NEW YORK (AP) — Columbia University announced disciplinary action Tuesday against students who participated in a pro-Palestinian demonstration inside the Ivy League school’s main library before final exams in May and an encampment during alumni weekend last year.

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A student activist group said nearly 80 students were told they have been suspended for one to three years or expelled. The sanctions issued by a university judicial board also include probation and degree revocations, Columbia said in a statement.

The action comes as the Manhattan university is negotiating with President Donald Trump’s administration to restore $400 million in federal funding it has withheld from the Ivy League school over its handling of student protests against the war in Gaza. The administration pulled the funding, canceling grants and contracts, in March because of what it described as the university’s failure to squelch antisemitism on campus during the Israel-Hamas war that began in October 2023.

Columbia has since agreed to a series of demands laid out by the Republican administration, including overhauling the university’s student disciplinary process and adopting a new definition of antisemitism.

“Our institution must focus on delivering on its academic mission for our community,” the university said Tuesday. “And to create a thriving academic community, there must be respect for each other and the institution’s fundamental work, policies, and rules. Disruptions to academic activities are in violation of University policies and Rules, and such violations will necessarily generate consequences.”

It did not disclose the names of the students who were disciplined.

Columbia in May said it would lay off nearly 180 staffers and scale back research in response to the loss of funding. Those receiving nonrenewal or termination notices represent about 20% of the employees funded in some manner by the terminated federal grants, the university said.

A student activist group said the newly announced disciplinary action exceeds sentencing precedent for prior protests. Suspended students would be required to submit apologies in order to be allowed back on campus or face expulsion, the group said, something some students will refuse to do.

“We will not be deterred. We are committed to the struggle for Palestinian liberation,” Columbia University Apartheid Divest said in a statement.

Columbia was at the forefront of U.S. campus protests over the war in spring 2024. Pro-Palestinian demonstrators set up an encampment and seized a campus building in April, leading to dozens of arrests and inspiring a wave of similar protests nationally.

Since returning to the White House in January, Trump has cut funding to several top U.S. universities he viewed as too tolerant of antisemitism.

The administration has also cracked down on individual student protesters. Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil, a legal U.S. resident with no criminal record, was detained in March over his participation in pro-Palestinian demonstrations. He is now suing the Trump administration, alleging he was falsely imprisoned, maliciously prosecuted and smeared as an antisemite.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — As California’s much-loved hamburger chain In-N-Out Burger expands across the country into Tennessee, billionaire owner and CEO Lynsi Snyder has announced she and her family are going with it and heading east, too.

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“There are a lot of great things about California, but raising a family is not easy here,” Snyder announced last week on the “Relatable” podcast, hosted by conservative commentator Allie Beth Stuckey. “Doing business is not easy here.”

Snyder said the corporate headquarters will remain in California. The company announced in 2023 that it planned to open a corporate office in Tennessee, along with restaurants in and around Nashville.

With her move to Tennessee, Snyder becomes the latest high-profile business figure to decamp a state known for its sunshine but also heavy taxes and regulation, progressive politics and a punishing cost of living.

Other departures have included Charles Schwab and Chevron, which cited regulatory issues, taxes and high operating costs, and Elon Musk announced last year he was moving the headquarters of SpaceX and social media company X to Texas. He said at the time that a California law barring school districts from requiring staff to notify parents of their child’s gender identification change was the “final straw.”

Snyder is the granddaughter of the chain’s founder, Harry Snyder, who opened his first drive-thru hamburger stand in Southern California in 1948. The California cachet has long been part of the brand’s identity.

File – People walk below an In-N-Out Burger restaurant sign in San Francisco, Aug. 25, 2022. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu, File)

According to its website, In-N-Out Burger has over 400 locations across eight states — California, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, Texas, Oregon, Colorado and Idaho.

In a post on the social media platform X, Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee said, “From the first time I met Lynsi and her team, we both knew (the chain) would thrive in the Volunteer State.”

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. Army’s head of aviation has changed jobs to become chief of the branch’s enterprise marketing office, a move that comes before the National Transportation Safety Board holds hearings next week on January’s midair collision between an Army helicopter and a commercial jet that killed 67 people.

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Brig. Gen. Matthew Braman became chief of the Army Enterprise Marketing Office this month to focus on advertising and boosting recruitment, according to his new bio on an Army website. An Army spokesperson said the plan to move Braman was in place last fall and had nothing to do with the tragedy.

The NTSB will hold three days of hearings, starting next Wednesday, on the crash near Reagan Washington National Airport.

Braman was among those who faced criticism from some in Congress following the collision over the Potomac River, which was the nation’s deadliest plane crash since November 2001.

Braman acknowledged during a hearing in March that military helicopters were still flying over the nation’s capital with a key system broadcasting their locations turned off during most missions because it deemed them sensitive.

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz called it “shocking and deeply unacceptable” after earlier complaining that the general wasn’t answering his questions.

Braman repeatedly evaded Cruz’s questions during the hearing about whether he would provide a copy of a memo laying out the policy for when Army helicopters fly with their locators turned off. Braman said he wasn’t sure he could provide the memo because it was part of the investigation, but the head of the NTSB assured him that would be okay.

Former NTSB and FAA crash investigator Jeff Guzzetti, who has followed the crash investigation and watched the hearing, welcomed the news that Braman is no longer leading the Army’s aviation unit.

“Personally I think that’s a good thing. That guy was just not playing ball in my view,” Guzzetti said. “He was too protective and defensive and evasive and secretive. And that’s not what you need in this type of situation.”

Cruz, the Republican chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, said in April that troubling missteps since the crash “underscore the precarious situation in the nation’s airspace.”

Expressing frustration with the Army’s refusal to turn over a memo detailing its flight rules, Cruz said during the hearing that any deaths resulting from another collision near Reagan Airport “will be on the Army’s hands.” He threatened the Army with a subpoena if it did not give the committee a copy of its memo.

The fact that system wasn’t activated in the Black Hawk that collided with the passenger jet is a key concern investigators have highlighted. With the location system turned off, the tower had to rely on radar for updates on the helicopter’s position that only came once every four seconds instead of every second before the crash.

“It begs the question, what doesn’t the Army want Congress or the American people to know about why it was flying partially blind to the other aircraft and to the air traffic controllers near DCA?” Cruz said, using the airport code for Reagan. “This is not acceptable.”

By MARY CLARE JALONICK

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate narrowly voted on Tuesday to begin considering the nomination of former Trump lawyer Emil Bove for a lifetime appointment as a federal appeals court judge, with at least one Republican opposed and Democrats vowing to try to slow his confirmation.

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Bove, a former criminal defense lawyer for President Donald Trump, is now a top official at the Justice Department. His nomination for the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has come under intense scrutiny from Democrats after a fired department lawyer said he suggested the Trump administration may need to ignore judicial commands — a claim Bove denies.

He was at the forefront of the department’s dismissed corruption case against New York City Mayor Eric Adams. He has also accused FBI officials of “insubordination” for refusing to hand over the names of agents who investigated the 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol and ordered the firings of a group of prosecutors involved in those Jan. 6 criminal cases.

The 50-48 vote came after Democrats forced an additional procedural vote on his nomination, an effort to protest the nomination and delay the process. Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer called Bove “the extreme of the extreme of the extreme” and “Trump’s worst judicial nominee to date.”

“Mr. Bove’s entire career has been built on one thing: fealty to Donald Trump,” Schumer said.

NEW YORK, NEW YORK – MAY 21: Former U.S. President Donald Trump appears in court with attorney Emil Bove (L) during his trial for allegedly covering up hush money payments at Manhattan Criminal Court on May 21, 2024 in New York City. Former U.S. President Donald Trump faces 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in the first of his criminal cases to go to trial. (Photo by Dave Sanders-Pool/Getty Images)

Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski was the only Republican to vote against moving to consider the nomination, signaling that Republicans will have the votes to confirm Bove by the end of the week. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, voted to move forward but has not said whether she will support Bove’s confirmation.

The tension and delays over Bove’s nomination come as Republicans have tried to move Trump’s nominees as quickly as possible and as Trump has pushed Senate Majority Leader John Thune to skip the traditional August recess to stay in session and confirm more judges and executive branch officials. Thune said he is considering doing that if Democrats continue to force delays, and Democrats have shown little signs of letting up.

At his confirmation hearing earlier this month, Bove took criticism of his tenure head-on, telling lawmakers he understands some of his decisions “have generated controversy.” But Bove said he has been inaccurately portrayed as Trump’s “henchman” and “enforcer” at the department.

“I am someone who tries to stand up for what I believe is right,” Bove said.

Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, the top Democrat on the panel, said Bove has used his position “to weaponize the Department of Justice against the president’s enemies.”

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, defended Bove against the whistleblower’s claims and said he deserves fair treatment. He said Democrats withheld the complaint from the fired lawyer and that his staff had investigated the claims.

“Mr. Bove has a strong legal background and has served his country honorably,” Grassley said at a Senate Judiciary meeting last week, where Democrats walked out in protest.

The whistleblower complaint came from a former Justice Department lawyer who was fired in April after conceding in court that Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran man who had been living in Maryland, was mistakenly deported to an El Salvador prison.

That lawyer, Erez Reuveni, described efforts by top Justice Department officials in the weeks before his firing to stonewall and mislead judges to carry out deportations championed by the White House.

Reuveni described a Justice Department meeting in March concerning Trump’s plans to invoke the Alien Enemies Act over what the president claimed was an invasion by the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua. Reuveni said Bove raised the possibility that a court might block the deportations before they could happen. Reuveni claims Bove used a profanity in saying the department would need to consider telling the courts what to do and “ignore any such order,” Reuveni’s lawyers said in the filing.

Bove said he has “no recollection of saying anything of that kind.”

A former federal prosecutor in the Southern District of New York, Bove was on Trump’s legal team during his New York hush money trial and defended Trump in the two federal criminal cases brought by the Justice Department. If confirmed by the Senate, he’ll serve on the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which hears cases from Delaware, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.