(New York Jewish Week) — Columbia University’s president said students have been suspended for an event last month that saw speakers praise Hamas and other terror groups.

Four students were suspended over the to the event, according to the Columbia Spectator, the campus newspaper.

The student-led event, titled “Resistance 101,” drew harsh criticism, including from members of Congress who were already investigating the uptown university for alleged antisemitism on campus. The suspensions mark a significant step in Columbia’s response to anti-Israel activities that have rocked the campus since Oct. 7.

Columbia President Minouche Shafik acknowledged in a statement that the “Resistance 101” event featured speakers who “support terrorism and promote violence” and that administrators had already prohibited the event twice.

“I want to state for the record that this event is an abhorrent breach of our values,” Shafik said in the statement.

She added, “I did not become a university president to punish students. At the same time, actions like this on our campus must have consequences. That I would ever have to declare the following is in itself surprising, but I want to make clear that it is absolutely unacceptable for any member of this community to promote the use of terror or violence.”

Despite the ban on the event, students held the discussion in a campus residential facility. In response, the university notified law enforcement and contracted an outside investigation firm, Shafik said.

The Spectator reported that four students were indefinitely suspended and evicted from university housing over charges from the university, including disruptive behavior, endangerment, violation of law and violation of university policy.

The suspended students were given 24 hours to vacate their university housing. They will not be able to attend classes, participate in extracurricular activities or access the campus on their own, the Spectator reported. A Columbia spokesperson declined to comment to the New York Jewish Week on the specifics of the suspensions.

Shafik said in her statement that the investigation was ongoing.

The pro-Palestinian groups National Students for Justice in Palestine, Samidoun and Within Our Lifetime issued a joint statement backing the suspended students. Leaders from the three groups all spoke at the “Resistance 101” event, and all three organizations have explicitly supported terrorism or Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel, which launched the war. The organizations accused Israel of “genocide,” a charge common among pro-Palestinian activists that Israel vehemently denies.

“These attacks are an attempt to destroy students’ futures to suppress support for Palestinian liberation amid the ongoing Zionist-US perpetrated genocide in Gaza,” the groups’ statement said. It claimed, without citing evidence, that the “Resistance 101” event is “being used as a pretext by the Columbia University administration to dismantle student organizations fighting for Palestinian liberation in conjunction with the Zionist lobby and external right-wing pressure groups.”

During the “Resistance 101” event, speakers repeatedly backed Palestinian “resistance,” which in their view included open support for Hamas. One of the speakers, Khaled Barakat, a Palestinian writer and activist, referred to his “friends and brothers in Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the PFLP.”

“There is nothing wrong with being a member of Hamas, being a leader of Hamas, being a fighter in Hamas,“ said Charlotte Kates, Barakat’s wife and a coordinator for Samidoun, which was banned from Germany in November for supporting terrorism.

Since Oct. 7, Columbia University has struggled to rein in anti-Israel student activists who violate university policies, mainly by holding unauthorized and disruptive protests. Jewish advocates have said the activism veers into antisemitism and creates a hostile atmosphere, and last month, a report from the school’s antisemitism task force said that Jewish students were experiencing “isolation and pain.”

The suspensions for the “Resistance 101” event appeared to be the most serious punishments Columbia has levied against activists in months. In November, the administration banned the campus chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine and the anti-Zionist Jewish Voice for Peace for violating university event policies.

Both groups remain suspended but continue to operate on campus as the lead organizations in a coalition of student groups called Columbia University Apartheid Divest — the group that organized the “Resistance 101” event. On Thursday, pro-Palestinian students and faculty held an unauthorized rally, chanting “globalize the intifada” while beating on drums. Shafik said the university was working to identify participants and that they would “face discipline.”

The administration’s actions come against the backdrop of government investigations of antisemitism at Columbia. The House Committee on Education and the Workforce, which has been investigating antisemitism on a number of campuses, said on X, above a clip from last month’s event, that “a taxpayer-supported institution’s members providing a forum to promote terrorism raises serious questions.”

New York Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik, a member of the committee, said on X, “Unchecked student groups supporting the genocide of Jews and openly cheering on Hamas demonstrate exactly why the [committee] is investigating the once-respected school.”

Last year, the committee questioned the presidents of Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Pennsylvania about antisemitism, and the college presidents declined to state that calls for the genocide of Jews would necessarily violate campus policies. The presidents of Harvard and UPenn resigned in the ensuing uproar.

Shafik had declined to attend the hearing, citing a previously scheduled overseas engagement. The committee opened an investigation into Columbia and summoned Shafik to another hearing scheduled for this month.

The Biden administration is also investigating Columbia, and Jewish students have filed civil lawsuits alleging discrimination on campus.

This article originally appeared on JTA.org.

The post Columbia suspends students for ‘Resistance 101’ event where speakers praised Hamas appeared first on The Forward.

COVID-19 became the second leading cause of death globally in the year after it was declared a pandemic, according to a study published in the Lancet.

While heart disease remained the top killer, COVID “radically altered” the main five causes of death for the first time in 30 years, displacing stroke, the publication said. In 2021, 94 in every 100,000 people died from COVID, on an age-standardized basis.

Since 1990, global life expectancy increased by 6.2 years, mainly due to reductions in death from diarrhea and lower respiratory infections and better outcomes for people suffering from a stroke or ischemic heart disease.

Read More: Ozempic Gets the Oprah Treatment in a New TV Special

“Our study presents a nuanced picture of the world’s health,” said Liane Ong, co-first author of the study and a lead research scientist at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. “On one hand, we see countries’ monumental achievements in preventing deaths from diarrhea and stroke. At the same time, we see how much the COVID-19 pandemic has set us back.”

From 2019 to 2021, progress was made in preventing deaths for most other top causes of death except for Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias and malaria.

The study is thought to be the first that compared deaths from COVID to deaths from other causes. It tracked 288 causes of death in 204 countries and territories and 811 subnational locations.

President Joe Biden on Friday called on Congress to fund the entire cost of rebuilding the Baltimore bridge that collapsed last week when a colossal cargo ship collided with it, killing six construction workers and suspending shipping activity in the port.

“Everyone including Congress should be asking only one question… How can we help?” Biden said during his visit to the site with the remains of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in the background. “I fully intend to have the federal government cover the cost of building this entire bridge,” Biden continued. “All of it. All of it… I call on Congress to authorize this effort as soon as possible.”

[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]

As pressure mounts to reopen the port, federal officials reportedly have estimated it could cost more than $2 billion. Some Republicans have rebuffed Biden’s promise to pay the entire bridge cost with federal dollars, demanding that any funding be fully offset with spending cuts.

“It was kind of outrageous immediately for Biden to express in this tragedy the idea that he’s going to use federal funds to pay for the entirety,” Rep. Dan Meuser, a Pennsylvania Republican, told Fox Business on Thursday. “This is a crisis situation, but it needs a plan, not a knee-jerk spend reaction.”

Federal and state officials have warned that the port’s closure at one the nation’s main shipping channels could have a major impact on the regional economy, with thousands of jobs in flux as the government works to clear the wreckage and restore traffic. The Biden Administration already allocated $60 million in emergency relief funds last week to help rebuild the bridge and provided additional funding for harbor cleanup and low-interest disaster loans to affected businesses. 

The federal response to the collapse is quickly becoming a critical test for Biden, who has championed infrastructure improvements as a cornerstone of his presidency and aims to convince voters ahead of the November election that he’s the best equipped to address infrastructure challenges. Some Republicans have blamed Biden’s infrastructure policies for not providing enough money to restore old bridges, though initial investigations suggest the Baltimore bridge was fully up to code.

Read More: How the Baltimore Bridge Recovery Will Be a Key Test for Biden

The conservative House Freedom Caucus on Friday demanded that the Biden Administration lift its pause on approvals for natural gas export projects and waive regulations like the Endangered Species Act in exchange for funding the bridge recovery efforts, while Meuser suggested that Biden pull funds from his electric vehicle deployment program that Congress passed.

During his Friday visit, Biden surveyed the wreckage and was scheduled to meet with family members of the six construction workers who died in the March 26 accident. “Our hearts are still breaking,” Biden said, sharing that one of the victims—Carlos, 24—was waiting for cement to dry when the ship struck. “Most are immigrants but all are Marylanders—hard working, strong, and selfless.”

“I’ve come here to grieve with you,” Biden added. “I know a little bit about what it’s like to lose…to get that phone call in the middle of the night to say a family member’s gone. I’ve been there.”

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said during Biden’s visit that it plans to open a limited access channel in the Patapsco River by the end of April that should open the port to vessels carrying automobiles and farm equipment, with the entire shipping channel expected to reopen by the end of May. 

The port plays a pivotal role in vehicle shipping and employs over 15,000 workers, with ripple effects expected to be felt in neighboring states like Pennsylvania. Biden called on companies that rely on the port to commit to keeping employees on their payrolls as the port reopens. Some 850,000 vehicles go through the port annually and more than 30,000 vehicles cross the bridge daily. “We’re going to move heaven and earth to rebuild this bridge as rapidly as humanly possible,” Biden said. “And we’re going to do so with union labor and American steel.”

Federal investigators are still searching for answers about how a 985-foot-long cargo vessel struck a major bridge. The operators of the ship issued a mayday call moments before the crash saying the vessel had lost power. Attorneys for the companies that own and manage the ship have asked a judge in federal court to excuse them from any liability for the disaster or cap damages at $43 million.

This article is part of The D.C. Brief, TIME’s politics newsletter. Sign up here to get stories like this sent to your inbox.

This could well be known among future historians as the Immigration Election.

The issue has overtaken all others as the top concern among voters, both in national polls and among those in the handful of states that are truly competitive battlegrounds. And among the up-for-grabs voters, President Joe Biden is at a pronounced disadvantage, according to new surveys released this week. As fears of migrant crime and overwhelmed communities dominate the zeitgeist in parts of this very divided country, former President Donald Trump finds himself better positioned. 

[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]

The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday released a massive set of surveys from seven swing states and found very few reasons for Team Biden to feel upbeat. The Democratic coalition is visibly fraying, with substantial bleeding among Black and Latino voters, and younger voters. The gender gap, too, is showing a more suspicious audience among men in those swing states.

Biden’s biggest drag? The border. As the number of people detained by U.S. border patrol has soared—most of them voluntarily surrendering rather than being apprehended—surveys now show immigration and border security as the most important topic that will decide the outcome of Election Day, topping the improving post-pandemic economy.

Read more: Operation Save Biden

This, of course, didn’t just happen overnight. Trump has steadily banged the drum on immigration dating to his first days as a candidate in 2015, seeking to sow fear by linking migration and crime, desipte native-born Americans actually having higher statistical rates of crime. Hardly a day goes by when Trump isn’t lashing out at migrants who come into the United States illegally. In February, about 140,000 did so, according to officials, and Trump has been all too happy to cite those newcomers, often in dehumanizing terms, as an explanation for all that ails America.

“They’re not humans. They’re animals,” Trump said this week in Michigan.

Biden’s boosters rightly argue that while Trump may have advantages in six of the seven states’ polls, the former President is statistically leading in just two given the surveys’ margin of error. In fact, North Carolina and Arizona are the only places where Trump’s numbers are outside of the gray area, while Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin remain plausible toss-ups.

While immigrations has influenced the outcome of past elections, it could be uniquely determinative in 2024. And the fact remains that a majority of voters simply do not trust Biden’s approach to immigration and the border and, at least in those states, are looking at Trump’s tough-guy image as a viable alternative. By a margin of roughly 20 points, voters in those swing states give Trump the advantage on the issue. And it’s not just limited to immigration, either; Trump is notably ahead when voters are asked about inflation, the economy, mental and physical fitness to hold office, and to lesser degrees foreign policy. Only when voters are asked about abortion and broader threats to democracy does Biden rebound.

Still, immigration remains a top issue—if not the most important topic—in this campaign. And when voters are asked to grade Biden’s handling, it’s a big red F; at least 72% of those polled in the swing states are saying immigration and border policies are going the wrong way. Put another way: Biden is flunking on the topic that is, at least in this moment, defining this election year.

Make sense of what matters in Washington. Sign up for the D.C. Brief newsletter.