university

WASHINGTON — Cornell University has agreed to pay $60 million and accept the Trump administration’s interpretation of civil rights laws in order to restore federal funding and end investigations into the Ivy League school.

Cornell President Michael Kotlikoff announced the agreement on Friday, saying it upholds the university’s academic freedom while restoring more than $250 million in research funding that the government withheld amid investigations into alleged civil rights violations.

The university agreed to pay $30 million directly to the U.S. government along with another $30 million toward research that will support U.S. farmers.

Kotlikoff said the agreement revives the campus’ partnership with the federal government “while affirming the university’s commitment to the principles of academic freedom, independence, and institutional autonomy that, from our founding, have been integral to our excellence.”

The six-page agreement is similar to one signed by the University of Virginia last month. It’s shorter and less prescriptive than others signed by Columbia University and Brown University.

It requires Cornell to comply with the government’s interpretation of civil rights laws on issues involving antisemitism, racial discrimination and transgender issues. A Justice Department memo that orders colleges to abandon diversity, equity and inclusion programs and transgender-friendly policies will be used as a training resource for faculty and staff at Cornell.

The campus must also provide a wealth of admissions data that the government has separately sought from campuses to ensure race is no longer being considered as a factor in admissions decisions. President Trump has suggested some campuses are ignoring a 2023 Supreme Court decision ending affirmative action in admissions.

Education Secretary Linda McMahon called it a “transformative commitment” that puts a focus on “merit, rigor, and truth-seeking.”

“These reforms are a huge win in the fight to restore excellence to American higher education and make our schools the greatest in the world,” McMahon said on X.

Cornell’s president must personally certify compliance with the agreement each quarter. The deal is effective through the end of 2028.

It appears to split the difference on a contentious issue colleges have grappled with as they negotiate an exit from federal scrutiny: payments made directly to the government. Columbia agreed to pay $200 million directly to the government, while Brown University reached an agreement to pay $50 million to state workforce organizations. Virginia’s deal included no payment at all.

Binkley writes for the Associated Press.

SOAS University, of which Hamdi is an alumnus, urge ‘US authorities to ensure full transparency and due process’ in his case.

The London university where British political commentator and journalist Sami Hamdi completed his studies has called for “full transparency and due process” regarding his detention in the United States.

In a statement published on Wednesday, SOAS University of London said it was “deeply concerned” by reports of Hamdi’s detention, adding that “there is no indication that Mr Hamdi has violated any laws”.

“We urge the US authorities to ensure full transparency and due process in Mr Hamdi’s case, and to uphold his fundamental right to freedom of expression and movement.”

Hamdi, 35, was stopped at San Francisco international airport in California on October 26 and detained by agents from the Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) condemned Hamdi’s detention as “a blatant affront to free speech”, attributing his arrest to his criticism of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, which has killed at least 68,875 Palestinians and wounded 170,679 since October 2023.

Hamdi, who was completing a speaking tour in the US discussing Israel’s war on Gaza, had addressed a CAIR gala in Sacramento, California, the previous evening and was due to speak at another CAIR event in Florida.

He was unaware at the time that his visa had been revoked by US authorities two days before his detention.

Hamdi’s detention has led to a legal battle, with his lawyers filing emergency petitions against his detention, and his wife Soumaya and civil society groups demanding that the United Kingdom government take action.

Soumaya told Al Jazeera that the US government has still not provided any evidence “as to why they feel the need to revoke his visa. And therefore they are treating him as an overstayer”.

She said the incident raises an important question: “Has the United States become a country now where a British citizen travelling on a valid visa can be detained at will? Because that is really scary.”

Soumaya said she believed her husband had been targeted by the US authorities because “he’s become extremely effective at galvanising support for Palestinian rights. Sami has been able to bring people together across the political spectrum, not just within Muslim communities.”

She also said her husband’s arrest should be of concern to “everybody who values the right to freedom of speech, everybody who values the right to receive facts from journalists and for journalists to be able to report on news without being persecuted”.

“If they [US authorities] are able then to treat Sami in this way, it’s only a matter of time before they start to treat US citizens like that too.”

“The US government must release Sami immediately. They’ve made a big mistake, and they need to release him immediately. And Congress must investigate these ICE detentions because they are setting a dangerous precedent for the future ability of US citizens being able to exercise their right to the First Amendment properly. And that’s bad news for everybody,” she said.

CHEYENNE, Wyo. — Political stars often rise and fall but few have had a more dramatic trajectory than Dick Cheney in his home state of Wyoming.

Hours after Cheney died Tuesday at 84, the state lowered flags at the Republican governor’s order. Some politicians in the state offered at times measured praise of the former vice president.

But among a large majority of voters in Wyoming, Cheney has been persona non grata for more than five years now, his reputation brought down amid President Trump’s withering politics.

Trump has criticized Cheney for the drawn-out and costly Iraq war, and his daughter, former Republican Rep. Liz Cheney, for saying Trump should never be allowed back in the White House after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

This resonated with many residents, including Jeanine Stebbing, of Cheyenne, whose last straw was the idea that Trump shouldn’t be reelected.

“There was no open-mindedness. Nothing about how, ‘We understand that our neighbors here are supportive of Trump.’ Just the idea that we were all stupid, is what it felt like,” Stebbing said Tuesday.

The final blow for the Cheney family in Wyoming came in 2022, when Trump supported ranching attorney Harriet Hageman to oppose Liz Cheney for a fourth term as the state’s U.S. representative.

Hageman got two-thirds of the vote in the Republican primary, a decisive win in a state with so few Democrats that the general election is considered inconsequential for major races.

Trump’s biggest gripe, ultimately, was that Liz Cheney voted to impeach him, then co-led the congressional investigation into his role in the attack. In Wyoming, a prevailing belief was Liz Cheney seemed more focused on taking down Trump than on representing the state.

“I was very disappointed that, you know, somebody who came from this state would be so adamantly blind to anything other than what she wanted to do. And he joined in as well,” Stebbing said.

Not even Dick Cheney’s endorsement of his daughter over Hageman — and of Kamala Harris over Trump last year — made a difference, as Trump’s appeal in Wyoming only grew. Trump won Wyoming by more than any other state in 2016, 2020 and 2024, the year of his biggest margin in the state.

Some expressed sadness that George W. Bush’s vice president would not be remembered well by so many in the state.

“On the 16th anniversary of my own father’s death today, I can appreciate a father who stood by his daughter, which he did loyally and truthfully,” said Republican state Sen. Tara Nethercott, who is Senate majority floor leader. “He stood by his daughter during those difficult times.”

Nethercott wouldn’t speculate if Liz Cheney might yet have a political future. Wyoming’s support of Trump “speaks volumes,” she said.

Liz Cheney has continued to live in Jackson Hole, near her parents, while traveling back and forth to Charlottesville to teach at the University of Virginia Center for Politics.

For Brian Farmer — who, like Dick Cheney, grew up in Casper and went to the University of Wyoming — Cheney’s legacy will be his service to the state, no matter where people stand on issues.

“He was always somebody whose path I looked at, sought to follow. Very quiet, soft-spoken at times, Very bombastic and loud at others,” said Farmer, executive director of the Wyoming School Boards Association.

Cheney had a 30-year career in politics, from serving as President Gerald Ford’s young chief of staff to representing Wyoming in Congress in the 1980s. He rose to a top GOP leadership role in Congress — one his daughter, too, would later fill — before being named President George H.W. Bush’s defense secretary.

After his time in office, the CEO of oilfield services company Halliburton kept active in state politics, voicing support and even stumping for Republican candidates.

And yet Cheney was so low-key and unassuming, his mere presence was the whole point — not the nice things he had to say, for example, about former Gov. Jim Geringer, who handily won reelection in 1998.

“You talk about people walking into a room and commanding it. That man did it without even speaking a word,” said state Rep. Landon Brown, a Cheyenne Republican who met him several times including at University of Wyoming football games.

“He’s going to be sincerely missed in this state,” he said. “Maybe not by everybody.”

Gruver writes for the Associated Press.

On Monday, Louisiana State fired football coach Brian Kelly.

On Wednesday, the state governor Jeff Landry said the university’s athletic director, Scott Woodward, should have no say in the selection of the new coach.

On Thursday, Woodward and LSU “agreed to part ways,” according to the school’s athletic department.

And on Friday, the interim athletic director attempted to assure everyone that, despite all that has transpired in this week, the department is not in disarray.

“This place is not broken,” Verge Ausberry said during a news conference at which he sat between two members of the LSU Board of Supervisors at the front of a meeting room inside Tiger Stadium. “The athletic department is not broken. We win.”

Ausberry has been given “full authority” to run the athletic department and lead the search for a new football coach, board member John Carmouche told reporters.

“We’re going to hire the best football coach there is,” said Ausberry, a former Tigers football player who has worked in LSU athletics administration since 1991. “That’s our job. We are not going to let this program fail. LSU has to be in the playoffs every year in football.”

Woodward, a Baton Rouge native and LSU graduate, had served as the university’s athletic director since April 2019. During that span, the Tigers won two national titles in baseball and one each in football, women’s basketball and gymnastics.

One major move made during Woodward’s tenure was the 2021 firing of football coach Ed Orgeron, who had led the Tigers to the national championship following the 2019 season, and subsequent signing Kelly, the former Notre Dame coach, to a guaranteed 10-year contract worth about $100 million.

This week, days after LSU suffered its third loss in four games, Kelly was fired with more than six years remaining on his contract. Running backs coach Frank Wilson was named interim head coach.

“When Coach Kelly arrived at LSU four years ago, we had high hopes that he would lead us to multiple SEC and national championships during his time in Baton Rouge,” Woodward said in announcing Kelly’s firing. “Ultimately, the success at the level that LSU demands simply did not materialize.”

The move leaves the university on the hook for a substantial buyout. Louisiana’s governor said Wednesday he was involved in the discussions that led to Kelly’s ouster but made clear that he was unhappy with the finances of the situation.

“My role is about the fiscal effect of firing a coach under a terrible contract,” said Landry, who was speaking to reporters about other matters but was asked about recent developments at LSU. “All I care about is what the taxpayers are going to be on the hook for.”

Unnamed private donors are said to have pledged to cover the cost of Kelly’s buyout.

“If big billionaires want to spend all that kind of money, no problem,” Landry said. “But if I’ve got to go find $53 million … it’s not going to be a pleasant conversation.”

Landry also made it clear that he had no intention of allowing Woodward to play a role in the hiring of the next coach.

“Hell, I’ll let Donald Trump select him before I let [Woodward] do it,” the Republican governor said.

The next night, Woodward was out.

“We thank Scott for the last six years of service as athletic director,” LSU Board of Supervisors chair Scott Ballard said in a statement. “He had a lot of success at LSU, and we wish him nothing but the best in the future. Our focus now is on moving the athletic department forward and best positioning LSU to achieve its full potential.”

The news of Woodward’s departure dropped during a women’s basketball exhibition game between LSU and Langston. Tigers coach Kim Mulkey, who was hired by Woodward in 2021, did not attend a postgame news conference, with associate head coach Bob Starkey telling reporters Mulkey was “heartbroken” over the news.

Woodward wrote in an open letter to Tiger Nation: “Others can recap or opine on my tenure and on my decisions over the last six years as Director of Athletics, but I will not. Rather, I will focus on the absolute joy that LSU Athletics brings to our state’s residents and to the Baton Rouge community. …

“Our University will always hold a special place in my heart and I will never be too far from LSU.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

California, described by one observer in the late 19th century as “the Jews’ earthly paradise” for the economic and social promise it held, seems to have become newly hostile to Jewish people in recent years. More than any other place on Earth, Jews have shaped much of California’s progress, from Levi Strauss and the founders of the entertainment industry to numerous other leaders in culture, science, real estate and finance.

The current assault expresses itself in politics, in schools from elementaries to universities, on the streets, in literary circles and in anti-Zionist graffiti.

Erwin Chemerinsky, the dean of the UC Berkeley Law School (and my fellow contributing writer in the L.A. Times opinion section), expressed two years ago that “nothing has prepared me for the antisemitism I see on college campuses now.” The Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law and Jewish Americans for Fairness have filed a lawsuit against Berkeley, alleging “longstanding, unchecked” antisemitism.

This is not just a local issue. California’s population of 1.2 million Jews is roughly three times the size of each of the three largest Jewish diaspora communities outside the U.S. — in France, England and Canada. Los Angeles itself is the world’s third-largest Jewish city. Demographer Ira Sheskin noted recently that unlike New York City, which has lost roughly half its Jewish population since 1950, California’s Jewish populace has continued to grow, albeit more slowly in recent years.

Despite their relative demographic vitality, many California Jews feel increasingly isolated. Even in Hollywood, the Writers Guild, long a bastion of fashionable progressivism, suddenly decided to be neutral rather than making a statement on the Israel-Hamas war. Some leading figures, like Maha Dakhil, co-head of motion pictures at CAA, accused Israel of “genocide,” and others now refuse to work with Israeli film companies. Two thousand actors signed a statement outlining Israel’s “war crimes” with no mention of Hamas’ atrocities.

The political fallout has been considerable, and may become more so. Most California Jews are Democrats, according to the Pat Brown Institute; 20-30% tilt to the GOP. But the anti-Israel caucus, both here and nationally, is almost entirely made up of Democratic progressives. In a show of power, these activists even succeeded in disrupting California’s 2023 state Democratic Party convention. Many are justifiably uncomfortable with the GOP, citing the influence of antisemitism from the likes of Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens, and some critics of Israel have found the Democratic Party too cozy with Jerusalem and its supporters, but generally the Republicans, including MAGA young people, are clearly more philosemitic than the Democrats.

At a local level, politics in many cities have sent a message to the Jews of California. Anti-Israel resolutions have passed in Oakland, Stanton, Burbank and Richmond, where the progressive-controlled City Council accused Israel of “ethnic cleansing” and “apartheid.” Oakland called for an immediate ceasefire without mentioning Hamas’ atrocities. Demonstrators there even suggested that Israel murdered its own people as a pretext to attack Gaza.

And California’s youth are being groomed to hate Israel with hostile curriculums, setting up a whole new generation of antisemitism in the future and in the meantime putting Jewish teachers at risk. San Francisco has experienced anti-Israel walkouts in 10 high schools, organized by an advocacy group with access to student addresses.

At the same time, the drive to “globalize the intifada” affects California’s Jewish community directly. It has forced at least one L.A. synagogue to relocate its services; others have been vandalized. The Brentwood home owned by the president of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee was attacked in 2023 with smoke bombs and red paint. More recently, two years after the bloody Hamas attack on Israel, supporters of Palestinians disrupted a commemoration at Pomona College, warning that “Zionism is a death cult that must be dealt with accordingly.”

These assaults make Jews more concerned about their safety and perhaps more likely to turn inward in their communities. Far less alluring under these circumstances is the Jewish notion of tikkun olam, or repairing the world. Although it is the driving force in many congregations, particularly Reform synagogues, in troubled times it can be eclipsed by concerns about safety.

This new environment favors the Orthodox, pioneers of a kind of “self-segregation,” notes writer Joseph Epstein in the Wall Street Journal. And because of their higher birth rates and the below-replacement birth rates among non-Orthodox American Jews, the Orthodox could triple their share of the U.S. Jewish population by 2060. This trend plays out in California’s Jewish communities such as L.A.’s Pico-Robertson — epicenter of California orthodoxy.

The resurgence of California Jewry matters more today, given that voters in the traditional center of Jewish life, New York, have been supporting a mayoral candidate who was at least at one time sympathetic to “globalizing the intifada.” Many suspect that the once well-connected Jewish community in New York will likely face indifference, if not open hostility, from City Hall if Zohran Mamdani is elected.

Fortunately, the sun has not yet set on California’s Jews. The Golden State can still remain our “paradise” — true to its past. But this will work only by learning how to protect ourselves and make the case to our gentile neighbors so that we can continue to contribute mightily to the future of our common home.

Joel Kotkin is a contributing writer to Opinion, the presidential fellow for urban futures at Chapman University and senior research fellow at the Civitas Institute at the University of Texas, Austin.

Alex Murdaugh

Richard Alexander Murdaugh came up in a prominent family, both in the legal and social realms of Hampton County, S.C. He attended the University of South Carolina and graduated from its law school, just like his father. Three generations of Murdaugh men served as the circuit solicitor, the South Carolina equivalent of a district attorney, for a region spanning five counties in the state. Randolph Murdaugh Sr. was the first in the family to assume the role in 1920. The family held such power in the region that many locals called the district “Murdaugh Country.”

Alex was a respected personal injury attorney before being convicted of the murders of his wife Maggie and youngest son Paul in 2023. He will spend the rest of his life in prison for the killings but maintains his innocence and is currently appealing his conviction. He also admitted to committing a slew of financial crimes, for which he was cumulatively sentenced to more than 60 additional years in prison.

The family law firm he previously worked for, Peters, Murdaugh, Parker, Eltzroth & Detrick, was renamed the Parker Law Group. Alex’s older brother, Randolph “Randy” Murdaugh IV, still works at the firm.

Maggie Murdaugh

Margaret Kennedy Branstetter Murdaugh, who went by Maggie, was mother to sons Paul and Buster. She met her husband Alex when she was a student at the University of South Carolina in 1991, and they married in 1993.

She was 52 when she and Paul were shot and killed in 2021 at the family’s hunting property in Colleton County. Alex and Maggie were reportedly living separately at the time of her death.

Paul Murdaugh, pictured here in court in a still from the documentary “Low Country: The Murdaugh Dynasty,” faced significant prison time for allegedly boating under the influence.

(HBO Max)

Paul Murdaugh

Paul Terry Murdaugh was born on April 14, 1999, to Alex and Maggie. He grew up with a love of the outdoors and enjoyed hunting alongside his father and older brother. He was 22 and in his junior year at the University of South Carolina when he was killed.

Paul reportedly abused alcohol as a teenager and young adult, and his friends have said they called his intoxicated alter ego “Timmy” because his behavior changed significantly when he was drinking. In February 2019, Paul was accused of being behind the wheel of his family’s boat while drunk, crashing the boat into a bridge in the early hours of the morning. There were five other people on board with Paul, and one passenger, 19-year-old Mallory Beach, was killed in the crash.

Paul, who was also 19 at the time, had a blood-alcohol level three times over the legal limit when he was hospitalized after the crash. He was charged with felony boating under the influence two months later. He was murdered alongside his mother in 2021 before the trial for the charges he faced in connection with the crash could begin.

Buster Murdaugh

Born Richard Alexander Murdaugh Jr., the eldest Murdaugh son went by “Buster.” He attended Wofford College for his undergraduate studies and went on to study law at his parents’ alma mater, the University of South Carolina. By the spring of 2021, Buster had been kicked out of law school, reportedly for low grades and plagiarism.

Following the deaths of his mother and brother, Buster surfaced in news reports after increased interest in the family unearthed a loose connection between him and a man named Stephen Smith, a former classmate who was killed in 2015. Rumors of an intimate relationship between Smith and Buster, and of the Murdaughs’ involvement in his death, swirled, but Buster denied the allegations.

When his father was on trial for the murders of Paul and Maggie, Buster testified as a witness for the defense, saying that his father’s behavior on the night of the killings and the following weeks was not abnormal. He also said Alex was “heartbroken” on the night they died.

Buster married his longtime girlfriend Brooklynn White in May 2025. His wife is an attorney, but Buster never returned to law school.

Buster Murdaugh, left, and his then-girlfriend Brooklynn White at the double murder trial for his father. He testified in his father’s defense.

(Jeff Blake / Associated Press)

Randolph Murdaugh III

Randolph Murdaugh III was Alex’s father and one of the men who established the Murdaugh family’s legal prominence. Like his father and grandfather, Randolph served as the solicitor of the 14th judicial circuit in South Carolina, which serves Allendale, Colleton, Hampton, Beaufort and Jasper counties. In addition to Alex, Randolph had three other children with wife Elizabeth “Libby” Alexander Murdaugh: Lynn Goettee, Randolph Murdaugh IV and John Marvin Murdaugh. The couple had 10 grandchildren.

When Paul got into the boat crash in 2019, Randolph was his first call. A year earlier, Randolph was honored with the Order of the Palmetto, the highest civilian honor awarded by the governor of South Carolina. A testament to his influence, the award recognizes lifetime achievements and contributions to the state.

He died in June 2021 after a long period of health problems — three days after Paul and Maggie were murdered.

Mallory Beach and her family

Beach was a teenager from South Carolina who was described by friends and family as a loving young woman with dreams of becoming an interior designer. She and her boyfriend, Anthony Cook, were friends with Paul, and in February 2019 the couple boarded the Murdaugh family boat with a few other friends before it crashed into a bridge in Beaufort, S.C.

Beach’s body was missing after the crash and was recovered about a week later. Her family brought a wrongful death lawsuit against the Murdaughs, which eventually cracked open inquiries into Alex’s finances. The family later settled with Maggie’s estate and Buster in 2023 for an undisclosed amount. They were brought into the case because Paul used Maggie’s credit card and Buster’s ID to buy alcohol. The Beach family also reached a multimillion-dollar settlement with the convenience store chain where Paul purchased the alcohol, and in 2024, Alex’s insurance company agreed to pay the family $500,000.

Gloria Satterfield

Satterfield was the Murdaugh’s longtime housekeeper and nanny, who had a maternal-like relationship with Paul and Buster. She was the widow of David Michael Satterfield and had two sons, Michael “Tony” Satterfield and Brian Harriott.

In February 2018, Satterfield allegedly tripped and fell at the Murdaugh’s home and was hospitalized for weeks before she died at 57. Alex and Maggie were mentioned by name in Satterfield’s obituary as “those she loved as her family.”

When the cause of Satterfield’s death was being investigated, Murdaugh claimed Satterfield tripped over the family’s dogs, causing her to fall and hit her head, and he encouraged her two sons to bring a wrongful death claim against him. Murdaugh introduced Satterfield’s sons to Cory Fleming, a fellow lawyer, who represented them in the case and schemed with Murdaugh to collect on his homeowner’s insurance policies. The settlement was reportedly more than $4 million, none of which Satterfield’s sons saw.

Fleming was sentenced to nearly four years in prison for his involvement in the scheme and Murdaugh admitted to orchestrating the plot and intercepting the insurance payout meant for Satterfield’s family, depositing the money directly into his personal account. He was sentenced to 40 years in prison for that crime, plus a slew of other financial crimes he pleaded guilty to in 2023.

Stephen Smith

Smith was born in Lexington County, S.C., and attended Wade Hampton High School, where he was classmates with Buster Murdaugh, graduating in 2014. He was found dead on a rural road in Hampton County in July 2015, and his death was initially ruled as a hit and run.

In 2021, South Carolina law enforcement reopened Smith’s case based on leads uncovered in the Murdaugh double homicide investigation. The Murdaugh name was mentioned over 40 times throughout the course of the investigation, according to a report from FITSNews, a local outlet. Detectives reportedly looked at Buster as a possible person of interest in the case, who was rumored to have been romantically involved with Smith, but the connection was never proved and Buster was never named a suspect.

Oct. 23 (UPI) — The University of Virginia has entered into an agreement with the Justice Department to resolve federal investigations, amid the Trump administration’s crackdown on left-leaning ideology at institutions of higher learning.

Both the University of Virginia and the Justice Department confirmed on Wednesday that an agreement had been reached. Federal prosecutors said their probes of the school’s admissions policies and civil rights concerns will be paused.

Under the terms of the deal, the University of Virginia agrees to implement Guidance for Recipients of Federal Funding Regarding Unlawful Discrimination, which the Trump administration released in late July, tying federal funding with its interpretation of civil rights laws that restrict diversity, equity and inclusion policies and programs.

The school also agrees to provide federal prosecutors with relevant information and data on a quarterly basis through 2028, though it will pay no monetary penalty.

“Importantly, it preserves the academic freedom of our faculty, students and staff,” University of Virginia interim President Paul Mahoney said in a letter Wednesday addressed to the school’s community.

“We will be treated no less favorably than any other university in terms of federal research grants and funding. The agreement does not involve external monitoring. Instead, the University will update the Department of Justice quarterly on its efforts to ensure compliance with federal law.”

Since returning to the White House in January, Trump has used his executive powers to target dozens of universities, in particular so-called elite institutions, with executive orders, lawsuits, reallocations of resources and threats over a range of allegations, from anti-Semitism to the adoption of DEI policies.

Critics have accused Trump of coercing the schools under threat to adopt his far-right policies.

The University of Virginia is one of the seven schools since Oct. 1 that rejected signing Trump’s 10-part Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education. The Trump administration invited nine schools to sign the compact and receive priority access to federal funds in exchange for adopting government-mandated reforms, including a pledge to prohibit transgender women from using women’s changing rooms.

Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., accused the University of Virginia of relenting to “Trump’s bullying.”

“It’s not just wrong — it’s counterproductive, feeds the beast and just encourages more mafia-like blackmail from this lawless administration,” he said on X.

Sen. Scott Surovell, D-Va., said it was a “surrender” by the University of Virginia.

“And represents a huge expansion of federal power that Republicans have would have never tolerated in the past — we have the right to run our universities,” he said on X.

Oct. 19 (UPI) — An early Sunday shooting on the main campus of Oklahoma State University has left three people injured, only one a student, authorities said, as they continue to investigate.

The shooting occurred as a result of what the Oklahoma State University Police Department said in a statement was a “disagreement” that occurred outside of Carreker East hall, a three-story residential building on the northeast side of campus, in Stillwater, located about 64 miles northeast of Oklahoma City.

None of the victims were identified.

The one student injured in the shooting suffered a gunshot wound to the abdomen and was airflighted to the OU Health University of Oklahoma Medical Center in Oklahoma City after being transported by private vehicle to the Stillwater Medical Center. The victim is listed in stable condition.

A second victim, suffering from multiple gunshot wounds, was also driven to Stillwater and airflighted to the OU Medical Center and was listed as in stable condition.

The third victim has since left St. John’s Hospital in Tulsa after receiving treatment.

Police said their investigation indicates that there was a large off-campus party at the Payne County Expo Center, which ended around 2:30 a.m. CDT. A group of individuals who left the party then made their way to Carreker East for an after-party when the shooting erupted, according to police.

According to authorities, police arrived at the hall “within minutes” of the shooting, secured the scene and determined there was no ongoing threat to campus.

The Stillwater Police Department said in a separate statement that its officers responded to the shooting at 3:42 a.m. and that they had performed “life-saving measures” at the scene.

The investigation is ongoing, and OSUPD is asking for members of the public with information about the shooting to come forward.

No indication of who is responsible was mentioned. A statement from OSUPD at 11 a.m. stated “the suspect is no longer on campus. As the event happened, all parties left campus.”

“We are working diligently to bring this to a close with the assistance of Stillwater Police Department and OSBI,” OSUPD said on its Facebook page.

The Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation is collaborating with the OSUPD in processing evidence.

Tension between Indiana University and its student newspaper flared last week with the elimination of the outlet’s print editions and the firing of a faculty advisor who refused an order to keep news stories out of a homecoming edition.

Administrators may have been hoping to minimize distractions during its homecoming weekend as the school prepared to celebrate a Hoosiers football team with its highest-ever national ranking. Instead, the controversy has entangled the school in questions about censorship and student journalists’ 1st Amendment rights.

Advocates for student media, Indiana Daily Student alumni and high-profile supporters including billionaire Mark Cuban have excoriated the university for stepping on the outlet’s independence.

The Daily Student is routinely honored among the best collegiate publications in the country. It receives about $250,000 annually in subsidies from the university’s Media School to help make up for dwindling ad revenue.

On Tuesday, the university fired the paper’s advisor, Jim Rodenbush, after he refused an order to force student editors to ensure that no news stories ran in the print edition tied to the homecoming celebrations.

“I had to make the decision that was going to allow me to live with myself,” Rodenbush said. “I don’t have any regrets whatsoever. In the current environment we’re in, somebody has to stand up.”

Student journalists still call the shots

A university spokesperson referred an Associated Press reporter to a statement issued Tuesday, which said the campus wants to shift resources from print media to digital platforms both for students’ educational experience and to address the paper’s financial problems.

Chancellor David Reingold issued a separate statement Wednesday saying the school is “firmly committed to the free expression and editorial independence of student media. The university has not and will not interfere with their editorial judgment.”

It was late last year when university officials announced they were scaling back the cash-strapped newspaper’s print edition from a weekly to seven special editions per semester, tied to campus events.

The paper published three print editions this fall, inserting special event sections, Rodenbush said. Last month, Media School officials started asking why the special editions still contained news, he said.

Rodenbush said IU Media School Dean David Tolchinsky told him this month that the expectation was print editions would contain no news. Tolchinsky argued that Rodenbush was essentially the paper’s publisher and could decide what to run, Rodenbush said. He told the dean that publishing decisions were the students’ alone, he said.

Tolchinsky fired him Tuesday, two days before the homecoming print edition was set to be published, and announced the end of all Indiana Daily Student print publications.

“Your lack of leadership and ability to work in alignment with the University’s direction for the Student Media Plan is unacceptable,” Tolchinsky wrote in Rodenbush’s termination letter.

The newspaper was allowed to continue publishing stories on its website.

Student journalists see a ‘scare tactic’

Andrew Miller, the Indiana Daily Student’s co-editor in chief, said in a statement that Rodenbush “did the right thing by refusing to censor our print edition” and called the termination a “deliberate scare tactic toward journalists and faculty.”

“IU has no legal right to dictate what we can and cannot print in our paper,” Miller said.

Mike Hiestand, senior legal counsel at the Student Press Law Center, said 1st Amendment case law going back 60 years shows student editors at public universities determine content. Advisors such as Rodenbush can’t interfere, Hiestand said.

“It’s open and shut, and it’s just so bizarre that this is coming out of Indiana University,” Hiestand said. “If this was coming out of a community college that doesn’t know any better, that would be one thing. But this is coming out of a place that absolutely should know better.”

Rodenbush said that he wasn’t aware of any single story the newspaper has published that may have provoked administrators. But he speculated the moves may be part of a “general progression” of administrators trying to protect the university from any negative publicity.

Blocked from publishing a print edition, the paper last week posted a number of sharp-edged stories online, including coverage of the opening of a new film critical of arrests of pro-Palestinian demonstrators last year, a tally of campus sexual assaults and an FBI raid on the home of a former professor suspected of stealing federal funds.

The paper also has covered allegations that IU President Pamela Whitten plagiarized parts of her dissertation, with the most recent story running in September.

Richmond writes for the Associated Press.

Oct. 18 (UPI) — At least 10 people were taken to hospitals, including one with life-threatening injuries, after an apartment’s balcony collapsed near the University of Cincinnati, the city’s fire department said.

The collapse occurred at 10 p.m. Friday in the city’s Corryville neighborhood, firefighters said, according to WLWT-TV.

The balcony, which was 8 feet by 12 feet, fell about 20 feet into the pavement because of too many people, the fire department said.

Most of the victims were taken to the University of Cincinnati Medical Center, about a half mile away.

Besides the life-threatening injury, four were described by the fire department as serious.

Deputy Fire Chief Nicholas Caliguri said “other victims may have self-transported to area hospitals.”

Some of the victims were UC students, fire department spokeswoman Lindsay Haegele.

“We want to assure you that the situation is being addressed with the highest priority,” said a letter to residents by Dayton-based Eclipse Community Management, which manages condominium and homeowners associations.

Students were celebrating after passing an exam, WXIX-TV reported.

Hamilton County’s Division of Buildings and Inspections was notified.

One neighbor told the Cincinnati Enquirer he saw 40 to 50 people on the street before the collapse.

In November 2019, one person died and others were injured when a six-floor building under construction in downtown Cincinnati partially collapsed.

Oct. 17 (UPI) — The University of Pennsylvania and the University of Southern California have rejected the Trump administration’s offer of priority access to federal funds in exchange for adopting government-mandated reforms.

With the rejections of Penn and USC on Thursday, four of the nine universities the Department of Education asked to sign on to its 10-part “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education” have so far declined.

In a letter addressed to the Penn community on Thursday, the school’s president, Larry Jameson, informed the Department of Education that Penn “respectfully” declined to sign the compact.

“At Penn, we are committed to merit-based achievement and accountability. The long-standing partnerships between American higher education and the federal government has greatly benefited society and our nation. Shared goals and investment in talent and ideas will turn possibility into progress,” Jameson said.

Beong-Soo Kim, interim president at USC, also told his community Thursday that they had informed the Department of Education that they wouldn’t be signing the compact.

Included in the statement was the letter he sent to Education Secretary Linda McMahon, which said that while they will not sign on to the compact, it raises issues “worthy of a broader national conversation to which USC would be eager to contribute its insights and expertise.”

“We are concerned that even though the compact would be voluntary, tying research benefits to it would, over time, undermine the same values of free inquiry and academic excellence that the compact seeks to promote.”

Since returning to the White House in January, President Donald Trump has targeted dozens of universities, particularly so-called elite institutions, with executive orders, lawsuits, reallocations of resources and threats over a range of allegations, from anti-Semitism to the adoption of diversity, equity and inclusion policies.

Critics have accused Trump of trying to coerce schools under threat of stringent punishments — from losing their accreditation to paying hefty fines sometimes in excess of $1 billion — to adopt his far-right policies.

The compact announced Oct. 1 demands reforms to hiring practices and student grading and includes a pledge to prohibit transgender women from using women’s changing rooms.

It also requires the creation of a “vibrant marketplace of ideas,” a tuition freeze for five years and a cap on international enrollment, among other reforms.

After Penn announced its decision, the state’s governor, Josh Shapiro, commended the school for maintaining its independence “in the face of the Trump administration’s attempts to dictate what private colleges and universities teach and use the long arm of the federal government to censor ideas with which they disagree.”

“The Trump administration’s dangerous demands would limit freedom of speech, the freedom to learn and the freedom to engage in constructive debate and dialogue on campuses across the country,” he said in a statement.

“I am in full support of the university’s decision and appreciate the leadership and courage demonstrated by President Jameson and Board Chair [Ramanan] Raghavendran.”

Brown University refused to sign the compact on Wednesday and MIT late last week.

MEXICO CITY — Jasmín Ordóñez looks out from a wooden boat at the water as she crosses a narrow channel that connects a labyrinth of chinampas, island farms that were built by the Aztecs thousands of years ago.

“Let’s close our eyes and ask our Mother Water for permission to sail in peace,” she said as the boat moves slowly, in contrast to the frenetic traffic of Mexico City just a few miles away.

Ordóñez owns one of these island farms, first created with mud from the bottom of the lakes that once covered this area. When the boat arrives at her island, she proudly shows the corn and leafy greens she grows. Her ancestors owned chinampas, but she had to buy this one because women traditionally haven’t inherited them.

“My grandmother didn’t get any land. Back then, most was left in the hands of men,” she said. At her side, Cassandra Garduño listens attentively. She also didn’t inherit the family chinampa.

Today both are part of a small but growing group of women who have bought chinampas to cultivate sustainably in an effort to preserve an ecosystem that is increasingly threatened by urban development, mass tourism and water pollution.

Making their way in an area still dominated by men hasn’t been easy. In the chinampas of the boroughs of Xochimilco and San Gregorio Atlapulco, hardly any women work the land.

“People believe that men are the [only] ones who have the physical abilities to work them,” said Garduño. The mud stains her pale pink shirt, matching her boots. She knows her outfit gets funny looks from longtime male chinampa workers, but instead of getting upset, she finds it amusing.

After years away, she returned to San Gregorio in 2021 to dedicate herself to chinampa farming. She had gone to college and then spent long periods in Ecuador working in conservation efforts to protect manta rays and sharks. Then one day she came back to San Gregorio and was struck by the degradation of her own land: the lower water levels of the canals, the increasing pollution, the abandoned chinampas.

“That’s where I started to realize: ‘You are part of this space. And part of your responsibility is to safeguard it,’” she said.

After saving up for a year, she bought a chinampa — and was shocked to find it in such a bad state. A cleanup found pieces of armchairs, televisions and beer bottles. She worked to reopen canals that had been crammed with garbage and began planting crops. The distrust among the neighbors was palpable.

“They said: ‘Let’s see, this girl has never been down to this place, nobody knows her. And she’s already doing what she wants,’” she recalled.

But she knew much more than they thought. Garduño had learned a lot as a little girl who ran around her grandfather’s chinampa — “a paradise” of flowers. She learned that the mud from the bottom of the canals is the best fertilizer because it contains the mineral-rich ashes from the volcanoes surrounding Mexico City. She learned that planting a variety of crops keeps frost from destroying one entire crop and that the flowers attract insects, so they don’t eat the cabbage or kale.

Sharing the knowledge

“Chinampas can have up to eight rotations per year, whereas in other systems you might have two or three,” Garduño explained.

That’s why the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations recognized chinampas as one of the most productive agricultural systems on the planet. Today, her field is a melting pot of colors: the pale green of broccoli to the vivid yellow of marigolds.

Since 2016, she has been collaborating with Mexico’s National Autonomous University, advising other farmers who want to stop using agricultural chemicals and recover these traditional practices which also help preserve the ecosystem. Kneeling next to a planting bed, Garduño suggests elevating it so it won’t flood when it rains. Ordóñez takes note.

She bought this chinampa three years ago and is now seeking to obtain the “Etiqueta Chinampera,” the sustainability tag granted by the university to producers who, among other things, use mud as fertilizer instead of chemicals. With this label, their products can fetch higher prices.

Sixteen farmers have obtained the label so far, four of them women, said Diana Laura Vázquez Mendoza, of the university’s Institute of Biology, adding that the project encourages women to “take back their chinampas and produce.”

Cleaning the canals

In the chinampas supported by the university, filters made from aquatic plants are installed to clean the water and prevent the passage of carp and tilapia. Introduced in Xochimilco in the 1980s, these invasive species became predators of the most distinguished inhabitants of this ecosystem: Mexico’s salamander-like axolotl. Today, this amphibian is on the verge of extinction because of these invasive species and a combination of factors polluting the canals: the discharge of sewage from urban growth, mass tourism and agricultural chemicals in many chinampas.

“Chinampas are an artificial agro-ecosystem that was created to supply food in pre-Hispanic times to the entire population. And that endures to this day,” Mendoza said. “So the way to conserve Xochimilco is to also conserve the chinampa.”

But a walk through the area on any given Sunday makes it clear that fewer chinampas are dedicated to agriculture. Every weekend, hundreds of people come here to play soccer on chinampas converted into fields or to drink aboard the brightly painted boats known as “trajineras.” The impact of this transformation to the wetland is evident: contaminants have been found there, from heavy metals such as iron, cadmium and lead to oils, detergents and pesticides, according to a study by biologist Luis Bojórquez Castro, of the Autonomous Metropolitan University.

Most come from the treatment plants that discharge their water in Xochimilco and from the chinampas that use agrochemicals, according to Castro’s study.

Preserving what’s left of the past

“Look at the clarity of the water,” said Ordóñez as she reaches into the canal where she has installed her biofilter. She knows that taking care of the water is essential to preserving this ecosystem. This wetland is the last remnant of what was once the great Tenochtitlan, the capital of the Aztec Empire built on the lakes that once filled the Valley of Mexico. Although today what remains of Xochimilco represents only 3% of the original extent of those lakes, it’s still key to the stability of the city. If it were to disappear, the average temperature of the capital could rise by up to 3.6 degrees, according to biologist Luis Zambrano.

Xochimilco and San Gregorio also reduce flooding during the rainy season, provide a natural carbon dioxide reservoir and are home to hundreds of species, such as herons and the Tlaloc frog. “Look at the red-headed birds in the lagoon!” exclaimed Garduño, driving home at dusk along a dirt road after a long day at her chinampa.

For her, this is still the paradise she roamed with her grandfather. She’s convinced that women are needed to preserve chinampas and hopes that within 10 years, many more will own and take care of them.

“From the shared labor of women and men, we can do what we all want, which is conserve what we have left for as long as possible,” she said.

De Miguel writes for the Associated Press. This article is a collaboration between AP and Mongabay.

WASHINGTON — Sidelined by political appointees, targeted over deep state conspiracies and derided by the president, career public servants have grown used to life in Washington under a constant state of assault.

But President Trump’s latest threat, to withhold back pay due to workers furloughed by an ongoing government shutdown, is adding fresh uncertainty to the beleaguered workforce.

Whether federal workers will ultimately receive retroactive paychecks after the government reopens, Trump told reporters on Tuesday, “really depends on who you’re talking about.” The law requires federal employees receive their expected compensation in the event of a shutdown.

“For the most part, we’re going to take care of our people,” the president said, while adding: “There are some people that really don’t deserve to be taken care of, and we’ll take care of them in a different way.”

It is yet another peril facing public servants, who, according to Trump’s Office of Management and Budget director, Russ Vought, may also be the target of mass layoffs if the shutdown continues.

The government has been shut since Oct. 1, when Republican and Democratic lawmakers came to an impasse over whether to extend government funding at existing levels, or account for a significant increase in healthcare premiums facing millions of Americans at the start of next year.

White House officials say that, on the one hand, Democrats are to blame for extending a shutdown that will give the administration no other choice but to initiate firings of agency employees working on “nonessential” projects. On the other hand, the president has referred to the moment as an opportunity to root out Democrats working in career roles throughout the federal system.

Legal scholars and public policy experts have roundly dismissed Trump’s latest efforts — both to use the shutdown as a predicate to cut the workforce, and to withhold back pay — as plainly illegal.

And Democrats in Congress, who continue to vote against reopening the government, are counting on them being right, hoping that courts will reject the administration’s moves while they attempt to secure an extension of healthcare tax credits in the shutdown negotiations.

If the experts are wrong, thousands of government workers could face a profound cost.

“Senior leaders of the Trump administration promised to put federal employees in trauma, and they certainly seem intent on keeping that promise,” said Don Moynihan, a professor at the University of Michigan’s Ford School of Public Policy.

“According to a law that Trump himself has signed, furloughed employees are entitled to back pay,” Moynihan said. “There is no real ambiguity about this, and the idea only some employees in agencies that Trump likes would receive back pay is an illegal abuse of presidential power.”

A day after the shutdown began, Trump wrote on social media that he planned on meeting with Vought, “of Project 2025 fame,” to discuss what he called the “unprecedented opportunity” of making “permanent” cuts to agencies during the ongoing funding lapse.

A lawsuit brought in California against Vought and the OMB, by a coalition of labor unions representing over 2 million federal workers, is challenging the premise of that claim, arguing the government is “deviating from historic practice and violating applicable laws” by using government employees “as a pawn in congressional deliberations.” But whether courts can or will stop the effort is unclear.

Sen. John Thune, the majority leader and a Republican from South Dakota, said last week that Democrats should have known the risk they were running by “shutting down the government and handing the keys to Russ Vought.”

“We don’t control what he’s going to do,” he told Politico.

The White House has sent mixed messages on its willingness to negotiate with Democrats since the shutdown began. Within a matter of hours earlier this week, the president’s press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, told reporters that there was nothing to negotiate, before Trump said that dialogue had opened with Democratic leadership over a potential agreement on healthcare.

Donald Kettl, professor emeritus and former dean at the University of Maryland School of Public Policy, taught and trained prospective public servants for 45 years.

“What is happening is profoundly discouraging for young students seeking careers in the federal public service,” he said. “Many of the students are going to state and local governments, nonprofits, and think tanks, but increasingly don’t see the federal government as a place where they can make a difference or make a career.”

“All of us depend on the government, and the government depends on a pipeline of skilled workers,” Kettl added. “The administration’s efforts have blown up the pipeline, and the costs will continue for years — probably decades — to come.”

STOCKHOLM — Hungarian writer László Krasznahorkai, whose philosophical, bleakly funny novels often unfold in single sentences, won the Nobel Prize in literature Thursday for his “compelling and visionary oeuvre that, in the midst of apocalyptic terror, reaffirms the power of art.”

The Nobel judges praised his “artistic gaze which is entirely free of illusion, and which sees through the fragility of the social order combined with his unwavering belief in the power of art,” Steve Sem-Sandberg of the Nobel committee said at the announcement.

“László Krasznahorkai is a great epic writer in the Central European tradition that extends through (Franz) Kafka to Thomas Bernhard, and is characterized by absurdism and grotesque excess,” the Nobel judges said.

The work that won the Nobel Prize in literature

Zsuzsanna Varga, a Hungarian literature expert at the University of Glasgow, said Krasznahorkai’s apocalyptic and surreal novels probe the “utter hopelessness of the condition of human existence,” while also managing to be “incredibly funny.”

Varga said Krasznahorkai’s near-endless sentences made his books the “Hotel California” of literature – once readers get into it, “you can never leave.”

Other books include “The Melancholy of Resistance,” a surreal, disturbing tale set in a small Hungarian town, and “Baron Wenckheim’s Homecoming,” the sprawling saga of a gambling-addicted aristocrat.

Several works, including his debut, “Satantango,” and “The Melancholy of Resistance” were turned into films by Hungarian director Béla Tarr.

Varga suggested readers new to Krasznahorkai’s work start with “Satantango,” his debut, which set the tone for what was to follow.

“Satan who is dancing a tango — I mean, how surreal can you be?” she said.

Krasznahorkai has also written several books inspired by his travels to China and Japan, including “A Mountain to the North, a Lake to the South, Paths to the West, a River to the East,” published in Hungarian in 2003.

How Krasznahorkai came to win

Sem-Sandberg said that Krasznahorkai had been on the Nobel radar for some time, “and he has been writing and creating one outstanding work after another.” He called his literary output “almost half a century of pure excellence.”

Krasznahorkai, 71, couldn’t immediately be reached for his reaction. He didn’t speak at the announcement.

He was born in the southeastern Hungarian city of Gyula, near the border with Romania, and has since traveled the world. Throughout the 1970s, he studied law at universities in Szeged and Budapest before shifting his focus to literature.

Krasznahorkai has been a vocal critic of autocratic Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, especially his government’s lack of support for Ukraine after the Russian invasion.

But in a post on Facebook, Orbán was quick to congratulate the writer, saying: “The pride of Hungary, the first Nobel Prize winner from Gyula, László Krasznahorkai. Congratulations!”

In an interview with Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet earlier this year, Krasznahorkai expressed criticism both of Orbán’s political system and the nationalism present in Hungarian society.

“There is no hope left in Hungary today and it is not only because of the Orbán regime,” he told the paper. “The problem is not only political, but also social.”

He also reflected on the fact that he has long been a contender for the Nobel Prize in literature, saying: “I don’t want to lie. It would be very interesting to get that prize. But I would be very surprised if I got it.”

Previous awards for Krasznahorkai and the other Nobels this year

Krasznahorkai has received many earlier awards, including the 2015 Man Booker International Prize. The Booker judges praised his “extraordinary sentences, sentences of incredible length that go to incredible lengths, their tone switching from solemn to madcap to quizzical to desolate as they go their wayward way.”

He also won the National Book Award for Translated Literature in the U.S. in 2019 for “Baron Wenckheim’s Homecoming.”

The American writer and critic Susan Sontag once described Krasznahorkai as the “contemporary master of the Apocalypse.” He was also friends with American poet and writer Allen Ginsberg and would regularly stay in Ginsberg’s apartment while visiting New York City.

He’s the first winner from Hungary since Imre Kertesz in 2002. He joins an illustrious list of laureates that includes Ernest Hemingway, Toni Morrison and Kazuo Ishiguro.

The literature prize has been awarded by the Nobel committee of the Swedish Academy 117 times to a total of 121 winners. Last year’s prize was won by South Korean author Han Kang for her body of work that the committee said “confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life.”

The literature prize is the fourth to be announced this week, following the 2025 Nobels in medicine, physics and chemistry.

The winner of the Nobel Peace Prize will be announced on Friday. The final Nobel, the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, will be announced on Monday.

Nobel Prize award ceremonies are held on Dec. 10, the anniversary of Alfred Nobel’s death in 1896. Nobel was a wealthy Swedish industrialist and the inventor of dynamite who founded the prizes.

Each prize carries an award of nearly $1.2 million, and the winners also receive an 18-carat gold medal and a diploma.

Manenkov, Lawless and Corder write for the Associated Press. Corder reported from The Hague, Netherlands, and Lawless from London. Justin Spike contributed to this report from Budapest, Hungary.

Bettina Aptheker was a 20-year-old sophomore at UC Berkeley when she climbed on top of a police car, barefoot so she wouldn’t damage it, and helped start the Free Speech Movement.

“Power concedes nothing without a demand,” she told a crowd gathered in Sproul Plaza on that October Thursday in 1964, quoting abolitionist Frederick Douglass.

She was blinded by the lights of the television cameras, but the students roared back approval, and “their energy just sort of went through my whole body,” she told me.

Berkeley, as Aptheker describes it, was still caught in the tail end of the McCarthyism of the 1950s, when the 1st Amendment was almost felled by fear of government reprisals. Days earlier, administrators had passed rules that cracked down on political speech on campus.

Aptheker and other students had planned a peaceful protest, only to have police roll up and arrest a graduate student named Jack Weinberg, a lanky guy with floppy hair and a mustache who had spent the summer working for the civil rights movement.

Well-versed in those non-violent methods that were finally winning a bit of equality for Black Americans, hundreds of students sat down around the cruiser, remaining there more than 30 hours — while hecklers threw eggs and cigarette butts and police massed at the periphery — before the protesters successfully negotiated with the university to restore free speech on campus.

History was made, and the Free Speech Movement born through the most American of traits — courage, passion and the invincibility of youth.

“You can’t imagine something like that happening today,” Aptheker said of their success. “It was a different time period, but it feels very similar to the kind of repression that’s going on now.”

Under the standards President Trump is pushing on the University of Southern California and eight other institutions, Aptheker would likely be arrested, using “lawful force if necessary,” as his 10-page “compact for academic excellence” requires. And the protest of the students would crushed by policies that would demand “civility” over freedom.

If you somehow missed his latest attack on higher education, the Trump administration sent this compact to USC and eight other institutions Thursday, asking them to acquiesce to a list of demands in return for the carrot of front-of-the-line access to federal grants and benefits.

While voluntary, the agreement threatens strongman-style, that institutions of higher education are “free to develop models and values other than those below, if the institution elects to forgo federal benefits.”

That’s the stick, the loss of federal funding. UCLA, Berkeley and California’s other public universities can tell you what it feels like to get thumped with it.

“It’s intended to roll back any of the gains we’ve made,” Aptheker said of Trump’s policies. “No university should make any kind of deal with him.”

The greatest problem with this nefarious pact is that much of it sounds on the surface to be reasonable, if not desirable. My favorite part: A demand that the sky-high tuition of signatory universities be frozen for five years.

USC tuition currently comes in at close to $70,000 a year without housing. What normal parent thinks that sounds doable?

Even the parts about protests sound, on the surface, no big deal.

“Truth-seeking is a core function of institutions of higher education. Fulfilling this mission requires maintaining a vibrant marketplace of ideas where different views can be explored, debated, and challenged,” the document reads. “Signatories acknowledge that the freedom to debate requires conditions of civility.”

Civility like taking your shoes off before climbing on a police car, right?

As with all things Trump, though, the devil isn’t even in the details. It’s right there in black and white. The agreement requires civility, Trump style. That includes abolishing anything that could “delay or disrupt class instruction,” which is pretty much every protest, with or without footwear.

Any university that signs on also would be agreeing to “transforming or abolishing institutional units that purposefully punish, belittle, and even spark violence against conservative ideas.”

So no more talking bad about far-right ideas, folks. That’s belittling to our racists, misogynists, Christian nationalists and conservative snowflakes of all persuasions. Take, for example, the increasingly popular conservative idea that slavery was actually good for Black people, or at least not that bad.

Florida famously adopted educational standards in 2023 that argue slavery helped Black people learn useful skills. In another especially egregious example from the conservative educational nonprofit PragerU, a video for kids about Christoper Columbus has the explorer arguing, “Being taken as a slave is better than being killed, no? I don’t see the problem.”

And of course, Trump is busy purging the Smithsonian of any hints that slavery was a stain on our history.

Would it be violating Trump’s civility standards for a Black history professor to belittle such ideas as unserious and bonkers? What about debates in a feminism class that discuss Charlie Kirk’s comment that a good reason for women to go to college is to find a husband?

Or what about an environmental science class that teaches accurately that climate change denial is unscientific, and that it was at best anti-intellectual when Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth recently referred to efforts to save the planet as “crap”? Would that be uncivil and belittling to conservatives?

Belittle is a tiny word with big reach. I worry that entire academic departments could be felled by it, and certainly professors of certain persuasions.

Aptheker, now 81, went on to become just the sort of professor Trump would likely loathe, teaching about freedom and inclusivity at UC Santa Cruz for decades. It was there that I first heard her lecture. I was a mixed-race kid who had been the target of more than one racial slur growing up, but I had never heard my personal experiences put into the larger context of being a person of color or a woman.

Listening to Aptheker and professors like her, I learned not only how to see my life within the broader fabric of society, but learned how collective action has improved conditions for the most vulnerable among us, decade after decade.

It is ultimately this knowledge that Trump wants to crush — that while power concedes nothing without a demand, collective demands work because they are a power of their own.

Even more than silencing students or smashing protests, Trump’s compact seeks to purge this truth, and those who hold it, from the system. Signing this so-called deal isn’t just a betrayal of students, it’s a betrayal of the mission of every university worth its tuition, and a betrayal of the values that uphold our democracy.

Gov. Gavin Newsom has rightfully threatened to withhold state funding from any California university that signs, writing on social media that the Golden State “will not bankroll schools that sell out their students, professors, researchers, and surrender academic freedom.”

Of course, some universities will sign it willingly. University of Texas called it an “honor” to be asked. There will always be those who collaborate in their own demise.

But authoritarians live with the constant fear that people like Aptheker will teach a new generation their hard-won lessons, will open their minds to bold ideas and will question old realities that are not as unbreakable as they might appear. Universities, far from assuaging that constant fear, should fight to make it a reality.

Anything less belittles the very point of a university education.

The expression “stay woke” started out as an affirmation for African Americans.

In the last decade it has been used by some Republicans — and some Democrats — as a pejorative for people thought to be too “politically correct,” another term that took on negative connotations as it gained wider use.

“Woke” has come up in cultural and political firestorms. Eight months into his second term, President Trump pledged to review content at the Smithsonian Institution for being “WOKE” and where “everything discussed is how horrible our Country is, how bad Slavery was.” At the beginning of this year, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott declared in his State of the State address that government would keep “woke agendas” out of universities and K-12 schools, including “woke gender ideologies.”

On Tuesday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said he was ending the “woke” culture in the military, saying the service has been hamstrung by political correctness. He referenced diversity efforts, transgender troops, environmental policies and other disciplinary rules.

“America is no longer woke under President Trump’s leadership. The word ‘woke’ represents radical ideologies that are used [to] divide the American people and harm our country,” Liz Huston, a White House spokesperson, said in a statement.

Here’s where “woke” came from, and how its meaning has evolved:

The history of ‘woke’

“Wokeness” originated decades ago as African American cultural slang for having awareness and enlightenment around racism, injustice, privilege or threats of white supremacist violence.

Several historians trace the idea to a 1923 compilation of speeches and articles by Jamaican-born Black nationalist Marcus Garvey. In one essay, Garvey writes “Wake up Ethiopia! Wake up Africa!” Another reference appears in 1938 in the song “Scottsboro Boys,” by blues artist Lead Belly, whose real name was Huddie Ledbetter. The tune follows the true story of four Black youths unjustly convicted by an all-white jury of the rape of two white women (they were later freed). The lyrics warn Black listeners to be careful and “stay woke. Keep your eyes open.”

Gerald McWorter, a professor emeritus of African American studies and of information sciences at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, says “woke” was about having a voice after hundreds of years of Black suffering going back to the African slave trade.

The phrase also popped up in a 1962 essay by novelist William Melvin Kelley for the New York Times. The headline — “If You’re Woke, You Dig It.” Kelley’s widow and daughter believe he heard the term while walking around their Harlem neighborhood, said Elijah Watson, a pop culture writer and editor who has written about Kelley, who died in 2017.

‘Woke’ reawakening

In the 21st century, singer-songwriter Erykah Badu is often credited with reviving the term “woke.” Her song “Master Teacher” on her 2008 album, “New Amerykah: Part One,” includes the refrain “I stay woke.” Badu picked up the phrase from co-writer and producer Georgia Anne Muldrow, who heard it from a saxophone player she collaborated with — Lakecia Benjamin.

The 2014 fatal shooting by a white police officer of 18-year-old Michael Brown — who was Black and unarmed — in Ferguson, Mo., made “woke” and “stay woke” galvanizing pledges in the growing Black Lives Matter movement.

The movement drew support from other racial groups. “Woke” also became popularized by white liberals who wanted to show they were allies.

The war on woke

The backlash against “woke” and “wokeness” bubbled up in the 2010s, amid discussions about including more Black history in American history lessons. Many people said that bringing “critical race theory” to schools was meant to program children to feel guilty for being white.

This argument became front and center in 2022 when Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the “Stop W.O.K.E. Act” into law. It banned teaching or business practices on race and gender. (The law is now on hold after a federal judge deemed it unconstitutional).

For George Pearson, a former chair of the Illinois Black Republican Coalition, “woke” is a hollow word.

Democratic politicians who purport to be “champions” of wokeness and DEI have done little for Black people, he said. So, “woke” has no sway as a rallying cry. He also thinks it’s unfair that those who do not support “woke-ism” are told “’you’re racist. You’re a homophobe. You’re a bigot.”

Even among liberal Black Americans, there is a debate whether the intention of “woke” does more harm than good.

Who says woke now?

In Watson’s experience, “woke” is no longer part of Black vernacular. If he hears it from anyone in his social circles, it’s almost always said “in jest.”

Some progressives are trying to take the word back. Academy Award-winning actor and activist Jane Fonda brought up being “woke” while receiving the Screen Actors Guild lifetime achievement award in front of an A-list audience.

“Make no mistake, empathy is not weak or woke. By the way, woke just means you give a damn about other people,” Fonda said.

Seena Hodges started her own business as a DEI strategist for individuals and groups in 2018 and called it the Woke Coach. She and her team consult on everything from workplace interactions to best recruiting practices. She touches on inclusion for groups from people of color to breastfeeding mothers.

The “bastardization” of “woke” and DEI as words akin to slurs doesn’t bother her, she said. To her, at its core being “woke” is about awareness.

“What it really boils down to is helping people develop a more acute level of emotional intelligence,” she said.

Tang writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Christopher Megerian in Washington contributed to this report.

Linfield have reached the second round of the BetMcLean Cup with a 2-0 win over Queen’s University at Windsor Park.

Chris McKee, who had an early effort ruled out, opened the scoring when he headed home Charlie Allen’s cross in the 18th minute.

Queen’s University, who have impressed since they earned promotion to the Championship, had a chance to equalise when Tommy Smyth’s header forced David Walsh into a save.

McKee struck the woodwork shortly before the interval but Matt Yates added a second for David Healy’s side in the 51st minute from Sam Taylor’s cross.

Holders Cliftonville take on Coagh United in one of 14 first round ties on Tuesday, 7 October, while Ards’ tie with Dungannon Swifts completes the last 32 on Wednesday, 8 October.

In a change for this year’s competition, the winners of the BetMcLean Cup will automatically go into the Irish Premiership’s European play-off final from next season.

Robert Barnett, a Washington attorney who represented powerful politicians and many of the biggest stars in TV news business, died Friday after a long, unspecified illness. He was 79.

Barnett’s death in a Washington hospital was confirmed by his wife, retired CBS News correspondent Rita Braver.

A longtime partner at the Washington law firm Williams & Connolly, Barnett was the go-to lawyer for politicians and public officials moving into private life. He helped procure multimillion-dollar book contracts for former Presidents Obama, Clinton and George W. Bush.

Barnett was a Democratic political insider as well. He would play opposing candidates in mock debates to help prepare the presidential tickets of Al Gore and Joe Lieberman in 2000, John Kerry and John Edwards in 2004, Hillary Clinton when she first ran for president in 2008, and Democratic vice presidential nominee Geraldine Ferraro in 1984.

“I baited [Ferraro] a lot and she got so angry with me that she frequently walked over to me and slugged me on the arm,” Barnett told CNN in 2008. “So I left the process black and blue.”

Barnett was also Bill Clinton’s debate sparring partner during the 1992 presidential campaign. He also advised the Clintons when White House aide and family friend Vince Foster killed himself in 1993 and when the world learned that Bill Clinton had an affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.

Barnett’s TV news client list included former NBC News anchor Brian Williams, “60 Minutes” correspondent Lesley Stahl, CNN’s Sanjay Gupta, Chris Wallace, NBC News correspondent Andrea Mitchell, and Jesse Watters and Peter Doocy at Fox News. He also represented his wife, whom he married in 1972.

Barnett also navigated Ann Curry’s messy exit from NBC’s “Today” in 2012.

As an attorney, Barnett was known for his ability to come up with deals tailored to the needs of his clients.

“Many of these people who come out of government have an enormous number of offers,” Barnett told the Financial Times in 2008. “The first thing we do is sit down and say: ‘What are your goals? Do you want to live here or there? You wanna make money or have fun?’”

One reason many clients gravitated to Barnett is that, unlike agents, he did not take a commission. They paid a high hourly rate for his services, not the traditional agent fees of 10% to 15% of salaries or book advances.

Barnett’s clients believed he gave them 100% regardless of their stature.

“Bob represented me in my negotiations with ABC and made me feel just as important as his more celebrated clients,” retired correspondent Judy Muller wrote on Facebook. “A really decent, smart man.”

The sentiment was shared by CBS News Executive Editor Susan Zirinsky.

“Every person who worked with Bob knew their secrets were safe,” Zirinsky said in an interview. “He was the ultimate protector.”

Barnett also drew praise from the companies that paid the lucrative contracts for his TV clients.

“His pristine integrity, wise counsel and knowledge of our business were an invaluable resource to me over the course of our 30-year relationship,” Suzanne Scott, chief executive of Fox News Media, said in a statement.

Barnett also represented bestselling authors James Patterson and Mary Higgins Clark.

Barnett was born in Waukegan, Ill., where his father operated the local Social Security office and his mother worked part time in a department store. He majored in political science at the University of Wisconsin and received a law degree from the University of Chicago.

He moved to Washington in the early 1970s. He clerked for Supreme Court Justice Byron White and worked as an aide to then-Sen. Walter Mondale of Minnesota. He joined Williams & Connolly in 1975, and was made a partner three years later.

In addition to his wife, he is survived by a daughter, Meredith Barnett; a sister; and three grandchildren.

The Los Angeles Film School is at the center of a whistleblower lawsuit from two former executives who allege the institution unlawfully collected government funds in an elaborate accreditation scheme.

Dave Phillips and Ben Chaib, the school’s former VP of career development and VP of admissions, respectively, allege in a federal lawsuit that the L.A. Film School violated federal employment requirements and accrediting standards. The lawsuit also names LAFS’ Florida counterpart Full Sail University, its main owner James Heavener and two other business partners as defendants.

The lawsuit, originally filed in L.A. federal court in June 2024, was recently unsealed after the Department of Justice opted to not investigate.

Representatives of LAFS could not be immediately reached for comment but have previously denied the claims.

In statement to Variety last week the school’s attorneys said that Phillips and Chaib are attempting “to resuscitate time-barred and erroneous allegations, which were already thoroughly investigated and settled by the Department of Education.”

For a university to be accredited and receive federal funding, the accreditation criteria state that a school must successfully instruct 70% of its students to land and hold jobs for which they are trained. The plaintiffs argue that graduates from the film school are unable to receive entry-level positions, citing an internal report which shows that most graduates earn $5,000 or less in their field of study. Only 20% of students were able to find work, the suit alleges.

LAFS receives over $85 million a year in federal financial assistance, including about $60 million in federal student loans, and more than $19 million in veterans’ financial aid funds. The Winter Park, Fla.-located Full Sail University, which teaches curriculum in entertainment-adjacent fields, also gets over $377 million per year in federal financial assistance, according to the complaint.

“For at least the last ten years, nearly all federal funds bestowed upon and taken in resulted from fraud with the institution using taxpayer funds to finance and facilitate multiple, temporary employment positions for LAFS graduates,” the lawsuit states.

Seeking to continue collecting government funds, the university is alleged to have spent nearly $1 million (between 2010 and 2017) to provide temporary employment from nonprofits and paid-off vendors. These jobs would usually last two days; LAFS would determine who would be hired, their schedule and wage. Students were led to believe these opportunities were “in-house production opportunities” and “post-graduate apprenticeships,” but instead, they were schemes planned and paid for by the school to remain an accredited university, according to the lawsuit.

Federal law prohibits higher education from “provid[ing] any commission, bonus, or other incentive payment based directly or indirectly on success in securing enrollments.” When LAFS was audited in 2017, the plaintiffs further allege that the school misled the Department of Education auditors, denied the existence of the incentive compensation system and failed to disclose their connection to vendors.

Beyond collecting these federal funds, the former executives argue that the school misled students and potential enrollees by overstating the availability of jobs and making untrue or misleading statements related to employment.

LAFS was created in 1999 and is located on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood. It offers a variety of bachelor’s and associate degrees in areas including film, film production and animation, with tuition ranging between $40,000 and $80,000.

Both plaintiffs, Phillips and Chaib, worked at the film school for 12 years and were members of the senior executive team. Phillips’ contract was not renewed in 2022.

The Accrediting Commission of Career Schools and Colleges recently renewed the school’s accreditation in 2023 for a five-year period.

One UCLA football legend sat across from the other, lamenting how far their beloved program had fallen.

On one side was Rick Neuheisel, a onetime Rose Bowl most valuable player and Bruins head coach, wondering aloud whether his alma mater had put itself in position to pick a strong successor to the recently dismissed DeShaun Foster.

“Is there confidence in the current athletic director when there’s been swing-and-misses,” Neuheisel asked, “or do you need to go find somebody else?”

On the other side of the CBS Sports studio roundtable was Randy Cross, a former All-America offensive lineman and three-time Super Bowl champion so angry about the state of the Bruins that his voice rose as he spoke.

“UCLA is clueless, they’re rudderless, they’re leaderless and it’s been decades since they had anybody there that had a freaking clue as to, A, what they want to do and, two, how they’re going to do it,” Cross said. “It sounds simple — there isn’t a better school in America to go to than UCLA — but that athletic department is a joke led by the football team.”

Theirs weren’t the only critical voices.

National college football writers and other pundits tweeted about the athletic department’s massive deficit, meager NIL resources and failed leadership. An online petition that called for athletic director Martin Jarmond’s resignation or removal generated more than 750 signatures as of Sunday evening.

Some of the fire has been friendly. Roughly 100 former UCLA football players met with Jarmond via Zoom to vent their frustrations about a variety of topics, including the need to get back to the days when football was a top priority at the school.

As UCLA commences a hiring process that will likely last until at least November, one of its biggest hurdles might be a perception problem. Its athletic department has been labeled as impoverished and directionless, with Jarmond squarely in the crosshairs of most detractors.

UCLA athletic director Martin Jarmond.

(Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)

Many have questioned whether Jarmond should be involved in selecting Foster’s replacement after so badly whiffing on his hiring. A former position coach who had never run an offense or a defense, much less a team, Foster compiled a 5-10 record that included back-to-back losses to Mountain West Conference opponents before his dismissal three games into his second season.

“The puzzle doesn’t fit together,” said one veteran agent who works in the NIL space, speaking on condition of anonymity so that he could share his thoughts on the situation candidly. “It’s like, the bad AD hires the coach and they get rid of the coach but they still have the bad AD.”

UCLA chancellor Julio Frenk affirmed Jarmond’s standing in what amounted to a vote of confidence, saying in a statement provided to The Times last week that the athletic director would “oversee the process of hiring a new head coach who will elevate UCLA football to national prominence.”

In announcing a search committee that would assist him in making that hire, Jarmond said he was convening a group of accomplished sports and business executives and UCLA greats that would be revealed once finalized.

The agent who spoke with The Times said having a committee of respected names with UCLA ties such as football legend Troy Aikman, sports executive Casey Wasserman and former Golden State Warriors general manager and Washington Commanders consultant Bob Myers could elevate the Bruins’ prospects of finding a top-level coach.

“The more heavyweights involved, definitely more people might come to the table who wouldn’t otherwise come to the table and then they can try to convince them,” the agent said. “But then you have a lot of chefs in the kitchen picking, and they can’t get it wrong this time.”

The candidates will presumably have more questions than how much they would be getting paid. What does UCLA define as football success — eight-win seasons or reaching the College Football Playoff? What resources will they commit? How firm is Jarmond’s footing inside his department? How will the school bolster its NIL program to be competitive with top counterparts around the country?

Discussions about the school’s complex finances could take up a good chunk of any meeting.

The widely circulated figure of UCLA’s athletic department running a combined $219.55-million deficit over the last six fiscal years doesn’t fully reveal the financial situation. That tab has been covered in full by the university, bringing the balance to zero, thanks in part to $30 million in direct institutional support in the most recent fiscal year.

The university’s forgiving stance has been taken, in part, because a significant chunk of athletic department revenue is diverted to several other business units on campus, including the recreation department, parking, housing, food and Associated Students UCLA, which benefits from long-held trademark and licensing agreements.

That hasn’t stopped the Bruins from making significant investments in football, mostly thanks to an infusion of cash from their Big Ten media rights deal. The team spent $2.9 million to install new grass and artificial turf practice fields while also renovating the weight room inside its relatively new practice facility. A locker room renovation is in the works.

This summer, UCLA paid to hold its 18-day training camp in Costa Mesa. The team has also spent untold millions on food, travel, biometrics and mental health services while also upgrading the infrastructure of its football staff, including general manager and assistant general manager positions and expanded coaching, analytics and recruiting departments.

UCLA committed the maximum $20.5 million for revenue sharing with its athletes, earmarking an estimated $15 million or so for football players. The team also poured millions into NIL deals consummated before the House settlement so that players could benefit prior to the NCAA’s clearinghouse, NIL Go, going into effect July 1.

But how sustainable is that kind of spending?

In May, the UCLA Academic Senate’s executive board sent a letter to Frenk and Darnell Hunt, the executive vice chancellor and provost, outlining “profound concern” related to the athletic department deficit at a time of anticipated budget cuts for academic departments.

“We have been told that financial sacrifices are necessary to ensure that there is a UCLA in the future,” the letter stated. “How can austerity of this magnitude be imposed on the core academic mission while athletics spending goes unchecked?”

Fans attend the UCLA season opener against Utah at the Rose Bowl on Aug. 30.

(Mark J. Terrill / Associated Press)

The letter went on to note that Jarmond received a contract extension paying him more than $1.5 million annually despite never operating his department with less than a $20-million annual deficit. It also detailed several ways in which the athletic department’s roughly $80-million deficit for the most recent fiscal year (not counting the $30-million lifeline from the university) could be used to support academics, including covering nearly all in-state tuition for every doctoral student.

“All of these potential uses would directly support the academic mission in austere times,” the letter said. “Yet the money is instead being directed to bail out a non-academic department that consistently demonstrates poor fiscal management.”

The senate ended its letter by requesting, among other things, immediate assurance that campus would no longer subsidize the athletic department in any form, including providing or authorizing loans. What was Frenk’s response?

Megan M. McEvoy, the academic senate chair for the 2025-26 school year who is also a UCLA professor of microbiology, immunology and molecular genetics, told The Times that the academic senate did not receive a reply and its concerns are ongoing.

But any pressure to save will undoubtedly be offset by calls to spend.

During a discussion of the coaching openings at UCLA and Virginia Tech on ESPN’s “College GameDay” on Saturday, reporter Pete Thamel noted that the Hokies were adding $50 million to their athletic department budget to display their commitment to winning at the highest level.

Host Rece Davis wryly added that of the two schools, Virginia Tech was the one that knew what needed to be done.

The agent who spoke with The Times said that UCLA’s best move might be to hire a coach from a lower-level conference who could bring a good chunk of his roster with him like Curt Cignetti did as part of his transition from James Madison to Indiana. In his first season with the Hoosiers, Cignetti won 11 games and took his team to the College Football Playoff.

“If you bring in a guy from Tulane, where those players don’t make as much [in NIL] as what UCLA has to pay,” the agent said, “you can just get it all done in a one-stop shop, so that’s a very interesting dynamic. I don’t think an A-lister [at a bigger school] can really build it as fast as the B-plus guy because the B-plus guy can bring players from his school right now.”

That’s assuming, of course, that the B-plus guy takes UCLA’s call.