Reuters US Domestic News Summary

Following is a summary of current US domestic news briefs.

Columbia leadership rebuked by faculty panel for police crackdown on protesters

Columbia University's embattled president came under renewed pressure on Friday as a campus oversight panel sharply criticized her administration for clamping down on a pro-Palestinian protest at the Ivy League school. President Nemat Minouche Shafik has faced an outcry from many students, faculty and outside observers for summoning New York police to dismantle a tent encampment set up on campus by protesters against Israel's war against Hamas in Gaza.

For some Columbia students, protest encampment is living history lesson

Before students set up a pro-Palestinian protest encampment on a Columbia University lawn last week, some of them took an optional course called "Columbia 1968" about protests against the Vietnam War, a similarly galvanizing moment of campus activism. Frank Guridy, the Columbia history professor who has taught the class since 2017, along with a couple of his students stopped by the encampment at the New York City campus on Thursday to discuss the parallels at a teach-in called "1968: Continuing the Fight." Protesters listened sitting on mats on the grass outside their tents, eating free kidney beans and rice and kosher Passover snacks off paper plates from a nearby community kitchen set up on tables under canopies.

US probes Tesla recall of 2 million vehicles over Autopilot, citing concerns

U.S. auto safety regulators said on Friday they have opened an investigation into whether Tesla's recall of more than 2 million vehicles announced in December to install new Autopilot safeguards is adequate following a series of crashes. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said it opened the probe after receiving reports of 20 crashes involving vehicles that had the new Autopilot software updates installed under Tesla's recall.

US tests show pasteurized milk safe as bird flu spreads to Colorado

Additional tests of milk showed that pasteurization killed the bird flu virus, federal health officials said on Friday, as Colorado became the ninth U.S. state to report an infected dairy herd. Federal lawmakers urged the Biden administration to further contain the virus' spread as tests showed one in five U.S. commercial milk samples contained remnants of the virus, suggesting the outbreak is more widespread than previously thought.

'I can't breathe': Black man in Ohio tells police before he died, video shows

Ohio police released video of a Black man who died at a local hospital after repeatedly telling officers "I can't breathe" as they pinned him to the floor of a bar and handcuffed him, evoking memories of the killing of George Floyd in 2020. In body camera video released on Thursday by the Canton Police Department, officers are seen apprehending the man, identified as Frank Tyson, 53, who was suspected of leaving the scene of a single-car accident on April 18.

Trump trial tests his campaign strategy of embracing bad publicity

Meetings with foreign dignitaries at Trump Tower. A staged visit to a convenience store in the New York City Democratic stronghold of Harlem. Daily remarks broadcast on national cable television from outside the courtroom, and a blizzard of angry posts on his Truth Social platform. In the midst of his New York hush money trial, Republican former president Donald Trump is testing the boundaries of the saying that there is no such thing as bad publicity. Even if you are running for the highest office in the land.

Biden to speak at White House Correspondents' Dinner, protests planned

U.S. President Joe Biden will speak on Saturday night at the annual White House Correspondents' Association dinner, with protests against his staunch support for Israel's war against Hamas expected to follow him to the black-tie event. At the century-old event, often referred to as Washington's "nerd prom," hundreds of journalists, politicians and celebrities will rub elbows in a massive hotel banquet hall at the Washington Hilton Hotel. It often features friendly jabs from the president in a closing speech that takes aim at reporters and other guests in the audience. This year it will be hosted by Saturday Night Live's Colin Jost.

At Trump trial, Pecker says he killed story of affair even though it cost him

Former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker testified on Friday at Donald Trump's criminal trial that he suppressed a story about an alleged affair to help Trump's 2016 presidential bid, even though it would have boosted sales of his tabloid. Testifying for a third day, Pecker, 72, agreed with a prosecutor who asked whether it would have been "National Enquirer gold" to publish the story of former Playboy model Karen McDougal's claim that she had an affair with Trump in 2006 and 2007.

As solar capacity grows, some of America's most productive farmland is at risk

Dave Duttlinger's first thought when he saw a dense band of yellowish-brown dust smearing the sky above his Indiana farm was: I warned them this would happen. About 445 acres of his fields near Wheatfield, Indiana, are covered in solar panels and related machinery – land that in April 2019 Duttlinger leased to Dunns Bridge Solar LLC, for one of the largest solar developments in the Midwest.

Police arrest scores of pro-Palestinian protesters on US university campuses

Pro-Palestinian protesters were arrested on a handful of U.S. university campuses on Saturday, as activists vowed to keep up the movement seeking a ceasefire in Israel's war with Hamas among other demands. The Indiana University police department in Bloomington said in an emailed statement that 23 protesters were arrested there.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)