The Brief

As the latest wave of pro-Palestinian demonstrations at U.S. colleges stretches into a third week, some campuses are seeing rising tensions while others have gone relatively quiet.

Administrations at several schools have reached agreements with student protesters, pledging to take certain steps in exchange for the dismantling of protesters' encampments as graduation approaches.

Protesters' demands vary by school, though they generally call for an end to the Israel-Hamas war, disclosures of institutional investments and divestment from companies with ties to Israel or that otherwise profit from its military operation in Gaza.

Northwestern and Brown were the first schools to announce agreements last week, followed quickly by others including Rutgers, Johns Hopkins, the University of Minnesota and the University of California, Riverside.

Some administrations, like those at Columbia University and UCLA, ultimately called in police to forcibly take down student encampments. But others managed to clear their lawns of tents without police intervention — through negotiations with student organizers.

"We thought the best way to sustainably deescalate the situation was to actually talk with our students," Northwestern President Michael Schill told WBUR's Here and Now. "We have a good sustainable agreement which provides a number of things that the students wanted and that we wanted to do."

Northwestern's agreement, for instance, permits peaceful demonstrations — though no tents — through the end of classes on June 1, gives students representation on an investment committee and pledges to bring Palestinian students to campus, among other commitments.

None of the schools outright committed to divest from Israel. But they say they will provide more transparency around their endowments and limit disciplinary action against students, among other commitments. Several also pledged scholarships or aid for Palestinian students and improved space for Muslim students on campus.

Not all activists are satisfied with the terms of their deals, but many are celebrating the agreements as incremental steps in a long-running fight for divestment that, at many schools, far predates Hamas' Oct. 7 attack on Israel and Israel's ensuing response.

"When it comes to the actual momentum that this agreement gives us, I cannot emphasize enough how huge it is," said Lucas, a Northwestern student who asked to only use his first name because of concerns about online harassment.

Some leaders at other schools are now looking to these as an example.

That's the case at Wesleyan University, where President Michael Roth — who previously said the school's encampment could continue as long as it remained peaceful — warned Thursday that vandalism and reports of harassment could result in legal and disciplinary consequences.

"We do not want to move in this direction unless necessary and much prefer to talk with protesters about things we can do as an institution to address the war in Gaza," Roth wrote. "Recent agreements at Brown University and Northwestern University might show the way."

Here's a look at how four schools made it to the bargaining table, and what they're promising protesters next.

Northwestern

Tents, flags and other supplies remain at Deering Meadow on Northwestern University's campus in Evanston, Ill., on April 30, a day after the university and protest organizers reached an agreement.

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Melissa Perez Winder

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AP

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Northwestern's tent encampment lasted for five days before the school reached an agreement with students.

Protesters set up an encampment on Deering Meadow on Northwestern's Evanston, Ill., campus on April 25, to show support for Palestinians and urge the university to disclose — and cut — its financial ties to Israeli companies they say are complicit in the war in Gaza.

The protest drew a large police presence over several days, but attempts by university police to break up the encampment and arrest participants were unsuccessful, in part because faculty members physically blocked their path.

As the protest grew and a sizable pro-Israel counterprotest formed, university leadership engaged in conversations with what they described as a "group of students and faculty who represent the majority of the protestors on Deering Meadow."

On April 29, they announced that they had reached an agreement.

"This agreement was forged by the hard work of students and faculty working closely with members of the administration to help ensure that the violence and escalation we have seen elsewhere does not happen here at Northwestern," university leaders wrote in a note to the community.

The agreement permits peaceful demonstrations on Deering Meadow through June 1, limited to Northwestern community members and no sound amplification devices or tents except for one aid tent. The university also pledged to reestablish its Advisory Committee on Investment Responsibility this fall, with representation from students, faculty and staff.

It will also fund the cost of attendance for five Palestinian undergraduates (and fundraise for more), provide "immediate temporary space for MENA/Muslim students" and engage students in a process to ensure additional support for Jewish and Muslim community members.

Some Jewish groups have taken issue with the terms of the agreement, which they say leaves Jewish students feeling unsafe. Northwestern is now facing two lawsuits, one from students and one from an outside anti-affirmative affirmative action group.

Seven members of the President's Advisory Committee on Preventing Antisemitism and Hate stepped down after the agreement was announced, citing Schill's decision not to consult it during negotiations.

A coalition of outside groups issued a statement calling for Schill's resignation in response to the "reprehensible and dangerous agreement." Separately, the American Jewish Committee accused Northwestern of "succumbing to the demands of a mob which has intimidated Jewish students, espoused antisemitic, hate-filled speech, and whose members have celebrated Hamas terrorists."

Schill, who is Jewish, defended the agreement in an April 30 video in which he acknowledged and condemned incidents of antisemitism at the encampment, including a poster showing him with devil horns, an antisemitic trope. And he told Here & Now that the ban on tents and megaphones aims to make Jewish students feel more safe on campus.

"I do take issue with calling our students a mob," he added. "They're students, they're young, they're sometimes naïve, they're learning — and so the best way for us to engage and achieve our educational mission is for us to engage in dialogue with them."

Several student groups involved in the protest have issued statements of support for the agreement and pledged to keep fighting for a ceasefire and divestment.

In fact, some have already followed up on one promise of the agreement: They've emailed Northwestern requesting more information about its investments in companies with ties to Israel, and are expecting a response within 30 days.

Brown University

Protesters at Brown University took down their encampment after a deal was reached on April 30, setting up a divestment vote in the fall.

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David Goldman

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Brown University President Christina Paxson announced an agreement between the administration and student protesters on April 30, six days after they began their encampment on its Providence, R.I., campus.

"Students agreed to end the encampment and refrain from further actions that would violate Brown's conduct code through the end of the academic year, which includes Commencement and Reunion Weekend," she said.

No protesters were arrested as part of that demonstration, though dozens of students had been arrested in pro-Palestinian, pro-divestment actions earlier this year, including an eight-day hunger strike in February.

Students with the Brown Divest Coalition had two central demands for the university, Isabella Garo told All Things Considered. She was one of the six students involved in negotiations with two administrators.

The first was to present a long-tabled 2020 advisory committee report — recommending divestment from Israeli occupation — to the university corporation for a vote. The second was to drop charges against the 41 students arrested at a December sit-in.

Per the agreement, students cleared out of their encampment by 5 p.m. that day. In exchange, the Corporation of Brown University will invite five students to speak with a group of five of its members — including the chair of the investment committee — about the 2020 report during its May meeting.

It will not add divestment to its May agenda. But separately, Paxson will request an advisory committee provide her with advice on divestment by Sept. 30 and put it on the agenda for the corporation's October meeting.

"I feel strongly that a vote in October, either for or against divestment, will bring clarity to an issue that is of long-standing interest to many members of our community," Paxson said in the announcement.

The agreement also stipulates that students involved in the encampments must go through the university's conduct proceedings, but guarantees that no student will be suspended or expelled for their participation.

Garo said campus responses to the agreement vary.

"Some people are just relieved that there's finally movement in this campaign," she said. "Some people never liked the protests in the first place and are simply relieved the encampment is gone. There's also some people who have expressed some disappointment — they wanted to see divestment outright."

The next step for student activists, she said, is mobilizing in the lead-up to the October corporation. She doesn't know yet what that will look like — and, as a graduating senior, won't be on campus in the fall to help.

"But I'm confident in the ability of my fellow activists to do the work and to do it right," she said.

Rutgers

Rutgers University students occupy tents and hold rallies outside Murray Hall in New Brunswick, N.J., as part of their protest in support of Palestinians affected by the war in Gaza on April 30.

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Chris Pedota, NorthJersey.com

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USA TODAY Network via Reuters

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Students and administrators at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J., came to an agreement on May 2.

After a rally that morning forced the school to postpone more than two dozen final exams, it gave protesters a 4 p.m. deadline to take down their encampment — which they set up on April 29 — or else be arrested.

NJ Spotlight News reported that some students prepared to be arrested, setting up a jail support system and readying their phone cameras.

But within an hour of the deadline, the administration offered up a revised proposal — and student organizers accepted it. They began clearing their tents just in time.

Announcing the deal later that day, university officials credited "constructive dialogue between the protesting students and our leadership teams," saying it opened the door for ongoing dialogue to address the needs of its sizable Arab, Muslim and Palestinian student body.

A coalition of student groups advocating for divestment from Israel presented 10 demands to the administration. The school agreed to eight of them but declined to divest from companies doing business in Israel and terminate its partnership with Tel Aviv University.

"Such decisions fall outside of our administrative scope," wrote Chancellor Francine Conway. "However, following our established university policies, the divestment request is under review."

Rutgers did agree to accept 10 displaced Palestinian students on scholarship, develop a plan for an Arab Cultural Center on campus, explore scholarly exchanges with a university in Ramallah and consider creating a Department of Middle East Studies, to name a few.

The agreement doesn't have unequivocal support: The New Jersey regional director of the American Jewish Committee condemned it as "short-sighted" and a "capitulation."

But the Endowment Justice Collective said in an Instagram statement that it was proud of what it had achieved — without student arrests or suspensions — and determined to keep working towards its divestment goals.

"Our decision to end our encampment without achieving these demands reflects our strategic logic regarding building power on campus by laying structural groundwork to not only grow our ranks but shift the political climate across Rutgers," they wrote.

University of Minnesota

Protesters at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities campus reached an agreement with the administration on Thursday, capping off a tumultuous few weeks.

Police cleared an antiwar encampment on the day it was set up on April 23, arresting nine people in the process. Students continued to protest, including reestablishing an encampment on April 29 as they called on the school to divest from weapons manufacturers and companies tied to the Israeli military, and to end study abroad programs in Israel.

University officials announced that day that some campus buildings would remain closed amidst protests. A dozen buildings remained closed the following day, as university officials offered to meet with leaders of student groups involved in the protests, MPR News reported.

Organizers met with administrators on Wednesday, the last day before final exams started, and described the conversations as productive. Before the night ended, they had reached an agreement.

Interim President Jeff Ettinger announced the takeaways from the agreement the following day: Campus buildings would reopen at noon, student organizers would not disrupt finals and commencements, and representatives would get an opportunity to address the Board of Regents at its May 10 meeting.

In the agreement, the university provided progress reports on six requests from student protesters, ranging from divestment to amnesty.

Among them: The administration said it would consider setting up program affiliations with Palestinian universities and make a good faith effort to provide information about the university's holding in public companies by May 7, to be supplemented by May 17.

Ettinger credited the meetings with organizers as a "very positive first step in reaching mutual understanding."

He said their original meeting was scheduled for 30 minutes — but the participants "engaged in constructive conversation" for more than 90 minutes, and then met two more times to discuss the proposed agreements.

"We regret that these meetings did not happen sooner, and have committed to regular meetings moving forward to continue to discuss this coalition's concerns," he added.

He said while he is heartened by the initial progress, there is more work to be done. Organizers with the UMN Divest Coalition made a similar vow on Instagram after the agreement was announced.

"We will continue fighting for all 6 of our demands until they are met and continue with full transparency of every step that is taken," they said.

After copper wire theft left the Sixth Street Bridge in darkness for years, the city of Los Angeles has hired a Pasadena-based engineering firm to restore the lighting, a move aimed at improving safety for Boyle Heights and the surrounding neighborhoods.

City officials contracted Tetra Tech to relight the bridge, which has been plagued by copper wire theft since its opening in 2022. The outages have frustrated residents and commuters who use the bridge to walk, run, bike and drive between downtown LA and the Eastside.

Aging infrastructure, copper wire theft and delayed repairs led to nearly 2,000 streetlight service requests in Boyle Heights in 2024. Nearly seven miles of copper wire have been reported stolen from the Sixth Street Bridge.

Tetra Tech began working on the project’s design in January and is scheduled to restore the wiring to all lights along the bridge, including along roadways, barriers, ramps, stairways and arches before the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games come to Los Angeles that summer, according to a Feb. 18 news release from Councilmember Ysabel Jurado’s office.

The firm – which was selected by the city’s Bureau of Engineering – will fortify the pull boxes, service cabinet and conduits to protect against copper wire theft. Tetra Tech will also install a security camera system to deter vandalism and theft.

“When our streets are well-lit, our neighborhoods feel safer and more connected,” Jurado said in the news release. “The Sixth Street Bridge plays a vital role in connecting Angelenos between the Eastside and the heart of the City.”

Jurado – who pledged to look into fixing the Sixth Street Bridge lights when she was elected in 2024 – said the partnership with Tetra Tech “moves us one step closer to restoring one of the City’s most iconic landmarks as a safe, welcoming public space our communities deserve.”

According to officials, the total contract value with Tetra Tech is $5.3 million, which includes work on the Sixth Street Bridge as well as the Sixth Street PARC project, which encompasses 12 acres of recreational space underneath and adjacent to the bridge.

The PARC project will make way for sports fields, fitness equipment, event spaces and a performance stage. PARC’s grand opening is anticipated later this year.

Because the work for the PARC project and the bridge is connected, the Board of Engineers recommended using the existing PARC contract with Tetra Tech to ensure completion ahead of the 2028 Games, officials said.

The cost for the design work on the bridge alone is roughly $1 million.

On Thursday, Jurado announced that her streetlight repair crew had restored lighting and strengthened infrastructure for more than 400 streetlights across her district, including Boyle Heights, Lincoln Heights, and El Sereno. Next, they plan to tackle repairs in downtown L.A.

For the last 70 years, the  27th Street Bakery hasn’t just been the go-to place for people who want to spend less time in the kitchen — it’s become a staple in South Central, providing jobs and security for people living in the neighborhood.

The bakery is Black-owned and in its third generation as a business. It’s co-owned by sisters Denise Cravin-Paschal and Olympic gold-medalist Jeanette Bolden-Pickens, as well as her husband Al Pickens.

“My grandfather employed a lot of people around here as he was growing his business and so have we,” Cravin-Paschal told the LA Local. “They feel that this is a safe place to come. We have the respect of being here for 70 years and so we enjoy it.”

The bakery sits on Central Avenue, the focal point of Black Los Angeles between the 1930s and 1960s. As segregation laws were struck down, Black people in LA began to move elsewhere and took their businesses with them. The bakery, though, is still Black-owned and operating 70 years later.

Today it is considered the largest manufacturer of sweet potato pies on the West Coast, the bakery’s website states. Last year, the city and District 9 Councilmember Curren Price Jr. presented the bakery with a plaque that reads: “A Walk Down Central Avenue — A legacy of community: powered by the people and its places.”

It hangs on the wall in the bakery’s lobby along with several other photos and recognitions they’ve received over the years.

“Our goal is to keep this legacy alive and we’re celebrating 70 years of being here in business. We are so grateful to the community,” Bolden-Pickens said.

In celebration of its anniversary, a sign in the bakery says it is offering one slice of sweet potato pie for 70 cents on Saturdays starting this weekend through Oct. 31.

The bakery was a restaurant at first bringing Southern flavor to LA

The bakery began as a restaurant in the 1930s on Central Avenue founded by Harry and Sadie Patterson, according to the family and Los Angeles Conservancy. Back then, Central Avenue was the epicenter of LA’s Black community and Patterson, who came from Shreveport, Louisiana, decided to bring his Southern recipes to life in Los Angeles.

The restaurant later became a bakery in 1956, according to the bakery’s website. Patterson’s daughter Alberta Cravin and her son Gregory Spann took over the bakery in 1980. After Spann passed away, Cravin’s daughters — the sisters who are current owners — took over the family business. Five other relatives also help them out, Cravin-Paschal said.

These days, the bakery is open Tuesday through Saturday each week and the bulk of their customers are other businesses. They serve nearly 300 vendors including convenience stores like 7-Eleven, Ralphs grocery stores, Smart & Final, ARCO gas stations, restaurants and other mom-and-pop stores. Louisiana Fried Chicken has been a customer since 1980, Cravin-Paschal said.

An average delivery today is usually 45 dozen pies and they also ship orders out of state, Cravin-Paschal said.

She also told The LA Local they have six full time employees and most of them have worked for the bakery at least 25 years.

“I like working here, I like the people,” Maximina “Maxi” Rodriguez, a longtime employee, told The LA Local. After 32 years at the bakery, she said she plans to retire in June. “I’m going to miss it.”

Rodriguez said working at the bakery is a family affair for her, too. Her sister, Guadalupe Garibaldi, has worked at the bakery for over 40 years and her niece, Yoselin Garibaldi, is now a cashier and driver.

Patterson’s lessons inspired 3 generations to keep the business running

For Bolden-Pickens and Cravin-Paschal, running the bakery is a labor of love. Both told The LA Local that their grandfather taught them to stay true to the fresh ingredients they use and not to cut corners.

These lessons helped Bolden-Pickens in her life before taking over the family business. She won a gold medal as part of the U.S. 4×100 meter relay team in track and field during the 1984 Olympics.

“What I learned from being an Olympian is that it takes a lot of hard work. I learned that from my grandfather,” she said.

Bolden-Pickens said it hasn’t been easy running the business, but they’ve been able to stay afloat because of the lessons learned from their grandfather.

“I remember during the pandemic, we actually had to go to the egg farm and stand in line for a couple of hours just to get the eggs that we needed,” Bolden-Pickens said. “We use the best spices. We make our own vanilla.”

Cravin-Paschal said after the death of their brother Gregory Spann, who was the main baker for nearly two decades, they struggled for a few years to keep the recipe and taste consistent. But eventually they figured it out.

“We had a little rough spot because we all know the recipes but you have to put it together (correctly),” Cravin-Paschal said. “Now we’re back to the original taste.”

As marijuana use among teens has grown in the past decade, researchers have been trying to better understand the health risks of the drug. Now, a new longitudinal study finds that cannabis use among adolescents increases risks of being diagnosed with bipolar and psychotic disorders, as well as anxiety and depression, years later.

"This is very, very, very worrying," says psychiatrist Dr. Ryan Sultan at Columbia University, a cannabis researcher who wasn't involved in the new study published in the latest JAMA Health Forum.

Strong study design

Researchers analyzed health data on 460,000 teenagers in the Kaiser Permanente Health System in Northern California. The teens were followed until they were 25 years old. The data included annual screenings for substance use and any mental health diagnoses from the health records. Researchers excluded the adolescents who had symptoms of mental illnesses before using cannabis.

"We looked at kids using cannabis before they had any evidence of these psychiatric conditions and then followed them to understand if they were more likely or less likely to develop them," says Dr. Lynn Silver, a pediatrician and researcher at the Public Health Institute, and an author of the new study.

They found that the teens who reported using cannabis in the past year were at a higher risk of being diagnosed with several mental health conditions a few years later, compared to teens who didn't use cannabis.

Teens who reported using cannabis had twice the risk of developing two serious mental illnesses: bipolar, which manifests as alternating episodes of depression and mania, and psychotic disorders, such as schizophrenia which involve a break with reality.

Now, only a small fraction — nearly 4,000 — of all teens in the study were diagnosed with each of these two disorders. Both bipolar and psychotic disorders are among the most serious and disabling of mental illnesses.

"Those are the scarier conditions that we worry about," says Sultan.

Silver points out these illnesses are expensive to treat and come at a high cost to society. The U.S. cannabis market is an industry with a value in the tens-of-billions — but the societal cost of schizophrenia has been calculated to be $350 billion a year.

"And if we increase the number of people who develop that condition in a way that's preventable, that can wipe out the whole value of the cannabis market," Silver says.

Depression and anxiety too

The new study also found that the risk for more common conditions like depression and anxiety was also higher among cannabis users.

"Depression alone went up by about a third," says Silver, "and anxiety went up by about a quarter."

But the link between cannabis use and depression and anxiety got weaker for teens who were older when they used cannabis. "Which really shows the sensitivity of the younger child's brain to the effects of cannabis," says Silver. "The brain is still developing. The effects of cannabis on the receptors in the brain seem to have a significant impact on their neurological development and the risk for these mental health disorders."

Silver hopes these findings will make teens more cautious about using the drug, which is not as safe as people perceive it to be.

"With legalization, we've had a tremendous wave of this perception of cannabis as a safe, natural product to treat your stress with," she says. "That is simply not true."

The new study is well designed and gets at "the chicken or the egg, order-of-operations question," says Sultan. There have been other past studies that have also found a link between cannabis use and mental health conditions, especially psychosis. But, those studies couldn't tell whether cannabis affected the likelihood of developing mental health symptoms or whether people with existing problems were more likely to use cannabis — perhaps to treat their symptoms.

But by excluding teens who were already showing mental health symptoms, the new study suggests a causal link between cannabis use and later mental health diagnoses. Additional research is needed to understand the link fully.

'Playing with fire'

Sultan, the psychiatrist and researcher at Columbia University, says the study confirms what he's seeing in his clinic — more teens using cannabis who've developed new or worsening mental health symptoms.

"It is most common around anxiety and depression, but it's also showing up in more severe conditions like bipolar disorder and psychosis," he says.

He notes that mental health disorders are complex in origin. A host of risk factors, like genetics, environment, lifestyle and life experiences all play a role. And some young people are more at risk than others.

"When someone has a psychotic episode in the context of cannabis or a manic episode in the context of cannabis, clinicians are going to say, 'Please do not do that again because you're you're you're playing with fire,'" he says.

Because the more they use the drug, he says the more likely that their symptoms will worsen over time, making recovery harder.

"What we're worried about [is if] you sort of get stuck in psychosis, it gets harder and harder to pull the person back," says Sultan. "Psychosis and severe mood disorders, particularly bipolar disorder are like seizures in your brain. They're sort of neurotoxic to your brain, and so it seems to be associated with a more rapid deterioration of the brain."

Some electric bikes in California could soon require license plates under a proposed state bill aiming to address the rise in electric bike related injuries.

AB 1942 or the E-bike Accountability Act, would apply exclusively to Class 2 and Class 3 electric bikes.

Class 2 bikes can be operated without peddling until it reaches the speed of 20 mph.

Class 3 bikes reach a max speed of 28 mph; motor assist could only kick in with peddling.

The bill would also require owners to carry proof of ownership and would direct the Department of Motor Vehicles to establish a registration process. It was introduced by Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer-Kahan of Orinda in Contra Costa County earlier this month.

E-bike injuries spiked 18-fold between 2018 and 2023, according to state traffic data.

The bill may be heard in committee March 16.