The largest gathering in the area appeared to be in Riverside, where a rally took place from noon to 2 p.m. at Riverside City Hall, according to organizers.

The Riverside crowd extended for blocks in the downtown area, with musical performances, cars honking, and hundreds of posters bearing phrases such as “Democracy dies in silence,” “Trump is a plague” and pictures of President Donald Trump reading “iRan Up Gas Prices.”

In Palm Springs, hundreds of protesters gathered with signs reading “Impeach Convict Remove,” “Speak out while you still can” and “Are we great yet because I just feel embarrassed” in front of City Hall.

Thousands of similar gatherings took place on Saturday throughout the country. Organizers were calling for the impeachment and removal of Trump and the abolition of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

“The president thinks his rule is absolute,” according to the No Kings website. “But in America, we don’t have kings — and we won’t back down against chaos, corruption, and cruelty. Our peaceful movement is only getting bigger. `No Kings’ is more than just a slogan; it is the foundation our nation was built upon.”

Additional gatherings throughout the Inland Empire and Coachella Valley took place at:

— Temecula: 10 a.m. to noon at the Duck Pond at Rancho California and Ynez roads;

— Corona: 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Corona City Hall, 400 S. Vicentia Ave.;

— Hemet/San Jacinto: 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Democracy Center at East Florida Avenue and North Franklin Street;

— Redlands: 10 a.m. to noon at Orange Street and Redlands Boulevard;

— Victorville: 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Victorville Park & Ride at Bear Valley and Amargosa roads;

— Beaumont: 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Walmart Supercenter, 1540 E. 2nd St.;

— Moreno Valley: 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at 14177 Frederick St.; and

— Palm Desert: 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Monterey Avenue and Highway 111.

A map of all the events can be found at mobilize.us/nokings/map.

As of Saturday afternoon, there were no reports of violence or arrests during the Riverside County protests.

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Michael Sainato

The largest union of academic workers, which represents more than 48,000 graduate student workers throughout the University of California system, will hold a strike authorization vote as early as next week in response to how universities have cracked down on students’ Gaza protests.

“The use and sanction of violent force to curtail peaceful protest is an attack on free speech and the right to demand change, and the university must sit down with students, unions, and campus organizations to negotiate, rather than escalate,” stated an announcement of the strike vote from UAW Local 4811. Earlier this year, the union voted by a margin of more than 9 to 1 in favor of supporting a ceasefire, according to the announcement.

The graduate workers last went on strike in November 2022 over a new union contract, which was the largest strike in US higher education history. They recently merged two UAW locals, 2865 and 5810, under the single UAW Local 4811.

“We have been calling on the University of California to de-escalate and negotiate with the protesters over their very urgent and moral concerns and it failed to do that and it failed to protect students and workers and allowed this violence to occur,” Rafael Jaime, co-president of UAW 4811 and a graduate worker at UCLA, told The Guardian. “We’re holding a strike authorization vote to hold the university accountable and demand the university respect the members’ right to protected speech and right to protest.”

He said the union also plans to file unfair labor practice charges against the University of California over the university’s use of LAPD against protesters and for changing policies unilaterally in response to the protests without bargaining.

“This is the defining issue of our generation and its really important for all, not just workers at the University of California but across the entire nation to speak up and to ensure every worker has the right to speak on this issue,” added Jaime. “We believe all workers, all students have a fundamental right to engage in protests and engage in free speech and universities need to respect that right.”

The United Auto Workers, with 400,000 active members and over 500,000 retirees, is the largest US union to call for a ceasefire in Gaza, which they did in December 2023.

UAW President Shawn Fain recently reaffirmed the union’s position. “Our union has been calling for a ceasefire for six months. This war is wrong and this response against students and academic workers, many of them UAW members, is wrong,” Fain said in a statement on 1 May.

Graduate student workers are also calling on the National Labor Relations Board to weigh in on how universities have been responding to Pro-Palestine protests and whether those responses violate US labor laws and collective bargaining agreements with unions on campus.

The Graduate Labor Organization at Brown University has filed several unfair labor practice charges against the university since March 2024 in regards to Pro-Palestine protests and the university’s responses to them.

Forty-one students at Brown University was arrested and charges remain despite the pro-Palestine encampment dispersing as part of negotiations which included a planned vote by the university’s highest governing body for October 2024 on divesting from companies affiliated with Israel. The charges filed by the union allege Brown University unilaterally changed protest policies without bargaining and that made threats of retaliation toward union members for participating in Pro-Palestine campus protests.

“It’s really about the university trying to leverage this fact that as graduate workers we do have student status and kind of using that as a workaround for violating labor law and this has been their playbook on a whole host of issues,” said Michael Ziegler, political director of the Graduate Labor Organization and graduate worker at Brown University. “In the past five years, we’ve had something like 20 protests on the main green and there was never any issue, the university didn’t take these actions. This is new and I think a dangerous attempt by them to clamp down on the rights of speech and protected concerted action.”

UAW Local 872, which represents around 3,000 graduate workers at USC, has recently filed an unfair labor practice charge against the university over arrests of at least five union members. The union has called for charges to be dropped against all 93 protesters who were arrested on 24 April and for the university to concede to demands from USC Divest from Death Coalition.

“USC’s summoning of LAPD riot police to arrest their own students and workers for peacefully demonstrating is abhorrent and wrong,” said Maile McCann, a Local 872 member and PhD Candidate in the Civil Engineering department at USC, in a statement on the charge. “The administration’s actions show an alarming disregard for our right as students and union members to engage in peaceful demonstrations, and their decisions have put international students in particular at serious risk. USC’s unnecessary escalation has resulted in a shameful waste of public resources for the purposes of silencing dissent.”

A spokesperson for USC said in an email, “we believe the charge is without merit and intend to defend our position before the National Labor Relations Board.”

Brown University and the University of California system did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

A spokesperson for Brown University has previously said in response to the first unfair labor practice charge, “individuals are not absolved from abiding by Brown policies by virtue of union membership.” The University of California system has not yet publicly commented on the planned strike vote by graduate student workers.

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During back-to-back days at one of California’s largest universities, hundreds of students took to marches, impassioned speeches and megaphones to condemn the mass death that has afflicted Israelis and Palestinians: The attack by Hamas in Israel on Oct. 7, and the Israeli military response since then. The UCLA demonstrations last week — one Tuesday by supporters of Israel, the other Wednesday by pro-Palestinian students — were common in grief but riven by deep wounds over history and words.

This wasn’t a dialogue, but a thunderous expression of each side’s anguish.

Ever since campus protests in California erupted over the latest explosion of violence, students affected by the crisis have endured profound agony as they watch an escalation of violence in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict not seen in decades. Adding to their hurt is a lack of public consensus over what language constitutes prejudice. At the same time, California university leaders are also struggling to strike a balance between First Amendment guarantees and civility.

And as the regents of the University of California meet Wednesday, undoubtedly students will bring their sorrow to a leadership searching to instill comity. While the regents don’t have the matter on their agenda, the morning public comment period is often an electric display of students and employees voicing concern. Late last week, the UC leadership released a statement denouncing bigotry while noting free speech protects vile rhetoric.

The discord is playing out as campus Arabs, Jews and Muslims are witnessing generational traumas that gash their identities like spears, intensifying feelings already on edge.

For Jewish students, the Oct. 7 attack in Israel, in which the Palestinian militant group Hamas murdered 1,200 people, was a grotesque reminder of past perils that have menaced Jewish communities. The massacre was the single largest loss of Jewish life in one day since the Holocaust nearly 80 years ago, which some Jewish students on campus stress is still recent history.

“We have watched as students, professors, and even friends (equate) terrorism with liberation, perpetuate antisemitism, and even celebrate the deaths of our loved ones,” said Bella Brannon, a UCLA student who spoke last Tuesday at a campus demonstration calling on Palestinians to return the more than 200 Israeli hostages who were kidnapped in the Oct. 7 assault. Brannan is president of the campus Hillel.

The event, held a month to the day of the attacks, featured a long dinner table with chairs and place-settings for all of the kidnapped hostages that stretched dozens of feet. Baby bottles taped to the tablecloth signified seats for the children taken by Hamas.

And while supporters of Palestinian freedom don’t necessarily agree with Hamas’ methods, many Jewish groups across the country were outraged that a leading campus voice for Palestinian rights didn’t condemn the Hamas attacks, instead calling them “a historic win for the Palestinian resistance” in a written statement.

Mourning thousands of lives while having to answer for Hamas is part of the frustration for Arab, Muslim and pro-Palestinian students, including Jews, as the Israeli military continues its bombardment of Gaza to topple Hamas’ rule of the area. The campaign has so far resulted in more than 11,000 deaths since Oct. 7, including at least 4,500 children, according to Gaza health authorities. For many Arab and pro-Palestine students, Israel’s latest response is viewed as a continuation of its violent control of Palestinians — prompting their fervent calls for Palestinian statehood free of Israeli intervention. (While the United Nations envisioned two countries in the region in 1947, only Israel emerged, in 1948.)

“There is no way to work with an occupation that will continue to encroach upon those borders, without addressing that their intentions are to remain annexing, remain displacing, remain ethnic cleansing,” said Mohammed Noroozi in an interview. He’s a fourth-year student at UCLA who helped coordinate the pro-Palestinian rally and march on the campus last Wednesday, a day after the Israeli hostages demonstration.

“How am I supposed to go to class without crying,” Noroozi asked.

Hundreds of students attended the pro-Palestine rally, which also called on the UC system to divest from weapons makers, and appeared slightly larger than Tuesday’s event.

Criticism of Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories since 1967 runs deep among international groups and many American Jewish scholars as well, several hundred of whom have called Israel an apartheid state. Critics of that allegation say it’s misleading and that Israel has a right to defend itself against militant activity.

Israel’s creation led to the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their homes. Jews fleeing persecution in Europe and anti-Jewish revolts in Arab and Muslim countries made up a large portion of Israel’s early population. Numerous peace deals to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict fell through in the last three decades.

Antisemitism and Islamophobia on campus

Fearing online harassment or worse, few students who attended last week’s UCLA rallies wished to speak with reporters. Others would only give their first names. One student agreed to have her photo taken but pleaded with CalMatters hours later to avoid publishing her name. “I’m receiving a lot of hate on social media right now,” she wrote.

Alqasim, a fourth-year UCLA student, wore a head scarf synonymous with Arab and Palestinian identity, called a keffiyeh, that concealed most of his face during the rally. He and other students supportive of Palestine fear appearing on a website called Canary Mission, which collects student statements that are antisemitic or critical of Israel and posts their names and images in a searchable format.

Some Jews fear being punished for Israel’s actions, a case of conflating a people and a government that doesn’t represent them, wrote Dov Waxman, a UCLA professor who leads a center on Israel studies. News reports and major Jewish advocacy groups indicate that Israel’s military response has animated a massive intensification of antisemitism domestically and abroad, further alarming Jewish students and their communities.

Muslim and Arab students and their families — and those who appear to be but aren’t — likewise are confronting hateful animus against them, rekindling the memories of Islamophobia that pervaded U.S. civil society after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Last week the Biden administration said bigotry against Jews and Muslims is on the rise at colleges and demanded that campuses stop it.

Members of the California Legislative Jewish Caucus wrote a letter last week to the state’s public university leaders to “express our outrage and concern regarding the explosion of antisemitism at University of California (UC) and California State University (CSU) campuses in recent weeks.” The letter noted a “barrage” of acts of violence and intimidation against Jewish students and employees. Those include a private social media post attributed to a UC Davis professor in which they threatened “zionist” journalists and UC professors who denounced system leaders for calling the Oct. 7 attack an act of terror.

Last Friday, the Veterans Day holiday and days after the legislative caucus’ public rebuke, the UC system released a statement from its 10 campus chancellors and the system president condemning Islamophobia and antisemitism.

“Antisemitism is antithetical to our values and our campus codes of conduct and is unacceptable under our principles of community. It will not be tolerated,” the letter said. “Similarly, Islamophobia is unacceptable and will not be tolerated. We will work to ensure that those who advocate on behalf of Palestinians can also be confident of their physical safety on our campuses.”

CSU leadership released a statement last Saturday saying that while the system supports free speech, it condemns Antisemitism and Islamophobia.

At a recent protest off-campus, Noroozi said a counter-protester spat in his face. He and Middle Eastern and pro-Palestine students CalMatters spoke with said they’ve been called “terrorists” on campus.

UCLA groups have alleged other incidents in which seemingly non-student adults intimidated pro-Palestinian students in the past week. Media and advocacy reports have chronicled other instances of campus Islamophobia, including a driver striking a Stanford Muslim Arab student in a hit-and-run that’s being investigated as a hate crime.

Hateful speech is protected

For colleges, the free exchange of ideas is a central tenet of their existence. Balancing that mission and protecting the emotional and physical safety of students is an ongoing tension.

“The bottom line is that hateful speech is protected by the First Amendment,” said Michelle Deutchman, executive director of the National Center for Free Speech and Civic Engagement at the University of California. Some slogans and posters at campus protests “may feel to some students extremely menacing, extremely threatening, extremely hateful, extremely demeaning, but that does not negate the fact that it is protected and allowed on campus now.”

The center points to effective campus tutorials on free speech, including those issued by UC Davis and Long Beach State.

UC’s letter reiterated Deutchman’s points, citing existing system policy. However, “persistent harassment of individuals or groups, or credible threats of physical violence,” are also examples of “behavior that crosses the line into unprotected speech,” the UC letter said.

Importantly, while speech is protected by the First Amendment, vandalism and violence aren’t.

Deutchman, who spoke with CalMatters before UC published its letter, said laws on speech cannot parse the nuance and messiness of campus debate. College administrators must find a way to do more, even if speech is protected.

The UC letter said that the system will soon “announce a series of initiatives to help us address the current climate on our campuses … and improve the public discourse on this issue.”

A separate UCLA faculty letter denounced the campus protest climate, which it said celebrates Hamas and incites violence.

Disputes over rhetoric

At the pro-Palestine UCLA rally, event organizers passed out flyers with words to chants that participants shouted during a march through campus, including “there is only one solution, intifada, revolution!” and “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” That last phrase is a reference to the geographic space that includes Israel, the West Bank and Gaza. Students there told CalMatters they regard it as a democratic statement to support Palestinian rights, a common view held by scholars on Palestine.

The rally ended with some students beating piñatas with the likenesses of the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. President Joe Biden. The Tuesday event had aggressive displays, too. One older participant carried a sign that read: “Hamas, Islam, Death.”

Major Jewish groups say phrases such as “from the river to the sea” are associated with extremist violence against Israel, and by extension, Jews. But Jewish views are diverse on this: The group Jewish Voice for Peace opposes Zionism and has campus chapters, including at UCLA.

Waxman, the Israel studies director at UCLA, said the charge of antisemitism can be overused.

“I think it’s important to recognize that even criticism that’s unfair, or excessive or harsh, isn’t necessarily antisemitic,” Waxman said. “That also applies not just to criticism of Israel’s policies, but criticism of Israel as a country, and that includes criticism of Zionism as well. It’s not automatically or inherently antisemitic.”

He signed a 2020 declaration endorsed by hundreds of scholars on antisemitism and related fields that said criticism of Zionism — and references to the area between the river and the sea — are not antisemitic on the face of it.

Waxman cautioned that context matters when dissecting slogans. If Hamas supporters chant “from the river to the sea,” the intent of Jewish murder is clear. Others who speak the phrase in the context of a democratic movement that supports equal rights for Jews and Arabs in the region “may not be motivated by antisemitism,” he said. Denying the attachment and history of Jews and Palestinians to the region is also bigoted, Waxman added.

But at least one state lawmaker who’s a member of the Jewish legislative caucus views the existing protest language as antisemitic.

“We know what these slogans mean and it’s disgraceful,” Assemblymember Rick Chavez Zbur, a Democrat from Santa Monica, said at the Tuesday UCLA rally. “I’m not here to tell you what you already know, that Jews have a right to self determination, that anti-zionism is anti-semitism, that the one Jewish state has the right to exist and defend itself.” His district includes a large Jewish population, as well as UCLA.

In a brief interview with CalMatters at the rally, Zbur said calling for intifada and the slogan from the river to the sea are antisemitic. “That’s a direct call for violence against Jewish people,” he said.

To others, the discourse over language misses the point.

“You just need to be able to watch and see what’s going on in Gaza to realize that that is the true horror of where we should be focused, rather than condemning students for actually advocating for justice and equality,” said Ussama Makdisi, a history professor at UC Berkeley who teaches courses on the Middle East and Palestine.

One-state or two-state solution?

A key debate in the Israel-Palestine crisis is whether the region should have two independent countries or a single united state.

Paige Martin, who’s Jewish and attended last week’s pro-Israel demonstration, said she supports peace for everyone and a two-state solution. The fourth-year UCLA student noted that “I don’t agree with everything that the state of Israel does, but I believe it’s important to have a homeland for the Jewish people.”

Alqasim, the student from last week’s pro-Palestinian rally, said that he supports two countries, as long as that means equal rights for Palestinians in Israel as well.

A Palestinian student named Amy who also attended the rally, said, “when we advocate for a two-state solution it equalizes both sides.” To her, the issue is that of “an occupied people and an occupier.”

During the event for Israeli hostages, a student shouted “free Palestine!” before walking away. The crowd jeered at him. CalMatters approached the student, who granted a brief interview but would only identify himself as Joseph.

“I feel for everyone whose family has been taken hostage,” he said. “But you cannot justify 10,000 civilians dead in exchange for 240 hostages. That’s a non-comparison.”

As he pulled away, he added, “I support a two-state solution where the Palestinians and Israelis both have viable states to live together peacefully.”

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KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a partial mobilization of reservists Wednesday to bolster his forces in Ukraine, a deeply unpopular move that sparked rare protests across the country and led to almost 1,200 arrests.

The risky order follows humiliating setbacks for Putin’s troops nearly seven months after they invaded Ukraine. The first such call-up in Russia since World War II heightened tensions with Ukraine’s Western backers, who derided it as an act of weakness and desperation.

The move also sent some Russians scrambling to buy plane tickets to flee the country.

In his 14-minute nationally televised address, Putin also warned the West that he isn’t bluffing about using everything at his disposal to protect Russia — an apparent reference to his nuclear arsenal. He has previously rebuked NATO countries for supplying weapons to Ukraine.

Confronted with steep battlefield losses, expanding front lines and a conflict that has raged longer than expected, the Kremlin has struggled to replenish its troops in Ukraine, reportedly even resorting to widespread recruitment in prisons.

The total number of reservists to be called up could be as high as 300,000, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said. However, Putin’s decree authorizing the partial mobilization, which took effect immediately, offered few details, raising suspicions that the draft could be broadened at any moment. Notably, one clause was kept secret.

Despite Russia’s harsh laws against criticizing the military and the war, protesters outraged by the mobilization overcame their fear of arrest to stage protests in cities across the country. Nearly 1,200 Russians were arrested in anti-war demonstrations in cities including Moscow and St. Petersburg, according to the independent Russian human rights group OVD-Info.

Associated Press journalists in Moscow witnessed at least a dozen arrests in the first 15 minutes of a nighttime protest in the capital, with police in heavy body armor tackling demonstrators in front of shops, hauling some away as they chanted, “No to war!”

“I’m not afraid of anything. The most valuable thing that they can take from us is the life of our children. I won’t give them life of my child,” said one Muscovite, who declined to give her name.

Asked whether protesting would help, she said: “It won’t help, but it’s my civic duty to express my stance. No to war!”

In Yekaterinburg, Russia’s fourth-largest city, police hauled onto buses some of the 40 protesters who were detained at an anti-war rally. One woman in a wheelchair shouted, referring to the Russian president: “Goddamn bald-headed ‘nut job’. He’s going to drop a bomb on us, and we’re all still protecting him. I’ve said enough.”

The Vesna opposition movement called for protests, saying: “Thousands of Russian men — our fathers, brothers and husbands — will be thrown into the meat grinder of the war. What will they be dying for? What will mothers and children be crying for?”

The Moscow prosecutor’s office warned that organizing or participating in protests could lead to up to 15 years in prison. Authorities have issued similar warnings ahead of other protests. Wednesday’s were the first nationwide anti-war protests since the fighting began in late February.

Other Russians responded by trying to leave the country, and flights out quickly became booked.

In Armenia, Sergey arrived with his 17-year-old son, saying they had prepared for such a scenario. Another Russian, Valery, said his wife’s family lives in Kyiv, and mobilization is out of the question for him “just for the moral aspect alone.” Both men declined to give their last names.

The state communication watchdog Roskomnadzor warned media that access to their websites would be blocked for transmitting “false information” about the mobilization.

Residents in Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv, appeared despondent about the mobilization as they watched emergency workers clear debris from Russian rocket attacks on two apartment buildings.

“You just don’t know what to expect from him,” said Kharkiv resident Olena Milevska, 66. “But you do understand that it’s something personal for him.”

In calling for the mobilization, Putin cited the length of the front line, which he said exceeds 1,000 kilometers (more than 620 miles). He also said Russia is effectively fighting the combined military might of Western countries.

Western leaders said the mobilization was in response to Russia’s recent battlefield losses.

President Joe Biden told the U.N. General Assembly that Putin’s new nuclear threats showed “reckless disregard” for Russia’s responsibilities as a signer of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.

Hours later, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy urged world leaders at the gathering to strip Russia of its vote in international institutions and its U.N. Security Council veto, saying that aggressors need to be punished and isolated.

Speaking by video, Zelenskyy said his forces “can return the Ukrainian flag to our entire territory. We can do it with the force of arms. But we need time.”

Putin did not attend the meeting.

Following an emergency meeting of European Union foreign ministers Wednesday night, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell promised more sanctions on Russia over its escalation of the Ukraine conflict. He said he was certain there would be “unanimous agreement” for sanctioning both Russia’s economy and individual Russians.

“It’s clear that Putin is trying to destroy Ukraine. Hes trying to destroy the country by different means since he’s failing militarily,” Borrell said.

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny said the mobilization means the war “is getting worse, deepening, and Putin is trying to involve as many people as possible. … It’s being done just to let one person keep his grip on personal power.”

The partial mobilization order came two days before Russian-controlled regions in eastern and southern Ukraine plan to hold referendums on becoming part of Russia — a move that could allow Moscow to escalate the war. The votes start Friday in the Luhansk, Kherson and partly Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia and Donetsk regions.

Foreign leaders are already calling the votes illegitimate and nonbinding. Zelenskyy said they were a “sham” and “noise” to distract the public.

Michael Kofman, head of Russian studies at the CNA think tank in Washington, said Putin has staked his regime on the war, and that annexation “is a point of no return,” as is mobilization “to an extent.”

“Partial mobilization affects everybody. And everybody in Russia understands … that they could be the next wave, and this is only the first wave,” Kofman said.

Shoigu, Russia’s defense minister, said only some of those with relevant combat and service experience will be mobilized. He said about 25 million people fit that criteria, but only about 1% of them will be mobilized.

It wasn’t clear how many years of combat experience or what level of training soldiers must have to be mobilized. Another clause in the decree prevents most professional soldiers from terminating their contracts until after the partial mobilization.

Putin’s mobilization gambit could backfire by making the war unpopular at home and hurting his own standing. It also concedes Russia’s underlying military shortcomings.

A Ukrainian counteroffensive this month seized the military initiative from Russia and captured large areas in Ukraine from Russian forces.

The Russian mobilization is unlikely to produce any consequences on the battlefield for months because of a lack of training facilities and equipment.

Russian political analyst Dmitry Oreshkin said it seemed “an act of desperation.”

“People will evade this mobilization in every possible way, bribe their way out of this mobilization, leave the country,” he said.

He described the announcement as “a huge personal blow to Russian citizens, who until recently (took part in the hostilities) with pleasure, sitting on their couches, (watching) TV. And now the war has come into their home.”

In his address, Putin accused the West of engaging in “nuclear blackmail” and cited alleged “statements of some high-ranking representatives of the leading NATO states about the possibility of using nuclear weapons of mass destruction against Russia.”

He did not elaborate.

“When the territorial integrity of our country is threatened, to protect Russia and our people, we will certainly use all the means at our disposal,” Putin said.

In other developments, relatives of two U.S. military veterans who disappeared while fighting Russia with Ukrainian forces said they had been released after about three months in captivity. They were part of a swap arranged by Saudi Arabia of 10 prisoners from the U.S., Morocco, the United Kingdom, Sweden and Croatia.

And in another release, Ukraine announced early Thursday that it had won freedom from Russian custody of 215 Ukrainian and foreign citizens, including fighters who had defended a besieged steel plant in the city of Mariupol for months. Zelenskyy posted a video showing an official briefing him on the freeing of the citizens, in exchange for pro-Russian opposition leader Viktor Medvedchuk and 55 others held by Ukraine.

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“These blockades are illegal, and if you are still participating, the time to go home is now,” he declared.

In invoking Canada’s Emergencies Act, which gives the federal government broad powers to restore order, Trudeau ruled out using the military.

His government instead threatened to tow away vehicles to keep essential services running; freeze truckers’ personal and corporate bank accounts; and suspend the insurance on their rigs.

“Consider yourselves warned,” Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland said. “Send your rigs home.”

Freeland, who is also the finance minister, said the government will also broaden its anti-money-laundering regulations to target crowd-funding sites that are being used to support the illegal blockades.

Trudeau did not indicate when the new crackdowns would begin. But he gave assurances the emergency measures “will be time-limited, geographically targeted, as well as reasonable and proportionate to the threats they are meant to address.”

For more than two weeks, hundreds and sometimes thousands of protesters in trucks and other vehicles have clogged the streets of Ottawa, the capital, and besieged Parliament Hill, railing against vaccine mandates for truckers and other COVID-19 precautions and condemning Trudeau’s Liberal government.

Members of the self-styled Freedom Convoy have also blockaded various U.S.-Canadian border crossings, though the busiest and most important — the Ambassador Bridge connecting Windsor, Ontario, to Detroit — was reopened on Sunday after police arrested dozens of demonstrators and broke the nearly week-long siege that had disrupted auto production in both countries.

“This is the biggest, greatest, most severe test Trudeau has faced,” said Wesley Wark, a University of Ottawa professor and national security expert.

Invoking the Emergencies Act would allow the government to declare the Ottawa protest illegal and clear it out by such means as towing vehicles, Wark said. It would also enable the government to make greater use of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the federal police agency.

One of the protest organizers in Ottawa vowed not to back down in the face of pressure from the government.

“There are no threats that will frighten us. We will hold the line,” Tamara Lich said.

Cadalin Valcea, a truck driver from Montreal protesting for more than two weeks, said he will move move only if forced: “We want only one thing: to finish with this lockdown and these restrictions.”

Trudeau met virtually with leaders of the country’s provinces before announcing the crackdown.

Doug Ford, the Conservative premier of Ontario, which is Canada’s most populous province and includes Ottawa and Windsor, expressed support for emergency action, saying: “We need law and order. Our country is at risk now.”

But the leaders of other provinces warned the prime minister against taking such a step, some of them cautioning it could inflame an already dangerous situation.

“At this point, it would not help the social climate. There is a lot of pressure, and I think we have to be careful,” said Quebec Premier François Legault. “It wouldn’t help for the polarization.”

The protests have drawn support from right-wing extremists and armed citizens in Canada, and have been cheered on in the U.S. by Fox News personalities and conservatives such as Donald Trump.

Some conservatives pushed Trudeau to simply drop the pandemic mandates.

“He’s got protests right around the country, and now he’s dropping in the polls, desperately trying to save his political career. The solution is staring him in the face,” said opposition Conservative lawmaker Pierre Poilievre, who is running for the party’s leadership.

Millions in donations have poured in supporting the protests, including a big chunk from the U.S.

Hackers who apparently infiltrated one of fundraising websites, GiveSendGo.com, dumped a file online that showed a tally of nearly 93,000 donations totaling $8.4 million through Thursday, an Associated Press analysis of the data found.

Roughly 40% of the money raised came from the U.S. while slightly over half was from Canada.

In other developments, the Mounties said they arrested 11 people at the blockaded border crossing at Coutts, Alberta, opposite Montana, after learning of a cache of guns and ammunition.

Police said a small group within the protest was said to have a “willingness to use force against the police if any attempts were made to disrupt the blockade.” Authorities seized long guns, handguns, body armor and a large quantity of ammunition.

Alberta Premier Jason Kenney also said protesters in a tractor and a heavy-duty truck tried to ram a police vehicle at Coutts on Sunday night and fled. He said some protesters want to “take this in a very dangerous and dark direction.”

Over the past weeks, authorities have hesitated to move against the protesters. Local officials cited a lack of police manpower and fears of violence, while provincial and federal authorities disagreed over who had responsibility for quelling the unrest.

An earlier version of the Emergencies Act, called the War Measures Act, was used just once during peacetime, by Trudeau’s late father, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, to deal with a militant Quebec independence movement in 1970.

The demonstrations have inspired similar convoys in France, New Zealand and the Netherlands. U.S. authorities have said that truck convoys may be in the works in the United States.

Invoking emergency powers would be a signal to Canadians and allies like the United States and around the world “who are wondering what the hell has Canada been up to,” Wark said.

Also Monday, Ontario’s premier announced that on March 1, the province will lift its requirement that people show proof of vaccination to get into restaurants, restaurants, gyms and sporting events. The surge of cases caused by the omicron variant has crested in Canada.

“We are moving in this direction because it is safe to do so. Today’s announcement is not because of what’s happening in Ottawa or Windsor but despite it,” Ford said.

The Ambassador Bridge, which carries 25% of all trade between the two countries, reopened to traffic late Sunday night. The interruption forced General Motors, Ford, Toyota and other automakers to close plants or curtail production on both sides of the border. Some of them have yet to get back to full production.

The siege in Ottawa, about 470 miles (750 kilometers) away, has infuriated residents fed up with government inaction. They have complained of being harassed and intimidated by the protesters who have parked their rigs bumper to bumper on the streets.

“It’s stressful. I feel angry at what’s happening. This isn’t Canada. This does not represent us,” Colleen Sinclair, a counter-protester who lives in Ottawa.

Many of Canada’s COVID-19 restrictions, such as mask rules and vaccine passports for getting into restaurants and theaters, are already falling away as the omicron surge levels off.

Pandemic restrictions have been far stricter in Canada than in the U.S., but Canadians have largely supported them. The vast majority of Canadians are vaccinated.

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WINDSOR, Ontario (AP) — Protesters opposed to COVID-19 vaccine mandates and other restrictions withdrew their vehicles from a key U.S.-Canadian border bridge Saturday though access remained blocked while other demonstrations ramped up in cities across Canada, including the capital, where police said they were awaiting more officers before ending what they described as an illegal occupation.

The tense standoff at the Ambassador Bridge linking Detroit and Windsor, Ontario, eased somewhat early in the day when Canadian police persuaded demonstrators to move the trucks they had used to barricade the entrance to the busy international crossing.

But protesters reconvened nearby — with reinforcements — and were still choking off access from the Canadian side late Saturday, snarling traffic and commerce for a sixth day. About 180 remained late Saturday in the sub-freezing cold.

In Ottawa, the ranks of protesters swelled to what police said was 4,000 demonstrators. The city has seen that on past weekends, and loud music played as people milled about downtown where anti-vaccine demonstrators have been encamped since late January.

Early Saturday evening, crews lined concrete traffic barricades between behind a line of police officers that stretched across the main highway leading to the foot of the Ambassador Bridge in Windsor. Officers later withdrew behind the barricades which separated them from protesters. Barricades also were placed along some side streets. Police vehicles had been parked at those streets, preventing motor vehicles from entering the highway.

The protests at the bridge, in Ottawa and elsewhere have reverberated outside the country, with similarly inspired convoys in France, New Zealand and the Netherlands, and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security warned that truck convoys may be in the works in the United States.

An ex-Cabinet minister in Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government took the unusual step of calling out her former federal colleagues as well as the province and city for not putting an end to the protests.

“Amazingly, this isn’t just Ottawa. It’s the nation’s capital,” Catherine McKenna tweeted. “But no one — not the city, the province or the federal government can seem to get their act together to end this illegal occupation. It’s appalling. … Just get your act together. Now.”

Trudeau has so far rejected calls to use the military.

“The Prime Minister stressed that border crossings cannot, and will not, remain closed, and that all options are on the table,” Trudeau’s office said in a statement late Saturday after he met with senior officials.

Trudeau has called the protesters a “fringe” of Canadian society, and both federal and provincial leaders say they can’t order police what to do.

“Safety concerns — arising from aggressive, illegal behavior by many demonstrators — limited police enforcement capabilities,” Ottawa police said in a statement late Saturday.

Ottawa police said a joint command center had now been set up together with the Ontario Provincial Police and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

Police earlier issued a statement calling the protest an unlawful occupation and saying they were waiting for police “reinforcements” before implementing a plan to end the demonstrations.

Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson declared a state of emergency last week for the capital, where hundreds of trucks remained in front of the Parliament Buildings and demonstrators have set up portable toilets outside the prime minister’s office where Trudeau’s motorcade usually parks.

Surrounded by dozens of officers in Windsor, a man with “Mandate Freedom” and “Trump 2024” spray-painted on his vehicle left the bridge entrance early in the day as others began dismantling a small, tarp-covered encampment. A trucker honked his horn as he, too, drove off, to cheers and chants of “Freedom!”

But hundreds more arrived to bolster the crowd and settled into a faceoff with police about two blocks away, waving flags and yelling. While there were no visible physical confrontations, the crowd still controlled the road to the bridge, and traffic had not resumed as of the evening.

Windsor police tweeted that no one had been arrested but urged people to stay away from the bridge: “We appreciate the cooperation of the demonstrators at this time and we will continue to focus on resolving the demonstration peacefully. Avoid area!”

Protester Daniel Koss said shortly before police advanced that the demonstration had succeeded in bringing attention to demands to lift COVID-19 mandates and he was happy it remained peaceful.

“It’s a win-win,” Koss said. “The pandemic is rolling down right now, they can remove the mandates, all the mandates, and everyone’s happy. The government does the right thing, and the protesters are all happy.”

The previous day, a judge ordered an end to the blockade of mostly pickup trucks and cars, and Ontario Premier Doug Ford declared a state of emergency allowing for fines of 100,000 Canadian dollars and up to one year in jail for anyone illegally blocking roads, bridges, walkways and other critical infrastructure.

“The illegal blockades are impacting trade, supply chains & manufacturing. They’re hurting Canadian families, workers & businesses. Glad to see the Windsor Police & its policing partners commenced enforcement at and near the Ambassador Bridge,” Federal Innovation Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne tweeted Saturday. “These blockades must stop.”

The Ambassador Bridge is the busiest U.S.-Canadian border crossing, carrying 25% of all trade between the two countries, and auto plants on both sides have been forced to shut down or reduce production this week. The standoff came at a time when the industry is already struggling to maintain production in the face of pandemic-induced shortages of computer chips and other supply-chain disruptions.

In Ottawa, 31-year-old Stephanie Ravensbergen said she turned out to support her aunt and uncle who have parked their semi in the streets since the beginning of the protest. She opposes vaccine and mask requirements, and said it’s important for schoolchildren to be able see their friends’ faces and emotions.

“We want the right to choose,” Ravensbergen said. “We want the right to be able to do what everybody else can do.”

Protesters on Saturday tore down a fence that authorities put up around the capital’s National War Memorial two weeks ago after demonstrators urinated on it. Some later chanted “liberte,” French for “freedom.”

“Completely unacceptable,” Lawrence MacAulay, Canada’s veterans affairs minister, tweeted. “This behavior is disappointing and I’m calling on protesters to respect our monuments.”

On the other side of the country, protesters disrupted operations at another border crossing between Surrey, British Columbia, and Blaine, Washington, but officials said it was not blocked. Two border crossings, in Alberta and in Manitoba, remained shut down as well.

While the protesters are decrying vaccine mandates for truckers and other COVID-19 restrictions, many of Canada’s public health measures, such as mask rules and vaccine passports for getting into restaurants and theaters, are already falling away as the omicron surge levels off.

Pandemic restrictions have been far stricter there than in the U.S., but Canadians have largely supported them. The vast majority of Canadians are vaccinated, and the COVID-19 death rate is one-third that of the United States.

Inspired by the Canadian demonstrations, protests against pandemic restrictions were seen in parts of Europe on Saturday.

At least 500 vehicles in several convoys attempted to enter Paris at key arteries but were intercepted by police. Over 200 motorists were ticketed, and elsewhere at least two people were detained amid a seizure of knives, hammers and other objects in a central square.

Police fired tear gas against a handful of people who demonstrated on the Champs Elysees Avenue in defiance of a police order. An Associated Press photographer was hit in the head with a gas canister as police struggled to control the crowd.

In the Netherlands, meanwhile, dozens of trucks and other vehicles ranging from tractors to a car towing a camper arrived in The Hague, blocking an entrance to the historic parliamentary complex. Protesters on foot joined them, carrying a banner emblazoned with “Love & freedom, no dictatorship” in Dutch.

Earlier this week in New Zealand, protesters rolled up to Parliament grounds in a convoy of cars and trucks and set up camp. Police have taken a hands-off approach after initial attempts to remove them resulted in physical confrontations.

Parliament Speaker Trevor Mallard on Friday ordered his staff to turn on the lawn’s sprinklers to douse them and to play Barry Manilow tunes and the 1990s hit “Macarena” over loudspeakers to annoy them. Protesters responded by playing their own songs, including Twisted Sister’s “We’re Not Gonna Take It.”

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In response to the more than three-dozen recommendations, the Governor has directed the statewide Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST) to modernize training and guidance for law enforcement to ensure that it prioritizes the protection of First Amendment rights and to develop best practices for law enforcement to identify, monitor and strategically detain individuals suspected of inciting violence and destruction during protests and demonstrations.

Additionally, the recommendations encourage local law enforcement agencies to require all officers in direct contact with demonstrators to wear and activate body cameras; ensure the protection of journalists and legal observers; and identify and address the role of hate groups in disrupting protests and instigating violence. Finally, the recommendations propose restrictions on the types of weapons and tactics that should be used during protests and demonstrations.

“The role of police officers in protests and demonstrations is to keep the peace, and facilitate the ability of protesters to demonstrate peacefully without infringing on their First Amendment rights,” said Governor Newsom. “Implementation of these recommendations will help ensure our law enforcement agencies are better equipped to respond safely to protests and demonstrations and reinforce the values of community partnership, de-escalation, and restraint.”

The policing advisors are Ron Davis, a former East Palo Alto police chief who also served as the head of the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Community Oriented Policing Services during the Obama Administration, and Lateefah Simon, a current director and president of BART and president of the Akonadi Foundation.

Chief Davis and Ms. Simon worked with Professor Jack Glaser of the Goldman School of Public Policy and Administration staff on the recommendations following a series of convenings across the state with numerous stakeholders, including law enforcement, local government, legislative leaders, youth, civil rights advocates, community-based organizations, mental health experts and journalists. The Governor asked the advisors to provide recommendations for improving law enforcement response to protests and demonstrations and for ensuring that California’s new use of force laws are well implemented. The recommendations released focus on protests and demonstrations. Recommendations related to the new use of force laws will be released in the coming weeks.

“It has been a true honor to work with Lateefah Simon and the outstanding team at the Governor’s Office. The recommendations we are providing to the Governor reflect the best practices from the field to ensure law enforcement effectively and safely facilitate First Amendment protected demonstrations and protests in a manner consistent with both the Constitution and the high standards and values of California. I applaud Governor Newsom for his leadership and continual commitment to ensuring all Californians are treated equal under the law,” said Chief Davis.

“Dissent and protests are as American as apple pie. The right to peacefully assemble is a fundamental one that we hold dear. This moment of national reckoning on racial justice will be defined by the impassioned voices for reform and leaders who respond courageously. I applaud Governor Newsom for working to protect our First Amendment rights and his commitment to moving California forward,” said Ms. Simon.

These recommendations follow the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis in May, and that of other unarmed Black people at the hands of police, and the global protests and demonstrations that ensued. Governor Newsom held meetings across the state with faith and community leaders, elected officials and small business owners, all to discuss racism, systemic injustice and how we move forward as a state. The Governor also directed the POST Commission to stop training police officers on the carotid hold.

Governor Newsom last month signed a series of bills into law initiating critical criminal justice, juvenile justice and policing reforms in California, including banning the carotid restraint, requiring the Attorney General to conduct investigations into officer-involved shootings of unarmed individuals that result in death and legislation that reforms the juvenile justice system to put more emphasis on rehabilitation and education.

–gov.ca.gov

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