Masked anti-Israel activists, some of them possibly students, occupied Columbia university’s Butler library, where students were trying to prepare for finals, leaving the frustrated students outside.

No one expelled them.

RIGHT NOW AT COLUMBIA: Masked anti-Israel students just broke into the library during finals week.

Columbia Public Safety unsuccessfully attempted to stop them. pic.twitter.com/vBfkQFlwUW

— Eden Yadegar (@edenyadegar) May 7, 2025

WATCH: Anti-Israeli protesters have stormed the Butler Library at Columbia University and are now occupying it.

Make an example of these people.
pic.twitter.com/asiA8YMm3U

— RedWave Press (@RedWave_Press) May 7, 2025

⚠️BREAKING: Pro-Hamas fanatics have taken over Columbia University, terrorizing everyone while masked with keffiyehs, as usual.

Public safety has cleared all other rooms because of these radicals.

Why is this allowed? Why aren't they being arrested?pic.twitter.com/J4GILh5tdP

— Vivid.🇮🇱 (@VividProwess) May 7, 2025

Students who could not enter the library gathered outside.

BREAKING: Over 100 students have OCCUPIED Columbia University Butler Library, stating "THE BASEL AL-ARAJ POPULAR UNIVERSITY has just launched, reclaiming BUTLER LIBRARY FOR THE PEOPLE".

Students are gathered outside of the library unable to go in.

Video by @a_lkoakes… pic.twitter.com/pwQOeyGs34

— Oliya Scootercaster 🛴 (@ScooterCasterNY) May 7, 2025

Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD), the campus coalition of leftists, issued a video in which they stated, “BREAKING: THE BASEL AL-ARAJ POPULAR UNIVERSITY HAS JUST LAUNCHED, RECLAIMING BUTLER LIBRARY FOR THE PEOPLE … Over 100 people have just flooded Columia University for Palestine.”

The group issued a list of demands, including, “Full financial divestment from zionist occupation, apartheid and genocide. Academic boycott of all complicit institutions, including the cancellation of the Tel Aviv Global center. Cops and ICE off our campus. … Amnesty for all students, staff, faculty and workers targeted by Columbia University’s discipline.”

Last year the Columbia University Apartheid Divest coalition publicly acknowledged a deeper truth: they are fighting to “eradicate” Western civilization. They joined with the university’s Bengali Student Association to post a statement on Instagram, as Campus Reform reported.

“We are Westerners fighting for the total eradication of Western civilization,” they stated. “We stand in full solidarity with every movement for liberation in the Global South. Our Intifada is an internationalist one—we are fighting for nothing less than the liberation of all people. We reject every genocidal, eugenicist regime that seeks to undermine the personhood of the colonized.”

”As the fascism ingrained in the American consciousness becomes ever more explicit and irrefutable, we seek community and instruction from militants in the Global South, who have been on the frontlines in the fight against tyranny and domination which undergird the imperialist world order,” they continued.

Columbia University also administers the Pulitzer prizes, awards that recognize excellence in American journalism, arts, and letters, named after newspaper Joseph Pulitzer, who was Jewish.

This year, the Pulitzer committee awarded a Pulitzer to Palestinian Mosab Abu Toha, who denied that Israelis taken and kept by Hamas in the October 7, 2023 massacre of over 1200 Israelis were hostages. Toha claimed that an Israeli civilian who was shot twice and abducted from her home was not a hostage; referred to another young woman abducted by Hamas as a “hostage,”: with quote marks around the word, and declared Israeli soldiers celebrating Hanukkah was “what true antisemitism looks like,”

Meet Pulitzer Prize winner Mosab Abu Toha. He justifies the kidnapping of Israelis on Oct. 7.

We aren't going to congratulate him for his prize. Instead, we're going to ask @PulitzerPrizes whether they bothered to check his social media.

Because we did, and it's not pretty. 🧵 pic.twitter.com/qQAMQGi0IK

— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) May 7, 2025

Hamas held Agam Berger hostage with none of the rights due to a prisoner who has gone through a legal process.

But that doesn't matter to Mosab Abu Toha. Because no Israeli could be a hostage in his eyes. pic.twitter.com/w2tSLNrfO9

— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) May 7, 2025

According to Mosab Abu Toha, Israeli "terror soldiers" celebrating the Jewish festival of Hanukkah is "what true antisemitism looks like." 🤨

Maybe he should ask Hamas what true antisemitism is. pic.twitter.com/r5d3oOeD3Z

— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) May 7, 2025

The first day of the conclave to elect the late Pope Francis’ successor closed without a decision.

The 133 cardinals sworn to secrecy to take part in the election gathered in the Sistine Chapel on Wednesday to begin the process to decide the next head of the Catholic Church. Francis’ death just over two weeks ago set the process of choosing his successor in motion.

Black smoke billowed from the Sistine Chapel on Wednesday night, signaling to a crowd of tens of thousands of onlookers that the conclave had closed its first day with no decision. The result was expected as the first vote has little chance of resulting in a pope.

For the next pope to be elected, he must receive a two-thirds vote from the cardinals in the conclave. The conclave is made up of Catholic cardinals under the age of 80. Bishop Robert Barron, founder of Word on Fire, said that the first vote, while inconclusive, is an important gauge for the cardinals to see who the viable candidates may be.

“For the first time they’re going to sense exactly who are the candidates,” said Barron, according to CNN. “Maybe some people that we’ve all been talking about are not really going to get votes. And then they’ll see, ok, probably someone a little more left, someone a little more right. So, this vote will be an important one, almost certainly indecisive, but it will give a good indication of where the conclave is.”

The cardinals will reconvene in the Sistine Chapel on Thursday to resume voting. As many as four votes may be held that day. When a new pope is chosen, white smoke will rise from the chimney in the chapel, a message to the Catholic faithful that the conclave has been successful.

A handy graphic. All times are EDT. pic.twitter.com/iDkN8sWZ1C

— Father V (@father_rmv) May 7, 2025

This conclave is the largest in history, according to The New York Times. Most of the 133 cardinals involved were handpicked by Francis.

In some sense, the election of the next pope may be a referendum on Francis’ papacy. The late pontiff was accused of making confusing statements and ignoring canon law.

“I think it was a very conflictual legacy,” Fr. Robert Sirico, founder of the conservative Acton Institute, told The Daily Wire.

“I think you had almost opposites in the same person because he would affirm clearly and sometimes in very blunt language the Church’s teaching on the controversial issues, but on the other hand he was sending messages that endeared him to the most progressive elements of the Church, and it’s not clear to me what his strategy was,” said Sirico.