On Friday, NBC News reported that the Trump administration has broached the plan with Libya's leadership, though no final agreement has been reached. NBC News' reporting relied on several unnamed sources “with knowledge of the effort.” “This is absolutely categorically an ethnic cleansing and sending people to Libya of all places is unconscionable,” wrote investigative journalist James Stout on Bluesky on Friday, in response to the reporting. An unnamed spokesperson for the Trump administration told NBC News after publication that “these reports are untrue.” “Skeptical that there's a serious ‘plan' here (rather than just spitballing). But the underlying premise is correct: the Trump administration has spent months approaching various countries to see if it could bribe them into helping out with the ethnic cleansing of Gaza,” Carlstrom wrote in a post on X on Saturday. NBC News also reported that the Trump administration has discussed multiple locations for resettling Palestinians in Gaza, and that the administration is considering Syria as a potential location. International law prohibits the forced deportation and transfer of civilians. Observers pointed out that Libya is itself experiencing instability. “This would be an expensive nightmare to practically implement, Libya is an active war zone with a current [population] of only 7 million and in no shape to absorb refugees, and American-led ethnic cleansing should be flatly unacceptable,” wrote David Burbach, an associate professor at the U.S. Currently, eastern Libya is controlled by Khalifa Hifter and a United Nations-recognized government lead by Abdul Hamid Dbeibah is in control in the west. Such a plan was not discussed and makes no sense.” The Trump administration is cracking down on political dissent. Under pressure from an array of McCarthy-style tactics, academics, activists and nonprofits face significant threats for speaking out or organizing in resistance. Truthout is appealing for your support to weather this storm of censorship. We've launched a fundraising campaign to find 362 new monthly donors in the next 5 days. Eloise Goldsmith is a staff writer for Common Dreams. Get the news you want, delivered to your inbox every day. We've set a goal to add 362 new monthly donors in the next 5 days – will you be one of them?

But above them all sits a less familiar name, that of Jhonattan Vegas who is holding a two-shot lead at the halfway point of the PGA Championship. In the process, Vegas has made history, becoming the first Venezuelan to hold a lead at a major. Related article PGA Championship: Rakes, snakes, an ace and Vegas reigns supreme in second round And it's been a long journey to the top – he was already playing golf by the time he was two years old. Rocks, broomstick, everything,” Vegas told reporters after his opening round on Thursday. Feel like I was a good athlete as a young kid, so that's kind of how things started. “We grew up near a nine-hole golf course owned by the oil companies, and we had access to a course and plus the love of my dad for the game, put it together and we started playing.” Early in his professional career he made more history, becoming the first Venezuelan to ever claim a PGA Tour event when he won the Bob Hope Classic in 2011. Becoming such a visible Venezuelan figure, and a national hero, meant that his success was inevitably drawn into the country's politics. Golf itself was bound up in Venezuela's politics too; former president Hugo Chavez closed several of the country's golf courses that belonged to state-oil company PDVSA and dismissed the sport as “bourgeois,” per Reuters. More recently, a series of injuries have threatened to derail Vegas' career. He barely played any golf at all during the 2022-23 season and underwent two surgeries to treat elbow and shoulder injuries. First, a piece of bone broke off and got stuck in his elbow joint, forcing him to have surgery. Doctors told him his elbow would never fully heal and then complications from that injury caused shoulder issues for which he underwent another surgery. But in July 2024, he returned to winning ways at the 3M Open, ensuring, most importantly for him, that his younger son, Louis, could experience his dad winning a trophy for the first time. And now, Vegas is enjoying his best ever performance at a major. He followed up his first round of 64 with a second round of 70, marking the first time in 17 major championship starts he has put together two consecutive under-par rounds.

The Trump administration set up a tip line to assist in slashing programs focused on diversity, equity and inclusion. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox. No employees in the agency, then more than 15,000 people strong, responded to that plea, ProPublica learned via a public records request. Trump has made ending diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility programs a hallmark effort of his second term. Many federal employees, however, are declining to assist the administration with this goal. He signed an executive order on his first day back in office that labeled DEI initiatives — which broadly aim to promote greater diversity, largely within the workplace — as “illegal and immoral discrimination programs” and ordered them halted. His pressure campaign to end DEI efforts has also extended to companies and organizations outside the government, with billions of dollars in federal funding for universities frozen as part of the fight. Corbin Darling retired from the EPA this year after more than three decades with the agency, including managing environmental justice programs in a number of Western states. “That's part of the mission — it has been for decades,” Darling said. The agency also did not answer questions about whether it received any reports to its anti-DEI inbox. The EPA, meanwhile, checked its inbox and confirmed that zero employees had filed reports. “Some emails received in that inbox did come from EPA addresses but none of them called out colleagues who were still working on DEI matters,” an agency spokesperson said in a statement in May. The White House did not respond to a request for comment. “The optimist in me would like to believe that maybe it is because, as an agency, we are generally dedicated to our mission and understand that DEIA is intrinsic in that,” a current EPA employee who requested anonymity said. “On the flip side, they've done such a good job immediately dismantling DEIA in the agency that folks who are up in arms might have just been assuaged.” Although DEI programs are often internal to a workplace, the administration also put a target on environmental justice initiatives, which acknowledge the fact that public health and environmental harm disproportionately fall on poorer areas and communities of color. Research has shown, for example, that municipalities have planted fewer trees and maintained less green space in neighborhoods with a higher percentage of people of color, leading to more intense heat. EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, who was confirmed in late January, has boasted about cutting more than $22 billion in environmental justice and DEI grants and contracts. “Many American communities are suffering with serious unresolved environmental issues, but under the ‘environmental justice' banner, the previous administration's EPA showered billions on ideological allies, instead of directing those resources into solving environmental problems and making meaningful change,” he wrote in an April opinion piece in the New York Post. The EPA spokesperson said employees with more than 50% of their duties dedicated to either environmental justice work or DEI were targeted for layoffs. EPA environmental justice offices worked on a range of initiatives, such as meeting with historically underserved communities to help them participate in agency decision-making and dispersing grants to fund mitigation of the carcinogenic gas radon or removal of lead pipes, Darling explained. The Trump administration is cracking down on political dissent. Under pressure from an array of McCarthy-style tactics, academics, activists and nonprofits face significant threats for speaking out or organizing in resistance. Truthout is appealing for your support to weather this storm of censorship. We've launched a fundraising campaign to find 362 new monthly donors in the next 5 days. Your support during our fundraiser (5 days left) will help us continue our nonprofit movement journalism in the face of right-wing authoritarianism. Get the news you want, delivered to your inbox every day. We've set a goal to add 362 new monthly donors in the next 5 days – will you be one of them?

Israel has agreed to allow some food into Gaza before a newly-approved mechanism for aid deliveries is up and running later this month, the head of the newly established Gaza Humanitarian Foundation told CNN. Jake Wood, the foundation's executive director, said he did not yet know when or how many aid trucks Israel would allow into Gaza, but he called conditions there “clearly urgent” and said he expects “positive updates on that in the coming days.” The Israeli government, which has blocked aid to Gaza for nearly 11 weeks, has not responded to multiple requests for comment about the matter. The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation will run a new, tightly controlled mechanism for Gaza aid deliveries that has been approved by Israel and the United States, which both countries say is designed to prevent Hamas from stealing aid. The United Nations' major aid organizations say, however, that there is no evidence of any significant diversion of aid in Gaza and are refusing to participate in the new aid mechanism, warning it risks displacing Palestinians and increasing the dangers they face. The UN's aid chief, Tom Fletcher, said Friday that time should not be wasted on an alternative Gaza aid plan, writing on X: “To those proposing an alternative modality for aid distribution, let's not waste time: We already have a plan.” In his first interview since launching the foundation, Wood addressed criticisms by the UN and other aid groups and urged them to reconsider. Related article A US-backed group says it will deliver aid to Gaza, but humanitarian organizations are skeptical. “I cannot blame the humanitarian community for crying foul amid that misinformation. I would not have participated in a plan that did those same things. The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation will initially launch four distribution sites: three in southern Gaza and one in central Gaza, Wood said – even though much of the strip's population is in the central and northern areas. The UN has previously warned that focusing on these locations could be seen as encouraging Israel's publicly stated goal of forcing “the entire Gazan population” out of northern Gaza, as Defense Minister Israel Katz put it earlier this month. Pressed on Israel's claims that Hamas is stealing humanitarian aid – which Hamas and aid organizations deny – Wood said “it doesn't really matter.” Related vertical-video UN aid chief warns of Gaza famine from blockade “Israel controls access to Gaza, and if, if it is their belief that there is a large percentage of aid that is being interdicted by Hamas and other non-state actors … then we have no choice but to create a mechanism which operates in that construct and in that framing,” Wood said. “I think, as with most situations, there's three sides to every story. I'm not here to render judgment on either of those. The foundation's operations will be secured by a private American security contractor, UG Solutions, which also manned a vehicle checkpoint in Gaza during the ceasefire earlier this year. Wood said they would be operating “under strict rules of engagement,” which he declined to share for operational security, but said they would abide by international laws and norms.

Israeli strikes in Gaza have killed more than 300 people since Thursday, Palestinian health officials said, one of the deadliest periods in the war since ceasefire talks broke down in March. The intensified bombing campaigns came as Israel's total blockade on humanitarian aid has prompted fears of a famine in the Palestinian territory. “Since midnight, we have received 58 martyrs, while a large number of victims remain under the rubble. The escalation in attacks was condemned by the UN human rights chief, Volker Türk, on Friday, who said the bombing campaign was meant to displace Palestinians and that it was equivalent to ethnic cleansing. “This latest barrage of bombs … and the denial of humanitarian assistance underline that there appears to be a push for a permanent demographic shift in Gaza that is in defiance of international law and is tantamount to ethnic cleansing,” he said. Turk's comments were also echoed by the UN secretary general, António Guterres, who called for a permanent ceasefire while speaking at an Arab League summit in Baghdad on Saturday. The strikes were accompanied by a large troop buildup along Gaza's borders, aimed at establishing “operational control” of parts of Gaza. The terrorist organisation took about 250 hostages during its October 2023 attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of about 1,200 people. The attacks came as Donald Trump departed the Middle East after a four-day visit to Arab Gulf countries, during which Saudi Arabia, UAE and Qatar made pledges to invest billions in the US. Hopes that Trump's visit might bring renewed progress on truce talks in Gaza were dashed after Trump reiterated his desire to turn Gaza into a “freedom zone”. Prospects of a lasting truce seemed further away as Israel's security cabinet approved plans in early May that could involve seizing the entire Gaza Strip. The Iraqi foreign minister, Fuad Hussein, said that attending ministers would endorse a reconstruction plan for Gaza, a contrast to Trump's offer to take over the Palestinian territory. Ministers later pledged $40m in reconstruction funds for Gaza and Lebanon. Later on Saturday Hamas confirmed a new round of Gaza ceasefire talks with Israel was under way in Qatar's Doha. A group official, Taher al-Nono, told Reuters both sides were discussing all issues without “pre-conditions”. Widespread hunger and malnutrition among children have also soared, after Israel cut off vital humanitarian aid to the territory on 2 March. There is little medical care in Gaza, due to scarce supplies and repeated Israeli strikes on hospitals and medical facilities. The UN aid chief, Tom Fletcher, urged a resumption of aid to Gaza in a speech to the UN security council on Tuesday, where he said famine loomed. Israel has consistently denied that its 10-week blockade is causing hunger in Gaza. However, Trump acknowledged on Thursday that “a lot of people are starving in Gaza”. Israel, which claims Hamas hijacks aid to fund its military, has proposed a plan to distribute aid from hubs in Gaza run by private contractors and guarded by Israeli troops. They urged Israel to lift its blockade and to rely on the UN and other existing humanitarian bodies, which have long experience in transporting aid into Gaza.

Stand behind Ukrainian independent journalism when it's needed most. The so-called Supreme Court of the Russian-controlled Luhansk Oblast found Jenkins guilty under Russian criminal law for participating in armed conflict as a mercenary. Jenkins, who served in the Ukrainian army's 402nd Separate Rifle Battalion, which is part of Ukraine's 66th Separate Mechanized Brigade, was reported missing near Mykolaivka in Luhansk Oblast on Dec. 16, 2024. Unlike most other foreigners volunteering to join Ukraine's resistance against Russia, Jenkins has had no military experience. The Australian media described the man as "much loved" by his community in Australia, a talented cricket and football player who studied biomedical sciences before working as a lecturer in China. The Russian FSB said it had investigated Jenkins' case and accused him of engaging in "criminal activity" until his arrest in December. Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong condemned the sentencing, calling it a "sham trial." We are working with Ukraine and other partners, including the International Committee of the Red Cross, to advocate for his welfare and release," Wong said in a statement on May 17. Wong reiterated Australia's position that Jenkins should be treated in accordance with international humanitarian law, and that Russia's refusal to recognize him as a prisoner of war violates legal norms. Australia has been pressing for Jenkins' release since he was captured. His case drew international attention after Russian media aired footage in December 2024 purporting to show him being interrogated and beaten. While some outlets later raised doubts about the authenticity of related video materials, Russia eventually confirmed to Australia that Jenkins was in custody and in "normal" health. The Kremlin maintains that foreigners fighting for Ukraine under contract are mercenaries, whom it does not consider protected under the Geneva Conventions. We're working hard to show the world the truth of Russia's brutal war — and we're keeping it free for everyone, because reliable information should be available to all. Our goal: reach 20,000 members to prove independent journalism can survive without paywalls, billionaires, or compromise.

The conflict in Ukraine cannot be resolved through military means - peace talks must be initiated and this opportunity should be seized, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told his pool reporters. Peace talks must begin, and the parties should not miss this opportunity. This war cannot be ended by military confrontation and weapons. Our greatest desire is to see a final result from the peace talks. Since the very beginning, we have made intensive efforts to stop this war. These talks, arranged through our initiatives, are an important step toward opening the door to peace. Turkey seeks a just and lasting peace. We are not only calling for an end to the war - we are also proposing methods and preparing the ground," Erdogan added. He also stated that Turkey has nothing to do with the fact that Russian President Vladimir Putin and Vladimir Zelensky did not meet in Turkey when the delegations were scheduled to hold talks. "This situation is not related to us," Anadolu Agency quoted Erdogan as saying in response to a related question.

Robert Prevost's maternal grandparents came to US from Caribbean and at one point identified as Black The family history service Ancestry recently announced that a team helmed by senior genealogist Kyle Betit had determined Leo's paternal grandfather, John R Prevost, immigrated to the US from north-eastern Sicily. “My own story is that of a citizen, the descendant of immigrants, who in turn chose to emigrate,” Leo told ambassadors at the Vatican. The information about Leo's Sicilian roots surfaced in part on a form in 1940 that Prevost – living in Chicago at the time – was required to fill out because he was a foreign national and had not become a naturalized US citizen. The form, along with other relevant genealogical records, indicated that Prevost was born on 24 June 1876 in Milazzo, a province of Messina, Italy, and named Salvatore Giovanni Gaetano Riggitano. Betit said that one of the Prevosts' sons, Louis Marius, eventually married Mildred Agnes Martinez. And, as other similarly situated families in the US did, they switched their racial identity to white. On 8 May, after a two-day conclave in Rome, about 460 miles from his paternal grandfather's Italian homeland, Leo was elected to succeed the late Francis as head of the worldwide Catholic church and its 1.4 billion members. “In the case of the new pope, his grandfather journeyed from Italy to America, and [his] journey brought him back to Italy as pope.” His predecessor frequently clashed on the topic of immigration with Trump, who won a second US presidency in November in large part by promising to carry out mass deportations. The first few months of Trump's second presidential term have indeed been marked by steady news of immigration-related detentions and removals in the US. In fact, on Friday, his administration drew a supreme court ruling rejecting its efforts to resume deporting Venezuelans under an 18th-century wartime law. As a cardinal, Robert Prevost, for his part, had gone on social media before becoming pope and reposted an opinion column criticizing an assertion by JD Vance, Trump's vice-president, that taking care of one's own people before turning to others was consistent with the teachings of Catholicism. And, during his speech on Friday at the Vatican to ambassadors, he said: “All of us, in the course of our lives, can find ourselves healthy or sick, employed or unemployed, living in our native land or in a foreign country, yet our dignity always remains unchanged. It is the dignity of a creature willed and loved by God.” Vance was scheduled to lead a delegation of US officials at Leo's inaugural mass on Sunday.

Prime Minister Mark Carney gestures toward his cabinet, not seen, as he prepares to speak to reporters following a swearing-in ceremony at Rideau Hall in Ottawa, on May 13.Spencer Colby/The Canadian Press Maybe you, like me, had a friend who owned the board game Mouse Trap when you were a kid, and perhaps you also coveted that thing all the way down to the deepest chamber of your heart. If you land in the right spot, you get to kick off a chain reaction: boot kicks over bucket, ball rolls down ramp, lever rises, army guy launches through the air. And if – only if – all of those mechanisms work exactly right, at the end a little net will descend on your opponents' mouse figures, trapping them so you can win. I started thinking about that game as Mark Carney assembled his cabinet and the first real sense of what his government might be and do began to surface from the election haze. There are a few things the Prime Minister took pains to emphasize this week, like critic quotes on a movie poster that help you understand how you're supposed to think about the things you're seeing. Mr. Carney underlined that his cabinet was sworn in faster and Parliament is returning sooner than those things usually happen after an election, and that the Throne Speech in less than two weeks will lay out his government's mission. “So we're going to go hard,” he said on Tuesday at Rideau Hall, standing before his freshly minted front bench – the real one built for purpose, not the trivia quiz curiosity he assembled out of found parts when he took over as Liberal Leader shortly before triggering the election campaign. CTV's Vassy Kapelos interviewed Mr. Carney, and when she questioned how much would really change given that he has many of the same prominent ministers Canadians have been hearing from for the past several years, his answer was, “Well, first off, now you're hearing from me. She kept pressing him on how his government would deliver something different when his top lieutenants were the people swearing up and down six months ago that Justin Trudeau was doing the Lord's work. “If I may, you are going into process and personnel,” he said. He underlined this same idea throughout the leadership race and election campaign, when he would say repeatedly that his government would focus on outcomes, rather than programs created or dollars spent. And as for precisely which end results people should judge him by, he laid that out this week too. A reporter asked the Prime Minister what success would look like on the cost of living, or what barometer people should use to judge his government's success. “Canadians will hold account by their experience at the grocery store, when they're paying their electricity bill, when they or their children are looking for a place to live,” he said, adding, “And then, of course, accountability comes at the ballot box.” So Mr. Carney says that this government will do things better because it has different leadership – him – and is fixated on results, not seeking credit for effort along the way. He sets the bar for success on those results at Canadians feeling like they can afford their lives more comfortably – even as the economic damage and inflationary strain of U.S. tariffs is quietly accumulating in the national bloodstream at this very moment. The Prime Minister led his party to a wildly improbable election win by promising to handle the greatest existential threat Canada has faced in decades. On Wednesday, when Mr. Carney's new cabinet gathered for the first time, it was one of those rare moments when the ritual and rigidity of politics couldn't slam a lid on the human stuff. Authors and topics you follow will be added to your personal news feed in Following.

Russia's stance at negotiations on the situation in Ukraine has been modified if compared to 2022 and adjustments are due to the situation on the ground, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told journalists on Thursday. "Yes, there are adjustments in Russia's stance. These changes are due to developments on the ground," she said. "If you want to grasp the connection between the negotiating process and territories, I should remind you of a statement made by the Russian Foreign Minister [Sergey Lavrov] on September 28, 2024," Zakharova said. According to her, Foreign Minister Lavrov stated at that time that Ukraine would have preserved a part of Donbass if the agreements reached at the April 2022 negotiations in Istanbul were observed. "However, Sergey Lavrov added that each time when any agreement backed by Russia is breached, Ukraine becomes smaller," Zakharova said. "I think it would be wise to keep this quote in mind for everyone trying to find a connection between the negotiating process and the size of the [Ukrainian] territory." The plan is to start dialogue in Istanbul on May 15. Vladimir Zelensky, in turn, announced plans to travel to Istanbul on Thursday, following US President Donald Trump's call on Ukraine to immediately accept Putin's offer for talks. The Russian team of negotiators also includes Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Galuzin, head of the Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces Igor Kostyukov, and Deputy Defense Minister Alexander Fomin.

Stand behind Ukrainian independent journalism when it's needed most. Ukrainian security service drones struck an ammunition depot used by Russia's 126th Coastal Defense Brigade near the village of Perevalne in occupied Crimea, causing a large explosion and fire, a security source told the Kyiv Independent on May 17. Local residents reportedly described thick smoke over the military compound. "The Security Service of Ukraine continues to effectively strike legitimate military targets in Russian-occupied Crimea. Efforts to degrade (Russia's) military capabilities will continue," the source said. The Kyiv Independent could not independently verify these claims. Ukraine has ramped up long-range drone strikes and sabotage operations in occupied Crimea in recent months, targeting Russian military infrastructure and logistics hubs. President Volodymyr Zelensky announced on April 7 that Ukraine is increasing production across "the full range of drones: from Mavics to long-range drones," as well as ground-based robotic systems. Zelensky also noted progress in Ukraine's capacity for "deep strikes" — long-range drone attacks targeting Russian military infrastructure far behind the front lines. We're working hard to show the world the truth of Russia's brutal war — and we're keeping it free for everyone, because reliable information should be available to all. Our goal: reach 20,000 members to prove independent journalism can survive without paywalls, billionaires, or compromise.

ST. LOUIS—Storm systems sweeping across parts of the Midwest and South have left at least 21 dead, many of them in Kentucky, where what appeared to be a devastating tornado crumbled buildings and flipped a car over on an interstate. In Kentucky, some 14 people were killed by severe weather, and the death toll is likely to rise, according to Gov. Laurel County resident Chris Cromer said he got the first of two tornado alerts on his phone around 11:30 p.m. or so, about a half-hour before the tornado struck. He and his wife grabbed their dog, jumped in their car, went to a relative's nearby home and got into a crawlspace. His home is intact, though a piece of the roof got ripped off and windows were broken. A house two doors down is destroyed, along with others in the Sunshine Hills neighborhood, Cromer said. “It's one of those things that you see on the news in other areas, and you feel bad for people — then, when it happens, it's just surreal,“ he said, describing a landscape of destruction. An emergency shelter was set up at a local high school and donations of food and other necessities were arriving. The National Weather Service hadn't yet confirmed that a tornado struck, but meteorologist Philomon Geertson said it was likely. It's the latest severe weather to cause deaths and widespread damage in Kentucky. Two months ago, at least 24 people died in a round of storms that swelled creeks and submerged roads. The latest Kentucky storms were part of a weather system Friday that killed seven in Missouri and also spawned tornadoes in Wisconsin, knocked out power to several hundred thousand customers in the Great Lakes region and brought a punishing heat wave to Texas. St. Louis Mayor Cara Spencer confirmed five deaths in her city and said more than 5,000 homes were affected. The total number of people injured was not immediately known, but hospitals in the area reported receiving dozens of patients, with some in serious condition. Three people needed aid after part of the Centennial Christian Church crumbled, City of St. Louis Fire Department Battalion Chief William Pollihan told The Associated Press. Stacy Clark said his mother-in-law, Patricia Penelton, died in the church. He described her as a very active church volunteer who had many roles, including being part of the choir. John Randle, a 19-year-old University of Missouri-St. Louis student, said he and his girlfriend were at the St. Louis Art Museum during the storm and were hustled into the basement with about 150 other people. The Saint Louis Zoo remained closed Saturday because of damage, but spokesperson Christy Childs said all animals were safe and that there were no reports of significant injuries to staffers, guests or animals.

The World Pride 2025 welcome concert, with pop icon Shakira performing at Nationals Stadium, isn't until May 31. But for host city Washington D.C., the festivities start with a string of localized Pride events beginning with Trans Pride on Saturday. Hundreds of LGBTQ+ rallies, seminars, parties, after-parties and after-after-parties are planned for the next three weeks across the nation's capital, including Black Pride and Latin Pride. But this year's events will carry both a special resonance and a particular sense of community-wide anxiety due to the policies of President Donald Trump's administration. Trump's public antipathy for trans protections and drag shows has already prompted two international LGBTQ+ organizations, Egale Canada and the African Human Rights Coalition, to issue warnings against travelling to the U.S. at all. Opposition to transgender rights was a key point for Trump's presidential campaign last year and he's been following through since returning to the White House in January, with orders to recognize people as being only male or female, keep transgender girls and women out of sports competitions for females, oust transgender military troops, restrict federal funding for gender-affirming care for transgender people under age 19 and threaten research funding for institutions that provide the care. All the efforts are being challenged in court; judges have put some policies on hold but are currently letting the push to remove transgender service members move forward. Some potential international participants have already announced plans to skip this year's events, either out of fear of harassment or as a boycott against Trump's policies. But others have called for a mobilization to flood the capital, arguing that establishing a presence in potentially hostile spaces is the precise and proud history of the community. “If we set the precedent that global LGBTQI+ events cannot happen under right-wing or anti-LGBTQI+ governments, we will effectively disqualify a growing list of countries from hosting,” Ruiz wrote. “To those who say attending World Pride in D.C. normalizes Trump's policies, I say: What greater statement than queer, trans, intersex, and nonbinary people from around the world gathering defiantly in his capital? What more powerful declaration than standing visible where he would rather we vanish?” It's too early to tell whether the numbers this year will match those, but organizers admit they are expecting international attendance to be impacted. Destination D.C., which tracks hotel booking numbers, estimated that bookings for this year during World Pride are about 10 per cent behind the same period in 2024, but the organization notes in a statement that the numbers may be skewed by a “major citywide convention” last year that coincided with what would be the final week of World Pride this year. Still, as the date approaches, organizers and advocates are predicting a memorable party. If international participation is measurably down this year, as many are predicting, the hope is that domestic participants will make a point of attending. “There is no greater demonstration of resistance than being present and being you, and that is what World Pride is going to represent for millions of folks.” Authors and topics you follow will be added to your personal news feed in Following. © Copyright 2025 The Globe and Mail Inc. All rights reserved.