Free Republic

ITHACA, N.Y. — A person is in custody in connection with a series of antisemitic online threats made against Cornell University’s Jewish community, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said in a statement Tuesday. “Earlier today, law enforcement identified a person of interest as part of the investigation and this individual is currently in the custody of the New York State Police for questioning,” Hochul said in Tuesday’s statement, adding public safety was a “top priority” and that she was “committed to combatting hate and bias wherever it rears its ugly head.” The online messages surfaced Sunday and included threats to...

Cornell University was on high alert Sunday night after a series of “horrendous, antisemitic” messages threatening the school’s Jewish community were posted earlier on a public forum, school officials said Sunday night. The school notified law enforcement agencies and campus police were taking precautions after a series of disturbing online posts made threats directed at Jewish students and the Center for Jewish Living, according to the university’s president Martha Pollack. The FBI has been contacted of a potential hate crime at the upstate New York Ivy League school amid the Israel-Hamas war, Pollack said. One of the posts on the...

Cornell University’s bucolic upstate New York campus was defaced with hateful anti-Israel graffiti Wednesday morning as some messages read “F–k Israel” and “Zionism = Racism.” The vandalism at the Ithaca Ivy League school came several days after a professor who called Hamas’ Oct. 7 terror attack on Israel “exhilarating” and “energizing” took a leave of absence. The graffiti began on campus sidewalks sometime before 9 a.m.,

'I apologize for the horrible choice of words,' Cornell University Professor Russell Rickford wroteA Cornell University professor who said he was "exhilarated" and "energized" after the Hamas atrocities in Israel issued an apology on Wednesday for the remarks. "I apologize for the horrible choice of words that I used in a portion of a speech that was intended to stress grassroots African American, Jewish, and Palestinian traditions of resistance to oppression," Cornell University professor Russell Rickford said in a letter published in the Cornell Daily Sun. "I recognize that some of the language I used was reprehensible and did not...

A Cornell University professor was caught on camera telling students Hamas’ terror attack on Israel — which has left more than 1,400 dead — was “exhilarating” and “energizing.” The remarks were made at a pro-Palestine protest by Russell Rickford, an associate professor of history at the top-tier Ithaca, New York, school and posted online Sunday by a student who called them “shameful.” The footage of Rickford’s impassioned speech was also shared with The Post by two other tipsters. They declined to say when and where exactly the rally took place, but both said they were shocked by the brazen remarks....

ITHACA, N.Y. — On Wednesday, August 23 just after 1 p.m., Ithaca Police Officers responded to the parking lot of Aldi’s at 505 Third Street for multiple reports of a woman who was actively attacking cars with a meat cleaver. Initial reports indicated the woman was waving a meat cleaver in the air and acting disorderly in the parking lot where many customers were present. Witnesses say the person was using the meat cleaver in an attempt to break windows, slash tires, and cause damage to multiple vehicles parked in the area. When officers arrived on the scene, they quickly...

Ithaca, New York - Starbucks broke US law when it closed a unionized store in Ithaca, a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) judge ruled on Thursday. Administrative law judge Arthur Amchan ruled that Starbucks closed its College Avenue café, located near the Cornell University campus, "in large part to discourage unionization efforts in Ithaca and elsewhere." The coffee chain announced it was shutting down the College Avenue store just two months after all three of its locations in Ithaca voted to unionize. This year, the company said it would close the other two stores as well. Amchan called for Starbucks...

The Elizabeth Ann Clune Montessori School of Ithaca, set amid a pastoral idyll of rolling fields, a pond, and dandelion-stippled meadows, is just a few minutes’ ride from Ithaca College and Cornell University. Serving more than 220 students from preschool through eighth grade, the school features classrooms bathed in natural light, populated with the offspring of professors, doctors, and lawyers. And since the fall of 2020 through today, those children must be masked during class and on the playground, and have been barred from speaking during lunch. Like every other school in the country, this private school—which charges between $11,000...

UPDATE: This piece has been updated to reflect statements from Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), Cornell Student Assembly president Valeria Valencia and Speech First.The Cornell University Student Assembly unanimously voted in March to approve a resolution that would require instructors to inform students about “traumatic content” being discussed in class.The university rejected this proposal because it violates academic freedom and freedom of inquiry, according to an email obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation.“Faculty must also be free to provide trigger warnings if they so choose, but it must be a decision left up to the faculty member...

Tuesday, January 31st, Cinemapolis will begin offering “Masked Tuesdays.” The theater will start offering a day when all staff and moviegoers will wear masks. This is an effort to make moviegoing accessible for people who feel safest and most comfortable in a fully masked environment. On “Masked Tuesdays,” Cinemapolis will not offer typical concession sales. Candy and baked goods will be available for purchase to take home, but the theater will not sell concessions to eat during the movie in order to encourage consistent masking on these days. The theater uses a HEPA air filtration system to maximize safety at...

October Drag Story Hour has returned to Ithaca for the 2022 Fall season. Parents could bring their kids to Buffalo Street Books Sunday morning for a glamorous storytime experience. Miss Coraline Chardonnay and Miss Tilia Cordata have been doing Drag Story Hour for the last four years. Starting in the Fall of 2018, they read children's books to parents and kids throughout the Ithaca community and even held story time virtually during COVID. People were invited to come dressed in the costume of their choice. On Sunday, many did just that, kicking off the 2022 fall season's story hours. “We...

The bust was modeled from life just before Lincoln’s assassination in April 1865. It was created by American sculptor Vinnie Ream, the first woman to be granted a federal commission by the United States, according to the university’s website. It was purchased and donated to the campus by Ezra Cornell, founder of the university. Its scheduled return to public viewing comes amid concerns over its removal among some Cornell donors and alumni. The public was first alerted of its removal by an article in The College Fix in late June 2022. The Fix was told of the situation by Cornell...

An upstate New York county library in June hosted a series of four events in which eleven to eighteen-year-olds could “learn the art of drag from a local drag queen.” The Tompkins County Public Library, located in Ithaca, New York, hosted the four events on June 6, June 13, June 20, and June 27. “Participants will learn about costuming, makeup, lip synching, stage presence, and more,” the library boasted, urging, “Students will be best served by attending all classes in the series, as each week will address a different aspect of performing drag.” Then, to inculcate the youths further into...

A professor at Cornell University says the school’s library has removed a bronzed Gettysburg Address plaque and a bust of President Abraham Lincoln after somebody complained. “Someone complained, and it was gone,” Cornell professor Randy Wayne (said), referring to a Gettysburg Address plaque and Lincoln bust that had been on display in the Ivy League university’s Kroch Library since 2013. The professor said that he had noticed that the items were gone after stopping by the library several weeks ago, adding that when he asked the librarians about it, they were unable to give any details, other than saying it...

The summer travel season has not exactly gotten off to a great start. Demand is up due to people ready to travel after an almost two-year pandemic kept many travelers at home. There is a pilot shortage now, though, and it is causing cancelations and delays. American Airlines told FOX Business on Monday that it is ending service to three cities on September 7. Those cities are Islip and Ithaca, New York, and Toledo, Ohio.The pilot shortage has been building since the pandemic. Some pilots were put on furlough. Others decided to retire or go into other areas of employment....

Workers allege the action is retaliatory, but the chain says closures are "a regular part of our operations." With thousands of locations nationwide, a single Starbucks closing typically isn't national news. But at a time when the coffee chain is dealing with a major unionization push from employees — and being accused of potentially illegal anti-union behavior in the process — the announcement that Starbucks is shuttering a unionized store in Ithaca, New York, is grabbing a lot of attention. Starbucks Workers United, the national group behind Starbucks employees' unionization efforts, said they would once again be filing an Unfair...

In wake of the Texas school shooting there are some who question if School Resource police officers make schools safer? Schools in Tompkins County don't have SROs and law enforcement says they have received pushback in the past to have the presence of officers in schools. A member of the Common Council of the City of Ithaca says he has pushed back on officers in schools because he adamantly opposes it. Jorge DeFendini is the Alderperson who represents ward 4 of the Common Council of Ithaca. He believes an increased presence of police at schools or even having SROs in...

The college student in the age of the coronavirus is used to putting up with quite a bit: regular surveillance testing, vaccine (and now booster) mandates, mask mandates, remote classes, restrictions on social gatherings, the cancellation of university events and traditions. At the beginning of the pandemic, most students, myself included, were willing to accept these burdens, owing to the real risk Covid posed. However, now that we have vaccines, campus restrictions have taken on an increasingly absurd character — ruining the college experience in a (failed) attempt to control a virus that poses minimal risk to students. Indeed, all...

An Ithaca man was charged Thursday after he was accused of producing three sexually explicit videos with a 10-year-old child, federal prosecutors said. Remanu Phillips, 31, appeared in federal court on charges that he sexually exploited a child, according to a news release issued by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of New York. He was accused of making the three videos of the child in June of 2019, federal prosecutors said. Phillips was already registered as a level-2 sexually violent offender, after he was convicted in November of 2019 of first-degree sexual abuse and sexual contact with...

Link only (Gannett): https://www.timesunion.com/news/article/Court-orders-upstate-woman-to-remove-Confederate-16156632.php