A decade later, Hong Kong’s massive democracy protests remain an enduring memory

HONG KONG (AP) — Scores of red Chinese flags now flap near the Hong Kong government headquarters in preparation for China’s national day as police patrolled the area thousands of demonstrators occupied a decade ago to protest Beijing’s restrictions on candidates running for the city’s top job.

In Sept. 2014, protesters fended off police’s pepper spray using their umbrellas in a 79-day face-off, and the largely peaceful Umbrella Movement saw more people join an encampment around the two nearby bridges.

The movement, also known as Occupy Central, catalyzed a profound political awakening among many young Hong Kongers and shaped the huge anti-government protests in 2019, the biggest challenge to Beijing since the former British colony returned to Chinese rule in 1997. Beijing, in return, imposed a sweeping national security law that critics say cracked down on freedoms and saw many activists jailed while others fled the territory.

Many leading activists have been prosecuted, including some former leaders of the 2014 movement. Legal scholar Benny Tai, dubbed Occupy co-founder, awaits sentencing over an unofficial primary in the city’s biggest national security case. The movement’s then-student leaders Joshua Wong and Lester Shum also remain in custody.

Nathan Law, another former student leader, was forced into self-exile and is among a group of overseas-based activists targeted by police bounties. Two other Occupy co-founders — scholar Chan Kin-man and Rev. Chu Yiu-ming — moved to Taiwan. Another former student leader Alex Chow is pursuing a doctoral degree in the United States.

Dozens of civil society groups were disbanded. Apple Daily and Stand News, news outlets known for their critical reports of the government, were forced to shut down after the arrests of their top management.

Activist Raphael Wong, who was jailed over his role during the 2014 protests told The Associated Press Saturday he misses his fellow political party member Leung Kwok-hung, Tai and other political activists who were prosecuted.

The protests 10 years ago, Wong said, held immense significance for him and Hong Kong.

“If I have to put it in the simplest terms, I’d say it enlightened many Hong Kong people about civil disobedience and inspired the later anti-extradition bill movement in 2019,” he said.

While large-scale public commemorations are unlikely to occur in the city, some overseas-based Hong Kongers organized events to remember the movement in Britain, Canada, Taiwan, Australia and the Netherlands this month. Others recounted their memories of the protests on social media.

China-endorsed Hong Kong Secretary for Security Chris Tang on Thursday rejected that the city’s freedoms have shrunk over the past decade, insisting that the city’s 2020 security law and a new security law enacted in March provide sufficient safeguard for human rights.

This combination image made from two photos shows protesters holding a yellow banner with words reading: "I want genuine universal suffrage" on a barricade at the occupied area outside government headquarters in Hong Kong Wednesday, Dec. 10, 2014, top, and the same area on Saturday, Sept. 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung, Chan Long Hei)

This combination image made from two photos shows items belonging to protesters littered on the ground after police officers clear the occupied area outside government headquarters in Hong Kong Thursday, Dec. 11, 2014, top, and the same area on Saturday, Sept. 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung, Chan Long Hei)

This combination image made from two photos shows student protesters occupy the streets surrounding the government headquarters in Hong Kong, early Monday, Sept. 29, 2014, top, and the same site on Saturday, Sept. 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Wally Santana, Chan Long Hei)

This combination image made from two photos shows tents set up by pro-democracy protesters in an occupied area outside the government headquarters in Hong Kong's Admiralty district in Hong Kong Tuesday, Nov. 11, 2014, and the same site on Saturday, Sept. 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Vincent Yu, Chan Long Hei)

This combination image made from two photos shows a protester praying at an altar of Chinese Taoist God of War, Guan Yu, set up at a barricade on the main road of the occupied area in the Mong Kok district Hong Kong, Friday, Oct. 31, 2014, top, and the same site on Saturday, Sept. 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung, Chan Long Hei)

This combination image made from two photos shows tents set up by pro-democracy protesters in an occupied area outside the government headquarters in Hong Kong's Admiralty district Wednesday, Nov. 12, 2014, top, and the same site on Saturday, Sept. 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Vincent Yu, Chan Long Hei)

This combination image made from two photos shows workers sweeping after police cleared barricades and tents on a main road in the occupied areas at Causeway Bay district in Hong Kong Monday, Dec 15, 2014, top, and the same area on Saturday, Sept. 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Vincent Yu, Chan Long Hei)

This combination image made from two photos shows barricades set up by pro-democracy protester on a main road at the occupied area outside government headquarters in Hong Kong Tuesday, Dec. 9, 2014, top, and the same area on Saturday, Sept. 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung, Chan Long Hei)

This combination image made from two photos shows workers clearing away a tent and other barricades at an occupied area in Mong Kok district of Hong Kong Tuesday, Nov. 25, 2014, top, and the same area on Saturday, Sept. 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung, Chan Long Hei)

This combination image made from two photos show tents set up by pro-democracy protesters at an occupied area outside government headquarters in Hong Kong's Admiralty district in Hong Kong Friday, Nov. 14, 2014, top, the same place on Saturday, Sept. 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Vincent Yu, Chan Long Hei)

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powellsaid Sunday the Department of Justice has served the central bank with subpoenas and threatened it with a criminal indictment over his testimony this summer about the Fed’s building renovations.

The move represents an unprecedented escalation in President Donald Trump’s battle with the Fed, an independent agency he's repeatedly attacked for not cutting its key interest rate as sharply as he prefers. The renewed fight will likely rattle financial markets Monday and could over time escalate borrowing costs for mortgages and other loans.

The subpoenas relate to Powell’s testimony before the Senate Banking Committee in June, the Fed chair said, regarding the Fed’s $2.5 billion renovation of two office buildings, a project Trump has criticized as excessive.

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London’s murder rate fell in 2025 to its lowest level in decades, officials said Monday. Mayor Sadiq Khan said the figures disprove claims spread by President Trump and others on the political right that crime is out of control in Britain’s capital.

Police recorded 97 homicides in London in 2025, down from 109 in 2024 and the fewest since 2014. The Metropolitan Police force says the rate by population is the lowest since comparable records began in 1997, at 1.1 homicides for every 100,000 people.

That compares to 1.6 per 100,000 in Paris, 2.8 in New York and 3.2 in Berlin, the force said.

“There are some politicians and commentators who’ve been spamming social media with an endless stream of distortions and untruths, painting an image of a dystopian London,” Khan told The Associated Press. “And nothing could be further from the truth.”

▶ Read more about crime in London

The Democratic Party regained the partisanship edge when independents were asked whether they lean more toward the Democratic or Republican Party in a new Gallup poll.

Nearly half, 47%, of U.S. adults now identify as Democrats or lean toward the Democratic Party, while 42% are Republicans or lean Republican.

This is an indication of how Americans are feeling about their political affiliations, and it may not be reflected in voters’ actual registration.

Independents appear to be driven by their unhappiness with the party in power. That’s a dynamic that could be good for Democrats for now, but it doesn’t promise lasting loyalty. Attitudes toward the party haven’t gotten warmer, suggesting the Democrats’ gains are probably more related to independents’ sour views of President Trump.

That comes a day after President Trump threatened the Caribbean island in the wake of the U.S. attack on Venezuela.

Díaz-Canel posted a flurry of brief statements on X after Trump suggested Cuba “make a deal, BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE.” He did not say what kind of deal.

Díaz-Canel wrote that for “relations between the U.S. and Cuba to progress, they must be based on international law rather than hostility, threats, and economic coercion.”

The island’s communist government has said U.S. sanctions cost the country more than $7.5 billion between March 2024 and February 2025.

Díaz-Canel added: “We have always been willing to hold a serious and responsible dialogue with the various US governments, including the current one, on the basis of sovereign equality, mutual respect, principles of International Law, and mutual benefit without interference in internal affairs and with full respect for our independence.”

Cuba’s president stressed on X that “there are no talks with the U.S. government, except for technical contacts in the area of migration.”

About 8 in 10 U.S. adults said the Federal Reserve Board should be independent of political control, according to Marquette/SSRS polling from September, while roughly 2 in 10 said the president should have more influence over setting interest rates and monetary policy. There was bipartisan consensus that the Fed should remain independent. About 9 in 10 Democrats and about two-thirds of Republicans said the Fed should not be subjected to political control.

That poll found about 3 in 10 Americans said they had “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in The Federal Reserve Board. Nearly half — 45% — had some confidence, and roughly one-quarter had “very little” confidence or “none at all.”

Stocks are falling on Wall Street after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said the Department of Justice had served the central bank with subpoenas and threatened it with a criminal indictment over his testimony about the Fed’s building renovations.

The S&P 500 fell 0.3% in early trading Monday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 384 points, or 0.8%, and the Nasdaq composite fell 0.2%.

Powell characterized the threat of criminal charges as pretexts to undermine the Fed’s independence in setting interest rates, its main tool for fighting inflation. The threat is the latest escalation in President Trump’s feud with the Fed.

▶ Read more about the financial markets

She says she had “a very good conversation” with Trump on Monday morning about topics including “security with respect to our sovereignties.”

Last week, Sheinbaum had said she was seeking a conversation with Trump or U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio after the U.S. president made comments in an interview that he was ready to confront drug cartels on the ground and repeated the accusation that cartels were running Mexico.

Trump’s offers of using U.S. forces against Mexican cartels took on a new weight after the Trump administration deposed Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. Sheinbaum was expected to share more about their conversation later Monday.

A leader of the Canadian government is visiting China this week for the first time in nearly a decade, a bid to rebuild his country’s fractured relations with the world’s second-largest economy — and reduce Canada’s dependence on the United States, its neighbor and until recently one of its most supportive and unswerving allies.

The push by Prime Minster Mark Carney, who arrives Wednesday, is part of a major rethink as ties sour with the United States — the world’s No. 1 economy and long the largest trading partner for Canada by far.

Carney aims to double Canada’s non-U.S. exports in the next decade in the face of President Trump’s tariffs and the American leader’s musing that Canada could become “the 51st state.”

▶ Read more about relations between Canada and China

The comment by a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson came in response to a question at a regular daily briefing. President Trump has said he would like to make a deal to acquire Greenland, a semiautonomous region of NATO ally Denmark, to prevent Russia or China from taking it over.

Tensions have grown between Washington, Denmark and Greenland this month as Trump and his administration push the issue and the White House considers a range of options, including military force, to acquire the vast Arctic island.

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen has warned that an American takeover of Greenland would mark the end of NATO.

▶ Read more about the U.S. and Greenland

Trump said Sunday that he is “inclined” to keep ExxonMobil out of Venezuela after its top executive was skeptical about oil investment efforts in the country after the toppling of former President Nicolás Maduro.

“I didn’t like Exxon’s response,” Trump said to reporters on Air Force One as he departed West Palm Beach, Florida. “They’re playing too cute.”

During a meeting Friday with oil executives, Trump tried to assuage the concerns of the companies and said they would be dealing directly with the U.S., rather than the Venezuelan government.

Some, however, weren’t convinced.

“If we look at the commercial constructs and frameworks in place today in Venezuela, today it’s uninvestable,” said Darren Woods, CEO of ExxonMobil, the largest U.S. oil company.

An ExxonMobil spokesperson did not immediately respond Sunday to a request for comment.

▶ Read more about Trump’s comments on ExxonMobil

Trump’s motorcade took a different route than usual to the airport as he was departing Florida on Sunday due to a “suspicious object,” according to the White House.

The object, which the White House did not describe, was discovered during security sweeps in advance of Trump’s arrival at Palm Beach International Airport.

“A further investigation was warranted and the presidential motorcade route was adjusted accordingly,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement Sunday.

The president, when asked about the package by reporters, said, “I know nothing about it.”

Anthony Guglielmi, the spokesman for U.S. Secret Service, said the secondary route was taken just as a precaution and that “that is standard protocol.”

▶ Read more about the “suspicious object”

Trump said Iran wants to negotiate with Washington after his threat to strike the Islamic Republic over its bloody crackdown on protesters, a move coming as activists said Monday the death toll in the nationwide demonstrations rose to at least 544.

Iran had no direct reaction to Trump’s comments, which came after the foreign minister of Oman — long an interlocutor between Washington and Tehran — traveled to Iran this weekend. It also remains unclear just what Iran could promise, particularly as Trump has set strict demands over its nuclear program and its ballistic missile arsenal, which Tehran insists is crucial for its national defense.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, speaking to foreign diplomats in Tehran, insisted “the situation has come under total control” in fiery remarks that blamed Israel and the U.S. for the violence, without offering evidence.

▶ Read more about the possible negotiations and follow live updates

Fed Chair Powell said Sunday the DOJ has served the central bank with subpoenas and threatened it with a criminal indictment over his testimony this summer about the Fed’s building renovations.

The move represents an unprecedented escalation in Trump’s battle with the Fed, an independent agency he has repeatedly attacked for not cutting its key interest rate as sharply as he prefers. The renewed fight will likely rattle financial markets Monday and could over time escalate borrowing costs for mortgages and other loans.

The subpoenas relate to Powell’s testimony before the Senate Banking Committee in June, the Fed chair said, regarding the Fed’s $2.5 billion renovation of two office buildings, a project that Trump has criticized as excessive.

Powell on Sunday cast off what has up to this point been a restrained approach to Trump’s criticisms and personal insults, which he has mostly ignored. Instead, Powell issued a video statement in which he bluntly characterized the threat of criminal charges as simple “pretexts” to undermine the Fed’s independence when it comes to setting interest rates.

▶ Read more about the subpoenas

President Donald Trump speaks to reporters while in flight on Air Force One to Joint Base Andrews, Md., Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)

President Donald Trump waves after arriving on Air Force One from Florida, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026, at Joint Base Andrews, Md. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)