Organising is a kind of alchemy: it turns alienation into connection, despair into dedication, and oppression into strength. By Astra Taylor and Leah Hunt-Hendrix

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Multiple arrests at crackdown on Emory University campus encampment focused on Palestine and Cop City

Police have carried out multiple violent arrests at Emory University in Decatur, Georgia, in what appears to be the first campus crackdown in recent days to involve rubber bullets and teargas after students set up an encampment in solidarity with Palestine and against Cop City.

On Thursday, Emory students set up multiple tents on the campus’s lawns in protest against the university’s ties to Israel, as well Atlanta’s Cop City, a police and fire department training center that is being constructed on a 171-acre plot in a forest south-east of Atlanta.

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Republican Mike Johnson accused of ‘wilfully spreading misinformation’ and ‘inciting violence’ after CNN interview

Progressive activists have condemned Mike Johnson, the speaker of the House of Representatives, for “willfully spreading misinformation” and “inciting violence” in a TV interview about student protests against Israel’s war in Gaza.

Johnson, who was booed and heckled during a press conference at Columbia University on Wednesday, when he said Hamas “backed” the protests in a CNN interview . There is no evidence Hamas has had any role in the student protests, though the organization has praised the demonstration. The Republican went on to make sweeping, incendiary claims: “Some of these students apparently are unaware of the atrocities of October 7 or they’re denying it.

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Pro-Palestinian demonstrators are calling on universities to sell investments in companies they say are complicit in war in Gaza

As protests against Israel’s offensive in Gaza are spreading throughout American campuses, one demand made by students across schools keeps coming up: divestment from Israel.

Universities rely on endowments to fund things like research and scholarships, and those endowments are typically invested in companies and alternative asset classes, such as private equity and hedge funds.

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Some residents say €5 fee aimed at curtailing over-tourism goes against principle of freedom of movement

Venice’s entrance charge for day-trippers has got off to a shaky start, bewildering people staying in hotels who needed to prove their exemption and drawing protests from some residents.

The €5 (£4.30) charge, aimed at curtailing over-tourism, has ignited fury among some residents. The charge kicked in at 8.30am on Thursday and will apply on 29 peak days until 14 July as part of a trial phase.

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The safety and security of Palestinians and Jews are interdependent, so we should use language carefully

In reporting on the encampments springing up on college campuses across the US, the media seem to have convened a terminology confab and agreed on two descriptions: “pro-Palestinian” and “anti-Israel”. These labels oversimplify Americans’ opinions on Israel’s onslaught against Gaza, which marked its 200th day on Tuesday with no end in sight. But the error is worse than semantic.

“Universities Struggle as Pro-Palestinian Demonstrations Grow,” says the New York Times . “Colleges Struggle to Contain Intensifying Pro-Palestinian Protests,” reports the Wall Street Journal . In Minneapolis, the Star Tribune has the local news that the “University of Minnesota police arrest 9 after pro-Palestinian encampment set up on campus”. Some publications less shy about displaying their political biases take the opposite tack. A headline in the right-leaning New York Post , for instance, exaggerated the literally incendiary nature of the demonstrators’ tactics: “Anti-Israel protesters carry flares to March on NYPD HQ after 130 arrested at NYU.” The accompanying video is cast in red. Ever evenhanded, CBS does both: “Pro-Palestinian, pro-Israel protesters gather outside Columbia University.”

Judith Levine is a Brooklyn journalist and essayist, a contributing writer to the Intercept and the author of five books

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As the climate crisis has deepened, protesters have become more confrontational – and their ambitions have grown

The head of ExxonMobil told to “eat shit” as he was about to receive an award. A US senator and coal boss called a “sick fuck”, almost sparking a brawl. Theatre shows interrupted. As the climate crisis has deepened, protests aimed at those deemed responsible are becoming starkly personal, and often confrontational.

At the vanguard of this new style of in-your-face activism is Climate Defiance , a group of just a handful of core staffers now marking its first birthday following a year of disrupting, often crudely, the usually mundane procession of talks, speeches and panels that feature Joe Biden administration officials , oil company bosses and financiers .

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At least 34 arrested at University of Texas in Austin and 50 more detained at University of Southern California while House speaker jeered at Columbia University

• Student Gaza protests – live updates

Dozens of protesters were arrested on Wednesday while participating in pro-Palestine demonstrations across US college campuses.

At least 34 protesters, including a member of the media from a local news station, were arrested during protests at University of Texas in Austin and at least 50 more were detained by police at University of Southern California (USC).

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House speaker says ‘madness has to stop’ while visiting Columbia University; videos show tense scenes and arrests on campuses across several states

• US campus protests over Israel-Gaza war – in pictures

Mike Johnson , the Republican House speaker, will visit Columbia University today to speak to Jewish students and hold a press conference “regarding the troubling rise of virulent antisemitism on America’s college campuses”, his office has said.

New York House Republicans have called on Columbia’s president, Minouche Shafik, to resign immediately for failing to end the protests.

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