Tag: Demonstrations, Protests and Riots

Columbia Students Who Were Arrested Face Uncertain Consequences

Many of the more than 100 Columbia University and Barnard College students who were arrested after refusing to leave a pro-Palestinian encampment on campus on Thursday woke up to a chilly new reality this week: Columbia said that their IDs would soon stop working, and some of them would not be able to finish the […]

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The U.S. Divisions Caused by the Israel-Palestine and Ukraine-Russia Conflicts

For all the ways that our political coalitions have changed over the last few generations — Southern Democrats joining the G.O.P., Northeastern Republicans turning Democrat, “Reagan Democrats” moving right, suburban Republicans voting for Joe Biden — there are patterns that persist across the generations. That’s what we’re seeing in foreign policy right now, where Democrats […]

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Max Azzarello’s Path to Setting Himself on Fire Outside Trump Trial Began in Florida

The journey that ended with a man setting himself on fire on Friday outside the Manhattan courthouse where Donald J. Trump was being tried seemed to have begun in Florida, with a series of increasingly bizarre outbursts. Standing in the afternoon chill, the man, Max Azzarello, 37, of St. Augustine, Fla., threw pamphlets into the […]

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Columbia, Free Speech and the Coddling of the American Right

​​​​As a journalist, you usually go to the front line to find the news. But sometimes the front line finds you. This happened to me not once but twice on Thursday, as an epic battle over freedom of expression on college campuses unfolded from one end of Manhattan to another. The first was when I […]

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What We Know About Columbia’s President, Nemat Shafik

The president of Columbia University, Nemat Shafik, is grappling with the fallout over her handling of student protests against the war in Gaza. After appearing in a congressional hearing where many Republican lawmakers criticized the university’s efforts to quash antisemitism on campus, the school called in local law enforcement for the first time in decades […]

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Columbia University Protests Over Gaza War Continue and Spread to Other Campuses

Dozens of student protesters at Columbia University gathered outside early Friday afternoon, just across from where their tent encampment had been demolished by university officials the day before. Some students had been there through the night. Others, including a few who had been arrested Thursday, had only recently arrived. There were heaps of blankets, deliveries […]

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At Columbia, the Protests Continued, With Dancing and Pizza

The new tents popped up — one, two, three — on Columbia’s campus. It was a defiant gesture on Thursday afternoon by student activists, who were furious about the university’s decision to call in the police to clear an encampment used to protest the Israel-Hamas war. If university officials thought that getting rid of the […]

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Columbia Sends In the N.Y.P.D. to Arrest Protesters in Tent City

For about a day and a half, pro-Palestinian activists at Columbia University set up what they called a “Liberated Zone,” a temporary community with the spirit and values they wished existed on campus always. It was an impromptu tent village, with more than 50 tents, pitched on a large green lawn just outside the school’s […]

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Republicans Wanted a Crackdown on Israel’s Critics. Columbia Obliged.

Columbia’s exceptionally poised president, Nemat Shafik, clearly has no intention of going down like the former heads of Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania, both driven from their jobs following disastrous appearances before a congressional committee investigating campus antisemitism. Testifying before the same panel on Wednesday, she readily agreed with Republicans’ premise that pro-Palestinian activism […]

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University of Michigan and Other Colleges Crack Down on Student Protests

The 100-year-old annual honors convocation at the University of Michigan is typically a decorous affair, with a pipe organ accompanying golf-clap applause. This year’s event was anything but. Protesters rose from their seats, and unfurled banners with “Free Palestine” written in red paint. They shouted, “You are funding genocide!” Unable to continue with the ceremony, […]

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Isra Hirsi, Ilhan Omar’s Daughter, Suspended for Protesting at Columbia

Isra Hirsi, the daughter of Representative Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, is among several Barnard students who have been suspended for participating in a pro-Palestinian encampment at Columbia University. The camp, which includes dozens of tents pitched on the campus’s South Lawn in protest against Israeli actions in Gaza, has created a standoff between administrators and […]

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Pro-Palestinian Protests Continue for a Second Day at Columbia University

For a second day, pro-Palestinian students at Columbia University on Thursday directly challenged the vow that their administrators made during a high-stakes congressional committee hearing to crack down on unauthorized student protests as part of the university’s fight against antisemitism. The students have set up dozens of tents on the South Lawn of the campus, […]

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Google Fires 28 Employees Who Protested an Israeli Cloud Contract

Google on Wednesday fired 28 workers after dozens of employees participated in sit-ins at the company’s New York and Sunnyvale, Calif., offices to protest the company’s cloud computing contract with the Israeli government. A day earlier, nine employees were arrested on charges of trespassing at the two offices. “Physically impeding other employees’ work and preventing […]

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Björn Höcke of the AfD Goes on Trial in Germany

One of Germany’s most prominent far-right leaders, Björn Höcke, stands trial on Thursday, facing charges of using banned Nazi slogans at political rallies. Using National Socialist slogans and symbols is a punishable crime in Germany, which, because of the legacy of Hitler’s rise to power, has a far more restrictive approach to free speech compared […]

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Columbia’s President Faces Difficult Road Ahead as Students Protest on Campus

Representative Elise Stefanik leaned into the microphone and volleyed a series of questions at the university president sitting in front of her. It was about three hours into a congressional hearing examining antisemitism at Columbia University, and the president, Nemat Shafik, paused, sighed and gave a nervous laugh. Ms. Stefanik had asked whether the university […]

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Columbia University President Faces Difficult Road Ahead as Students Protest on Campus

Representative Elise Stefanik leaned into the microphone and volleyed a series of questions at the university president sitting in front of her. It was about three hours into a congressional hearing examining antisemitism at Columbia University, and the president, Nemat Shafik, paused, sighed and gave a nervous laugh. Ms. Stefanik had asked whether the university […]

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What to Know About the Turmoil at Colleges Over the Israel-Hamas War

As the Israel-Hamas war has escalated, many universities have been caught in an often vitriolic debate over how to handle pro-Palestinian student protests. Many Jewish students and alumni have been alarmed, saying that the demonstrations can veer into antisemitism. Supporters of academic freedom and students and faculty critical of Israel’s policy toward Palestinians have responded […]

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Cotton Urges Citizens to Forcibly Confront Pro-Palestinian Protesters

Senator Tom Cotton, Republican of Arkansas, on Monday urged people whose routes were blocked by pro-Palestinian protesters to “take matters into your own hands” and confront the offenders, endorsing the use of physical force against peaceful demonstrators. In a series of social media posts after protesters shut down traffic in cities across the country including […]

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Columbia’s President, Nemat Shafik, to Testify at Antisemitism Hearing

Four months after an explosive congressional hearing on antisemitism precipitated the resignations of two Ivy League presidents, another university president is about to step to the hot seat. On Wednesday, Columbia’s president, Nemat Shafik, will testify about antisemitism before the same House committee that grilled the presidents of the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard and the […]

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Israeli Artist Shuts Venice Biennale Exhibit, Calls for Cease-Fire in Gaza

Since February thousands of pro-Palestinian activists have tried in vain to get the Venice Biennale, one of the world’s most prestigious international art exhibitions, to ban Israel over its conduct of the war in Gaza. But on Tuesday, when the Biennale’s international pavilions open for a media preview, the doors to the Israel pavilion will […]

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Jan. 6 Obstruction Case at Supreme Court Could Help Trump and Many Others

At first blush, the case the Supreme Court will hear on Tuesday seems technical, requiring the justices to parse a decades-old statute mainly concerned with the destruction of business records. But the case has the potential to knock out half of the federal charges against former President Donald J. Trump for plotting to subvert the […]

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At Berkeley, a Pro-Palestinian Protest Disrupts a Dinner at a Dean’s Home

The dean of Berkeley’s law school is known as a staunch supporter of free speech, but things became personal for him when pro-Palestinian students disrupted a celebratory dinner party for some 60 students at his home. In a viral video, Erwin Chemerinsky, a noted constitutional scholar, can be seen shouting “Please leave our house! You […]

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How the Israel-Hamas War Galvanized the American Left

Support for Palestinians, a cause once largely championed on college campuses and in communities with ties to the region, has transformed into a defining issue of the Democratic left, galvanizing a broad swath of groups into the most significant protest movement of the Biden era. Through daily organizing sessions on Zoom and grass-roots campaigning in […]

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Trump and Alabama Have Laid Bare the Hypocrisy of the Pro-Life Movement

To understand the remarkable moral, political and intellectual collapse of the pro-life movement, look to the Alabama Supreme Court, not just to Donald Trump’s recent pledge not to sign a national abortion ban or Kari Lake’s flip-flop on Arizona’s reinstated 1864 anti-abortion law. When the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that I.V.F. embryos were subject to […]

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Cornel West Picks a Black Lives Matter Activist, Melina Abdullah, as His Running Mate

Cornel West, a long-shot independent presidential candidate, named Melina Abdullah, a Black Lives Matter activist, as his running mate on Wednesday, cementing a novel ticket featuring two Black Ph.D.s whom he positioned as offering a stronger commitment to racial justice than both major parties. Ms. Abdullah, 51, is a co-founder of Black Lives Matter Los […]

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Thomas Gumbleton, Progressive Voice as a Catholic Bishop, Dies at 94

Thomas J. Gumbleton, a Roman Catholic bishop from Detroit whose nationally prominent support of liberal causes often clashed with church leadership, but who grounded his views in the 1960s Vatican reforms that promoted social justice, died on Thursday in Dearborn, Mich. He was 94. His death was announced by the Archdiocese of Detroit, where he […]

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Death Toll Likely to Rise After Explosion at Hydroelectric Plant in Italy

Specialized search and rescue teams, underwater divers, cave experts and topographers were searching on Wednesday for four workers who were missing a day after an explosion at a hydroelectric plant near the northern Italian city of Bologna killed at least three people and injured five others. “It’s a complicated situation,” Luca Cari, a spokesman for […]

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Rev. Cecil Murray, Leader Amid Los Angeles Riots, Dies at 94

The Rev. Cecil Murray, a minister who turned a struggling church in Los Angeles into one of the country’s largest congregations, then made it a base to combat the many ills facing the city’s Black population — most notably during and after the 1992 riots — died on Friday at his home in the View […]

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At Rally for Hostages, Nadler Is Booed After Calling for Gaza Aid

Representative Jerrold Nadler of New York was booed on Sunday at a demonstration in Manhattan calling for the release of hostages held by Hamas after he encouraged attendees to also push for humanitarian aid for Palestinians in Gaza. “As we remember the heinous crimes committed by Hamas, we must continue to press for lifesaving humanitarian […]

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How Gaza Protesters Are Making Life Difficult for Democratic Leaders

In Detroit, a congressman’s holiday party devolved into chaos and a broken nose after demonstrators protesting the war in Gaza appeared with bullhorns. In Fort Collins, Colo., the mayor abruptly ended a meeting during which protesters demanding a cease-fire in Gaza glued their hands to a wall. And in places as disparate as a historic […]

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