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Yale University Students Abort Anti-Israel Encampment Attempts After Warning From Officials
Yalies4Palestine attempted to establish a so-called “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” on the Beinecke Plaza section of Yale University’s campus on Tuesday evening, prompting a quick disciplinary response from the administration.
The students were told in no uncertain terms that refusing to discontinue the activity by an 11 pm deadline set by administrators would result in disciplinary sanctions, according to a report by the Yale Daily News. Prior to that, they obstructed Jewish students’ right to walk through campus, according to videos posted to social media by a Jewish student at Yale.
Such action blocking Jews from parts of campus elsewhere has triggered a lawsuit in which the US Justice Department recently filed a statement of interest.
“The group’s activities violated Yale’s time, place, and manner polices,” a university spokesperson told the News when asked about the incident. “University officials clearly articulated Yale’s policies and the consequences of violating them.”
The students eventually left after Yale’s assistant vice president for university life, Pilar Montalvo, walked through the area distributing cards containing a message which implored students to “Please stop your current action immediately. If you do not, you may risk university disciplinary action and/or arrest” and a QR code for a webpage which explains Yale’s policies on expression and free assembly.
The cards triggered a paranoiac fit, the News reported. Upon receiving them, the students became suspicious that the QR code could be used to track and identity those who participated in the unauthorized protest. “Do not scan the QR code!” they began to chant. They left the area soon after, the paper added, clearing the way for public safety officers to photograph and remove the tents they had attempted to pitch.
According to the News, the protest was triggered by an upcoming off-campus event at which Israel’s controversial national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir — who has called for annexing the West Bank and the emigration of Gaza’s residents — will be hosted by Shabtai, a student group not formally recognized by the university.
Writing to The Algemeiner in a message titled “Yale Maintains Calm Campus and Takes Disciplinary Action,” the university took credit for preventing a style of protest that could have lasted for weeks and upended the campus during final exams. It also confirmed that disciplinary sanctions have already been meted out to several students who participated in Tuesday’s unauthorized demonstration despite having been punished for committing the same infraction in the past.
“University officials articulated Yale’s policies and the consequences of violating them and actively cleared the area, which has remained clear since that time,” a spokesperson wrote. “During the interaction, staff identified students who had been warned or disciplined in previous incidents that violated university policy. Those students have received written notice today that they are subject to immediate disciplinary action.”
The most severe sanction handed down is the revocation of Yalies4Palestine’s status as a registered student organization, which proscribes their holding events on campus indefinitely. Additionally, the group will no longer enjoy access to funds that subsidize club activities and is deprived entirely of the privilege of assembling on university property. A string of transgressions precipitated the action, Yale said in Wednesday’s statement, noting that the group had been forewarned on Monday that it had exhausted the university’s tolerance for its misconduct.
“Concerns have been raised about disturbing antisemitic conduct at the gathering,” the statement continued. “The university is investigating those concerns, as harassment and discrimination are antithetical to learning and scholarship. Yale condemns antisemitism and will hold those who violate our policies accountable through our disciplinary processes.”
Yale University has ample cause to claim credit for quelling the would-be encampment and punishing those who were involved in it. The Trump administration has been impounding federal funds previously appropriated to universities that allow pro-Hamas demonstrations and promote excessive “wokeness.”
In March, it cancelled $400 million in federal contracts and grants for Columbia University, a measure that secured the school’s acceding to a slew of demands the administration put forth as preconditions for restoring the money. Princeton University saw $210 million of its federal grants and funding suspended too, prompting its president, Christopher Eisgruber to say the institution is “committed to fighting antisemitism and all forms of discrimination.” Brown University’s federal funding is also reportedly at risk due to its alleged failing to mount a satisfactory response to the campus antisemitism crisis, as well as its alignment with diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) movement.
Most recently, the Trump administration cancelled $2.26 billion in federal funding for Harvard University following the institution’s refusal to agree to a wishlist of reforms that Republican lawmakers have long argued will make higher education more meritocratic and less welcoming to anti-Zionists and far-left extremists. Contained in a letter shared by interim Harvard president Alan Garber, the policies called for included “viewpoint diversity in hiring and admissions,” the “discontinuation of [DEI initiatives],” and “reducing forms of governance bloat.” They also implored Harvard to begin “reforming programs with egregious records of antisemitism” and to recalibrate its approach to “student discipline.”
Harvard is now suing the administration in federal court to halt its sequestering of grants and contracts paid for by the American taxpayer. However, resolving the complaint could take months, and any money confiscated from Yale before a ruling in that case is rendered could cause catastrophic levels of harm that lead to hiring freezes, job cuts, and unsustainable borrowing, a measure to which several universities, including Harvard, have resorted to cover budget shortfalls.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post Yale University Students Abort Anti-Israel Encampment Attempts After Warning From Officials first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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21 Arab, Islamic, African States and Entities Condemn Israel’s Recognition of Somaliland
The signatories’ flags enclosed in the statement in Arabic. Photo: Screenshot via i24.
i24 News – A group of 21 Arab, Islamic and African countries, organizations and entities issued on Saturday a joint statement condemning Israel’s recognition of Somaliland sovereignty.
The statement’s signatories said that they condemn and reject Israel’s recognition of Somaliland “in light of the serious repercussions to peace and security in the Horn of Africa and the Red Sea region, and its serious impacts on international peace and security, which also reflects Israel’s clear and complete disregard for international law.”
It was signed by: Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, Qatar, Jordan, Algeria, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman, Libya, Palestine, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen, Comoros, Djibouti, Gambia, Maldives, Nigeria and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC).
The joint statement voiced support “for the sovereignty of Somalia and reject any measures that would undermine its unity, territorial integrity, and sovereignty over all its lands.”
The signatories also “categorically reject linking Israel’s recognition of the territory of the land of Somalia with any plans to displace the Palestinian people outside their land.”
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Nvidia, Joining Big Tech Deal Spree, to License Groq Technology, Hire Executives
A NVIDIA logo appears in this illustration taken Aug. 25, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration
Nvidia has agreed to license chip technology from startup Groq and hire away its CEO, a veteran of Alphabet’s Google, Groq said in a blog post on Wednesday.
The deal follows a familiar pattern in recent years where the world’s biggest technology firms pay large sums in deals with promising startups to take their technology and talent but stop short of formally acquiring the target.
Groq specializes in what is known as inference, where artificial intelligence models that have already been trained respond to requests from users. While Nvidia dominates the market for training AI models, it faces much more competition in inference, where traditional rivals such as Advanced Micro Devices have aimed to challenge it as well as startups such as Groq and Cerebras Systems.
Nvidia has agreed to a “non-exclusive” license to Groq’s technology, Groq said. It said its founder Jonathan Ross, who helped Google start its AI chip program, as well as Groq President Sunny Madra and other members of its engineering team, will join Nvidia.
A person close to Nvidia confirmed the licensing agreement.
Groq did not disclose financial details of the deal. CNBC reported that Nvidia had agreed to acquire Groq for $20 billion in cash, but neither Nvidia nor Groq commented on the report. Groq said in its blog post that it will continue to operate as an independent company with Simon Edwards as CEO and that its cloud business will continue operating.
In similar recent deals, Microsoft’s top AI executive came through a $650 million deal with a startup that was billed as a licensing fee, and Meta spent $15 billion to hire Scale AI’s CEO without acquiring the entire firm. Amazon hired away founders from Adept AI, and Nvidia did a similar deal this year. The deals have faced scrutiny by regulators, though none has yet been unwound.
“Antitrust would seem to be the primary risk here, though structuring the deal as a non-exclusive license may keep the fiction of competition alive (even as Groq’s leadership and, we would presume, technical talent move over to Nvidia),” Bernstein analyst Stacy Rasgon wrote in a note to clients on Wednesday after Groq’s announcement. And Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s “relationship with the Trump administration appears among the strongest of the key US tech companies.”
Groq more than doubled its valuation to $6.9 billion from $2.8 billion in August last year, following a $750 million funding round in September.
Groq is one of a number of upstarts that do not use external high-bandwidth memory chips, freeing them from the memory crunch affecting the global chip industry. The approach, which uses a form of on-chip memory called SRAM, helps speed up interactions with chatbots and other AI models but also limits the size of the model that can be served.
Groq’s primary rival in the approach is Cerebras Systems, which Reuters this month reported plans to go public as soon as next year. Groq and Cerebras have signed large deals in the Middle East.
Nvidia’s Huang spent much of his biggest keynote speech of 2025 arguing that Nvidia would be able to maintain its lead as AI markets shift from training to inference.
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Russian Drones, Missiles Pound Ukraine Ahead of Zelensky-Trump Meeting
Rescuers work at the site of the apartment building hit by a Russian drone during a Russian missile and drone strike, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine December 27, 2025. REUTERS/Viacheslav Ratynskyi
Russia attacked Kyiv and other parts of Ukraine with hundreds of missiles and drones on Saturday, ahead of what President Volodymyr Zelensky said would be a crucial meeting with US President Donald Trump to work out a plan to end nearly four years of war.
Zelensky cast the vast overnight attack, which he said involved about 500 drones and 40 missiles and which knocked out power and heat in parts of the capital, as Russia’s response to the ongoing peace efforts brokered by Washington.
The Ukrainian leader has said Sunday’s talks in Florida would focus on security guarantees and territorial control once fighting ends in Europe’s deadliest conflict since World War Two, started by Russia’s 2022 invasion of its smaller neighbor.
The attack continued throughout the morning, with a nearly 10-hour air raid alert for the capital. Authorities said two people were killed in Kyiv and the surrounding region, while at least 46 people were wounded, including two children.
“Today, Russia demonstrated how it responds to peaceful negotiations between Ukraine and the United States to end Russia’s war against Ukraine,” Zelensky told reporters.
In Russia, air defense forces shot down eight drones headed for Moscow, the city’s mayor Sergei Sobyanin said on Saturday.
THOUSANDS OF HOMES WITHOUT HEAT
Explosions echoed across Kyiv from the early hours on Saturday as Ukraine’s air defense units went into action. The air force said Russian drones were targeting the capital and regions in the northeast and south.
State grid operator Ukrenergo said energy facilities across Ukraine were struck, and emergency power cuts had been implemented across the capital.
DTEK, Ukraine’s largest private energy company, said the attack had left more than a million households in and around Kyiv without power, 750,000 of which remained disconnected by the afternoon.
Deputy Prime Minister Oleksiy Kuleba said over 40% of residential buildings in Kyiv were left without heat as temperatures hovered around 0 degrees Celsius (32 degrees Fahrenheit) on Saturday.
TERRITORIAL CONTROL: A DIPLOMATIC STUMBLING BLOCK
On the way to meeting Trump in Florida, Zelensky stopped in Canada’s Halifax to meet Prime Minister Mark Carney, after which they planned to hold a call with European leaders.
In a brief statement with Zelenskiy by his side, Carney noted that peace “requires a willing Russia.”
“The barbarism that we saw overnight — the attack on Kyiv — shows just how important it is that we stand with Ukraine in this difficult time,” he said, announcing 2.5 billion Canadian dollars ($1.83 billion) in additional economic aid to Ukraine.
Territory and the future of the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant remain the main diplomatic stumbling blocks, though Zelensky told journalists in Kyiv on Friday that a 20-point draft document – the cornerstone of a US push to clinch a peace deal – is 90% complete.
He said the shape of U.S. security guarantees was crucial, and these would depend on Trump, and “what he is ready to give, when he is ready to give it, and for how long.”
Zelensky told Axios earlier this week that the US had offered a 15-year deal on security guarantees, subject to renewal, but Kyiv wanted a longer agreement with legally binding provisions to guard against further Russian aggression.
Trump said the United States was the driving force behind the process.
“He doesn’t have anything until I approve it,” Trump told Politico. “So we’ll see what he’s got.”
Trump said he believed Sunday’s meeting would go well. He also said he expected to speak with Putin “soon, as much as I want.”
FATE OF DONETSK IS KEY
Moscow is demanding that Ukraine withdraw from a large, densely-urbanized chunk of the eastern region of Donetsk that Russian troops have failed to occupy in nearly four years of war. Kyiv wants the fighting halted at the current lines.
Russia has been grinding slowly forwards throughout 2025 at the cost of significant casualties on the drone-infested battlefield.
On Saturday, both sides issued conflicting claims about two frontline towns: Myrnohrad in the east and Huliaipole in the south. Moscow claimed to have captured both, while Kyiv said it had beaten back Russian assaults there.
Under a US compromise, a free economic zone would be set up if Ukrainian troops pull back from parts of the Donetsk region, though details have yet to be worked out.
Axios quoted Zelensky as saying that if he is not able to push the US to back Ukraine’s position on the land issue, he was willing to put the 20-point plan to a referendum – as long as Russia agrees to a 60-day ceasefire allowing Ukraine to prepare for and hold the vote.
On Saturday, Zelensky said it was not possible to have such a referendum while Russia was bombarding Ukrainian cities.
He also suggested that he would be ready for “dialogue” with the people of Ukraine if they disagreed with points of the plan.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said Kyiv’s version of the 20-point plan differed from what Russia had been discussing with the US, according to the Interfax-Russia news agency.
But he expressed optimism that matters had reached a “turning point” in the search for a settlement.
($1 = 1.3671 Canadian dollars)