Michigan Democratic Attorney General Dana Nessel dropped all charges against seven University of Michigan students on Monday, a twist that shocked defense attorneys after Nessel had pushed for felony charges against the anti-Israel protesters.

The seven students faced misdemeanor charges of trespassing and felony charges of resisting and obstructing police stemming from an anti-Israel protest on Michigan’s campus last year, The Detroit Free Press reported. The courtroom, which was packed with people supporting the anti-Israel students, erupted in cheers and chants of “Free Palestine” when it was announced that the charges had been dropped.

Last September, Nessel pushed for the felony charges against the students, which could have put them behind bars for up to two years if they had been convicted. The attorney general alleged that the protesters used “physical force to counter” police officers who were attempting to clear them out of the area.

Nessel, who is Jewish, was pressured to recuse herself from the case last month as critics alleged that she was biased against Muslims. Nessel said that a letter from the Jewish Federation of Greater Ann Arbor defending her amid the accusations influenced her decision to drop the charges. The Democratic attorney general claimed that the letter — which said that Nessel “has a strong history of uplifting those in both the Muslim and Arab American communities” — was inappropriate.

“We have learned that a public statement in support of my office from a local nonprofit has been directly communicated to the court,” Nessel said. “The impropriety of this action has led us to the difficult decision to drop these charges.”

The defendants, Oliver Kozler, Samantha Lewis, Henry MacKeen-Shapiro, Michael Mueller, Asad Siddiqui, Avi Tachna-Fram, and Rhiannon Willow, were also surprised by the decision and will now walk away from the charges in this case. Lewis, who said she faces charges in a separate case over another protest, mocked the attorney general, saying that “the possibility of recusal was going to be so embarrassing for Nessel that she just couldn’t bear it.”

“And so while all of us, and that includes all of you, refused to cower, she did. And that just goes to show that the bullies and badges and the top pig are just cowards,” Lewis told a group of her supporters.

The University of Michigan called in police to break up an anti-Israel encampment on its campus last May as university leadership faced calls to push back on antisemitism at the school. Michigan was one of the numerous universities where anti-Israel students set up camp in the spring of 2024, disrupting campus life and forcing schools to ask law enforcement for help in dispersing the protesters.

Protests erupted in China late last month after factories were shut down due to President Donald Trump’s 145% tariff on the country.

Factory workers took to the streets in Suining, a city in the eastern Sichuan province, demanding back pay and claiming that the electronics factory where they work has not paid them since the beginning of the year, according to Radio Free Asia. Hundreds of workers at Guangxin Sports Goods in the Hunan Province also went on strike after the factory was closed. The company reportedly did not pay the workers their wages or Social Security benefits before shuttering the factory. Meanwhile, construction workers in Inner Mongolia, an autonomous region of northern China, threatened to jump off a building if they were not paid their overdue wages, the outlet reported.

Chinese manufacturing is struggling as the country’s government pushes back on Trump’s tariff. According to China’s manufacturing purchasing managers’ index, new orders for export were at their lowest level since the COVID pandemic, and manufacturing jobs were at their lowest level since February 2024, The New York Times reported. China’s National Bureau of Statistics said the concerning decline was due to “sharp changes in the external environment,” adding that there are “no winners in trade wars,” according to the Financial Times.

Goldman Sachs estimates that around 16 million jobs in many Chinese industries are at risk due to Trump’s tariff, the New York Post reported. China quietly moved to help ease the pain of the tariff on its economy last week, exempting around $40 billion worth of U.S. imports from its 125% retaliatory tariff on American goods.

While Trump and his administration officials continue to say they are speaking to the Chinese government behind the scenes, there has still been no formal meeting for trade talks between the two countries. The president told NBC’s “Meet the Press” over the weekend that he would “lower” the tariff on China “at some point,” adding that “they want to do business very much.”

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said last week that the trade war is “not sustainable on the Chinese side” and the Chinese economy is already “slowing down substantially.” Bessent suggested that the communist government would soon give in to trade talks.

China’s Commerce Ministry said that it is “evaluating” the United States’ offer to sit down for negotiations, but added that the country will only engage if the Trump administration ends its tariff on Chinese goods.