The protests sweeping US universities have brought intense division, but some students have treasured hope, unity, solidarity and love

Seven months ago, before Hamas stormed into Israel, killing roughly 1,200 people and taking more than 200 hostage, Eleanora Ginsborg and Samar Omer had never met.

But in the attack’s violent aftermath, Ginsborg and Omer, students at the University of California, San Diego, forged a new friendship – and a new sense of activism-fueled purpose. A third student who already knew Omer “like a sister”, and requested to go by the pseudonym Hala Abdallah out of safety concerns, completed the group.

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More than 1,400 people have been arrested as police dismantle campus encampments – but are the tactics used too brutal?

More than 1,400 people have been arrested across the US during a week of intense police crackdowns on a sprawling campus movement of pro-Palestine student demonstrations.

As Joe Biden defended students’ free speech rights but warned them that “dissent must never lead to disorder”, colleges across the country brought law enforcement to campus to arrest dozens or even hundreds of protesters and clear away their encampments.

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Slow response from authorities left students shocked as people wearing white masks attacked pro-Palestine protesters

When Meghna Nair, a second-year student at the University of California, Los Angeles, saw a masked group of people headed toward the pro-Palestine encampment on campus late on Tuesday evening, she expected trouble.

“I knew where they were going. I had an idea what they planned to do,” she said. “I didn’t know what to do.”

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Shifting atmospheric circulation patterns have placed US state in frontline of climate crisis

Changing weather patterns might not have been foremost in Bob Dylan’s mind when he wrote The Times They Are A-Changin’, but his lyrics seem apt now. Rising greenhouse gases are altering the world’s weather patterns and new research demonstrates how increased emissions have shifted atmospheric circulation patterns, resulting in more frequent extreme weather events around the world.

California in North America has ended up being at the frontline of the climate crisis in recent years, lurching between extreme drought and excessive rain. To understand what might have triggered these extremes, researchers modelled the interplay between the three major drivers of the weather in this region and the impact that greenhouse warming has had on these drivers.

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After major police raids on universities in New York and Los Angeles on Tuesday, students continued to demonstrate against the war in Gaza

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Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, says his team is determined to retry case against the disgraced movie mogul

Harvey Weinstein will be retried in New York, the Manhattan district attorney’s office said on Wednesday, a week after the state’s highest court threw out his 2020 rape conviction.

Weinstein arrived at a Manhattan courthouse in the afternoon, his first appearance since the decision by the appeals court last week.

The Associated Press contributed reporting

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The viral Glasgow event made children cry and adults seethe. Could a California tribute provide some measure of absolution?

She was the sad Oompa Loompa seen around the world. Inside a bleak warehouse in Glasgow, a supposed celebration of Wonka’s delectable world of chocolate left children crying and parents calling the police. Attendees paid £35 to visit a bleak warehouse with a handful of props and posters; inside, they were treated to two jellybeans each and a few poorly costumed actors. Images of the event went extremely viral, making international news and inspiring a horror film and an hour-long documentary .

Two months later, I found myself walking toward another grim-looking warehouse, this time in downtown Los Angeles. I was here for Willy’s Chocolate Experience LA, a tribute to the Glasgow disaster promising live entertainment, a red carpet-style photo op and a rare chance to meet the celebrity Oompa Loompa herself.

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Authorities clear two buildings at Cal Poly Humboldt overnight, arresting students and faculty and detaining at least one journalist

Police cracked down on a pro-Palestine demonstration at California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt, early Tuesday morning, clearing two buildings that protesters had occupied since last week, arresting dozens of people and detaining at least one journalist.

The public university on California’s far north coast said in a statement early Tuesday that an operation by law enforcement, which included police from across the state, had “restored order” to the campus.

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Housing costs and homelessness are on the rise in California. In the Austrian capital, people of all income levels live in subsidised housing – and more is being built

Imagine a beautiful city where a centrally located two-bedroom apartment can cost you as little as $600 a month. For many US policymakers, it’s a pipe dream. And yet in Vienna, it’s a reality.

In the past two years, at least four delegations of housing experts and political leaders from California have visited the Austrian capital, hoping to unlock the secrets of why Vienna regularly comes top in surveys of the world’s most livable cities.

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