demonstration

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Donald Trump Jr. on Wednesday mocked protesters who took part in “No Kings” demonstrations across the United States while praising his father’s business-first approach to the Middle East during a visit to Saudi Arabia.

Trump spoke before business leaders and Saudi officials at the Future Investment Initiative, the brainchild of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who feted President Trump during his Mideast tour in May to the kingdom, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar.

Trump backed the prince during his first presidential term even after the killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi officials at he kingdom’s consulate in Turkey. Prince Mohammed plans a trip to Washington next month as well.

Speaking alongside Omeed Malik of 1789 Capital, Donald Trump Jr. criticized Democratic Party policies and protesters targeting his father. Trump invests in 1789 and continues to work in the real estate arm of the family, the Trump Organization, which has expanded its Mideast offerings even as his father serves his second term in the White House.

In particular, Trump mocked the “No Kings” protests which drew millions of people to demonstrations across the U.S., claiming it was “not an organic movement, it’s entirely manufactured and paid for by the usual puppets around the world and their” groups.

“If my father was a king, he probably wouldn’t have allowed those protests to happen,” he said. “You saw the people that were actually protesting — it’s the same crazy liberals from the ‘60s and ’70s, they’re just a lot older and fatter.”

Trump made the comments while visiting a nation ruled by an absolute monarchy where dissent is criminalized.

The “No Kings” demonstrations, the third mass mobilization since his father’s return to the White House, came against the backdrop of a government shutdown that is testing the core balance of power in the United States in a way protest organizers warn is a slide toward authoritarianism.

Trump separately acknowledged it was his first trip to Saudi Arabia and praised the changes he saw in the kingdom.

“When my father came here, unlike the last presidents who visited here, it wasn’t an apology tour,” Trump said. “It was, ‘How do we work together? How do we grow our respective economies? How do we create peace and stability in the region?’”

“There can be ‘America-First’ component to that, but there also can be a ‘Saudi-First’ component to that and everyone can actually benefit,” he added.

Gambrell writes for the Associated Press.

A federal judge has granted a temporary restraining order that blocks Los Angeles police officers from using rubber projectiles and other so-called less-lethal munitions against reporters covering protests against the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.

In a ruling made public Friday, U.S. District Judge Hernán D. Vera said a coalition of press rights organization successfully argued that a court injunction was necessary to protect journalists and others exercising their 1st Amendment rights.

The Los Angeles Press Club and investigative reporting network Status Coup filed suit last month to “force the LAPD to respect the constitutional and statutory rights of journalists engaged in reporting on these protests and inevitable protests to come.” The lawsuit challenged the “continuing abuse” by police of members of the media covering the demonstrations.

Vera’s order bars the department from using less-lethal munitions and other crowd-control tools such chemical irritants and flash-bang grenades “against journalists who are not posing a threat of imminent harm to an officer or another person.”

“On some occasions, LAPD officers purportedly targeted individuals who were clearly identifiable as members of the press,” Vera wrote.

The judge cited a June 8 incident at a demonstration downtown where an Australian reporter named Lauren Tomasi was wrapping up a report on live TV, dozens of feet away from a line of officers.

“No protesters are visible near her,” Vera wrote. “Despite this, an LAPD officer appears to aim at Tomasi, hitting her leg with a rubber bullet.”

The judge ruled that the LAPD cannot prohibit a journalist from entering or remaining in protest areas that have been closed off to the public while “gathering, receiving, or processing information.”

The order also forbids intentionally “assaulting, interfering with, or obstructing any journalist who is gathering, receiving, or processing information for communication to the public.”

Free press advocates who brought the suit praised the judge’s decision.

“The press weren’t accidentally hurt at the immigration protests; they were deliberately hurt,” said attorney Carol Sobel. “It’s astonishing to me that we are at the same point with LAPD over and over again.”

City lawyers could challenge the order before the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell has said he’s “very concerned” by instances of journalists being targeted by police munitions and vowed each incident would be investigated. He said he did not believe officers were aiming at reporters with less-lethal weapons.

“It is a target-specific munition,” he told reporters at a press briefing. “That’s not to say that it always hits the intended target, particularly in a dynamic situation.”

Vera’s order says that if the LAPD detains or arrests a person who identifies themselves as a journalist, that person may contact a supervisor and challenge their detention. The order also required the LAPD to report back to the court with details of officers being informed of the new rules. The judge set a preliminary injunction hearing for July 24, in which both sides will argue the merits of the case.

The lawsuit accuses the LAPD of flouting state laws passed in the wake of the 2020 protests over the killing of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis, when journalists were detained and injured by the LAPD while covering the unrest.

Apart from journalists, scores of protesters allege LAPD projectiles left them with severe bruises, lacerations and serious injuries.

Under the restrictions ordered by the judge Friday, police can target individuals with 40-millimeter rounds “only when the officer reasonably believes that a suspect is violently resisting arrest or poses an immediate threat of violence or physical harm.” Officers are also barred from targeting people in the head, torso and groin areas.

Times staff Writer Libor Jany contributed to this report.

June 23 (UPI) — Britain’s Met police banned a pro-Palestinian protest in front of the Houses of Parliament in central London scheduled to take place on Monday to “prevent serious public order,” property damage and disruption to elected representatives.

Met Commissioner Mark Rowley said in a statement Sunday that while he could not stop the demonstration going ahead, he was using powers under public order legislation to impose an exclusion zone preventing protestors from assembling in a roughly 0.5 square mile area around the Palace of Westminster and restrict the duration to between noon and 3 p.m. local time.

The We Are All Palestine protest was being organized by Palestine Action but backed by around 35 other groups, including the Stop the War Coalition, Cage and Muslim Engagement and Development.

Calling Palestine Action “an extremist criminal group” with members awaiting trial on serious charges, Rowley said he was frustrated that he lacked legal authority to ban the protest outright.

“The right to protest is essential and we will always defend it, but actions in support of such a group go beyond what most would see as legitimate protest,” he said.

Rowley added that criminal charges faced by Palestine Action members, including allegedly attacking a police officer with a sledgehammer and causing millions of dollars of damage, represented extremism of a type that the vast majority of the public found abhorrent.

Palestinian Action responded by moving the protest, telling supporters in a post on X early Monday that it would now go ahead in Trafalgar Square, which is just outside the northern edge of the exclusion zone.

“The Metropolitan police are trying to deter support from Palestine Action by banning the protest from taking place at the Houses of Parliament. Don’t let them win! Make sure everyone is aware of the location change to Trafalgar Square, London. Mobilize from 12 p.m.”

The move came as Home Secretary Yvette Cooper updated lawmakers on plans to proscribe Palestinian Action as a terrorist organization after members of the group claimed responsibility for damaging military aircraft Friday after breaking into an RAF base northwest of London.

They also allegedly damaged the offices of an insurance company, which the group claimed provided services to Elbit Systems, an Israel-based military technology company and defense contractor.

Activist Saeed Taji Farouky called the move to proscribe the group a ludicrous move that “rips apart the very basic concepts of British democracy and the rule of law.”

“It’s something everyone should be terrified about,” he told the BBC.

Cooper said in a written statement to the House that she expected to bring a draft order amending the country’s anti-terror legislation before Parliament next week. Proscribing Palestine Action would make membership or promotion of the group punishable by up to 14 years in prison.

Palestinian Action, escalated from targeting arms producers to vandalizing the two Airbus refuelling tanker aircraft because Britain was, it claimed, deploying aircraft to its Akrotiri airbase on Cyprus from where it can “collect intelligence, refuel fighter jets and transport weapons to commit genocide in Gaza.”

The attack at RAF Brize Norton, the British military’s main hub for strategic air transport and refuelling, including flights to RAF Akrotiri, came the same day a British man appeared in a closed court in Cyprus on charges of planning an “imminent terrorist attack” on the island and espionage.

The suspect was arrested by Greek anti-terror officers on a tip-off from a foreign intelligence service claiming he’d had the RAF Akrotiri base under surveillance since April and had links with the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

He faces charges of terrorism, espionage, conspiracy to commit a felony and other related offences.

RAF Akrotiri is the U.K. military’s largest base for the Middle East region and a key waypoint en route to its giant Diego Garcia base in the Chagos Islands, 3,800 miles to the southeast in the middle of the Indian Ocean.

Bridgette Covelli arrived near Los Angeles City Hall for last Saturday’s “No Kings” festivities to find what she described as a peaceful scene: people chanting, dancing, holding signs. No one was arguing with the police, as far as she could tell.

Enforcement of the city’s curfew wouldn’t begin for hours. But seemingly out of nowhere, Covelli said, officers began to fire rubber bullets and launch smoke bombs into the crowd, which had gathered to protest the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement campaign.

“No dispersal order. Nothing at all,” she said. “We were doing everything right. There was no aggression toward them.”

Covelli, 23, grabbed an electric bike and turned up 3rd Street, where another line of police blocked parts of the roadway. She felt a shock of pain in her arm as she fell from the bike and crashed to the sidewalk.

In a daze, she realized she was bleeding after being struck by a hard-foam projectile shot by an unidentified LAPD officer.

The young tattoo artist was hospitalized with injuries that included a fractured forearm, which has left her unable to work.

“I haven’t been able to draw. I can’t even brush my teeth correctly,” she said.

Bridgette Covelli says she was shot with a less-lethal round by law enforcement last week during the ‘No Kings Day’ protest in downtown Los Angeles, which resulted in a fractured arm that has put her out of work as a tattoo artist.

(Luke Johnson / Los Angeles Times)

She is among the demonstrators and journalists hurt this month after being targeted by LAPD officers with foam projectiles, tear gas, flash-bang grenades and paintball-like weapons that waft pepper spray into the air.

Despite years of costly lawsuits, oversight measures and promises by leaders to rein in indiscriminate use of force during protests, the LAPD once again faces sharp criticism and litigation over tactics used during the past two weeks.

In a news conference at police headquarters last week, LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell promised “a comprehensive review when this is all done,” while also defending officers he said were dealing with “a very chaotic, dynamic situation.”

Police officials said force was used only after a group of agitators began pelting officers with bottles, fireworks and other objects. At least a dozen police injuries occurred during confrontations, including one instance in which a protester drove a motorcycle into a line of officers. L.A. County prosecutors have charged several defendants with assault for attacks on law enforcement.

Behind the scenes, according to communications reviewed by The Times and multiple sources who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly, tensions sometimes ran high between LAPD commanders and City Hall officials, who pushed for restraint in the early hours of the protests downtown.

Bridgette Covelli holds a 40mm foam round like the type fired by Los Angeles police during a protest she and thousands of others attended last weekend in opposition to the Trump administration’s policies.

(Luke Johnson / Los Angeles Times)

On June 6 — the Friday that the demonstrations began — communication records show Mayor Karen Bass made calls to LAPD Capt. Raul Jovel, the incident commander, and to McDonnell. In the days that followed, sources said Bass or members of her senior staff were a constant presence at a command post in Elysian Park, from where local and federal officials were monitoring the on-the-ground developments.

Some LAPD officials have privately grumbled about not being allowed to make arrests sooner, before protesters poured into downtown. Although mostly peaceful, a handful of those who flooded the streets vandalized shops, vehicles and other property. LAPD leaders have also pointed out improvements from past years, including restrictions on the use of bean-bag shotguns for crowd control and efforts to more quickly release people who were arrested.

But among longtime LAPD observers, the latest protest response is widely seen as another step backward. After paying out millions over the last decade for protest-related lawsuits, the city now stares down another series of expensive court battles.

“City leaders like Mayor Bass [are] conveniently saying, ‘Oh this is Trump’s fault, this is the Feds’ fault.’ No, take a look at your own force,” said longtime civil rights attorney James DeSimone, who filed several excessive force government claims against the city and the county in recent days.

A spokesperson for Bass didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

McDonnell — a member of the LAPD command staff during an aggressive police crackdown on immigrant rights demonstrators on May Day in 2007 — found himself on the defensive during an appearance before the City Council last week, when he faced questions about readiness and whether more could have been done to prevent property damage.

“We’ll look and see, are there training issues, are there tactics [issues], are there less-lethal issues that need to be addressed,” McDonnell told reporters a few days later.

One of the most potentially embarrassing incidents occurred during the “No Kings” rally Saturday, when LAPD officers could be heard on a public radio channel saying they were taking friendly fire from L.A. County sheriff’s deputies shooting less-lethal rounds.

Three LAPD sources not authorized to speak publicly confirmed the incident occurred. A spokesperson for the Sheriff’s Department said in a statement that the agency “has not received reports of any ‘friendly fire’ incidents.”

Motorists encountered mounted LAPD officers as curfew enforcement began near Temple Street on June 10.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

Some protesters allege LAPD officers deliberately targeted individuals who posed no threat.

Shakeer Rahman, a civil rights attorney and community organizer with the Stop LAPD Spying Coalition, said he was monitoring a demonstration snaking past LAPD headquarters on June 8 when he witnessed two colleagues who were demanding to know an officer’s badge number get shot with a 40mm less-lethal launcher at close range.

In a recording he shared of the incident, Rahman can be heard confronting the officer, who threatens to fire as he paces back and forth on an elevated platform.

“I’m gonna pop you right now, because you’re taking away my focus,” the officer is heard saying before raising his weapon over the glass partition that separated them and firing two foam rounds at Rahman, nearly striking him in his groin.

“It’s an officer who doesn’t want to be questioned and knows he can get away with firing these shots,” said Rahman, who noted a 2021 court injunction bans the use of 40mm launchers in most crowd-control situations.

Later on June 8, as clashes between officers and protesters intensified in other parts of downtown, department leaders authorized the use of tear gas against a crowd — a common practice among other agencies, but one that the LAPD hasn’t used in decades.

“There was a need under these circumstances to deploy it when officers started taking being assaulted by commercial fireworks, some of those with shrapnel in them,” McDonnell said to The Times. “It’s a different day, and we use the tools we are able to access.”

City and state leaders arguing against Trump’s deployment of soldiers to L.A. have made the case that the LAPD is better positioned to handle demonstrations than federal forces. They say local cops train regularly on tactics beneficial to crowd control, including de-escalation, and know the downtown terrain where most demonstrations occur.

Police prepare to fire less-lethal projectiles at protesters after an unlawful assembly was declared from the “No Kings” protest on Temple Street in downtown Los Angeles on June 14.

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

But numerous protesters who spoke with The Times said they felt the LAPD officers were quicker to use violence than they have been at any point in recent years.

Raphael Mamoun, 36, followed the June 8 march from City Hall to the federal Metropolitan Detention Center on Alameda Street. Mamoun, who works in digital security, said his group eventually merged with other demonstrators and wound up bottlenecked by LAPD near the intersection of Temple and Alameda, where a stalemate with LAPD officers ensued.

After roughly an hour, he said, chaos erupted without warning.

“I don’t know if they made any announcement, any dispersal order, but basically you had like a line of mounted police coming behind the line of cops that were on foot and then they just started charging, moving forward super fast, pushing people, screaming at people, shooting rubber bullets,” he said.

Mamoun’s complaints echoed those of other demonstrators and observations of Times reporters at multiple protest scenes throughout the week. LAPD dispersal orders were sometimes only audible when delivered from an overhead helicopter. Toward the end of Saturday’s hours-long “No Kings” protests, many demonstrators contended officers used force against crowds that had been relatively peaceful all day.

The LAPD’s use of horses has also raised widespread concern, with some protesters saying the department’s mounted unit caused injuries and confusion rather than bringing anything resembling order.

One video captured on June 8 by independent journalist Tina-Desiree Berg shows a line of officers on horseback advance into a crowd while other officers fire less-lethal rounds at protesters shielding themselves with chairs and road signs. A protester can be seen falling to the ground, seemingly injured. The mounted units continue marching forward even as the person desperately tries to roll out of the way. Several horses trample over the person’s prone body before officers arrest them.

At other scenes, mounted officers were weaving through traffic and running up alongside vehicles that were not involved with the demonstrations. In one incident on June 10, a Times reporter saw a mounted officer smashing the roof of a car repeatedly with a wooden stick.

“It just seems like they are doing whatever the hell they want to get protesters, and injure protesters,” Mamoun said.

Protesters were pushed back by LAPD officers on Broadway during the “No Kings Day” protest downtown.

(Carlin Stiehl / Los Angeles Times)

Audrey Knox, 32, a screenwriter and teacher, was also marching with the City Hall group on June 8. She stopped to watch a tense skirmish near the Grand Park Metro stop when officers began firing projectiles into the crowd.

Some protesters said officers fired less-lethal rounds into groups of people in response to being hit with flying objects. Although she said she was well off to the side, she was still struck in the head by one of the hard-foam rounds.

Other demonstrators helped her get to a hospital, where Knox said she received five staples to close her head wound. In a follow-up later in the week, a doctor said she had post-concussion symptoms. The incident has made her hesitant to demonstrate again, despite her utter disgust for the Trump administration’s actions in Los Angeles.

“It just doesn’t seem smart to go back out because even when you think you’re in a low-risk situation, that apparently is not the case,” she said. “I feel like my freedom of speech was directly attacked, intentionally.”

Times staff writers Julia Wick, Connor Sheets and Richard Winton contributed to this report.

Supporters of conservative Popular Party demand Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez step down amid corruption scandals.

Tens of thousands of people have taken part in an opposition-organised demonstration in Spain’s capital, Madrid, accusing the government of Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez of corruption and urging him to call early elections.

Protesters, many waving red and yellow Spanish flags, massed on Sunday in the Plaza de Espana, a large square in the centre of Madrid, and chanted, “Pedro Sanchez, resign!”

The conservative Popular Party (PP) called the rally after leaked audio recordings allegedly documented a member of the Socialist Workers’ Party, Leire Diez, waging a smear campaign against a police unit that investigated corruption allegations against Sanchez’s wife, brother, and his former transport minister and right-hand man Jose Luis Abalos.

Diez has denied the allegations, telling reporters on Wednesday that she was conducting research for a book and was not working on behalf of the party or Sanchez. She also resigned from Sanchez’s party.

PP leader Alberto Nunez Feijoo has accused the government of “mafia practices” over the affair and said Sanchez is “at the centre” of multiple corruption scandals.

Sanchez and his government have been embroiled in numerous scandals with perhaps the most significant being the “Koldo Case”, or “Masks Case”, which concerns corruption allegations in the awarding of public contracts for medical supplies, particularly masks, during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The case involves Abalos and his former adviser Koldo Garcia Izaguirre, the latter of whom is accused of using his influence to secure contracts for certain companies and receiving substantial commissions in return.

Sanchez considered stepping down in April 2024 after a Madrid court opened an investigation into his wife, Begona Gomez, on suspicion of influence peddling and business corruption.

The right-wing organisation Manos Limpias (Clean Hands) initially made the allegations against Gomez, who is accused of using her position to influence the awarding of government contracts and of irregularities in her professional activities.

‘Smear campaign’

Sanchez has dismissed the probes against members of his inner circle and family as part of a “smear campaign” carried out by the right wing to undermine his government.

But Feijoo urged Sanchez to call early elections and told the rally: “This government has stained everything – politics, state institutions, the separation of powers.”

The PP estimated that more than 100,000 people attended the rally, held under the slogan “Mafia or Democracy”, while the central government’s representative in Madrid put the turnout at 45,000 to 50,000.

“The expiry date on this government passed a long time ago. It’s getting tiring,” protester Blanca Requejo, a 46-year-old store manager who wore a Spanish flag draped over her back, told the AFP news agency.

Sanchez came to power in June 2018 after ousting his PP predecessor Mariano Rajoy in a no-confidence vote over a corruption scandal involving the conservative party.

Recent polls indicated the PP holds a slim lead in support over the Socialists. Spain’s next general election is expected in 2027.