Latest news with #UniversityofCaliforniaLosAngeles
Straits Times
4 days ago
- Politics
- Straits Times
UCLA says Trump administration froze $584 million of its federal funding
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox FILE PHOTO: Law enforcement officers stand guard at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), during a pro-Palestinian protest, as the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas continues, in Los Angeles, California, U.S., May 2, 2024. REUTERS/Mike Blake/File Photo WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump's administration has frozen $584 million in federal funding for the University of California, Los Angeles, UCLA said on Wednesday after the government reprimanded the university over pro-Palestinian protests. The Trump administration has threatened to cut federal funds for universities over pro-Palestinian protests against U.S. ally Israel's war in Gaza. The government alleges universities, including UCLA, allowed antisemitism during the protests. Large demonstrations took place at UCLA last year. Protesters, including some Jewish groups, say the government wrongly equates their criticism of Israel's military assault in Gaza and its occupation of Palestinian territories with antisemitism, and their advocacy for Palestinian rights with support for extremism. "Currently, a total of approximately $584 million in extramural award funding is suspended and at risk," UCLA Chancellor Julio Frenk said in an update on the university website. The Los Angeles Times reported UCLA leaders were preparing to negotiate with the government over the freeze. The White House had no immediate response to a request for comment. Last week, the university agreed to pay over $6 million to settle a lawsuit by some students and a professor who alleged antisemitism. It was also sued earlier this year over a 2024 attack on pro-Palestinian protesters at the height of the U.S. campus protest movement. The government has in recent weeks settled its probes with Columbia University, which agreed to pay over $220 million, and Brown University, which said it will pay $50 million. Both institutions accepted certain government demands. Talks to settle with Harvard University are ongoing. Top stories Swipe. Select. Stay informed. Singapore MRT track issue causes 5-hour delay; Jeffrey Siow says 'we can and will do better' Singapore ST Explains: What is a track point fault and why does it cause lengthy train disruptions? Singapore Three people taken to hospital after fire in Punggol executive condominium Singapore Elderly man found dead in SingPost Centre stairwell could have been in confused state: Coroner Singapore 81 primary schools to hold ballot for Phase 2C of Primary 1 registration Singapore S'pore and Indonesia have discussed jointly developing military training facilities: Chan Chun Sing Singapore Two workers died after being hit by flying gas cylinders in separate incidents in 2025 Sport Young Lions and distance runner Soh Rui Yong left out of SEA Games contingent Rights advocates have raised concerns about academic freedom and free speech. The government has also attempted to deport foreign student protesters but faced judicial roadblocks. Stanford University's student-run newspaper sued the Trump administration on Wednesday, saying student writers were censoring themselves and turning down assignments related to Gaza to avoid being targeted for deportation. REUTERS
16-06-2025
- Politics
Are Trump's immigration policies hurting his support among some Latino voters?
Several high-profile Hispanic and Latino Republican elected officials have expressed concerns over the Trump administration's handling of immigration -- a recent signal of what some see as an erosion of the political gains that President Donald Trump made with Latinos in 2024. Amid those concerns, the Department of Homeland Security has paused most raids on farms, restaurants and hotels as Trump says he'll expand enforcement efforts in larger cities. Other Republicans say that Hispanic and Latino support for the president remains strong and blame the previous administration for recent immigration problems. According to exit polls, 46% of Hispanic and Latino voters voted for Trump in 2024 -- an improvement compared to his 2020 run, when he got 32% of Hispanic and Latino votes. Matt Barreto, a political scientist at the University of California Los Angeles and a founder of BSP Research, a Democratic-aligned polling firm, told ABC News that this was largely due to economic concerns: "Voters just felt that Trump might provide better economic opportunities." (Barreto conducted polling for the Harris-Walz campaign.) But as Trump's mass deportation roundups spread beyond those with criminal records to day laborers and factory workers, several Hispanic and Latino members of Congress who supported Trump have pushed back on aspects of the administration's tactics. Some Latino officials say to focus on immediate threats Six out of 11 members of the Congressional Hispanic Conference, a Republican-sponsored caucus, sent a letter Wednesday urging the acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to focus enforcement on immigrants who pose "an immediate threat to public safety." "We need to give absolute priority to every violent offender and convicted criminal illegal alien present in our nation. Diverting limited resources to other objectives puts our national security at risk," the members wrote. The letter echoed concerns raised by several Latino leaders that the administration's immigration crackdown should be focused on those with criminal records, rather than long-time undocumented residents. While Rep. Carlos Giménez, R-Fla., a Cuban-born member of the conference, did not sign on to the statement, he told ABC News on Thursday that he was concerned that his Cuban, Venezuelan and Haitian constituents might lose Temporary Protected Status (TPS), a humanitarian parole program that the Trump administration has sought to revoke for many immigrants. "I've always felt that we should do something a little bit nuanced. The immigrants we have in Miami-Dade are a little bit different, and they've been assimilated pretty well and are also part of the economy. So I've communicated that to the administration," he said. "TPS has allowed a significant population of inadmissible or illegal aliens without a path to lawful immigration status to settle in the interior of the United States, and the sheer numbers have resulted in associated difficulties in local communities where local resources have been inadequate to meet the demands caused by increased numbers," the Department of Homeland Security said in February. Undocumented individuals are still able to apply for asylum as well. In a statement posted to X on June 6, Rep. María Elvira Salazar, R-Fla., a co-signer of the letter, criticized arrests in immigration courts and the end of a temporary parole program, writing these tactics "jeopardize our duty to due process that every democracy must guarantee." Immigration attorneys have told ABC News that federal agents have been making arrests at immigration courts -- in some cases after their deportation cases have been dismissed. The attorneys said that immigration enforcement officers have been waiting in immigration court buildings and arresting people who have had their cases dismissed, after which they're placed into expedited removal proceedings by the Department of Homeland Security. Salazar did note, though, that "I wholeheartedly agree that the administration must kick out every criminal here illegally, just as President Trump promised." Some feel 'betrayed by these actions' Janet Murguía, president and CEO of the nonpartisan advocacy organization UnidosUS, told ABC News on a press call on Wednesday that Latinos who voted for Trump but then dealt with family members losing TPS are likely feeling "betrayed by these actions… This is looking like the countries where they came from, when they fled dictators and fascist regimes, and so I think they're starting to see signs here that this is not what they bought into." Barreto similarly said that he thought immigration actions are impacting Trump's standing among Latino voters who voted for him, adding that those voters have also for a long time differentiated between border security and immigration policies. Even at the 100-days mark of Trump's second administration, he said, which was April 30, "people were still talking about border security as a totally separate issue from these others ... there was a clear delineation to Latino voters that long-term immigrants already here, working in the United States, are part of the fabric of our country and should not be targeted." Some recent polls, including a Washington Post/George Mason University Schar School poll published Thursday, have shown declining approval more generally about Trump's handling of immigration, although those polls were looking at U.S. adults more broadly. The White House and others have pushed back, however, on claims that Trump is losing support among some Hispanic and Latino voters. "President Trump campaigned on enforcing federal immigration law and he received a sweeping mandate from the American people to carry out that agenda. The President's winning coalition included historic support from Hispanic voters with widespread backing among these voters for deportations," White House deputy press secretary Abigail Jackson wrote. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) did not respond to a request for comment. Distinctions between long-timers and newcomers David Hernandez, the chairman of the Los Angeles Hispanic Republican Club, said that immigration enforcement actions have not changed how members of his group feel about Trump. However, he pointed to some nuances in how groups within the Latino community think about immigration enforcement, framing it as a split between undocumented individuals who have been in the country for a long time and those who have arrived more recently. According to Hernandez, those who have been in the U.S. for decades are "struggling, and yet they see so many services being distributed to individuals who have just arrived." Hernandez highlighted, in particular, the influx of foreign nationals during the final two years of the Biden administration as causing resentment. Pastor Samuel Rodriguez, the president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, similarly argued that the previous administration's immigration policy as well as local Democratic sanctuary policies have forced ICE to cast a wider net. "That's why I wish that [California Gov.] Gavin Newsom and [Los Angeles] Mayor [Karen] Bass would just cooperate with the federal government so these raids could stop, so the federal government could have direct access to the jails and prisons," Rodriguez said. "So the people that have been here for 20, 25, 30 years, whose kids were raised here, who are God-fearing, hard working individuals -- some of the hardest-working individuals on the planet -- so they don't have to live with anxiety and fear," he added. Sounding a different tone The California state prison system says it does work with ICE regarding individuals "who may be subject to deportation within 90 days of intake into the prison system." Trump himself has begun to sound a different tone on some long-time undocumented immigrants. He told reporters on Thursday "Our farmers are being hurt badly, they have very good workers that have worked for them for 20 years. They're not citizens, but they've turned out to be great. We will do something about that." The Department of Homeland Security confirmed on Saturday new guidance to pause most raids on farms, restaurants, and hotels had been issued. Still, Trump reinforced his commitment to mass deportations on social media on Sunday, writing that the administration will expand enforcement efforts in America's largest cities.
The Hill
13-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Hill
‘Scarface,' ‘Ozark' actor Harris Yulin dies at 87
(KTLA) – Actor Harris Yulin, known for his roles in 'Scarface,' 'Training Day,' 'Ozark,' and more has died at the age of 87. His death in New York City on Tuesday was the result of cardiac arrest, his family and manager, Sue Leibman, told The Hollywood Reporter. The Los Angeles native studied acting at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) and later made his New York theater debut in 1963 in 'Next Time I'll Sing to You.' Throughout his five-decade career, he's appeared in over 100 movies and television shows, making him a recognizable face. His resume includes roles in 'Ghostbusters II,' 'Clear and Present Danger,' 'The Hurricane,' and 'Rush Hour 2.' He appeared in the popular sitcom 'Frasier,' which earned him a Primetime Emmy nomination for outstanding guest actor in a comedy series. Later in his career, he starred in 'Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt,' 'Billions,' and 'FBI: Most Wanted.' Deadline reports the actor was preparing to start production this week to star in the MGM+ series 'American Classic' alongside Kevin Kline and Laura Linney. The project is being directed by Michael Hoffman, and Yulin's family said he was 'delighted' to be working with him. The two worked together in the 2005 film 'Game 6.' He is survived by his wife Kristen Lowman, son-in-law Ted Mineo, nephew Martin Crane, and godchildren Marco and Lara Greenberg. His daughter, actress Claire Lucido, died in 2021.
Yahoo
12-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Los Angeles, city of immigrant protests: why it's no surprise LA rose up against Trump
Los Angeles is home to nearly a million undocumented immigrants, the largest number of any place in the US. For decades, the city has been a catalyst in the US immigrants' rights movement. So when federal agents began conducting raids at workplaces across Los Angeles last week, activists say it's not surprising that the city rose up in protest. 'We're seeing it as a struggle to preserve what's left of American democracy,' Chris Zepeda-Millán, a public policy expert at the University of California Los Angeles, told the Guardian on Monday en route to a protest. Trump's decision to send military troops into a majority-Democratic city has been criticized as a deliberate provocation, perhaps one designed to undermine his political rival, the California governor, Gavin Newsom, and distract from Trump's current legislative and personal struggles. But Trump has also decided to stage his immigration battle in a city with one of the most well-developed networks of pro-immigration organizations and pro-immigrant labor unions in the United States. 'They're fighting what they perceive as fascism and militarism taking over their city and their state,' Zepeda-Millán said. 'They're well aware that other activists in other cities are watching.' Angelenos have been organizing against government attempts to criminalize undocumented workers since the 1990s, and against US government racism towards Mexican Americans for at least a century. Some of LA's immigrants' rights protests have been huge: at least half a million people are estimated to have attended demonstrations in downtown Los Angeles in 2006, when the Republican party tried to pass a national bill that would have made simply being an undocumented immigrant in the US a felony. For the most part, the people protesting in the streets today are not themselves immigrants, or undocumented, Zepeda-Millán said. It's the children and grandchildren of immigrants, people who are themselves US citizens, who are taking up the fight. 'They know very well how much their parents and grandparents contributed to this state, this country, this economy,' he said. Local Black Lives Matter leaders have encouraged all Angelenos to join the protests in solidarity. 'This is our business. Any time there's a Gestapo covering up their faces, masking their faces, snatching people off of street corners, none of us are safe,' Melina Abdullah, a co-founder of Black Lives Matter LA, said in a social media video on Friday. Abdullah, who said she was teargassed at a demonstration on Friday, told the Guardian that the law enforcement response to the immigration raid protests had been different, with officers 'throwing aside any rules of engagement'. 'They're treating us as if we're enemy combatants,' she said. 'I've never seen it like this.' As the White House has set new, record-breaking quotas for the daily number of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) arrests, activists say, many different federal agencies are now being asked to contribute to Trump's deportation agenda. 'We're not just dealing with Ice. We're dealing with FBI Swat teams, drug enforcement, US marshals,' said Victor Narro, a longtime immigration and labor activist in Los Angeles. In southern California, communities are now seeing 'paramilitary use of FBI agents, armed vehicles patrolling the streets, doing these very flashy and public types of raids and operations', said Luis Nolasco, a senior policy advocate and organizer at the ACLU of Southern California. In January, border patrol agents conducted raids targeting undocumented workers six hours north of the US-Mexico border. 'The amount of border patrol presence in our region is very concerning,' Nolasco said, because border patrol, even more than Ice 'has a horrendous track record of abusing people's rights'. Today, nearly half of Los Angeles county's 10 million residents are Latino, 16% are Asian, and a third of all residents were born outside the United States. White people have been a minority in Los Angeles county since at least 1990, according to the Los Angeles Times: California became a 'minority-majority' state in 2000. Los Angeles county has so many residents who are undocumented that it contains nearly 9% of the US's total population of undocumented people, according to estimates from the Migration Policy Institute. In 2023, there were a total of 13.7 million 'unauthorized immigrants' living in the US, the non-partisan thinktank estimated. Scholars and activists said that Trump simply does not have the federal resources to deport people from the US at the scale or the pace that his administration has promised. In May, the administration demanded that federal agents arrest and deport 3,000 people a day, or a million each year. (Not all people who are arrested can be deported right away.) During Trump's first 100 days in office, Ice said it arrested an average of only 660 people a day. At that rate, Zepeda-Millán said, it would take federal agents 50 years to deport the more than 12 million undocumented people estimated to be living in the United States. But Trump can effectively use federal agents to terrorize undocumented people and their families, activists said, something his Los Angeles raids have accomplished. One daughter of a man arrested in the raids described her father being 'kidnapped' by agents, taken away in handcuffs and ankle chains, and detained for days without any contact with his family. Others described shock at raids targeting workplaces, and the detention of hard-working, church-going family members, some of whom have lived in LA for decades. Los Angeles news outlets have reported that streets in some immigrant neighborhoods of the city have been eerily empty, and businesses reporting a sudden drop in customers, as the threat of arrest and deportation has frightened many people into staying at home. While many news outlets are currently focusing on 'protesters or things being thrown at police', immigrant communities are feeling a 'hurt' that 'is not usually portrayed in the press', Camarillo said. Given 'the devastation that's occurring in the places where they are raiding and taking mothers and fathers and aunts and uncles and sisters and brothers,' he said, it's no surprise that there have been protests. LA's demographics, combined with the city's history of prominent 'riots', from the 1965 Watts uprising to the 1992 protests over the police beating of Rodney King, make Los Angeles a 'strategic' place for Trump to draw out protesters that he can label 'insurrectionists', said Albert Camarillo, an emeritus professor of history at Stanford University. 'This is a TV personality that knows how to stage a spectacle,' Camarillo said. Part of the apparent strategy behind Trump's showdown in Los Angeles, some activists said, isn't even about immigrants themselves. It's about creating chaos and undermining California's economy in order to hurt Newsom's likely presidential run in 2028. 'I think the Republican party sees Gavin Newsom as a threat,' Zepeda-Millán said. But activists caution that previous Republicans attempts to crack down on California's undocumented immigrants to further their political goals have backfired – sometimes spectacularly. One of the main reasons that California is now a Democratic supermajority state is because the Republican party backed a punitive anti-immigrant ballot measure, Prop 187, in 1994. Thirty years later, the state's majority-minority voters still do not appear to have forgiven them. California is often labeled a 'deep-blue state' but it's also been a deeply reactionary one. The region's PR machine may focus on the sunny beaches and Hollywood glamor, but LA's reality includes intense racial segregation and systemic deprivation. Los Angeles's law enforcement agencies are notorious for their history of racism and violence, and the city has the largest jail system in the United States. Those conditions have sparked repeated uprisings by the city's Black residents: in 1965, 1992 and again with the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020. But this Black civil rights history is intertwined with a lesser-known history of similar Latino civil rights battles in Los Angeles, often led by Mexican Americans. Though California, like much of the south-west, was part of Mexico until 1848, Mexican Americans have faced widespread discrimination, including been targeted with lynchings and white mob violence. When Camarillo, the Stanford historian, was growing up in South Central Los Angeles in the 1950s, he said, Mexican Americans were still dealing with 'overt racial segregation' in housing, education and even movie theaters. Very few of the city's more than half-million Latino residents were welcomed into institutes of higher education: when Camarillo entered UCLA in 1966, he said, he was one of fewer than 50 Mexican Americans in a total student body of 27,000. In the 1960s and 70s, as African Americans were forming the Black Power movement, Mexican Americans formed the Chicano movement, embracing similar ideals of cultural empowerment, equal rights and self-determination. Both movements had their militant wings: the Brown Berets, founded in Los Angeles, were the Chicano answer to the Black Panthers. Camarillo remembers being 'riveted' in 1968 as he watched East Los Angeles high school students stage massive walkouts to protest against their underfunded public schools and lack of opportunities. It was 'the first time high school students had ever walked out', said Camarillo, who went on to become the first Mexican American to earn a PhD in Chicano history. In the 80s and 90s, a huge new wave of immigrants came to Los Angeles, many of them fleeing from civil wars in Guatemala and El Salvador in which the United States' cold war policies had played a major role. With the state's changing demographics came a backlash from California's white residents, Camarillo said. California voters approved several ballot measures in the 1990s targeting undocumented immigrants and banning affirmative action policies at public universities. In 1994, Los Angeles high-school students again staged walkouts to protest against Proposition 187, a ballot initiative designed to block undocumented immigrants and their children from receiving public services, and require public employees, including teachers and doctors, to report suspected undocumented people to the authorities. While the measure, which was eventually found to be unconstitutional, passed, it radicalized a new generation of activists, and resulted in more Latino leaders running for office and taking leadership roles in labor unions, activists said. Today, much of LA's political establishment, including Karen Bass, the mayor, is made up of politicians who got their start as pro-immigrant activists in the 1990s. In 1994, during the battles over Prop 187 and California's punitive 'three strikes' law, Bass was a community organizer working with Latino teens to protest against the legislation. The Trump administration's raids in Los Angeles appear to be mobilizing a new generation of activists. Already, organizers are seeing changes in responses on the ground. In the past, Zepeda-Millán said, immigration enforcement raids and deportations had been 'notoriously hard to organize around', in part because activists often don't find out about them until after they have happened. At most, he said, one or two activists might arrive to try to assist the person being deported. 'Now what you're seeing is hundreds of people showing up,' he said. 'You're not just seeing regular activists, you're seeing community members come out of their houses to confront Ice and the police, saying they don't want them there.' That new community response to deportations is in part a result of Latino activists' involvement in the George Floyd protests of 2020, Zepeda-Millán said, in which protesters saw police violence and repression firsthand. 'The generation that you see out there, showing up by the tens and hundreds now, to confront raids, this is the generation of youth that were politically baptized during the Black Lives Matter movement,' he said. This past week's protests, with thousands of demonstrators, are not even close to the largest immigration demonstrations in LA's history. In 2006, as millions of people protested in hundreds of cities nationwide against congressional Republicans' attempt to turn all undocumented immigrants into felons, the largest protests were in Los Angeles. Narro, who organized a large May Day demonstration in 2006, said participants, even small children, dressed in white to symbolize their commitment to non-violence. 'When you see the aerial pictures, it's like a white blanket covering Los Angeles,' Narro said. Los Angeles' immigrant communities have not participated in a demonstration at that scale in the past 20 years, but Narro said that Trump, who 'seems to be doing something every day to harm immigrants', may finally change that. 'My hope is, if [Trump] continues, it will hit that moment of groundswell, that immigrant families will just get fed up, and overcome their fear, and take to the streets in massive numbers,' Narro said.
Yahoo
03-06-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Groundbreaking AI pen detects Parkinson's by analysing handwriting
Scientists have developed a special pen that analyses hand movements using artificial intelligence to detect early signs of Parkinson's, an advance that could lead to low-cost diagnosis for the disease. The device can identify differences in the writing styles of people with and without the neurological disease, which affects 10 million people worldwide. Symptoms include tremors and deteriorating limb and body movements. It is the second most common neurodegenerative disease after Alzheimer's, and the fastest growing of such conditions. However, diagnoses typically done by observing patient motor skills remain underestimates in low- and middle-income countries due to a shortage of specialists. Handwriting is a complex process requiring brain-hand coordination and previous research has shown it's substantially affected by Parkinson's. The AI pen containing magnetic ink detects signs of Parkinson's by analysing handwriting samples. 'Here we developed a diagnostic pen, featuring a soft magnetoelastic tip and ferrofluid ink, capable of sensitively and quantitatively converting both on-surface and in-air writing motions into high-fidelity, analysable electrical signals for self-powered PD (Parkinson's Disease) diagnostics,' researchers, including from the University of California Los Angeles, said. The researchers demonstrated that, with the assistance of an AI system, the pen could successfully distinguish handwriting samples of three patients with Parkinson's from those of 13 healthy participants. They found the device could identify Parkinson's disease in patients with more than 95 per cent accuracy in the small set of 16 individuals. The researchers said they hoped the pen could be developed into a low-cost, accurate, and widely distributable technology to improve Parkinson's diagnostics across large populations and in resource-limited areas. 'Our development of the diagnostic pen represents a low-cost, widely disseminable and reliable technology with the potential to improve PD diagnostics across large populations and resource-limited areas,' the researchers said. 'It is particularly beneficial for untreated individuals who may not yet recognise themselves as potential patients with PD.' Sign in to access your portfolio
