US government agrees to $138.7M settlement over FBI’s botching of Larry Nassar assault allegations


BY ED WHITE
 April 23, 2024


DETROIT (AP) — The U.S. Justice Department announced a $138.7 million settlement Tuesday with more than 100 people who accused the FBI of grossly mishandling allegations of sexual assault against Larry Nassar in 2015 and 2016, a critical time gap that allowed the sports doctor to continue to prey on victims before his arrest.

When combined with other settlements, $1 billion now has been set aside by various organizations to compensate hundreds of women who said Nassar assaulted them under the guise of treatment for sports injuries.

Nassar worked at Michigan State University and also served as a team doctor at Indianapolis-based USA Gymnastics. He’s now serving decades in prison for assaulting female athletes, including medal-winning Olympic gymnasts.

Acting Associate Attorney General Benjamin Mizer said Nassar betrayed the trust of those in his care for decades, and that the “allegations should have been taken seriously from the outset.”

“While these settlements won’t undo the harm Nassar inflicted, our hope is that they will help give the victims of his crimes some of the critical support they need to continue healing,” Mizer said of the agreement to settle 139 claims.



Lawyers for Nassar assault survivors have reached $100M deal with Justice Department, AP source says


Liberty University will pay $14 million, the largest fine ever levied under the federal Clery Act

The Justice Department has acknowledged that it failed to step in. For more than a year, FBI agents in Indianapolis and Los Angeles had knowledge of allegations against him but apparently took no action, an internal investigation found.

FBI Director Christopher Wray was contrite — and very blunt — when he spoke to survivors at a Senate hearing in 2021. The assault survivors include decorated Olympians Simone Biles, Aly Raisman and McKayla Maroney.

“I’m sorry that so many different people let you down, over and over again,” Wray said. “And I’m especially sorry that there were people at the FBI who had their own chance to stop this monster back in 2015 and failed.”

After a search, investigators said in 2016 that they had found images of child sex abuse and followed up with federal charges against Nassar. Separately, the Michigan attorney general’s office handled the assault charges that ultimately shocked the sports world and led to an extraordinary dayslong sentencing hearing with gripping testimony about his crimes.

“I’m deeply grateful. Accountability with the Justice Department has been a long time in coming,” said Rachael Denhollander of Louisville, Kentucky, who is not part of the latest settlement but was the first person to publicly step forward and detail abuse at the hands of Nassar.

“The unfortunate reality is that what we are seeing today is something that most survivors never see,” Denhollander told The Associated Press. “Most survivors never see accountability. Most survivors never see justice. Most survivors never get restitution.”

Michigan State University, which was also accused of missing chances over many years to stop Nassar, agreed to pay $500 million to more than 300 women and girls who were assaulted. USA Gymnastics and the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee made a $380 million settlement.

Mick Grewal, an attorney who represented 44 people in claims against the government, said the $1 billion in overall settlements speaks to “the travesty that occurred.”
___

Associated Press reporters Mike Householder in Detroit; Dylan Lovan in Louisville, Kentucky; and Alanna Durkin Richer in Washington, D.C., contributed to this story.
___

For more updates on the cases against Larry Nasser: https://apnews.com/hub/larry-nassar


by Taboola Suggested For You

Google fires more workers who protested its deal with Israel


A person rides past the Google sign outside the Google offices in Sunnyvale, Calif., on Thursday, April 18, 2024. Google has fired 28 employees who were involved in protests over the tech company’s cloud computing contract with the Israeli government. The workers held sit-ins at the company’s offices in California and New York over Google’s $1.2 billion contract to provide custom tools for Israeli’s military. (AP Photo/Terry Chea)

BY KELVIN CHAN AND WYATTE GRANTHAM-PHILIPS
, April 23, 2024


Google fired at least 20 more workers in the aftermath of protests over technology the company is supplying the Israeli government amid the Gaza war, bringing the total number of terminated staff to more than 50, a group representing the workers said.

It’s the latest sign of internal turmoil at the tech giant centered on “Project Nimbus,” a $1.2 billion contract signed in 2021 for Google and Amazon to provide the Israeli government with cloud computing and artificial intelligence services.

Workers held sit-in protests last week at Google offices in New York and Sunnyvale, California. The company responded by calling the police, who made arrests.

The group organizing the protests, No Tech For Apartheid, said the company fired 30 workers last week — higher than the initial 28 they had announced.

Then, on Tuesday night, Google fired “over 20” more staffers, “including non-participating bystanders during last week’s protests,” said Jane Chung, a spokeswoman for No Tech For Apartheid, without providing a more specific number.

“Google’s aims are clear: the corporation is attempting to quash dissent, silence its workers, and reassert its power over them,” Chung said in a press release. “In its attempts to do so, Google has decided to unceremoniously, and without due process, upend the livelihoods of over 50 of its own workers.”


Google said it fired the additional workers after its investigation gathered details from coworkers who were “physically disrupted” and it identified employees who used masks and didn’t carry their staff badges to hide their identities. It didn’t specify how many were fired.

The company disputed the group’s claims, saying that it carefully confirmed that “every single one of those whose employment was terminated was personally and definitively involved in disruptive activity inside our buildings.”

The Mountain View, California, company had previously signaled that more people could be fired, with CEO Sundar Pichai indicati ng in a blog post that employees would be on a short leash as the company intensifies its efforts to improve its AI technology.

'FREE PALESTINE' IS NOT ANTISEMITIC

Pro-Palestinian encampments and
protests spread on college campuses across the U.S.

APRIL 23, 2024
By Rachel Treisman

NPR




Students from MIT, Harvard University and others rally at a protest encampment at MIT's Kresge Lawn in Cambridge, Massachusetts on Monday.Scott Eisen/Getty Images

Tensions are growing on U.S. college campuses, as the pro-Palestinian demonstrations that have rocked New York-area schools in recent days — and the ensuing arrests of participants — spread from coast to coast.

Students have launched protests and encampments at more than a dozen schools across the country, from Massachusetts to Michigan to California. They are calling for an end both to the Israel-Hamas war and their universities' investment in companies that profit from it or, more broadly, do business with Israel.

It's the latest wave of protests to sweep college campuses since the Oct. 7 attack Hamas-led attack on Israel, in which 1,200 people were killed and roughly 240 others taken hostage, according to Israeli authorities, who say more than 130 remain captive in Gaza. Israel's ensuing military response in Gaza has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians, some two-thirds of them women and children, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health.



EDUCATION
Columbia University shifts classes to remote-only after a wave of protests on campus

College-age Americans are more likely to sympathize with Palestinians than Israelis, according to recent polling by the Pew Research Center.

And the Israel-Hamas war has become a major flashpoint at institutions of higher education, many of which are now grappling with how to balance free speech protections with student safety at a moment of rising antisemitism and Islamophobia.

When asked about the protests on Monday — the first night of the Jewish holiday of Passover — President Biden said he condemned "the antisemitic protests" as well as "those who don't understand what's going on with the Palestinians."

Here's where things stand with the demonstrations:

Law enforcement break up protests from New York to California

NYPD officers face pro-Palestinian protesters on Monday night after clearing an encampment on NYU's campus.Alex Kent/AFP via Getty Images

On Monday morning, police arrested nearly 50 protesters at Yale University while Columbia University, which has seen rising tensions since over 100 demonstrators were arrested last week, shifted classes online — a move it has since extended through the end of the semester. (Classes end on April 29 and finals end on May 10, according to the school's academic calendar.)

Later Monday night, New York police cleared an encampment of pro-Palestinian protesters outside New York University's Gould Plaza, taking an unspecified number of them into custody after they refused to leave.


RELIGION
Concerns over antisemitism rise as Jews begin observing Passover

An NYU faculty group tweeted that the school had authorized police to "arrest its own students, faculty, staff and anyone who dares to stand in solidarity with Palestine."

NYU spokesperson John Beckman said in a statement that after some 50 demonstrators assembled that morning, the university closed the plaza to prevent additional people from joining.

He said more protesters — "many of whom we believe were not affiliated with NYU" — breached the barriers in the afternoon, changing the dynamic with their "disorderly, disruptive, and antagonizing behavior," and noted reports of "intimidating chants and several antisemitic incidents.

"Given the foregoing and the safety issues raised by the breach, we asked for assistance from the NYPD," he added. "The police urged those on the plaza to leave peacefully, but ultimately made a number of arrests.

Meanwhile, across the country at California State Polytechnic University, a group of students waving Palestinian flags and signs occupied Siemens Hall, an academic and administrative building on the Humboldt campus.

They barricaded the front entrance with chairs, desks, trash cans and other pieces of furniture, according to reports from ABC affiliate KRCR and an image posted to social media by the organization National Students for Justice in Palestine.

Around 8:30 p.m. local time, school officials urged people to stay away from the building, calling it "a dangerous and volatile situation." They said they were concerned about the safety of the protesters barricaded inside and called on them to heed law enforcement's directive to leave peacefully.

Several hours later, they said campus will remain closed through Wednesday for the safety of the community.

"Buildings are locked down and key cards will not work," they said, adding that "In-person classes and activities are transitioning to remote where possible."
Solidarity encampments emerge at over a dozen schools


Pro-Palestinian students protest at a tent encampment in front of Sproul Hall on the UC Berkeley campus on Monday.Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Pro-Palestinian students at colleges in multiple states are now launching movements of their own, many as a direct response to the recent events at Columbia.

Students at Northwestern University, Ohio State University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Temple University, Princeton University, the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and others held walkouts and rallies in support of Columbia students last week after their arrest.

And others have followed suit this week.

A Pro-Palestinian student group at the University of Minnesota tweeted that they were joining with Columbia students by setting up an encampment on their own campus lawn at 4 a.m. on Tuesday, in solidarity "with the people of Palestine and with students standing up for Palestine across the country."

Students at the University of Pittsburgh also set up tents on Tuesday morning outside its central Cathedral of Learning, which they said in a news release was done in solidarity with students at a list of other schools.


NATIONAL
Pro-Palestinian demonstrators shut down airport highways and bridges in major cities

Some 300 students staged a "solidarity walkout" at Stanford University on Monday to show support for Palestinians in Gaza and their pro-Palestinian peers at other colleges, according to the Stanford Daily.

Students have also put up encampments at several Boston-area schools, including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Emerson College and Tufts University. Harvard University has closed Harvard Yard to the public through Friday, in apparent anticipation of potential protests.

At the University of Michigan, student groups erected some two dozen tents in the middle of campus on Monday. Michigan Public reports that some 100 people gathered for a rally that afternoon, chanting "Disclose! Divest! We will not stop, we will not rest!" as police looked on.

Students at the University of California, Berkeley also set up a "Gaza Solidarity Encampment" on Monday. Organizers told ABC7 that they want school leaders to end what they're calling their "silence" over the situation in Gaza and to provide better protection for Palestinian, Arab and Muslim students.

Questions loom about protections for students and speech

Protestors occupy an encampment on the grounds of Columbia University in New York City on Monday.David Dee Delgado/Getty Images

The recent turmoil has raised even more questions about the responsibility of universities when it comes to balancing student safety with freedom of expression.

Some pro-Palestinian activists have publicly said they are protesting Israel, not Jews, and noted that their ranks include many Jewish students. At Columbia and Yale, some came together for Passover seders mid-protest.

Debbie Becher, a sociology professor at Barnard College (which is part of Columbia), told Morning Edition Tuesday that campus feels relatively safe and peaceful, unlike the portrayals of it on social media. She described the pro-Palestinian encampment as a "place of sharing and community building."

"Students have watched movies there, they hold teach-ins, they study, they eat together," she said.

But the demonstrations have left other Jewish students feeling unsafe, particularly due to reports of antisemitic rhetoric and harassment on several campuses.

The Anti-Defamation League has tracked several instances of protesters expressing support for Hamas and the Oct. 7 attack. A protester at Columbia, for example, held up a sign reading "Al-Qasam's next targets" with an arrow pointing towards nearby pro-Israel counter-protesters (referring to Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas).


MIDDLE EAST CRISIS — EXPLAINED
The war in Gaza is a big story on campus. These student reporters aren't shying away

It says students at various schools have also waved signs glorifying figures associated with U.S.-designated terror groups, used pro-Intifada slogans and called for destroying Zionism and either hounding or getting rid of Zionists altogether.

Tensions reached such a boiling point at Columbia that a university-affiliated rabbi urged Jewish students over the weekend to return home for their own safety.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams spoke out against antisemitic incidents and hate speech at Columbia in a statement that referenced specific incidents, including a woman yelling "We are Hamas" and student groups chanting "We don't want no Zionists here."

The White House also released a statement on Sunday condemning the "calls for violence and physical intimidation targeting Jewish students," saying they have "have absolutely no place on any college campus, or anywhere in the United States of America."


NYPD officers detain a person as pro-Palestinian protesters gather outside of Columbia University on Thursday.Kena Bentacur/AFP via Getty Images

Meanwhile, Columbia University President Minouche Shafik is facing criticism for her response to the protests.

Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., is leading New York Republicans' charge to get her to resign, a seeming repeat of the situation in December, when the presidents of Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania resigned after widely-panned Congressional testimony.

Shafik testified before Congress about the school's response to antisemitism last Wednesday, the day students set up the encampment. In her testimony, Shafik told lawmakers that antisemitism "is not tolerated and it is not acceptable."
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The next day, she called in the NYPD to break up the demonstration, which she said violated university policies and posed a "clear and present danger" to its functioning.


MIDDLE EAST CRISIS — EXPLAINED
Lawmakers grill the presidents of Harvard, MIT and Penn over antisemitism on campus

Her decision has been widely criticized by groups including the university's own Knight First Amendment Institute and the American Association of University Professors. Its Columbia and Barnard chapter plans to submit a "resolution of censure" against her and other administration officials, the Columbia Spectator reported Tuesday.

"President Shafik's violation of the fundamental requirements of academic freedom and shared governance, and her unprecedented assault on students' rights, warrants unequivocal and emphatic condemnation," it reads.

In a Monday note to the Columbia community, Shafik said administrators, deans and faculty were working to resolve the situation, including by discussing with protesters what actions the community can take to "peacefully complete the term and return to respectful engagement with each other."

She added that she is aware of the debate around "whether or not we should use the police on campus" and happy to participate in those discussions.

"But I do know that better adherence to our rules and effective enforcement mechanisms would obviate the need for relying on anyone else to keep our community safe," she said. "We should be able to do this ourselves."

Becher, the Barnard professor, said "the actual crisis here is the university leadership's failure to stand up to right-wing actors."

"Our president has, over the past six months and at Congress last week, abandoned our institutions of academic freedom, freedom of expression and turned our campus into a police state," she added. "And now other campuses around the country are following suit."

In a Monday statement, the civil liberties group Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) called on universities to protect peaceful protest but "ensure the swift arrest" of anyone engaging in violence on campus. But it acknowledged the extra challenges posed by this "extraordinarily difficult" moment.

"Tensions are high and nerves are raw," it said. "The charity and grace necessary for productive dialogue are in vanishingly short supply, and it can be difficult to separate protected expression from its opposite. Amidst this intense pressure, our nation's institutions of higher education must lead the way."

Protests roiling US colleges escalate with arrests, new encampments and closures

 Police in Riot gear stand guard as demonstrators chant slogans outside the Columbia University campus, Thursday, April 18, 2024, in New York. U.S. colleges and universities are preparing for end-of-year commencement ceremonies with a unique challenge: providing safety for graduates while honoring the free speech rights of students involved in protests over the Israel-Hamas war. 

A sign sits erected at the pro-Palestinian demonstration encampment at Columbia University in New York, Monday, April 22, 2024. U.S. colleges and universities are preparing for end-of-year commencement ceremonies with a unique challenge: providing safety for graduates while honoring the free speech rights of students involved in protests over the Israel-Hamas war. 

NYPD officers from the Strategic Response Group form a wall of protection around Deputy Commissioner of Legal Matters Michael Gerber and Deputy Commissioner of Operations Kay Daughtry, not in the picture, during a press conference regarding the ongoing pro-Palestinians protest encampment at Columbia University in New York on Monday, April 22, 2024. U.S. colleges and universities are preparing for end-of-year commencement ceremonies with a unique challenge: providing safety for graduates while honoring the free speech rights of students involved in protests over the Israel-Hamas war.

 (AP Photo/Stefan Jeremiah)

BY KAREN MATTHEWS AND NICK PERRY
April 23, 2024

NEW YORK (AP) — The student protests of Israel’s war with Hamas that have been creating friction at U.S. universities escalated Tuesday as new encampments sprouted and some colleges encouraged students to stay home and learn online, after dozens of arrests across the country.

The protests had been bubbling for months but kicked into a higher gear after more than 100 pro-Palestinian demonstrators who had camped out on Columbia University’s upper Manhattan campus were arrested last week.

With tensions at Columbia continuing to run high and some students afraid to set foot on the campus, officials said the university will switch to hybrid learning for the rest of the semester.

Protests have been spreading elsewhere in New York and nationwide. Many universities have about two weeks of classes left before the semester ends and have been grappling with how to handle protests.

Police said 133 protesters were taken into custody late Monday after a protest at New York University and all had been released with summonses to appear in court on disorderly conduct charges.

University spokesperson John Beckman said NYU was carrying on with classes Tuesday.

READ MORE


With graduation near, colleges seek to balance safety and students’ right to protest Gaza war


America’s child care crisis is holding back moms without college degrees


Pro-Palestinian protests sweep US college campuses following mass arrests at Columbia

California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt, announced that its campus will be closed through Wednesday after demonstrators occupied a building Monday night. Classes were to be conducted remotely, the school said on its website.

At the University of Michigan, protesters had set up more than 30 tents on the central part of the Ann Arbor campus called the Diag.

In Connecticut, police on Monday arrested 60 protesters at Yale University, including 47 Yale students, after they refused to leave an encampment on Beinecke Plaza.

Yale President Peter Salovey said protesters had declined an offer to end the demonstration and meet with trustees, and after several warnings, school officials determined “the situation was no longer safe” and police cleared the encampment and made arrests.

At the University of Minnesota, nine anti-war protesters were arrested Tuesday morning after police took down an encampment a couple of hours after it was set up in front of the library.

Since the war began, colleges and universities have struggled to balance safety with free speech rights. Many long tolerated protests but are now doling out more heavy-handed discipline.

The protests have pitted students against one another, with pro-Palestinian students demanding that their schools condemn Israel’s assault on Gaza and divest from companies that sell weapons to Israel. Some Jewish students, meanwhile, say much of the criticism of Israel has veered into antisemitism.

As Donald Trump walked into a Manhattan courtroom Tuesday morning to attend his historic hush money trial, he spoke briefly to reporters and focused on the turmoil at college campuses, blaming President Joe Biden.

“What’s going on is a disgrace to our country and it’s all Biden’s fault,” Trump said.

A day earlier, when asked whether he condemned “the antisemitic protests,” Biden said he did.

“I also condemn those who don’t understand what’s going on with the Palestinians,” Biden said after an Earth Day event outside Washington.

Columbia University President Minouche Shafik said in a message to the school community Monday that she was “deeply saddened” by what was happening on the campus.

Robert Kraft, who owns the New England Patriots football team and funded the Kraft Center for Jewish Student Life across from Columbia’s campus, said he was suspending donations to the university.

“I am no longer confident that Columbia can protect its students and staff and I am not comfortable supporting the university until corrective action is taken,” he said in a statement.

Columbia University has a history of protest, most notably in 1968, when hundreds of students angry about racism and the Vietnam War occupied five campus buildings. After a week, a thousand police officers swept in and cleared them out, making 700 arrests. The Associated Press reported at the time that 100 students and 15 police officers were injured.

Campus protests began after Hamas’ deadly attack on southern Israel, when militants killed about 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and took roughly 250 hostages. During the ensuing war, Israel has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, according to the local health ministry, which doesn’t distinguish between combatants and noncombatants but says at least two-thirds of the dead are children and women.
___

Perry reported from Meredith, New Hampshire. Associated Press writers Will Weissert in Triangle, Virginia; Larry Lage in Ann Arbor, Michigan; and John Antczak in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

Pro-Palestinian protesters arrested at Yale, NYU; Columbia cancels in-person classes

By Caitlin Ochs and Jonathan Allen

April 23, 2024

NEW YORK, April 22 (Reuters) - Police arrested dozens of people at pro-Palestinian demonstrations at Yale University in Connecticut and New York University in Manhattan on Monday, as the war in Gaza continued to reverberate through U.S. university campuses.
The police crackdowns came after Columbia University canceled in-person classes on Monday in response to protesters setting up tent encampments at its New York City campus last week.

Demonstrators blocked traffic around Yale's campus in New Haven, Connecticut, demanding the school divest from military weapons manufacturers. Police arrested more than 45 protesters, according to the student-run Yale Daily News.
In New York, officers moved on the NYU crowd shortly after nightfall as hundreds of demonstrators for hours had defied university warnings that they faced consequences if they failed to vacate a plaza where they had gathered. Video on social media showed police taking down tents in the protesters' encampment.

As demonstrators tussled with officers and chanted, "We will not stop, we will not rest. Disclose. Divest."

A New York police spokesperson said arrests were made after the university asked police to enforce trespassing violations but the total number of arrests and citations would remain unknown until much later. No immediate injuries were reported.

Protests at Yale, Columbia, NYU and other university campuses across the nation began in response to the escalation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, following the deadly cross-border raid by Hamas militants on Oct. 7 and Israel's fierce response in the Gaza enclave controlled by Hamas.

In an email to Columbia staff and students on Monday, Columbia President Nemat Minouche Shafik said the university was canceling in-person classes and moving to online teaching to "deescalate the rancor and give us all a chance to consider next steps."
Last week, Shafik called in New York Police to clear a tent encampment protesters had set up on Columbia's main lawn to demand the school divest from Israel-related investments, an unusual move condemned by some faculty.

The school said the encampment violated rules. Police arrested more than 100 students from Columbia on Thursday on charges of trespassing. Columbia and the affiliated Barnard College have suspended dozens of students involved in the protests.
"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," said Shafik, who last week testified before a U.S. House of Representatives committee, defending the school's response to alleged antisemitism by protesters.

 Palestinian flags are placed on a locked fence while students demonstrate outside Columbia University campus, as protests continue inside and outside the university during the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in New York City, U.S., April 22, 2024. REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz

Republicans in the House and the Senate, as well as at least one Democratic senator, demanded Shafik resign.

DONOR THREATENS CUTOFF

Major university donor Robert Kraft was also unsatisfied that Columbia was protecting Jewish students. Kraft, who is Jewish and the owner of the New England Patriots, has donated millions of dollars to Columbia and threatened to cut off further funding, saying in a statement, "I am not comfortable supporting the university until corrective action is taken."

Amid angry confrontations at Columbia between pro-Palestinian and pro-Israel groups, police have received reports of Israeli students having flags snatched from their hands, but no reports "of any physical harm against any student," Tarik Shappard, the chief police spokesperson, told a press conference.

Student protesters spent several nights sleeping in the open on the lawn, and have since set up tents again. Students have organized both Muslim and Jewish prayers at the encampment, and some have given speeches condemning Israel and Zionism and praising Palestinian armed resistance.

More than 100 Columbia faculty joined students on Monday in solidarity at the encampment, where an outdoor seder was planned to mark the first day of the Jewish Passover holiday.

U.S. President Joe Biden, who has been criticized by the protesters for supplying funding and weapons to Israel, said in a statement on Sunday that his administration has put the full force of the federal government behind protecting the Jewish community.

"Even in recent days, we've seen harassment and calls for violence against Jews," Biden said. "This blatant antisemitism is reprehensible and dangerous – and it has absolutely no place on college campuses, or anywhere in our country."

Student organizers from the Columbia encampment criticized the Biden statement, noting that some of the organizers are Jewish and that news outlets had focused on "inflammatory individuals who do not represent us."

"We firmly reject any form of hate or bigotry and stand vigilant against non-students attempting to disrupt the solidarity being forged among students – Palestinian, Muslim, Arab, Jewish, Black and pro-Palestinian classmates and colleagues," they said in a statement.

"It's very clear to us that people on the outside do not understand what this encampment is about," said Lea Salim, a Barnard sophomore who said she was one of 15 Jewish students arrested on the Columbia lawn last week. Salim said it was not antisemitic to criticize the state of Israel.

Reporting by Caitlin Ochs and Jonathan Allen in New York; Additional reporting by Brendan O'Brien in Chicago, Kanishka Singh in Washington and Daniel Trotta in Carlsbad, California; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama, Bill Berkrot Editing by Michael Perry

Biden rule grants overtime pay to 4 million US workers

By Daniel Wiessner

April 23, 2024

April 23 (Reuters) - The administration of U.S. President Joe Biden on Tuesday unveiled a rule extending mandatory overtime pay to an estimated 4 million salaried workers, going even further than an Obama-era rule that was struck down in court.
The U.S. Department of Labor rule will require employers to pay overtime premiums to workers who earn a salary of less than $1,128 per week, or about $58,600 per year, when they work more than 40 hours in a week.

The current salary threshold of about $35,500 per year was set by the Trump administration in a 2020 rule that worker advocates and many Democrats have said did not go far enough.
The rule does not affect overtime requirements for workers who are paid hourly.
Julie Su, the acting secretary of labor and Biden's nominee to fill the post permanently, said in a statement that the rule ensures that workers either earn more money or are paid the same to work fewer hours.

“Too often, lower-paid salaried workers are doing the same job as their hourly counterparts but are spending more time away from their families for no additional pay," Su said.
Under the rule, the salary threshold will increase to $43,888 on July 1 and to $58,656 on Jan. 1, 2025. And starting in 2027, the threshold will automatically increase every three years to reflect changes in average earnings.

U.S. wage law requires employers to pay eligible workers one and one-half times their regular rate of pay when they work more than 40 hours in a week. Salaried workers who earn above the salary threshold may still be eligible for overtime pay if they do not primarily perform management-related duties.

Workers are generally automatically exempt if they earn a salary of more than $107,432. The new rule will raise that cutoff to about $151,000.

Several states, including California and New York, have salary thresholds for determining overtime eligibility that are higher than the current federal standard.
The Labor Department in 2016 doubled the salary threshold to about $47,000. A federal judge in Texas the following year said that ceiling was so high that it could sweep in some management workers who are exempt from overtime pay protections, and struck it down.

The new rule is likely to face legal challenges arguing that like the Obama administration rule, it violates federal wage law by applying to many lower-paid supervisors and professionals who typically would not be eligible for overtime.

Lawsuits could also claim that the Labor Department failed to justify the significant increase in the threshold just four years after the last adjustment.

Many major business groups had called on the department to put off any changes to overtime pay regulations, citing inflation, global supply chain disruptions and worker shortages that have raised companies' operating costs.

US Supreme Court examines firings of pro-union Starbucks workers

By Andrew Chung and John Kruzel

April 23, 2024

WASHINGTON, April 23 (Reuters) - U.S. Supreme Court justices on Tuesday appeared to agree with Starbucks (SBUX.O), opens new tab in the coffee chain's challenge to a judicial order requiring it to rehire seven employees at a Tennessee cafe who were fired as they pursued efforts to unionize.
The justices heard arguments in the company's appeal of a lower court's approval of an injunction sought by the U.S. National Labor Relations Board ordering the reinstatement of the workers. It is a case that could make it harder to bring a quick halt to labor practices challenged as unfair under federal law while the NLRB resolves complaints.

The case centers on the legal standard that federal courts must use to issue a preliminary injunction requested by the NLRB under the a federal law called the National Labor Relations Act. Such orders are intended as an interim tool to halt unfair labor practices while a case is proceeding before the board.
Under section 10(j) of the labor law, a court may grant an injunction if it is deemed "just and proper." Seattle-based Starbucks contends that if the lower courts had applied stricter criteria, similar to the standard used by some other courts and in non-labor legal disputes, the case would have come out differently, opens new tab.

Some justices appeared to agree that courts should have the primary role in determining a "likelihood of success" in the case before issuing an injunction.
Conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch told Justice Department lawyer Austin Raynor, who was defending the injunction against Starbucks, that other federal agencies are subject to the stricter standard.
"In all sorts of alphabet soup agencies, we don't do this. District courts apply the 'likelihood of success' test as we normally conceive it. So why is this particular statutory regime different than so many others?" Gorsuch asked.

Raynor told the justices that the NLRB seeks this kind of injunction only in "the cream of the crop cases."
"The board receives 20,000 unfair labor charges every year. It issues 750 complaints. Last year, it authorized 14 petitions and filed seven. That's seven out of 20,000," Raynor said.
"This is an expert agency that has said, 'We think these are the most deserving of relief,'" Raynor added.
But conservative Chief Justice John Roberts said that "I don't know why the inference isn't the exact opposite." Roberts said these could be the cases that the board feels "are the most vulnerable."

Conservative Justice Samuel Alito told Raynor, "I'm a little curious about your statistical argument."
Liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson told Lisa Blatt, the lawyer arguing for Starbucks, that the agency has sought this type of injunction "in a very, very small number of cases."
"This is not sounding like a huge problem," Jackson said.
"Whether or not it's a huge problem, what petitioner (Starbucks) wants is just a level playing field, the normal injunctive factors that agencies and private parties should get," Blatt responded.

The company has argued that the judge who granted the injunction should have used a stringent four-factor test to weigh the bid for an injunction, as courts typically do in non-labor disputes. This test includes an assessment of whether the side seeking relief would suffer irreparable harm and is likely to succeed on the merits of the case.
About 400 Starbucks locations in the United States have unionized, opens new tab, involving more than 10,000 employees. Both sides at times have accused the other of unlawful or improper conduct.
Hundreds of complaints have been filed with the NLRB accusing Starbucks of unlawful labor practices such as firing union supporters, spying on workers and closing stores during labor campaigns. Starbucks has denied wrongdoing and said it respects the right of workers to choose whether to unionize.
In a break from the acrimony, both sides in February said they had agreed to create a "framework" to guide organizing and collective bargaining and potentially settle scores of pending legal disputes.
The case began in 2022, when the workers at the Poplar Avenue store in Memphis became among the first to unionize. Early in their efforts, they allowed a television news crew into the Starbucks cafe after hours to talk about the union campaign. Seven workers present that evening were fired, including several who belonged to the union organizing committee.
Despite the dismissals, employees there later voted to join Workers United.
The union filed unfair labor charges with the NLRB over the firings and other discipline by managers. The NLRB sought an injunction, alleging that Starbucks unlawfully fired the workers for supporting the union drive and to send a message to other workers.
U.S. District Judge Sheryl Lipman granted the injunction in 2022, reinstating the workers in order to address the "chilling effect" of the dismissals on the unionization effort while the NLRB resolves the case. The Cincinnati, Ohio-based 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the injunction in 2023.
The 6th Circuit rejected the company's argument that Lipman should have used a stringent four-factor test.
The Supreme Court's ruling is expected by the end of June.

Get weekly news and analysis on the U.S. elections and how it matters to the world with the newsletter On the Campaign Trail. Sign up here.


Reporting by Andrew Chung and John Kruzel in Washington; Additional reporting by Daniel Wiessner in Albany; Editing by Will Dunham

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Starbucks takes on the federal labor agency before the US Supreme Court

Honda to build major EV plant in Canada: govt source

By AFP
April 22, 2024

Honda hopes to sell only zero-emission vehicles by 2040, with a goal of going carbon-neutral in its own operations by 2050 

- Copyright AFP TOSHIFUMI KITAMURA

Japanese auto giant Honda will open an electric vehicle plant in eastern Canada, a Canadian government source familiar with the multibillion-dollar project told AFP on Monday.

The federal government as well as the province of Ontario, where the plant will be built, will both provide some financial incentives for the deal, according to the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The official announcement is due Thursday, though Ontario premier Doug Ford hinted at the deal on Monday.

“This week, we’ve landed a new deal. It will be the largest deal in Canadian history. It’ll be double the size of Volkswagen,” he said, referring to a battery plant announced last year, for which the German automaker pledged Can$7 billion (US$5 billion) in investment.

Canada in recent years has been positioning itself as an attractive destination for electric vehicle investment, touting tax incentives, renewable energy access and its rare mineral deposits.

The Honda plant, to be built an hour outside Toronto, in Alliston, will also produce electric-vehicle batteries, joining existing Volkswagen and Stellantis battery plants.

In January, when news of the deal first bubbled up in the Japanese press, the Nikkei newspaper estimated it would be worth Can$14 billion — numbers backed up by Canadian officials recently.

In the federal budget announced last week, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government introduced a new business tax credit, granting companies a 10 percent rebate on construction costs for new buildings used in key segments of the electric vehicle supply chain.

Canada’s strategy follows that of the neighboring United States, whose Inflation Reduction Act has provided a host of incentives for green industry.

Honda hopes to sell only zero-emission vehicles by 2040, with a goal of going carbon-neutral in its own operations by 2050.

Honda expected to announce multi-billion dollar deal to assemble EVs in Ontario: sources

Indigenous fashion center stage in Mexico presidential election


By AFP
April 22, 2024

Mexican presidential candidate Claudia Sheinbaum is seen wearing traditional Indigenous clothing at her campaign launch - Copyright AFP CARL DE SOUZA
Sofia Miselem

After years of fighting for greater recognition, Mexico’s Indigenous weavers have seen their creations thrust into the spotlight by the two women leading the country’s presidential race.

The brightly colored, elaborately embroidered garments handcrafted by generations of artisans have long enchanted visitors to Mexico — including international designers whose use of the motifs have sparked accusations of plagiarism.

Now an aficionado of the Indigenous designs is almost certain to become Mexico’s first woman president, although the prominence of the traditional garments on the campaign trail has generated mixed feelings among their creators.

“It’s important that they don’t just wear them as a costume or to attract attention,” said Trinidad Gonzalez, 55, a weaver in the community of El Mejay in Hidalgo state in central Mexico.

Opposition candidate Xochitl Galvez, an outspoken businesswoman and senator of Indigenous origin, has worn the traditional garments since entering politics more than two decades ago.

Claudia Sheinbaum, the former Mexico City mayor who is representing the ruling party and is leading the election race, has also worn Indigenous designs during her campaign, including at its launch.

“It’s very positive that Mexican textiles are center stage in the political arena,” said anthropologist Marta Turok.

But according to Andres Vidal, a doctor in social anthropology at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, the choice of clothing is also part of the “electoral game.”

– From racism to prestige –

Martina Cruz — Gonzalez’s mother — is 83 years old, but she still weaves using techniques passed down through generations.

She is happy to see traditional clothing worn by the presidential candidates, especially Galvez, who also hails from Hidalgo.

“I like it a lot,” Cruz said, while weaving a garment that can take up to eight months to make and is sold for the equivalent of $1,000.

The painter Frida Kahlo was the first internationally prominent Mexican personality to wear Indigenous clothing, said Turok, an expert in popular art.

In politics, the pioneer was Maria Esther Zuno, wife of Luis Echeverria, who was president from 1970 to 1976.

“Mexican politics is a reflection of society,” Turok said.

At one time, politicians “were ashamed” to wear Indigenous clothing, a reluctance that mirrored the wider problem of “discrimination and racism,” she recalled.

But gradually Indigenous designs gained popularity and prestige. Now they can be worth thousands of dollars.

– Cultural appropriation? –

As a senator, Galvez promoted the adoption of the Day of the Huipil, held on March 7 in recognition of the traditional embroidered blouse.

“Never haggle over the price of a huipil with an Indigenous woman,” the politician said in one of her videos, in which she showed her traditional blouses, some made of silk that according to Turok would cost up to $5,000.

Sheinbaum, the granddaughter of Bulgarian and Lithuanian Jewish migrants, also has a collection of Indigenous clothing given to her on tour, according to a source from her campaign.

While several major foreign clothing brands have been accused by Mexico of cultural appropriation for their Indigenous-inspired designs, Turok said she did not view the candidates’ use of the huipil in the same way.

“Improper cultural appropriation is taking a textile to another country to reproduce it,” she said.

“If we’re going to start saying who can and can’t wear them, it’s going to be a never-ending story,” Turok added.

Vidal sees the use of Indigenous clothing as a way for politicians to connect with voters.

“One way to reach them is by creating symbiosis through the use of a certain type of clothing,” he said.

The election fashion parade has brought new customers into Alfonso Giron’s store in Mexico City.

“They say, ‘Hey, I’m looking for the garment I saw the candidate wearing on television,'” he said.

But in reality, every huipil is unique, Giron added.

AI makes rich people richer


By Dr. Tim Sandle

DIGITAL JOURNAL
April 22, 2024

Meta in November launched a 'pay or consent' system -- a model that has faced several challenges - Copyright AFP/File ETIENNE LAURENT

Tech giants including Bill Gates, Elon Musk, and Jensen Huang have played major roles in the AI revolution, using their resources to create technologies that have completely changed how we work and live. From machine learning and self-driving cars to generative AI.

While innovative, these technologies have brought hundreds of billions of dollars of profit to tech moguls and the companies behind them.

According to data presented by AltIndex.com (and provided to Digital Journal), the world’s eight richest AI billionaires have increased their wealth by $390 billion in the last year.

Mark Zuckerberg’s Net Worth Surged by $112 billion in a year, Jeff Bezos and Jensen Huang Follow with $80 billion and $56 billion gains.

Although the world’s richest AI billionaires already had an impressive net worth, the AI renaissance, which started last year, helped them grow their wealth even more. Since the beginning of 2023, all these technology titans have added tens of billions of dollars to their fortunes, but none is close to Zuckerberg.

His company uses AI algorithms to optimize personalized content, user engagement and advertising, and has also heavily invested in virtual reality experiences in the Metaverse. According to Forbes’ real-time billionaire list, Zuckerberg’s wealth soared by $112.6 billion year-over-year, the biggest increase among top AI billionaires. Facebook shares skyrocketed by 125% in this period, pushing its CEO’s fortune to $177 billion.

Jeff Bezos follows Zuckerberg with an $80 billion net worth increase in the past year. Although Amazon’s owner made his name in e-commerce, Bezos is also a huge name in the AI field. Amazon Web Services, a massive part of his empire, offers a wide range of AI tools and services, helping businesses integrate AI into their operations. However, Bezos diversified his AI influence by investing in AI startup Perplexity, which aims to challenge Google’s dominance in the search engine space. Last year, Bezos was worth $114 billion; now, his net worth is $194 billion.

Statistics show that the CEO of Nvidia, Jensen Huang, has seen the third-largest net worth growth among the top AI billionaires, adding almost $56 billion to his fortune in the last year. His company has become a huge name in the AI field, with its graphic processing units used in everything from large data operations to self-driving cars. Nvidia’s stock value has soared by more than $1.8 trillion since January 2023, helping its CEO’s wealth to hit $77 billion.

Google co-founders and major investors in AI company DeepMind, Sergey Brin and Larry Page, have both added around $34 billion to their wealth in the past year, just like Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison. Bill Gates, also a huge name in the AI field, is now worth $128 billion, $24 billion more than a year ago.

PRISON NATION U$A

Texas inmates are being ‘cooked to death’ in extreme heat, complaint alleges

Pooja Salhotra, The Texas TribuneWilliam Melhado, The Texas Tribune
April 23, 2024

Prison - Dan Henson:Shutterstock.com

"Texas inmates are being ‘cooked to death’ in extreme heat, complaint alleges" was first published by The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.

April signals the beginning of blistering heat for much of Texas. And while the summer heat is uncomfortable for many, it can be deadly for the people incarcerated in Texas’ prison system where temperatures regularly reach triple digits.

With another sweltering summer likely ahead, prison rights advocates on Monday filed a complaint against Texas Department of Criminal Justice executive director Bryan Collier, arguing that the lack of air conditioning in the majority of Texas prisons amounts to cruel and unusual punishment.

The filing came from four nonprofit organizations who are joining a lawsuit originally filed last August by Bernie Tiede, an inmate who suffered a medical crisis after being housed in a Huntsville cell that reached temperatures exceeding 110 degrees. Tiede, a well-known offender whose 1996 murder of a wealthy widow inspired the film “Bernie,” was moved to an air-conditioned cell following a court order but he’s not guaranteed to stay there this year.

Monday’s filing expands the plaintiffs to include every inmate incarcerated in uncooled Texas prisons, which have led to the deaths of dozens of Texas inmates and cost the state millions of dollars as it fights wrongful death and civil rights lawsuits.

The plaintiffs ask that an Austin federal judge declare the state’s prison policy unconstitutional and require that prisons be kept under 85 degrees Fahrenheit. Texas jails are already required to keep facilities cooler than 85 degrees, and federal prisons in Texas have a 76 degree maximum.

Between June and August last year, the average temperature was 85.3 degrees — the second hottest on record behind 2011. And this year does not look to be much cooler. The most recent winter season ranked warmest on record for the contiguous U.S., according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Scientists have found that climate change has resulted in more severe and longer lasting heat waves. In the last decade, Texas has experienced over 1,000 days of record-breaking heat, compared to a normal decade.

In the hot summer months, those concrete and metal cells can reach over 130 degrees, formerly incarcerated Texans said during a Monday press conference. Legal representatives hope to prove those conditions are unconstitutional.

“What is truly infuriating is the failure to acknowledge that everyone in the system —all 130,000 prisoners— are at direct risk of being impacted by something that has a simple solution that has been around since the 1930s, and that is air conditioning,” attorney Jeff Edwards told reporters. Edwards was the lead attorney in a 2014 prison rights case that cited the nearly two dozen Texas prison inmates who died from heat stroke over the previous two decades. That case culminated in a settlement, where TDCJ agreed to install air conditioning at the Wallace Pack Unit near College Station.

About two thirds of the inmates housed across TDCJ’s facilities live in areas without air conditioning. Advocates and inmates’ families have long fought to cool prisons in a state where summer temperatures routinely exceed triple digits and pose dangerous conditions to inmates and correctional officers.

Although the state has not reported a heat-related death since 2012, researchers and inmates’ families dispute those statistics. A 2022 study found that 14 prison deaths per year were associated with heat. Last year, a Texas Tribune analysis found that at least 41 people had died in uncooled prisons during the state’s record-breaking heat wave.

Health problems that have been linked to excessive heat include renal diseases, cardiovascular mortality, respiratory illnesses and suicides, Julie Skarha, a epidemiology researcher at Brown University who authored the 2022 study, told reporters on Monday.


Skarha said while death certificates may not list heat strokes — a condition when the body can no longer control its temperature— as the official cause of death, her research indicates that many prisoners have died from heat-related causes.

“Heat deaths haven’t magically stopped,” the lawsuit states. “TDCJ has simply stopped reporting or admitting them after the multiple wrongful death lawsuits and national news coverage.”

TDCJ spokesperson Amanda Hernandez declined to comment on the lawsuit, saying the agency does not comment on pending litigation. But she emphasized that the department has been adding more air conditioning units since 2018.


“Each year we’ve been working to add cool beds, and we’ll continue to do so,” she said.

She also pointed to the departments’ “enhanced heating protocols” which are activated from April to October and include providing ice water to inmates and allowing them to purchase fans and cooling towels from the commissary.

Lawyers argue that these mitigation tactics are insufficient to combat the state’s sweltering temperatures. To survive the heat, incarcerated people report having to flood their toilets or sinks and lie down in the water on the cell floor to try to cool their bodies, the lawsuit states.


“This isn’t an unpredictable event,” said attorney Erica Grossman, who is one of the lawyers representing the plaintiffs. “It gets hot every summer, and much like every other building in Texas —including buildings that have animals — we cool the building.”

TDCJ staff who work in the facilities are similarly impacted by the heat, said Michele Deitch, a senior lecturer at the University of Texas at Austin's School of Law and LBJ School. The excessive heat invades all aspects of life in prisons: Staff must do physical work in heavy uniforms in the heat; the heat results in more violence among those incarcerated; and it leads to more use of force against prisoners, she said.

The TDCJ states on their heat mitigation protocols that staff are “encouraged to increase their water intake” during the hot summer month and are allowed to wear cooling towels and dri-fit compression shirts.


New research Skarha has conducted found that the number of assaults that occur in prisons without air conditioning increased as much as five times during summer months compared to that number in climate-controlled facilities.

Prison rights advocates say the state could easily fund air conditioning units across its prisons but has simply been unwilling to do so. During the last legislative session —when the state recorded a record surplus— the House proposed spending $545 million to install air-conditioning in most of the prison facilities lacking it. But the final budget did not include any money dedicated to air conditioning.

The House also passed a bill requiring prisons to be kept between 65 and 85 degrees, which is required already in jails and most federal facilities. But the bill failed in the more conservative Senate.

“We have the resources. We just seem to not have the compassion to do it,” Rep. Carl Sherman, D-DeSoto, said during the press conference. Sherman was one of the authors of the bill that would have regulated prison temperatures.

The Legislature did allocate approximately $85 million for “additional deferred maintenance projects,” in Texas prisons, and TDCJ is using that money to pay for air conditioning units. Hernandez estimated that those dollars will provide air conditioning for an estimated 10,000 inmates.

Disclosure: University of Texas at Austin has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune at https://www.texastribune.org/2024/04/22/texas-prisons-heat-deaths/.

The Texas Tribune is a member-supported, nonpartisan newsroom informing and engaging Texans on state politics and policy. Learn more at texastribune.org

He hippo in Japan zoo turns out to be a she

Agence France-Presse
April 23, 2024 

This undated handout image released to AFP by Osaka's Tennoji Zoo shows "Gen-chan", a 12-year-old hippopotamus who was thought to be male but tests showed was female (Handout)

Betrayed by its DNA and unmanly toilet habits, a hippopotamus in Japan thought for seven years to be a he is in fact a she, the zoo where the wallowing giant lives said Tuesday.

The 12-year-old came to Osaka Tennoji Zoo in 2017 from the Africam Safari animal park in Mexico, where officials attested on customs documents that the then five-year-old was male.

But zookeepers long scratched their heads, a spokeswoman told AFP.

In particular, Gen-chan did not display the typical male hippo behavior of splattering feces around while defecating -- with a propeller-like tail motion -- in order to mark territory.

Nor did it make courtship calls to females and zookeepers were unable to visually identify any male genitalia, a dangerous task in such a large and potentially aggressive beast.

"Therefore, we requested a DNA test at an external institution, and the result showed it was female," the zoo said in a statement posted last week.

"We will keep doing our best to provide comfortable environment to Gen-chan, so everyone, please come and see," it said.