Demonstrations, Protests and Riots

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      Protesters Will Converge on Chicago. City Leaders Say They’re Prepared.

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      As delegates arrive in Chicago on Sunday ahead of the Democratic National Convention, protesters plan to march along Michigan Avenue. On Monday, as the political show begins inside the United Center, demonstrators say they will gather by the thousands outside. And as the convention goes on, activists say, so too will the protests, every single day, showcasing divisions on the left during a week when Vice President Kamala Harris is trying to project Democratic unity and enthusiasm.From the moment the Democrats chose Chicago as the site for their nominating convention, it was a foregone conclusion that protesters would show up in large numbers. The city has a long tradition of left-wing activism, and nominating conventions tend to attract demonstrations. But as the war in Gaza left tens of thousands dead and divided the Democratic Party, expectations for large protests heightened, as did the memories of protests devolving into clashes with the Chicago police outside the party’s 1968 convention.City officials have argued in recent days with activist groups over protest details, including the length of a march route and whether a sound system will be allowed. Still, the city, long led and dominated by Democrats, has sought to convey an openness to the demonstrations and confidence that everything will go smoothly.Security Perimeters and Chicago’s Proposed Route for the Coalition to March on the D.N.C. More

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      Abortion Rights Advocates Hit the D.N.C.: Free Vasectomies and an Inflatable IUD

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      This convention is likely to be a head-on display of a new, unbridled abortion politics.While delegates are in Chicago for next week’s Democratic National Convention, they will engage in the typical pageantry and traditions: They’ll vote for their nominee, pose for photos with elected officials, and show off their state with cool buttons or themed hats.They will also have the option of getting a free vasectomy or a medication abortion just blocks away.A mobile health center run by Planned Parenthood Great Rivers, which serves much of Missouri and part of southern Illinois, plans to park itself near the convention and offer those services early next week to anybody who makes an appointment, delegate or not. (There is so much interest in the vasectomy appointments, I’m told, there is already a waiting list.)It’s a way of showcasing how reproductive health care providers have had to get creative when operating in or near states like Missouri, which borders Illinois and has a near-total abortion ban.But it also underscores the way this convention, more than any other, is going to be a head-on display of a new, unbridled abortion politics.For years, many Democrats believed too much talk about abortion rights might drive away moderate or religious voters. Four years ago, at the Covid-dampened convention of 2020, President Biden did not utter the word abortion in his speech. Neither did Vice President Kamala Harris (although she did refer briefly to racial injustice in “reproductive and maternal health care.”)We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Harris Must Persuade Gaza Protesters, Not Dismiss Them

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      At a campaign rally in the Detroit area on Wednesday, Kamala Harris was speaking about the threat of Project 2025 and the Trump agenda when a small group of protesters interrupted her. I couldn’t make out their words, but it was reported that they were shouting something about Gaza. Harris reacted with her trademark “I am speaking now.” The protesters persisted. Harris’s tone grew stern. “You know what?” she said. “If you want Donald Trump to win, then say that. Otherwise, I’m speaking.” She continued, to cheers from the crowd. The protesters were escorted out.When I watched a video of this scene, my heart sank. It reminded me of another interruption, at a Democratic fund-raiser at a nightclub in New York, 32 years ago. Bill Clinton was speaking when Bob Rafsky, a member of the AIDS activist group ACT UP, stood up to challenge him on his plans to deal with the AIDS epidemic. “We’re dying,” Rafsky said. Clinton engaged at first, saying he was running for president “to do something about it.” Rafsky continued to shout. Clinton became angry. “Would you just calm down?” he said.I knew Rafsky. I was a member of ACT UP, and a journalist covering AIDS in the gay press. When Clinton said, “Calm down,” I heard, Some things are more important than your life. In campaign math, this was probably true: Only a fraction of a percent of Americans were living with AIDS. Clinton had statistically bigger issues to address.Yes, before her Detroit speech, Harris met very briefly with a group of pro-Palestinian activists. But at the rally, I heard the same steely political calculus in Harris’s admonition to the protesters: She has to focus on beating Trump, not on a genocide occurring 6,000 miles away and affecting about two million people, some of whom are related to or have close ties with a small fraction of the American electorate for which the war in Gaza is a decisive issue in this election. And, like people confronting AIDS in 1992, Palestinian Americans and others who want an end to Israel’s war should know that the other candidate would be even worse.Such reasoning is as statistically sound as it is tone-deaf and emotionally blind. It appears that at least one of the protesters at the rally is of Palestinian descent. And given the demographics of the Detroit area, it is quite likely that others in the crowd were Palestinian Americans, very possibly with family and friends in Gaza who are at risk of being killed, whether by bombing, disease or starvation in the coming months, if they are not dead already.Rafsky died in February 1993, one month into the first Clinton administration. In November 1992, on the eve of the presidential election, he gave a speech standing by the coffin of another ACT UP member, Mark Fisher, who had asked that his body be carried through the streets of New York in protest.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      UK Riots and How Online Hatred Spurs Real-World Violence

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      On New Year’s Day, a Telegram user in Portugal posted an ominous message that the wait was over. This was the year to stop the “Population Replacement” — a conspiracy theory that immigrants of color are taking over. In the days and weeks that followed, thousands more posts like it appeared on Telegram, X, YouTube […] More

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      Kamala Harris Responds to Pro-Palestinian Protesters at Michigan Rally

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      When protesters first interrupted Vice President Kamala Harris at a rally in Detroit on Wednesday evening, she smiled, with a gentle corrective. “I am speaking now.”But as the disruption continued, her patience ran thin. “You know what?” Ms. Harris said, with the sudden force and resolve of a parent in the driver’s seat who has had it. “If you want Donald Trump to win, then say that. Otherwise, I’m speaking.”As the crowd roared, Ms. Harris stayed silent, jaw set, eyes fixed.The Detroit stare-down was the latest reminder of how Ms. Harris has been able, with an almost theatrical flair, to turn efforts to undermine and rattle her into her own political weapons.She also takes particular umbrage at being interrupted.Viewers might have recalled her 2020 debate with then-Vice President Mike Pence, when she objected to his repeated attempts to cut into her responses. Her left hand went up, palm facing Mr. Pence across the stage. “Mr. Vice President, I am speaking. I am speaking,” she said. When it happened again, she smiled at him: “Mr. Vice President, I am speaking.”Her reaction also suggested a new approach to dealing with the protests that in recent months had tripped up President Biden.In January, protesters calling for a cease-fire in Gaza interrupted President Biden’s speech at a church in Charleston, S.C. “That’s all right, that’s all right,” the president said, as they were escorted out. “Look, folks, I understand their passion.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Trump Criticizes Harris and Walz in Fox News Appearance and Suggests a Debate Will Happen

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      In an appearance on Fox News early Wednesday morning, former President Donald J. Trump called the Democratic ticket of Vice President Kamala Harris and Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota “communist” and suggested he was willing to debate Ms. Harris anywhere, despite having pulled out of a scheduled debate.He also hit at Mr. Walz over an interaction they had in April 2020, one which at the time led to the then president tweeting: “Received a very nice call from @GovTimWalz of Minnesota. We are working closely on getting him all he needs, and fast. Good things happening!”He described Mr. Walz as calling him for help because he was scared of protesters outside his home, though reporting at the time described Mr. Walz asking Mr. Trump to help Minnesota get more personal protective equipment and increase its Covid testing capacity so that he could let businesses reopen in the early days of the pandemic.Representatives for Mr. Trump did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday. Claire Lancaster, a spokeswoman for Mr. Walz, said the subject of that call was P.P.E. and testing capacity, not the protests.Beyond his claims about the 2020 interaction with Mr. Walz, Mr. Trump stuck mainly to the arguments that other Republicans have advanced since Ms. Harris announced her running mate on Tuesday: that Mr. Walz is too liberal and that Ms. Harris rejected Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania because he is Jewish.In the interview, on “Fox & Friends,” Mr. Trump repeated an attack that he has made many times before and that has been criticized as antisemitic, saying any Jewish person who voted for Democrats “should have their head examined.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Bangladesh Back Under Curfew After Protests Leave Dozens Dead

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      Expanded student protests this weekend, after more than 200 people were killed in a government crackdown in July, have plunged the country into a particularly dangerous phase.At least 40 people were killed in clashes between security forces and protesters on Sunday in Bangladesh, as the country’s leaders imposed a new curfew and internet restrictions to try to quell a growing antigovernment movement.Revived and expanded student protests, after a deadly government crackdown late last month, and a call by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s governing party for its own supporters to also take to the streets, have plunged the country of over 170 million into a particularly dangerous phase.At least 40 people were killed on Sunday across Bangladesh, according to a diplomatic official based in Dhaka, adding to the more than 200 people killed in the crackdown on protests in July. Tallies by local news media, as well as a statement from coordinators of the student protests, put Sunday’s death toll at over 50. At least 13 of the dead were police officers, the country’s Police Headquarters said in a statement.What began as a peaceful student protest last month over a preferential quota system for public-sector jobs has morphed into unprecedented anger at Ms. Hasina’s increasingly authoritarian turn and her management of the economy.While the crackdown, which included the arrests of more than 10,000 people and the lodging of police cases against tens of thousands more, temporarily dispersed the protesters, the demonstrations have been back in full force since Friday.The protesters’ anger over the more than 200 deaths has solidified their demands to a single point: On Saturday, at a rally of tens of thousands, they demanded the resignation of Ms. Hasina, who has been in power for 15 years.In response to the resignation call, her Awami League party called on its supporters to join counterprotests — setting up the tense situation that unfolded on Sunday.In a statement sent to the news media on Sunday, as internet restrictions went into effect, leaders of the student movement called for the protests to continue uninterrupted.“If there is an internet crackdown, if we are disappeared, arrested or killed, and if there is no one left to make announcements, everyone should continue to occupy the streets and maintain peaceful noncooperation until the government falls in response to our one demand,” Nahid Islam, one of the movement’s leaders, said in the statement.As the chaos escalates, with both the protesters and Ms. Hasina’s governing party digging in their heels, and as opposition parties take the opportunity to pile on, all eyes are on the country’s military.While the army and other security forces were deployed during the crackdown in July, the army’s chief, Gen. Waker-uz-Zaman, gathered his senior officers on Saturday for a meeting that was seen as an attempt to quell concerns over the army’s position in the crisis and reinforce its neutrality.In a statement issued after the meeting, the army said its chief had reiterated that “the Bangladesh Army will always stand by the people in the interest of the public and in any need of the state.” More

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      Can Harris Win Back Arab American Voters? The Door May Be Cracked Open.

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      Vice President Kamala Harris has not strayed from President Biden on Israel policy, but she has taken a stronger tone on the suffering of Palestinians.In Muna Jondy’s family, every topic is fair game on the WhatsApp thread.The 40-person chat, which includes Ms. Jondy’s brothers, sisters, nieces and nephews, discusses everything: the Drake and Kendrick Lamar rivalry, Ohio State-Michigan football superiority and, of course, politics.The discussion of President Biden’s re-election campaign was a common theme this year as the administration’s support for Israel in the war in Gaza alienated many Muslim and Arab American families, including the Jondys.But the mood shifted when Mr. Biden dropped out of the race and Vice President Kamala Harris became the presumptive Democratic nominee. The family took notice last week when Ms. Harris said she would not look away from images of dead children or be silent about the tragedies in Gaza.“Am I crazy or is this way more than Biden ever was willing to say?” Ms. Jondy’s niece messaged the group. Others in the chat were more skeptical: “Would be nice, but unless I see an explicit change in policy I won’t believe it.”The WhatsApp chat is typical of the conversations happening among Arab Americans across the country who turned away from Mr. Biden over the war in Gaza, which has killed more than 36,000 people over the past 10 months. In crucial battleground states like Michigan, where Ms. Jondy’s family lives, many people who voted for Mr. Biden in 2020 said they felt betrayed and joined protest movements that challenged his campaign.Ms. Harris may have an opportunity to change the conversation. While she has not strayed from Mr. Biden on Israel policy since she began her own campaign for the presidency, she has struck a stronger tone on the suffering of Palestinians.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More