The Brief

California State University and the University of California are welcoming student activists back to campus this fall with revamped protest rules that signal a harder line on encampments, barriers and, under certain circumstances, the wearing of face masks.

Cal State, the nation’s largest public university system, was first to issue its policy Thursday, a bundle of restrictions that govern public assemblies on university campuses. And UC president Michael Drake followed Monday with a letter outlining his expectations for campus chancellors to impose restrictions on how students could engage in protests this fall.

The two systems join a wave of colleges that have revisited rules about how and where people can demonstrate on their campuses in the wake of pro-Palestinian protests last spring. Critics say some strengthened restrictions could limit free speech rights.

Encampments and overnight demonstrations

The Cal State policy bars tent encampments and overnight demonstrations, a signature of the spring’s protest movements both within the CSU and across higher education institutions. Erecting unauthorized barricades, fencing and furniture is also prohibited.

“Encampments are prohibited by the policy, and those who attempt to start an encampment may be disciplined or sanctioned,” CSU spokesperson Hazel Kelly said in a written statement to EdSource. “Campus presidents and their designated officials will enforce this prohibition and take appropriate steps to stop encampments, including giving clear notice to those in violation that they must discontinue their encampment activities immediately.”

Kelly said the encampments “are disruptive and can cause a hostile environment for some community members. We have an obligation to ensure that all community members can access University Property and University programs.”

UC campuses similarly will ban encampments or other “unauthorized structures,” Drake said in a letter to campus chancellors Monday morning directing them to enforce those rules. He also said they must prohibit anything that restricts movement on campus, which could include protests that block walkways and roadways or deny access by anyone on campus to UC facilities.

“I hope that the direction provided in this letter will help you achieve an inclusive and welcoming environment at our campuses that protects and enables free expression while ensuring the safety of all community members by providing greater clarity and consistency in our policies and policy application,” Drake added.

As part of this year’s state budget agreement, lawmakers had directed Drake’s office to create a “systemwide framework” for consistently enforcing protest rules across UC’s campuses. Lawmakers are withholding $25 million from UC until Drake submits a report to the Legislature by Oct. 1 detailing those plans.

New protest restrictions

A variety of higher education institutions have bolstered policies that constrain demonstrations and similar gatherings in reaction to protests over the Israel-Hamas war last school year.

The University of Pennsylvania’s “temporary guidelines” include a ban on bullhorns and speakers after 5 p.m. on school days as well as a two-week limit on the display of posters and banners, according to the Associated Press. Indiana University’s policy allows “expressive activities” like protests from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m. only and requires prior approval to hang or place signs on university property. The University of South Florida rules stipulate that no protests are allowed in the final two weeks of a semester, AP reported, among other restrictions.

Tyler Valeska, an assistant professor of law at Loyola University Chicago, said that even if a university has not seemed keen to enforce protest rules strictly in the past, many are now telegraphing a more forceful approach going forward.

“For years, maybe even decades, it did seem to be the case that university officials had a policy on paper and then another policy in their actual approach to enforcement,” he said. “And we saw a major change from that status quo in the spring, where universities around the country started suddenly enforcing policies that had been on the books for years or decades, but had never really been enforced against relatively non-disruptive student speech.”

“It may be the case that the universities are hyping up their policies with no actual intent to enforce them stringently, but based on what we saw in the spring, that would surprise me,” he added.

Who is affected?

The interim policy at Cal State applies to all 23 of the system’s campuses, replacing rules at each school. University leaders still have discretion on specifics, such as determining which buildings and spaces on campus are considered to be public areas and which hours of the day those spaces can be accessed, which they will spell out in addenda to the systemwide policy.

Drake’s letter to the campus chancellors is not a systemwide policy. Instead, his letter directs each campus to come up with their own policies. Those policies must meet certain requirements, including the banning of encampments.

Some campuses likely already have the necessary policies, Drake said in his letter. If they don’t, they should develop or amend existing policies as soon as possible, he added. In either case, each campus must provide a document or webpage that describes those policies.

Both of California’s four-year university systems have come under fire for how they responded to protests in solidarity with Palestine this spring. Some campus leaders approached student activists with a light touch, allowing students to camp overnight in quads peacefully and negotiating with representatives until they voluntarily disassembled encampments. But as conflicts between protesters, counterprotesters and administrators flared on some campuses, university leaders called in law enforcement agencies to break up encampments and arrest students who did not comply with orders to disperse.

Highlights and takeaways

The new protest guidance suggests that Cal State and UC now are headed in roughly the same direction, taking a stronger stance against practices that featured frequently in spring protests.

Highlights of the policies include:

• Camping: Cal State’s policy bans “encampments of any kind, overnight demonstrations … and overnight loitering.” It outlaws the use of camping paraphernalia, including recreational vehicles and tents. Bringing “copious amounts of personal belongings” to campus without permission is also a no-go, except as allowed in student housing and university workspaces. Drake’s letter instructs UC chancellors to clarify their policies to make clear that setting up a camp, tent or temporary housing structure is not allowed without prior approval.

• Barricades and other structures: Drake requests campuses make sure their policies prohibit building unauthorized structures on campus. Cal State’s interim policy additionally lists a range of temporary and permanent structures – “tent, platform, booth, bench, building, building materials (such as bricks, pallets, etc.), wall, barrier, barricade, fencing, structure, sculpture, bicycle rack or furniture” – that aren’t allowed without permission.

• Masking and refusing to self-identify: Cal State and Drake’s letter invoke the same policy on face coverings almost to the word. Both warn that masks and other attempts to conceal one’s identity are not allowed “with the intent of intimidating and harassing any person or group, or for the purpose of evading or escaping discovery, recognition, or identification in the commission of violations” of relevant laws or policies. Cal State’s language, additionally, notes that face masks are “permissible for all persons who are complying with University policies and applicable laws.” Similarly, both systems bar people from refusing to identify themselves to a university official acting in their official capacity on campus.

• Restricting free movement: Drake’s letter emphasizes that campus policies should prohibit restricting another person’s movement by, for example, blocking walkways, windows or doors in a way that denies them access to the university’s facilities. The guidance comes days after a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction that barred UCLA from “knowingly allowing or facilitating the exclusion of Jewish students” on its campus. Cal State’s interim policy includes blanket advisories against actions that “impede or restrict the free movement of any person” and block streets, walkways, parking lots or other pedestrian and vehicle paths. 

Kelly, the CSU spokesperson, said sections of the policy about encampments, the use of barricades and face coverings “are not new and are already in place for the most part at each university and at the Chancellor’s Office.”

In the spring, students built encampments at UC campuses including UCLA and UC San Diego as well as Cal State campuses including Sacramento State and San Francisco State. Bobby King, a spokesperson for San Francisco State, said the school granted students last spring an exception to the campus time, place and manner policy.

“The new CSU policy will create greater urgency in resolving a situation like the one we had last spring,” he said. “Obviously, with the new policy in place, campus leaders who engage with the students would need to convey that urgency.”

The interim policy at Cal State takes a comprehensive approach to defining what is and is not allowed during demonstrations, outlawing items like firearms, explosives and body armor as well as actions like shooting arrows, climbing light poles and public urination. The policy outlaws demonstrations in university housing, including the homes of employees living on university property when “no public events are taking place.”

Drake’s directive describes a tiered system for how campuses should police individuals if they violate any rules. They would first be informed of the violation and asked to stop. If they don’t, the next step would be to warn them of potential consequences.

After that, UC police or the local campus fire marshal could issue orders that could include an unlawful assembly announcement, an order to disperse or an order to identify oneself. If the conduct doesn’t change at that point, the individuals involved could be cited for violation of university policy and, if they are breaking a law, they could also be detained and arrested. Police could order them to stay away from campuses for repeat offenses or what they deem higher severity violations.

That response system, however, “is not a rigid prescription that will capture all situations,” the guidance states.

Cal State’s interim policy is effective immediately for students and non-represented employees, Kelly said. Unionized employees will work under the previously-negotiated campus policies until a meet and confer process for the new policy is complete.

Cal State Dominguez Hills and Stanislaus State were the first two campuses to publish addenda for their schools as of press time.

The Dominguez Hills addendum, for example, lists areas where protests are permitted without pre-scheduling, including the north lawn in front of the Loker Student Union and a sculpture garden adjacent to the University Theater. But the document limits events in those places to the hours of 7 a.m. and 11 p.m. and allows only “non-amplified speech and expression.”

The campus addenda will also describe any restrictions on signs, banners and chalking. The Dominguez Hills addendum prohibits the use of sticks or poles to support handheld signs, does not allow signs “to be taped to any campus buildings, directory signs, fences, railings, or exterior light poles” and by default limits signs to a two-week posting period. It also includes a list of “designated posting places” on the campus.

Margaret Russell, an associate professor at Santa Clara University School of Law, said that Cal State's policy is clearly motivated by a desire to minimize disruptions from protests. Russell said that though many of the restrictions target students' conduct rather than their speech, she is troubled by broad language seeming to require written permission for posters, signs, banners and chalking.

Russell said such language could create "a chilling effect" because it "is so potentially broad and far reaching that people don't know ahead of time what's allowed and what's not allowed."

"The overall message is, 'Be careful. Be careful where you express your opinion aloud." And so to me, it seems suppressive of freedom of speech, which is probably what they want," she said.

Kelly, the Cal State spokesperson, said that the policy overall is meant to describe how the universities' property can be used without inhibiting free expression.

"Generally, separate individual written permission is not required for signage unless the person is trying to post on a facility where it is not permitted," she said. "This rule does not apply to signs and posters people carry or use personally."

An Aug. 14 statement from the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) did not name any universities but broadly criticized school administrations for policies it said “severely undermine the academic freedom and freedom of speech and expression that are fundamental to higher education.”

“Many of the latest expressive activity policies strictly limit the locations where demonstrations may take place, whether amplified sound can be used, and types of postings permitted,” the statement said. “With harsh sanctions for violations, the policies broadly chill students and faculty from engaging in protests and demonstrations.”

The AAUP statement said some institutions have gone so far as to require protest groups to register in advance. AAUP argued that such provisions effectively block spontaneous protests and may discourage protesters wishing to avoid surveillance.

The AAUP statement came a day after the American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA) released a “guide to preventing encampments and occupations on campus.” The guide encourages universities to ban encampments and to act decisively to punish students who violate those policies.

“Once an encampment has occupied the campus, the institution has very few options to avoid an ugly spectacle that at best will make the administration look ineffectual and even make the board appear derelict,” the guide says. “Negotiating and making concessions are invitations to more and increasing demands. They embolden others to employ similar coercive tactics in the future and further undermine the university’s mission.”

Cal State’s interim policy says the university embraces its obligation to support the free exchange of information and ideas, but that such freedom of expression “is allowed and supported as long as it does not violate other laws or University policies and procedures.”

Cal State spokesperson Kelly said the university system “places the highest value on fostering healthy discourse and exchange of ideas in a safe and peaceful manner, by sustaining a learning and working environment that supports the free and orderly exchange of ideas, values, and opinions, recognizing that individuals grow and learn when confronted with differing views, alternative ways of thinking, and conflicting values.”

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On March 1, the day after U.S. forces bombed Iran and began a war that's now more than nine weeks long, President Donald Trump posted 30 times on Truth Social.

Just after midnight, he posted about the bombing campaign, including a threat to retaliate if Iran itself retaliated ("THEY BETTER NOT DO THAT").

But he soon had a lot more on his mind; mid-morning, he posted a video portraying Senator Mitch McConnell as the floppy, deceased Bernie from Weekend at Bernie's.

He posted a Tiktok video praising his State of the Union — a speech he had given five days prior — then reposted that video, along with a screenshot of a post on the social media site X. Just after noon, he posted an update on the war ("we have destroyed and sunk 9 Iranian Naval Ships, some of them relatively large and important"). Mid-afternoon, he posted a string of Trump-friendly news coverage, including a New York Post article from September 2024 about how Lady Gaga's father endorsed Trump in the presidential race. Shortly thereafter, in the span of five minutes, he posted 10 times, all of them lists of screenshots of praise from X users for his State of the Union address. He later posted a video update about the war in Iran, followed by a video marked as being from an Instagram user called @truthaboutfluoride, purporting to show San Francisco as a run-down city filled with poverty.

During his first presidential campaign, Trump's constant stream of seemingly unvetted tweets was a sideshow that quickly became inescapable — the boasts, insults, and lies at times hijacked news cycles. Once he was elected, they presented a new frontier in American politics: a real-time view into a president's mind.

Ten years, one Twitter ejection, one Twitter return, and a move to Truth Social later, Trump's posts still make news — like when he announces a war or tries to pick a fight with the pope — but for many have become the background noise of American politics.

The president of the United States is now communicating with the public sometimes dozens of times a day on a social media platform that he himself created, and most Americans (and perhaps even journalists) never see most of those posts. Of course, most of those posts are not individually newsworthy. But looking at them together provides a picture of exactly what, in the aggregate, the president of the United States is thinking about and saying to the world at all hours.

To try to grasp that, NPR analyzed the first four months of Trump's Truth Social posts this year. What emerged is a portrait of an extremely online president with scattered focus — who, even while he dealt with fallout from his policies such as war in Iran and immigration enforcement in Minneapolis, was also busy insulting his critics, posting pictures of his proposed ballroom, and continuing to insist on the lie that he won the 2020 election. The president also has unorthodox posting habits that illustrate that, even as arguably the most powerful person on earth, he remains focused on how he is seen.

What the president is posting about

To quantitatively analyze the president's posts, NPR compiled the president's first four months of posts, using a data scraper maintained by CNN. We then classified each post based on its topic (tariffs, the war in Iran, Greenland) and the type of post it was (sharing a news story, reposting someone else, making a threat).

Trump posted 2,249 times in the first four months of 2026, an average of just under 19 posts per day.

The most common topic Trump posted about – at about 14% of his posts – was 2026 elections. These posts — more than 300 of them — consist largely of either candidate endorsements or posts touting a Trump-backed candidate's win.

However, Trump at times did not give a simple endorsement, instead adding attacks on an endorsee's opponents. For example, in endorsing Republican candidates for the Indiana state Senate, the posts became paragraph-long screeds as Trump attacked sitting senators as "RINOs" (Republicans in name only) if they voted against a Trump-backed redistricting plan.

The next most common topics after elections were Iran (247 posts) and the economy (177). He also posted dozens of times about alleged fraud in Minnesota's safety net programs, the SAVE Act, and his belief that the justice system was weaponized against him.

To the degree that his posts measure what he's thinking about, the president's social media feed suggests he is as preoccupied — or even more so — with his personal projects and vendettas than he is with pressing policy matters.

President Trump posted about the 2020 election 71 times in the first four months of 2026, more than he posted even about tariffs (57 times — all of which we coded as a subset of posts about the economy). Those 2020 election posts all promoted the lie that via massive voter fraud or other malfeasance, Joe Biden stole that election.

Trump posted 68 times about his various Washington, D.C., building projects, including his White House ballroom and a proposed massive arch across the Potomac near Arlington National Cemetery. That's slightly more than he posted about Venezuela, more than he posted about the SAVE Act he's promoting, and more than he posted about protesters and federal agents in Minneapolis, including federal agents killing two U.S. citizens.

He posted more than six times as often (105) about his various legal grievances than he did about healthcare policy (17).

Also notable are the topics that get little attention. While tariffs and the war in Iran do affect, for example, the farm economy, Trump posted just four times specifically about American farming during the first four months of the year — less than half as many times as he posted (nine times) about his anger at comedian Bill Maher.

As for the top types of posts, the largest category – at just under one-quarter of his posts – are social media reshares. These take several formats — some are screenshots of posts from X, and others are videos reposted from other social media sites, such as TikTok.

This emphasizes the technological differences between now and Trump's first term.

Near the end of his first term, the videos Trump posted were largely from Fox News or other right-leaning news outlets, or they were videos produced by the White House.

Now, there's an endless array of TikTok and Instagram videos and memes the president can repost, many of them from amateurs or generated by AI. Some have been outright offensive, as when he posted a racist video that depicted former President Obama and Michelle Obama as apes. The White House initially defended the video, with White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt telling reporters, "Please stop the fake outrage." Trump later said he hadn't seen the full video, telling reporters, "I looked at the beginning of it. It was fine." He did not apologize, and the post was later deleted.

Other posts have promoted conspiracy theories, as with a video that baselessly proposed that Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz was involved in the 2025 killing of Minnesota Democratic State Rep. Melissa Hortman.

Occasionally, those videos have nothing to do with current events, or even Trump, but are the kind of inane posts littering many people's Facebook feeds. Around 11 p.m. one night in February, Trump posted a TikTok video of a person's pet corgi reacting to a can of Reddi-wip. A minute later, he reposted that video along with a screenshot of a supporter's X post ("Good Night Patriot Friends!"). A minute after that, he posted a 15-second video of Bruce Lee fighting, which he similarly reposted alongside another X screenshot seconds later.

Reposting material from X

This posting-then-reposting pattern is one of the more notable oddities of the president's Truth Social posts. It appears to be a makeshift way of reposting things from X. The president regularly grabs, for example, a video someone else has posted on X, posts it without attribution on Truth Social, then immediately quote-posts his own post along with a screenshot of the original X post.

Some of these reposts are about current events, but they cover many other topics as well – they include a variety of amateur-made videos praising Trump, attacking his enemies, and (incorrectly) concurring with his false claim that he in fact won the 2020 election. In recent months, Trump has reposted a video compilation of moments with his grandkids, a video about his loyalty to Michael Jackson over the years, a montage of Trump moments set to a choral arrangement of "Like a Prayer," and an apparently AI-generated video of Trump playing hockey against Canadian hockey players – and punching the bejeezus out of one of them.

The pattern of snagging content from X highlights two important facts about Truth Social.

One is that X appears to dwarf it in size. The Center for Campaign Innovation, a right-leaning political strategy organization, provided NPR with polling from around the 2024 election, finding that only 6% of people used Truth Social for news on even a weekly basis. That's compared to 30% who used X.

Trump may therefore go to X to get material because there are just more users there, and especially more big names like politicians, news organizations, and MAGA influencers.

Secondly, Truth Social's smaller size means it serves a different purpose for Trump than Twitter ever did, before Trump was kicked off of the platform after the January 6 riot. (His account was eventually reinstated.)

"I think really the best way to understand it is this is where you get your marching orders if you're MAGA," said Eric James Wilson, a Republican strategist and executive director of the Center for Campaign Innovation. "And too, it is direct communication from him, in the way that maybe a statement, an administration policy or a press release would have to go through multiple layers of, if not revisions, certainly approvals."

Leavitt told NPR in a statement that Truth Social is "the most powerful and popular social media platform in the world because it serves as President Trump's authentic voice."

One restriction has kept Trump from simply posting on X when he wants a bigger audience – according to details about a licensing agreement in a 2023 SEC filing, he is "generally obligated to make any social media post on TruthSocial and may not make the same post on another social media site for 6 hours." This gives the site "limited time to benefit from" his postings.

NPR emailed Truth Social's press team to check if this agreement is still in effect, but the email bounced back.

It's not entirely clear how many of the posts on the president's Truth Social account come directly from him. Leavitt also told NPR that some posts are made by staffers.

"President Trump posts at all hours because he is constantly working, but sometimes these posts are also published by staff who are simply catching up on the many articles and reading materials President Trump approves the day prior," she said in another statement.

It's not just news articles that the White House says Trump isn't personally posting; after backlash to the racist video depicting the Obamas the White House also said a staffer "erroneously" posted the video.

Old news

One of the most telling indicators of what's on Trump's mind can be found in the news articles he posts — more than 1 in 5 of the president's social media posts in the first four months of this year were news articles, op-eds, and videos. Those news pieces almost uniformly praise the president or promote administration-friendly storylines, including persecuting his perceived enemies.

On March 29, in a span of six minutes, his account posted 10 news pieces about criminal referrals against New York Attorney General Letitia James, who prosecuted Trump in a civil business fraud case.

A substantial number of the news stories Trump's account posts are not current. At least 1 in 4 of the news stories posted were more than 10 days old at the time he posted them (the dates of some TV news clips could not be easily verified).

In some cases, such as the article about Lady Gaga's father, the news pieces were months old. At other times, he posted several older articles in rapid succession about the same event. On March 16, Trump posted three January articles in a row about the crowd at the College Football National Championship game cheering for him.

Leavitt told NPR in a statement: "The President is extraordinarily well read, and he likes to share stories or content that he finds interesting on his account."

The problem with bluster

In the first four months of the year, President Trump made 98 posts we classified as "announcements" — which we defined as the president purporting to give the public new information.

These covered a range of topics — there was the video announcing the U.S. had bombed Iran. There was the announcement of a new DHS secretary nominee — Markwayne Mullin. There were announcements about disaster aid to states affected by a massive winter storm. There were notifications of upcoming interviews or press conferences. Not all of these announcement posts turned out to be accurate, however, as with an April 17 post declaring the Strait of Hormuz to be "COMPLETELY OPEN AND READY FOR BUSINESS AND FULL PASSAGE."

He also made 29 posts we classified as "threats." These range from the specific ("If Canada makes a deal with China, it will immediately be hit with a 100% Tariff") to the vague ("I wonder what would happen if we 'finished off' what's left of the Iranian Terror State"). The president hasn't followed through on all of these threats with concrete action.

Altogether, that's 127 of Trump's most newsmaking posts — around one per day. Those posts have introduced an unprecedented unpredictability into presidential policymaking. His tariff policy posts, for example, have created widespread uncertainty in the business world.

This can make life in a Trump White House particularly difficult, especially in the realm of foreign policy. John Bolton, who served as National Security Advisor in Trump's first term, tells a story about Trump's chaotic posts.

"My deputy was there when [Trump] was shown — this is in 2019 — overhead pictures of a failed Iranian missile launch," Bolton says. "And he said to the intelligence briefer, can I keep this picture? And she said, 'Well, yes, but it's very sensitive, Mr. President.' He said, 'Okay.' And about 20 minutes after they left, he tweeted the picture out with some of the markings still on the picture."

As NPR later reported, the photo was revealed to be classified. Experts told NPR that tweeting the picture potentially helped America's adversaries, including Iran and Russia, because it revealed U.S. satellite capabilities.

Since his time in the first Trump administration, Bolton has been willing to sharply criticize the president. In October, the Trump Department of Justice obtained indictments against Bolton on 18 charges alleging that he unlawfully retained and transmitted classified documents. Bolton pleaded not guilty.

Bolton sees Trump tweeting the picture as part of a larger pattern: to attempt maximum bluster and in the process reveal more than he intends to. Trump's recent posts about the war in Iran are another example.

"The very ferocity of his tweets or the outrage you can hear just tell the Iranians 'If we just stay, if we just be patient a little while longer, he's just going to flip right out entirely, and he wants out. So we're going to drag it out and get every concession we can from him,'" Bolton said. "I don't understand why he can't see that."

Pundits have theorized that with his threatening posts about Iran, President Trump is practicing the "madman theory" of foreign relations. H.R. Haldeman, who served as chief of staff to President Nixon wrote that Nixon's strategy was to make the U.S.S.R. and the government in North Vietnam think that the fervently anticommunist president was willing to go to even extreme lengths, such as dropping a nuclear bomb, to end the Vietnam War.

"Nixon had credibility. He was strongly anti-communist," Bolton said, adding that communist adversaries might have thought, "Good God, that guy is crazy enough that he would drop a nuclear weapon."

"Just being generically crazy does not give you an advantage," Bolton added.

A president's id on display

To some degree, the president's posting can be seen as an extension of his communications strategy of simply communicating a lot. Trump regularly does lengthy press gaggles in the Oval Office, and he also has the unprecedented habit of fielding calls directly from reporters who have his phone number.

However, with posts, unlike interviews, the president is not having a conversation. Rather than being prompted by a reporter, the president in his posts seemingly reveals what is on his mind at any given time. On April 2, the day he announced that Pam Bondi would be leaving her post as attorney general, President Trump was also thinking about Bruce Springsteen. He insulted the singer in two posts shared at 7:58 a.m. and 9:21 p.m. that day.

Indeed, the president's insults and tirades have become so commonplace that they at times don't get much notice. Some of these posts go on at length. On April 9, he wrote a more than 2,700-character post that insulted a series of right-wing commentators but also veered into the topics of Iran, election results, media outlets he dislikes, and his approval rating.

This kind of naked fury from the president of the United States toward his perceived opponents ("NUT JOBS," "TROUBLEMAKERS," "low IQs," "nasty") might once have made headlines.

In 2026, it's a Thursday.

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Truth Social

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Screenshot by NPR

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NPR also analyzed the length of Trump's posts this year through the end of April. He wrote 93 posts of 1,500 characters or more in that time period, accounting for around 4% of all his posts. About half of those are endorsements, in which the president praises his chosen candidates and at times rails against the opponent ("DEFEAT Third Rate Congressman Thomas Massie, a Weak and Pathetic RINO"). Many of these endorsements appear to be variations on boilerplate language as Trump endorses a string of candidates in a short timeframe.

The rest of these long posts are anything but boilerplate – they are often attacks ("Pope Leo is WEAK ON CRIME") and occasionally announcements ("I am nominating Kevin Warsh to be the CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD OF GOVERNORS OF THE FEDERAL RESERVE SYSTEM").

Trump had more of those ultra-long posts in April than in any other month. And if you take out endorsements, it's even more stark. In April, Trump posted 22 extra-long posts about things other than endorsements — slamming Supreme Court justices, repeatedly promoting his ballroom, and railing against particular media outlets. That's twice as many such posts, or more, as he had in any other month.

To the degree, then, that the length of his posts correlates to Trump's anger, or perhaps enthusiasm, April was a particularly enthusiastic month for the president.

The president's Truth Social account primarily gets wide attention when the president either makes an announcement or writes something particularly coarse or offensive.

That was the case on Easter morning this year, at around 8:00 a.m., when President Trump threatened Iran.

"Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open the F*****' Strait, you crazy bastards, or you'll be living in Hell - JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah," he wrote.

A threat of massive violence — and potentially war crimes — along with an obscenity and a tongue-in-cheek praise to Allah, all on one of Christianity's holiest days, together were stunning choices for a president whose core supporters are white evangelical Christians.

In a recent NPR focus group of Georgia swing voters — people who voted for Joe Biden in 2020 and Trump in 2024 — no one reacted positively to that post. Participants were identified by their first names as a condition of their participation. One voter named Joe said that posts like that one inspire fear.

"It's not presidential. They're supposed to be doing diplomatic negotiations. You know, he's the agent of chaos when it comes to this kind of thing. It just – it scares me," he said. "He's a loose cannon, in my opinion, when it comes to this kind of stuff."

Brent Jones contributed to this report.

Copyright 2026 NPR

A swarm of earthquakes has hit the Imperial Valley city of Brawley, ranging in magnitude from 2 to 4.6.

No injuries or significant damage have been reported.

At least 40 quakes have struck in the last 24 hours, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

The first, a magnitude 3.4, struck around 4 p.m. Saturday. The latest was a magnitude 2.9 that hit at 4 a.m. Sunday.

The biggest was a magnitude 4.6 that struck shortly after midnight Sunday.

The jolts are concentrated around the Brawley Fault Zone, an area known for earthquake swarms connecting the Imperial and San Andreas faults.

Brawley sits about 115 miles east of San Diego.

Listen to our podcast to get ready:

A Frontier Airlines plane bound for Los Angeles on Friday night struck and killed a pedestrian who was crossing the runway, according to Denver International Airport.

The collision happened around 11:19 p.m. local time as the aircraft prepared to take off to California.

"Smoke was reported in the cabin and the pilots aborted takeoff," Frontier said in a statement.

"Passengers were then safely evacuated via slides as a matter of precaution."

The airline said it was "deeply saddened" by the event.

ABC News reported that the person struck was "at least partially consumed" by one of the craft's engines, leading to a brief fire.

Denver International said the person was not believed to have been an onsite worker.

"DEN can confirm the pedestrian jumped the perimeter fence and was hit just two minutes later while crossing the runway," the airport said in a statement.

"The pedestrian is deceased, and is not believed to be an employee of the airport nor have they been identified. The airport has examined the fenceline and found it to be intact."

The airport said 12 people reported minor injuries, with five of those individuals taken to local hospitals for treatment.

The Airbus A321 was at the time carrying 224 passengers and seven crew members. Airport authorities said the majority of those passengers have since taken off for Los Angeles on a new Frontier flight.
Copyright 2026 NPR

They would walk every Friday evening from one public housing project to another, chanting, “Paz, queremos paz y libertad en nuestro barrio!” — peace, we want peace and freedom in our neighborhood — inviting their neighbors to join them along the way. 

For the mothers of Pico Gardens and Aliso Village, a pair of housing projects in Boyle Heights, the peace walks in the 1980s and 1990s were an act of protest and survival. 

Violence had become a fact of daily life. Middle school students were joining gangs. Shootings happened in the morning and at night. Father Greg Boyle of Dolores Mission Catholic Church later recalled burying eight kids in a three-week period in 1988. About nine gangs were active near the parish.

The women decided there was no other choice but to face the violence head-on. 

“We wanted peace,” Leticia Galvan, now 74, told Boyle Heights Beat. “We wanted to spread a message to the youngsters to be united, to not fight, to respect themselves and the people.”

They would walk every Friday evening from one public housing project to another, chanting, “Paz, queremos paz y libertad en nuestro barrio!” — peace, we want peace and freedom in our neighborhood — inviting their neighbors to join them along the way.

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Courtesy Proyecto Pastoral

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Reproduced by Laura Anaya-Morga/Boyle Heights Beat

)

Rooted in Dolores Mission’s Christian Base Communities, the women organized weekly peace walks at the height of gang violence in Boyle Heights. They held candles and prayed their rosaries as they walked with each other and their children. Formally, they were known as Comité Pro Paz en el Barrio (Committee for Peace in the Neighborhood). They sought to end the violence and demand respect for one another. 

Their activism helped shape the foundation for Boyle’s anti-gang work, which later developed into Homeboy Industries, the largest gang-intervention and rehabilitation program in the world. Four decades later, these mothers find it crucial to continue talking about those violent years in Boyle Heights as a reminder of how far they’ve come and how hard they fought to get here. 

Some of the women from Aliso Village affectionately called themselves La UVA, or Union de Viejas Arguenderas — the Old Gossips Union. 

“Éramos la pandilla de La UVA,” Galvan joked. “Nuestros hijos decían, ‘Vámonos, llegó La UVA.” 

Though years have passed, many of the women remember the violence of those days as if it were yesterday. 

They would walk every Friday evening from one public housing project to another, chanting, “Paz, queremos paz y libertad en nuestro barrio!” — peace, we want peace and freedom in our neighborhood — inviting their neighbors to join them along the way.

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Raquel Norris

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Boyle Heights Beat

)

Amada Holguin, now 86, a mother of seven, recalled being caught in the middle of gunfire between two rival gangs after stepping out of the bus on 4th Street more than 30 years ago. “No había dado ni cuatro pasos cuando empezó la balacera,” Holguin said. I hadn’t even taken four steps when the shootout began.

Holguin, who took part in the peace walks, said a young man shielded her face with his jacket and rushed her into a nearby house as gunshots flew past her from all sides. Inside, she stood in shock in a stranger’s living room, eating bread to calm her nerves.

Although traumatic, Holguin now laughs about the shooting, remembering how Dolores Mission parishioners prayed for her that night, mistakenly believing she had been killed. 

“Por la gracia de Dios a mi no me pasó nada,” she said. 

Galvan, a mother of two daughters, also faced violent encounters herself.

On one occasion, she remembered fighting back when she was being robbed. Galvan said she kicked the perpetrator and yelled at him until he left her alone.

“Tenias que estar a la defensiva,” Galvan said. “Nunca pensé yo en (que me mataran).” (You had to be on the defense. I never thought I would be killed.)

Galvan said much of their courage was inspired by Father Boyle. “El Padre Gregorio nos enseñó mucho valor,” Galvan said. (He taught us great courage.)

In an interview with Boyle Heights Beat, Boyle recalled the Thanksgiving dinners the women would host for gang members in the neighborhood. 

“They didn’t want to demonize gang members,” Boyle said. 

“The dinner said, ‘You’re not the enemy. You’re our sons, whether we brought you into the world or not.’ It was very beautiful,” Boyle said.

They would walk every Friday evening from one public housing project to another, chanting, “Paz, queremos paz y libertad en nuestro barrio!” — peace, we want peace and freedom in our neighborhood — inviting their neighbors to join them along the way.

(

Courtesy Proyecto Pastoral

/

Reproduced by Laura Anaya-Morga/Boyle Heights Beat

)

Life may have been chaotic outside, but the mothers said enforcing household rules went a long way. 

That meant forbidding their kids from wearing Nikes because “the cholos wore them,” or barring their children from being outside past a certain time, even if others their age were out past midnight.

“We raised our children here, but there were rules,” said Maria Flores, now 73, a mother of three, who enforced a strict curfew and participated in the peace walks. 

Flores and her husband required their children to eat meals together as a family. They also ensured their daughter and two sons kept up with household chores. Each had to take turns washing dishes and cleaning the kitchen.

“These chores were important because it taught them to be self-reliant,” Flores said. 

To Flores, running a strict household is what helped steer her children away from gangs. 

“They would have become cholos if I allowed them to come home at all hours of the night,” she said.

In 1986, Boyle and parishioners at Dolores Mission founded Proyecto Pastoral in response to the poverty and gang violence around them. Now, the organization focuses on community-building and social justice.

They would walk every Friday evening from one public housing project to another, chanting, “Paz, queremos paz y libertad en nuestro barrio!” — peace, we want peace and freedom in our neighborhood — inviting their neighbors to join them along the way.

(

Laura Anaya-Morga

/

Boyle Heights Beat

)

Angela Gutierrez, 58, a community organizing coordinator at Proyecto Pastoral, was part of the peace walks as a young mother living in Boyle Heights. She continues to find strength and inspiration from the activism of the women she saw as motherly figures. 

“Many people don’t know everything we endured. But we lived here. We know,” Gutierrez said. “… As I always say, the women fought and continue to fight against these injustices.”

That fighting spirit remains alive even if gang violence is not what it was before, Gutierrez said. While quality of life in Boyle Heights may have improved, Gutierrez said there is still a lot to do when it comes to pedestrian safety, street cleanliness and homelessness. 

Now, it’s about advocating through forums with community members and local politicians, Gutierrez said. 

Mothers and grandmothers continue to help lead those efforts.

Just recently, Proyecto Pastoral hosted a community meeting informing residents and business owners about a proposed Business Improvement District in Boyle Heights. They also held a forum for candidates seeking to replace Sen. Maria Elena Durazo in California’s 26th Senate District.

“This is the work we need to continue doing,” Gutierrez said.