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White House Unveils New Measures to Protect Abortion Access

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White House Unveils New Measures to Protect Abortion Access

WASHINGTON — President Biden unveiled new measures on Tuesday to guard entry to abortion, 100 days after the Supreme Court docket ended the constitutional proper to terminate a being pregnant, and known as on People to stress Congress to move laws that might guarantee abortion is authorized throughout the USA.

The actions got here as reproductive rights have turn into a central subject in political campaigns throughout the nation forward of subsequent month’s midterm elections. Democrats have seized on the court docket’s resolution to overturn Roe v. Wade to inspire voters to elect lawmakers who will broaden abortion rights nationally and block Republicans from imposing additional restrictions.

“Proper now we’re brief a handful of votes,” Mr. Biden mentioned as he convened his job power on reproductive well being on the White Home. “The one means it’s going to occur is that if the American folks make it occur.”

Mr. Biden assailed Republican lawmakers who’ve been pushing for a nationwide ban on abortion and urged voters to recollect what was at stake if Democrats misplaced management of energy in Washington.

“It signifies that even should you stay in a state the place extremist Republican officers aren’t operating the present, your proper to decide on will nonetheless be in danger,” Mr. Biden mentioned.

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Most abortions at the moment are banned in a minimum of 14 states, and others are engaged in authorized fights over abortion entry. Biden administration officers estimate that almost 30 million girls of reproductive age now stay in a state with a ban and that about 22 million girls can’t entry abortion care after six weeks.

The White Home mentioned Tuesday that the Division of Schooling will subject a reminder to universities that they can’t discriminate towards college students on the premise of being pregnant, together with if a being pregnant has been terminated.


How Occasions reporters cowl politics. We depend on our journalists to be impartial observers. So whereas Occasions workers members could vote, they aren’t allowed to endorse or marketing campaign for candidates or political causes. This contains collaborating in marches or rallies in help of a motion or giving cash to, or elevating cash for, any political candidate or election trigger.

Moreover, the Division of Well being and Human Providers is saying $6 million in grants to broaden entry to household planning clinics that obtain Title X federal funding. The White Home has requested Congress for a further $400 million for the clinics.

The White Home believes that public sentiment is on its aspect relating to abortion.

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A Pew Analysis Heart survey this summer season confirmed that 61 p.c of People consider that abortion must be authorized most often, although the political divide over these questions has turn into extra stark.

In shut races across the nation, Democrats are amplifying the problem. The Home Democrats’ tremendous PAC is investing closely in ads centered on reproductive rights, together with one which dramatizes the implications of a nationwide abortion ban. It options law enforcement officials handcuffing medical doctors, nurses and sufferers who sought or carried out “well being care companies which were authorized for practically 50 years.”

Some Republicans have tried to minimize abortion in favor of a give attention to crime and inflation. Nevertheless, the problem re-emerged final month when Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, launched laws that might institute a federal ban on abortions after 15 weeks of being pregnant. Senator Mitch McConnell, the minority chief, has mentioned that he doesn’t count on Republicans to attempt to enact a nationwide abortion ban.

The Biden administration has confronted criticism for failing to do extra to guard the abortion rights of ladies after the court docket’s resolution this 12 months. Regardless of calls from some activists to declare a public well being emergency to broaden abortion entry, White Home officers have been skeptical about what such a transfer would obtain and leery of inviting new authorized fights.

In a memo forward of the announcement, Jennifer Klein, director of the White Home’s Gender Coverage Council, laid out a few of the steps that the Biden administration has taken to protect abortion entry. She pointed to govt orders defending the proper to journey throughout state traces for an abortion and steerage supposed to make sure that medical doctors can present abortions in circumstances wherein sufferers are “presenting with an emergency medical situation” and should be stabilized.

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However White Home officers acknowledged that there was solely a lot that they might do to guard abortion entry with out Congress and solid reproductive rights as an ethical matter.

“I actually consider {that a} girl ought to have the liberty to make choices about her personal physique and that her authorities shouldn’t be making these choices for her,” Vice President Kamala Harris mentioned on the job power assembly. “Right now extremist so-called leaders are attacking the liberty and liberty of tens of millions of ladies at a state degree.”

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Video: Protesters Scuffle With Police During Pomona College Commencement

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Video: Protesters Scuffle With Police During Pomona College Commencement

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Protesters Scuffle With Police During Pomona College Commencement

Pro-Palestinian demonstrators tried to block access to Pomona College’s graduation ceremony on Sunday.

[chanting in call and response] Not another nickel, not another dime. No more money for Israel’s crime. Resistance is justified when people are occupied.

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Video: Police Use Pepper Spray on Protesters on G.W.U.’s Campus

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Video: Police Use Pepper Spray on Protesters on G.W.U.’s Campus

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Police Use Pepper Spray on Protesters on G.W.U.’s Campus

Police officers arrested 33 pro-Palestinian protesters and cleared a tent encampment on the campus of George Washingon University.

“The Metropolitan Police Department. If you are currently on George Washington University property, you are in violation of D.C. Code 22-3302, unlawful entry on property.” “Back up, dude, back up. You’re going to get locked up tonight — back up.” “Free, free Palestine.” “What the [expletive] are you doing?” [expletives] “I can’t stop — [expletives].”

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How Counterprotesters at U.C.L.A. Provoked Violence, Unchecked for Hours

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How Counterprotesters at U.C.L.A. Provoked Violence, Unchecked for Hours

A satellite image of the UCLA campus.

On Tuesday night, violence erupted at an encampment that pro-Palestinian protesters had set up on April 25.

The image is annotated to show the extent of the pro-Palestinian encampment, which takes up the width of the plaza between Powell Library and Royce Hall.

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The clashes began after counterprotesters tried to dismantle the encampment’s barricade. Pro-Palestinian protesters rushed to rebuild it, and violence ensued.

Arrows denote pro-Israeli counterprotesters moving towards the barricade at the edge of the encampment. Arrows show pro-Palestinian counterprotesters moving up against the same barricade.

Police arrived hours later, but they did not intervene immediately.

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An arrow denotes police arriving from the same direction as the counterprotesters and moving towards the barricade.

A New York Times examination of more than 100 videos from clashes at the University of California, Los Angeles, found that violence ebbed and flowed for nearly five hours, mostly with little or no police intervention. The violence had been instigated by dozens of people who are seen in videos counterprotesting the encampment.

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The videos showed counterprotesters attacking students in the pro-Palestinian encampment for several hours, including beating them with sticks, using chemical sprays and launching fireworks as weapons. As of Friday, no arrests had been made in connection with the attack.

To build a timeline of the events that night, The Times analyzed two livestreams, along with social media videos captured by journalists and witnesses.

The melee began when a group of counterprotesters started tearing away metal barriers that had been in place to cordon off pro-Palestinian protesters. Hours earlier, U.C.L.A. officials had declared the encampment illegal.

Security personnel hired by the university are seen in yellow vests standing to the side throughout the incident. A university spokesperson declined to comment on the security staff’s response.

Mel Buer/The Real News Network

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It is not clear how the counterprotest was organized or what allegiances people committing the violence had. The videos show many of the counterprotesters were wearing pro-Israel slogans on their clothing. Some counterprotesters blared music, including Israel’s national anthem, a Hebrew children’s song and “Harbu Darbu,” an Israeli song about the Israel Defense Forces’ campaign in Gaza.

As counterprotesters tossed away metal barricades, one of them was seen trying to strike a person near the encampment, and another threw a piece of wood into it — some of the first signs of violence.

Attacks on the encampment continued for nearly three hours before police arrived.

Counterprotesters shot fireworks toward the encampment at least six times, according to videos analyzed by The Times. One of them went off inside, causing protesters to scream. Another exploded at the edge of the encampment. One was thrown in the direction of a group of protesters who were carrying an injured person out of the encampment.

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Mel Buer/The Real News Network

Some counterprotesters sprayed chemicals both into the encampment and directly at people’s faces.

Sean Beckner-Carmitchel via Reuters

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At times, counterprotesters swarmed individuals — sometimes a group descended on a single person. They could be seen punching, kicking and attacking people with makeshift weapons, including sticks, traffic cones and wooden boards.

StringersHub via Associated Press, Sergio Olmos/Calmatters

In one video, protesters sheltering inside the encampment can be heard yelling, “Do not engage! Hold the line!”

In some instances, protesters in the encampment are seen fighting back, using chemical spray on counterprotesters trying to tear down barricades or swiping at them with sticks.

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Except for a brief attempt to capture a loudspeaker used by counterprotesters, and water bottles being tossed out of the encampment, none of the videos analyzed by The Times show any clear instance of encampment protesters initiating confrontations with counterprotesters beyond defending the barricades.

Shortly before 1 a.m. — more than two hours after the violence erupted — a spokesperson with the mayor’s office posted a statement that said U.C.L.A officials had called the Los Angeles Police Department for help and they were responding “immediately.”

Officers from a separate law enforcement agency — the California Highway Patrol — began assembling nearby, at about 1:45 a.m. Riot police with the L.A.P.D. joined them a few minutes later. Counterprotesters applauded their arrival, chanting “U.S.A., U.S.A., U.S.A.!”

Just four minutes after the officers arrived, counterprotesters attacked a man standing dozens of feet from the officers.

Twenty minutes after police arrive, a video shows a counterprotester spraying a chemical toward the encampment during a scuffle over a metal barricade. Another counterprotester can be seen punching someone in the head near the encampment after swinging a plank at barricades.

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Fifteen minutes later, while those in the encampment chanted “Free, free Palestine,” counterprotesters organized a rush toward the barricades. During the rush, a counterprotester pulls away a metal barricade from a woman, yelling “You stand no chance, old lady.”

Throughout the intermittent violence, officers were captured on video standing about 300 feet away from the area for roughly an hour, without stepping in.

It was not until 2:42 a.m. that officers began to move toward the encampment, after which counterprotesters dispersed and the night’s violence between the two camps mostly subsided.

The L.A.P.D. and the California Highway Patrol did not answer questions from The Times about their responses on Tuesday night, deferring to U.C.L.A.

While declining to answer specific questions, a university spokesperson provided a statement to The Times from Mary Osako, U.C.L.A.’s vice chancellor of strategic communications: “We are carefully examining our security processes from that night and are grateful to U.C. President Michael Drake for also calling for an investigation. We are grateful that the fire department and medical personnel were on the scene that night.”

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L.A.P.D. officers were seen putting on protective gear and walking toward the barricade around 2:50 a.m. They stood in between the encampment and the counterprotest group, and the counterprotesters began dispersing.

While police continued to stand outside the encampment, a video filmed at 3:32 a.m. shows a man who was walking away from the scene being attacked by a counterprotester, then dragged and pummeled by others. An editor at the U.C.L.A. student newspaper, the Daily Bruin, told The Times the man was a journalist at the paper, and that they were walking with other student journalists who had been covering the violence. The editor said she had also been punched and sprayed in the eyes with a chemical.

On Wednesday, U.C.L.A.’s chancellor, Gene Block, issued a statement calling the actions by “instigators” who attacked the encampment unacceptable. A spokesperson for California Gov. Gavin Newsom criticized campus law enforcement’s delayed response and said it demands answers.

Los Angeles Jewish and Muslim organizations also condemned the attacks. Hussam Ayloush, the director of the Greater Los Angeles Area office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, called on the California attorney general to investigate the lack of police response. The Jewish Federation Los Angeles blamed U.C.L.A. officials for creating an unsafe environment over months and said the officials had “been systemically slow to respond when law enforcement is desperately needed.”

Fifteen people were reportedly injured in the attack, according to a letter sent by the president of the University of California system to the board of regents.

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The night after the attack began, law enforcement warned pro-Palestinian demonstrators to leave the encampment or be arrested. By early Thursday morning, police had dismantled the encampment and arrested more than 200 people from the encampment.

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