Announcements broadcasted on the University of California, Los Angeles campus have told demonstrators to disperse or they would be arrested and face a misdemeanor charge. The protesters largely stayed in place Wednesday evening. They sat on campus steps chanting pro-Palestinian slogans. Police stood by strapping on riot gear. UCLA posted on the social platform X that campus operations will be limited Thursday and Friday with all classes required to pivot to remote instruction. The post urged people to continue avoiding campus and the Royce Quad area.

Administrators and campus police at UCLA are facing intense criticism for failing to act quickly to stop an attack on a pro-Palestinian encampment on campus by counter-demonstrators who threw traffic cones and chairs, released pepper spray and tore down barriers. No one was arrested Wednesday. At least 15 protesters suffered injuries in the confrontation, part of a recent spate of escalating violence that’s occurring on some college campuses nationally over the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza. The call for more police intervention stood in stark contrast to other campuses across the U.S., where officers’ actions were strongly condemned.

An immigrant from Laos who has been battling cancer won an enormous $1.3 billion Powerball jackpot in Oregon earlier this month. But Cheng “Charlie” Saephan's luck hasn't just changed his life — it's also drawn attention to Iu Mien, a southeast Asian ethnic group with origins in China, many of whose members fled from Laos to Thailand and then settled in the U.S. following the Vietnam War. During a news conference Monday introducing him as one of the jackpot winners, Saephan wore a sash identifying himself as Iu Mien. Cayle Tern, president of the Iu Mien Association of Oregon, says the win is significant because so many Iu Mien refugees came to the U.S. with nothing.

A federal appeals court panel on Wednesday rejected a long-running lawsuit brought by young Oregon-based climate activists who argued that the U.S. government’s role in climate change violated their constitutional rights. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals previously ordered the case dismissed in 2020, saying that the job of determining the nation’s climate policies should fall to politicians, not judges. But U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken in Eugene, Oregon, instead allowed the activists to amend their lawsuit and last year ruled the case could go to trial. Acting on a request from the Biden administration, a three-judge 9th Circuit panel issued an order Wednesday requiring Aiken to dismiss the case, and she did.

Duane Eddy, a pioneering guitar hero whose reverberating electric sound on instrumentals such as “Rebel Rouser,” “Forty Miles of Bad Road" and “Cannonball” helped put the twang in early rock ‘n’ roll and influenced George Harrison, Bruce Springsteen and countless other musicians, has died at age 86. With his raucous rhythms, and backing hollers and hand claps, Eddy sold more than 100 million records worldwide, and mastered a distinctive sound based on the premise that a guitar’s bass strings sounded better on tape than the high ones.

The Arizona Legislature has approved a repeal of a long-dormant ban on nearly all abortions. The vote to undo the 19th century law sent the bill to Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs. Two Republicans joined with 14 Democrats in the Arizona Senate on Wednesday to give final legislative approval to the repeal, which narrowly won approval a week ago from the Arizona House and is expected to be signed by Hobbs on Thursday. The near-total ban permits abortions only to save the patient’s life and provides no exceptions for survivors of rape or incest.