Thousands of protesters gathered in Washington, DC, and across the US on Saturday, part of some 1,200 demonstrations that were expected to form the largest single day of protest against President Donald Trump and his billionaire ally Elon Musk since they launched a rapid-fire effort to overhaul government and expand presidential authority.
More than 50 nations had reached out to the White House to begin trade talks since Trump rolled out sweeping new tariffs, said top officials on Sunday as they defended levies that wiped out nearly $6-trillion in value from US stocks last week and downplayed the economic fallout.
A Russian missile attack on Kyiv killed one man and injured three other people overnight, causing damage and fires in several districts in the biggest such attack on Ukraine for weeks, said Ukrainian officials on Sunday.
Anti-Trump protests held across US
Thousands of protesters gathered in Washington, DC, and across the US on Saturday, part of some 1,200 demonstrations that were expected to form the largest single day of protest against President Donald Trump and his billionaire ally Elon Musk since they launched a rapid-fire effort to overhaul government and expand presidential authority.
People streamed onto the expanse of grass surrounding the Washington Monument under gloomy skies and light rain. Organisers told Reuters that more than 20,000 people were expected to attend a rally at the National Mall.
Some 150 activist groups had signed up to participate, according to the event’s website. Protests were planned in all 50 states plus Canada and Mexico.
Terry Klein, a retired biomedical scientist from Princeton, New Jersey, was among those who gathered by the stage beneath the Washington Monument.
She said she drove down to attend the rally to protest Trump’s policies on “everything from immigration to the Doge stuff to the tariffs this week, to education. I mean, our whole country is under attack, all of our institutions, all the things that make America what it is.”
The crowd around the memorial continued to build throughout the day. Some carried Ukrainian flags, and others wore Palestinian keffiyeh scarves and carried “Free Palestine” signs, while Democrats from the US House of Representatives blasted Trump’s policies on stage.
Wayne Hoffman (73), a retired money manager from West Cape May, New Jersey, said he was concerned about Trump’s economic policies, including his widespread use of tariffs.
“It’s going to cost the farmers in the red states. It’s going to cost people their jobs — certainly their 401Ks. People have lost tens of thousands of dollars,” said Hoffman.
Kyle, a 20-year-old intern from Ohio, was a lone Trump supporter, sporting a “Make America Great Again” hat and walking the fringe of the Washington, DC, rally while engaging protesters in debate.
“Most people aren’t too hostile. A few people cuss,” said Kyle, who declined to give his last name.
Trump, who shook financial markets and upset nations around the world with a raft of trade tariffs this week, spent the day in Florida, playing a round of golf at his club in Jupiter before returning to his Mar-a-Lago compound in the afternoon.
Some 6km from Mar-a-Lago in West Palm Beach, more than 400 demonstrators gathered on a sunny day in protest. Drivers hooted in support of the pastel- and khaki-clad demonstrators as they passed by.
“Markets tank, Trump golfs,” read one sign.
At another protest in Stamford, Connecticut, Sue-ann Friedman (84) brought a bright pink, handmade sign objecting to the administration’s moves to cut funding for medical research.
“I thought my marching days were over, and then we get somebody like Musk and Trump,” said Friedman.
Paul Kretschmann, a 74-year-old retired attorney in Stamford, said it was the first time he had ever attended a protest.
“My concern is that Social Security is going to be gutted, that we’re going to lose our benefits, and that there’s going to be nobody around to administer it in the first place,” he said. “I’m afraid that this is all part of a larger plan to dismantle the government and for Trump to maintain power.”
With Trump’s blessing, Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) team has scythed through the US government, eliminating more than 200,000 jobs from the 2.3 million-strong federal workforce. At times, the effort has been haphazard and forced the recall of needed specialists.
On Friday, the Internal Revenue Service began laying off more than 20,000 workers, as much as 25% of its ranks.
Several hundred people gathered outside the headquarters of the Social Security Administration, a top Doge target, near Baltimore to protest against cuts to the agency which delivers benefits to the elderly and disabled.
Linda Falcao, who turns 65 in two months, told the crowd she had been paying into the Social Security fund since the age of 16.
“I’m terrified, I’m angry, I’m pissed, I’m bewildered this could happen to the United States,” she said. “I do love America, and I’m heartbroken. I need my money. I want my money. I want my benefits!” The crowd chanted, “It’s our money!”
Hours before the protests were due to kick off in the US, hundreds of anti-Trump Americans living in Europe gathered in Berlin, Frankfurt, Paris and London to voice opposition to Trump’s sweeping makeover of US foreign and domestic policies.
Over 50 nations want to start trade talks with US, say officials
More than 50 nations had reached out to the White House to begin trade talks since Trump rolled out sweeping new tariffs, said top officials on Sunday as they defended levies that wiped out nearly $6-trillion in value from US stocks last week and downplayed the economic fallout.
On Sunday morning talk shows, Trump’s top economic advisers sought to portray the tariffs as a savvy repositioning of the US in the global trade order. They also tried to minimise the economic fallout from last week’s tumultuous rollout, ahead of Monday’s expected bumpy opening of Asian stock markets.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said more than 50 nations had started negotiations with the US since last Wednesday’s announcement, putting Trump in a position of power.
Neither Bessent nor the other officials named the countries or offered details about the talks. However, holding simultaneous negotiations with so many countries at once could potentially pose a huge logistical challenge for the Trump administration. It is not clear how long such talks would last.
Taiwan’s President Lai Ching-te on Sunday offered zero tariffs as the basis for talks with the US, pledging to remove trade barriers and saying Taiwanese companies would raise their US investments.
“He’s created maximum leverage for himself,” said Bessent on NBC News’ “Meet the Press”.
Bessent downplayed the stock market drop and said there was “no reason” to anticipate a recession based on the tariffs, citing stronger than anticipated US jobs growth.
“We could see from the jobs number on Friday, that was well above expectations, that we are moving forward, so I see no reason that we have to price in a recession,” said Bessent.
Trump jolted economies around the world after he announced broad tariffs on US imports, triggering retaliatory levies from China and sparking fears of a global trade war and recession.
US stocks tumbled by around 10% in the two days since Trump announced a new global tariff regime that was more aggressive than analysts and investors had been anticipating.
Analysts and large investors blamed the stock market drop on Trump’s tariff push, which most economists and the head of the US Federal Reserve believe risk stoking inflation and damaging economic growth. JPMorgan economists now estimate the tariffs will result in full-year gross domestic product declining by 0.3%, down from an earlier estimate of 1.3% growth, and that the unemployment rate will climb to 5.3% from 4.2% now.
Israeli military changes initial account of Gaza aid worker killings
The Israeli military has provided new details that changed its initial account of the killing of 15 emergency workers near the southern Gaza city of Rafah last month, but said investigators were still examining the evidence.
The 15 paramedics and emergency responders were shot dead on 23 March and buried in a shallow grave, where their bodies were found a week later by officials from the United Nations and the Palestinian Red Crescent. Another man is still missing.
The military initially said soldiers had opened fire on vehicles that approached their position “suspiciously” in the dark without lights or markings. It said they killed nine militants from Hamas and Islamic Jihad who were travelling in Palestinian Red Crescent vehicles.
But video recovered from the mobile phone of one of the dead men and published by the Palestinian Red Crescent showed emergency workers in their uniforms and clearly marked ambulances and fire trucks, with their lights on, being fired on by soldiers.
The only known survivor of the incident, Palestinian Red Crescent paramedic Munther Abed, said he had seen soldiers opening fire on clearly marked emergency response vehicles.
An Israeli military official said late on Saturday that the investigators were examining the video and conclusions were expected to be presented to army commanders on Sunday.
He said the initial report received from the field did not describe lights but that investigators were looking at “operational information” and were trying to understand if this was due to an error by the person making the initial report.
“What we understand currently is the person who gives the initial account is mistaken. We’re trying to understand why.”
Israeli media briefed by the military reported that troops had identified at least six of the 15 dead as members of militant groups. However, the official declined to provide any evidence or detail of how the identifications were made, saying he did not want to share classified information.
“According to our information, there were terrorists there, but this investigation is not over,” he told reporters at the briefing late on Saturday.
The UN and Palestinian Red Crescent have demanded an independent inquiry into the killing of the paramedics.
Red Crescent and UN officials have said 17 paramedics and emergency workers from the Red Crescent, the Civil Emergency service and the UN had been dispatched to respond to reports of injuries from Israeli air strikes.
Apart from Abed, who was detained for several hours before being released, another worker is still missing.
The UN said last week that available information indicated one team was killed by Israeli forces and other emergency and aid crews were killed one after another over several hours as they searched for their missing colleagues.
Russian missile strike kills one, injures three in Kyiv
A Russian missile attack on Kyiv killed one man and injured three other people overnight, causing damage and fires in several districts in the biggest such attack on Ukraine for weeks, said Ukrainian officials on Sunday.
The strike was the first large-scale attack using missiles and drones since the US said late last month it had negotiated two ceasefire accords with Russia and Ukraine, including one that would on each other’s energy infrastructure.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said ongoing attacks showed Russia did not want to end the three-year-old war.
“Such attacks are Putin’s response to all international diplomatic efforts. Each of our partners — America, the whole of Europe, the whole world — has seen that Russia is going to continue to fight and kill,” he said on the Telegram messaging app.
In a separate statement, he said that he had instructed the defence and foreign ministers to intensify talks with partners, especially the US, on the supply of air defence equipment.
Russian forces used ballistic and cruise missiles launched from both strategic bombers and naval fleets, as well as drones, during the overnight attack, said Ukraine’s air force.
Zelensky called for increased manufacturing of air defence systems and missiles, suggesting that such production should be established in Ukraine.
He said that over the past week, Russia had launched more than 1,460 guided aerial bombs, nearly 670 attack drones and more than 30 missiles of various types against Ukraine.
Le Pen evokes spirit of Martin Luther King Jr as supporters rally in Paris
French far-right leader Marine Le Pen said on Sunday she would peacefully fight her five-year ban from running for office and draw inspiration from the US civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr, as thousands of people rallied in Paris to back her.
A Paris court last week convicted Le Pen and two dozen National Rally (RN) party members of embezzling EU funds and imposed a sentence that will prevent her from standing in France’s 2027 presidential election unless she can get the ruling overturned within 18 months.
“We will follow Martin Luther King as an example,” said Le Pen in a video appearance for Italian Matteo Salvini’s anti-immigration Lega party, which was holding a meeting in Florence.
“Our fight will be a peaceful fight, a democratic fight. We will follow Martin Luther King, who defended civil rights, as an example.”
Le Pen supporters waved French flags and chanted “we will win” as they gathered in central Paris on Sunday afternoon for a peaceful protest, which could give an indication of how much popular backing there is for her accusations that prosecutors in the case sought her “political death”.
The court’s ruling was a massive blow for Le Pen (56). The National Rally chief is one of the most prominent figures of the European far right, and a front-runner in polls for France’s 2027 election.
Le Pen has appealed against the court’s decision, and she vowed on Sunday to use all the tools and legal means to be able to run in 2027. The court has said it will issue a ruling on the appeal in the summer of 2026.
An opinion poll by Elabe on Saturday showed Le Pen was still favourite to win the first round of the presidential vote with between 32% and 36% support, ahead of former Prime Minister Edouard Philippe, who was polled at between 20.5% and 24%.
India ‘unlikely to retaliate against Trump’s tariffs’
India did not plan to retaliate against Trump’s 26% tariff on imports from the Asian nation, said an Indian government official, citing ongoing talks for a deal between the countries.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s administration had looked into a clause of Trump’s tariff order that offers a possible reprieve for trading partners who “take significant steps to remedy non-reciprocal trade arrangements”, said the official, who declined to be named as the details of the talks are confidential.
New Delhi saw an advantage in being one of the first nations to have started talks over a trade deal with Washington and was better placed than Asian peers like China, Vietnam, and Indonesia, which have been hit by higher US tariffs, said a second government official, also declining to be named.
In the days after Trump’s tariff announcement that has shaken global markets to their core, India joined nations like Taiwan and Indonesia in ruling out counter tariffs, even as the European Commission prepares to hit US products with extra duties following China’s retaliation.
Iran wants indirect talks with US
Iran was pushing back against US demands that it directly negotiate over its nuclear programme or be bombed, warning neighbours that host US bases that they could be in the firing line if involved, said a senior Iranian official.
Although Iran had rejected Trump’s demand for direct talks, it wanted to continue indirect negotiations through Oman, a longtime channel for messages between the rival states, said the official, who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity.
“Indirect talks offer a chance to evaluate Washington’s seriousness about a political solution with Iran,” said the official.
Although that path could be “rocky”, such talks could begin soon if US messaging supported it, said the official.
Iran had issued notices to Iraq, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Turkey and Bahrain that any support for a US attack on Iran, including the use of their air space or territory by US military during an attack, would be considered an act of hostility, said the official.
Such an act “will have severe consequences for them”, said the official, adding that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had placed Iran’s armed forces on high alert.
Warnings by Trump of military action against Iran have jangled already tense nerves across the region after open warfare in Gaza and Lebanon, military strikes on Yemen, a change of leadership in Syria and Israeli-Iranian exchanges of fire.
Worries of a wider regional conflagration have unsettled states around the Gulf, a body of water bordered on one side by Iran and on the other by US-allied Arab monarchies that carries a significant proportion of global oil supplies.
Trump has said he would prefer a deal over Iran’s nuclear programme to a military confrontation, and he said on 7 March he had written to Khamenei to suggest talks.
The first Iranian official said a first round of indirect talks could involve Omani mediators shuttling between the Iranian and US delegations. Khamenei has authorised Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi or his deputy, Majid Takht-e Ravanchi, to attend any talks in Muscat.
Oman’s government spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
However, the official believed there was a window of around two months to agree on a deal, citing worries that Iran’s long-time foe Israel might launch its own attack if talks took longer, and that it could trigger a “snap back” of all international sanctions on Iran to prevent the country from acquiring a nuclear weapon.
Iran has long denied wanting to develop a nuclear weapon. However, it is “dramatically” accelerating enrichment of uranium to up to 60% purity, close to the roughly 90% weapons-grade level, the UN nuclear watchdog has warned.
Western states say there is no need to enrich uranium to such a high level under any civilian programme and that no other country has done so without producing nuclear bombs. DM