AP News in Brief at 12:04 a.m. EDT

Tension grows on UCLA campus as police order dispersal of large pro-Palestinian gathering

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Law enforcement on the UCLA campus donned riot gear Wednesday evening as they ordered the dispersal of over a thousand people who had gathered in support of a pro-Palestinian student encampment, warning over loudspeakers that anyone who refused to leave could face arrest.

A large crowd of students, alumni and neighbors gathered on campus steps outside the barricaded area of tents, sitting as they listened and applauded various speakers and joined in pro-Palestinian chants. Overheard television cameras showed students in the barricaded area passing out goggles and helmets, as well as setting up medical aid stations. A small group of students holding signs and wearing T-shirts in support of Israel and Jewish people gathered nearby.

The law enforcement presence and continued warnings stood in contrast to the scene that unfolded the night before, when counter-demonstrators attacked the pro-Palestinian encampment, throwing traffic cones, releasing pepper spray and tearing down barriers. Fighting continued for several hours before police stepped in, and no one was arrested. At least 15 protesters suffered injuries, and the tepid response by authorities drew criticism from political leaders as well as Muslim students and advocacy groups.

Ray Wiliani, who lives nearby, said he came to UCLA on Wednesday evening to support the pro-Palestinian demonstrators.

“We need to take a stand for it,” he said. “Enough is enough.”

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Columbia University student journalists had an up-close view for days of drama

Student journalists on the Columbia University campus knew what was coming long before police with riot shields arrived to begin arresting the pro-Palestinian protesters.

They had watched the situation spiral as the protesters stood their ground, refusing to abandon Hamilton Hall and using a pulley system to bring supplies into the building they had occupied.

The reporters, working for university and online U.S. and international publications, suspected negotiations with administrators were going nowhere when the protesters began donning COVID-era masks to hide their identifies. Some began sleeping on the floor in journalism classrooms or offices out of fear of missing something.

But when a journalism professor began writing the phone number to call if they were arrested in permanent marker on their arms, that was the moment it became clear: They were capturing history.

The police operation Tuesday night that cleared out Hamilton Hall capped two weeks of drama over the protests at Columbia, which student journalists at the Ivy League school lived through as they were covering it.

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A retired teacher saw inspiration in Columbia’s protests. Eric Adams called her an outside agitator

NEW YORK (AP) — Before police officers poured into Columbia University on Tuesday night, arresting more than 100 people as they cleared an occupied school building and tent encampment, New York City Mayor Eric Adams said he received a piece of intelligence that shifted his thinking about the campus demonstrations over the war in Gaza.

“Outside agitators” working to “radicalize our children” were leading students into more extreme tactics, the mayor said. And one of them, Adams said repeatedly in media appearances Wednesday morning, was a woman whose husband was “convicted for terrorism.”

But the woman referenced by the mayor wasn’t on Columbia’s campus this week, isn’t among the protesters who were arrested and has not been accused of any crime.

Nahla Al-Arian, 63, told The Associated Press on Wednesday that Adams had misstated both her role in the protests and the facts about her husband, Sami Al-Arian, a former computer engineering professor and prominent Palestinian activist.

He was arrested in 2003 on charges of supporting the Palestinian Islamic Jihad group in the 1980s and 1990s, but a jury declined to convict him of any charges. The complicated case remained in legal limbo for years, even after he took a plea deal on a lesser charge that his family said he accepted to get out of jail and end their suffering. He was deported to Turkey in 2015, ending a case seen by some as an example of excessive government overreach.

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Highway collapse in southern China kills at least 36 people

BEIJING (AP) — A section of a highway collapsed after heavy rains in a mountainous area in southern China, sending cars tumbling down a slope and leaving at least 36 people dead, authorities said Thursday.

The Meizhou city government said that 23 vehicles have been found after a 17.9-meter (58.7-foot) long section of the highway gave way about 2 a.m. on Wednesday. Thirty other people had injuries, none of them life-threatening, a government statement said.

The search effort was complicated by steady rain, gravel and soil coming down at the site, posing some risk to the workers, a fire department official told Chinese media.

Rescue teams divided the area into 10 grids and searched with dogs and life-detecting devices, the report said. Excavators and cranes were also brought in to help.

The collapse left a barren scar down a steep slope in an otherwise verdant green forested area. Witnesses told local media they heard a loud noise and saw a wide hole open up behind them after driving past the section just before it collapsed.

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Blinken presses Hamas to seal cease-fire with Israel, says ‘the time is now’ for a deal

JERUSALEM (AP) — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken hiked up pressure on Hamas on Wednesday to accept the latest proposal for a cease-fire with Israel, saying the “time is now” for an agreement that would free hostages and pause the nearly seven months of war in Gaza.

But a key sticking point appeared to remain — whether the deal would completely end Israel’s offensive as Hamas has demanded.

Blinken met with Israeli leaders throughout the day on the last stop of his seventh visit to the region since the war erupted in October, trying to push through what has been an elusive deal between Israel and Hamas. The U.S. and fellow mediators Egypt and Qatar hope to avert an Israeli offensive into the southern Gaza town of Rafah, where some 1.4 million Palestinians are sheltering.

Throughout months of talks, Hamas has said the freeing of all the hostages it holds must bring a permanent halt to the war and the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza.

The proposed deal now at the center of talks raises that possibility, according to leaked details that were confirmed by an Egyptian official and a Hamas official. But Hamas is seeking to strengthen the language to ensure a complete withdrawal of Israeli troops from the entire Gaza Strip, the Egyptian official said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the internal negotiations. The group said it is likely to give its response to the proposal on Thursday.

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Arizona lawmakers vote to undo near-total abortion ban from 1864, with Gov. Hobbs expected to sign

PHOENIX (AP) — The Arizona Legislature approved a repeal of a long-dormant ban on nearly all abortions Wednesday, sending the bill to Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs, who is expected to sign it.

Two Republicans joined with Democrats in the Senate on the 16-14 vote in favor of repealing a Civil War-era ban on abortions that the state’s highest court recently allowed to take effect. The ban on all abortions — which provides no exceptions for survivors of rape or incest, and only allows for procedures done to save a patient’s life — would still be active until the fall.

Hobbs said in a statement that she looks forward to quickly signing the repeal, with a ceremony scheduled for Thursday.

“Arizona women should not have to live in a state where politicians make decisions that should be between a woman and her doctor,” Hobbs said. “While this repeal is essential for protecting women’s lives, it is just the beginning of our fight to protect reproductive healthcare.”

The revival of the 19th century law has put Republicans on the defensive in Arizona, one of a handful of battleground states that will decide the next president.

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Police killed student outside Wisconsin school after reports of someone with a weapon, official says

MOUNT HOREB, Wis. (AP) — Police shot and killed a student outside a Wisconsin middle school Wednesday after receiving a report of someone with a weapon, the state’s attorney general said in the first law enforcement briefing on gunshots that sent children fleeing and prompted an hourslong lockdown of local schools.

Authorities had previously said an active shooter who never got inside the building was “neutralized” outside Mount Horeb Middle School. State Attorney General Josh Kaul told reporters Wednesday evening no one else was harmed and that an investigation is ongoing.

“This incident took place outdoors. The subject in this case never gained entry,” he said.

Authorities described the student as a juvenile male but didn’t provide an age or indicate which of the Mount Horeb district’s schools he attended.

Kaul declined to answer several questions about what happened once police responded, including whether the student had fired a weapon, what type of weapon he had, and whether he tried to get inside the school. Authorities said multiple Mount Horeb officers, wearing body cameras, had fired weapons but they did not say how many.

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Trump calls judge ‘crooked’ after facing a warning of jail time if he violates a trial gag order

FREELAND, Mich. (AP) — Donald Trump returned briefly to the campaign trail Wednesday and called the judge presiding over his hush money trial “crooked” a day after he was held in contempt of court and threatened with jail time for violating a gag order.

Trump’s remarks at events in the battleground states of Wisconsin and Michigan were being closely watched after he received a $9,000 fine for making public statements about people connected to the criminal case. In imposing the fine for posts on Trump’s Truth Social account and campaign website, Judge Juan M. Merchan said that if Trump continued to violate his orders, he would “impose an incarceratory punishment.”

“There is no crime. I have a crooked judge. He’s a totally conflicted judge,” Trump said speaking to supporters at an event in Waukesha, Wisconsin, claiming again that this and other cases against him are led by the White House to undermine his campaign.

The former president is trying to achieve a balancing act unprecedented in American history by running for a second term as the presumptive Republican nominee while also fighting felony charges in New York. Trump frequently goes after Merchan, prosecutors and potential witnesses at his rallies and on social media, attack lines that play well with his supporters but that have potentially put him in further legal jeopardy.

Later at a rally in Freeland, Michigan, he said he was being forced to spend days in a “kangaroo court room,” and claimed without evidence the district attorney was taking orders from the Biden administration.

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Federal Reserve says interest rates will stay at two-decade high until inflation further cools

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Federal Reserve on Wednesday emphasized that inflation has remained stubbornly high in recent months and said it doesn’t plan to cut interest rates until it has “greater confidence” that price increases are slowing sustainably to its 2% target.

The Fed issued its decision in a statement after its latest meeting, at which it kept its key rate at a two-decade high of roughly 5.3%. Several hotter-than-expected reports on prices and economic growth have recently undercut the Fed’s belief that inflation was steadily easing. The combination of high interest rates and persistent inflation has also emerged as a potential threat to President Joe Biden’s re-election bid.

“In recent months,” Chair Jerome Powell said at a news conference, “inflation has shown a lack of further progress toward our 2% objective.”

“It is likely that gaining greater confidence,” he added, “will take longer than previously expected.”

Powell did strike a note of optimism about inflation. Despite the recent setbacks, he said, “My expectation is that over the course of this year, we will see inflation move back down.”

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‘A step back in time’: America’s Catholic Church sees an immense shift toward the old ways

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — It was the music that changed first. Or maybe that’s just when many people at the pale brick Catholic church in the quiet Wisconsin neighborhood finally began to realize what was happening.

The choir director, a fixture at St. Maria Goretti for nearly 40 years, was suddenly gone. Contemporary hymns were replaced by music rooted in medieval Europe.

So much was changing. Sermons were focusing more on sin and confession. Priests were rarely seen without cassocks. Altar girls, for a time, were banned.

At the parish elementary school, students began hearing about abortion and hell.

“It was like a step back in time,” said one former parishioner, still so dazed by the tumultuous changes that began in 2021 with a new pastor that he only spoke on condition of anonymity.

The Associated Press