AFP USA

Several thousand people took to the streets of New York City on Tuesday to protest the immigration policies of US President Donald Trump, after a series of raids by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) sparked protests across the country.”No hate, no fear, immigrants are welcome here,” chanted protesters who initially gathered at Foley Square, a plaza in front of a courthouse where several migrants were detained by law enforcement on Friday. Protesters marched into lower Manhattan, many carrying signs reading “ICE, out of New York” in reference to the federal immigration police whose raids to arrest undocumented immigrants have ramped up in recent weeks. “I’m here to stand up for those who don’t have a voice to be here at the moment, especially for my mom,” one woman at the protest told AFP.She requested anonymity, given her Mexican mother’s undocumented immigration status.”Honestly, this country wouldn’t be what it is without the immigrants. So I’m here for them,” she added.Another protester named Jacqueline, a 23-year-old American woman with Mexican heritage, told AFP: “I’m here to defend my family… I fear for them now, and I don’t want to live in a society where I’m in fear for my family’s health.”The march in New York was more peaceful than its counterpart in Los Angeles, where ongoing demonstrations between protesters and police have spurred Trump to deploy thousands of National Guard troops and 700 active-duty Marines.Protests like those in LA are “unacceptable and will not be tolerated if attempted in our city,” said New York Mayor Eric Adams on Tuesday, who added that the New York Police Department was prepared “to handle any issues that may arise, especially when we are faced with deep division in our society.”Adams did not implement a Tuesday night curfew in New York, unlike his counterpart in Los Angeles.

The Mexican flag has become a flashpoint during protests in Los Angeles this week, waved by demonstrators proud of their heritage but cast by US President Donald Trump’s administration as heralding a “foreign invasion.”For five days now protesters have held small and largely peaceful rallies against immigration raids in the sprawling city, as the rest of Los Angeles carried on largely as normal with red carpet premieres, awards shows, traffic and tourists.But there have been some eyecatching — albeit isolated and sporadic — incidents of violence that produced dramatic images of protesters flying Mexican flags during clashes with law enforcement under smoke-filled skies. It is those images that Trump and officials in his administration have seized on to help justify his extraordinary step of deploying thousands of US troops to the California city over the strident objection of local officials. “The only flag that will wave triumphant over the streets of Los Angeles is the American flag — so help me God,” the president told cheering soldiers Tuesday at Fort Bragg army base in North Carolina.Republicans lined up behind Trump to frame the protests as an invasion, with the Mexican flag as its symbol and the demonstrators as insurrectionists.”Look at all the foreign flags. Los Angeles is occupied territory,” top White House migration advisor Stephen Miller posted on X over footage of the demonstrations. It is not illegal to fly foreign flags in the United States under the US Constitution’s First Amendment, which guarantees freedom of speech.But the Mexican flag has at times been a lightning rod in Los Angeles, the unofficial capital of the Mexican diaspora in the United States. In 1994 the green, white and red banner was also waved by protesters as a sign of solidarity against legislation seeking to bar undocumented migrants from services including education and health care.Then as now, it was seen by some as a symbol of anti-American defiance, becoming so polarizing that it helped to get the legislation passed, argues Mike Madrid, a Republican strategist who studies Latino voting trends.”So it is a little bit odd to see the same strategy being used when it misfired so badly last time,” Madrid, who authored the recent book “The Latino Century”, told AFP. – ‘Great irony’ -Protesters who spoke to US media this week, including those who said they were American citizens, said they were waving the flag to show pride in their heritage and solidarity with those facing deportation. Diana Mena, a 28-year-old US citizen with Mexican parents, said she had family in the US military”As much as I understand that we had a privilege to come here, I feel like it’s very important to know where we came from,” she told AFP on Tuesday.”I benefit from being in a place that has been able to provide me an opportunity to be able to advance, but that doesn’t mean I’ll ever forget my roots and my culture.”The strategist Madrid, who himself is of Mexican heritage, argues the ability for people to be proud of both cultures presents a paradox for Trump, after the Latino community’s rightward shift helped propel him to victory in 2024.That shift comes as more Latinos are born in the country rather than arriving as immigrants, transforming them into working-class voters rather than an ethnic minority, he said. “The idea that we will respond… to an ethnic appeal over an economic or pocketbook appeal, is very very misguided, it’s really a relic of the 1990s,” he told AFP.Many Latinos support Trump’s crackdown on undocumented immigrants and illegal migration to the United States.But the Latino vote is never cohesive “unless the community perceives itself to be under attack… It’s very clear who the president is attacking here,” Madrid said.”The great irony is they’re all moving towards him… That speaks to the dysfunction of the shrinking white Republican non-college-educated voter. Nativism animates the Republican Party’s base.”A police officer at the US Capitol in Washington told CBS News it made no sense for Republicans to be outraged over Mexican flags at the LA protests.He invoked the image of Trump supporters who stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021 carrying the banner of the rebel Southern states who fought the United States during the Civil War from 1861 to 1865.”They don’t remember the Confederate flags on January 6?” 

An Alabama man who murdered his girlfriend was put to death by nitrogen gas on Tuesday, with another man executed by lethal injection in the US state of Florida. Gregory Hunt, 65, was pronounced dead at 6:26 pm Central Time (2323 GMT) at the Alabama state prison in Atmore.He was executed by nitrogen hypoxia, which involves pumping nitrogen gas into a facemask, causing the prisoner to suffocate.It was the fifth execution in the southern US state using nitrogen gas, which has been denounced by UN experts as cruel and inhumane.Only one other US state, Louisiana, has used this method.Hunt was convicted of the 1988 rape and murder of 32-year-old Karen Lane, whom he had been dating for a month.In Florida, Anthony Wainwright, 54, was put to death by lethal injection at 6:22 pm Eastern Time (2222 GMT) at the Florida state prison in Raiford.Wainwright was convicted of the 1994 rape and murder of Carmen Gayheart, a 23-year-old nursing student and mother of two young children.Wainwright and an accomplice, Richard Hamilton, abducted Gayheart three days after escaping from a prison in North Carolina.Hamilton was also sentenced to death for Gayheart’s murder but died in prison.A third execution this week is scheduled to take place on Thursday in Oklahoma, where John Hanson, 61, is to be put to death for the 1999 kidnapping and murder of Mary Bowles, 77.Hanson’s execution has been temporarily put on hold by a judge amid claims his rights were violated during a clemency hearing.Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond has asked an appeals court to lift the stay to allow the execution to go ahead.The fourth execution this week is to be carried out in South Carolina, where Stephen Stanko, 57, is to be put to death by lethal injection.Stanko was convicted of the 2005 murders of his girlfriend, 43-year-old Laura Ling, and Henry Turner, a 74-year-old friend.There have been 21 executions in the United States this year: 16 by lethal injection, two by firing squad and three using nitrogen gas.The death penalty has been abolished in 23 of the 50 US states, while three others — California, Oregon and Pennsylvania — have moratoriums in place.President Donald Trump is a proponent of capital punishment and called on his first day in office for an expansion of its use “for the vilest crimes.”

President Donald Trump turned a trip marking the US army’s 250th birthday into a political-style rally Tuesday, wrapping himself in martial symbolism as he defended his decision to send soliders to protest-hit Los Angeles.The US commander-in-chief goaded troops to boo political opponents and the media and called protesters “animals” in what was meant to be a non-partisan event at Fort Bragg in North Carolina, the country’s biggest military installation.The Republican president meanwhile reinforced his strongman image as he watched spectacular rocket fire, special forces training and parachute displays, standing behind sandbags while surrounded by military officers in camouflage.The event came days before tanks are set to rumble through Washington in a huge and highly unusual military parade on Saturday, which coincides with Trump’s own 79th birthday.Trump has long shown a fascination for the military — and envy for the military parades that his foreign counterparts preside over.But on Tuesday he spent much of his speech talking about anything but the army, preferring instead to go on a diatribe on the Los Angeles protests.”They’re incompetent,” Trump said of California Governor Gavin Newsom and LA Mayor Karen Bass, as some troops in the audience booed. Newsom has attacked Trump as “dictatorial” after the president deployed thousands of troops including 700 active duty US Marines to Los Angeles following clashes sparked by US government immigration raids.- ‘Theater of leadership’ -Pointing at the “fake news,” Trump said “look what I have to put up with” as troops booed again. Democratic former president Joe Biden also earned a few boos when Trump mentioned him.Trump then ramped up the military language as he promised to “liberate” Los Angeles, saying he would “not allow an American city to be invaded and conquered by a foreign enemy.”The Republican also announced that he would be restoring the names of other US Army bases that, like Fort Bragg, honored military figures of the pro-slavery Confederacy from the US Civil War.He was accompanied by Pentagon chief and former Fox News contributor Pete Hegseth, who hailed the end of what he called “woke” in the US military.In scenes that resembled one of his election rallies last year, Trump finally left the stage to cheers as he did his trademark dance to the Village People song “Y.M.C.A.”The event comes in a week loaded with military symbolism for Trump.He made it clear earlier that he would not tolerate anyone spoiling the parade on Saturday — which marks the 250th anniversary of the army but falls on his birthday too.”If there’s any protest that wants to come out, they will be met with very big force,” Trump said earlier at the White House.For Trump, “what matters is the spectacle. And the military is a heck of a spectacle,” said Peter Loge, director of George Washington University’s School of Media.”The military parade, the military in Los Angeles is theater of leadership, theater of governing, without paying attention to the real-world consequences,” Loge told AFP.- ‘Speaking German’ -Trump was sent to a military academy as a child by his property tycoon father, and seems to have loved military pomp ever since — even if repeated educational and medical deferments meant he could avoid the draft to fight in Vietnam.He first had the idea for a grand military parade after attending France’s annual Bastille Day parade in Paris at the invitation of his friend, President Emmanuel Macron, but is only getting around to it in his second term.World War II meanwhile appears to have been increasingly on Trump’s mind since returning to office.He recently designated May 8 “Victory Day,” noting that unlike much of Europe, the United States had no day to mark the defeat of Nazi Germany — and he has repeatedly downplayed the role of US allies in the war.”Without us, you’d all be speaking German right now, maybe a little Japanese thrown in,” Trump said at Fort Bragg.Critics say that Trump’s military fascination underscores an authoritarian streak.”The imagery is very much strongman: I am Donald Trump, America is a nation of force and power, because look at all the images of force and power,” Loge said.

A Pakistani man was extradited from Canada to the United States on Tuesday to face charges of plotting to carry out an attack on Jews in New York City, the Justice Department said.Muhammad Shahzeb Khan, 20, also known as Shahzeb Jadoon, was arrested in Canada in September.According to a criminal complaint, Khan planned to travel to New York and carry out a mass shooting in support of the Islamic State (IS) at a Jewish center in Brooklyn on the October 7 anniversary of the deadly 2023 Hamas attack on Israel.”He planned to use automatic weapons to kill as many members of our Jewish community as possible, all in support of IS,” US Attorney Jay Clayton said in a statement.Khan allegedly revealed his plans in conversations with conspirators who were actually undercover law enforcement officers, the Justice Department said.He was taken into custody by Canadian authorities in the municipality of Ormstown some 12 miles (19 kilometers) from the US-Canada border.Khan is charged with attempting to provide material support and resources to a designated foreign terrorist organization and attempting to commit acts of terrorism. He could face a maximum of life in prison if convicted.

US President Donald Trump on Tuesday claimed Los Angeles was being invaded by a “foreign enemy” and vowed to “liberate” the city after days of protests sparked by immigration raids.In a hardline speech at one of the country’s biggest army bases, Trump described protesters as “animals” and got troops to boo the names of California Governor Gavin Newsom and ex-president Joe Biden.Trump has deployed thousands of troops including 700 active duty US Marines to Los Angeles, despite California authorities saying the move is unnecessary and will inflame the situation.Newsom has called Trump’s actions “dictatorial.””This anarchy will not stand. We will not allow federal agents to be attacked, and we will not allow an American city to be invaded and conquered by a foreign enemy,” Trump told troops at Fort Bragg in North Carolina.Trump described the protesters as “animals” who “proudly carry the flags of other countries.” “What you’re witnessing in California is a full-blown assault on peace, on public order and national sovereignty, carried out by rioters bearing foreign flags with the aim of continuing a foreign invasion of our country,” the US president said.Trump linked the protesters to what he called “uncontrolled migration” and said that Europe — which his administration has repeatedly berated on the subject — must act too.”As the entire world can now see, uncontrolled migration leads to chaos, dysfunction and disorder,” Trump said. “And you know what? They have it in Europe too. It’s happening in many of the countries of Europe. They better do something before it’s too late.”

The jury considering the fate of disgraced film mogul Harvey Weinstein, facing retrial for rape and sexual assault, retired Tuesday without reaching a verdict after requesting to review significant portions of testimony.The Oscar-winning producer is being retried for offenses against two women: Jessica Mann, whom he is alleged to have raped; and Miriam Haley, whom he is alleged to have sexually assaulted.He is also facing new charges of assaulting ex-model Kaja Sokola.Judge Curtis Farber said jurors had requested to read back much of Mann’s testimony “starting with her going downstairs at the DoubleTree” hotel in Manhattan to meet Weinstein on March 18, 2013, when she says he raped her.They also asked to revisit Mann’s medical notes when they reconvene for a fifth day on Wednesday.Weinstein’s original 2020 conviction, and the resulting 23-year prison term, was thrown out last year after an appeals court found irregularities in the way witnesses were presented.He denies the latest charges, and deliberations continue Wednesday.

Hundreds of US Marines were expected in Los Angeles on Tuesday as President Donald Trump again mused about declaring a full-blown “insurrection” following protests in a small part of the city.The 700 elite troops will join around 4,000 National Guard soldiers, a stunning militarization of the sprawling city, which is home to millions of foreign-born and Latino residents.Small-scale and largely peaceful demonstrations have taken place over four days, with sporadic but isolated violence erupting as protests dispersed and masked individuals confronted police.Streets were quiet on Tuesday as the Little Tokyo neighborhood cleaned up after overnight clashes that saw an unruly mob shooting fireworks at officers in riot gear, who fired back with volleys of tear gas.Several properties — including the Apple Store — had been looted.Protests that erupted Friday were sparked by a sudden intensification last week of Trump’s signature campaign to find and deport undocumented migrants, who he claims have mounted an “invasion” of the United States.Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass on Tuesday stressed the majority of protesters have been peaceful — and that local law enforcement could easily cope.”The unrest that has happened (is) a few blocks within the downtown area,” she said. “It is not all of downtown, and it is not all of the city. Unfortunately, the visuals make it seem as though our entire city is in flames, and it is not the case.”She also slammed the deployment of active-duty soldiers, which the Pentagon said would cost taxpayers $134 million.”What are the Marines going to do when they get here? That’s a good question. I have no idea,” she said.- ‘Behaving like a tyrant’ -Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom filed an emergency motion asking a court for a restraining order to prevent troops hitting the streets.”Sending trained warfighters onto the streets is unprecedented and threatens the very core of our democracy,” he said. “Donald Trump is behaving like a tyrant, not a President. We ask the court to immediately block these unlawful actions.”The filing to the US District Court in Northern California asking for an injunction by 1:00 pm local time (2000 GMT), names Trump and his Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and charges they have violated the US Constitution.Trump has branded the LA protesters “professional agitators and insurrectionists.”Asked again if he intended to invoke the Insurrection Act, a mechanism that would allow active duty military to employ lethal force against Americans, he said: “If there’s an insurrection, I would certainly invoke it. We’ll see.”In an extraordinary move, Trump has also called for Newsom’s arrest, while the president’s ultra-loyal speaker in the House of Representatives, Republican Mike Johnson, on Tuesday declared the California governor “ought to be tarred and feathered.”- ‘Incredibly rare’ -Trump’s use of the military is an “incredibly rare” move for a US president, Rachel VanLandingham, a professor at Southwestern Law School in Los Angeles and a former lieutenant colonel in the US Air Force, told AFP.The National Guard — a fully equipped reserve armed forces — is usually controlled by state governors and used typically on US soil in response to natural disasters.The Guard has not been deployed by a president over the objections of a state governor since 1965, at the height of the civil rights movement.Deployment of regular troops, such as the Marines, on US soil is even more unusual.US law largely prevents the use of the military as a policing force — absent an insurrection. Speculation is growing that Trump could invoke the Insurrection Act giving him a free hand to use regular troops for law enforcement around the country.Trump “is trying to use emergency declarations to justify bringing in first the National Guard and then mobilizing Marines,” law professor Frank Bowman, at the University of Missouri, told AFP.Bowman said the “suspicion” is that Trump is aiming to provoke the kind of all-out crisis that would then justify extreme measures. “That kind of spectacle feeds the notion that there is a genuine emergency and, you know, a genuine uprising against the lawful authorities, and that allows him to begin to use even more force.”

US President Donald Trump has invoked emergency powers to deploy National Guard troops and active-duty Marines to Los Angeles to quell protests against federal immigration raids.Here is a look at some of the legal questions surrounding the move.- Is it legal? -Trump relied on a seldom-used law known as Title 10 to send an initial 2,000 National Guard troops to Los Angeles. He has since ordered another 2,000 Guard members and 700 Marines to the Californian city.National Guard troops are normally mobilized by a state governor and used domestically to respond to natural disasters such as floods or wildfires.Trump, exceptionally, sent the troops to Los Angeles against the wishes of California’s Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom.The last time a president defied a state governor to deploy the Guard was in 1965, when president Lyndon B. Johnson sent troops to Alabama to protect civil rights protestors.Title 10 permits National Guard federalization in times of “a rebellion or danger of a rebellion against the authority of the Government of the United States” but does not give the troops the powers to perform domestic law enforcement duties.The troops deployed to Los Angeles have been used so far only to provide security around federal buildings in the second-largest US city.Newsom has accused Trump of exceeding his authority by deploying the troops without his green light and has filed suit in federal court seeking to have the deployment declared unlawful.- Insurrection Act -Trump would need to invoke the rarely-used Insurrection Act of 1807 to allow troops to expand their current role in Los Angeles, according to legal analysts.The Insurrection Act gives a president the authority to deploy the military domestically to perform law enforcement duties such as conducting searches and making arrests.The Insurrection Act was most recently invoked by president George H.W. Bush at the request of the then California governor to help put down riots in Los Angeles in 1992 that followed the acquittal of police officers involved in the beating of a Black motorist, Rodney King.It was used by president Johnson in 1968 to quell riots that broke out in the nation’s capital and other cities following the assassination of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.- Posse Comitatus -Using the military domestically to conduct law enforcement activities is normally barred by another law, the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act.The Insurrection Act lets a president sidestep the Posse Comitatus Act to suppress “armed rebellion” or “domestic violence” and use the armed forces “as he considers necessary” to enforce the law.William Banks, a professor emeritus of law at Syracuse University, said the Insurrection Act and waiving of Posse Comitatus has been infrequent because of a long US history of “leaving law enforcement to civilians.””To sum up the conditions where (the Insurrection Act) may be used, it’s for when all hell breaks loose,” said Banks, co-author of the book “Soldiers on the Home Front: The Domestic Role of the American Military.””When state and local officials are unable to control civil affairs without federal involvement, the federal government may intervene,” he told AFP. “It’s normally been requested by the state officials, and the president simply agrees and decides to send a federal force.”Newsom has said repeatedly that there was no need for the deployment of the National Guard and Marines and that the Los Angeles Police Department was fully capable of handling the unrest.  

A senior US health official on Tuesday admitted President Donald Trump’s administration had gone too far in slashing biomedical research grants worth billions of dollars, and said efforts were underway to restore some of the funding.Jay Bhattacharya, director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), made the remarks during a Senate committee hearing examining both recent cuts to his agency and deeper reductions proposed by the White House in next year’s budget. Bhattachartya said he had created an appeals process for scientists and laboratories whose research was impacted, and that the NIH had already “reversed many” of the cuts.”I didn’t take this job to terminate grants,” said the physician and health economist who left a professorship at Stanford University to join the Trump administration.”I took this job to make sure that we do the research that advances the health needs of the American people.”The hearing came a day after more than 60 NIH employees sent an open letter to Bhattacharya condemning policies they said undermined the agency’s mission and the health of Americans.They dubbed it the “Bethesda Declaration” — a nod both to the NIH’s suburban Washington headquarters and to Bhattacharya’s role as a prominent signatory of the 2020 “Great Barrington Declaration,” which opposed Covid lockdowns.Since Trump’s January 20 inauguration, the NIH has terminated 2,100 research grants totaling around $9.5 billion and $2.6 billion in contracts, according to an independent database called Grant Watch.Affected projects include studies on gender, the health effects of global warming, Alzheimer’s disease, and cancer.Trump has launched a sweeping overhaul of the US scientific establishment early in his second term — cutting billions in funding, attacking universities, and overseeing mass layoffs of scientists across federal agencies.