University of Minnesota interim President Jeff Ettinger said in a Thursday letter to staff, faculty and students that officials have reached a settlement with pro-Palestinian protesters that will end the encampment on Northrop Mall.

As a result the U will reopen buildings on the mall at noon Thursday, Ettinger said in his letter. Protesters agreed not to disrupt upcoming final exams and commencements at the University. Representatives of the coalition of protesters also will be allowed to the Board of Regents at a May 10 meeting.

The agreement comes after Ettinger and other officials met with the UMN Divest Coalition, his letter said.

“Following a constructive dialogue with multiple representatives of those protesting, I am pleased to share that we have reached an initial agreement that will end the encampment,” Ettinger said.

The full agreement can be found at drive.google.com/file/d/1LBENo3xy6KHE9NCRUWeInxvkLkGk9v3E/view

Dozens of students in the past week moved into some 50 tents along the Northrop Auditorium mall green on the school’s East Bank campus in Minneapolis, at times linking arms to refuse police dispersal orders that tend to come late at night.

The U had kept 13 buildings along the mall closed this week, including Coffman Union, the Weisman Art Museum and Murphy Hall, forcing some classes to relocate or go online during the final exams of the semester. Nine students were arrested April 23 as the encampments first emerged.

Across the country, administrators also are under pressure from pro-Israeli donors, students and alumni to stay clear of the topic.

The bombardments of Gaza have followed the events of Oct. 7, when some 1,200 Israelis and foreigners were killed by Hamas and other pro-Palestinian militants in the worst attack on Israeli soil since the nation’s founding in 1948. More than 240 people were taken hostage. Hamas has been designated as a terrorist organization by the U.S., Canada and the European Union.

Some Jewish students quoted in the national press said they have felt uncomfortable on their campuses, or pointed out protest chants that had turned explicitly violent and anti-Semitic.

In his letter, Ettinger said he valued the conversations with protesters that led to the agreement.

“While there is more work to do, and conversations are still planned with other student groups affected by the painful situation in Palestine, I am heartened by today’s progress,” Ettinger wrote.

He also noted that “the University supports freedom of expression as a fundamental part of our mission.”

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By MICHAEL KUNZELMAN (Associated Press)

WASHINGTON (AP) — A Georgia business owner who bragged that he “fed” a police officer to a mob of rioters storming the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, was sentenced on Thursday to nearly five years in prison for his repeated attacks on law enforcement during the insurrection.

Jack Wade Whitton struck an officer with a metal crutch and dragged him — head first and face down — into the crowd on the Capitol’s Lower West Terrace. Whitton later boasted in a text message that he “fed him to the people.”

Roughly 20 minutes later, Whitton tried to pull a second officer into the crowd, prosecutors say. He also kicked at, threatened and threw a construction pylon at officers trying to hold off the mob of then-President Donald Trump’s supporters.

“You’re gonna die tonight!” he shouted at police after striking an officer’s riot shield.

Whitton, of Locust Grove, Georgia, expressed remorse for his “horrible” actions on Jan. 6 before U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras sentenced him to four years and nine months in prison. The 33-year-old will get credit for the three years that he has been jailed since his arrest.

“I tell you with confidence: I have changed,” Whitton told the judge.

Whitton, who pleaded guilty to an assault charge last year, told the judge that he has never been a “political person.”

“I’ve never been a troublemaker. I’ve always been a hard worker and a law-abiding citizen,” he said.

The judge said the videos of Whitton attacking police are “gruesome.”

“You really were out of control,” the judge told him.

Prosecutors recommended a prison sentence of eight years and one month for Whitton, who owned and operated his own fence building company before his April 2021 arrest.

“Whitton looked for opportunities to attack: In his three documented assaults, he was either a leader or a solitary actor,” prosecutors wrote in a court filing.

Videos show that contemporaneous attacks on police by Whitton and a co-defendant, Justin Jersey, “ignited the rageful onslaught of violence that followed” on the Lower West Terrace, prosecutors said.

“As Whitton and Jersey commenced their assaults, the tenor of the crowd audibly changed,” they wrote. “Other rioters surged towards the Archway and joined the attack, throwing objects at the officers and striking at them with makeshift weapons such as a hockey stick, a pieces of wood, a flagpole, and a police riot shield.”

Whitton was among nine defendants charged in the same attack. Two co-defendants, Logan Barnhart and Jeffrey Sabol, helped Whitton drag an officer into the crowd before other rioters beat the officer with a flagpole and a stolen police baton.

That evening, Whitton texted somebody images of his bloodied hands.

“This is from a bad cop,” he wrote. “Yea I fed him to the people. (I don’t know) his status. And don’t care (to be honest).”

Defense attorney Komron Jon Maknoon said Whitton traveled to Washington to support his girlfriend because she wanted to “witness an historic event” on Jan. 6, when Trump, a Republican, held a rally as Congress was about to certify his 2020 presidential election loss to Joe Biden, a Democrat.

“While his motives were not politically driven, he does possess a genuine love for his country and shares the desire for a free and fair election, much like any other citizen,” Maknoon wrote.

The judge previously sentenced seven of Whitton’s co-defendants to prison terms ranging from two years and six months to five years and 10 months.

More than 1,350 people have been charged with federal crimes related to the Capitol riot. Over 850 of them have been sentenced, with roughly two-thirds receiving a term of imprisonment ranging from a few days to 22 years.

___

By GEOFF MULVIHILL Associated Press

Two years after a leaked draft of a U.S. Supreme Court opinion signaled that the nation’s abortion landscape was about to shift dramatically, the issue is still consuming the nation’s courts, legislatures and political campaigns — and changing the course of lives.

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On Wednesday, a ban on abortion after the first six weeks of pregnancy, often before women realize they’re pregnant, took effect in Florida, echoing laws in two other states. In Arizona, meanwhile, lawmakers voted to repeal a total ban on abortion dating back to 1864, decades before Arizona became a state. Also this week, the Kansas Legislature increased funding for anti-abortion centers, while advocates in South Dakota submitted the required number of signatures for a ballot measure to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution.

The status of abortion in states across the country has changed constantly, with lawmakers passing measures and courts ruling on challenges to them. Currently, 14 states are enforcing bans on abortion at all stages of pregnancy, with limited exceptions. Most Democratic-led states, meanwhile, have taken steps to preserve or expand access.

“Some of it’s exactly what we knew would happen,” said David Cohen, a professor at the Thomas R. Kline School of Law at Drexel University who studies abortion policy, “and others have been big surprises that have put, frankly, the anti-abortion movement on their heels.”

Although more than 20 states have begun enforcing abortion bans of varying degrees since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022, studies have found that the number of monthly abortions nationally is about the same — or higher — than it was before the ruling. Asked to weigh in on the emotional debate, voters have supported the position favored by abortion rights advocates on all seven statewide ballot measures since then.

The Supreme Court’s decision in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization case was released officially on June 24, 2022, upending nearly 50 years of abortion being legal nationwide. But the world caught a glimpse of it about six weeks earlier, on May 2, after a news outlet published a leaked draft.

“With the Dobbs decision, the will of the people is now able to be adhered to,” said Stephen Billy, vice president of state affairs for Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America. He said abortion rights supporters have amplified uncertainty in laws — especially over whether abortion is allowed in medical emergencies: “They’ve tried to sow political division just to advance their policy agenda,” he said.

At the time Politico published the leaked draft, Amanda Zurawski was undergoing fertility treatment and was about two weeks away from learning she was finally pregnant.

The Austin, Texas, woman had always supported abortion rights, and was mad that the right to abortion was on the verge of disappearing. But she didn’t expect a direct impact in her life.

That changed months later when she was denied an abortion despite a premature rupture of membranes, which can lead to dangerous internal bleeding. Days later, she was diagnosed with sepsis, a life-threatening reaction to infection. Her daughter, Willow, was ultimately aborted, but Zurawski nearly died in the process because of the delay.

She emerged from the experience an activist.

“I thought I would be a new mom with a newborn,” she said in an interview. “Instead, I was in Tallahassee, Florida, meeting the vice president.”

FILE – Anti-abortion and Abortion-rights activists rally outside the Supreme Court, Tuesday, March 26, 2024, in Washington. Two years after a leaked draft of a U.S. Supreme Court opinion singled that the nation’s abortion landscape was about to shift dramatically, the issue is still consuming the nation’s courts, legislatures and political campaigns and changing the course of lives. (AP Photo/Amanda Andrade-Rhoades, File)

Zurawski has been a plaintiff in a court challenge seeking to clarify Texas abortion law and has spoken about her experience before Congress and across the country. She recently left her tech job to spend the next several months supporting abortion rights and President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign.

“I’m definitely somebody who wants to fight for justice,” she said. “This is not the path that I would have guessed.”

Zurawski’s widely publicized experience is a reflection of the central role abortion has assumed on the political stage during this highly charged election year.

In Arizona, one of a handful of battleground states that will decide the next president, the state Supreme Court issued a ruling last month saying that a near-total abortion ban passed in 1864 could be enforced now that Roe v. Wade had been overturned. That decision ultimately led to the repeal proposal that passed the state House last week and the Senate on Wednesday after vitriolic debate. Gov. Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, is expected to sign the repeal.

Florida, Maryland and New York will have measures on the ballot in November to protect abortion access.

“Women are going to be put into an impossible situation of not having access to health care, whether it is in an emergency situation or just family planning,” said Nikki Fried, chair of the Florida Democratic Party. “Floridians are going to have the opportunity to take control back.”

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Susan B. Anthony’s Billy said his group was focused on defeating the ballot questions in Florida and other states where passing them would roll back bans in place now.

Arizona is one of at least eight states with a push for a similar measure. A few states also have pushes for measures to enshrine bans in the state constitution.

The issue is also weighing heavily in the presidential election.

President Joe Biden has been blasting his likely opponent, former President Donald Trump, for appointing the Supreme Court justices who swayed the Roe v. Wade decision. Vice President Kamala Harris traveled to Florida on Wednesday to decry the six-week ban passed in the nation’s third most-populous state.

Trump, who said in April that he believes abortion laws should be decided by states, went further this week, telling Time magazine that states should also be able to prosecute women who seek abortions. Proposals to do that have not picked up steam in any state legislatures so far.

Counter-productive protestors

I read with interest “Universities struggle to clear protesters (April 30).” Congratulations, protesters: through your self-absorbed and performative behavior, you have deflected national and world attention away from the shocking levels of suffering being experienced in Gaza. The radical behavior of the student protesters has become the story, rather than the plight of the people they are supposedly intending to support.

I was horrified by the atrocities committed by Hamas on Oct. 7 of last year. These were evil actions which must be condemned in the strongest terms. Having said this, I have for many years been sympathetic to the plight of Palestinians based on historical considerations. One cannot condemn an entire people based on the extreme actions of a segment of that population – a segment despised by many of the larger population.

I believe the “look-at-me” extremism by protesters on campuses and elsewhere is actually hurting Palestinians because it is turning off many Americans to the overall cause. Another example of extremist actions having counter-productive results.

Peter Langworthy, St. Paul

 

The founders understood this

After listening to the Supreme Court oral arguments regarding presidential immunity it appears clear the conservative justices are deeply beholden to once-President Trump. The old adages, “No one is above the law” and “Justice delayed is justice denied” seem to no longer exist when it comes to Trump.

To be clear, the court’s conservative originalists know we fought the war for independence because King George III was viewed as a tyrant enforcing oppressive practices upon the colonists.

We do not need a president unbound by the rule of law.

The founders understood this as the Constitution provides for three branches of government, which created a system of checks and balances so that no one branch could act with impunity. It seems to me that judging presidential immunity should have been a no-brainer and decided quickly. The Trump D.C. trial is being delayed by purposefully manipulated judicial procedure. We don’t need a bad person as president with unfettered power. We don’t need a George III or worse as president.

Nobody is above the law and justice delayed is justice denied.

Pete Boelter, North Branch

 

Historic restoration

It’ nice to see Stillwater leadership and residents focusing on rebuilding their historic riverfront. That’s especially refreshing when compared to the attitudes of Saint Paul leadership which apparently wants to tear down our remaining history in favor of more bike paths.

Carl Brookins, Roseville

 

Ride your bikes, councilors

I just finished reading Joe Soucheray’s column in the Sunday paper re the St. Paul City Council’s long-range plans for an extensive bike lane network. What I want to see is, “No cars for them!” That is, they and their families must give up their automobiles and ride bicycles all the time everywhere, every season of the year, in all kinds of weather be it storms, north wind blowing, south wind blowing, lightening, hurricanes, earthquakes, smog. Practice what they preach, after all.

Lucy Schuelke, Lakeville

 

This gun laws won’t make people safer

The current legislation H.F. 4300/S.F 4312 on gun safety is misguided and will not make people safer. If passed this law forces legitimate gun owners to keep weapons and ammunition in separate safes.

The Second Amendment enables people to protect themselves from tyranny whether from the government or from criminals. Forcing law-abiding gun owners to keep ammunition separate from guns will not save lives and will potentially make felons out of normal gun owners.

Imagine a law that would require a woman to wait for one week before she uses Plan B. It would make no sense and force women to break the law to prevent a pregnancy.

Warren Poole, St. Paul

 

Ride a bike to buy a smoke

As the trolleys seem to be heading off of the tracks in the Twin Cities of St. Paul and Minneapolis there must be hope out there somewhere. In St. Paul, the least diverse city council in the country has approved 163 lane miles of bicycle paths or trails or however these lanes are described.

What amount of smog and chunks of soot will be generated to produce these 163 miles? We don’t know. Just as we don’t know how they will calculate the reduction in trips taken by the evil automobile. I am no statistician and I won’t just grab a number out of thin air, as the backers of such plans do, but I am guessing it will be about a break-even.

The amount of pollution these bike lanes will save from spewing into the air is incalculable. Under the guise of The Climate Action Plan, bike lanes are being made available to reduce trips made by the use of an automobile. No one is taking the kids to the Mall for holiday shopping on a bicycle and, largely, bicycles are used for leisure and not for transportation. Admittedly, the East Side Council-member stated that she had had three responses, yes, three,  about the bike path plan during the months-long public comment period, yet she chose to support the new bike plan anyway. Perhaps bike paths are just not that important to the average everyday working stiff trying to put food on the table.

And across the river the Minneapolis city council wasn’t happy enough to run Uber and Lyft out of town, now they are going to save the citizens from themselves and raise the cost of a pack of cigarettes to $15. Why stop there? Nitrates used in curing meats are linked to cardiovascular disease and linked to increased cancer risk, or Big Macs’ and fast food’s contribution to the obesity problem. Minneapolis city council, if you want to tackle smoking, try this, prohibit smoking anywhere in the public way, any city sidewalk, city street, city park,  anywhere that is not private property, smoking would not be allowed.

The residents of Minneapolis won’t be able to catch an Uber to St. Paul for a pack of smokes, but they will have a Jim Dandy bike path to get them there.

Mark T. Schroeder, West St. Paul

Someday

I have a dream, that someday I will be able to experience a complete 24 hours without once hearing or seeing the name of a certain former president, in any media source or outlet.

LaVonne McCombie, Hudson

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