Politics

Sept. 19 (UPI) — Hundreds of protesters showed up at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, forming a chain around the front of the building and shouting “Hands off!” in response to President Donald Trump’s shutting the center down.

The gathering was in the plans for months by advocacy group Hands Off the Arts, but its July event had to be postponed because of wildfire smoke. It just happened to coincide with a week with a lot of news around the center.

On Tuesday, a judge ruled a second time that Trump couldn’t put his name on the center, then he and the board closed it down. Later, Kennedy Center Executive Director Matt Floca said the closure is only for a week. On Thursday, a judge ruled that any changes to the center have to be announced to the court in writing 30 days in advance.

Hands Off the Arts was created by a group of Kennedy Center staff after Trump took over in early 2025. By Friday, the group expected about 1,000 people to attend, but it estimated at the end of the evening that it was several thousand.

“The demonstration opposes the recent sudden closure of the facility, the installation of security fencing and political efforts to alter or demolish portions of the presidential memorial,” the group said on its website.

Actress Lynda Carter, best known as Wonder Woman, came to show her support. “Music and the arts is how we actually survive,” The Post reported she said. “It is how we learn. It is about vibration in the universe. It is about gravity; it’s about our souls.”

“The center had more or less become like a mausoleum rather than a vibrant cultural center,” co-organizer Mallory Miller told The Washington Post before the event. “But a lot of us have amazing memories of the center hustling and bustling with people. We wanted to kind of bring that feeling back.”

“The Kennedy Center can’t be renamed for anyone else,” Miller told ABC News. “It’s a memorial to John F. Kennedy. It’s, like, silly to suggest otherwise. And it’s not just silly — it’s insulting and it’s degrading and it’s un-American.”

Miller was a former assistant manager of dance programming at the Kennedy Center. She lost her job in 2025 as part of mass layoffs.

“Artists are the risk takers in our society,” Miller told ABC. “We are the people who create the world that comes next, and that is what the Kennedy Center means to all of us. This is a building that belongs to the American people, not one person, and it’s our Kennedy Center. We are the Kennedy Center.”

The group had planned to form a human chain around the center, but new fencing made that impossible. But they made a chain anyway.

Former ticket salesperson Jasmine Small watched the human chain form. She was one of the first people laid off last year.

“I’m showing up today, because no one showed up with my colleagues,” Small said. “I’m going to have a voice for them to say that we won’t be forgotten.”

Sept. 19 (UPI) — The Iran war has cost the United States at least $45.1 billion, military officials said on Friday.

Pentagon officials notified Congress about the amount, covering the conflict through early September.

The figure is higher than previously disclosed, and doesn’t include costs to repair damaged bases and other military facilities overseas.

Just two days earlier, the Congressional Budget Office published a report saying the war had cost about $38 billion as of Aug. 1.

Official projections show the Defense Department could spend $2 billion to $3 billion per month moving forward.

The CBO report said the war has left the United States with a “reduced inventory” of missile interceptors that could last years.

The Pentagon report to Congress also estimated the war could increase inflation for the first quarter of 2027.

On Thursday, Senate Democrats signed an open letter asking Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to provide a detailed cost breakdown of the war.

“Despite asking for tens of billions of additional taxpayer dollars, you have so far failed to provide basic information on how this money has and will be spent,” the senators wrote.

“Congress must have access to this information to carry out our oversight responsibilities. It is the bare minimum that any American would expect in balancing their own household budget.”

The letter was signed by all Democrats except Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., who supports the war and has recently clashed with the Democratic caucus.

“Meanwhile, at home, American taxpayers have already paid an extra $100 billion out of their pockets for higher gas and diesel prices alone and at least another $60 billion in higher costs for things like groceries, mortgages, and plane tickets as a result of the war,” the senators wrote.

“Now you are asking that they pay again to fund a war of choice that Congress never authorized and the President launched with no strategic plan.”

Sept. 19 (UPI) — President Donald Trump on Saturday said he would create an “AI Force” and appoint a czar to oversee the industry.

Trump has recently dismissed calls issued by industry leaders to slow down development of artificial intelligence models.

He has called rising fears over the technology a “hoax” and downplayed concerns, as stocks for AI companies fell this week.

On Saturday, he doubled down on his promises to continue building data centers and push for more AI development.

“We will not in any way hinder or stifle the Growth of this incredible Industry,” the president said in a statement on Truth Social. “Rather, we will cherish it, help it, and watch over it, as it grows!”

Trump said he would form an “AI Force” and likened it to the Space Force, the branch of the armed forces he established during his first term as president.

He added that he would appoint an “AI czar” to lead the industry, which he called the “next industrial revolution.”

“We are leading China, and the rest of the World, and I intend to keep it that way!” he said in the statement.

Leaders in the industry have issued warnings over AI’s rapid rise. Last weekend, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei published an essay saying developers risk “losing control of AI systems.”

The essay came in the heels of warnings by a former researcher at both Anthropic and OpenAi.

“The people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade,” Jacob Coxon said in his resignation message as a researcher for Anthropic. “This is not a marketing stunt. If anything, many executives and researchers will couch their phrasing in the press to sound sensible — but I hear the same people express fear privately. No other human activity poses this level of danger.”