US universities look to conciliate with Trump administration
Columbia University, located in the Morningside Heights neighborhood of Manhattan, was the first to capitulate in this unequal battle, where the administration could, at will, freeze billions of dollars in funding, bar foreign students from getting visas and block access to scholarship programs. The university ultimately settled, agreeing on July 23 to pay $221 million over three years in order to reclaim $1.7 billion in various federal grants and funding. It also secured the termination of multiple investigations that threatened its operations.
In 2023 and 2024, Columbia experienced major protests in support of Gaza and was accused of allowing an antisemitic atmosphere to take hold. Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian student and leader of the protests, was arrested, held for several months by immigration authorities and now faces deportation despite being a green card holder and having no criminal charges filed against him.
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France 24
2 hours ago
- France 24
Texas lawmakers approve congressional maps favoring Republicans
Texas Republicans on Wednesday took the first step toward approving new congressional maps that would give their party as many as five new seats in the House of Representatives, spurring what's likely to be a national battle over redistricting. The approval by the Texas House of Representatives came at the urging of President Donald Trump, who pushed for the extraordinary mid-decade revision of congressional maps to give his party a better chance at holding onto the US House of Representatives in the 2026 midterm elections. The maps need to be approved by the GOP-controlled state Senate and signed by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott before they become official. But the Texas House presented the best chance for Democrats to derail the redraw. Democratic legislators delayed the vote by two weeks by fleeing Texas earlier this month in protest, and they were assigned round-the-clock police monitoring upon their return to ensure they attended Wednesday's session. The approval of the Texas maps on an 88-52 party-line vote is likely to prompt California's Democratic-controlled state Legislature this week to approve of a new House map creating five new Democratic-leaning districts. But the California map would require voter approval in November. Democrats have also vowed to challenge the new Texas map in court and complained that Republicans made the political power move before passing legislation responding to deadly floods that swept the state last month. 01:56 Texas Republicans openly said they were acting in their party's interest. State Rep. Todd Hunter, who wrote the legislation formally creating the new map, noted that the US Supreme Court has allowed politicians to redraw districts for nakedly partisan purposes. 'The underlying goal of this plan is straight forward: improve Republican political performance,' Hunter, a Republican, said on the floor. After nearly eight hours of debate, Hunter took the floor again to sum up the entire dispute as nothing more than a partisan fight. 'What's the difference, to the whole world listening? Republicans like it, and Democrats do not.' Democrats said the disagreement was about more than partisanship. 'In a democracy, people choose their representatives,' State Rep. Chris Turner said. 'This bill flips that on its head and lets pols in Washington, D.C., choose their voters.' State Rep. John H. Bucy blamed the president. 'This is Donald Trump's map,' Bucy said. 'It clearly and deliberately manufactures five more Republican seats in Congress because Trump himself knows that the voters are rejecting his agenda.' The Republican power play has already triggered a national tit-for-tat battle as Democratic state lawmakers prepared to gather in California on Thursday to revise that state's map to create five new Democratic seats. 'This is a new Democratic Party, this is a new day, this is new energy out there all across this country,' California's Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom said on a call with reporters on Wednesday. 'And we're going to fight fire with fire.' A new California map would need to be approved by voters in a special election in November because that state normally operates with a nonpartisan commission drawing the map to avoid the very sort of political brawl that is playing out. Newsom himself backed the 2008 ballot measure to create that process, as did former President Barack Obama. But in a sign of Democrats' stiffening resolve, Obama Tuesday night backed Newsom's bid to redraw the California map, saying it was a necessary step to stave off the GOP's Texas move. 'I think that approach is a smart, measured approach,' Obama said during a fundraiser for the Democratic Party's main redistricting arm. The incumbent president's party usually loses seats in the midterm election, and the GOP currently controls the House of Representatives by a mere three votes. Trump is going beyond Texas in his push to remake the map. He's pushed Republican leaders in conservative states like Indiana and Missouri to also try to create new Republican seats. Ohio Republicans were already revising their map before Texas moved. Democrats, meanwhile, are mulling reopening Maryland's and New York's maps as well. However, more Democratic-run states have commission systems like California's or other redistricting limits than Republican ones do, leaving the GOP with a freer hand to swiftly redraw maps. New York, for example, can't draw new maps until 2028, and even then, only with voter approval. In Texas, there was little that outnumbered Democrats could do other than fume and threaten a lawsuit to block the map. Because the Supreme Court has blessed purely partisan gerrymandering, the only way opponents can stop the new Texas map would be by arguing it violates the Voting Rights Act requirement to keep minority communities together so they can select representatives of their choice. Democrats noted that, in every decade since the 1970s, courts have found that Texas' legislature did violate the Voting Rights Act in redistricting, and that civil rights groups had an active lawsuit making similar allegations against the 2021 map that Republicans drew up. Republicans contend the new map creates more new minority-majority seats than the previous one. Democrats and some civil rights groups have countered that the GOP does that through mainly a numbers game that leads to halving the number of the state's House seats that will be represented by a Black representative. State Rep. Ron Reynolds noted the country just marked the 60th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act's passage and warned GOP members about how they'd be remembered if they voted for what he called 'this racial gerrymander.' 'Just like the people who were on the wrong side of history in 1965, history will be looking at the people who made the decisions in the body this day,' Reynolds, a Democrat, said. Republicans spent far less time talking on Wednesday, content to let their numbers do the talking in the lopsided vote. Still, House Republicans' frustration at the Democrats' flight and ability to delay the vote was palpable. House Speaker Dustin Burrows announced as debate started that doors to the chamber were locked and any member leaving was required to have a permission slip. One Democrat who refused the 24-hour police monitoring, State Rep. Nicole Collier, had been confined to the House floor since Monday night. Some Democratic state lawmakers joined Collier Tuesday night for what Rep. Cassandra Garcia Hernandez dubbed 'a sleepover for democracy.' Republicans issued civil arrest warrants to bring the Democrats back after they left the state Aug. 3, and Republican Gov. Greg Abbott asked the state Supreme Court to oust several Democrats from office. The lawmakers also face a fine of $500 for every day they were absent.
France 24
2 hours ago
- France 24
Trump flirts with Ukraine security, with narrow margins
After a campaign last year spent bashing predecessor Joe Biden over billions of dollars in aid to Ukraine, and Trump's public upbraiding of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in February, Trump has considered promises to Kyiv to end the Russian invasion. He has ruled out ground troops as well as NATO membership, siding with Russian leader Vladimir Putin in blaming Ukraine's aspirations for the Western alliance for the February 2022 invasion. But after Trump welcomed Putin to Alaska on Friday, Trump's envoy Steve Witkoff said the Russian president had agreed to a "concession" of the United States offering "Article Five-like protection" for Ukraine, referring to NATO's binding promise that an attack on one is an attack on all. Some observers doubted Witkoff's understanding of Putin, noting that Moscow publicly has insisted on guarantees for Russia. But Trump has said "we'll give them very good protection" and has spoken of providing US airpower to enforce any agreement. Little is known about what US airpower would entail, but it could support a deployment of European troops to Ukraine mulled by France and Britain. If the United States agreed to enforce control of the Ukrainian skies, it would be an "incredible green light for greater ambition" by Europeans on security, said Kristine Berzina, a senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund. European leaders showed striking unity and solidarity by coming together to Washington on Monday to back Zelensky in talks with Trump, she said. "For there to be a meaningful difference on the ground in Ukraine, it can't just be diplomatic alignment. It can't just be the heads of state being in lockstep for a few days at a time," she said. "Instead, they have to be ready to actually move and to show to Trump, 'We have everything ready; we just need x from you to make this work.'" Vagueness on options Trump, however, could also authorize a much smaller air deployment, such as one focused on reconnaissance that would see limited numbers of US planes in the Ukrainian skies. "President Trump said some things in his meetings with the European leaders and Zelensky and I am betting a huge sum of money that there are people around Trump who are going to spend a lot of time walking that back," said Debra Cagan, a former senior US policymaker now at the Atlantic Council. "What I mean by that is that they're going to try a very de minimis approach to security guarantees, to do as little as possible to carry that out," she said. She said that any successful strategy needed to have components on land and air as well as sea, including keeping the crucial Black Sea ports open for Ukraine. Pushback from base Trump retains a strong hold on the Republican Party, but has already seen some dissent within his hard-right base, which backed him in part for his dismissive attitude to foreign involvement. Outspoken Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, who earlier criticized Trump for bombing Iran, said she believed voters would be "appalled" by more support for Ukraine as they struggle with day-to-day concerns. "America is broke," she told conservative host Megyn Kelly. "At some point we have to start saying no to the rest of the world." Trump-aligned Senator Tommy Tuberville said it would be an "impossible sell" to voters still shaken by the Iraq and Afghanistan wars to start another long-term US military commitment, according to The Hill newspaper. Trump, however, has tried hard to portray the war as belonging to Biden and has spoken openly of his desire for the Nobel Peace Prize. "He could probably sell to his base that this is about America keeping peace and not about America making war," Berzina said.
France 24
4 hours ago
- France 24
PlayStation prices rise as US tariffs bite
Tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump hike the cost of goods brought into the US, leaving companies like Japan's Sony to decide whether to pass that on to consumers. "Similar to many global businesses, we continue to navigate a challenging economic environment," Sony Interactive Entertainment vice president of global marketing Isabelle Tomatis said in a post. After initially being threatened with a 25 percent hike, Japan negotiated a 15 percent tariff with the Trump administration. "As a result, we've made the difficult decision to increase the recommended retail price for PlayStation 5 consoles in the US." The new price for PS5 will be $550, with a "Digital Edition" priced at $500 and a Pro version for $750, according to Tomatis. In May, Sony warned it was considering tweaking prices in the US, estimating that tariffs could wind up costing the company about $680 million in the fiscal year. American companies are feeling the crunch, too. New York-based cosmetics giant Estee Lauder recently estimated the impact of the new tariffs at around $100 million for the 2026 financial year and plans to adjust its prices to offset the additional cost. US snack giant PepsiCo could increase prices of its soft drinks about 10 percent to mitigate effects of US tariffs, particularly those on imported aluminum used to make soda cans, according to trade magazine Beverage Digest. Meanwhile, California-based energy drink maker Monster Beverages is considering raising prices due to a "complex and dynamic customs landscape," according to chief executive Hilton Schlosberg. The Commerce Department this week said the US broadened its steel and aluminum tariffs, impacting hundreds more products that contain both metals such as child seats, tableware and heavy equipment. Since returning to the presidency, Trump has imposed tariffs on almost all US trading partners. Though the impact of Trump's tariffs on consumer prices has been limited so far, economists warn that their full effects are yet to be seen. Some businesses have coped by bringing forward purchases of products they expected will encounter tariffs. Others have passed on additional costs to their consumers, or absorbed a part of the fresh tariff burden.
