Pro-Palestine Protests Continue at Universities Around the Country
In recent weeks, college and university students have come out to protest in support of Palestinians, often with the goal of pushing their schools to divest from Israel. Arrests have occurred at over 30 colleges, beginning with the arrest of more than 108 Columbia students April 18 when the New York City Police Department attempted to clear an encampment on campus. Following the crackdown on the encampment, protesters at Columbia occupied a campus building for 20 hours and declared it Hind Hall in honor of Hind Rajab, a six-year-old Palestinian girl killed in the war. However, they were cleared out by police in riot gear Tuesday night. The demonstrations have been condemned by figures including Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu, U.S. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, and many university presidents, but others, including some faculty members, defend the students’ right to peaceful protest.
Russian Cluster Munition Strike Hits Civilian Center in Odesa, Ukraine
On Monday, a Ukrainian official reported a Russian missile attack on a civilian center in Odesa had killed at least five people and injured 32. On Wednesday, another attack on Odesa killed three people and injured three others. In 2008, 100 countries — not including the United States, Russia, or Ukraine — signed a treaty promising not to manufacture or deploy the so-called “cluster munitions” used in the attack, which are infamous for their potential to harm civilians with their imprecision and severity. Odesa, the third-most populous city in Ukraine, has become a constant target for attacks as Russia attempts to destroy the Black Sea port infrastructure, which has been crucial in maintaining the flow of supplies between Ukraine and the outside world.
Policy Changes on Marijuana Classification Begin in the U.S.
On April 30, the U.S. Department of Justice, which is responsible for investigating and prosecuting crimes involving illicit drugs, recommended easing restrictions on marijuana and moving the drug from a Schedule I drug (a class that includes heroin) to a Schedule III drug (a class that includes Tylenol with codeine and ketamine). This will not decriminalize marijuana nationwide, but changes the government’s official stance on the safety and consequences of marijuana use, which can affect sentencing guidelines and access to public housing.
“Outside of the tax implications, this is monumentally symbolic,” Andrew Freedman, who regulates and directs lawmaking around cannabis in Colorado, said to CNN. “It is rare for the federal government to reverse itself on an issue where it’s had a stance for the last 100 years and arrested countless people for.”
Twenty-seven states, including Ohio, have already decriminalized marijuana, and 38 states have approved its use for medical purposes.
Swath of Chilean Wilderness Sold to Environmentalists, Saved from Development
For a final price of $63 million, a wilderness area within the Andes Mountains was sold by Roberto Hagemann, a Chilean businessman and developer, to a group of environmentalists who have fought Hagemann for the area’s preservation for years. Hagemann began buying up the land piece by piece in 2007 with the general plan to develop the land for real estate, mining, or energy production. He began construction of a hydroelectric project soon after his original purchase, but was shut down by a Chilean court in 2017 after the environmentalist group sued him for not obtaining proper environmental reviews. Now, the environmentalists have taken the land from Hagemann for good. “Everyone who cares about [the area] was really scared about who was going to buy it,” Rodrigo Condeza, a leader of the environmentalists, said. “But we all got together and stopped fighting and now we’ve made a solution to conserve it forever.”
Mona Lisa May Soon Move
The directors of the Louvre are discussing moving the Mona Lisa to a special underground chamber to ease crowd reactions and boost the portrait’s popularity following a flood of negative reviews. While the change is spurred by a recent analysis that found 37.1 percent of the reviews of the piece by museum guests were negative, frustrations with congestion and difficulty of access to the piece aren’t new. “We’ve been thinking about it for a long time, but this time everyone is in agreement,” Vincent Delieuvin, the Louvre’s chief curator of 16th-century Italian painting told the French newspaper Le Figaro. “It’s a large room, and the Mona Lisa is at the back, behind its security glass, so at first glance it looks like a postage stamp,” he said.
