President Joe Biden is set to visit Tampa to discuss abortion access, and the Supreme Court consides public sleeping bans across the country. 

Biden plans Tampa visit to discuss abortion access

This week, the presidential campaign trail is running through Florida.

President Joe Biden will visit Tampa Tuesday to speak in support of abortion rights. This comes a week before Florida’s six-week abortion ban will take effect.

And ahead of the president’s visit, the department of health and human services announced a new rule to protect patient privacy for women seeking abortions across state lines.

The new rule strengthens the federal health care privacy law known as “HIPPA” to shield the identities of women who have to go out of state for an abortion..

The Biden administration says the changes are necessary because of the abortion bans enacted by several Republican-led states.

“We will protect your rights to access the care that you need. And we will protect your privacy when you access those rights,” Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra said.

In addition to protecting women who must go out of state for reproductive care, the rule also safeguards the medical professionals who care for them.

“I have had patients ask that question of, you know, are ‘is this information going to get back to anybody in the place where I’m coming from? Are there going to be consequences for me, you know, when I go home, what can be done? You know, to make sure that there are no consequences for me.’ So this is really, really important that these protections are being put in place,” Chief Medical Officer of Planned Parenthood in Washington, DC Dr. Serena Floyd said.

The Biden administration proposed the rule change last year, after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.

In Florida, voters will have the ultimate say on the issue in November when they decide on an abortion rights initiative at the ballot box. This as the Biden campaign tries to make abortion rights a major issue in the presidential race. 

Supreme Court weighs banning homeless people from sleeping outside

The Supreme Court wrestled with major questions about the growing issue of homelessness on Monday as it considered whether cities can ban people from sleeping outside when shelter space is lacking.

The case is considered the most significant to come before the high court in decades on the issue as record numbers of people are without a permanent place to live in the United States.

In California and other Western states, courts have ruled that it's unconstitutional to fine and arrest people sleeping in homeless encampments if shelter space is lacking.

A a cross-section of Democratic and Republican officials contend that makes it difficult for them to manage encampments, which can have dangerous and unsanitary living conditions. But hundreds of advocacy groups argue that allowing cities to punish people who need a place to sleep will criminalize homelessness and ultimately make the crisis worse as the cost of housing increases.

Dozens of demonstrators gathered outside the court Monday morning with silver thermal blankets and signs like "housing not handcuffs."

The Justice Department has also weighed in. It argues people shouldn't be punished just for sleeping outside, but only if there's a determination they truly have nowhere else to go.

The case comes from the rural Oregon town of Grants Pass, which started fining people $295 for sleeping outside to manage homeless encampments that sprung up in the city's public parks as the cost of housing escalated.

The measure was largely struck down by the San Francisco-based 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which also found in 2018 that such bans violated the Eighth Amendment by punishing people for something they don't have control over. The 9th Circuit oversees nine Western states, including California, which is home to about one-third of the nation's homeless population.

The case comes after homelessness in the United States grew a dramatic 12%, to its highest reported level as soaring rents and a decline in coronavirus pandemic assistance combined to put housing out of reach for more Americans, according to federal data.

The court is expected to decide the case by the end of June.

Pro-Palestinian protests lead to 47 arrests at Yale, canceled in-person classes at Columbia

Pro-Palestinian protests led to the arrests of 47 students at Yale University and the cancellation of in-person classes at Columbia University on Monday morning.

The incidents followed the arrests of more than 100 pro-Palestinian demonstrators at Columbia last week.

Students at both of the Ivy League colleges set up encampments as they called for the schools to divest from companies connected to Israel, including those they say are profiting from Israel’s war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip. 

More than 34,000 Palestinians — at least two-thirds of them women and children — have been killed in the war, according to Gaza’s health ministry. The Israeli invasion followed Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel that killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians.

At Yale in New Haven, Connecticut, protests at Beinecke Plaza, near the administration building, grew over the past week to include more than 250 people, according to the Yale Daily News. After negotiations between university administrators and protest organizers were unsuccessful, Yale police arrested 47 students who refused to leave the plaza Monday, the school said. 

The university said it told the students they could avoid arrest if they left before the weekend ended. Protesters who left voluntarily Monday were not arrested, Yale said.

“The university made the decision to arrest those individuals who would not leave the plaza with the safety and security of the entire Yale community in mind and to allow access to university facilities by all members of our community,” the school said in a statement.

On Sunday, Yale President Peter Salovey said he was “aware of reports of egregious behavior, such as intimidation and harassment, pushing those in crowds, removal of the plaza flag, and other harmful acts.”

Those who were arrested face a range of disciplinary actions, including reprimand, probation or suspension, the school said.

After the arrests, more than 300 protesters had gathered in a circle blocking an intersection, the Daily News reported. 

At Columbia in New York, President Minouche Shafik ordered all classes to be held virtually Monday to “deescalate the rancor and give us all a chance to consider next steps.”

In her statement, Shafik said the “decibel of our disagreements” has increased in recent days after being “exploited and amplified” by protesters not affiliated with Columbia.

“Over the past days, there have been too many examples of intimidating and harassing behavior on our campus,” Shafik said. “Antisemitic language, like any other language that is used to hurt and frighten people, is unacceptable and appropriate action will be taken.”

She said a working group of deans, university administrators and faculty members will work in the coming days toward ending what she called a “crisis.”

Demonstrations at Columbia over the weekend targeted Jewish students with antisemitic rhetoric, according to reports and social media posts. 

On Sunday, Rabbi Elie Buechler, director of Columbia’s Orthodox Union-Jewish Learning Initiative on Campus called for Jewish students to “return home as soon as possible and remain home until the reality in and around campus has dramatically improved.”

“The events of the last few days, especially last night, have made it clear that Columbia University’s Public Safety and the NYPD cannot guarantee Jewish students’ safety in the face of extreme antisemitism and anarchy,” he said in a statement.

The incidents drew condemnation from Mayor Eric Adams and the White House. 

“I am horrified and disgusted with the antisemitism being spewed at and around the Columbia University campus,” Adams wrote Sunday on X, formerly Twitter. “Hate has no place in our city, and I have instructed the NYPD to investigate any violation of law they receive a report about and will arrest anyone found to be breaking the law.”

White House spokesman Andrew Bates said: “While every American has the right to peaceful protest, calls for violence and physical intimidation targeting Jewish students and the Jewish community are blatantly antisemitic, unconscionable and dangerous.”

In his statement Sunday marking Passover, President Joe Biden called out “the alarming surge of Antisemitism – in our schools, communities, and online.”

“Silence is complicity,” he said. “Even in recent days, we’ve seen harassment and calls for violence against Jews. This blatant Antisemitism is reprehensible and dangerous – and it has absolutely no place on college campuses, or anywhere in our country.”

Columbia’s Students for Justice in Palestine — a coalition of more than 110 student groups calling for the university “to divest from apartheid and genocide” — said in a statement Sunday night: “We are frustrated by media distractions focusing on inflammatory individuals who do not represent us.”

“We firmly reject any form of hate or bigotry and stand vigilant against non-students attempting to disrupt the solidarity being forged among students—Palestinian, Muslim, Arab, Jewish, Black and Pro Palestinian classmates and colleagues who represent the full diversity of our country,” it said.

Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., called Monday for Shafik to resign immediately, arguing “Columbia’s leadership has clearly lost control of its campus putting Jewish students’ safety at risk.”

Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., who chairs the House Education and Workforce Committee, sent a letter Sunday to Shafik and other Columbia officials saying she is “gravely concerned” about the protests at the school. 

“Columbia’s continued failure to restore order and safety promptly to campus constitutes a major breach of the University’s Title VI obligations, upon which federal financial assistance is contingent, and which must immediately be rectified,” Foxx wrote. 

Shafik testified before Foxx’s committee last week, where some lawmakers accused Columbia of not doing enough to protect students from antisemitism on campus. 

Shafik defended the university’s commitment to free speech but also acknowledged some rhetoric used by protesters was antisemitic that violated Columbia’s code of conduct. She said the school had suspended 15 students and promised that a visiting professor was not welcome back.

"Antisemitism has no place on our campus and I am personally committed to doing everything I can to confront it directly," Shafik said at the hearing.