Commuters on Washington, DC's Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge have spent the past five days looking up. At the top of one of the bridge's soaring arches sits 45-year-old activist Guido Reichstadter, who climbed up Friday, pitched a tent, and has refused to come down as he protests the US-Israel war in Iran and the growth of artificial intelligence. The California father of two, who says he felt compelled "to do something" after learning of the US airstrike on Iranian schoolchildren, initially planned only to stay for the weekend, he tells the New York Times by phone. But he remained atop the bridge at sunrise Wednesday, WUSA reports, despite having run out of water and food days ago.
Police initially closed the bridge but have since reopened it to traffic, keeping just the pedestrian lane beneath Reichstadter closed. A steady police presence, a patrol boat, and a circling helicopter have some passersby complaining about the drain on resources; others shout their approval through bullhorns and snap photos of his banner honoring civilians killed in Iran. Reichstadter, a former jeweler, previously protested the overturning of Roe v. Wade by spending more than a day atop the same bridge. He's also taken a stand outside AI companies. But this longer-running protest has become "a growing curiosity," drawing plenty of eyes, per the Times. You can read a statement of Reichstadter's goals at WUSA.
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