Good morning.
The NYPDarrested dozens of pro-Palestinian activistswho had occupied part of the main library building on Columbia University’s campus yesterday, ending an hours-long standoff, roughly a year after student anti-war protests swept the Ivy League school.
Claire Shipman, the university’s acting president, said she asked the NYPD to help clear the building after protesters had refused to leave despite being threatened with disciplinary action and possible arrest for trespassing.
Video shared on social media showed protesters handcuffed with zip ties being led out of the building by police. The student-run Columbia Daily Spectator reported that about 75 protesters were arrested.
The Trump administration has in recent months launched a sweeping crackdown on student demonstrators involved in campus protests, including the recently releasedMohsen Mahdawi, a Palestinian green card holder and Columbia student who was detained for his activism, andMahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian activist and Columbia graduate, who was arrested in March and remains in custody.
How did Columbia justify its decision to call in the NYPD?“Requesting the presence of the NYPD is not the outcome we wanted, but it was absolutely necessary to secure the safety of our community,” said Shipman, who called the protesters’ actions “outrageous”.
How did the Trump administration weigh in on the arrests?Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, said on X: “We are reviewing the visa status of the trespassers and vandals who took over Columbia University’s library.”
Pakistan has said it will avenge the deaths of 31 people killed in missile attacks by the Indian air force, raising fears of an escalating conflict between the two nuclear-armed countries.
Pakistan’s prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif,said late on Wednesday: “We make this pledge, that we will avenge each drop of the blood of these martyrs.”
Pakistanclaimed to have shot down 12 Indian dronesovernight and said drone attacks had left one civilian dead and four soldiers injured. Pakistan’s military spokesperson said India had “apparently lost the plot” as he accused it of “yet another blatant military act of aggression”.
How has Pakistan responded to the Indian strikes?Pakistan’s government accused India of “igniting an inferno” with strikes on nine sites in Pakistan-administered Kashmir and the Pakistani province of Punjab and authorized its military to take “corresponding” retaliatory action against India.
How did India justify the actions?India said the strikes were a direct retaliation for an attack in Indian-administered Kashmir late last month in which militants killed 25 Hindu tourists and their guide. India has accused Pakistan of direct involvement in the attacks through Islamist militant organizations it has long been accused of backing.
Plumes of black smoke emerged from the chimney on top of the Sistine Chapel yesterday, signalling that the 133 cardinals sealed off inside hadnot elected a new popeon the first day of conclave.
After the formal procession to the Sistine Chapel and each of the cardinals swearing the oath to secrecy, the first voting round got under way at about 5.45pm local time. Then all eyes were on the chimney. After a tense wait, black smoke finally appeared at 9.05pm.
How does the conclave work?There are 133 cardinals eligible to vote, who have all arrived at the Vatican from around the world. Read about thefull process here.
Who will be the next pope?Predicting the outcome of the highly secretive papal conclave is very difficult. But at the moment, speculation has focused onthese men.
US intelligence agencies have beenordered to focustheir spying activities on Greenland,in a stark sign of Donald Trump’s determination to acquire the territory.
A federal appeals court yesterday granted a judge’s order to bring a Turkish Tufts University student,Rümeysa Öztürk, from a Louisiana immigration detention center back to New Englandfor hearings to determine whether her rights were violated, after she co-wrote an op-ed that criticized the school’s response to Israel’s war on Gaza.
Ceremonies will be held across Europe todayas countries mark the80th anniversaryof Victory in Europe (VE) Day.
China’s Xi Jinping isin Russiaon a four-day visit,during which he will attend a military parade for Russia’s Victory Day anniversary.
Canadian policescaled backa search for two children missing in woods for six days,given the “low” odds the children are still alive.
Food rations fora million people in Ugandahave been cut off completely this week amid a funding crisis at the UN World Food Programme. Donald Trump’s freeze on US aid spending in January has badly hit Uganda’s ability to look after refugees. “Malnutrition has reached critical levels,” WFP Uganda said.
Donald Trump’s tariffs plunged the world economy into chaos. The left should seize on capitalism’s crisis of legitimacy,writes John Cassidy, a staff writer at the New Yorker, in this long read adapted from his upcoming book, Capitalism and Its Critics.
It’s a year since teachers at a school in St Albans, England, asked parents not to give younger childrensmartphones. “When we were at school, at least when we went home the bullies couldn’t get us there,” said one head teacher.
The four-day storm that caused destruction and killed at least 21 people across the central Mississippi valley in early April was made about9% more intense and 40% more likelyby human-caused climate change, a World Weather Attribution study found
A new tool from Migratory Connectivity in the Ocean (Mico)visualizes astonishing animal journeys, such as those of female loggerhead turtles, which swim more than 600 miles (1,000km) north from the east coast of Florida to their feeding grounds.
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