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Sept. 8 (UPI) — NASA on Monday announced its 2026 Lunabotics challenge that seeks a team or person to create a robot able to move about and build things on the moon’s surface.

The challenge comes as the space agency gears up for future lunar activity as part of its Artemis program.

NASA officials said its annual challenge — held since 2010 — is one of several student challenges associated with Artemis, and that next year’s event seeks mechanical robots with an ability to construct berms out of lunar regolith by using loose, fragmental material found on the moon’s surface.

“We are excited to continue the Lunabotics competition for universities as NASA develops new moon-to-Mars technologies for the Artemis program,” Robert Mueller, senior technologist at NASA, said in a statement.

Officials at America’s space agency said berms will be critical during lunar missions as blast protection during landings and launches. They added that, among other uses, berms also will play a role in shading for cryogenic propellant tank farms and radiation shielding around nuclear power plants.

“Excavating and moving regolith is a fundamental need to build infrastructure on the moon and Mars, and this competition creates 21st century skills in the future workforce,” said Mueller, also co-founder and chief judge of the Lunabotics competition.

NASA said the competition will provide hands-on experiences in computer coding, engineering, manufacturing, fabricating and other crucial tech skills.

Officials will notify selected teams to begin the challenge, the top 10 teams will be invited to bring their robot creations to the final competition in Florida in May at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex’s Artemis Arena.

The team scoring the most points will receive the Lunabotics Grand Prize and participate in an exhibition-style event at NASA Kennedy.

An in-person qualifying event will be held May 12-17 at the University of Central Florida’s Space Institute’s Lab in Orlando.

The NASA challenge launched Monday comes after last week’s announcement that a separate NASA competition is seeking a special space wheel in a design by an American inventor or team.

Meanwhile, interested participants can submit applications via NASA’s portal starting Monday and find other information in the challenge guidebook.

The University of California’s top leader has raised the “distinct possibility” that financial losses due to the Trump administration’s funding cuts could amount to billions of dollars and extend beyond UCLA to the entire 10-campus system, telling state legislators Wednesday that “the stakes are high and the risks are very real.”

In a letter to dozens of lawmakers obtained by The Times, UC President James B. Milliken said the university is facing “one of the gravest threats in UC’s 157-year history” after the Trump administration cut off more than $500 million in grants to UCLA before demanding a $1.2-billion fine over allegations of campus antisemitism.

Milliken outlined the potential losses at the nation’s preeminent public university system under Trump’s higher education agenda in his strongest and most detailed public words since starting the job Aug. 1, days after funding troubles hit UCLA.

UC “receives over $17 billion per year from the federal government — $9.9 billion in Medicare and Medicaid funding, $5.7 billion in research funding, and $1.9 billion in student financial aid per year,” Milliken wrote in the letter addressed to Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), chair of the Joint Legislative Budget Committee. If such funds were lost, Milliken wrote, “we would need at least $4-5 billion per year to minimize the damage.”

“A substantial loss of federal funding would devastate our university and cause enormous harm to our students, our patients, and all Californians. Classes and student services would be reduced, patients would be turned away, tens of thousands of jobs would be lost, and we would see UC’s world-renowned researchers leaving our state for other more seemingly stable opportunities in the US or abroad.”

Milliken, who met with lawmakers in Sacramento last month, penned his message in response to an Aug. 31 letter from Wiener and 33 other legislators, who urged UC leaders to “not to back down in the face of this political shakedown” from President Trump, whose actions the lawmakers said were “an extortion attempt and a page out of the authoritarian playbook.”

In a statement about the letter, a UC spokesperson said the university “is committed to working with leaders in Sacramento and across the country to ensure we have the resources we need to continue generating jobs, life-changing discoveries, and economic opportunity in the face of historic challenges.”

In addition to grant cuts and the $1.2-billion fine demand from UCLA, the Trump administration has also proposed sweeping changes at the Westwood campus. They include the release of detailed admissions data — the government accuses UCLA of illegally considering race when awarding seats — restrictions on protests, and an end to race-related scholarships and diversity hiring programs. The Department of Justice has also called for a ban on gender-affirming care for minors at UCLA healthcare systems.

The Trump administration accuses UCLA of violating civil rights law by not taking antisemitism seriously. Although there have been complaints of antisemitism on campus since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel and Israel’s ensuing war in Gaza, a number of influential faculty members, staff and students, including many in the Jewish campus community, have said UCLA has made progress on addressing the campus climate.

“Free speech, academic freedom, scientific research, and democracy are values that have led to Jewish flourishing. These attacks on California, on our immigrant communities, on science, and on LGBTQ people stand in stark contrast to Jewish values,” Wiener wrote in the letter whose signatories included members of California Legislative Jewish Caucus, of which Weiner is co-chair.

Wiener’s letter urged UC leaders to fight the government’s demands as the university negotiates with the DOJ.

“Acceding to these reprehensible demands won’t stabilize the UC system; it will betray our values of protecting and celebrating our most vulnerable communities. Giving in will only encourage further unconstitutional behavior by this administration,” said the letter, addressed to Milliken, the UC Board of Regents and UCLA Chancellor Julio Frenk.

“Concessions by UCLA would establish a damaging precedent for extorting public schools in states with leadership that does not bow down to this President,” Wiener and others wrote, who described federal demands as “extortion,” echoing statements by Gov. Gavin Newsom.

“We must resist Trump’s extortion to protect public higher education, the economy, our students and California’s values,” the lawmakers wrote.

Although the university has engaged with the Trump administration to restore UCLA funding, no settlement has been reached and there is a wide gulf between the two sides on what terms would be acceptable.

Newsom has called the government’s proposed fine “ransom,” saying he wants UC to sue the administration and not “bend the knee” to Trump.

But the decision over a lawsuit rests with the independent UC Board of Regents. The governor has appointed many but not all of the regents and sits as a voting member on the 24-person board. Newsom can exercise political sway over its moves but, aside from his vote, has no formal power over the body’s decisions.

SACRAMENTO — Responding to the Trump administration’s aggressive and unceasing immigration raids in Southern California, state lawmakers this week began strengthening protections for immigrants in schools, hospitals and other areas targeted by federal agents.

The Democratic-led California Legislature is considering nearly a dozen bills aimed at shielding immigrants who are in the country illegally, including helping children of families being ripped apart in the enforcement actions.

“Californians want smart, sensible solutions and we want safe communities,” said Assemblymember Christopher Ward (D-San Diego). “They do not want peaceful neighbors ripped out of schools, ripped out of hospitals, ripped out of their workplaces.”

Earlier this week, lawmakers passed two bills focused on protecting schoolchildren.

Senate Bill 98, authored by Sen. Sasha Renée Peréz (D-Alhambra), would require school administrators to notify families and students if federal agents conduct immigration operations on a K-12 or college campus.

Legislation introduced by Assemblymember Al Muratsuchi (D-Rolling Hills Estates), AB 49, would bar immigration agents from nonpublic areas of a school unless they had a judicial warrant or court order. It also would bar school districts from providing information about pupils, their families, teachers and school employees to immigration authorities without a warrant.

A separate bill by Sen. Jesse Arreguín (D-Berkeley), SB 81, would bar healthcare officials from disclosing a patient’s immigration status or birthplace, or giving access to nonpublic spaces in hospitals and clinics, to immigration authorities without a search warrant or court order.

All three bills now head to Gov. Gavin Newsom for his consideration. If signed into law, the legislation would take effect immediately.

The school-related bills, said L.A. school board member Rocio Rivas, provide “critical protections for students, parents and families, helping ensure schools remain safe spaces where every student can learn and thrive without fear.”

Federal immigration agents have recently detained several 18-year-old high school students, including Benjamin Marcelo Guerrero-Cruz, who was picked up last month while walking his dog a few days before he started his senior year at Reseda Charter High School.

Most Republican legislators voted against the bills, but Peréz’s measure received support from two Republican lawmakers, Assemblymember Juan Alanis (R-Modesto) and state Sen. Rosilicie Ochoa Bogh (R-Yucaipa). Muratsuchi’s had support from six Republicans.

“No person should be able to go into a school and take possession of another person’s child without properly identifying themselves,” Sen. Shannon Grove (R-Bakersfield) said before voting to support the bill.

The healthcare bill follows a surge in cancellations for health appointments as immigrants stay home, fearing that if they go to a doctor or to a clinic, they could be swept up in an immigration raid.

California Nurses Assn. President Sandy Reding said that federal agents’ recent raids have disregarded “traditional safe havens” such as clinics and hospitals, and that Newsom’s approval would ensure that people who need medical treatment can “safely receive care without fear or intimidation.”

Some Republicans pushed back against the package of bills, including outspoken conservative Assemblymember Carl DeMaio (R-San Diego), who said that the raids that Democrats are “making such hay over” were triggered by the state’s “sanctuary” law passed in 2018.

The state law DeMaio attacked, SB 54, bars local law enforcement from helping enforce federal immigration laws, including arresting someone solely for having a deportation order, and from holding someone in jail for extra time so immigration agents can pick them up.

The law, criticized by President Trump and Republicans nationwide, does not prevent police from informing federal agents that someone who is in the country illegally is about to be released from custody.

“If you wanted a more orderly process for the enforcement of federal immigration rules, you’d back down from your utter failure of SB54,” DeMaio said.

Chino Valley Unified School Board President Sonja Shaw, a Trump supporter who is running for state superintendent of public instruction, said that the bills about school safety were “political theater that create fear where none is needed.”

“Schools already require proper judicial orders before allowing immigration enforcement on campus, so these bills don’t change anything,” Shaw said. “They are gaslighting families into believing that schools are unsafe, when in reality the system already protects students.”

But Muratsuchi, who is also running for superintendent, said the goal of the legislation is to ensure that districts everywhere, “including in more conservative areas,” protect their students against immigration enforcement.

A half-dozen other immigration bills are still pending in the Legislature. Lawmakers have until next Friday to send bills to Newsom’s desk before the 2025 session is adjourned.

Those include AB 495 by Assemblymember Celeste Rodriguez (D-San Fernando), which would make it easier for parents to designate caregivers who are not blood relatives — including godparents and teachers — as short-term guardians for their children. An increasing number of immigrant parents have made emergency arrangements in the event they are deported.

The bill would allow nonrelatives to make decisions such as enrolling a child in school and consenting to some medical care.

Conservatives have criticized the bill as an attack on parental rights and have said that the law could be misused by estranged family members or even sexual predators — and that current guidelines for establishing family emergency plans are adequate.

Also still pending is AB 1261, by Assemblymember Mia Bonta (D-Alameda), which would establish a right to legal representation for unaccompanied children in federal immigration court proceedings; and SB 841 by Sen. Susan Rubio (D-Baldwin Park), which would restrict access for immigration authorities at shelters for homeless people and survivors of rape, domestic violence and human trafficking.

It was as startling as seeing a bear swimming in a backyard pool.

Travis Russell, the 40-year-old Jesuit priest who’s president at Verbum Dei High, was carrying around a Craftsman tool box as if he were the school’s handyman. He pulled out a hammer to demonstrate he knows what he’s doing.

Verbum Dei president Father Travis Russell finally got around to putting up a photo of new Pope Leo XIV.

(Eric Sondheimer / Los Angeles Times)

“I had to hang up a picture of the new pope,” he said.

It’s all hands on deck at “The Verb,” a beacon of hope for many in South Los Angeles. With an enrollment of 310 students, the all-boys Catholic school in Watts has a tuition of just $4,000, with most families paying $1,200 thanks to assistance from a corporate work study program and other Catholic scholarship funds.

Once a powerhouse in basketball in the 1970s with the likes of Raymond Lewis, David Greenwood and Roy Hamilton, the school canceled its football season after four games in 2024 because of a lack of players. It was a decision made by Russell, who believed his school needed to start over.

He hired as head coach Gary Parks, who was an assistant for Verbum Dei’s 2005 championship football team and is a Verbum Dei grad. Russell hired another Verbum Dei grad, Darius Spates, to be athletic director. Parks hired five assistants who are Verbum Dei grads. Everyone decided to return to football slowly, so the team won’t play its first game this season until Oct. 19 against Belmont, then host its first home game in more than 20 years on a new grass field against Locke the following week.

The school is undergoing a $30-million reconstruction project.

“The assignment is rebuilding the legacy and tradition of Verbum Dei,” said Parks, a Baptist pastor who spent four years as head coach at Maya Angelou High until being called back to duty at The Verb.

Russell has made it clear that despite some Catholic schools using a strategy to fix sports programs quickly by turning to transfers and promises of financial breaks and other perks, he wants none of that.

“When you build for a community rather than just a school, loyalty and long-term success follow,” Russell said.

Parks wants to build with each freshman class.

“That’s what we did at Angelou,” he said. “We want you to come because Verbum Dei is a great educational institution. Football is a byproduct.”

All students participate in a corporate work study program that requires them once a week to get real work experience. Some have to show up wearing a suit and tie. They are balancing work, sports participation and school as 15-, 16- and 17-year-olds, something that prepares them for college and adulthood.

“It’s definitely going better,” said 250-pound Geovanny Gutierrez. “Last year there was no motivation to play.”

They’ve been using a synthetic turf field built by the Rams at nearby Nickerson Gardens while waiting for their new field to be finished next month. Otherwise, they work out in their weight room or asphalt next to the school parking lot.

“We’re going to make it work,” Parks said. “That’s why we don’t mind practicing on blacktop. We know what we could be.”

The program now has 26 players, including 12 freshmen. This is a program building step by step, focusing on academics during the day, study halls, then sports in the afternoon.

Adrian Alvarado was on the team last year but almost didn’t come out this year after last season’s abrupt halt.

“I felt disappointed,” he said. “I like the idea we’re starting slow. We’ve been able to recruit more students. I just want to get a game in already.”

It’s a refreshing and inspiring scene to see an administration and coaching staff on the same page by using sports to teach life lessons while not looking for shortcuts in order to win first.

Russell has never shied away from a challenge, and getting the football program back led him to say he might make a call to the Vatican with a message for Pope Leo XIV, who’s a sports fan.

“I’ll invite him to a game here,” he said.

Welcome to the new Verbum Dei, full of hope, full of dreams, full of respect for its families and community.

A young woman has opened up about her ‘hilarious’ experience of being the only international student and ‘the British girl’ in a sorority at a university in the US

It’s the classic scene we see in all the films – a student heads off to college in America, moves into a dorm room, plays sport, attends ‘frat parties’, or joins a sorority. On the big screen, it all looks a lot more glamorous than the debauched Freshers’ Week parties we have here in the UK.

But what are sororities and the American college system actually like in reality? Thankfully, a British woman called Angel has shed light on this by sharing her experiences at Arizona State University, in Georgia. She attended from 2019 to 2023 – and during that time, she was “most known for being the British sorority girl”.

She told her TikTok followers: “Being an international student in a sorority is quite hilarious because you have no idea what’s going on ever… like at all.”

Acclimatising was also tricky because Angel was the only fully international student in her sorority, whereas the fraternities boasted significantly more in 2019.

However, being British worked in her favour when it came to joining. That’s because her Britishness helped her to stand out among those around her. What’s more, it made it easy to make friends and have something to talk about.

Angel said: “I was the British girl to everyone in the house and I love it, it made it easy, comfortable, it was great.”

After being accepted into the sorority, members tried to pair Angel with people who she had things in common with. However, this backfired.

Amusingly, some thought she was from London in Canada. And as a result, she got paired up with a number of Canadians!

The closest connection Angel was able to find were people with distant British relatives – or simply people who had been to the UK on holiday.

Angel said: “[They] had like been there once or their great grandad was British… That was hard because no one really was an international student like I was.”

Another challenge was the former ASU student had to miss some sorority events before the university year began – as she hadn’t moved over to the US yet.

She said: “I had my flight book nine months before because it was so expensive so I missed a lot of stuff, but they were really understanding about that.”

And ultimately, joining late didn’t mean she missed out on making friends. In fact, that’s her favourite part of the whole sorority experience.

If her college mates come over to Europe, they now message her asking to meet up. Angel added: “They know I will happily take them around London and show them around, everyone knows that.”

Summing up her whole experience in the comments section, Angel admitted it did live up to her expectations from watching American TV shows and films.

She concluded: “In a nutshell in was like the movies to a point.”

Getting into a US university

British students can attend universities in the US by submitting applications to individual colleges.

According to the Institute of International Education (IIE), more than 1,057,000 international students were enrolled at US institutions during the 2024/25 academic year. This includes more than 10,500 from the UK.

As well as sororities and fraternities, there are many differences between UK and US universities.

American university campuses often resemble small towns. Plus, a Bachelors degree typically takes four years to complete – one year longer than in the UK.

Another thing to note is that you will not pick a subject you want to study when applying. Instead, you will spend one or two years exploring a range of subjects, known as general education.

These courses, often called ‘electives,’ span disciplines such as humanities, sciences, and social sciences. Students then choose a ‘major’, which is your main area of study.

WASHINGTON — The street, normally quiet, was abuzz. The block lit up with flashing police cruisers and officers in tactical vests. Some had covered their faces. Neighbors came out of homes. Some hurled insults at the police, telling them to leave — or worse. Dozens joined in a chant: “Shame on you.”

Aaron Goldstein approached two officers. “Can you tell me why you couldn’t do this at 10:30 or 9:30, and why you had to terrorize the children in our neighborhood?” the man asked the officers as they turned their gazes away from him. Both wore dark sunglasses against the morning sun.

They said nothing.

The arrest shattered the routine of the neighborhood around Bancroft Elementary School, a public school where more than 60% of students are Latino. It came on the third day of a new school year, and immigration fears had already left the neighborhood on edge. Groups of residents had started escorting students to school from two nearby apartment complexes.

It was just another morning in Washington, D.C., in Summer 2025 — the summer of President Trump’s federal law-enforcement intervention in the nation’s capital.

A confrontation that was one among many

Some interludes unfold calmly. During others, nothing happens at all. But the boil-over Wednesday morning was one among many that have erupted across the city since Trump’s police takeover, offering a glimpse into daily life in a city where emotions have been pulled taut. Sightings of police activity spread quickly, attracting residents who say the federal infusion is unwelcome.

Families and children had been making their way toward a bilingual elementary school in the Mount Pleasant neighborhood when federal and local police officers descended on an apartment building just blocks from the school. Neighbors had been on high alert amid fears of increased immigration enforcement.

Now officers were flooding the street, some in plainclothes and face coverings. Some carried rifles or riot shields. Neighbors gathered outside and began yelling at the police to leave. Blocks away, as word spread, an assistant principal waiting to greet students sprinted to the scene.

In an interview, Goldstein, the Mount Pleasant resident, said it felt like a violation of the neighborhood, which he described as a “peaceful mix of white professionals and migrant neighbors, with a lot of love in it.”

“People are on Signal chats and they’re absolutely terrified, and everyone is following this,” said Goldstein, 55, who had just dropped off his third-grade daughter at Bancroft. “It’s distressful. We feel invaded, and it’s really terrible.”

The standoff continued after police arrested a man who they said is accused of drug and firearm crimes. Dozens of residents trailed officers down a side street and continued the jeers. “Quit your jobs.” “Nobody wants you here.” “You’re ruining the country.”

Asked about the episode later at a news conference, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser said it attracted “a significant number of protesters” but “we were able to maintain calm.” Said Bowser: “I know there’s a lot of anxiety in the District.”

One officer, in the middle of it all, tries to talk

The conflict was punctuated by a remarkably candid conversation led by a Metropolitan Police Department sergeant who took questions from neighbors in what he described as “not an official press conference.”

“This is just me talking to community members,” Sgt. Michael Millsaps said, leaning back against the rear bumper of a cruiser.

Millsaps said the city’s police department was carrying out a planned arrest of a “suspected drug dealer” with support from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. The suspect was taken into custody and a search of his apartment uncovered narcotics and an illegal firearm, Millsaps said.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers joined only as a distraction to prevent protesters from disrupting the operation, he said.

“The immigration folks were parked over there to get y’all to leave us alone,” he said. ICE officials did not immediately comment.

Residents told Millsaps that their trust of the city’s police had been broken. They said they felt less safe amid Trump’s crackdown. Millsaps said he was sorry to hear it. “I hear your frustrations. My job is to take it.”

Still, he described a different response from residents east of the Anacostia River, in some of the city’s highest crime areas. “I go on the other side of the river now, it’s the opposite. People come outside and thank us,” he said.

Mount Pleasant resident Nancy Petrovic was among those yelling at city and ATF officers after the arrest. Petrovic, a lifelong resident of the area, rushed out of her home when she heard yelling shortly after 8 a.m. She counted at least 10 police cars lined up across the block.

“Kids are going to school, they’re walking to school, and it’s frightening to them and their parents,” said Petrovic, who said the street is usually quiet and has no need for more police. “We want them to go away.”

Asked about the timing of the arrest, Millsaps said it was a planned operation similar to countless others.

“I’ve been doing this for 14 years, serving these warrants at the same time of day,” he said. “The only difference is you’ve got a big crowd here, which added even more police presence. But this was just a normal police operation.”

Binkley writes for the Associated Press.

Aug. 28 (UPI) — The Department of Homeland Security plans to introduce a new rule capping the length of stay for international students, among other visa changes, amid the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.

The new rule will stipulate that foreign students who hold F visas and exchange visitors with J visas can reside in the United States for the duration of their program, but not to exceed four years. Since 1978, foreign F visa holders have been admitted to the United States for an unspecified period, allowing them to reside in the country as long as they are enrolled as full-time students.

The Trump administration says this move will “end foreign student visa abuse.”

“For too long, past administrations have allowed foreign students and other visa holders to remain in the U.S. virtually indefinitely, posing safety risks, costing untold amounts of taxpayer dollars and disadvantaging U.S. citizens,” a DHS spokesperson said in a statement.

“This new proposed rule would end that abuse once and for all by limiting the amount of time certain visa holders are allowed to remain in the U.S., easing the burden on the federal government to properly oversee foreign students and their history.”

Trump ran on a campaign to conduct mass deportations of non-citizens, and since returning to the White House in January has cracked down on immigration.

A focus of this crackdown has been universities, with the State Department earlier this month confirming that 6,000 student visas have been revoked so far this year.

Last week, the State Department announced plans to investigate all 55 million foreigners in the country with visas.

The new rule was swiftly rebuked by international education advocates as unnecessarily creating burdens for foreign students and exchange visitors.

“These changes will only serve to force aspiring students and scholars into a sea of administrative delays at best and, at worst, into unlawful presence status — leaving them vulnerable to punitive actions through no fault of their own,” Fanta Aw, executive direct and CEO of NAFAS: Association of International Educators, said in a statement.

Miriam Feldblum, president and CEO of the President’s Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration, described the rule as “yet another unnecessary and counterproductive action” targeting students and scholars.

“This proposed rule sends a message to talented individuals from around the world that their contributions are not valued in the Unite States,” Feldblum said in a statement.

“This is not only detrimental to international students — it also weakens the ability of U.S. colleges and universities to attract top talent, diminishing our global competitiveness.”

The new measure also sets an initial admission period of up to 240 days for foreign media representatives, with the potential for an extension period of up to another 240 days, but no longer than the lengthen of their temporary activity or assignment.

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — Administrators at the state university’s campus in Colorado Springs thought they stood a solid chance of dodging the Trump administration’s offensive on higher education.

Located on a picturesque bluff with a stunning view of Pikes Peak, the school is far removed from the Ivy League colleges that have drawn President Trump’s ire. Most of its students are commuters, getting degrees while holding down full-time jobs. Students and faculty alike describe the university, which is in a conservative part of the blue state of Colorado, as politically subdued, if not apolitical.

That optimism was misplaced.

An Associated Press review of thousands of pages of emails from school officials, as well as interviews with students and professors, reveals that school leaders, teachers and students soon found themselves in the Republican administration’s crosshairs, forcing them to navigate what they described as an unprecedented and haphazard degree of change.

Whether Washington has downsized government departments, rescinded funding or launched investigations into diversity programs or campus antisemitism, the University of Colorado-Colorado Springs has confronted many of the same challenges as elite universities across the nation.

The school lost three major federal grants and found itself under investigation by the Trump Education Department. In the hopes of avoiding that scrutiny, the university renamed websites and job titles, all while dealing with pressure from students, faculty and staff who wanted the school to take a more combative stance.

“Uncertainty is compounding,” the school’s chancellor told faculty at a February meeting, according to minutes of the session. “And the speed of which orders are coming has been a bit of a shock.”

The college declined to make any administrators available to be interviewed. A spokesman asked the AP to make clear that any professors or students interviewed for this story were speaking for themselves and not the institution. Several faculty members also asked for anonymity, either because they did not have tenure or they did not want to call unnecessary attention to themselves and their scholarship in the current political environment.

“Like our colleagues across higher education, we’ve spent considerable time working to understand the new directives from the federal government,” the chancellor, Jennifer Sobanet, said in a statement provided to the AP.

Students said they have been able to sense the stress being felt by school administrators and professors.

“We have administrators that are feeling pressure, because we want to maintain our funding here. It’s been tense,” said Ava Knox, a rising junior who covers the university administration for the school newspaper.

Faculty, she added, “want to be very careful about how they’re conducting their research and about how they’re addressing the student population. They are also beholden to this new set of kind of ever-changing guidelines and stipulations by the federal government.”

A White House spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.

Misplaced optimism

Shortly after Trump won a second term in November, University of Colorado-Colorado Springs leaders were trying to gather information on the incoming president’s plans. In December, Sobanet met the newly elected Republican congressman who represented the school’s district, a conservative area that Trump won with 53% of the vote. In her meeting notes obtained by the AP, the chancellor sketched out a scenario in which the college might avoid the drastic cuts and havoc under the incoming administration.

“Research dollars — hard to pull back grant dollars but Trump tried to pull back some last time. The money goes through Congress,” Sobanet wrote in notes prepared for the meeting. “Grant money will likely stay but just change how they are worded and what it will fund.”

Sobanet also observed that dismantling the federal Education Department would require congressional authorization. That was unlikely, she suggested, given the U.S. Senate’s composition.

Like many others, she did not fully anticipate how aggressively Trump would seek to transform the federal government.

Conservatives’ desire to revamp higher education began well before Trump took office.

They have long complained that universities have become bastions of liberal indoctrination and raucous protests. In 2023, Republicans in Congress had a contentious hearing with several Ivy League university leaders. Shortly after, the presidents of Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania resigned. During the presidential campaign last fall, Trump criticized campus protests against the war in Gaza, as well as what he said was a liberal bias in classrooms.

His new administration opened investigations into alleged antisemitism at several universities. It froze more than $400 million in research grants and contracts at Columbia, along with more than $2.6 billion at Harvard. Columbia reached an agreement last month to pay $220 million to resolve the investigation.

When Harvard filed a lawsuit challenging Trump’s actions, his administration tried to block the school from enrolling international students. The Trump administration has also threatened to revoke Harvard’s tax-exempt status.

Northwestern University, Penn, Princeton and Cornell have seen big chunks of funding cut over how they dealt with the protests about Israel’s war in Gaza or over the schools’ support for transgender athletes.

Trump’s decision to target the wealthiest, most prestigious institutions provided some comfort to administrators at the approximately 4,000 other colleges and universities in the country.

Most higher education students in the United States are educated at regional public universities or community colleges. Such schools have not typically drawn attention from culture warriors.

Students and professors at UCCS hoped Trump’s crackdown would bypass the school and others like it.

“You’ve got everyone — liberals, conservatives, middle of the road” at the college, said Jeffrey Scholes, a professor in the philosophy department. “You just don’t see the kind of unrest and polarization that you see at other campuses.”

The purse strings

The federal government has lots of leverage over higher education. It provides about $60 billion a year to universities for research. In addition, a majority of students in the U.S. need grants and loans from various federal programs to help pay tuition and living expenses.

This budget year, UCCS got about $19 million in research funding from a combination of federal, state and private sources. Though that is a relatively small portion of the school’s overall $369-million budget, the college has made a push in recent years to bolster its campus research program by taking advantage of grant money from government agencies such as the U.S. Defense Department and National Institutes of Health. The widespread federal grant cut could derail those efforts.

School officials were dismayed when the Trump administration terminated research grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Defense Department and the National Science Foundation, emails show. The grants funded programs in civics, cultural preservation and boosting women in technology fields.

School administrators scrambled to contact federal officials to learn whether other grants were on the chopping block, but they struggled to find answers, the records show.

School officials repeatedly sought out the assistance of federal officials only to learn those officials were not sure what was happening as the Trump administration halted grant payments, fired thousands of employees and closed agencies.

“The sky is falling” at NIH, a university official reported in notes on a call in which the school’s lobbyists were providing reports of what was happening in Washington.

There are also concerns about other changes in Washington that will affect how students pay for college, according to interviews with faculty and education policy experts.

While only Congress can fully abolish the Department of Education, the Trump administration has tried to dramatically cut back its staff and parcel out many of its functions to other agencies. The administration laid off nearly 1,400 employees, and problems have been reported in the systems that handle student loans. Management of student loans is expected to shift to another agency.

In addition, an early version of a major funding bill in Congress included major cuts to tuition grants. Though that provision did not make it into the law, Congress did cap loans for students seeking graduate degrees. That policy could have ripple effects in the coming years on institutions such as UCCS that rely on tuition dollars for their operating expenses.

DEI and transgender issues

To force change on campus, the Trump administration has begun investigations targeting diversity programs and efforts to combat antisemitism.

The Education Department, for example, opened an investigation in March targeting a PhD scholarship program that partnered with 45 universities, including the University of Colorado-Colorado Springs, to expand opportunities for women and nonwhites in graduate education. The administration alleged the program was only open to certain nonwhite students and amounted to racial discrimination.

“Sorry to be the bearer of bad news UCCS is included on the list” of schools being investigated, wrote Annie Larson, assistant vice president of federal relations and outreach for the entire University of Colorado system.

“Oh wow, this is surprising,” wrote back Hillary Fouts, dean of the graduate school at UCCS.

UCCS also struggled with how to handle executive orders, particularly those on transgender issues.

In response to an order that aimed to revoke funds to schools that allowed trans women to play women’s sports, UCCS began a review of its athletic programs. It determined it had no transgender athletes, the records show. University officials were also relieved to discover that only one school in their athletic conference was affected by the order, and UCCS rarely if ever had matches or games against that school.

“We do not have any students impacted by this and don’t compete against any teams that we are aware of that will be impacted by this,” wrote the vice chancellor for student affairs to colleagues.

Avoiding the spotlight

The attacks led UCCS to take preemptive actions and to self-censor in the hopes of saving programs and avoiding the Trump administration’s spotlight.

Emails show that the school’s legal counsel began looking at all the university’s websites and evaluating whether any scholarships might need to be reworded. The university changed the web address of its diversity initiatives from www.diversity.uccs.edu to www.belonging.uccs.edu.

And the administrator responsible for the university’s division of Inclusive Culture & Belonging got a new job title in January: director of strategic initiatives. University professors said the school debated whether to rename the Women’s and Ethnic Studies department to avoid drawing attention from Trump, but so far the department has not been renamed.

Along the same lines, UCCS administrators have sought to avoid getting dragged into controversies, a frequent occurrence in the first Trump administration. UCCS officials attended a presentation from the education consulting firm EAB, which encouraged schools not to react to every news cycle. That could be a challenge because some students and faculty are calling for vocal resistance on issues from climate change to immigration.

Soon after Trump was sworn in, for example, a staff member in UCCS’s sustainability program began pushing the University of Colorado system to condemn Trump’s withdrawal from an international agreement to tackle climate change. It was the type of statement universities had issued without thinking twice in past administrations.

In an email, UCCS’ top public relations executive warned his boss: “There is a growing sentiment among the thought leadership in higher ed that campus leaders not take a public stance on major issues unless they impact their campus community.”

Tau writes for the Associated Press. AP education writer Collin Binkley in Washington contributed to this report.

STUDENT accommodation, colleges and disused tower blocks may replace migrant hotels as councils continue to revolt.

The move is part of Labour’s pledge to stop using hotels to house migrants by 2029,

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However, nearly 200 hotels are still in use, putting up more than 32,000 people, according to recent figures.

Labour said it no longer wants to house migrants on large sites like military bases.

Instead, it is reportedly planning to use sites which are easier to make habitable and not as expensive to refurbish.

According to Dame Angela Eagle, the minister for border security, the plan is to use “medium-sized” sites like “voided tower blocks, old teacher training colleges or old student accommodation”.

This is because the Tories’ plans to use large sites like former military bases and the Bibby Stockholm barge would be too expensive.

She said the effort of tackling “asbestos-filled buildings and poisoned land” would be too pricey.

“I think that there are different, better ways of trying to achieve this kind of service than the ones that we’ve inherited,” she said.

It comes amid an urgent appeal from the Home Office, reportedly looking for 5,000 properties to house 20,000 migrants.

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer is already facing the humiliation of Labour councils revolting against his government’s loathed migrant hotel policy.

Huge pressure from councils run by every political party could hasten the end of the controversial Home Office policy.

A total of 32,059 asylum seekers were being housed temporarily in UK hotels at the end of Labour’s first year in Government, up 8 per cent on the same point 12 months ago, Home Office data shows.

But authorities are poised to follow Epping Forest council in Essex after it won a High Court injunction to halt asylum accommodation.

Now, it has been revealed that asylum accommodation contractors working for the Home Office “reached out” to property specialists earlier this month, seeking 5,000 residential units, reports the Telegraph.

Insiders told the outlet that each flat would likely have two bedrooms on average, with space to house four migrants.

ASYLUM SEEKER HOTEL PROTESTS

This Bank Holiday weekend, around 30 migrant hotels are bracing for a wave of protests as campaigners are bolstered by this week’s landmark ruling.

The High Court ordered the removal of migrants from the hotel in Essex, which has become the face of the row over asylum seeker accommodation.

It was the centre of protests after a migrant being housed there was charged with sexually assaulting a teenage girl – which he denies.

Several other demonstrations cropped up around the UK as communities rebelled against the migrant hotels in their area.

It is understood that there is a fresh wave of protests – at least 27 – planned outside of hotels this Bank Holiday weekend.

However anti-racism groups have warned towns and cities could experience the most disruption since last year’s summer riots.

Councils are also pushing back, following the lead of Epping Forest Council, which argued for the hotel to be closed to reduce the threat of “violent protests” and for the safety of those living nearby.

Mr Justice Eyre ruled the owners may have breached planning rules by housing migrants rather than paying customers.

The Home Office argued that granting this application risks “acting as an impetus for further violent protests”.

The High Court ruling threatens Labour’s asylum seeker plans, as more and more councils express an intention to follow suit.

If more councils take action, ministers are unsure where more than 30,000 people in hotel rooms would live.

However Brighton and Hove City Council refused to launch a legal bid, saying it was a “proud city of sanctuary” and will continue to welcome and support asylum seekers.

Jacob Taylor, the local authority’s deputy leader, said “We will not comment on the location of hotels being used by the Home Office to provide temporary accommodation to people seeking asylum.

“I believe to do so in the current climate is irresponsible and risks causing division and unrest in our communities at a time when more than ever we need to bring people together.”

While some county councils will push for the closures, the legal steps to challenge the use of hotels falls to district and borough councils.

The Local ­Government Association called on the Home Office to work “much more closely” with ­authorities on asylum accommodation decisions.

The Home Office is scrambling to find accommodation for up to 138 men housed in the Bell Hotel in Epping before the September 12 deadline to empty it.

Pressed to give details of these contingency options, Minister of State for Security Dan Jarvis said: “With respect, the legal judgment was only handed down yesterday.”

Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp has written to Yvette Cooper to demand that those in the Bell Hotel are not moved to apartments, houses in multiple occupation, or social housing which is “much needed for British people”.

When there is not enough housing, the Home Office – which has a legal obligation to provide accommodation to asylum seekers who would otherwise be destitute – can move people to alternatives such as hotels and large sites, like former military bases.

Amid hotel protests, campaigners including Rape Crisis and Refuge have warned conversations about violence against women and girls are being “hijacked by an anti-migrant agenda” which they argued fuels divisions and harms survivors.

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RECORD NUMBERS OF MIGRANTS

It comes after it was revealed that a record number of people claimed asylum in the UK in the last year – with a massive 32,000 currently living in taxpayer-funded hotels.

Home Office data shows that 111,000 people claimed asylum in the year ending June 2025 up 14 per cent on last year.

It is higher than the previous recorded peak of 103,000 which was set in 2002.

The number of people claiming asylum in this country has almost doubled since 2021.

And just under half of all those applying for protection in the UK are granted it at the initial decision stage – 48 per cent.

It is lower than in 2022 when 77 per cent of those applying were given the green light.

Half of all those came via irregular routes – such as on a small boat or in the back of a lorry – while 37 per cent claimed asylum after previously arriving on a valid visa.

In the year up to March, the UK was the fifth biggest recipient of asylum seekers in the UK after Germany, Spain, Italy and France.

The sky-high figures come as the number of migrants being housed in hotels has INCREASED since Labour came into power.

A total of 32,059 asylum seekers were being housed in hotels at the end of Labour’s first year in Government up 8 per cent on the same point 12 months ago.

Around 210 hotels are currently open across the UK despite Labour’s manifesto pledge to end their use.

In the year to June, the top five nationalities of people arriving in Dover were Afghan, Eritrean, Iranian, Syrian and Sudanese.

President Trump’s demand for a whopping $1-billion payment from UCLA sent shock waves through the UC system. For those of us on the inside, the announcement elicited a range of responses. Some faculty and staff reacted with horror, others voiced increasing fear about the ongoing assault on academic freedom, and some merely muttered in sad resignation to the new reality.

I laughed. The president has decided to poke the bear — and the Bears and the Bruins, too. Whether Trump knows it or not, targeting the University of California is very different from going after private Ivy League institutions with deep historical ties to political power.

Pressuring UC to pay a large sum has another dimension entirely: It’s going after state tax dollars paid by the people of California. This should matter to folks on the left and the right, to those who venerate higher education and those who vote in favor of states’ rights against federal overreach.

Californians across the political spectrum should repurpose one of Trump’s own slogans: “Stop the steal.”

Unlike Columbia and Brown, which have paid off the Trump administration, UC is a public institution. That means, as new UC President James Milliken said, “we are stewards of taxpayer resources.” UC must answer to the people, not just to boards of trustees or senior administrators.

Indeed, as a professor at UC Santa Barbara, I consider myself to be employed by my fellow Californians. My job is to contribute to the fundamental mission laid out in the state’s “Master Plan”: to create new knowledge and educate the people of California. I take my responsibility even more seriously because I am also a product of UC; I earned my PhD at Berkeley and remain a proud Golden Bear. I am fully aware of what a positive effect a UC education can have on students and Californians everywhere.

A $1-billion payment to the federal government would have huge consequences — not only on the people’s university but also on the general welfare of our state, the world’s fourth-largest economy. UC is the second-largest employer in the state. We generate $82 billion in economic activity every year. More than 84% of our students come from California, and their degrees are proven to increase their lifetime earning potential. UC health centers treat millions of people every year, providing essential medical care. According to one striking study, “The economic output generated by UC-related spending is $4.4 billion larger than the economic output of the entire state of Wyoming and $16.1 billion larger than that of Vermont.”

We accomplish that in large part with the people’s money. For every dollar the state invests in us, we generate $21 of economic activity for the state. All of that activity generates $12 billion in tax revenue. We’re a great engine of growth.

You’d think a self-proclaimed genius and “self-made” business tycoon would know a good deal when he sees one.

To be sure, the supposed bases for demanding the extraordinary payment — antisemitism and civil rights abuses — are very serious. College students should expect to confront new ideas they may disagree with, but no one should be targeted for their beliefs. Full stop.

But there are more effective remedies for addressing any failures, as have already been pursued at UCLA. For Trump, though, the accusations are the pretext for punishing institutions that he doesn’t like and, as the Associated Press reports, rebuking political opponents such as Gov. Gavin Newsom. They are not reflective of a genuine concern for student rights.

Many of us have already sounded the alarm about the increasing financial challenges the UC system faces. Even last year, we had reached a critical breaking point — and that was before losing federal grant money.

But we haven’t given up and neither should the people. We all must fight back against this attempted seizure of taxpayer funds. It’s not enough to leave the task to political leaders; the people themselves must send the message.

Californians can continue to resist federal incursions by making it clear to the UC Board of Regents, elected representatives and everyone else that Californians will not tolerate a federal pressure campaign to take our state’s resources.

There are many reasons to be alarmed by Trump’s broader attack on higher education. But this time, Trump has crossed the public-private boundary and set his sights on state taxpayers’ money. Because we fund it, UC and everything it produces belongs to us. That means we all — no matter where we fall on the political spectrum — must stop the steal.

Giuliana Perrone, an associate professor of history at UC Santa Barbara, is the author of “Nothing More than Freedom: The Failure of Abolition in American Law.”

Los Angeles public schools are opening Thursday for the new academic year confronting an intense and historically unique moment: They will be operating in opposition to the federal government’s immigration raids and have set in motion aggressive moves to protect children and their immigrant parents.

School police and officers from several municipal forces will patrol near some 100 schools, setting up “safe zones” in heavily Latino neighborhoods, with a special concentration at high schools where older Latino students are walking to campus. Bus routes are being changed to better serve areas with immigrant families so children can get to school with less exposure to immigration agents.

Community volunteers will join district staff and contractors to serve as scouts — alerting campuses of nearby enforcement actions so schools can be locked down as warranted and parents and others in the school community can be quickly notified via email and text.

L.A. Mayor Karen Bass spoke about “how profound this moment is in U.S. history” during a Monday news conference with local officials.

“Here you have an entire array of elected officials, appointed officials, education leaders, people committed to our children, and we are gathered here today to talk about protecting our children from the federal government,” Bass said.

L.A. schools Supt. Alberto Carvalho said recently that the nation’s second-largest school system will oppose “any entity, at any level, that seeks to interfere with the educational process of our children. We are standing on the right side of the Constitution, and years from now, I guarantee you, we will have stood on the right side of history. We know that.”

High school boy mistakenly handcuffed

The worries among school officials and parents are not without cause.

On Monday federal agents reportedly drew their guns on a 15-year-old boy and handcuffed him outside Arleta High School. The confrontation ended with de-escalation. Family members persuaded federal agents that the boy — who is disabled — was not the person they were looking for, Carvalho said.

The situation was largely resolved by the time the school principal realized what was going on and rushed out to assist. School police also arrived and scooped up unspent bullets dropped on the ground by the agents, Carvalho said.

A spokesperson for U.S. Customs and Border Protection said Tuesday that Arleta High was not being targeted. Instead agents were conducting “a targeted operation” on a “criminal illegal alien,” they described as “a Salvadoran national and suspected MS-13 pledge with prior criminal convictions in the broader vicinity of Arleta.”

At a Tuesday White House briefing, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, responded to a question that referenced the L.A. Times reporting about the incident.

“I’ll have to look into the veracity of that report,” Leavitt said. “I read the L.A. Times almost every single day, and they are notorious for misleading the public… This administration wants to ensure that all school children across the country, in every city, from Los Angeles to D.C., can go to school safely.”

LAUSD will oppose “any entity, at any level, that seeks to interfere with the educational process of our children,” said Supt. Alberto Carvalho recently.

(Juliana Yamada / Los Angeles Times)

School communities in fear

The incident outside Arleta High is among the ongoing confrontations across the region that have provoked public protests and prompted the Trump administration in June to deploy troops to Los Angeles. Enforcement actions have included masked agents arresting people at parking lots, in parks, on sidewalks and next to bus stops.

Litigation, including a temporary restraining order, appears to have slowed down local immigration raids, but federal officials have strongly affirmed that they have not stopped.

Trump administration policy is that no location — including a school — is off limits for enforcement actions in his drive to deport at least 1 million immigrants a year.

“People in our country illegally can self-deport the easy way, or they can get deported the hard way. And that’s not pleasant,” Trump said in a video posted to a White House social account.

“A big part of it is to create the sense of fear so people will self-deport,” said Jimmy Gomez, a Trump critic and Democratic member of Congress representing Los Angeles.

The ripple effect is that school communities are experiencing fear and trauma, worried that agents will descend on or near campuses.

Most in the state’s public school systems, including in L.A. Unified have embraced a counter mission, protecting the right of children — regardless of immigration status — to a public education. That right to an education is, so far, protected by past U.S. Supreme Court rulings.

For most school officials up and down the state, a necessary corollary to that right is safeguarding students’ guardians and close relatives.

On Tuesday, 30 school board members from L.A. County — which has 80 school districts — convened in Hawthorne to emphasize their own focus on protecting immigrant families.

“We’re about to welcome students back to schools, but we’re very concerned that these fears and anxieties may potentially have an impact for students not wanting to come back,” said Lynwood Unified school board member Alma Castro, an organizer of the event.

She called her district a “safe haven.” Among other measures, her district has trained staff to “restrict the sharing of any student files, any student information, and there’s been some work with thinking about our facilities to ensure that we have campuses that are closed off, that people can’t just walk in.”

L.A. Unified, along with other school districts, has embraced a mission to protect the right of children — regardless of immigration status — to a public education.

(Juliana Yamada / Los Angeles Times)

Protecting immigrant families

L.A. Unified, with about 400,000 students, has been layering on protections for months, recently working to incorporate ideas advocated by the teachers union and immigrant-rights groups.

A major ongoing effort is building safe-passage networks one, two and three blocks out from a campus. Participants include paid outside groups, district employees and volunteer activists. School police — though diminished in numbers due to staffing cuts — are to patrol sensitive areas and are on call to move quickly to where situations arise. Some anti-police activists want the protective mission accomplished without any role for school police.

A safe-passage presence has expanded from 40 schools last year to at least 100 this year, among about 1,000 campuses total, Carvalho said.

“It is virtually impossible, considering the size of our community, to ensure that we have one caring, compassionate individual in every street corner in every street,” Carvalho said. “But we are deploying resources at a level never before seen in our district.”

Other various efforts include:

• Starting a task force to coordinate safe passage zones with local cities
• Setting up a donor-supported compassion fund to help families with legal and other costs
• Coordinating food aid for families in hiding
• Providing legal referrals
• Contacting more than 10,000 families to encourage them to send children to schools
• Providing information about online schooling options
• Distributing a “family preparedness” guide

Carvalho and leaders of other school districts reiterated that K-12 campuses and anything related to schooling, such as a school bus or a graduation ceremony, will be off limits to immigration agents unless they have a valid judicial warrant for a specific individual — which has been rare.

“We do not know what the enrollment will be like,” Carvalho said. “We know many parents may have already left our community. They may have self-deported… We hope that through our communication efforts, our awareness efforts, information and the direct counseling with students and parents, that we’ll be able to provide stable attendance for kids in our community.”

Reason to be afraid

Mary, a Los Angeles mother of three without legal status, was terrified, but more or less knew what to do when immigration agents came to her door twice in May for a “wellness check” on her children: She did not let them in to her home. She did not step outside.

And, eventually, the agents — at least eight of them who arrived with at least three vehicles — left.

Mary had learned about what to do in this situation from her Los Angeles public school.

Mary, who requested that her full name not be used, has three children, one of whom attends an Alliance College-Ready charter school, a network of 26 privately operated public schools.

Like L.A. Unified, Alliance has trained staff on the legal rights of immigrants and also trained parents about how to handle encounters with immigration agents and where to go for help.

Alliance largely serves low-income, Latino communities and the immigration raids affected attendance in the school last year. Normally, attendance runs about 90% at the end of their school year. This June, average daily attendance at 14 Alliance high schools had dipped below 80%. Six fell below 70% and one dropped as low as 57.5%.

Alliance also attempted to gather deportation data. Nine families responded in a school network that enrolls about 13,000. In two cases, students were deported; three other students had family members deported; one student and a sibling were in a family that self-deported; one student was detained; two families reported facing deportation proceedings.

While these numbers are small, the reports are more than enough to heighten fear within the community. And some families may have declined to be candid about their circumstances.

“What’s happening now is that no one is safe anywhere, not even in your home, at work, outside, taking a stroll,” L.A. school board member Rocio Rivas said in an interview.

Still, Rivas is encouraging families to send children to school, which she considers safer than other places.

Alliance is focusing heavily on mental-health support and also arranging carpools to and from school — in which the driver is a U.S. citizen, said Omar Reyes, a superintendent of instruction at the Alliance charter group.

Carvalho, a onetime undocumented immigrant himself, said that students deserve a traditional and joyous first day followed by a school year without trauma.

Children, he said, “inherently deserve dignity, humanity, love, empathy, compassion and great education.

Times staff writer Andrea Castillo contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON — As Gov. Gavin Newsom and the University of California consider whether to sue the Trump administration to restore more than half a billion dollars in federal grants to ULCA, the White House on Tuesday had a terse response.

“Bring it on, Gavin,” said White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt when asked about Newsom’s opposition to a Trump plan demanding more than $1 billion and sweeping campus changes at UCLA to resolve federal antisemitism findings against the university.

“This administration is well within its legal right to do this, and we want to ensure that our colleges and our universities are respecting the First Amendment rights and the religious liberties of students on their campuses and UCLA has failed to do that, and I have a whole list of examples that I will forward to Gavin Newsom’s press office, if he hasn’t seen them himself,” Leavitt said.

The statement was the first public comment from the White House about the high-stakes conflict between the nation’s premier public university system and the Trump administration, which has accused UCLA of violating the civil rights of Jewish students, illegally considering race in admissions and treating transgender people in sports, healthcare and campus life in ways that the government claims hinder women’s rights.

Leavitt spoke after a question from The Times about how Trump would response Newsom’s comments late last week that the settlement offer for UCLA was “extortion” and “ransom.”

“We’ll sue,” Newsom said Friday.

Responding to Leavitt’s comments, a Newsom spokesperson pointed The Times to a meme posted on X after the press conference.

“Glorious leader is entitled to all treasures of the realm, especially from universities,” said the post from Newsom’s press office account. The graphic features an image of what appears to a be a North Korean news anchor with a North Korea flag in the background.

In an earlier joint statement with California legislative leaders, Newsom said that the action against UCLA “isn’t about protecting Jewish students — it’s a billion-dollar political shakedown from the pay-to-play president. Trump has weaponized the Department of Justice to punish California, crush free thinking, and kneecap the greatest public university system in the world.”

No lawsuit has been filed and the UC board of regents, who held an emergency meeting Monday afternoon over the grant cuts, has not announced how it will proceed aside from calling Trump’s current terms “unacceptable.”

Newsom sits as a voting member on the 24-person board, has appointed several of its members and can wield influence on the body, although the final decision on a lawsuit or settlement rests with the regents. Newsom did not attend Monday’s meeting.

In a statement after the meeting, a UC spokesperson said the $1 billion price tag would be “devastating.”

“UC’s leadership spent recent days evaluating the demand, updating the UC community, and engaging with stakeholders,” said Meredith Turner, UC senior vice president of external relations. “Our focus remains on protecting students’ access to a UC education and promoting the academic freedom, excellence, and innovation that have always been at the heart of UC’s work.”

Hundreds of grants — from the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health and Department of Energy — are on hold at UCLA. The money funds research into cancer, math, brain science and other areas, and helps pay for graduate student stipends and tuition as well as lab upkeep. If the freezes stay for the long-term, administrators are considering layoffs and other budget reductions.

Citing the reasons for the freezes, a July 30 NSF leter to UCLA Chancellor Julio Frenk alleged UCLA “engages in racism, in the form of illegal affirmative action, UCLA fails to promote a research environment free of antisemitism and bias; UCLA discriminates against and endangers women by allowing men in women’s sports and private women-only spaces.”

Frenk, in a campuswide message the next day, disputed the funding halt.

“This far-reaching penalty of defunding life-saving research does nothing to address any alleged discrimination,” he wrote.

Los Angeles Unified school police, staff and community volunteers will form protective perimeters around at least 100 schools when classes begin Thursday to help ensure the safe passage of children — an announcement that came on a day that immigration agents reportedly handcuffed, detained and drew their guns on a student outside Arleta High School in a case of mistaken identity, officials said.

The 15-year-old boy, a student with disabilities, was visiting Arleta High School with family members when federal agents detained him, L.A. Unified officials said. Family members intervened and, after a few tense moments, the agents released the boy. The school’s principal also came out to assess the situation. Agents left behind some bullets on the sidewalk, apparently by mistake, which were collected by school police.

“Such actions — violently detaining a child just outside a public school — are absolutely reprehensible and should have no place in our country,” school board member Kelly Gonez, who represents Arleta High, said in a social media post.

A spokesperson from the Department of Homeland Security could not immediately be reached for comment.

Across Los Angeles Unified, parents, teachers and staff have expressed deep fears about school safety amid immigration raids. Citywide, leaders are concerned that children whose parents are living in the country without legal status will be kept home as families grapple with the climate of fear.

L.A. schools Supt. Alberto Carvalho spoke Monday at a news conference near district headquarters, saying the district is doubling down on efforts to protect students and families by creating and expanding “safe zones” around campuses, before and after school, with the help of community workers, school police and local police departments.

Bass was not specific about what role the Los Angeles Police Department would play.

“The school police and the Los Angeles Police Department have a strong working relationship and will continue to share information as appropriate as needed,” Bass said. “But neither police departments assist with immigration enforcement and have not for many, many years. There will be adults in the community who will serve as eyes and ears on the street.”

At least two mayors from smaller cities pledged direct police assistance in patrolling areas around schools.

Although local police are not legally allowed to stop or interfere with federal law enforcement actions, authorities will alert parents along walking routes if agents are in the area. Also, they will trigger a communication chain to alert all nearby campuses of raids so that schools can take lockdown actions as necessary.

The public commitment was intended to reassure families that school will be a safe place and that officials also will do what they can to protect families on their way to and from campuses.

In a string of recent appearances, Carvalho has reviewed a list of measures taken by the nation’s second-largest school system.

These included home visits and calls in recent weeks to more than 10,000 families considered at risk of immigration enforcement or at risk of not coming to schools. The school system also is distributing family preparedness packets, “all the information in one single form, in a multitude of languages,” said Carvalho, with the goal of “explaining the rights of our children and their parents, but also providing easy access to the resources that we have available to all of them.”

The district also has created a “compassion fund” to provide general help for families, including legal assistance.

In addition to students from immigrant families, the school system also has more than 350 employees who are working legally but who could have their legal status revoked.

“They continue to be the valiant, productive workers they are with us,” Carvalho said last week.

The district is working to reroute buses to make transportation more accessible to families. For the most part, the busing system is used by students with disabilities — for whom transportation is legally required — and students attending magnet programs at campuses far from where they live.

But this could change when the parameter for riding a bus is safety. In this light, neighborhood proximity to bus stops matters a lot, because families can be exposed to immigration enforcement while traveling to and from a stop.

The buses themselves will be a considered an extension of the campus environment and federal agents will not be permitted to board them.

The Monday news conference took place at Roybal Learning Center, just west of downtown, which also is the headquarters of the L.A. Unified School Police Department, which is expected to have a role in monitoring immigration enforcement and potentially confronting it.

Others in attendance included members of the L.A. Board of Education as well as South Gate Mayor Maria Davila. West Hollywood Mayor Chelsea Lee Byers and Bell Mayor Mayor Ali Saleh.

Los Angeles Unified covers an area totaling 710 square miles, which includes most of the city of Los Angeles, along with all or portions of 25 cities and some unincorporated areas of Los Angeles County. About 4.8 million people live within school-district boundaries.

Up until last weekend, there’s a fair chance you may not have heard the name Sarah Calvert.

Yet, there’s not much chance of the 24-year-old post-grad medicine student going under the radar now. Her spectacular arrival on the British middle-distance scene has changed everything.

That also applies to the Livingston native herself thanks to her becoming Scotland’s new UK 1500m champion after pipping Olympic silver medalist Laura Muir to the title in Birmingham.

“It feels incredible,” said Calvert. “I did not expect this ever to happen, but especially not with being busy in May studying for exams, that was pretty stressful for me.

“As soon as I crossed the line I knew it was crazy. I knew this was the biggest moment of my life. Afterwards I had my first anti-doping test, so that was another good experience.

“Since then I’ve had so many messages from people from school, from all my friends, from my parents’ friends. It makes it all seem very special.”

Calvert’s sporting status is such that she’s now chasing fast races in Europe to try to make the British team for next month’s World Championships.

It’s her social status that has taken her, and her family, by surprise due to her newly found fame.

“My dad sent me a text yesterday to tell me I’ve got a Wikipedia page now, ” she told BBC Scotland at Edinburgh’s Meadowbank stadium, one of her regular training venues when she gives herself a break from her studies at Edinburgh University.

“It’s just kind of insane. I didn’t really expect it to blow up like this.”

Winning one of the top events in the UK calendar will do that kind of thing for your profile.

She now has an agent who is hunting down races to see if she can take six seconds off her personal best and run herself into the GB team for Tokyo at the World Championships.

And while Calvert is ready to give it her best shot, her life amid the chaos at the moment is still grounded in reality. She wants to be a doctor, as well as an athlete, and has tried to walk the fine line between excelling at both.

“Before last weekend I would have said absolutely no chance,” she conceded of making the World Championships. “It still seems pretty far off because I need to run a big personal best. I think I just have to go for it.

“I definitely feel busy, day to day, when I’m at uni. Training in the morning, cycling to hospital for my placement and then training in the evening again. But I enjoy both.

“I often worry that I’m compromising running for medicine and then the other way around, but I think I just have to accept that I want to be a runner and I want to be a doctor at some point in my life.

“So for now the best way for me to do it is to combine the two. I rarely have to miss training for medicine so I think I make it work pretty well.”

Donald Trump has it in for public education.

Don’t be fooled by last week’s release of DOE billions for the coming school year. Education Secretary Linda McMahon claimed that since the surprise decision in late June to withhold the funding, the government vetted all the programs to make sure they met President Trump’s approval. In reality, the White House was inundated by protests from both sides of the aisle, from teachers, parents and school superintendents all over the country. A week earlier, 24 states had filed suit against the administration for reneging on already appropriated education funding.

The reprieve will be temporary if the president has his way. Shuttering the Department of Education, and its funding priorities, was a marquee Trump campaign promise.

Already, about 2,000 DOE staff members have been fired or quit under duress. That’s half the agency’s personnel. On July 14, the Supreme Court lifted an injunction against the firings as lawsuits protesting the firings work their way through the courts. In essence, the ruling gives Trump a green light to destroy the department by executive fiat now, even if the Supreme Court later decides only Congress has that power.

The high court majority did not spell out its reasoning. In a dissenting opinion, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, writing for Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, deplored the “untold harm” that will result from the ruling, including “delaying or denying educational opportunities and leaving students to suffer from discrimination, sexual assault and other civil rights violations without the federal resources Congress intended.”

McMahon touts what she considers her agency’s “final mission”: ending federal funding for school districts that cannot prove that they have eliminated diversity, equity and exclusion initiatives, or what Trump calls “critical race theory and transgender insanity.” The stakes are high: What’s at issue is the withdrawal of nearly $30 billion in aid.

The DEI threat rejects a 60-year bipartisan understanding — based on Title 1 of the 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act to the 2015 Every Student Succeeds Act — that Washington should invest federal taxpayer dollars in closing the achievement gap that separates privileged youth from poor and minority students and children living in poverty.

Those funds support smaller classes, after-school programs and tutoring. Research shows that Title 1 can claim credit for disadvantaged students’ improved performance on the National Assessment of Educational Progress — NAEP — the nation’s K-12 report card, which the administration is also targeting. The most innovative programs, including the Harlem Children’s Zone preschool, charter schools and after-school and summer-vacation programs and one-on-one, face-to-face learning through Tutoring Chicago, have recorded especially dramatic results.

Support for students with disabilities would also become history, along with the requirement that schools deliver “free and appropriate education” to youngsters with special needs. That would have a disastrous impact on these students, historically dismissed as hopeless, because needs-focused special education can change the arc of their lives.

In demanding that districts “prove” they have eliminated DEI as a condition for receiving federal funds, McMahon claims that focusing exclusively on “meaningful learning,” not “divisive [DEI] programs,” is the only way to improve achievement.

She’s flat-out wrong. DEI initiatives, while sometimes over the top, have generally proven to boost academic outcomes by reducing discrimination. That’s logical — when students feel supported and valued, they do better in school. Wiping out efforts designed to promote racial and economic fairness is a sure way to end progress toward eliminating the achievement gap.

Clearly, the studies that show the gains made by DEI programs are irrelevant to an administration whose decisions are driven by impulse and ideology. Its threats to the gold standard test of American education, NAEP — an assessment that’s about as nonpartisan as forecasting the weather — gives the game away. If you don’t know how well the public schools are doing, it’s child’s play to script a narrative of failure.

Tucked into Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act is a nationwide school voucher program, paid for by a 100% tax deduction for donations of up to $1,700 to organizations that hand out educational scholarships. There’s no cap on the program, which could cost as much as $50 billion a year, and no expiration date.

The voucher provision potentially decimates public schools, which will lose federal dollars. Since private schools can decide which students to admit and which to kick out, the gap between the haves and haves-less will widen. Students with special needs, as well as those whose families cannot afford to participate, will be out of luck.

What’s more, vouchers don’t deliver the benefits the advocates promise. Studies from Louisiana, where “low-quality private schools” have proliferated with the state’s blessing, as well as the District of Columbia and Indiana, show that students who participate in voucher plans do worse, especially in math, than their public-school peers.

Michigan State education policy professor Joshua Cowen, who has spent two decades studying these programs, reached the startling conclusion that voucher plans have led to worse student outcomes than the COVID pandemic.

Vouchers “promise an all-too-simple solution to tough problems like unequal access to high-quality schools, segregation and even school safety,” Cohen concludes. “They can severely hinder academic growth — especially for vulnerable kids.”

The defenders of public education are fighting back. Twenty states have gone to federal court to challenge the Department of Education’s demand that they eliminate their DEI programs. “The Trump administration’s threats to withhold critical education funding due to the use of these initiatives are not only unlawful, but harmful to our children, families, and schools,” said Massachusetts Atty. Gen. Andrea Joy Campbell, announcing the lawsuit.

The White House may well lose this lawsuit. But litigation consumes time, and the administration keeps finding ways to evade judicial rulings, sometimes with the help of the Supreme Court. It could be years before the judges reach final decisions in these cases, and by then the damage will have been done.

That’s why it is up to Congress to do its job — to represent its constituents, who have consistently supported compensatory education programs and special education programs in public schools, resisting the siren song of vouchers — and to insist that the administration obey the dictates of legislation that’s been on the books for decades.

Will a supine Congress rouse itself to protect public education? After all, that’s what the rule of law — and public education — requires.

David Kirp is professor emeritus at the Goldman School of Public Policy, UC Berkeley. He is the author of numerous books on education, including “The Sandbox Investment,” “Improbable Scholars” and “The Education Debate.”

The L.A. teachers union and its allies held a rally Saturday calling on the school district to more aggressively fight for immigrant families, including by demanding that the federal government return all detained and deported students to Los Angeles.

School district officials — in both a statement and at the rally — downplayed the union’s confrontational tone and said they are united, along with various constituent groups, in supporting immigrant families.

The Saturday rally was held outside school district headquarters and included a march through downtown. It drew about 500 raucous participants, many of them wearing the bright red shirts associated with United Teachers Los Angeles, which represents about 38,000 teachers, counselors, social workers, nurses and librarians.

“Education not deportation,” they chanted.

And: “Say it loud! Say it clear! Immigrants are welcome here!”

Speakers at the rally included rising senior Vanessa Guerrero, who attends the nearby Miguel Contreras Learning Complex. She spoke about a classmate who was seized and deported.

“She was going to be a senior this year,” Vanessa said. “She’s known for coming to school every day, working hard, and she was an honors student. She did contribute to the community of the school. And was a great person.”

Her classmate and the girl’s mother were seized when they attended an immigration appointment, said Vanessa and others.

“Honestly, everybody is terrified,” Vanessa said.

The union called for a directly confrontational approach with the Trump administration — including involvement in litigation to protect immigrant rights. The school system is not currently involved in litigation with the Trump administration, officials said, although district leaders have strongly criticized its actions.

Specific union demands include establishing a two-block perimeter around schools where immigration agents would not be allowed.

It’s not clear that district officials or staff would have jurisdiction beyond school grounds.

Kindergarten teacher Esther Calderon joins hundreds of other educators in a Saturday rally calling for better protections and support for immigrant students and families.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

The union also called for a “formal campaign” that would work with families to update emergency cards and add additional trusted adults to the list of a family’s contacts, in case, for example, a student’s parents are detained.

L.A. schools Supt. Alberto Carvalho has said outreach for this purpose is ongoing.

The union also is calling for counselors to be paid to return to work prior to the first day of school to make sure families affected or potentially affected by immigration enforcement are willing and prepared to have their children return to school.

It’s not clear how many students or family members of students have been taken into custody or deported. The school district does not collect information on immigration status. A few cases have become high profile and widely reported on. In other instances, however, both district policy and privacy protections limit what the school system discloses.

Union leaders said they also want the district to provide food and personal care items “to undocumented families who are sheltering in place in their homes,” as well as provide a virtual learning option for students “who are afraid to attend school in person because of immigration raids.”

And they called for the district to develop a “pathway” for students who have been deported to earn their LAUSD diplomas through virtual completion of all required high school units, and to be a “leader” in providing legal support for all those affected by the immigration raids — including school staff who stand up in defense of immigrants.

The superintendent’s office had no immediate response to the specific demands, but school board President Scott Schmerelson said the district would consider any steps to protect and support families.

Schmerelson attended the Saturday rally as a spectator.

“Some of these ideas seem very workable,” Schmerelson said. “The superintendent is working on the safe passageways,” he said, referring to the concept of a safety perimeter.

In their chants, union members vowed to shut the school system down if it did not meet their demands — even though their hostility was more clearly directed toward the federal government.

“This violence affects all of us,” said UTLA President Cecily Myart-Cruz. “Immigrant students are Black, they’re brown and they’re Asian. And the trauma inflicted on these communities impacts every single one of them. When a student is torn from their family or lives in fear, their classmates feel it, too.”

She added: “The mental well-being of entire classrooms is at stake. That is why we demand LAUSD join educators in publicly calling our local and state leaders for the immediate return of all students who have been deported or detained so that they can resume their education.”

In a statement in response to the union rally, the school system emphasized shared goals.

“It is clear that Los Angeles Unified and our labor partners are united in our deep commitment to protect every student, including our immigrant children,” the statement said. “Together, we will continue to take every measure necessary to ensure that all children in Los Angeles are safe, supported, and educated — rights guaranteed by the United States Constitution.”

At his traditional back-to-school address — classes begin Aug. 13 — Carvalho saluted two principals who, along with their staff, turned away immigration agents at two elementary school campuses.

The agents — who stopped at the schools on the same morning in April — said they were doing welfare checks on particular students but provided no documentation to support this claim.

The principals turned them away.

“You became shields, protecting the innocent lives of 7-, 8-, 10-year-olds from fear they should never, ever know,” Carvalho said in his remarks. “Yes, you followed protocol, but more importantly, you followed your conscience. Because of your conviction, … an unimaginable day did not become an unthinkable tragedy.”

School district officials have touted a list of measures taken to protect students and families and characterize campuses as a safe environment from which federal immigration agents will be excluded to the fullest extent of the law.

The union is involved in contract negotiations with Los Angeles Unified, the nation’s second-largest school system. It’s standard practice for the union to rally members around its contract demands and put pressure on the school system at this stage of negotiations, but Saturday’s rally was almost entirely focused on supporting those affected by immigration sweeps targeting the L.A. area under the Trump administration.

WASHINGTON — President Trump on Thursday plans to reestablish the Presidential Fitness Test for American schoolchildren, a program created in 1966 to help interest young people in following healthy, active lifestyles.

Children had to run and perform sit-ups, pull-ups or push-ups and a sit-and-reach test, but the program changed in 2012 during the Obama administration to focus more on individual health than athletic feats.

The president “wants to ensure America’s future generations are strong, healthy, and successful,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement, and that all young Americans “have the opportunity to emphasize healthy, active lifestyles — creating a culture of strength and excellence for years to come.”

In a late afternoon ceremony at the White House, Trump intends to sign an order reestablishing the President’s Council on Sports, Fitness, and Nutrition, as well as the fitness test, to be administered by his Health and Human Services secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The council also will develop criteria for a Presidential Fitness Award.

In 2012, the assessment evolved into the Youth Fitness Program, which the government said “moved away from recognizing athletic performance to providing a barometer on student’s health.” Then-First Lady Michelle Obama also promoted her “Let’s Move” initiative focused on reducing childhood obesity through diet and exercise.

Reinvigorating the sports council and the fitness test fits with Trump’s focus on athletics.

The Republican president played baseball in high school and plays golf almost every weekend. Much of the domestic travel he has done this year that is not related to weekend golf games at his clubs in Florida, New Jersey and Virginia was built around attending sporting events, including the Super Bowl, Daytona 500 and UFC matches.

The announcement Thursday comes as Trump readies the United States to host the 2025 Ryder Cup, 2026 FIFA World Cup games and the 2028 Summer Olympics.

The Youth Fitness Test, according to a Health and Human Services Department website last updated in 2023 but still online Thursday, “minimizes comparisons between children and instead supports students as they pursue personal fitness goals for lifelong health.”

Expected to join Trump at the event are several prominent athletes, including some who have faced controversy.

They include Trump friend and pro golfer Bryson DeChambeau; Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker; Swedish golfer Annika Sorenstam; WWE chief content officer Paul “Triple H” Levesque, the son-in-law of Trump’s Education secretary, Linda McMahon; and former New York Giants linebacker Lawrence Taylor, a registered sex offender.

The NFL distanced itself from comments Butker made last year during a commencement address at a Kansas college, where he said most of the women receiving degrees were probably more excited about getting married and having children than entering the workforce and that some Catholic leaders were “pushing dangerous gender ideologies onto the youth of America.” Butker also assailed Pride Month and railed against Democratic President Biden’s stance on abortion.

Butker later formed a political action committee designed to encourage Christians to vote for what the PAC describes as “traditional values.”

Sorenstam faced backlash for accepting the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Trump on Jan. 7, 2021, the day after rioters spurred by Trump’s false claims about his election loss to Biden stormed the Capitol in Washington.

Taylor, who has appeared on stage with Trump at campaign rallies, pleaded guilty in New York in 2011 to misdemeanor criminal charges of sexual misconduct. He was sentenced to six years of probation and ordered to register as a sex offender.

Price writes for the Associated Press. AP writer John Wawrow in Buffalo, N.Y., contributed to this report.

NEW YORK — For years, Marianne Hirsch, a prominent genocide scholar at Columbia University, has used Hannah Arendt’s book about the trial of a Nazi war criminal, “Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil,” to spark discussion among her students about the Holocaust and its lingering traumas.

But after Columbia’s recent adoption of a new definition of antisemitism, which casts certain criticism of Israel as hate speech, Hirsch fears she may face official sanction for even mentioning the landmark text by Arendt, a philosopher who criticized Israel’s founding.

For the first time since she started teaching five decades ago, Hirsch, the daughter of two Holocaust survivors, is now thinking of leaving the classroom altogether.

“A university that treats criticism of Israel as antisemitic and threatens sanctions for those who disobey is no longer a place of open inquiry,” she told the Associated Press. “I just don’t see how I can teach about genocide in that environment.”

Hirsch is not alone. At universities across the country, academics have raised alarm about growing efforts to define antisemitism on terms pushed by the Trump administration, often under the threat of federal funding cuts.

Promoted by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, the definition lists 11 examples of antisemitic conduct, including applying “double standards” to Israel, comparing the country’s policies to Nazism or describing its existence as “a racist endeavor.”

Ahead of a $220-million settlement with the Trump administration announced Wednesday, Columbia agreed to incorporate the IHRA definition and its examples into its disciplinary process. It has been endorsed in some form by Harvard, Yale and dozens of other universities.

While supporters say the semantic shift is necessary to combat evolving forms of Jewish hate, civil liberties groups warn it will further suppress pro-Palestinian speech already under attack by President Trump and his administration.

For Hirsch, the restrictions on drawing comparisons to the Holocaust and questioning Israel’s founding amount to “clear censorship,” which she fears will chill discussions in the classroom and open her and other faculty up to spurious lawsuits.

“We learn by making analogies,” Hirsch said. “Now the university is saying that’s off limits. How can you have a university course where ideas are not up for discussion or interpretation?”

A spokesperson for Columbia didn’t respond to an emailed request for comment.

‘Weaponization’ of an educational framework

When he first drafted the IHRA definition of antisemitism two decades ago, Kenneth Stern said he “never imagined it would one day serve as a hate speech code.”

At the time, Stern was working as the lead antisemitism expert at the American Jewish Committee. The definition and its examples were meant to serve as a broad framework to help European countries track bias against Jews, he said.

In recent years, Stern has spoken forcefully against what he sees as its “weaponization” against pro-Palestinian activists, including anti-Zionist Jews.

“People who believe they’re combating hate are seduced by simple solutions to complicated issues,” he said. “But when used in this context, it’s really actually harming our ability to think about antisemitism.”

Stern said he delivered that warning to Columbia’s leaders last fall after being invited to address them by Claire Shipman, then a co-chair of the board of trustees and the university’s current interim president.

The conversation seemed productive, Stern said. But in March, shortly after the Trump administration said it would withhold $400 million in federal funding to Columbia over concerns about antisemitism, the university announced it would adopt the IHRA definition for “training and educational” purposes.

Then this month, days before announcing a deal with the Trump administration to restore that funding, Shipman said the university would extend the IHRA definition for disciplinary purposes, deploying its examples when assessing “discriminatory intent.”

“The formal incorporation of this definition will strengthen our response to and our community’s understanding of modern antisemitism,” Shipman wrote.

Stern, who now serves as director of the Bard Center for the Study of Hate, called the move “appalling,” predicting it would spur a new wave of litigation against the university while further curtailing pro-Palestinian speech.

Already, the university’s disciplinary body has faced backlash for investigating students who criticized Israel in op-eds and other venues, often at the behest of pro-Israel groups.

“With this new edict on IHRA, you’re going to have more outside groups looking at what professors are teaching, what’s in the syllabus, filing complaints and applying public pressure to get people fired,” he said. “That will undoubtedly harm the university.”

Calls to ‘self-terminate’

Beyond adopting the IHRA definition, Columbia has also agreed to place its Middle East studies department under new supervision, overhaul its rules for protests and coordinate antisemitism training with groups such as the Anti-Defamation League.

Last week, the university suspended or expelled nearly 80 students who participated in pro-Palestinian demonstrations.

Kenneth Marcus, chair of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, said Columbia’s actions were an overdue step to protect Jewish students from harassment.

He dismissed faculty concerns about the IHRA definition, which he said would “provide clarity, transparency and standardization” to the university’s effort to root out antisemitism.

“There are undoubtedly some Columbia professors who will feel they cannot continue teaching under the new regime,” Marcus said. “To the extent that they self-terminate, it may be sad for them personally, but it may not be so bad for the students at Columbia University.”

But Hirsch, the Columbia professor, said she was committed to continuing her long-standing study of genocides and their aftermath.

Part of that work, she said, will involve talking to students about Israel’s “ongoing ethnic cleansing and genocide” in the Gaza Strip, where nearly 60,000 Palestinians have died in 21 months of war — most of them women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry — and where experts are warning of rising famine.

“With this capitulation to Trump, it may now be impossible to do that inside Columbia,” Hirsch said. “If that’s the case, I’ll continue my work outside the university’s gates.”

Offenhartz writes for the Associated Press.

Late in Italian writer-director Giovanni Tortorici’s pop-up book of a coming-of-age movie “Diciannove (Nineteen),” there’s a great scene in which his arrogant, neurotic protagonist, Leonardo (Manfredi Marini), a student of classical Italian literature in Siena, is visiting a cousin (Zackari Delmas) attending university in Milan. As the two commiserate over crazy adventures, the chatter turns to disagreements and griping (culture, language, kids today, drugs aren’t fun anymore) and suddenly they sound like middle-aged men bemoaning why anything ever had to change.

The cusp of 20 is a laughably unformed time to be convinced of anything, but what Tortorici’s higgledy-piggledy debut feature makes breathlessly clear is that when you’re in the middle of it, youth is a candy-colored tornado of temptations and responsibilities. You’re the star of your own solipsistic, hallucinatory epic, even if what you imagine for yourself might be a straightforward affair with a clear-cut message about the meaning of life.

“Diciannove” hums with the dissonance of repression plus expression in Leonardo’s consequential 19th year. If you notice a similarity to the playful moods and textures of Tortorici’s countryman Luca Guadagnino, there’s a reason: The “Call Me by Your Name” filmmaker produced his protégé Tortorici’s autobiographical debut feature and a lineage of tenderness and vivacity in evoking the emotional waves of adolescence is more than evident.

We meet Leonardo as a nosebleed-suffering, dreamy-eyed Palermo teen with a haranguing mom. He’s headed to business school in London, where his older sister Arianna (Vittoria Planeta) also lives. But once there, after a round of hard-partying with her friends and the sense that he’s replaced one hypercritical family member for another, he makes a last-minute decision to change the course of his educational life and enroll as a literature student back in Italy.

Cut to picturesque Siena and cue the baroque score. In this ancient Tuscan city, Leonardo is awakened by his writerly ambitions, a swoony love for medieval Italian authors like Dante and an intellectual disdain for the 20th century. But it also turns him into a lonely, rigidly neoclassicist oddball who scorns his professors, prefers books to his flighty peers and still can’t seem to take care of himself. Sealing himself off in a stuffy, antiquated notion of personal morality only makes the trappings of real life (desire, depression, cleanliness, online enticements) harder to deal with, leading his journey of self-discovery to some internally and externally messy places.

And some messy filmmaking too, even if that’s the point of this elegantly shapeless headspace travelogue. With unapologetic brio, Tortorici, cinematographer Massimiliano Kuveiller and editor Marco Costa empty out their tool kit of angles, splits, tracks, smudges, zooms, smashes, jumps, needle drops, montages and text cards. Though never disorienting or obnoxious (à la “Euphoria”), it can get tiring: a restlessness of spirit and technique that occasionally separates us from this lost antihero when we crave a closer connection to him. Especially since first-time actor Marini is stellar casting. There’s an easygoing inscrutability to his demeanor and his sad, mischievous eyes compel our curiosity — he’ll never let you think you’ve watched a thousand coming-of-age movies.

Tortorici doesn’t give his searcher a tidy ending. There’s a hilarious psychoanalysis by a wealthy aesthete (Sergio Benvenuto) who sees right through his posturing. But the night air beckons. As Leonardo walks away from us at the end after serving up a rascally smile (in a very “400 Blows”-ish freeze frame), Tortorici has him stumble briefly on the cobblestones, and somehow it feels like the wit of “Diciannove” in a split second of screen time: Youth means missteps, so why dwell on them?

On the day immigration agents swooped through MacArthur Park in armored vehicles, wearing tactical gear and riding on horseback, Contreras Learning Center football coach Manuel Guevara said more than 20 of his players skipped summer practice.

“Kids were messaging me their parents don’t want them to leave their house,” Guevara said.

The fear among families with students attending three downtown Los Angeles high schools minutes apart — Contreras, Roybal and Belmont— is real.

“Everybody’s on edge,” Guevara said.

Players don’t know if their parents will feel safe enough to watch games from the school bleachers this fall.

As official football practice begins on Monday, three downtown Los Angeles head coaches — Guevara, Roybal’s Michael Galvan and Belmont’s Kenneth Daniels — have been in constant communication and united to help their players and parents deal with ICE raids. No one knows when the raids might subside or how the ongoing anxiety might affect teams this fall.

One of the first raids happened outside an elementary school across the street from Contreras. A 17-year-old Contreras cross country and track athlete, Nory Santoy Ramos, was detained and later deported to Guatemala with her mother after showing up for an immigration appointment. Families in the area rely on afterschool programs that are facing budget cuts. Students continue to deal with issues involving homelessness, gangs and drug use at nearby MacArthur Park.

Even though all three coaches said players feel safe on campus, with Los Angeles Unified School District Supt. Alberto Carvalho vowing to make schools “safe havens,” coaches are most concerned about students’ commutes to and from school.

Federal immigration agents near MacArthur Park in the Westlake area on July 7.

(Carlin Stiehl/Los Angeles Times)

“A piece of me worries about them getting home safe,” Roybal’s Galvan said.

Guevara said one Contreras player told him he’s 80% certain his mother is going to leave and take him with her because of ICE fears. He’s had kids message him this summer that they couldn’t come to practices because their parents feared for their safety.

The Times has confirmed U.S. citizens are among those who have been detained during immigration raids in Southern California that have continued for more than six weeks. More than 2,700 people have been arrested during the raids and more than two-thirds of those detained had never previously been convicted of a crime.

“I understand their plight,” Guevara said. “I was brought here when I was 1. I became a citizen when I was 17. It’s not like you can tell anyone in this situation, ‘Suck it up.’ It’s a completely different animal. Our area is targeted.”

Students at Miguel Contreras Learning Complex in downtown Los Angeles continue to be affected by ICE raids.

(Eric Sondheimer / Los Angeles Times)

Belmont is struggling to field a football team this fall. School enrollment is down to less than 700 after once being a school of more than 6,000 — the largest in the county — until Contreras and Roybal were built. Athletic director Carlos Calderon said four sports that have been practicing on the Belmont campus this summer — cheer, girls volleyball, cross-country and football — have been affected by parental safety concerns.

“We’ve seen a deduction in kids coming to practices and increase communication with parents and having them call us [to say,] ‘We don’t feel comfortable in kids coming to practice,’” he said.

Calderon, who helps coach cross-country, has had athletes train on the school track instead of running the hills at Elysian Park to assuage parental fears.

Daniels said after one summer practice, when he learned an ICE raid was unfolding nearby, he instructed players to leave school from the back entrance instead of the front entrance.

“It’s really affecting us,” he said. “We’re not getting the numbers we need to get the workouts in.”

Belmont has 20 football players signed up, but only about half have been showing up for workouts. The team usually adds players once classes begin Aug. 14. Daniels, a walk-on coach, is already consumed by the challenge of building a new house in Altadena after his burned down during the Eaton fire.

“Nothing has been easy in 2025,” he said.

Galvan said he’s had players miss practices to go shopping for family members who feel they have to stay home. Others had medical appointments delayed because parents didn’t want to leave their homes.

“In all of my 25 years of teaching in the area, I’ve never experienced anything like this,” he said. “You just don’t know. It’s hard to explain. How do we get through one day? … We’re taking it day by day.”

The Garfield-Roosevelt game, known as the East L.A. Classic, draws the largest L.A. high school football attendance each year. It’s scheduled for Oct. 24 at a site to be determined and officials want to make sure fans attending feel safe, so a decision on the site and security arrangements in light of continuing ICE raids are being taken into consideration along with budget.

“We will continue to follow district guidelines to ensure the well-being of our entire school community,” Garfield athletic director Lorenzo Hernandez said in a text message. “Our priority is — and will always be — to keep students and families safe, informed and supported.”

Said Galvan: “We definitely have to approach this season differently and see who we can accommodate and support the kids and balance understanding the situation and keeping them safe. It’s going to be on a weekly basis how we approach each game.”

Skipping summer practices won’t prevent a team from going forward. But if players start missing practices this fall, that will cause problems, because practices are needed to help prevent injuries and get athletes into the proper physical condition to participate.

Guevara still remembers July 7, the day of the MacArthur Park show of force. He addressed players who showed up to practice and were going home.

“Be vigilant, be careful,” he told them.

It’s a message likely to be repeated again and again this fall.