During fifth period at Walt Whitman high school in Bethesda, Maryland, dozens of students chose to walk out of class for about an hour of Tuesday’s school day.

“This is the world we’re growing up in, and it’s really important that we are politically active,” said Dalia Rees, a junior at the school.

Similar scenes played out at Montgomery Blair High and Dominion High in Sterling, Virginia.

Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) and Loudoun County Public Schools have policies that allow students to peacefully demonstrate — and on Tuesday, hundreds of students exercised their rights, joining other walkouts at schools across the country.

Those thousands of students nationwide protested the Trump administration, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and immigration enforcement that in recent weeks has turned violent.

At Walt Whitman, Rees and her fellow junior Evan Schwartz told News4 they planned the demonstration to protest ICE specifically, after the shooting that killed a Minnesota mother in Minneapolis earlier this month.

The students have demands for their school district.

“One demand is that MCPS promises a policy of non-cooperation with ICE, and we’re hoping for Whitman to educate students about civil liberties.

A towering protest piece on the National Mall recreating President Donald Trump’s alleged birthday letter to Jeffrey Epstein has the White House fizzing—and tourists lining up to sign it.

The 10-foot-tall by 12-foot-wide replica card appeared early Monday on Third Street NW between Jefferson and Madison drives, with a National Park Service permit allowing it to remain through Friday, according to The Washington Post.

“We have certain things in common, Jeffrey,” the message reads. “Enigmas never age, have you noticed that?… Happy birthday — and may every day be another wonderful secret.”

Trump, 79, has denied writing or drawing any part of the original note and insists the “Donald” scrawl is not his signature. He has already sued The Wall Street Journal and its parent companies over their report revealing the card.

Epstein, who died in prison as he awaited trial in 2019, would have been 73 on Wednesday.

In front of the placard on the National Mall, a stack of marble-look blocks mimics a filing cabinet labeled “The Files,” with drawers spilling hundreds of paper strips, a nod to the heavily redacted and still-unreleased Epstein files that the Justice Department has so far failed to release in full under the Epstein Files Transparency Act.

A box of Sharpies invites visitors to sign the “card to the administration,” and the messages have generally not been positive.

Inside the West Wing, the mood was less playful. “Kudos to these Trump Deranged Liberals for constantly inventing new ways to light Democrat donor money on fire by spreading fake news,” deputy White House press secretary Abigail Jackson wrote in an email to the Post on Monday, questioning when statues would appear of Democrats she said had Epstein ties.

The blown-up birthday note is the latest clash between Trump and the Secret Handshake. The same group was behind a 12-foot bronze-painted statue on the Mall depicting Trump and Epstein holding hands and skipping.

It was installed with a permit but was pulled early by U.S. Park Police, prompting censorship complaints.

On their permit application for the birthday-card piece, the artists wrote that they wanted “to highlight the conversation about President Donald Trump’s friendship and relationship with Jeffrey Epstein using his own reported language and correspondence,” and to draw attention to Epstein files that remain redacted or unreleased.

Under the Epstein Files Transparency Act, signed into law on Nov. 19, the Justice Department had 30 days to release all its Epstein records. But it missed the Dec. 19 deadline, has disclosed only a fraction of the trove, and now faces bipartisan accusations of flouting Congress’ mandate.

By midmorning on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, the Mall was quiet and only a handful of messages dotted the card—most of them hostile to Trump. “Looking forward to your jail sentence, DJT!” one read. “The people will rise. We already are,” said another, according to the Post.

D.C. resident Susan Fritz, 61, told the paper she liked that the artists “didn’t have to make anything up,” adding, “They just had to blow it up and put it out here.”

Others treated it as a strange civics lesson. “It shows that someone lived in a very different world from the rest of us at some point,” Anders Williams, 45, said. “It’s just weird.”

Another visitor, Ying Yong, 33, called it “great” and “hilarious.” A federal worker, declining to give her name, chose to reply in black Sharpie with a Martin Luther King Jr. quote: “Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that.”

There’s a new nominee to the D.C. Council and she’s no stranger to the District.

A former staff member for council member Kenyan McDuffie has been nominated to take his seat. McDuffie left the seat to run for mayor, explaining his motivation for doing so in a recent interview with WTOP.

D.C. Council Chair Phil Mendelson announced Monday that Doni Crawford was his nominee to fill the vacancy created by McDuffie’s departure.

“I am honored that the chairman selected me as his proposed appointee,” Crawford said.

She’s a former staff member who worked under McDuffie. She also was a committee director on the Committee on Business and Economic Development.

“Nearly 10 years ago, I came to the city with a simple belief that government done right can help people build better lives,” Crawford said Monday. “I believe in a D.C. where every resident has the opportunity to thrive, and where our economy remains competitive with the region.”

There will be a vote by the D.C. Council on Tuesday to decide whether to confirm Crawford. She needs at least seven votes to be appointed to the at-large seat.

“I know I must earn the trust of residents, and I’m ready to do that through listening, collaboration and service,” she said.

The person appointed to the at-large seat will be in the position through the special election in June.

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