Protesters take over Columbia University building

Dozens of protesters took over a building at Columbia University in New York early on Tuesday as the university began suspending student protesters who defied a deadline to vacate their encampment on the campus.

Video footage showed the students barricading the university entrances and unfurling a Palestinian flag out of a window in the latest escalation of demonstrations against the Israel-Hamas conflict.

Protesters on Columbia's Manhattan campus locked arms in front of Hamilton Hall, carrying furniture and metal barricades to the building, one of several that was occupied during a 1968 civil rights and anti-Vietnam War protest on the campus.