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Columbia, City College protests lead to nearly 300 arrests. Mayor blames “movement to radicalize young people.”

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Columbia and City College protesters move to NYPD headquarters after campus arrests


Columbia and City College protesters move to NYPD headquarters after campus arrests

03:22

NEW YORK — Columbia University called in the NYPD and cleared protesters from campus Tuesday, nearly two weeks after demonstrators set up a pro-Palestinian encampment on the school’s main lawn. 

Mayor Eric Adams said approximately 300 people were arrested when police responded to protests at Columbia and nearby City College of New York. The NYPD’s latest count has 282 total arrests, with 109 at Columbia and 173 at City College. It’s unclear how many of the arrests were students. 

“There is a movement to radicalize young people, and I’m not going to wait until it’s done and all of a sudden acknowledge the existence of it,” Adams said Wednesday, as he continued to blame so-called “outside agitators” for escalating the situation. “This is a global problem that young people are being influenced by those who are professionals at radicalizing our children.”

The mayor added, “We’re proud to say they have been removed from the campus.”

Protesters and their supporters moved to One Police Plaza overnight, where they waited for their fellow demonstrators to be released. As CBS New York’s Natalie Duddridge reported, they cheered each time someone came out, and the mood appeared to be celebratory, with food, supplies and music.

One protester from City College said it took several hours to be processed before he was charged with trespassing. 

“They did not listen, they proceeded with the arrests even though I complied with their orders to exit the campus,” he told Duddridge. “These are the marks from the zip-ties from how tight they were, bruising here. And this is because they pulled me down from an elevated surface.”

Columbia president calls NYPD onto campus

APTOPIX Israel Palestinians Campus Protests
New York City police enter an upper floor of Hamilton Hall on the Columbia University campus using a tactical vehicle, in New York Tuesday, April 30, 2024, after a building was taken over by protesters earlier Tuesday.

Craig Ruttle / AP


Columbia University President Dr. Minouche Shafik called police to campus after two weeks of talks with protesters. Officers arrested dozens of people, who the university said had occupied Hamilton Hall

“Once I became aware of the outside agitators who were part of this operation, as Columbia mentioned in their letter and their request with the New York City Police Department, it was clear we had to take appropriate actions,” Adams said earlier Wednesday in an interview with CBS Mornings, though he declined to go into specifics about those agitators.

A swarm of police started assembling outside the school around 9 p.m. Tuesday. Some entered campus on foot, while others used a large vehicle with an extended ramp to enter the building through a second-floor window. They pried open the doors, cleared furniture that had been stacked in stairwells and used flashbangs to disorient the protesters. 

In the end, Hamilton Hall was cleared, and two encampments on the lawn were dismantled. 

“The events on campus last night have left us no choice. With the support of the University’s Trustees, I have determined that the building occupation, the encampments, and related disruptions pose a clear and present danger to persons, property, and the substantial functioning of the University and require the use of emergency authority to protect persons and property,” the president wrote in her letter to police.

“With the utmost regret, we request the NYPD’s help to clear all individuals from Hamilton Hall and all campus encampments. As part of this process, we understand that the NYPD plans to use its LRAD technology to inform participants in the encampments that they must disperse.”

University officials said they believe the group that broke into the building was led by people who are not affiliated with the school. Administrators said they were forced to call police after protesters chose to escalate the situation by occupying the hall and threatening a member of the facilities team in the process. 

Columbia’s president asked the NYPD to maintain a presence on campus until May 17, after the school’s May 15 commencement, to make sure the encampments are not re-established. 





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“Dangerous heat” expected to spread up West Coast, break records, according to forecasters

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Temperatures are expected to soar along the U.S. West Coast on Friday and Saturday, the National Weather Service said, warning that “dangerous heat” will likely spread up the West Coast as it intensifies.

Forecasters said temperatures will be 15-30 degrees above average for much of the West Coast Friday, and “numerous record-breaking temperatures can be expected through the next few days,” the weather service said.

Heat watches and warnings are in place across multiple states, including large swaths of California, as well as parts of Nevada, Arizona, Oregon and Washington.

In parts of California and southern Oregon, temperatures could blast into the triple digits, the weather service said. California is expected to experience some of the worst effects of the heat wave on Saturday, forecasters said, with temperatures likely to reach into the 110s.

“Locally higher temperatures into the 120s are possible in the typical hot spots of the Desert Southwest,” it said.

The Los Angeles National Weather Service said on Thursday night that a “Red Flag Warning” was in effect until late Friday night due to “hot, dry and windy conditions.” The warning signifies increased risk of fire danger. The weather service warned residents to use caution with open flames as the dry conditions could fuel the spread of fire.

The heat wave coincides with the Thompson wildfire, which engulfed Butte Country in Northern California this week and forced thousands to flee their homes. Evacuation orders were downgraded to warnings on Thursday.

Over the weekend, the heat wave is expected to shift east to the mid-Atlantic and the Southeast.



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Antisemitism in Europe drives some Jews to seek safety in Israel despite ongoing war in Gaza

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Ashdod, southern Israel — There will be a decisive second round of voting in France Sunday after the far-right National Rally Party, led by Marine Le Pen, won big against centrist President Emmanuel Macron in the first round of the national election exactly one week earlier.

Le Pen’s party has a history of racism, antisemitism and islamophobia dating back decades. Some prominent Jewish figures in France — which is largely considered to have the biggest Jewish population in Europe — say there’s been more antisemitism lately not only from the far-right, but also from the left.

Tension has mounted across Europe since the start of Israel’s war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip, with massive rallies, most of them pro-Palestinian, held in major cities across the continent.

TOPSHOT-BRITAIN-PALESTINIANS-ISRAEL-CONFLICT-PROTEST
Protesters hold placards and wave Palestinian flags as they take part in a “National March for Gaza” in central London, June 8, 2024.

BENJAMIN CREMEL/AFP/Getty


Harrowing images from Gaza have fueled outrage and, in some alarming cases, antisemitism has been seen and heard. In one of the most worrying examples, some people even celebrated on the streets of London on the day that Hamas militants killed some 1,200 people in their unprecedented terrorist attack on Israel.

Nearly 40% of antisemitic incidents in the world last year took place in Europe, and there was a spike after that Oct. 7 attack by Hamas. In Germany, they nearly doubled. In the U.K., they more than doubled. And in France, they nearly quadrupled.

Those incidents and the underlying hatred behind them have prompted some Jewish families to move not further away from the war, but toward it — to Israel.

Requests from French Jews to relocate to Israel have soared by 430% since October.

Among those who have already made that move are Sarah Zohar and her family, who lived a comfortable life in France — until her children were attacked while walking to sports practice.

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Sarah Zohar pushes her children on a merry-go-round in a playground in Ashdod, southern Israel, where they moved after facing antisemitism in France amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

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They packed their bags and moved to the southern Israeli city of Ashdod, remarkably only about 15 miles from the Gaza Strip, which Hamas ruled for almost 20 years and from which it launched its attack in October.

“I feel safer here,” Zohar told CBS News, but she doesn’t pretend it’s been an easy transition for her family.

“I have a child, 12 years old, and he’s told me, ‘I don’t want to go to Israel, because I don’t want people to come to my house and kill me with a knife and take my head off,” she said. “I told him: ‘You have nothing to be afraid. We have an army to defend us.'”

About 2,000 miles away, back in Paris, Rabbi Tom Cohen said Jews were remembering the antisemitism of World War II, and for some, it felt like “we didn’t get past it, and it is still here — it just has changed form, like many viruses change and mutate.”

CBS News met Guila and Eitan Elbazis as they moved into their new home in Ashdod after leaving their lives in London.

They showed off their new bomb shelter room. 

elbazis-israel-cbs.jpg
Guila and Eitan Elbazis show CBS News’ Chris Livesay (left) the safe room in their new home in Ashdod, southern Israel, after the couple moved from London to raise a family and escape rising antisemitism.

CBS News


“Hopefully, please, God, there won’t be any rockets, but as you can see, this door is bulletproof, and it locks up,” Giulia said.

As the Elbazis start a family, they decided they’d rather contend with the threat of Hamas and Hezbollah on their doorstep than with hatred on the streets of London.

“I think there’s a general sense of fear and anxiety and lack of comfort in London,” Eitan said.

“Like I have to hide who I am to be safe,” agreed Giulia.

They said they felt safer in Israel, “hands down. Without even thinking about it.”

“We have institutions here to defend us,” said Eitan.

Giulia added that while Israel is a country at war, “this is home,” and for them, it’s a home where they don’t have to hide who they are.



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Keir Starmer becomes new U.K. prime minister after Labour Party’s landslide victory

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Keir Starmer becomes new U.K. prime minister after Labour Party’s landslide victory – CBS News


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Voters delivered a historic blowout win for U.K.’s Labour Party on Thursday, ousting the Conservative Party that had controlled the country for 14 years. Keir Starmer became Britain’s new prime minister after meeting with King Charles III and Rishi Sunak’s resignation. CBS News foreign correspondent Imtiaz Tyab has more.

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