Police arrest 80 at Israel-Hamas war protest at UC Santa Cruz, school says

Police in riot gear surrounded arm-in-arm protesters Friday at the University of California, Santa Cruz, to remove an encampment and barricades where pro-Palestinian demonstrations have blocked the main entrance to the campus this week. Dozens were arrested, the university said.

Campus, local and state police swarmed the protesters, and video from local news stations showed officers telling people to leave, then taking away signs and part of a barricade. There appeared to be some pushing and shoving between police and protesters. Officers carried zip ties and appeared to detain a few people.

“For weeks, encampment participants were given repeated, clear direction to remove the encampment and cease blocking access to numerous campus resources and to the campus itself,” Scott Hernandez-Jason, a spokesperson for the university, said in a statement Friday.

“They were notified that their actions were unlawful and unsafe. And this morning they were also given multiple warnings by law enforcement to leave the area and disperse to avoid arrest. Unfortunately, many refused to follow this directive and many individuals are being arrested,” Hernandez-Jason said.

Biden says it’s ‘time for this war to end’ as he lays out Israeli ceasefire proposal


President Joe Biden asserted Friday that Hamas has been degraded to a point where it can no longer carry out the type of attack that launched the current 8-month conflict in Gaza, laying out a three-phase proposal Israel has submitted to wind down the grinding crisis as he declared, “It’s time for this war to end.”

It was perhaps the furthest Biden has gone in telling Israel its stated goals for its operation in Gaza have been met, and that the time has arrived to stop the fighting as part of a hostage deal.

“At this point, Hamas no longer is capable of carrying out another October 7, just one of Israel’s main objectives in this war, and quite frankly a righteous one,” Biden said at the White House.

He had just laid out a three-phase Israeli proposal that would pair a release of hostages with a “full and complete ceasefire,” a plan he said presented the best hope to bring peace to Gaza.

A heroic officer was ambushed and killed by a gunman he tried to help. Another victim is dead, and several others are wounded


A Minneapolis officer hailed as a hero last year was killed by a gunman who ambushed the officer as he responded to the scene of another shooting, police said.

Officer Jamal Mitchell, 28, was one of two people killed Thursday in a pair of shootings that also left four people wounded, authorities said. The gunman also was killed.

Police initially responded to a call about two people shot at an apartment building in Minneapolis’ Whittier neighborhood around 5:15 p.m. Thursday. When officers arrived, someone shot at them immediately, and the officers returned fire, Assistant Police Chief Katie Blackwell said.

Mitchell and the suspect were killed and another officer was injured, Blackwell said. She said authorities later found three other civilians who had been shot, one of whom died at the scene.

Biden after verdict: Only way to keep Trump out of the White House is at the ballot box

President Biden on Thursday said that the only way to keep former President Trump out of the White House is at the polls in November, after he was found guilty in his New York hush money case.

“There’s only one way to keep Donald Trump out of the Oval Office: At the ballot box,” Biden said on X, sharing a link to a donate to his campaign.

Trump became the first former U.S. president to be a convicted felon after a jury found him guilty on all counts of falsifying business records to conceal alleged affairs during his 2016 campaign.

The Biden campaign also released a statement, noting that Trump will be the Republican nominee for president, despite the conviction.

Why scientists say we need to send clocks to the moon — and soon

Perhaps the greatest, mind-bending quirk of our universe is the inherent trouble with timekeeping: Seconds tick by ever so slightly faster atop a mountain than they do in the valleys of Earth.

For practical purposes, most people don’t have to worry about those differences.

But a renewed space race has the United States and its allies, as well as China, dashing to create permanent settlements on the moon, and that has brought the idiosyncrasies of time, once again, to the forefront.

On the lunar surface, a single Earth day would be roughly 56 microseconds shorter than on our home planet — a tiny number that can lead to significant inconsistencies over time.

NASA and its international partners are currently grappling with this conundrum.

Scientists aren’t just looking to create a new “time zone” on the moon, as some headlines have suggested, said Cheryl Gramling, the lunar position, navigation, and timing and standards lead at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland. Rather, the space agency and its partners are looking to create an entirely new “time scale,” or system of measurement that accounts for that fact that seconds tick by faster on the moon, Gramling noted.

Supreme Court sides with NRA in free speech ruling that curbs government pressure campaigns

The Supreme Court on Thursday unanimously backed the National Rifle Association in a First Amendment ruling that could make it harder for state regulators to pressure advocacy groups.

The decision means the NRA may continue to pursue its lawsuit against a New York official who urged banks and insurance companies to cut ties with the gun rights group following the 2018 mass shooting at a Parkland, Florida, high school that left 17 people dead.

“Government officials cannot attempt to coerce private parties in order to punish or suppress views that the government disfavors,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the most senior liberal, wrote for the court.

“Ultimately, the critical takeaway is that the First Amendment prohibits government officials from wielding their power selectively to punish or suppress speech,” Sotomayor added.

DFL leader calls for resignation of party member, state senator Nicole Mitchell

Early Thursday morning, leaders of the DFL party called for the resignation of state senator and party member Nicole Mitchell (DFL-Woodbury.)

This comes after Mitchell was formally charged with first-degree burglary for allegedly breaking into her stepmother’s Detroit Lakes home late last month. A few days later, Republican members of the Minnesota Senate filed an ethics complaint against Mitchell.

A few days later, Senate Majority Leader Erin Murphy (DFL-St. Paul) announced Mitchell had been removed from committees and caucus meetings.


The party issued the following statement regarding its decision calling for Mitchell’s resignation:

“The Minnesota DFL believes that all elected officials should be held accountable, including members of our own party. While Sen. Mitchell is entitled to her day in court, her continued refusal to take responsibility for her actions is beneath her office and has become a distraction for her district and the Legislature. Now that her constituents have had full representation through the end of the legislative session, it is time for her to resign to focus on the personal and legal challenges she faces.”

Ken Martin, Chairman of the DFL Party

The first social media babies are adults now. Some are pushing for laws to protect kids from their parents’ oversharing


Cam Barrett knows the precise date of her first menstrual period. Her mother posted the news on Facebook.

“I was in fourth grade. I was 9 years old. The date was September 9, 2009. And my mom posted … something like, ‘Oh my God, my baby girl’s a woman today. She got her first period,’” Barrett said.

“A lot of my friends and their parents had social media, so it was super embarrassing.”

Barrett’s childhood overlapped with the dawn of the social media era. She said her mother was an avid user of MySpace and Facebook, where she posted details about their lives and many of Barrett’s private moments.

Deshaun Hill killing: Cody Fohrenkam's murder conviction thrown out

The man convicted of murdering standout Minneapolis North student-athlete Deshaun Hill Jr will likely get a new trial, according to a ruling from the Minnesota Court of Appeals.

The Minnesota Court of Appeals reversed the conviction for Cody Fohrenkam, citing in part that the prosecutors "committed prejudicial misconduct during arguments" and that the state failed to show Forhenkam’s statements were lawfully obtained.

In the appeal, Fohrenkam, argued incriminating statements were made while he was unconstitutionally detained for a custodial interrogation.

The state says Fohrenkam’s post-release detention was "merely the result of an administrative delay associated with standard release procedures".

Hamas rocket attack from Gaza sets off air raid sirens in Tel Aviv for the first time in months

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Hamas fired a barrage of rockets from Gaza that set off air raid sirens as far away as Tel Aviv for the first time in months on Sunday in a show of resilience more than seven months into Israel’s massive air, sea and ground offensive.

There were no immediate reports of casualties in what appeared to be the first long-range rocket attack from Gaza since January. Hamas’ military wing claimed the attack. Palestinian militants have sporadically fired rockets and mortar rounds at communities along the Gaza border, and the military arm of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad group later Sunday said it fired rockets at nearby communities.

The Israeli military said eight projectiles crossed into Israel after being launched from the area of the southern Gaza city of Rafah, where Israeli forces recently launched an incursion. It said “a number” of the projectiles were intercepted, and military spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said the launcher in Rafah was destroyed.

Earlier on Sunday, aid trucks entered Gaza from southern Israel under a new agreement to bypass the Rafah crossing with Egypt after Israeli forces seized the Palestinian side of it earlier this month. But it was not immediately clear if humanitarian groups could access the aid because of fighting.