Rising This Week for April 21, 2025
Scoop: Tesla Takedown to protest outside James Murdoch's home on Earth Day. Exclusive details and more in our debut weekly listings of court hearings and political actions.
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All Rise News launches our weekly listings of court proceedings and political actions with big protest news that we’re breaking:
Tesla Takedown, the decentralized global movement opposing Elon Musk’s slash-and-grab campaign within the U.S. federal government, has an Earth Day message to deliver to the doorstep of James Murdoch, the Tesla board member and son of Fox mogul Rupert Murdoch: “Fire Musk, Save the Planet.” It kicks off with the stock market closing’s closing bell at 4 p.m. Eastern Time, when Tesla plans to post its financial results for this year’s first financial quarter. At 5:30 p.m. ET, Tesla has a company update via webcast. Subscribe to All Rise News for exclusive details about the protest to be posted today, and see our listing below.
This news falls as Donald Trump escalates his attacks on climate, immigration and other non-profit organizations, with reports suggesting that he may be moving on from his executive orders targeting BigLaw firms to targeting civil society. Court hearings on several of those issues are slated this week.
Learn more about the week ahead for courts, protests, town halls, and other civic engagement below.
Do you know any upcoming protests, court cases, town halls, or other actions we should know about? Tell us about it at tips@allrisenews.com.
In the Courts
Whose courts? Our courts! Observing historic court proceedings isn’t only for journalists and lawyers. Here are some of this week’s major cases and how to attend.
Palin v. New York Times (ongoing): Ex-Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin never quit her crusade against the New York Times over a quickly corrected error in a 2017 editorial. A federal jury could deliver their verdict in a retrial this week, in a lawsuit that could undermine press freedom in the United States.
How to watch: In-person only at the Daniel Patrick Moynihan Courthouse (Courtroom 14B), located at 500 Pearl St., New York, NY.
When: 9 a.m. - 4:30 p.m. ET, every day until verdict
Trump’s Attacks on BigLaw: Three major law firms, Perkins Coie and WilmerHale, urge federal judges to permanently block Trump’s executive orders targeting them for political retribution.
How to watch: In-person at E. Barrett Prettyman Courthouse, located at 333 Constitution Ave. NW in Washington, D.C.
Perkins: Courtroom 26A before Judge Howell on April 21 at 11 a.m. ET
WilmerHale: Courtroom 18 before Judge Leon on April 23 at 2 p.m. ET
Mahmoud v. Taylor (Tuesday, April 21): As a book-banning fever sweeps across the country, the Supreme Court considers oral arguments in a case brought by parents opposing LGBTQ-inclusive children’s books in school curricula in the name of religious freedom.
How to watch: In-person at SCOTUS or the court’s live audio stream
When: 10 a.m. ET
G.F.F. v. Trump (Tuesday, April 21): A federal judge in New York considers whether to issue an injunction blocking Donald Trump’s use of a wartime statute against Venezuelan immigrants — and if so, how far it will reach.
How to watch: In-person only at the Daniel Patrick Moynihan Courthouse (Courtroom 14D), located at 500 Pearl St., New York, NY.
When: 2:30 p.m. ET
AAUP v. Rubio (Wednesday, April 22): Academic freedom groups urge a federal judge to block Trump from “threatening to arrest, detain, and deport noncitizen students and faculty based on their lawful political expression,” citing the cases of Mahmoud Khalil, Yunseo Chung, Badar Khan Suri and others.
How to watch: In-person only in the District of Massachusetts (Courtroom 18), located at 1 Courthouse Way, Boston, MA.
When: 10 a.m.
In the Streets
From coast-to-coast, protesters head to the places where the powerful live and work.
Fire Musk, Save the Planet protest in New York, N.Y. (Tuesday, April 22): Tesla Takedown delivers a message to the address their call to action identifies as James Murdoch’s.
Where: 117 E 69th Street, New York, NY
When: 4 p.m. ET
Indigenous Peoples Rally in Olympia, Wash. (Tuesday, April 22): On Earth Day, protesters gather at the Tivoli Fountain on the central lawn of Washington State’s capitol building for speeches and activities focused on indigenous peoples.
Where: Tivoli Fountain, located at 103 Capitol Way S., Olympia, Wash.
When: 8 p.m. PT
“Protest to Preserve Our Democracy” in New Jersey (Thursday, April 24): Demonstrators crash the fundraiser of Garden State Rep. Jeff Van Drew (202-225-6572), the former Democrat turned pro-Trump Republican, in a protest organized by the Atlantic City branch of Indivisible.
Where: 1 N. New York Rd, Galloway, NJ
When: 5 p.m. ET
In the Town Halls
Over the congressional two-week recess in April, prominent Democratic Party lawmakers are expected to court GOP voters in red districts, including Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J (202-224-3224); Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn. (202-224-4041); and Rep. Maxwell Frost, D-Fla. (202-225-2176).
“The People's Town Hall” in Alamance County, North Carolina (Thursday, April 24): Sen. Murphy and Rep. Frost host a town hall in the district of Rep. Richard Hudson, R-N.C. (202-225-3715), who made headlines for telling his GOP colleagues not to host in-person town halls.
Where: Not yet publicly disclosed.
When: 6 p.m. ET
“Community Conversation” in Mississippi (Thursday, April 24): Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson (202-225-5876), who chaired the House Jan. 6th Committee, discusses agriculture, education, layoffs, Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security.
Where: Thompson Auditorium, 500 W. County Line Rd., Tougaloo, Miss.
When: 6 p.m. CDT
“People’s Town Hall” in Nebraska (Friday, April 25): Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif. (202-225-2631), treks 1,500 miles away from his California district to face constituents in Grand Island, Neb., the seat of a county Trump carried by almost 38 points last election.
Where: 401 W. 1st St., Grand Island, Neb.
When: 6 p.m. CDT
On the Phones
By some accounts, calling your elected representatives is one of the most effective forms of public action, but statistics about the thousands of people who do that every day are usually hard to come by.
Enter 5 Calls, a popular app run by a San Francisco-based nonprofit that drives a hefty amount of call volume. A volunteer-driven organization, 5 Calls is exclusively sharing this week’s data with All Rise News, and its data and visualizations expert Katie Dektar opened a fascinating window into what issues fired up constituents most last week.
Top takeaway: People are alarmed about Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland man grabbed from his car in front of his 5-year-old autistic child and marooned inside a dangerous prison in El Salvador.
The app’s phone drive, urging elected officials to “Bring Abrego Garcia Home and Stop Trump’s Plan to Traffic Civilians to a Foreign Gulag,” drove 84,340 calls, per their data. And that’s just in the four days that week since the drive went live.
“People reached 3,500 calls per hour about Garcia on Tuesday just via 5calls.org / our apps,” Dektar told All Rise News. “That's a LOT of calls.”
Dektar noted that the data includes calls marked “unavailable,” “voicemail,” and “contact,” meaning not all of the calls reached their intended recipients, but they’re calling all over the country. She then scaled the data by state population, using recent Census statistics, to reveal which elected officials received high call volume proportionally to their constituents.
Over in Maine, Republican Sen. Susan Collins (202-224-2523) has a lot to be concerned about: After scaling the data by state population, she received the most calls per 1,000 people of any senator. So did her state.
Look out for our deeper dive later in the week.