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UN Rights Chief Urges US to Not Use Military Force in Anti-Trump Protests

Demonstrators hold banners during a 'No Kings Day' protest in Los Angeles, California, USA, 14 June 2025. EPA/KYLE GRILLOT
Demonstrators hold banners during a 'No Kings Day' protest in Los Angeles, California, USA, 14 June 2025. EPA/KYLE GRILLOT
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UN Rights Chief Urges US to Not Use Military Force in Anti-Trump Protests

Demonstrators hold banners during a 'No Kings Day' protest in Los Angeles, California, USA, 14 June 2025. EPA/KYLE GRILLOT
Demonstrators hold banners during a 'No Kings Day' protest in Los Angeles, California, USA, 14 June 2025. EPA/KYLE GRILLOT

The UN human rights chief on Monday urged US authorities to respect the right to peaceful assembly and refrain from using military force in the context of large protests against President Donald Trump's actions while in office.

"I urge the authorities to respect the right to peaceful assembly and to uphold human rights in law enforcement, including by refraining from any resort to military force when civilian authorities are capable of maintaining public order," Volker Turk told the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva in a broad opening speech.

His comments come after Trump sent US marines to Los Angeles to square off against protesters as part of a rare use of military force to support domestic police.

Protests over federal immigration enforcement raids have been flaring up around the country.

Opponents of Trump's immigration policies took to the streets as part of the “no kings” demonstrations Saturday that came as Trump held a massive parade in Washington for the 250th anniversary of the US Army.

Saturday's protests were mostly peaceful.

But police in Los Angeles used tear gas and crowd-control munitions to clear out protesters after the event ended.

Officers in Portland, Oregon, also fired tear gas and projectiles to disperse a crowd that protested in front of a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement building well into the evening.

Trump made the call for stepped up enforcement in Democratic-controlled cities on social media as he was making his way to the Group of Seven economic summit in Alberta, Canada.

He suggested to reporters as he departed the White House for the G7 on Sunday evening that his decision to deploy National Guard troops to Los Angeles was the reason the protests in that city went peacefully.

“If we didn’t have the National Guard on call and ready, they would rip Los Angeles apart,” Trump said.

The shift also come as Trump is grappling with the impact his mass deportation effort is having on key industries that rely on workers in the country illegally.

Trump posted on his Truth Social site Thursday that he heard from hotel, agriculture and leisure industries that his “very aggressive policy on immigration is taking very good, long time workers away from them” and promised that changes would be made.

That same day Tatum King, an official with ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations unit, wrote to regional leaders telling them to halt investigations of the agriculture industry, including meatpackers, as well as of restaurants and hotels, according to the US official.

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World

‘I May Lose My Mind’: Frustrated Travelers Stuck in US Flight Havoc

Travelers wait in line at ticket counters at LaGuardia Airport in New York, Friday, Nov. 13, 2026, after the Federal Aviation Administration grounded flights nationwide. (AP)
Travelers wait in line at ticket counters at LaGuardia Airport in New York, Friday, Nov. 13, 2026, after the Federal Aviation Administration grounded flights nationwide. (AP)
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‘I May Lose My Mind’: Frustrated Travelers Stuck in US Flight Havoc

Travelers wait in line at ticket counters at LaGuardia Airport in New York, Friday, Nov. 13, 2026, after the Federal Aviation Administration grounded flights nationwide. (AP)
Travelers wait in line at ticket counters at LaGuardia Airport in New York, Friday, Nov. 13, 2026, after the Federal Aviation Administration grounded flights nationwide. (AP)

Confusion reigned at airports across the United States on Friday as a rare grounding of all US flights stranded hundreds of thousands of frustrated travelers.

In New York's busy LaGuardia airport, Janice Llewellyn was on the verge of tears: the chaos could mean she will miss her daughter's wedding in Toronto.

The 61-year-old Llewellyn was desperate to find an alternative route, telling AFP: "I may lose my mind."

"My husband flew all the way from England to get to the wedding," she said.

"Oh gosh! I wish they had another flight, I wish I could get another flight, like, now."

At the airport in Las Vegas, some fliers were told their journeys were delayed due to wind.

One airline staffer said the ground stop would last eight hours. Another said 24 hours.

Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) officials eventually lifted the ground stop at 8:15 pm ET (0115 GMT Saturday).

"It will take us time (to) resume normal operations," Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy said, blaming the incident on telecommunications issues with decades-old equipment.

During the stop, the lack of information led many passengers to form long lines at rental car counters in a mad dash for travel alternatives.

Joseph Anderson said he was trying to get back to Oakland in California from Las Vegas and was considering driving -- but said "if the whole country is stopped, that means the highways are going to be jammed too."

The 72-year-old retired Air Force veteran said his already-checked luggage was captive, meaning "we're kind of stuck."

"I would hope the communication can be better from the FAA," he said.

The ground stop comes less than two weeks before the Thanksgiving holiday, the busiest travel period of the year in the United States.

And it falls ahead of a particularly busy weekend for professional and college sports -- teams and their fans are also stuck.

Back in New York, Tiara Johnson had been heading to Orlando in Florida for a weekend concert, and any hope that she would make it was growing dim.

"You think you're gonna be there in three hours, but your whole evening is kind of done!" the 50-year-old told AFP.

"But hey, they say it's Friday the 13th!"

Harried passengers stared at their phones, calm but annoyed, wandering the airport terminal without clear direction.

Hagit Levy Shalev, 54, was zen.

She booked a new flight for Saturday morning, meaning her work trip would last a little longer.

"I'll get there," she laughed. "One more extra day away from the kids!"

World

US to Resume Flights After Air Traffic Network Failure Sparks Chaos

A message board displays flights at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International airport as all flights are canceled or delayed, Friday, Nov. 13, 2026, in Atlanta. (AP)
A message board displays flights at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International airport as all flights are canceled or delayed, Friday, Nov. 13, 2026, in Atlanta. (AP)
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US to Resume Flights After Air Traffic Network Failure Sparks Chaos

A message board displays flights at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International airport as all flights are canceled or delayed, Friday, Nov. 13, 2026, in Atlanta. (AP)
A message board displays flights at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International airport as all flights are canceled or delayed, Friday, Nov. 13, 2026, in Atlanta. (AP)

The FAA lifted a nationwide ground stop on Friday after a communications failure at air traffic control centers caused chaos at US airports and triggered the longest shutdown since the September 11, 2001, attacks.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said US airspace reopened at 8:15 p.m. Eastern Time (0115 GMT), but warned that departures would resume gradually and it would take time for airlines to restore normal operations.

"It's going to be slow," Duffy told reporters at the White House.

More than 6,600 flights were canceled and 8,600 delayed, with another 1,500 already canceled for Sunday, according to FlightRadar24. Aviation analysts said the four-hour nationwide grounding could disrupt airline schedules for days.

Duffy said tens of thousands of passengers were stranded at airports around the country. Duffy said he and Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin had met with President Donald Trump in the Oval Office to discuss the outage.

The failure is the latest and most dramatic sign of strain on a US air ‌traffic control system ‌beset by aging technology, equipment and communications problems and a shortage of several thousand controllers.

Duffy said ‌the ⁠trouble began at ⁠3:36 p.m., when air traffic control centers experienced instability in radar and communications systems.

"Our switches, our routers actually got overloaded with data and they started to give us inconsistencies in the data from those routers and because of that we shut the system down," Duffy said, adding that at no stage did they completely lose radar or communications and they were able to safely land thousands of planes.

Duffy said the immediate problem had been fixed and that flying was safe, but warned that a broader overhaul of the aging air traffic control system was needed to prevent similar failures.

$50 BILLION AVIATION OVERHAUL

Duffy blamed Congress for failing to fund a new system that he said could prevent such outages, ⁠and called for $50 billion to modernize it.

Earlier on Friday, before the outage, the White House ‌and Department of Transportation had urged Congress to approve $30.1 billion to upgrade the nation's ‌aging airports and air traffic control infrastructure.

"What we have is an incredibly old air traffic control system," Duffy said.

"Give us the money to fix ‌it."

Homeland Security Secretary Mullin said there was "zero evidence" so far that the outage resulted from a cyberattack or a rogue AI ‌system, though investigators had not ruled out either possibility.

"It appears this was mechanically driven, however, we're still looking," Mullin said.

The National Security Agency was working with the Department of Homeland Security on the investigation, he added.

The outage appeared to be affecting a telecommunications network overseen by L3Harris Technologies, according to two airline officials. The network handles critical radio frequencies used by air traffic controllers to communicate with pilots. L3Harris did not respond to a request ‌for comment.

PAIN NOT OVER FOR PASSENGERS

Though the ground stop was lifted, the disruption for passengers was far from over. From Boston to Seattle and New York to Los Angeles, passengers ⁠crowded departure halls and airline desks ⁠as delays and cancellations mounted and aircraft remained parked at gates.

Thousands of passengers faced being stranded overnight. Edward Kargbo, 50, from West Chester, Pennsylvania, had been scheduled to take a 9 p.m. Ethiopian Airlines flight to Lomé, Togo. Instead, he planned to spend the night at the airport before a rescheduled flight at 6 a.m. on Saturday.

“I have to squat the night here,” he said. “I’m stranded.”

Louise Maher, 47, was also caught up in the disruption at Newark after her British Airways flight to London was caught up in the aviation meltdown.

“I might cry at some point but not yet,” she said.

US airlines will not be required to provide compensation to stranded passengers because the carriers were not responsible for the FAA system failures.

The only other nationwide ground stop since the September 11 attacks came in January 2023, when the FAA halted domestic departures for about 90 minutes.

Investors were already pricing in a financial hit to airlines. Shares of American Airlines, United Airlines and Delta Air Lines fell between 1% and 2% in after-hours trading, while JetBlue Airways dropped about 3%.

American Airlines said it was prioritizing flights to smaller cities outside its major hubs and international destinations to position aircraft and crews for a faster recovery.

World

US Treasury Chief Blames Commerce Dept for Failure in Nvidia Scandal

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent speaks during the National Committee on US-China Relations 60th Anniversary Gala Dinner in New York City, US, November 10, 2026. (Reuters)
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent speaks during the National Committee on US-China Relations 60th Anniversary Gala Dinner in New York City, US, November 10, 2026. (Reuters)
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US Treasury Chief Blames Commerce Dept for Failure in Nvidia Scandal

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent speaks during the National Committee on US-China Relations 60th Anniversary Gala Dinner in New York City, US, November 10, 2026. (Reuters)
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent speaks during the National Committee on US-China Relations 60th Anniversary Gala Dinner in New York City, US, November 10, 2026. (Reuters)

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Friday blamed the Commerce Department for failing to blacklist Megaspeed, the Singapore company at the center of a scandal that prompted Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang to resign.

Speaking on CNBC, Bessent said Treasury, the Defense Department, the US Trade Representative's office and the State Department had backed adding Megaspeed to the Washington's trade blacklist, "for months."

"But Commerce has the pen," Bessent said. "You will have to ask them about their internal processes."

He said he was "frustrated" because President Donald Trump "made it very clear that China should not receive any Nvidia chips above H100s."

"Any leakage is very frustrating because it hurts our great companies, and in the AI race gives the Chinese an advantage," he said.

The remarks are a rare public rebuke of one cabinet department by another. Commerce is led by Secretary Howard Lutnick.

Megaspeed is suspected of helping Chinese firms get around US export controls by buying Nvidia chips for its data centers in Southeast Asia and routing them to China.

The company reportedly traded more than $4 billion worth of Nvidia chips over two years.

Its former director Alice Huang was this week identified in US media as an alleged Chinese intelligence asset who had a relationship with Jensen Huang. The two are not related. Beijing has denied the spying allegations.

Jensen Huang acknowledged an extramarital affair in a November 8 letter to Nvidia employees that did not name the woman involved and resigned his position on Thursday.

Nvidia's board has said it will investigate, and three US Congress committee chairs have asked him to attend a closed-door briefing on November 18.

Bessent said coverage of the affair had focused too much on Huang's private life.

"The story thus far has been on Jensen Huang's personal foibles," he said. "The real story here should be: Did Nvidia know their client, and was there a robust effort at Nvidia to make sure that there was no leakage."

He questioned whether Nvidia had been selling to "what were obviously pass-through shell companies."

"I think it's important that anyone at the company there be held accountable for that," Bessent said.

He said there was "a lot of leakage in the system" and that the administration was "constantly working to close that down."