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The University of Mississippi student who was seen on video making monkey noises and jumping up and down to mock a Black pro-Palestine protester has been expelled from his fraternity after his actions went viral on social media.

The fraternity, Phi Delta Theta, announced in a statement on Sunday that the man in question had been swiftly removed from the organization. The student, James JP Staples, was identified on Instagram by the NAACP.

Phi Delta Theta General Headquarters is aware of the video regarding the student protest at the University of Mississippi, the statement reads.

The racist actions in the video were those of an individual and are antithetical to the values of Phi Delta Theta and the Mississippi Alpha chapter. The responsible individual was removed from membership on Friday, May 3.

It was unclear whether the unidentified man would be allowed to rejoin the organization at Ole Miss or any other chapter in the future. A spokesman for Phi Delta Thetas national headquarters did not immediately respond to The Daily Beasts requests for comment.

The fraternitys announcement came just days after the university launched a student conduct investigation into at least one student as a result of the racist counterprotest encounter.

In a letter addressed to the campus community on Friday, Chancellor Glenn Boyce said the university was aware of behavior that was offensive, hurtful and unacceptable, including actions that conveyed hostility and racist overtones, although he did not clarify that it was pro-Israel counterprotesters who lodged those racist attacks.

While student privacy laws prohibit us from commenting on any specific student, we have opened one student conduct investigation. We are working to determine whether more cases are warranted, Boyce wrote.

On Thursday, counter protesters overwhelmed a small demonstration in support of Palestine, which had been peacefully assembled on the grassy area of campus. Counter protesters surrounded the fenced-off protest area and chanted things like Hit the showers! and Your nose is huge, the nonprofit news outlet Mississippi Today reported.

The jeers were especially vicious toward a Black female protester who separated from the rest of the protest encampment. Video showing a group of mostly white male counter protesters mocking her quickly went viral after they hurled taunts like Lizzo! and Lock her up! as she was guided away by police.

A May 4th Colorado GOP fundraiser, where Gov. Kristi Noem, R-S.D., was supposed to speak, was canceled due to threats sparked by her admission of killing her 14-month-old dog, Cricket.

Nancy Pallozzi, Jefferson County Republican Party Chair, said in a statement posted on social media that the group had initially thought the timing for the fundraiser was perfect, since the South Dakota governors book, "No Going Back," comes out soon. But attitudes have changed towards Noem, as examples of her cruelty towards animals continue to make headlines.

Numerous threats and/or death threats have been made to the county organization, the Denver West Marriott where the fundraiser was being hosted, and to Noem herself, according to Pallozzi.

After a conversation with the Governors office late Wednesday, we mutually decided that safety was the most important concern for everyone involved, Pallozzi wrote.

Despite the threats to the Marriott, which received alarming comments worth deep concern over the safety and security for those attending our event, other guests, and their staff, Pallozi confirmed that the local GOP is not taking a position on the public outcry on the governors book.

However, she did add that the fundraiser had an adverse effect. We lost money in this, Pallozzi told NBC News. This was meant to be a fundraiser, but now weve lost thousands of dollars.

The consequences of what Noem describes in her book which also details her murdering a mean and "smelly" goat have impacted her political aspirations, no doubt.

After reports of her shooting her wirehaired pointer, whom she hated because the puppy didnt take to her initial hunting training, the anecdote seems to have severely hurt her chances of being Trumps running mate, as even he is giving her stink-eye over it.

When Noem spoke at a Trump donor retreat at Mar-a-Lago on Saturday, she seemed less than apologetic about her actions, and far more concerned with how it would be yet another exercise to show her political contemporaries that she has what it takes to make it.

"Theyre just attacking me like crazy right now, she said. "But listen, thats a good thing. Its a good thing because it makes you stronger, and it teaches you, really, what youre up against. And it makes you recognize how much they lie. How much they will twist. How much they will manipulate. And you just have to be strong and be happy warriors.

It seems as though Noem has even doubled down on her animal killing spree, and hints in her book that shell kill Bidens dog, if an opportunity presents itself wherein she feels such an action would be necessary.

In an interview with CBS, the interviewer confirms this: At the end of the book, you say the very first thing you would do if you got to the White House, that was different from Biden, is you would make sure Biden's dog was nowhere on the grounds. 'Commander say hello to Cricket.' Are you trying to look tough?

When asked if she still thinks she has a shot at being vice president, Noem, who has suddenly decided she is the equivalent to animal control, said, Well, number one, Joe Bidens dog has attacked 24 Secret Service people. Staying on-brand, she ended with compliments to herself and her state of South Dakota being happy and doing well.

Bump.

So the Trump campaign wants to help China spy on Americans?

Trump is a Far-Left communist confirmed!

The only good thing to come out of Louisiana is Popeyes and hot sauce.

Project 2025 basically wants to turn America into a Christian Saudi Arabia

Jesus fucking christ

I would party with Rupert any day of the week while having to work in the morning. He seems a standup guy.

Dissident rapper Toomaj Salehi has been given a death sentence for his involvement in the widespread protests that swept Iran in 2022, according to his lawyer.

An order for the execution of Toomaj Salehi has been issued, Salehis lawyer Amir Raesian tweeted Wednesday.

The rapper has been detained, held in solitary confinement and was allegedly tortured following his arrest.

In an unprecedented move, a court in Isfahan reversed the higher Supreme Courts decision on Salehis case on Tuesday, upholding the original verdict of corruption on earth and issued the maximum punishment of death, according to Iranian pro-reform outlets Shargh and Entekhab.

State media said Salehis sentence is subject for reduction by a pardoning committee if he appeals again.

Salehi, 32, who has been critical of the Iranian regime and outspoken against the government in rap lyrics and on social media, was briefly released from prison last year before police violently rearrested him and sent him to prison in Isfahan, witnesses said at the time.

He was rearrested after appearing in a video where he revealed that he was tortured and placed in solitary confinement for 252 days following his arrest in October 2022, UN experts said in a statement published by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR).

Another artist, Kurdish-Iranian rapper Saman Yasin, who was also arrested at the height of 2022s protests in Iran, was transferred to a psychiatric hospital two times in less than a year, according to pro-reform news outlet IranWire.

A court in Tehran sentenced Yasin to five years in prison, according to group focused on Kurdish human rights, Hengaw.

Demonstrations swept the country after the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, which occurred under suspicious circumstances while in police custody. A brutal crackdown on the protests by Iranian authorities targeted the weeks-long protests.

We strongly condemn Toomaj Salehis death sentence and the five-year sentence for Kurdish-Iranian rapper Saman Yasin. We call for their immediate release, the United States Office of the Special Envoy for Iran tweeted. These are the latest examples of the regimes brutal abuse of its own citizens, disregard for human rights, and fear of the democratic change the Iranian people seek.

UN experts also demanded Salehis release and urged Iranian authorities to reverse the death sentence.

We are alarmed by the imposition of the death sentence and the alleged ill-treatment of Mr. Salehi which appears to be related solely to the exercise of his right to freedom of artistic expression and creativity, the experts said.

Salehis political sponsor in Europe, German Member of Parliament Ye-One Rhie, called the death sentence against Salehi absurd and inhumane.

It is still completely unclear how this verdict came about, she tweeted Wednesday. It is unbelievable how irresponsibly and arbitrarily the Iranian regime treats defendants. It is impossible to recognize the rule of law in the chaos of the courts in charge.

CNNs Mostafa Salem contributed reporting.

Bump.

The families of people being held hostage by Hamas terrorists praised what they called their terrific meeting on Wednesday with President Joe Biden.

Jonathan Dekel-Chen, speaking on behalf of the family members of the eight Americans believed to be held hostage in Gaza, said, "We could have no better friend in Washington or in the White House than President Biden himself and his administration," as he recounted their meeting at the White House.

The families said they left the meeting feeling the Biden administration was "completely committed" to securing the release of their loved ones.

"We've seen that the U.S. administration from the previous round of negotiations and hostage release, the U.S. administration is completely committed to getting the hostages out, the eight Americans who remain there and the other nearly 130," Dekel-Chen said. "We have no doubt about that."

Dekel-Chen added that the meeting with Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken "only reinforced that and that they are willing and ready to do all that they possibly can, by any number of means, to get the hostages home."

While the families declined to get into the specifics of the conversation when asked about updates on their loved ones, they said that the administration has been in frequent and transparent communication with members of the families since Hamas terrorists took the hostages during the Oct. 7 attack.

Liz Naftali, the great aunt of Abigail, the Israeli American toddler released last month after her parents were reportedly killed in front of her by Hamas terrorists, said the families were appreciative of the work Biden and his administration have done.

"What I can tell you is that Abigail is a miracle. She is a light in this very dark time and metaphorically. ... We are here because the president and his team have been bringing out light in this dark time," Naftali said.

"We are thankful to the president and to his team because we know that they are working 24 hours a day and they are going to work through the holidays, and they are going to do everything they can to make sure that all of our loved ones, real people, come home to us and to the families across the world and in Israel," Naftali said.

Biden has publicly expressed his commitment to repatriating the hostages, saying Monday at a White House Hanukkah celebration, "I'm not going to stop until we get every one of them home."

Naftali also said the administration has demonstrated empathy towards the hostages.

"That is what the president and Secretary Blinken understand -- is that they're just not numbers and they're just not faces. They are sons. They are sons. They are grandparents. They are mothers. And that is what the president and his team understand," Naftali said.

Biden was "moved" by the U.S. hostages' families' stories during his meeting with them at the White House on Wednesday, White House spokesperson John Kirby said Wednesday afternoon.

"I would only add that the president was very grateful for the time that they afforded him, and he was moved by their stories, by the love they feel, by the hope that they still harbor, and he harbors that hope too, but as [White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre] rightly noted, he's acting on that," Kirby said. "The other thing that he made sure to do was to promise them that we're going to keep them informed every single step of the way. And we'll do that."

Asked by ABC News' MaryAlice Parks whether Biden's comment at a Tuesday fundraiser that Israel is "starting to lose that support [of other nations] by indiscriminate bombing that takes place" meant that the U.S. should put additional requirements on aid to Israel, Kirby responded, "Every bit of security assistance we give any other country always comes with the expectation that the law of armed conflict is going to be respected and obeyed."

"As I said earlier, we're not going to assess every single airstrike here from this particular podium, that wouldn't be appropriate. The Israelis should speak to their operations, but we have every expectation, as I said to my previous answer there that they will act in accordance with the law of armed conflict. And do everything that they can to match their intent, which is to minimize civilian casualties," he continued.

"But if they aren't, then isn't there an obligation for the U.S. to change the way that it's delivering military aid?" Parks pressed.

When Kirby replied, "Thats a hypothetical that I'm not prepared to engage in right now," Parks said, "Its not hypothetical if he said 'indiscriminate bombing.'"

"Thats a hypothetical I'm not going to engage in," Kirby reiterated. "We have expressed our concerns. The president has, publicly and privately, with the Israelis about the need to reduce civilian casualties, and were going to continue to do that."

Asked by Parks about whether the Biden administration is concerned that hostages could be held in tunnels in Gaza that Israel is reportedly flooding, Kirby responded that it's "not beyond possibility that Hamas could be holding at least some of them in tunnels as they move them around," noting that "some of the hostages have come out and said that they were held in tunnels."

"But if you're asking about the flooding specifically, I'm not going to speak for Israeli military operations. They should speak to that. I would just say that we all need to be remember -- we all need to remember the particular, extra difficulty that they have going after a group like Hamas, which isnt just -- which is a terrorist group, but it also has sort of a military structure to it, and they deliberately tunnel under civilian infrastructure to allow for the movement of their fighters and to -- for storing equipment," he added.

Dozens of the more than 240 hostages have been released as part of a cease-fire and prisoner exchange between Israel and Hamas in the wake of Hamas' surprise Oct. 7 terror attack. Of those, 135 still remain as hostages, according to the Israel Defense Forces.

While the White House and families of hostages have advocated for pauses in the fighting to allow for aid and hostages to move within particular regions of the conflict, Israel has been more reluctant to do so, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arguing that breaks in the fighting allow Hamas time to regroup. The U.S. has agreed that a broad cease-fire would benefit Hamas and instead called for localized and limited pauses.

He's going to get fired, meanwhile Sonic's jpn va can get his twitter hacked to horny post then go on to say some homophobic nonsense we live in stupid times

LONDON (AP) Britains governing Conservative Party suffered heavy losses in local election results Friday, further cementing expectations that the Labour Party will return to power after 14 years in a U.K. general election that will take place in the coming months.

Labour won control of councils in England that the party hasnt held for decades, and was successful in a special election for a seat in Parliament.

If those results are repeated in the general election, it would lead to one of the Conservatives biggest-ever defeats.

I'm glad the Harry Potter kids, from what we've seen, grew up to be good people.

More like Daniel Basedcliffe

I'll see myself out.

Daniel Radcliffe is speaking out about his career ties to Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling.

Tony-nominated actor Radcliffe has previously assured franchise fans that Rowlings transphobic remarks are in no way indicative of the Potter actors own sociopolitical views. Now, Radcliffe is untangling the nuances of Rowlings legacy.

It makes me really sad, ultimately, because I do look at the person that I met, the times that we met, and the books that she wrote, and the world that she created, and all of that is to me so deeply empathic, Radcliffe told the Atlantic, while also confirming he has had no direct contact with Rowling since her tweets in June 2020.

Russian oil product exports slumped to a post-pandemic low in April, according to tanker tracking data, as Moscow battles to repair its Western refineries which remain under siege from Ukrainian drones.

Seaborne Russian export loadings of diesel, fuel oil, naphtha and other refined products picked up slightly in the second half of April to average 1.94 million b/d, according to S&P Global Commodities at Sea. The April average marks a 360,000-b/d slump on March and almost 700,000 b/d below January levels when Ukraine began a barrage of long-range drone strikes on Russian refining capacity. Flooding also took the 116,000-b/d Orsk refinery offline for two weeks during the month.

The last time Russian product exports fell below 2 million b/d was during the peak of COVID-19 lockdowns in mid-2020.

After a three-week hiatus, Ukraine launched one of its largest drone strikes to date on April 27, when 66 drones were downed over Russia's Krasnodar region, according to Russia's defense ministry, leaving both its Ilsky and Slavyansk refineries damaged. On April 30, a fire broke out at Russia's 342,000 b/d Ryazan refinery after a new drone strike on the facility.

Some 600,000 b/d of refining capacity currently remains offline as Russia rushes to repair damaged units, according to S&P Global Commodity Insights estimates, down from more than 1 million b/d last month.

Russia's biggest fuel exports -- diesel and gasoil -- averaged 737,000 b/d in April, down 137,000 b/d from the previous month and 240,000 b/d since January, the data showed. Russia's April oil product export slump was led by fuel oil, however, which shrank 147,000 b/d on the month and 220,000 b/d since January. Exports of naphtha, gasoline and VGO were down by 72,000 b/d, 58,000 b/d and 61,000 b/d on March respectively.