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Students, faculty and staff at more than 100 campuses across the US rallied against the Trump administration’s assault on higher education on Friday – the first in a planned series of nationwide, coordinated protests that organizers hope will culminate in large-scale students’ and workers’ strikes next May Day and a nationwide general strike in May 2028.

The day of action was organized under the banner of Students Rise Up, a network of students including both local groups and national organizations such as Sunrise Movement and Campus Climate Network. Students were joined by faculty and educational workers’ unions like the American Association of University Professors and Higher Education Labor United.

Protesters called on university administrators and elected officials to denounce the president’s months-long effort to force US universities to abide by its ideological priorities and urged them to reject Trump’s “compact”, which would give universities preferential access to federal funding in exchange for a commitment to advance the administration’s conservative agenda. Only one university, New College of Florida – a public school that state legislators have turned into a bastion of conservatism – has so far accepted it..

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The Washington National Opera (WNO) is considering moving out of the Kennedy Center, the company’s home since the US’s national performing arts center opened in 1971.

The possibility has been forced on the company as a result of the “takeover” of the center by Donald Trump, according to WNO’s artistic director, Francesca Zambello. The president declared himself chair of the institution in February, sacking and replacing its board and leadership.

Leaving the Kennedy Center is a possible scenario after a collapse in box office revenue and “shattered” donor confidence in the wake of Trump’s takeover, said Zambello.

“It is our desire to perform in our home at the Kennedy Center,” she said. “But if we cannot raise enough money, or sell enough tickets in there, we have to consider other options.

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Donald Trump said Friday that no US government officials would be attending the Group of 20 summit this year in South Africa, citing the country’s treatment of white farmers.

The US president had already announced he would not attend the annual summit for heads of state from the globe’s leading and emerging economies. JD Vance had been scheduled to attend in Trump’s place, but a person familiar with Vance’s plans who was granted anonymity to talk about his schedule said Vance would no longer travel there for the summit.

Donald Trump said Friday that no US government officials would be attending the Group of 20 summit this year in South Africa, citing the country’s treatment of white farmers.

The US president had already announced he would not attend the annual summit for heads of state from the globe’s leading and emerging economies. JD Vance had been scheduled to attend in Trump’s place, but a person familiar with Vance’s plans who was granted anonymity to talk about his schedule said Vance would no longer travel there for the summit.

“It is a total disgrace that the G20 will be held in South Africa,” Trump said on his social media site. In his post, Trump cited “abuses” of Afrikaners, including violence and death as well as confiscation of their land and farms.

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Former White House senior adviser David Axelrod on Friday said the Anti-Defamation League’s response to Zohran Mamdani’s (D) mayoral win was “shockingly gratuitous.”

“As a Jew & son of a Jewish refugee, I’m alarmed by the rise of antisemitism. The ADL’s mission is to call it out when they see it,” Axelrod wrote in a statement on X.

“But I found their response to Mamdani’s election shockingly gratuitous, inflammatory and deeply irresponsible,” he added. 

Following Mamdani’s Tuesday win, the ADL launched the “Mamdani Monitor,” a public facing tracker to monitor policies, appointments and actions from his administration that they consider potentially harmful to the safety of the Jewish community.

“Mayor-Elect Mamdani has promoted antisemitic narratives, associated with individuals who have a history of antisemitism, and demonstrated intense animosity toward the Jewish state that is counter to the views of the overwhelming majority of Jewish New Yorkers,” Jonathan Greenblatt, ADL CEO and National Director said in a statement.

“We are deeply concerned that those individuals and principles will influence his administration at a time when we are tracking a brazen surge of harassment, vandalism and violence targeting Jewish residents and institutions in recent years,” he added.

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James D. Watson, the brilliant but controversial American biologist whose 1953 discovery of the structure of DNA, the molecule of heredity, ushered in the age of genetics and provided the foundation for the biotechnology revolution of the late 20th century, has died at the age of 97.

His death was confirmed by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory on Long Island, where he worked for many years. The New York Times reported that Watson died this week at a hospice on Long Island.

In his later years, Watson's reputation was tarnished by comments on genetics and race that led him to be ostracized by the scientific establishment.

Even as a younger man, he was known as much for his writing and for his enfant-terrible persona − including his willingness to use another scientist's data to advance his own career − as for his science.

His 1968 memoir, "The Double Helix," was a racy, take-no-prisoners account of how he and British physicist Francis Crick were first to determine the three-dimensional shape of DNA. The achievement won the duo a share of the 1962 Nobel Prize in medicine and eventually would lead to genetic engineering, gene therapy and other DNA-based medicine and technology.

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Lebanese President Joseph Aoun has denounced a wave of Israeli air strikes on southern Lebanon as a “heinous political crime” as at least one person was killed and nine others injured in the attacks.

The UN says Israel has rejected 107 requests to bring aid into the Gaza Strip since the ceasefire deal with Hamas came into effect last month, as Palestinians across the enclave continue to suffer from a lack of food, shelter and other supplies.

More than 10,000 Palestinians remain buried under the rubble in Gaza, according to the National Committee for Missing Persons in Gaza, which described the territory as “the world’s largest mass grave”.

Kazakhstan says it will join the US-brokered Abraham Accords, normalising ties with Israel. The move is largely symbolic as the Central Asian nation has had diplomatic relations with Israel for decades.

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Hamas fighters entrenched in Rafah, the southernmost area of Gaza now under Israeli control, may soon surrender their weapons in exchange for safe passage to other parts of the enclave, according to sources close to ongoing mediation talks. The proposal, facilitated by Egyptian mediators, aims to preserve the fragile U.S.-brokered ceasefire that began on October 10 and has already been tested by renewed violence.

Under the deal, approximately 200 Hamas fighters would hand over their arms to Egyptian authorities and disclose information about tunnel networks in Rafah to ensure their destruction. Although neither Israel nor Hamas has publicly accepted the proposal, discussions are reportedly underway. U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff described the plan as a “test case” for a broader disarmament process across Gaza, part of U.S. President Donald Trump’s multi-phase peace initiative.

Since the ceasefire began, the Rafah region has witnessed deadly confrontations. Israel attributes recent attacks on its troops to Hamas, while the group denies involvement. These clashes resulted in three Israeli soldiers killed and dozens of Palestinians dead after retaliatory strikes. Two sources suggest that some Hamas fighters in Rafah may not even know the truce is in effect, having lost contact with leadership since March.

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A Ukrainian court has handed down the first jail sentence for life against a Russian soldier accused of killing a Ukrainian prisoner of war.

Dmitry Kurashov, 27, was found guilty of shooting dead Vitalii Hodniuk, a veteran 41-year-old Ukrainian soldier who had surrendered following capture in 2024.

Ukraine's national police said that "expert reports, witness testimony and video footage from the scene confirmed that the Russian soldier deliberately killed the POW on the orders of his commanders, who had instructed troops not to take Ukrainian soldiers captive".

In a months-long trial which began earlier this year, the court heard how Kurashov's unit stormed a Ukrainian position in the region of Zaporizhzhia on the morning of 6 January 2024.

The prosecution said that although Hodniuk crawled out of a dugout unarmed and surrendered, Kurashov shot him point-blank with several aimed AK-47 shots – a violation of the laws of war.

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