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More than 50 countries have sought talks with President Donald Trump in a scramble to ease punishing tariffs on exports to the United States, the White House said Sunday, as trade partners braced for further fallout.The Republican has remained defiant since unleashing the blitz of tariffs on stunned countries around the world Wednesday, insisting that his policies “will never change” even as markets went into a tailspin. He took to the golf course Sunday, according to his own post on Truth Social.Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister of Israel — which has been hit with 17 percent tariffs, despite being one of Washington’s closest allies — will fly in for crunch talks with Trump Monday on the levies.Britain’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer warned in a newspaper op-ed that “the world as we knew it has gone,” saying the status quo would increasingly hinge on “deals and alliances.”Trump’s staggered deadlines have left space for some countries to negotiate, even as he insisted he would stand firm and his administration warned against any retaliation.”More than 50 countries have reached out to the president to begin a negotiation,” Kevin Hassett, head of the White House National Economic Council, told ABC’s This Week on Sunday, citing the US Trade Representative.Vietnam, a manufacturing powerhouse that counted the US as its biggest export market in the first quarter, has already reached out and requested a delay of at least 45 days to thumping 46 percent tariffs imposed by Trump.Hassett said countries seeking compromise were doing so “because they understand that they bear a lot of the tariffs,” as the administration continues to insist that the duties would not lead to major price rises in the United States.”I don’t think that you’re going to see a big effect on the consumer in the US,” he said. – ‘Markets bloodbath’ -Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent also told NBC’s Meet the Press that 50 countries had reached out.But as for whether Trump will negotiate with them, “I think that’s a decision for President Trump,” Bessent said. “At this moment he’s created maximum leverage for himself… I think we’re going to have to see what the countries offer, and whether it’s believable,” Bessent said. Other countries have been “bad actors for a long time, and it’s not the kind of thing you can negotiate away in days or weeks,” he claimed.Despite hopes for negotiations to avert the worst economic carnage, there was widespread fear that the markets bloodbath could continue into the new trading week.In Saudi Arabia, where the markets were open Sunday, the bourse was down 6.78 percent — the worst daily loss since the Covid-19 pandemic, according to state media.Larry Summers, formerly Director of the National Economic Council under president Barack Obama, said “there is a very good chance there’s going to be more turbulence in markets the way we saw on Thursday and Friday.”A drop like that following the announcement of tariffs “signals that there’s likely to be trouble ahead, and people ought to be very cautious,” he wrote on X.Peter Navarro, Trump’s tariff guru, has pushed back against the mounting nervousness and insisted to investors that “you can’t lose money unless you sell.””Right now, the smart strategy is not to panic, just stay in, because we are going to have the biggest boom in the stock market we’ve ever seen under the Trump policies,” Navarro, who has become the public face of tariffs, told Fox News. Russia has not been targeted by the latest raft of tariffs, and Hassett cited talks with Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine as the reason for their omission from the hit list.”There’s obviously an ongoing negotiation with Russia and Ukraine, and I think the President made the decision not to conflate the two issues. It doesn’t mean that Russia, in the fullest of time, is going to be treated wildly different than every other country,” Hassett said.On Wednesday a White House official suggested the reason for Russia’s omission was because trade was negligible thanks to sanctions.Trump has long insisted that countries around the world that sell products to the United States are in fact ripping Americans off, and he sees tariffs as a means to right that wrong.But many economists have warned that tariffs are passed on to consumers and that they could see price rises at home.

The US attorney general on Sunday defended the administration’s decision to seek the death penalty for Luigi Mangione, the young man accused of gunning down a top health-insurance executive on a New York sidewalk.”The president’s directive was very clear,” Pam Bondi told Fox News Sunday. “We are to seek the death penalty when possible.”Bondi had announced Tuesday that prosecutors would seek the death penalty for 26-year-old Mangione, accused of having tracked UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson for days before walking up behind him and firing from a pistol.The brazen killing brought to the surface deep public frustration with the US health insurance system, with many social media users painting Mangione not as a villain but as a folk hero.But Bondi told interviewer Shannon Bream that “we’re not going to be deterred by political motives.”Asked about young people seen wearing T-shirts that say “Free Luigi” or even show him with a halo, Bondi responded: “If there was ever a death case, this is one. This guy is charged with hunting down a CEO, a father of two, a married man, hunting him down and executing him? Yeah.”I feel like these young people have lost their way.”Mangione’s lawyer Karen Friedman Agnifilo has denounced the Justice Department decision as “barbaric” and “political.” The suspect has pleaded not guilty to state charges but has yet to enter a plea on federal charges.President Joe Biden late last year commuted the sentences of nearly every person in a federal prison facing execution.Public support for the death penalty in the US has steadily declined amid reports showing the innocence of several alleged killers.But Trump vowed during his 2024 campaign to execute those still on federal death rows, saying Biden had commuted the death sentences of “37 of the worst killers in our country.”On January 20, his first day in office, Trump signed an executive order calling for the death penalty in federal crimes involving the murder of a police officer or a capital crime committed by an undocumented alien. He ordered the attorney general to ensure that states allowing capital punishment have sufficient drugs “to carry out lethal injection,” and to evaluate whether the 37 people whose sentences Biden commuted “can be charged with state capital crimes.”  

The US attorney general said Sunday that it would be “a heavy lift” for Donald Trump to find a legal way to run for a third term as president.”I wish we could have him for 20 years as our president,” Pam Bondi told Fox News Sunday, “but I think he’s going to be finished, probably, after this term.”The US Constitution was amended in 1947 to set a two-year limit on the presidency, not long after Franklin Roosevelt died near the start of his fourth term in the White House.But constitutional amendments require approval by two-thirds of both houses of Congress, as well as ratification by three-quarters of the 50 states, which political analysts say is extremely unlikely.”That’s really the only way to do it,” Bondi said. “It’d be a heavy lift.”Trump’s early talk of seeking a third term struck many as fanciful, but on March 31 the 78-year-old president told NBC News that he was “not joking” about the possibility.He said there were “methods” that would allow it to happen. The remarks by Bondi, a former Florida attorney general, about the difficulty of a legal third term appear to align with the views of most constitutional scholars.But as a confirmed Trump loyalist holding the government’s top law-enforcement office, her comments take on greater significance.Earlier in the interview with Fox’s Shannon Bream, Bondi spoke out against the broad legal pushback the still-young Trump administration has faced as he moves aggressively to put his policies in place.”We’ve had over 170 lawsuits brought against us — that should be the constitutional crisis right there,” she said. “We’ll continue to fight” those cases as they move through the courts.Bondi defended the administration’s decision to seek the death penalty in the case of Luigi Mangione, who is charged with the December 4, 2024 killing on a New York sidewalk of health insurance executive Brian Thompson.”The president’s directive was very clear: we are to seek the death penalty when possible,” she said. “If there was ever a death case, this is one.” Bondi exulted in one recent legal victory, when the Supreme Court on Friday sided with the administration in a dispute over the Education Department’s move to freeze so-called DEI grants — involving efforts to ensure diversity, equity and inclusion.The right-leaning court allowed the administration to continue freezing $64 million intended for teacher training and professional development.”We just got a great win,” Bondi said, “and we’ll continue to fight every day.”

An American neurologist and an Italian epidemiologist whose work revolutionized the treatment of multiple sclerosis on Saturday won a prestigious Breakthrough Prize, the award nicknamed the “Oscars of science.”Stephen Hauser and Alberto Ascherio were recognized for their decades researching the debilitating neurodegenerative disease, which affects nearly three million people worldwide and was long considered an impenetrable enigma.Hauser’s work on multiple sclerosis (MS) started more than 45 years ago, when he met a young patient named Andrea, “an extraordinarily talented young woman who was already an attorney” and working at the White House under then-president Jimmy Carter, he told AFP.”Then MS appeared in an explosive fashion and destroyed her life,” he said.”I remember seeing her, unable to speak, paralyzed on the right side, unable to swallow, and soon, unable to breathe on her own, and I remember thinking that this was the most unfair thing I had ever seen in medicine.”Then 27 years old, he decided to make it his life’s work.- Rough road -“At the time, we had no treatments for MS. In fact, there was also a pessimism that treatments could ever be developed,” said Hauser, now 74 and director of the neuroscience institute at the University of California San Francisco.Scientists knew the disease, which damages the central nervous system and leads to paralyzing cognitive and motor problems, was caused by the immune system turning on the body.But they thought the white blood cells known as T cells were the lone culprit.Hauser questioned that.Studying the role played in the disease by B cells, another type of white blood cell, he and his colleagues managed to recreate the damage MS causes to the human nervous system in small monkeys known as marmosets.The US federal body overseeing medical research dismissed the link as “biologically implausible,” and turned down their application for funding for a clinical trial.But Hauser and his team pressed on.They persuaded pharmaceutical company Genentech to back testing. In 2006, they got resounding results: treatments targeting B cells were associated with “a dramatic, more than 90-percent reduction in brain inflammation,” Hauser said.It was “something of a scope that had never been seen before.”That threw open a door to bring new treatments to market that slow the advance of the disease in many patients.But it also raised other questions. For example, what would cause our white blood cells to turn against us?- The virus connection -That was a question that puzzled Ascherio, today a professor at Harvard.He decided to investigate why MS mostly affected people in the northern hemisphere.”The geographical distribution of MS was quite striking,” he told AFP.”MS is very uncommon in tropical countries and near the equator.”That made him wonder whether a virus could be involved.He and his team carried out a long-term study following millions of young US military recruits.After nearly 20 years of research, they came up with an answer. In 2022, they confirmed a link between MS and the Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), a common infection responsible for another well-known disease, infectious mononucleosis, or mono.”Most people infected with EBV will never develop MS,” said Ascherio, 72.But everyone who develops MS has had EBV first.The discovery still did not explain why MS occurs. But it fuelled hope of finding new treatments and preventive measures for a disease that remains uncurable, and whose current treatments do not work on all patients.Ascherio’s breakthrough could also help treat other conditions.”We are now trying also to extend our investigation, to investigate the role of viral infection in other neurodegenerative diseases, like Alzheimer’s or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis,” also known as ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease, he said.The link remains theoretical for now. But “there is some evidence,” he said.”It’s like where we were on MS 20 or 30 years ago.”

The artist who painted US President Donald Trump in what he criticized as a “purposefully distorted” portrait has said his remarks have harmed her business.Colorado removed the official portrait of Trump from display in the state’s capitol building last month after the president complained that it was deliberately unflattering.”Nobody likes a bad picture or painting of themselves, but the one in Colorado, in the State Capitol… along with all other Presidents, was purposefully distorted,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform on March 24.”The artist also did President Obama, and he looks wonderful, but the one on me is truly the worst,” Trump said.The 78-year-old Republican called for the oil painting to be taken down, and said the artist, Sarah Boardman, “must have lost her talent as she got older.”The Democrat-controlled Colorado legislature said the same day as Trump’s complaint that the painting would be removed from the gallery in the capitol’s rotunda — where it had been hung since 2019 — and placed in storage.Boardman has responded to Trump’s critique in a statement on her website, saying she completed the work “accurately, without ‘purposeful distortion,’ political bias, or any attempt to caricature the subject, actual or implied.””President Trump is entitled to comment freely, as we all are, but the additional allegations that I ‘purposefully distorted’ the portrait, and that I ‘must have lost my talent as I got older’ are now directly and negatively impacting my business of over 41 years,” the British-born artist said.Boardman added in the undated statement that for the six years that the portrait of Trump hung in the Colorado capitol, she “received overwhelmingly positive reviews” on the commissioned work.However, since Trump’s comments “that has changed for the worst,” she said.In addition to Trump and former president Barack Obama, Boardman was also commissioned to paint a portrait of ex-president George W. Bush.

Violent storms battering the central-eastern United States have killed at least 16 people, officials said, with the National Weather Service warning on Saturday of “severe” flash flooding in the coming days.A line of fierce storms stretching from Arkansas to Ohio has damaged buildings, flooded roadways and produced dozens of tornadoes in recent days.Tennessee was hardest hit by extreme weather, with state authorities saying on Saturday that 10 people had died across the western part of the state.Two people were killed due to floods in Kentucky, according to state Governor Andy Beshear, including a child who was “swept away by floodwaters.”Photos shared on social and local media showed widespread damage from the storm across several states, with homes torn apart, toppled trees, downed power lines and overturned cars.”Severe, widespread flash flooding is expected” into Sunday in parts of the central-eastern region, the National Weather Service (NWS) said, warning that “lives and property are in great danger.”Two storm-related deaths were recorded in Missouri and one in Indiana, according to local media reports and authorities.A five-year-old was found dead in a home in Little Rock, Arkansas “in connection to the ongoing severe weather,” the state’s emergency management agency said in a statement.”Flooding has reached record levels in many communities,” Kentucky’s Governor Beshear wrote on social media Saturday, urging residents in the state to “avoid travel, and never drive through water.”More than 100,000 customers were without power in Arkansas and Tennessee as of early Sunday, according to tracking website PowerOutage.us.The NWS on Saturday said that moderate to severe tornadoes could form in parts of the Tennessee Valley and Lower Mississippi Valley on Sunday, along with “severe thunderstorms.”Scientists say global warming is disrupting climate patterns and the water cycle, making extreme weather more frequent and ferocious.Last year set a record for high temperatures in the United States, with the country also pummeled by a barrage of tornadoes and destructive hurricanes.

A revolution is underway in gene editing — and at its forefront is David Liu, an American molecular biologist whose pioneering work is rewriting the building blocks of life with unprecedented precision.A professor at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Liu was awarded a Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences on Saturday for developing two transformative technologies: one already improving the lives of patients with severe genetic diseases, the other poised to reshape medicine in the years ahead.He spoke with AFP ahead of the Los Angeles ceremony for the prestigious Silicon Valley-founded award.He will receive $3 million for his work on “base editing” and “prime editing,” and plans to donate most of it to support his charitable foundation.”The ability to change a DNA sequence of our choosing into a new sequence of our choosing is a fundamentally very powerful capability,” the 51-year-old said, foreseeing uses not just in human medicine but areas like developing more nutritious or disease-resistant crops.- Correcting the code -DNA is made up of four chemical “letters” — the nucleotide bases A, G, T and C. Mutations in this sequence cause thousands of human diseases, yet until recently, gene editing could only fix a limited number of them.Even CRISPR-Cas9, the groundbreaking technology that earned a Nobel Prize in 2020, has major limitations.It cuts both strands of the DNA helix, making it most useful to disrupt rather than correct genes, while the process can introduce new errors.”Being able to use genome editing to treat genetic diseases requires, in most cases, ways to correct a DNA misspelling, not simply to disrupt a gene,” Liu said.That insight led his lab to develop base editing, which uses the Cas9 protein — disabled so it can no longer cut both DNA strands — to find a target DNA sequence and another enzyme to convert one letter to another — for example, C to T or G to A.Reversing the change — from T to C or A to G — was tougher. Liu’s team overcame the challenge by engineering entirely new enzymes.These base editors can now correct about 30 percent of the mutations that cause genetic diseases. The technology is already in at least 14 clinical trials.In one of them, Beam Therapeutics — which Liu co-founded — announced it had treated patients of AATD, a rare genetic disorder affecting the lungs and liver, with a single drug infusion.While traditional gene therapies often disrupt faulty genes or work around them, base editing repairs the mutation itself.”This was the first time that humans have corrected a mutation that causes a genetic disease in a patient,” Liu said.- Cystic fibrosis hope -Base editing, quickly dubbed “CRISPR 2.0,” can’t fix every mutation.About 70 percent of the roughly 100,000 known disease-causing mutations remain out of its reach, including those caused by missing or extra letters.To expand the toolkit, Liu’s lab introduced prime editing in 2019 — a method capable of replacing entire sections of faulty DNA with corrected sequences.If CRISPR is like scissors that cut DNA, and base editors are like using a pencil to correct individual letters, then prime editing is the equivalent of a word processor’s “find and replace” function.Creating this tool required a series of breakthroughs Liu’s team describes as “small miracles.” The result is, he said, “the most versatile way we know of to edit the human genome.”Among the targets Liu and his team have already pursued with prime editing: cystic fibrosis, a common genetic disease usually caused by three missing DNA letters that causes thick mucus buildup in the lungs and digestive system.Liu’s lab has made much of its work freely accessible, sharing DNA blueprints through a nonprofit library used by tens of thousands of labs worldwide.”The science we create — which is ultimately funded by society, through governments and donors — ultimately goes back to benefit society.”This year’s Breakthrough Prize awards come at a fraught moment for US science, as President Donald Trump’s government strips funding for institutions like the National Institutes of Health (NIH).”The NIH is a treasure, not just for this country but for the world,” said Liu. “Trying to dismantle the heart of what supports science in this country is like burning your seed corn.”

As President Donald Trump’s sweeping global tariffs took effect this weekend, US farmers hoping for a profit this year instead found themselves facing lower crop prices — and the prospect of ceding more ground in foreign markets.”We’re already getting below break-even at the current time,” said Jim Martin, a fifth-generation Illinois farmer who grows soybeans and corn.”We knew it was coming,” he told AFP of Trump’s tariffs. “I guess we’re anxious to see how things are going to eventually be resolved.”The president’s 10-percent “baseline” rate on goods from most US trading partners except Mexico and Canada took effect Saturday.And dozens of economies, including the European Union, China and India, are set to face even higher levels — tailored to each party — starting Wednesday.With talk of retaliation, farmers, a key support base in Trump’s 2024 re-election campaign, are again in the crossfire and bracing for losses.Prices for many US agricultural products fell alongside the stock market on Friday, following Trump’s tariff announcement and China’s pushback.China, the third-biggest importer of American farm goods behind Canada and Mexico, is set to be hard hit, with a 34-percent US duty on its products piling on an earlier 20-percent levy.In response, Beijing said it would place its own 34-percent tariff on American goods, stacking on previous rates of up to 15 percent on US agricultural products.The tariffs mean businesses pay more to import US products, hurting American farmers’ competitiveness.- Market loss -“There is less incentive for them to purchase US soybeans. It is cheaper to get them out of Brazil by far,” said Michael Slattery, who grows corn, soybeans and wheat in the Midwest state of Wisconsin.At least half of US soybean exports and even more of its sorghum go to China, which spent $24.7 billion on US agriculture last year, including on chicken, beef and other crops.But the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) said China’s purchases last year dropped 15 percent from 2023 “as soybean and corn sales fell amid rising competition from South America.”Slattery expects Chinese buyers will dial back further.”The loss of this market is a very big deal, because it’s expensive to find other buyers,” said Christopher Barrett, a Cornell University professor whose expertise includes agricultural economics.During Trump’s escalating tariff war in his first presidency, China was the “only target, and therefore the only country retaliating,” Barrett said.With all trading partners now targeted, farmers will likely have a harder time finding new markets, he said.- ‘Band-aid’ -“More than 20 percent of farm income comes from exports, and farmers rely on imports for crucial supplies like fertilizer and specialized tools,” the American Farm Bureau Federation warned this week.”Tariffs will drive up the cost of critical supplies, and retaliatory tariffs will make American-grown products more expensive globally,” it added.The International Dairy Foods Association cautioned Wednesday that “broad and prolonged tariffs” on top trading partners and growing markets risk undermining billions in investments to meet global demand.Retaliatory tariffs on the United States triggered over $27 billion in agricultural export losses from mid-2018 to late-2019, the USDA found.While the department provided $23 billion to help farmers hit by trade disputes in 2018 and 2019, Martin in Illinois likened the bailouts to “a band-aid, a temporary fix on a long-term problem.””The president says it’s going to be better in the long-term so we need to decide how patient we need to be, I guess,” he added.Martin, like other producers, hopes for more trade deals with countries beyond China.Slattery called Trump’s policies “a major restructuring of the international order.”He is bracing for losses this year and next.”I’ve attempted to sell as much as I can of the soybeans and corn in advance, before Trump began to indicate the amount of tariffs he was going to charge,” he said.

A $600,000 federal grant to research feminine hygiene products was axed after US officials falsely labelled it a study on transgender menstrual cycles, underscoring the way that misinformation is underpinning a breakneck cost-cutting spree.Elon Musk, President Donald Trump’s billionaire advisor, has overseen a crusade by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to slash government spending, ordering massive cuts and layoffs that have upended scientific research and foreign aid.But the cost-cutters are spreading misinformation as they home in on their targets.For example, the cancellations include funding awarded to Southern University in Louisiana, which Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins rescinded last month. However, she falsely described it as a grant to study “menstrual cycles in transgender men.”DOGE amplified her announcement on its website and X.Outrage fueled by the misinformation grew so intense online that the professor in charge of the research, Samii Kennedy Benson, feared for her safety, multiple sources told AFP.The true purpose of “Project Farm to Feminine Hygiene” was to explore how alternatives to synthetic pads, liners and underwear could be made using natural fibers such as regenerative cotton, according to the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) and interviews with five sources.The effort also involved an outreach program educating women and girls about menstruation and the establishment of a local fiber-processing facility. “This was just one more senseless, hateful cancellation,” one organizer with Acadian Brown Cotton, a fiber-producing initiative the university partnered with to supply cotton for testing, told AFP on condition of anonymity.- ‘So angry’ -In a letter to Louisiana Congressman Clay Higgins seen by AFP, Acadian Brown Cotton’s founder Sharon Donnan wrote that the funding was pulled over a “misunderstanding” and petitioned for its reinstatement.”The real loss is for women,” Donnan told AFP.”It makes me so angry that I want to start calling names.”The word “transgender” is mentioned only once in the grant document, with a line noting that transgender men “may also menstruate.”Southern University said in a statement that the project was “not a study on or including research on menstrual cycles.” The university declined to comment to AFP, and Benson did not respond to interview requests.The transgender community has become a flashpoint in culture wars roiling the United States. Trump has signed several executive orders targeting them, including one instructing the government to recognize only two sexes, male and female.The president has previously railed against experiments he falsely claimed were turning mice transgender, misrepresenting contracts revoked by DOGE.Aside from women, the economic beneficiaries of Southern University’s initiative could have included cotton farmers in Louisiana, one of the nation’s poorest states.”It would expand the market,” one grower, who produced the sample provided for Southern University’s research, told AFP. “It’s kind of sad it got cut off in the middle.”Norris Green Jr, a Black farmer who was excited to contribute to research at the historically Black university, said officials responsible for the cuts should visit the state to understand the ground reality.”Come to the Gulf and see how many of these females are impoverished,” he told AFP. “You might have a different perspective.”- ‘Hostility’ -A USDA spokesperson originally insisted to AFP that the project’s educational component “prioritized” transgender men.When asked for evidence, the agency pointed only to the grant’s single line mentioning the word “transgender.”Rollins, whose grant cancellation announcement received millions of views on X, went on to repeat the false claims during a White House Cabinet meeting.A former Louisiana mayor also repeated them on local radio.Across platforms and in the comment sections of articles echoing Rollins’s claims, posts called for people involved with the grant’s approval to be fired, publicly identified or prosecuted.The episode underscores a pattern of deception around DOGE, which has touted massive savings on a website that US media have reported is riddled with errors.Musk and other officials have repeatedly misrepresented government programs — from an invented tale about condoms for war-battered Gaza to misleading claims about Social Security recipients.”Most factual information about DOGE either never makes it in front of the people who need it most or is received with hostility,” Audrey McCabe, an analyst with the watchdog group Common Cause, told AFP.”Once a falsehood infiltrates public consciousness, an investigation correcting the lie can only do so much to cancel it out.”

Tens of thousands of protesters flooded the streets of major US cities on Saturday to oppose the divisive policies of President Donald Trump, in the largest demonstrations since his return to the White House.Opponents of the Republican president’s policies — from government staffing cuts to trade tariffs and eroding civil liberties — rallied in Washington, New York, Houston, Florida, Colorado and Los Angeles, among other locations.”I am so angry, I’m so mad, all the time, yes. A bunch of privileged, white alleged rapists are controlling our country. It’s not great,” said New York painter Shaina Kesner, 43, joining a crowd marching through the heart of Manhattan.In Washington, thousands of demonstrators — many traveling from across the United States — gathered on the National Mall where dozens of speakers rallied opposition to Trump.”We have about 100 people who have come down by bus and van from New Hampshire to protest against this outrageous administration (that) is causing us to lose our allies across the world, and causing devastation to people here at home,” said Diane Kolifrath, 64, a bike tour guide.”They’re gutting our government.”In Los Angeles, a woman dressed as a character from dystopian novel “The Handmaid’s Tale” waved a large flag with the message: “Get out of my uterus,” a reference to Trump’s anti-abortion policies.In Denver, Colorado, one man in a large crowd of protesters held up a placard reading “No king for USA.”The rallies even extended to some European capitals, where demonstrators voiced opposition to Trump and his aggressive trade policies.”What’s happening in America is everyone’s problem,” Liz Chamberlin, a dual US-British citizen told AFP at a London rally. “It’s economic lunacy… He is going to push us into a global recession.”And in Berlin, 70-year-old retiree Susanne Fest said Trump had created “a constitutional crisis,” adding, “The guy is a lunatic.”In the US, a loose coalition of left-leaning groups like MoveOn and Women’s March organized “Hands Off” events in more than 1,000 cities and in every congressional district, the groups said. – Anger -Trump has angered many Americans by moving aggressively to downsize the government, unilaterally impose  conservative values and sharply pressure even friendly countries over borders and trade, causing stock markets to tank.”We’re out here to stop the, honestly, fascism,” protester Dominic Santella told AFP in Boston. “We’re stopping a leader from… jailing his opponents, stopping him from jailing just random people, immigrants.”Many Democrats are irate that their party, in the minority in both houses of Congress, has seemed so helpless to resist Trump’s moves.At the National Mall, just blocks from the White House, thousands heard speakers including Representative Jamie Raskin, a Democrat who served as impeachment manager during Trump’s second impeachment. “No moral person wants an economy-crashing dictator who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing,” he told the crowd.Activist Graylan Hagler, 71, also addressed the protest, saying: “They’ve woken up a sleeping giant, and they haven’t seen nothing yet.””We will not sit down, we will not be quiet, and we will not go away.”Saturday’s demonstrations were largely peaceful. An upbeat atmosphere prevailed on a mild day in Washington, with protesters ranging from the elderly to young couples with infants in strollers.A Women’s March shortly after Trump’s first election in 2016 drew an estimated half-million protesters to Washington. Organizers for the latest Washington rally had predicted a turnout of 20,000 but by Saturday afternoon said the number appeared considerably larger. As Trump continues upending Washington, his approval rating has fallen to its lowest since taking office, according to recent polling.But despite global pushback to his sweeping tariffs and bubbling resentment from many Americans, the White House has dismissed the protests.The Republican president, still popular with his base, shows no sign of relenting.”My policies will never change,” Trump said Friday.