OVER 1 million people Saturday took to the streets and staged rallies across the United States to protest against Donald Trump’s first full day as the 45th U.S. president.

    In New York City, at least 200,000 people gathered near the Trump Tower in Manhattan for the Women’s March on New York City.

    Carrying signs that said “Dear Trump don’t be the person we think” and “I wish your inauguration was fake news,” more and more people lined the streets on the 42nd Street and 58th Street, waiting to take part in the march.

    Demonstrators had planned to take their rally cries to the doors of Trump Tower, but police stopped them south of the building on East 55th Street.

    In Washington, D.C., about half a million people showed up for the Women’s March in the country’s capital to challenge the new U.S. president.

    “We march today for the moral core of this nation, against which our new president is waging a war,” actress America Ferrera told the Washington crowd.

    “Our dignity, our character, our rights have all been under attack, and a platform of hate and division assumed power yesterday. But the president is not America.”

    Marchers took to the streets near the National Mall in Washington, D.C., calling for women’s rights and voicing their opposition to Trump.

    Brandishing signs that read “Women’s rights are human rights” and “Hear our voice,” protesters from across the country marched slowly along major avenues in downtown Washington as they chanted “This is what democracy looks like” and “Women and girls can change the world,” in a powerful display of rejection of Trump’s agenda and what they said was his insulting attitude towards women.

    In Los Angeles, more than 500,000 protesters rallied and marched through downtown area chanting “Love Trumps hate.”

    In Chicago, around 250,000 people joined the Women’s March, organizers said. Hundreds of thousands of people flocked to downtown Chicago to join the march. Sixteen people were arrested in anti-Trump protests in Chicago Loop, Chicago police said. They face charges ranging from disorderly and reckless conduct to aggravated battery.

    An estimated 22,000 staged protests in Houston.

    Trump, the 70-year-old billionaire, was sworn in Friday as the 45th president of the United States, promising to put “America first.”

    “Today, we are not merely transferring power from one administration to another or from one party to another, but we are transferring power from Washington, D.C. and giving it back to you, the people,” Trump said in his inauguration address at the U.S. Capitol.

    “From this day forward, a new vision will govern our land. From this day forward, it’s going to be only America first, America first,” Trump said before dignitaries and hundreds of thousands of spectators attending the inauguration ceremony.

    Repeating his campaign slogans, Trump pledged that “together, we will make America great again.”

    He said the new administration will rebuild infrastructures of the country by following “two simple rules: buy American and hire American.”

    The new president also said the United States will strengthen old alliances and form new ties with countries, while vowing to eradicate “radical Islamic terrorism” from the face of the earth.

    More than an hour after the inauguration, clashes broke out between anti-Trump protesters. Police used pepper spray to quell the protesters and made about a hundred arrests, according to U.S. media reports.(Xinhua)

    (More on P5)