestigious Order of the Garter, the most senior knighthood in the British honours system, which dates to the 1300s.Giuffre’s brother Sky Roberts has urged Charles to go further and strip Andrew of his right to be a prince.”I think there’s more that he could do,” Roberts said of the king on ITV News.

The founding bassist of American nu metal band Limp Bizkit, Sam Rivers, has died, the band announced on Saturday. He was 48.”Today we lost our brother. Our bandmate. Our heartbeat,” read a statement on Instagram attributed to band members Fred Durst, Wes Borland, John Otto and DJ Lethal.The statement did not specify a cause of death.”Sam Rivers wasn’t just our bass player — he was pure magic… From the first note we ever played together, Sam brought a light and a rhythm that could never be replaced. His talent was effortless, his presence unforgettable, his heart enormous,” the band members wrote.Limp Bizkit was formed by Rivers and Durst in 1994 and went on to release its debut album “Three Dollar Bill, Y’all” in 1997.Building on their successful sophomore album, the band’s third outing “Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water” debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200 chart and sold more than a million copies in the first week of its 2000 release.Rivers left the band in 2015 because he had “liver disease from excessive drinking”, he reportedly said in a book by rock writer Jon Wiederhorn.Rivers rejoined Limp Bizkit in 2018 and featured in the band’s most recent release, the 2021 album “Still Sucks.”Band members lauded Rivers as a “true legend of legends” in their Saturday tribute.”We love you, Sam. We’ll carry you with us, always,” they wrote.”Rest easy, brother. Your music never ends.”DJ Lethal said in a comment that “we are in shock” and called for respect for the family’s privacy.

Huge crowds took to the streets in all 50 US states at “No Kings” protests on Saturday, venting anger over President Donald Trump’s hardline policies, while Republicans ridiculed them as “Hate America” rallies.Organizers said seven million people marched in protests spanning New York to Los Angeles, with demonstrations popping up in small cities across the US heartland and even near Trump’s home in Florida.”This is what democracy looks like!” chanted thousands in Washington near the US Capitol, where the federal government was shut down for a third week because of a legislative deadlock.Colorful signs called on people to “protect democracy,” while others demanded the country abolish the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency at the center of Trump’s anti-immigrant crackdown.Demonstrators slammed what they called the Republican billionaire’s strong-arm tactics, including attacks on the media, political opponents and undocumented immigrants.”I never thought I would live to see the death of my country as a democracy,” 69-year-old retiree Colleen Hoffman told AFP as she marched down Broadway in New York.”We are in a crisis — the cruelty of this regime, the authoritarianism. I just feel like I cannot sit home and do nothing.”In Los Angeles, protesters floated a giant balloon of Trump in a diaper.Many flew flags, with at least one referencing pirate anime hit “One Piece”, brandishing the skull logo that has recently become a staple of anti-government protests from Peru to Madagascar.”Fight Ignorance not migrants,” read one sign at a protest in Houston, where nearly one-quarter of the population is made up of immigrants, according to the Migration Policy Institute. While animated, the protests were largely peaceful. But in downtown Los Angeles, police fired nonlethal rounds and tear gas late Saturday to disperse crowds that included “No Kings” protesters, the Los Angeles Times reported.”After thousands of people gathered to express their constitutional 1st Amendment rights peacefully earlier in the day, nearly a hundred agitators marched over to Aliso and Alameda” where they used lasers and industrial-size flashing lights, the LAPD Central Division said on X.”A Dispersal Order was issued and the demonstrators were dispersed from the area,” it added, without specifying if any arrests were made.- Trump responds -It was not possible to independently verify the organizers’ attendance figures. In New York, authorities said more than 100,000 gathered at one of the largest protests, while in Washington, crowds were estimated at between 8,000 and 10,000 people.Trump’s response to Saturday’s events was typically aggressive, with the US president posting a series of AI-generated videos to his Truth Social platform depicting him as a king. In one, he is shown wearing a crown and piloting a fighter jet that drops what appears to be feces on anti-Trump protesters. His surrogates were in fighting form, too, with House Speaker Mike Johnson deriding the rallies as being “Hate America” protests.”You’re going to bring together the Marxists, the Socialists, the Antifa advocates, the anarchists and the pro-Hamas wing of the far-left Democrat Party,” he told reporters.Protesters treated that claim with ridicule.”Look around! If this is hate, then someone should go back to grade school,” said Paolo, 63, as the crowd chanted and sang around him in Washington.Others underlined the deep polarization tearing apart American politics.”Here’s the thing about what right-wingers say: I don’t give a crap. They hate us,” said Tony, a 34-year-old software engineer.- ‘Country of equals’ -Deirdre Schifeling of the American Civil Liberties Union said protesters wanted to convey that “we are a country of equals.””We are a country of laws that apply to everyone, of due process and of democracy. We will not be silenced,” she told reporters.Leah Greenberg, co-founder of the Indivisible Project, slammed the Trump administration’s efforts to send National Guard troops into Democratic-led US cities, including Los Angeles, Washington, Chicago, Portland and Memphis. “It is the classic authoritarian playbook: threaten, smear and lie, scare people into submission,” Greenberg said.Addressing the crowd outside the US Capitol, progressive Senator Bernie Sanders warned of the dangers democracy faced under Trump.”We have a president who wants more and more power in his own hands and in the hands of his fellow oligarchs,” he said.Isaac Harder, 16, said he feared for his generation’s future.”It’s a fascist trajectory. And I want to do anything I can to stop that.”

Escalating attempts to remove works featuring themes such as LGBTQ lifestyles and race relations from US bookshelves are facing growing resistance from publishers and rights groups, a major topic at this year’s Frankfurt Book Fair.Spearheaded by right-wing conservative groups, there has been an explosion in efforts to get books that are viewed as overly progressive banned in US schools and public libraries in recent years.In 2020 just under 300 titles faced “challenges” — demands to restrict access to them or remove them entirely — across the United States, according to the American Library Association (ALA).That number began surging the following year, and reached over 9,000 in 2023, said the NGO, whose office for intellectual freedom has been tracking challenges since 1990.”It’s an ideological mission from people on the right,” Jon Yaged — CEO of Macmillan Publishers, whose books are among those that have been targeted in the United States — told AFP.”This is just the most recent instance of hate demonstrating itself in culture,” said Yaged this week at the Frankfurt event, the world’s biggest book fair, where the subject was hotly debated.It is part of what PEN International says is a growing global trend, with the literary freedom NGO reporting a “dramatic increase in book bans and censorship” in recent times, from Afghanistan to Russia.In the United States conservative groups and politicians pushing to get certain books removed reject accusations of censorship, insisting their aim is to limit access to inappropriate material.- Conservative education drive – US conservatives have for some years been pushing back against what they view as a progressive agenda in education, a drive that has won support from US President Donald Trump’s administration.According to the ALA, the most common reasons for challenging books in 2024 were claims of obscenity in books for minors, LGBTQ characters or themes and discussion of sensitive topics such as race.Among the most targeted titles were “All Boys Aren’t Blue”, a collection of essays about author George M. Johnson’s experiences growing up as a gay Black man in the United States.Others included “The Bluest Eye”, a Toni Morrison work featuring depictions of sexual abuse and racial themes, and “The Perks of Being a Wallflower”, a coming of age novel featuring drug use and sex.Conservative activists and local politicians, particularly in Republican-led states, often pressure school boards for book bans, but efforts to get works removed are increasingly taking on different forms, according to PEN’s US branch.Legislatures in some states have passed laws seeking to restrict access to certain titles, elected politicians have issued lists of books containing “explicit” material and some school districts have issued “do not buy” lists, targeting particular works, according to the group.- Book-bans in Florida -PEN said the highest number of instances of access to school books being restricted last year was documented in Florida, where Republican governor Ron DeSantis has pushed conservative education policies that have also included banning classroom discussion of sexuality and gender identity.Those campaigning to limit access typically argue they are seeking to protect youngsters.Conservative group Moms for Liberty said recently that “challenging the placement of obscene materials in school libraries is not censorship or banning.”It is a reasonable demand to prevent children from being exposed to age-inappropriate materials,” the group said in a statement cited by an affiliate of CBS News.Macmillan and other major publishers including Penguin Random House and HarperCollins, alongside authors and advocacy groups, have lodged legal challenges against attempts to restrict access to books, and have had some successes.In some school districts, community members, from parents to authors and students, have also fought back against book bans.Authors sense a worsening climate for works depicting minority groups beyond the United States.”It is getting worse globally,” US author Lawrence Schimel, whose books featuring children with same-sex parents have run into problems in Russia and Hungary in recent years, told AFP.Schimel added however that he believed it was crucial for kids to be able to continue seeing such works: “It helps them to be accepting of other people’s diversity.”Despite the mounting challenges, Yaged of Macmillan Publishers sounded determined.”As long as there have been books, there have been people trying to ban books,” he said. “And they haven’t won as long as we keep up the fight.”

For more than a century, Lodi’s grape growers have supplied the old wineries that make this Californian city famous. But rocketing costs, falling demand and competition from imports mean some are now abandoning their vineyards.Randy Baranek, whose family has farmed these hillsides for generations, said thousands of acres (hectares) of vines — a quarter of Lodi’s production — have been removed in the last two years.”I’ve never seen anything like this,” he told AFP.Baranek said an acre of vines can produce between eight and ten tons of grapes, which can be sold for a maximum of $3,000.”Our costs are between $3,000 and $4,500 an acre to farm,” he said, as he picked his way through abandoned Chardonnay vines. “We’re twirling the toilet.”Even ripping out the vines is difficult, said Baranek, with California’s strict environmental rules making it expensive to convert a field, prompting some farmers to leave them to go wild.Such abandoned plots have become commonplace in Lodi, where around 130 varieties of grapes are grown, and which is known particularly for its Zinfandels.- Slowing demand -The decline in production has been consistent over the last few years, reaching its lowest point in two decades in 2024, when 2.9 million tons of grapes were harvested, said Stuart Spencer, executive director of the Lodi Winegrape Commission. This year, that figure is expected to fall by a further 400,000 tons.Spencer says a shift in the shape of the wine market in the United States is at the root of the changes.After three decades of growth, in which California, Oregon and Washington state forged a domestic consumer base previously enamored with the Old World wines of France, Italy and Spain, the last three years have been challenging.”The whole spectrum of those that contribute to the wine industry are struggling right now,” he said.On the consumer side, changing tastes and habits mean “people are just drinking less,” he said.The economy is also crimping demand, said Spencer.”The inflation we’ve seen over the last few years is really impacting the consumer’s wallet.”Vintners are reacting to this slowdown in demand by seeking out other suppliers.”One of the big changes we’ve seen here in California is our largest wineries, who are also the largest grape buyers, are choosing to import cheap, bulk wine instead of purchasing local grapes,” said Spencer.That price differential, he says, is the result of a skewed market.”European wine growers are heavily subsidized by the EU… So we are at a disadvantage. We are not playing on a fair, level playing field.”- Almonds -Some farmers are reluctantly giving up the grapes, at least on a portion of their land, opting instead for in-demand and lower-cost products like almonds.It is not a decision they take lightly, because replanting a vineyard can cost tens of thousands of dollars. It can also affect the wider community, with fewer workers needed for crops like almonds, whose harvest is largely automated.”There’s no other talk on the streets; we’re all very worried,” said one worker who has toiled in the area’s vineyards for ten years. “I don’t know what I would do without this.” Kevin Phillips is among those who have made the leap, converting one of his generations-old vineyards to an almond orchard.The area has good water supplies — key for thirsty almond trees — and the crop can cost just a quarter of what it does to farm grapes, he said.But one of the major attractions for a farmer is that demand is robust, and selling them is very straightforward.”With wine grapes, you’ve really got to go out there and you’ve got to talk to wineries, you’ve got to make connections, you’ve got to hope that things work, you’ve got to hope that all the stars line up,” he said.”Almonds, you don’t have to talk to anybody. There’s just a demand.”For Phillips, who said he made the difficult decision to rip out his vines after a few bottles of wine, the move is bittersweet.”It’s so much easier” to farm almonds, he said. “And I hate to say this, because I’m a wine guy.”

A major US freeway in California was shut Saturday due to the US Marine Corps firing live artillery over the roadway as part of ceremonies marking its 250th anniversary, an event attended by Vice President JD Vance.The closure of a 17-mile (27-kilometer) stretch of Interstate 5, which links Los Angeles and San Diego, snarled traffic for hours and set off another spat between California’s liberal governor and Republican Donald Trump’s White House.”The President is putting his ego over responsibility with this disregard for public safety,” said Governor Gavin Newsom, a frequent Trump critic who is expected to make a White House run in 2028.”Firing live rounds over a busy highway isn’t just wrong — it’s dangerous.”Signs near the interstate warned on Saturday: “Live weapons over freeway.”The order to shut the freeway came after California Highway Patrol officials warned that live munitions flying overhead would distract drivers on the oceanfront stretch of Interstate 5 near Camp Pendleton.In a statement, the Marine Corps insisted there was no risk to the public.”Artillery pieces have historically been fired during routine training from land-based artillery firing points west of the I-5 into impact areas east of the interstate within existing safety protocols and without the need to close the route,” it said in a statement. “This is an established and safe practice.”The massive Marine exercise featured fighter jet flyovers, amphibious ships, explosions in a simulated village and Navy SEALS dropping into the Pacific Ocean from helicopters.In his address, Vance said the Trump administration was focused on supporting Marines and removing “woke” priorities that he argued have weakened the US armed forces.”When officials try to shift focus to mandating diversity quotas, or they try to inject partisan politics into the American armed forces, they impede the Marine Corps’s ability to do its best work. “And that’s why the secretary of war and the president of the United States have stood so firmly against that crap,” Vance, a Marine veteran, told the assembled troops.The Marine display came the same day that millions took to the streets from coast to coast in the United States to protest the hardline policies of the Trump administration, which have included the dismantling of diversity and equity programs. In June, Trump ordered National Guard troops to Los Angeles to support federal officials in carrying out sweeping immigration raids and to tamp down local protests. The deployment, which also included hundreds of Marines, was criticized by Newsom and local officials, who argued that the relatively small demonstrations could have been easily handled by city and state law enforcement.

Nadja Rutkowski said protest is her way of life: she immigrated to the US from Germany at 14 and demonstrates for fear fascist history could repeat itself.She was among the thousands of New Yorkers who marched down Broadway from Times Square Saturday during mass anti-Trump protests, where demonstrators rejected what many referred to as the “tyranny” of today’s White House. As pro-democracy chants rang out, Rutkowski voiced outrage over what she called the Republican president’s attack on human rights that includes an aggressive crackdown on undocumented migrants.”I come from a country where what is happening now has happened already before in 1938,” she told AFP, her dog Bella — who is also a seasoned protester — in tow. “People are being snatched up from the streets,” she said. “We know, we see it, it’s happening in real time. So we’ve got to stand up.”The sentiment was an unequivocal theme of Saturday’s demonstration in New York, the city where Donald Trump was born and made his name — but where the majority of residents vehemently spurn him.”I like my Manhattan straight up no ICE,” read one of many similar placards, referring to the whisky cocktail bearing the name of New York’s most prominent borough.ICE is the federal enforcement agency that has been detaining undocumented migrants and even American citizens in escalating raids across the United States — and the target of fury from protestors.”We are in a crisis,” said Colleen Hoffman, 69, citing “the cruelty of this regime” and its aura of “authoritarianism.””If we don’t stick together, if we don’t raise our voices, then we’ve surrendered to it. I refuse to surrender.”- ‘This is our flag too’ -Saturday’s peaceful protest in New York was among some 2,700 nationwide; there were multiple demonstrations just within the city’s five boroughs.Demonstrators were fervent in message but jovial in spirit: colorful costumes included one person dressed as the Mr. Met baseball mascot, wielding a sign that said “No Kings But Queens” in a reference to the borough the beloved baseball team comes from.Gavin Michaels is a 26-year-old actor  currently in an off-Broadway play about the rise of Nazi Germany — in which he portrays a young soldier “easily seduced” by the promises of a job and health care.He called the role in “Crooked Cross,” a dramatization of a prophetic 1930s-era novel, “terrifyingly relevant” to today’s America.”You see the administration pulling health care away from people but offering sign-up bonuses if you join ICE,” he told AFP.But Michaels said he was heartened by joining his fellow New Yorkers on the streets: “It’s exciting,” he said, to see “other people who care.””We spend so much of our lives inside or on the internet and it’s nice to actually see people in person willing to do something or say something or stand up for something.Along with signs bearing anti-fascist, anti-racist, anti-Trump messaging, many protestors wielded American flags.Some even wore them: Mike Misner donned the Stars and Stripes as a cape.”I want to say this is our flag too,” he told AFP, bemoaning the fact that conservative factions in the US have “made the flag theirs, as if they’re the only ones who could be patriotic.””Our country is under attack. Our democracy is under attack,” he said. “And this flag to me represents democracy.”

Huge crowds are expected to hit the streets Saturday from New York to San Francisco to vent their anger over President Donald Trump’s hardline policies at nationwide “No Kings” protests slammed by Republicans as “Hate America” rallies.More than 2,700 demonstrations are planned coast to coast, from big cities to small towns, and even near Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida, where he is spending the weekend. Organizers say they are expecting millions to attend.Those numbers would match the massive turnout at similar events on June 14, Trump’s birthday and the day of a giant military parade in the US capital, in outrage over the Trump administration’s crackdown on undocumented migrants and its deployment of National Guard troops to Los Angeles.Since then, Trump — who returned to the White House in January — has ordered National Guard troops into Washington and Memphis. Planned deployments to Chicago and Portland, Oregon have so far been blocked in the courts.Demonstrators are also up in arms over Trump’s attacks on the media, prosecutions of his political opponents and a host of other actions they see as authoritarian.”The president thinks his rule is absolute. But in America, we don’t have kings and we won’t back down against chaos, corruption, and cruelty,” the “No Kings” movement — which brings together some 300 organizations — says on its website.A government shutdown is now in its third week, with the Trump administration firing thousands of federal workers and lawmakers showing little sign they are ready to break the impasse.”This president is a disgrace and I hope there will be millions in the street today,” Stephanie, a 36-year-old hospital worker who did not give her last name, told AFP in the Queens borough of New York, where hundreds had already gathered in the morning.Demonstrators carried colorful signs that read “Queens Say No Kings,” and “We protest because we love America and want it back!”Some chanted, “We love our country, we can’t stand Trump!”In Los Angeles, organizers plan to float a giant balloon of Trump in a diaper. They said they expect 100,000 people to attend.So far, the Republican billionaire president’s response to Saturday’s events has been muted.”They’re saying they’re referring to me as a king. I’m not a king,” he told Fox News show “Sunday Morning Futures.”But his top surrogates were in more fighting form, with House Speaker Mike Johnson calling the day of protest the “Hate America rally.””You’re going to bring together the Marxists, the Socialists, the Antifa advocates, the anarchists and the pro-Hamas wing of the far-left Democrat Party,” he told reporters.Republican lawmaker Tom Emmer also used the “Hate America” phrase and referred to participants as the “terrorist wing” of the Democratic Party.- ‘Country of equals’ -Beyond New York and San Francisco, protests are scheduled in major cities such as Washington, Boston, Chicago, Atlanta and New Orleans, but also in small towns across all 50 states.The “No Kings” movement is even organizing events in Canada.Small protests took place in Malaga, Spain and Malmo, Sweden. On Thursday, Deirdre Schifeling, chief political and advocacy officer for the American Civil Liberties Union, said protesters wanted to convey that “we are a country of equals.””We are a country of laws that apply to everyone, of due process and of democracy. We will not be silenced,” she told reporters.Leah Greenberg, co-founder of the Indivisible Project, slammed the Trump administration’s efforts to send the National Guard into US cities, crack down on undocumented migrants and prosecute political opponents.”It is the classic authoritarian playbook: threaten, smear and lie, scare people into submission,” Greenberg said. Top Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer encouraged demonstrators to let their voices be heard.”I say to my fellow Americans this No Kings Day: Do not let Donald Trump and Republicans intimidate you into silence. That’s what they want to do. They’re afraid of the truth,” he wrote on X.”Speak out, use your voice, and exercise your right to free speech.”