Tens of thousands of students walked out of school in California, Texas and other US states, waving flags and chanting slogans in a second week of protests against legislation to crack down on illegal immigrants.
In Washington, 100 demonstrators wore handcuffs at the Capitol on Monday to protest a bill that would make it a felony to be in the country illegally and would make it a crime to dispense aid to the nation's 11 million illegal immigrants.
Immigrant supporters also object to legislation that would also impose new penalties on employers who hire illegal immigrants and would build fences along part of the US-Mexican border.
More than 500,000 people gathered in downtown Los Angeles on Saturday, and tens of thousands rallied in Phoenix and Milwaukee last week.
On Monday, 36,000 students marched out of Los Angeles-area schools, officials said.
By midmorning, the protests had spread to downtown, where hundreds of students walked the streets and chanted.
The boycott had the tacit approval of school officials in some of the heavily Hispanic downtown schools, where word was passed through hall posters and public address systems.
In some areas, teachers and administrators walked with students "as a safety measure," said Monica Carazo, spokeswoman for the Los Angeles school district.
In Los Angeles, more than 1,000 students encircled City Hall and some met with Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa in his office.
"We've been here for many years. We work hard. We contribute to the economy of the US," said Belmont High student Fermin Vasquez, 18.
Six students were chosen to meet with the mayor, who then stepped outside and addressed the crowd.
"I want you to know that there are people right now all across the country that agree with you that we need immigration reform that rewards work, that gives people a pathway to citizenship, that allows families to stay together," Villaraigosa told the crowd.
A few schools barred their doors to prevent walkouts. Officials at Huntington Park High locked the gates after classes started, but the students climbed over a chain-link fence and joined marchers in their heavily immigrant community.
About 300 students and adult supporters walked onto a freeway in downtown Los Angeles, forcing police to briefly close some lanes. The demonstrators walked about a mile before they were escorted off, the highway patrol said.
Elsewhere, thousands of teens walked out of several high schools in Dallas, Texas, and headed for a rally at a park, some carrying Mexican flags and others posters calling for Congress to recognize immigrant rights.
In Phoenix, an estimated 400 students walked out of high schools and marched to the Arizona Capitol. A few wrote slogans on their arms.
In Detroit, Michigan, protesters waving Mexican flags marched from the southwest side of the city where many Hispanics live toward a federal building downtown.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion