FIFA President Gianni Infantino invited representatives of the Palestinian and Israeli football associations to shake hands at FIFA’s annual congress. Later, Palestine’s FA President, Jibril Rajoub, explained his refusal to shake hands with his opposite number.

US President Donald Trump has said that all state permits for the 2026 recreational red snapper fishing season have been approved, a move he says will expand access for anglers across southeastern coastal states.

In a post shared on Truth Social on Friday, Trump described the decision as a “huge win” for fishermen in states including Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina.

“For years, our Great Fishermen have been punished with VERY short Federal fishing seasons despite RECORD HIGH fish populations and the States begging to oversee these permits,” he added.

The policy centres on coordination with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which regulates fisheries and sets quotas and seasons in federal waters.

Recreational red snapper fishing

For years, recreational red snapper fishing has been tightly controlled at the federal level, often limited to brief seasonal openings that critics say restrict access.

At its lowest point in the late 1990s and early 2000s, the red snapper spawning stock fell to about 11 percent of its historical level, prompting strict conservation measures under a long-term rebuilding plan set to run through 2044.

Several southeastern states have since pushed for more flexibility, seeking a greater role in setting fishing seasons and expanding the number of days anglers can fish.

Catch limits and size requirements would still apply, with anglers typically limited to one fish per day in the South Atlantic.

Supporters argue the changes better reflect what they describe as a recovering red snapper population and would improve access for recreational fishermen.

“State management and expansion of Gulf snapper season have been a major boon for our Gulf of America communities, allowing so many Floridians and visitors to enjoy the Red Snapper our waters have to offer,” said Governor Ron DeSantis in a release of November 2025.

“I was proud to announce that Florida anglers will soon be able to enjoy more Atlantic Red Snapper fishing as well. The Trump Administration has taken action to rein in the bureaucracy and return this power to the states, where it belongs,” he added.

A similar approach has already been rolled out in the Gulf of Mexico, where states have taken on a larger role in managing recreational red snapper seasons.

But Ocean Conservancy, a US-based ocean conservation nonprofit, says there are growing warning signs under that system, including what it describes as a decline in the average size of fish and reports from anglers who say they must travel farther to catch a keeper.

The group also notes that recent Gulf Council meetings have included public testimony from fishermen raising concerns about a downturn in the stock.

The group says the Gulf population is about 10 times larger, meaning management approaches that appear sustainable there may not translate to smaller, more vulnerable stocks.

Concerns over overfishing risks

Marine scientists and conservation groups warn that loosening federal oversight could increase the risk of overfishing, particularly if monitoring and enforcement vary across states.

Under the Magnuson-Stevens Act, regulators must set annual catch limits to prevent overfishing, but critics say longer fishing seasons could undermine those safeguards.

“These exempted fishing permits are an end run around sustainable management,” said Meredith Moore of Ocean Conservancy in a release shared with Al Jazeera.

“Just last year, NOAA’s own analysis showed a two-day season was needed to prevent overfishing. There is no doubt that allowing months-long seasons will lead to overfishing, while unproven data collection means we may not realise the damage until it is done.”

Others warn the impact could be felt beyond stock levels, affecting the long-term future of the fishery.

“Overfishing means sacrificing the chance to teach the next generation to fish in order to fill coolers this season,” added JP Brooker, the group’s Florida conservation director.

“Red snapper is a favourite of Floridians and out-of-state anglers. No one likes short fishing seasons, but if we don’t follow the science and let these fish recover, we could soon lose this cherished fishing season for good,” he added.

Ocean Conservancy estimates highlight the scale of concern. Federal regulators have set the South Atlantic recreational catch limit at 22,797 fish, yet a recent two-day season in Florida alone landed 24,885 fish.

The group estimates that catches could reach 485,000 fish over a 39-day season, more than 20 times the annual limit and potentially in breach of federal law.

Roughly 500 labour groups across the United States have organised a widespread economic blackout calling for “no school, no work, no shopping” to mark May Day, also known as International Workers’ Day.

The events, organised as part of an initiative called May Day Strong, were inspired by economic boycotts following ramped-up immigration enforcement operations in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and the deaths of US citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti in January.

The events are broad in scope but are overall efforts to protest government policies that prioritise the ultra-wealthy over working-class people.

May Day Strong has a broad set of demands, including “tax the rich” and abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) — a call that comes as Republicans voted on Wednesday on a budgetary measure that would fund the agency under the Department of Homeland Security.

It also calls for ending war and “expanding democracy”, according to a statement from the group.

While the tent is broad in nature, organisers stressed that it is a result of a wide set of challenges facing the US worker.

“Since Inauguration Day, corporate billionaires and the Project 2025 agenda have driven attacks on our rights and freedoms, including by targeting workers based on how we look, the language we speak, or the work we do, and undermining our First Amendment rights and our freedom of association,” New York City Central Labor Council, AFL-CIO President Brendan Griffith said in a statement to Al Jazeera. Project 2025 is a conservative initiative that was laid out by the Heritage Foundation before the 2025 presidential election and was aimed at reshaping the US federal government and consolidating executive power, among other agenda items.

May Day Strong says the overall mission of its rallies is to put “workers over billionaires”, and has lined up broader economic boycotts in several cities, including Los Angeles, Boston, and Atlanta.

Have labour protections changed under Trump?

The push for increased worker protections comes after a wave of actions in the last year by the administration of US President Donald Trump that have stripped away many of those protections, including for federal workers.

Earlier this year, the administration reclassified thousands of federal workers as “at-will” employees, which, as a result, makes it more challenging for civil servants to appeal dismissals.

Trump also made cuts to staffing at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), including Gwynne Wilcox, who had been appointed to the board by former President Joe Biden, a Democrat.

In March 2025, the Supreme Court declined to intervene in the firing. By cutting staffing, the NLRB, which is the federal agency where workers file complaints against their employers to investigate unfair labour practices, is operating at a limited capacity.

Trump also rolled back policies that protect workers from unsafe AI development that disadvantages workers. A Biden-era executive order required the Department of Labor to ensure that employers were transparent about how they use AI, that AI should enable workers and complement their work, and that resources be provided to upskill workers during AI-related job transitions.

A report from Goldman Sachs published earlier this month found that AI has wiped out an average of 16,000 jobs per month in the past year.

Trump also rolled back protections aimed at preventing workplace discrimination, including weakening enforcement of requirements that employers maintain affirmative action standards, as well as cracking down on private sector diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programmes. Big-box giant Target was one such firm to roll back its DEI programmes, leading to widespread boycotts in 2025. Companies, including Amazon and Goldman Sachs, also scaled back DEI efforts.

The White House claimed the initiatives provided preference based on race and/or gender.

There have also been cuts to safety standards at the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), an agency under the Department of Labor. Among them was an executive order to end the implementation of new safety standards, including proposed mandatory heat safety protocols for workers that included mandatory rest breaks and water.

In April, the Trump administration proposed $47m in cuts to the agency for the 2027 fiscal year, which begins in October. While the White House can propose a budget, Congress ultimately decides funding.

But erosions to OSHA are nothing new. Since the group began releasing its report 35 years ago, the agency’s budget has been slashed by 10 percent, 26 percent for full staffing, and the number of inspectors is down 16 percent, according to AFL-CIO’s Death on the Job report (PDF) published earlier this week.

On the wage front, in the early days of the Biden administration, the White House was unable to deliver a key promise to raise the federal minimum wage.

That was blocked by a Democrat who voted against raising those wages — then-Senator Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, who sided with Republicans against raising the minimum wage to $15 per hour.

Although Biden was able to raise the federal minimum wage for federal contractors, Trump rescinded that in 2025.

While states have higher minimum wages, the federal minimum wage has not increased since 2009, and sits at $7.25 per hour. The increase, which happened during the first few months of the Obama administration, was passed several years earlier, in 2007, by Congress, when Democrats held a majority in both the House and the Senate.

What events are under way today?

The rallies range in size and scope. In North Carolina, educators are calling for increased public school funding, with more than a dozen school districts across the state closing in solidarity.

In New Orleans, nurses are calling for better wages and fairer contracts, as are students at the University of Illinois-Chicago.

In New York, rallies called on e-commerce giant Amazon to drop its contracts with ICE. ICE uses Amazon Web Services (AWS) for cloud storage and in September, ICE bought $25m in cloud services from Amazon.

On Friday afternoon, hundreds of workers representing 70 groups rallied in New York’s Washington Square Park. The crowd was filled with workers wielding plethora of signs calling to tax billionaires and others calling for a ‘living wage’.

Guadalupe Sosa, a street vendor who represents a union for street vendors, was one of the demonstrators out on Friday.

“Like my parents, thousands of other immigrants migrated here. And we are the workers who wake up every morning and make sure that this city runs. We are the workers that for many years have been ignored,” he told Al Jazeera.

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, also addressed the rally, saying, “I would not be standing in front of you as the mayor of our city were it not for the support of working people. ”

“There are over 3,000 actions planned in over 40 cities, where unions, allies, community organisations, and other advocates are locking arms with workers across the country to protest policies, actions, and tactics aimed at disempowering working families, squelching their voices, trampling on their rights, and scaring them into submission,” Jennifer Abruzzo, former general counsel at the National Labor Relations Board, told Al Jazeera.

“We are showing our power and acting in unity over common cause. There is tremendous strength in numbers.”

What’s the history of May Day?

The history of May Day, or International Workers’ Day, dates back to the late 19th century, when workers in the US began fighting for an eight-hour workday. The biggest demonstrations were in Chicago.

Tensions boiled over when a labour rally turned violent in 1886. A bomb was thrown at police, and in retaliation, officers shot at rallygoers in Haymarket Square, in what later became known as the Haymarket Affair.

Labour organisations mark the day in solidarity with workers who push for labour reforms.

The US does not recognise May Day as an official holiday, and instead marks Labor Day, which is in September, as the official day celebrating the US labour movement.

Israel’s strikes continue, with more than 2,600 killed since March 2, despite an ongoing ceasefire.

At least 12 people have been killed, including a child, in southern Lebanon, as Israel continues its strikes despite a ceasefire.

Israeli forces killed at least eight people in Habboush in the Nabatieh district on Friday, and wounded at least eight others, including another child and a woman.

The Lebanese Civilian Defence searched through the rubble of the “massive set of air strikes that destroyed a residential neighbourhood”, Al Jazeera’s Obaida Hitto reported from the southern Lebanese city of Tyre. “The footage coming out of there is really dramatic, with buildings completely flattened.”

“We keep seeing this same kind of strategy throughout the country,” Hitto added. “There were strikes that killed and injured many other people in at least six other locations in southern Lebanon today, including women and children.”

Another four people were reported killed in other attacks near Tyre and Nabatieh, the country’s National News Agency reported. Israel also demolished houses, a convent and a school on Friday.

Israel issued a forced evacuation order to residents in Habboush on Friday, which is located north of the Litani River. The military’s Arabic-language spokesperson, Avichay Adraee, told people to immediately move at least 1,000 metres away in a post on social media before strikes struck the village. It also attacked the town a day earlier without giving any warning.

At least 28 people were reported killed in Lebanon on Thursday.

Israel has claimed that its attacks target the pro-Iran Lebanese group Hezbollah, but a large proportion of those killed have been civilians.

Hezbollah continued attacks on Israeli forces and vehicles inside Lebanon, saying it targeted a Merkava tank and other vehicles, as well as soldiers in Sour. Israel continues to occupy parts of southern Lebanon, which it calls a buffer zone.

Lebanon’s Ministry of Public Health’s Emergency Operations Center reported on Friday that 2,618 people have been killed and 8,094 wounded since hostilities began on March 2. The death toll continues to climb despite the US-brokered ceasefire that was announced on April 17 and has been extended to May 17.

Israel and Hezbollah began attacking each other in the wake of the beginning of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza in October 2023, before Israel intensified its attacks in September 2024, killing the movement’s longtime leader Hassan Nasrallah.

A ceasefire followed in November 2024, which was violated by Israel more than 10,000 times. Hezbollah began attacking Israel again on March 2, following the killing of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei by the US and Israel.