Sunday Summary- 20th of April 2025

Dear readers, as a new, less sunny week of spring comes to an end, here is your selection of highlighted events from across the globe.

Anti-Trump protests and the comeback of the influencer-packed festival

This weekend, as Trump’s administration continues to make the headlines everyday, between picking fights with Harvard or continuing to raise tariffs against China, the United States saw a wave of nationwide protests organised under the 50501 movement, an acronym for 50 protests in 50 states, 1 movement. A spokesperson for the movement has described  it as “pro-democracy, pro-Constitution, anti-executive overreach, nonviolent grassroots movement.” Over 400 protests across all States happened this Saturday, assembling over 11 million people in an effort to protect democracy. This is the fourth major protest since Trump’s second-term inauguration on the 20th of January. This week’s movements pose themselves in the continuation of the “Hands Off” protests that happened two weeks ago, which were the largest protests recorded against Trump’s administration to date.

Meanwhile, in a much glossier part of America, the very “Instagrammable”, famous Coachella, is back. This year is a win for the pop-girlies. Highlights of the first weekend included performances by Charli XCX, who brought up surprise guests Billie Eilish, Troye Sivan, and Lorde to sing the remixes of her hit album “brat” together. Lady Gaga was as good as ever, with the internet renaming the festival “Gagachella” to honour her performance. And for people who thought they would never get the chance to hear “Bohemian Rhapsody” live, Benson Boone made their dreams come true by inviting The Brian May on his stage, performing one of the most iconic guitar riffs ever. But aside from big music moments, Coachella also witnessed different political moments in this first weekend. The group Green Day made a strong statement by changing the lyrics of their song “American Idiot” to “I’m not part of the MAGA agenda”. Even Bernie Sanders made a Coachella cameo – supporting indie pop darling Clairo, and delivering a passionate political speech, urging festival-goers to oppose Trump’s policies. Coachella weekend two is set to hold its promises and surprises as well!

Space-tourism shaking the Earth, and the Internet

Another pop star shook the internet this week, not because she announced a surprise album or honoured great musicians of past decades, but because she took a trip to outer space aboard Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin rocket on an all-female flight. Katy Perry escaped Earth’s atmosphere on Monday, aboard an 11-minute suborbital flight, meant to celebrate women in science and exploration. Katy Perry sang “What a Wonderful World” and held up a daisy to the camera – as a tribute to her four-year-old daughter, Daisy Dove Bloom, while floating in zero gravity. After landing, she dropped to her knees, kissed the Earth, and declared herself “super connected to life (...) and love.” Her first social media post after coming back reads “there is no place like home”. While the flight was supposed to be uplifting, the online response was anything but. Social media users were quick to label the moment “tone-deaf” and “cringe”. A lot of the criticism came from the environmental impact of the experience. Indeed, during one such flight, according to economist Lucas Chancel, each passenger would emit 429 tons of CO2. This represents 200 times what a person should emit per year in order to respect the Paris Agreement’s targets. For an 11-minute flight. Aside from that, it costs hundreds of thousands of dollars to afford such a trip, at least a 150.000$ deposit is required to reserve a seat. One can wonder if such amounts of money could not go to many other causes, or to research, at least.

A truce for Ukraine

Saturday, Vladimir Putin declared a 30-hour unilateral ceasefire in Ukraine for Easter weekend. The temporary truce is set to last from 6 pm on Saturday to midnight on Monday, an initiative the Kremlin says  is “guided by humanitarian considerations.” The Russian Defence Ministry echoed this, stating that all military operations would be suspended for the duration of the truce, but that they would still remain prepared in cases of “violations and provocations by the enemy”. The Russians assume that the Ukrainians will “follow their example”. The move came just days after Washington warned it could abandon peace efforts if Moscow and Kyiv failed to show a “willingness” to end hostilities. So far, Kyiv has remained sceptic towards this move, qualifying it as “yet another attempt by Putin to play with human lives.” Whether the Easter truce paves the way for meaningful talks, buys time for both sides, or is not effective at all, remains to be seen.