WASHINGTON: University of Southern California law student Elizabeth Howell-Egan isn’t allowed on campus because of her role in last spring’s anti-war protests, but she is keeping up her activism.
She and like-minded students are holding online sessions on the Israel-Hamas war and passing out fliers outside the campus, which is now fortified with checkpoints at entrances and security officers who require students to scan IDs.
“Change is never comfortable. You always have to risk something to create change and to create a future that we want to live in,” said Howell-Egan, a member of the school’s Students for Justice in Palestine chapter, which is calling on USC to divest from companies profiting off the war.
The stakes have gone up this fall for students protesting the war in Gaza, as US colleges roll out new security measures and protest guidelines — all intended to avoid disruptions like last spring’s pro-Palestinian demonstrations and protect students from hate speech. Activism has put their degrees and careers at risk, not to mention tuition payments, but many say they feel a moral responsibility to continue the movement.
Tent encampments — now forbidden on many campuses — so far have not returned. And some of the more involved students from last spring have graduated or are still facing disciplinary measures. Still, activist students are finding other ways to protest, emboldened by the rising death toll in Gaza and massive protests this month in Israel to demand a ceasefire.
Tensions over the conflict have been high on American campuses since the war began on Oct. 7, when Hamas-led militants killed 1,200 people in Israel and took 250 hostage. The war in Gaza has killed more than 40,000 people, according to Gaza health officials.
As the pro-Palestinian demonstrations took off nationally, Jewish students on many campuses have faced hostility, including antisemitic language and signs. Some colleges have faced US civil rights investigations and settled lawsuits alleging they have not done enough to address antisemitism.
A desire ‘to be part of something’
Temple University senior Alia Amanpour Trapp started the school year on probation after being arrested twice last semester during pro-Palestinian protests. Within days, she was back on the university’s radar for another demonstration.
As she reflects on the fallout from her activism, she thinks of her grandfather, a political prisoner killed in 1988 massacres orchestrated by Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini.
“He paid the ultimate price for what he believed in. And so, I feel like the least I can do is stand my ground and face it,” she said.
Trapp, a political science major, devotes much of her time outside classes to Students for Justice in Palestine, which led her to the back-to-school protest on Aug. 29. The group of a few dozen protesters made several stops, including outside the Rosen Center, a hub of Jewish life that is home to Temple’s Hillel Chapter.
Some Jewish students inside said they were shaken by the demonstration. Protesters used megaphones to direct chats toward people inside, Temple President Richard Englert said. The university called it intimidation and opened an investigation.
“Targeting a group of individuals because of their Jewish identity is not acceptable and intimidation and harassment tactics like those seen today will not be tolerated,” Englert said.
Trapp said they were not out to intimidate anyone, but to condemn Hillel for what she called its support of Zionism. “To the students inside that felt threatened or harmed, I’m sorry,” she said.
Trapp is appealing a Temple panel’s ruling that she violated the college’s conduct code last spring. As she reflects on the discipline, she recalls a Temple billboard she saw on Interstate 95 after her first visit to campus.
“Because the world won’t change itself,” the ad beckoned. It reassured her that Temple was the right fit. “I so badly wanted to be part of something, you know, meaningful,” she said, “a community committed to change.”
A renewed push for divestment
At Brown University, some students who were arrested last spring are taking another tack to pressure the Ivy League school to divest its endowment from companies with ties to Israel.
Last spring, the university committed to an October vote by its governing board on a divestment proposal, after an advisory committee weighs in on the issue. In exchange, student protesters packed up their tents.
Now students including Niyanta Nepal, the student body president who was voted in on a pro-divestment platform, say they intend to apply pressure for a vote in favor of divestment. They are rallying students to attend a series of forums and encouraging incoming students to join the movement.
Colleges have long rebuffed calls to divest from Israel, which opponents say veers into antisemitism. Brown already is facing heat for even considering the vote, including a blistering letter from two dozen state attorneys general, all Republicans.
Rafi Ash, a member of the Brown University Jews For Ceasefire Now and Brown Divest Coalition, declined to say what activism might look like if the divestment push fails. A Jewish student who was among 20 students arrested during a November sit-in at an administrative building, Ash dismisses critics who see the anti-war protests as antisemitic.
“The Judaism I was taught promotes peace. It promotes justice. It promotes ‘tikkun olam’ — repairing the world,” said Ash, who is on disciplinary probation. “This is the most Jewish act I can do, to stand up for justice, for everyone.”
Barred from campus, but strategizing on protests
For Howell-Egan, the crackdown at USC and her suspension only deepened her desire to speak out.
“Even with this threat of USC imposing sanctions and disciplinary measures, I am at peace with it because I am standing up for something that is important,” Howell-Egan said. “There are no more universities in Gaza. We are in an incredibly privileged position for this to be our risk.”
She is not allowed to attend in-person classes because she was suspended in May for joining protests at the private school in Los Angeles.
There has been a trend of heavier punishments for students engaging in activism than in the past, including banishment from campus and suspensions that keep students “in limbo for months,” said Tori Porell, an attorney with the nonprofit Palestine Legal, which has supported student protesters facing disciplinary measures. Howell-Egan sees it as part of a strategy to stifle free speech.
In a memo this month, USC President Carol Folt said the campus has seen peaceful protests and marches for years. “However, the spring semester brought incidents that tested our values, disregarded our policies, sparked fears, and required unprecedented safety measures,” she said.
For now the focus of the USC Divest Coalition, which includes several student organizations, has moved off campus, to incorporate the wider community and take a cautious approach as students get a handle on the university’s new rules, Howell-Egan said.
In addition to the community outreach, students have been holding teach-ins.
“The idea is to raise our skill set and our understanding of where we stand in this moment, and where we are in this fight,” Howell-Egan said, “especially as we continue with it.”
As US colleges raise the stakes for protests, activists are weighing new strategies
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As US colleges raise the stakes for protests, activists are weighing new strategies
- “You always have to risk something to create change and to create a future that we want to live in,” said Howell-Egan, a member of the school’s Students for Justice in Palestine chapter
- The stakes have gone up this fall for students protesting the war in Gaza, as US colleges roll out new security measures and protest guidelines
US sanctions Venezuela security chiefs for crackdown
WASHINGTON: The United States slapped sanctions on 21 top Venezuelan security and cabinet officials Wednesday, accusing them of a campaign of repression after President Nicolas Maduro’s bitterly contested July reelection.
The fresh measures — which Venezuela rejected as a “desperate act” against “patriots” — come after Washington and the G7 said they recognized opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia as president-elect, amid accusations of fraud against Maduro.
“Maduro and his representatives’ repressive actions in the wake of the Venezuelan presidential election are a desperate attempt to silence the voices of its citizens,” Bradley Smith, the acting under secretary of the Treasury Department, said in a statement.
Fifteen leaders of the Venezuelan security apparatus are among those hit by an asset freeze, including the heads of the intelligence service, military counterintelligence service, the national guard and the police.
The sanctions also target the Venezuelan communications minister and the head of the prison service.
“All of these entities are part of Maduro’s security apparatus and are responsible for violently repressing peaceful protesters and carrying out arbitrary detention,” a senior US administration official told reporters.
A Venezuelan foreign ministry statement said the country “rejects with the utmost firmness” the latest sanctions of the “outgoing US government against the Venezuelan people and, in particular, a group of patriots who have dedicated themselves to safeguarding peace, stability, economic recovery and national unity in the face of fascist violence.”
The US Treasury said Venezuelan security forces had also issued an “unjustified arrest warrant” for Urrutia, forcing him to flee to Spain.
At the same time, the US State Department said it was expanding visa restrictions on Maduro’s allies.
“Maduro’s security apparatus has engaged in widespread abuses, including killings, repression, and mass detention of protesters,” the State Department said in a statement.
In September, the United States announced sanctions against 16 Venezuelan officials over alleged election fraud.
They included senior figures in the Venezuelan electoral council and Supreme Court, with the US Treasury saying at the time that they “impeded a transparent electoral process and the release of accurate election results.”
Maduro claimed victory in the election and defied intense domestic and international pressure to release detailed polling numbers to back up the assertion.
Amid an outcry at home and abroad, the former bus driver handpicked by the late authoritarian strongman Hugo Chavez is now serving his third term.
But the oil-rich country’s economy is in shambles, as Venezuelans endure acute shortages of food, medicine and other basic goods.
Maduro is accused of leading a harshly repressive leftist regime, with a systematic crackdown on the opposition.
Canada is already examining tariffs on certain US items following Trump’s tariff threat
TORONTO: Canada is already examining possible retaliatory tariffs on certain items from the United States should President-elect Donald Trump follow through on his threat to impose sweeping tariffs on Canadian products, a senior official said Wednesday.
Trump has threatened to impose tariffs on products from Canada and Mexico if the countries don’t stop what he called the flow of drugs and migrants across southern and northern borders. He said he would impose a 25 percent tax on all products entering the US from Canada and Mexico as one of his first executive orders.
A Canadian government official said Canada is preparing for every eventuality and has started thinking about what items to target with tariffs in retaliation. The official stressed no decision has been made. The person spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to speak publicly.
When Trump imposed higher tariffs during his first term in office, other countries responded with retaliatory tariffs of their own. Canada, for instance, announced billions of new duties in 2018 against the US in a tit-for-tat response to new taxes on Canadian steel and aluminum.
Many of the US products were chosen for their political rather than economic impact. For example, Canada imports $3 million worth of yogurt from the US annually and most comes from one plant in Wisconsin, home state of then-House Speaker Paul Ryan. That product was hit with a 10 percent duty.
Another product on the list was whiskey, which comes from Tennessee and Kentucky, the latter of which is the home state of then-Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell.
Trump made the threat Monday while railing against an influx of illegal migrants, even though the numbers at Canadian border pale in comparison to the southern border.
The US Border Patrol made 56,530 arrests at the Mexican border in October alone — and 23,721 arrests at the Canadian one between October 2023 and September 2024.
Canadian officials say lumping Canada in with Mexico is unfair but say they are happy to work with the Trump administration to lower the numbers from Canada. The Canadians are also worried about a influx north of migrants if Trump follows through with his plan for mass deportations.
Trump also railed about fentanyl from Mexico and Canada, even though seizures from the Canadian border pale in comparison to the Mexican border. US customs agents seized 43 pounds of fentanyl at the Canadian border last fiscal year, compared with 21,100 pounds at the Mexican border.
Canadian officials argue their country is not the problem and that tariffs will have severe implications for both countries.
Canada is the top export destination for 36 US states. Nearly $3.6 billion Canadian ($2.7 billion) worth of goods and services cross the border each day. About 60 percent of US crude oil imports are from Canada, and 85 percent of US electricity imports are from Canada. Canada is also the largest foreign supplier of steel, aluminum and uranium to the US and has 34 critical minerals and metals that the Pentagon is eager for and investing in for national security.
“Canada is essential to the United States’ domestic energy supply,” Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland said.
Trump has pledged to cut American energy bills in half within 18 months, something that could be made harder if a 25 percent premium is added to Canadian oil imports. In 2023, Canadian oil accounted for almost two-thirds of total US oil imports and about one-fifth of the US oil supply.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is holding a emergency virtual meeting on Wednesday with the leaders of Canada’s provinces, who want Trudeau to negotiate a bilateral trade deal with the United States that excludes Mexico.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said Wednesday that her administration is already working up a list of possible retaliatory tariffs “if the situation comes to that.”
Musk calls for abolishing consumer finance watchdog targeted by Republicans
The comment on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) follows Musk’s recent appointment to a government efficiency role, further amplifying the influence of the world’s richest man, who donated millions of dollars to helping Trump get elected.
“Delete CFPB. There are too many duplicative regulatory agencies,” Musk said in a post on social media platform X.
The CFPB did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Musk and former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy will co-lead a newly created Department of Government Efficiency, an entity Trump indicated will operate outside the confines of government.
The CFPB was created as part of the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reform law to police and regulate consumer financial products following the 2008 crisis and only Congress has the power to eliminate it.
Separately, Reuters reported on Wednesday, citing sources, that the consumer finance watchdog is moving ahead with rulemaking in the final weeks of Joe Biden’s Democratic administration, in a bid to advance consumer protections before Trump overhauls the agency.
Republicans have sought to curtail or eliminate the agency from the outset, but legislative efforts to either scrap it altogether, or place stricter limits on its funding and leadership structure, have failed to gain traction in the years since its creation.
Banking industry executives and lawyers also anticipate the incoming Trump administration will likely place significant limits on the CFPB.
Trump turns to outsider to shake up Navy, but his lack of military experience raises concerns
- The appointment comes at a critical moment for the Navy, which has been stretched thin with deployments around the world
WASHINGTON: President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee to be secretary of the Navy, John Phelan, has not served in the military or had a civilian leadership role in the service. While officials and defense experts said the Navy is in sore need of a disruptor, they cautioned that Phelan’s lack of experience could make it more difficult for him to realize Trump’s goals.
Trump late Tuesday nominated Phelan, a major donor to his campaign who founded the private investment firm Rugger Management LLC. The Trump transition team did not respond to a request for comment on his qualifications. According to his biography, Phelan’s primary exposure to the military comes from an advisory position he holds on the Spirit of America, a non-profit that supports the defense of Ukraine and the defense of Taiwan.
Not all service secretaries come into the office with prior military experience, but he’d be the first in the Navy since 2006. Current Secretary of the Army Christine Wormuth similarly does not have prior military service. She, however, has spent her career in a host of defense civilian positions.
The appointment comes at a critical moment for the Navy, which has been stretched thin with deployments around the world and must contend with a shrinking fleet even as the naval forces of its main rival, China, are growing. Trump has campaigned on expanding the Navy and would need to fight bureaucratic inertia to do so. But it’s uncertain whether a secretary with no military experience — either in uniform or as a defense civilian — would be well-positioned to lead that effort.
“It will be difficult for anyone without experience in the Pentagon to take over the leadership of a service and do a good job,” said Stacie Pettyjohn, a senior fellow and director of the defense program at the Center for a New American Security. “Services are sprawling organizations with distinct cultures, subcultures and bureaucratic interests, and where decisions are made through many formal processes. To change a service’s plans, one must understand this Byzantine landscape.”
Experts said Phelan’s nomination reflects that Trump is seeking service branch heads who will not push back on his ideas — but that Phelan’s lack of experience is likely to create issues and delays of its own, They say the Navy can’t afford to lose time. One of the Navy’s biggest challenges is preparing for a potential military confrontation with China over Taiwan, a self-ruled island that China claims as its own.
“The stakes are high,” said Brad Bowman, senior director of the Center on Military and Political Power at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. “The success or failure in addressing key problems in the US Navy over the next couple years may have a decisive effect on war and peace in the Taiwan Strait and elsewhere.”
Trump has called for a 350-ship Navy since his 2016 presidential campaign, but he experienced first-hand the difficulty in realizing that goal, given the challenges to shipbuilding and the erratic and often delayed congressional budget process.
There are just under 300 battle force ships in the fleet — vessels that have a direct role in conducting combat operations.
“The Navy is stretched covering Europe, the Middle East and the Pacific. Strategists have wanted to pull back from Europe and the Middle East, but recent conflicts have prevented that,” said Mark Cancian, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “So the next secretary will have a shrinking fleet, expanded overseas commitments, and an uncertain budget environment.”
The Marine Corps has called for 31 amphibious warships to help it maintain a close-to-shore presence around the globe. The Navy regularly has had to extend the deployments of its aircraft carriers and escorting destroyers, for example, to respond to the unstable security situation in the Middle East.
Each extension can create rippling effects: Ships don’t get maintained on schedule, and forces get tired of the lack of predictability for their families and leave the service.
Service branch chiefs spend vast amounts of time not only responding to the White House but also appeasing members of Congress in frequent hearings on Capitol Hill, shaping budget requests, holding constant meetings on service member issues, attending industry conferences and filling speakers requests. That all requires a nuanced understanding of the service that a secretary is leading, because major change in any of the branches often involves a lengthy process to review directives and past policy. Any changes to the many weapons systems the Navy and Marine Corps need and pursue are subject to lengthy contract award challenges.
“The Navy’s problem here is money,” Cancian said. “Even if the defense budget goes up, there will only be a relatively small increase available for shipbuilding. (If) the budget stays steady or goes down, then the Navy will have a major problem. The fleet will continue to shrink.”
Trump has signaled through multiple appointments, such as his selection of SpaceX founder Elon Musk to co-lead a nongovernmental Department of Government Efficiency, that he seeks to cut through red tape. But the service secretary can’t do that without moving through Congress, which has produced many of those regulations and processes the military must follow.
“It might help that he has a personal relationship with the president. However, his lack of experience in defense and the Pentagon will hurt the Navy,” Cancian said. “It will take him a while to learn the levers of power.”
Watchdog refers 40 UK charities to police over Israel-Hamas war
- Charity Commission opens further 200 regulatory cases related to the conflict in Gaza
- Head of the organization says it is cracking down on antisemitism and hate speech
LONDON: Regulators in the UK investigating breaches of rules by charitable organizations during their activities linked to the war between Hamas and Israel in Gaza have referred 40 cases to the police since the Oct. 7 attacks last year.
The Charity Commission also opened 200 regulatory cases related to the conflict during the same period, the watchdog’s chairperson, Orlando Fraser, said.
The figures offer further evidence of the extent to which the fighting in the Middle East has led to polarization and hateful rhetoric in Europe and the US. In the UK’s charity sector, where many of the organizations have religious affiliations, the conflict has resulted in hundreds of cases the Charity Commission has felt the need to investigate.
The watchdog has moved robustly to take action against “perpetrators of concerning activities linked to the ongoing conflict in Israel and Gaza, including antisemitic and hate speech,” Fraser said during a speech at the commission’s annual general meeting on Tuesday.
The 200 regulatory cases related to the war it has looked into involved charities “with different views on the conflict,” he added. The 40 referrals to the police were made in cases where the commission considered criminal offenses might have been committed.
“We are clear that charities must never become vehicles for hate and we have robustly enforced that position,” Fraser said.
