Dozens of pro-Palestinian protesters have been arrested at Yale University, hours after Columbia University cancelled classes due to an ongoing demo there.
New Haven Police Department said about 45 protesters were detained at Yale and charged with misdemeanour trespassing after blocking traffic and refusing to leave.
There were no reports of any violence or injuries, and all were released on condition they would appear in court later.
The protesters want the world-famous university to sever any investments in defence companies that sell to Israel.
Meanwhile, Columbia told students to stay at home in a bid to ease tensions at the New York City university following the arrests of more than 100 people last week.
Its president, Nemat Minouche Shafik, denounced antisemitic behaviour and harassment she said had occurred on university grounds.
“These tensions have been exploited and amplified by individuals who are not affiliated with Columbia who have come to campus to pursue their own agendas,” she said in a statement.
Some protesters have set up camp at Columbia, while demonstrations have also been going on at Boston’s Emerson College and nearby MIT, as well as the University of Michigan and University of North Carolina.
President Biden condemned antisemitism on campuses in a statement on Sunday to mark the Jewish festival of Passover.
“Even in recent days, we’ve seen harassment and calls for violence against Jews,” said the US president.
“This blatant antisemitism is reprehensible and dangerous – and it has absolutely no place on college campuses, or anywhere in our country.”
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Elie Buechler, a rabbi at Columbia, sent a WhatsApp message to Jewish students on Sunday urging them to leave the campus.
“It deeply pains me to say that I would strongly recommend you return home as soon as possible and remain home until the reality in and around campus has dramatically improved,” he said.
New York City Police said on Monday they would not enter Columbia grounds unless a crime was taking place as the university is private property.
Deputy Commissioner Michael Gerber told reporters the university didn’t want officers stationed on campus, but there was a large police presence on the streets outside.
“Any kind of violence is not going to be tolerated, any kind of property damage is not going to be tolerated,” he said.
“That includes harassment, or threats, or menacing or stalking, or anything like that that’s not protected by the First Amendment.”
Deputy Commissioner Tarik Sheppard said there had so far been no “credible threats to any particular group of individuals coming from this protest or any other”.
Protest organisers at Columbia said they were being portrayed unfairly and claimed the media were focussing on a few “inflammatory individuals” who did not represent their movement.
They want the university to cut ties with corporations profiting from Israel’s actions in Gaza, transparency on its financial investments, and an amnesty for students and staff disciplined for supporting the Palestinian cause.
Students, charged and released with a date in court, are here now to collect their belongings. They’re missing bags, belts, shoes, all lost in the chaos of the night before.
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From the very heart of the protest encampment, our cameras had captured the chaos.
Officers moving in. Tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse. Stun grenades to disorientate.
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They were scenes which have stirred an already fevered debate about Israel and Gaza, yes, but about much more too. About America, about policing, and about free speech too.
President Biden said yesterday: “Vandalism, trespassing, breaking windows, shutting down campuses, forcing the cancellation of classes and graduations – none of this is a peaceful protest.”
‘Wrong’ say the protesters. Their movement, they say, is the very essence of protest; of civil disobedience which is threaded through US college campus history.
They reject any notion that they are threatening or violent. Yet the deeply divisive history of the Israel-Palestine conflict ensures that the beholder will so often be offended by the actions of the other side.
It was the students perceived antisemitism through their pro-Palestinian slogans which had drawn a group of pro-Israel protesters to the encampment earlier in the week.
The chaos of that night was reflected in a statement by the university’s student radio station which has been covering every twist.
“Counter protestors used bear mace, professional-grade fireworks and clubs to brutalize hundreds of our peers, UCLA turned a blind eye. Police were not called until hours into the onslaught and stood aside for over an hour as counter-protestors enacted racial, physical and chemical violence,” the statement from the UCLA Radio Managerial team said.
Watching the clear-up after the nighttime police sweep of the protesters I spotted two people embracing. A young man and an older woman.
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3:17
Professor recalls violent arrest at protest
It turned out to be a thread of history. One was a student who’d been arrested the night before.
The other was a student from a past time. Diane Salinger had been at New York’s Columbia University in 1968, at protests which now form a key chapter in American history.
“I’m so proud of these people here. I’m so proud,” she told me.
“You know the civil unrest of the students back in ’68 and it continued for several years, it actually changed the course of the Vietnam War and hopefully this is going to do the same thing.”
But then, back at the police station, a conversation that hints at the wider challenges for America.
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‘Tom’ is a protester who wanted to remain anonymous – a graduate who feels politically deserted in his own country. For him, no government is better than any on offer.
“The problem with our system is that we can’t rely on the police, we can’t rely on the military to keep us safe.
“When we need to make our voices heard, we need to make them heard, and the only way to do that without being repressed is by keeping each other safe and I think that last night and the last few months have really exemplified that,” he told me.
These protests are about more than Gaza. They are aligning a spectrum of dissent.
A scuba dive boat captain has been jailed for four years for criminal negligence over a fire that killed 34 people.
Captain Jerry Boylan was also sentenced to three years supervised release by a federal judge in Los Angeles, California.
The blaze on the vessel named Conception in September 2019 was the deadliest maritime disaster in recent American history.
Boylan was found guilty of one count of misconduct or neglect of ship officer last year.
The charge is a pre-Civil War statute, known colloquially as seaman’s manslaughter, and was designed to hold steamboat captains and crew responsible for maritime disasters.
In a sentencing memo, lawyers for Boylan – who is appealing – wrote: “While the loss of life here is staggering, there can be no dispute that Mr Boylan did not intend for anyone to die.
“Indeed, Mr Boylan lives with significant grief, remorse, and trauma as a result of the deaths of his passengers and crew.”
The Conception was anchored off Santa Cruz Island, 25 miles south of Santa Barbara, when it caught fire before dawn on the final day of a three-day voyage, sinking less than 30 metres from the shore.
Thirty-three passengers and a crew member died, trapped below deck.
Ms Wilson bought her most recent ticket at Family Food Mart in the US town of Mansfield and the shop will receive a $10,000 (£7,900) bonus for its sale of the ticket, according to the Massachusetts State Lottery.
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She bought her first $1m winning ticket at Dubs’s Discount Liquors in the same town.