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So you went to a No Kings protest. Now what?
More than 8 million people showed up across 3,300 No Kings protests on Saturday, calling for an end to the war in Iran, immigration agents in their communities and what they see as Trump’s creeping authoritarianism. Organizers say it’s the greatest number of protests in a single day in US history.
But movement scholars say social change doesn’t begin and end with one protest. It takes activism at the local and national level, and in a variety of forms, to bring about change.
“No Kings was conceived to unite a cross-movement push against authoritarianism. And there is not one way to fight it,” said Leah Greenberg, a co-executive director of the Indivisible Project, which founded the No Kings movement. “We see No Kings as part of a tapestry of defiance that is going on.”
In the past year, Americans have demanded change through a variety of actions. When Donald Trump sent federal agents into Los Angeles and Chicago, people rallied in the streets and called for “ICE Out!” When consumers wanted to express disapproval of corporations’ ties to Trump, they initiated boycotts of Target, Tesla and Amazon. When students were upset at the presence of ICE agents in their schools and communities, they organized walkouts.
“Protests build power by garnering attention and pulling people off the sidelines into action,” said Hahrie Han, a political scientist at Johns Hopkins University and the author of Prisms of the People: Power and Organizing in Twenty-First-Century America. “And if we look historically and across different movements, change is often a combination of people taking action through a variety of means and then leaders negotiating for power given the actions that people have taken.”
Han pointed to activists in Minnesota who were able to pass a raft of progressive and pro-labor laws in 2023 – paid family and medical leave and driver’s licenses for undocumented residents, among others – as an example of successful movement building by organizing with multiracial coalitions, strategizing with legislators and negotiating proposed legislation.
“It’s one of the most generous social safety nets in the country, and organizers were able to put grassroots energy together with institutional politics,” said Han.
No Kings’ success, organizers say, will be defined by whether attendees have signed up to organize in their communities and follow through on other actions, like know-your-rights trainings and mutual aid.
“What we think is actually important are the ways in which these large-scale gatherings fuel ongoing organizing that might look like economic non-cooperation, local mutual aid organizing or legislative advocacy at the state or local level,” said Greenberg. “It’s all connected if we do it right.”
Here’s a look at how these efforts have worked over time.
Protest
Some of the earliest protests in America include covert and overt acts that enslaved people took to object to bondage, including working slowly in the fields, breaking or misplacing tools, setting fires or running away. Enslaved people also attempted to free themselves by organizing armed rebellions and revolts.
Occupation has historically been another effective form of protest. Throughout the 1900s, Indigenous Americans protested US treaty violations by occupying Alcatraz Island, Mount Rushmore and the bureau of Indian affairs building to demand land back.
But probably the most recognizable form of protest is the one in the streets, immortalized in the marches, freedom rides and sit-ins of the civil rights movement for social justice and equal rights in the 1950s and 1960s.
Over the past 10 years, numerous mass protests have swept through the country, including March for Our Lives in 2018 to demand stricter gun control measures, the Black Lives Matter protests, triggered by the police killing of George Floyd in 2020, and the No Kings protests against the Trump administration last October. In 2025, the first year of Trump’s second term, more people protested in the streets than in 2017, the first year of his first term, according to data from the open-source project Crowd Counting Consortium
“The amount of people protesting is record-breaking,” said Hunter Dunn, an organizer with the grassroots organization 50501, which co-founded No Kings. “There’s also enthusiasm for using protests as a launchpad to get people involved in local organizing – whether it’s election defense with the midterms coming up, or immigrants’ rights organizing or organizing against AI data centers.”
Rally, march and parade
During rallies, people often gather at parks, on streets and other public locations to bring attention to a cause. A street protest or march can also culminate in a rally, where participants take turns speaking, performing music or leafleting attendees to share goals and literature about the cause.
Much like “rally”, “march” and “parade” are also terms used interchangeably with “protest”. In 1913, suffragists held the Women’s Suffrage Parade to draw attention to how women could vote in only nine states.
In 2017, activists held the first Women’s March the day after Trump’s first inauguration, protesting his rhetoric and platform as misogynistic and an overall threat to women. Activists and scholars have credited the march with driving the #MeToo movement and a record number of women to participate in the 2018 midterm elections.
“There was something special and different when people said #MeToo,” Fatima Goss Graves, president and CEO of the National Women’s Law Center, told the Guardian. “We had worked on issues related to harassment and gender-based violence over many decades. But the #MeToo movement really gave people a framework to speak out and name their experiences.”
General strike
Labor unions have a rich history of protest in the US, particularly in the form of a strike or a work stoppage in which workers demand better conditions, including healthcare benefits, on-the-job safety protections and higher wages.
A general strike is much larger; it’s when a sizable portion of the workforce in a certain town or region stops working to bring about economic or social change.
The first general strike in North America was in 1835 in Philadelphia, where 20,000 workers across 40 sectors demanded a 10-hour workday and fairer wages. In the end, they won – incorporating rallies, parades and newspaper campaigns to secure 10-hour workdays for skilled and unskilled workers in the city – and became the catalyst of labor organizing in the US.
After federal immigration agents killed Minneapolis residents Renee Good and Alex Pretti this January, organizers called for a national general strike of “no school, no work, and no shopping” to protest the presence and brutality of federal agents in the city. Thousands in Minnesota participated in protests, hundreds of businesses closed and work stoppages occurred across a variety of sectors, backed by labor unions.
“Those of us in the trade union movement understand the leverage and power that our labor has, and we are going to try and use that, because really there’s nothing else left,” Kieran Knutson, the president of Communications Workers of America (CWA) Local 7250 in Minneapolis, told the Guardian in January.
Boycott and divestment
Boycotts of corporations have historically involved a refusal to purchase their products or engage with their services, with the hope that punitive pressure can change attitudes and behaviors. Alternatively, a “procott” involves shifting resources to entities that people want to support – such as small local businesses – as they suspend support for others.
In the 1930s, Black Americans led “Don’t Buy Where You Can’t Work” campaigns in northern cities to advocate for Black jobs at white-owned businesses in Black neighborhoods. The boycotts and picketing, in which protesters stood outside of businesses and held signs, created jobs for Black workers during the Depression.
Divestments are a related form of protest. In 1985, UC Berkeley students demanded the university divest from South Africa in protest against apartheid. Students led rallies, teach-ins and encampments to pressure the university. A year later, the University of California board of regents voted to divest $3bn from companies with ties to South Africa.
In 2025, Americans’ boycott of Target – after the company rolled back its Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) efforts – had an impact: Target acknowledged the boycott was one of the reasons sales were down last year.
“We are reclaiming our power,” LaTosha Brown, co-founder of Black Voters Matter, told the Guardian during a Black Friday boycott the group helped spearhead last year. “We are redirecting our spending. And we are resisting this rise to authoritarianism.”
Mutual aid
Under an ethos of “solidarity,” mutual aid involves a network of volunteers gathering resources – food, housing assistance and childcare – to support the needs of people in their communities.
In response to the HIV/Aids crisis of the 1980s, LGBTQ+ groups across the country developed care networks to support vulnerable community members. During the coronavirus pandemic, local organizations across the country stepped up to help low-income families, frontline workers and immunocompromised people through grocery delivery programs. One such aid program in Brooklyn, New York, supported 28,000 people with groceries between March 2020 and June 2021.
During Operation Metro Surge in Minneapolis in January, in which 3,000 ICE agents killed two Minneapolis residents and arrested hundreds, mutual aid networks were vital for distributing food, money and diapers to immigrant families sheltering in place out of fear of being stopped by ICE.
Brittany Kubricky, a Minneapolis resident, told the Guardian earlier this year she was organizing donations, grocery deliveries and school pick-ups from her dining room table. “I haven’t really ever done something like this before,” she said. “This is just something I tried, and it happens to be working.”
Walkout
When students and employees walk out of schools or workplaces to express their disapproval over a certain issue, the idea is to do so in numbers – the more people who participate, the more impactful the message.
In 1968, 15,000 students walked out en masse as part of the East Los Angeles Walkouts to protest disparities in educational outcomes between white American and Mexican American students. After the walkout, students submitted demands to the Los Angeles board of education to improve the bilingual education curriculum, among other issues. Even though police arrested organizers and the board rejected their demands, the walkout was one of the largest student protests in history.
Walkouts remain a viable protest tactic for young people today, including to voice their grievances against ICE. “This was our way to make our voices heard,” Lark Jeffers told the Guardian after participating in the Free America walkout on 20 January in Silver Spring, Maryland. “Because at the end of the day, we’re 16 – what we say isn’t going to make the lawmaker listen to us.
Teach-in
This longtime form of protest is about sharing knowledge. Activists and protest leaders spend time lecturing people in the movement about their causes, often opening debate and discussion as a means of raising awareness and spurring further action.
Teach-ins were popularized during the Vietnam war when students used them to discuss the war draft and strategies to curtail the US government’s involvement abroad. The first teach-in, which included lectures, debates and films, took place at the University of Michigan in 1965 and was attended by 3,500 students and supporting faculty members. The teach-in boosted the national anti-war movement and inspired other campuses to protest and hold teach-ins of their own.
Teach-ins once again became popular on US college campuses in 2024 as Israel bombed the Gaza Strip following Hamas’ attack. The teach-ins, often in student encampments, educated participants about the long fight for Palestinian freedom and the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement that seeks to isolate Israel economically, politically and culturally over its oppression of Palestinians.
Composites: Rita Liu/The Guardian/Getty Images/Wikimedia Commons
new video loaded: Americans Exposed to Hantavirus on Cruise Ship Arrive in United States
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Americans Exposed to Hantavirus on Cruise Ship Arrive in United States
Eighteen passengers who were aboard the MV Hondius, a cruise ship with a deadly hantavirus outbreak, landed in Omaha on a U.S. government medical flight. The passengers were being monitored at medical facilities in Nebraska and Georgia.
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We’re working diligently to ensure no one leaves the security in an unsecured way at an inappropriate time. No one who poses a risk to public health is walking out the front door of the streets of Omaha or beyond.
By Axel Boada
May 11, 2026
The man charged with attempting to assassinate President Donald Trump at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner last month pleaded not guilty at a Monday arraignment in federal court.
Cole Tomas Allen, 31, wearing an orange shirt and trousers, was handcuffed and shackled as he was brought into the courtroom in Washington, D.C., federal court. His handcuffs were attached to a chain around his waist, which clanked as he was led to the defense table.
Speaking on behalf of Allen, federal public defender Tezira Abe said her client “pleads not guilty to all four counts as charged,” including attempting to assassinate the president of the United States, in connection with the April 25 incident at the Washington Hilton hotel.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Charles Jones advised the court that they plan to start producing their first tranche of discovery to the defense by the end of the week.
Officials said Allen, a California teacher and engineer, was armed with multiple guns, as well as knives, when he sprinted through a security checkpoint near the event where Trump and other White House officials had gathered with journalists.
He was arrested after an exchange of gunfire with a U.S. Secret Service officer who fired at him multiple times, a criminal complaint said. Allen was not shot during the exchange. The officer, who was wearing a ballistic vest, was shot once in the chest, treated at a hospital and released.
Trump and top members of his Cabinet and Congress were quickly evacuated from the room as others ducked under tables.
Allen was initially charged with attempting to assassinate the president, transportation of a firearm and ammunition through interstate commerce with intent to commit a felony, and discharge of a firearm during a crime of violence. On Tuesday, a federal grand jury indicted him on a new charge in the shooting of a Secret Service agent.
Moments before the attack, Allen had sent his family members a note apologizing and criticizing Trump without mentioning the president by name, according to a transcript of some of his writings provided to NBC News by a senior administration official. Allen also wrote that “administration officials (not including Mr. Patel)” were “targets.”
He also appeared to have taken a selfie in his hotel room. Prosecutors said Allen, who was dressed in a black button-down shirt and black pants, was “wearing a small leather bag consistent in appearance with the ammunition-filled bag later recovered from his person,” as well as a shoulder holster, a sheathed knife, pliers and wire cutters.
Officials have said they believe Allen had traveled by train from California to Washington, D.C., before checking into the hotel.
Allen’s sister, Avriana Allen, told law enforcement that her brother would make radical comments and constantly referenced a plan to fix the world, but said their parents were unaware that he had firearms in the home and that he would regularly train at shooting ranges.
Records show that he had purchased a Maverick 12-gauge shotgun in August 2025 and an Armscor Precision .38 semiautomatic pistol in October 2023.
After his arrest, Allen told the FBI that he did not expect to survive the incident, according to Assistant U.S. Attorney Jocelyn Ballantine. He was briefly placed on suicide watch at the Washington, D.C., jail, where he’s being held.
Allen is expected to appear in court for a June 29 hearing.
At Monday’s arraignment, his legal team said they plan on asking for the “entire office” of the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia to be recused because of U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro’s apparent involvement in the case in a “supervisory role.” Federal public defender Eugene Ohm said some of the evidence they receive from the government will further inform that decision.
Note: Map shows the area with a shake intensity of 3 or greater, which U.S.G.S. defines as “weak,” though the earthquake may be felt outside the areas shown. The New York Times
Shake intensity
Pop. density
A cluster of earthquakes have struck near the U.S.-Mexico border, including ones with a 4.5 and 4.7 magnitude, according to the United States Geological Survey.
As seismologists review available data, they may revise the earthquake’s reported magnitude. Additional information collected about the earthquake may also prompt U.S.G.S. scientists to update the shake-severity map.
Subsequent quakes have been reported in the same area. Such temblors are typically aftershocks caused by minor adjustments along the portion of a fault that slipped at the time of the initial earthquake.
Aftershocks detected
Quakes and aftershocks within 100 miles
Aftershocks can occur days, weeks or even years after the first earthquake. These events can be of equal or larger magnitude to the initial earthquake, and they can continue to affect already damaged locations.
The New York Times
When quakes and aftershocks occurred
Sources: United States Geological Survey (epicenter, aftershocks, shake intensity); LandScan via Oak Ridge National Laboratory (population density) | Notes: Shaking categories are based on the Modified Mercalli Intensity scale. When aftershock data is available, the corresponding maps and charts include earthquakes within 100 miles and seven days of the initial quake. All times above are Pacific time. Shake data is as of Saturday, May 9 at 11:55 p.m. Eastern. Aftershocks data is as of Sunday, May 10 at 11:54 p.m. Eastern.
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