Free Republic

The City of Ithaca has been mandated by Tompkins County Environmental Health to clean up a section of homeless encampments known as “the Jungle,” after the area was declared a public health hazard. The city received a notice on April 9 to address the conditions of a specific triangular strip of city-owned land by May 10, due to the accumulation of waste including bicycles, shopping carts, hypodermic needles, and garbage.

An investigator with the Chemung County Sheriff’s Office is fighting for his life after being thrown from the hood of a moving car while trying to apprehend a suspect in Big Flats Friday night. On Friday, the Chemung County Sheriff’s Office and the New York State Police were conducting a joint retail theft operation in Consumer Square, in the Town of Big Flats. At about 6:45 pm, while pursuing a larceny suspect in the Target parking lot, the subject ran towards a getaway vehicle and jumped on the hood with Inv. Mike Theetge in close pursuit tackling him on top...

Patrick Dai, a Cornell Junior, has been charged.Patrick Dai, of Pittsford, posted threats to shoot up a multicultural dining room on campus to an online discussion site, prosecutors from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of New York said in a news release.104West, the dining room, serves food that meets Kosher, Halal and other religious guidelines. It is next to the university’s Center for Jewish Living, where several dozen Jewish students live on campus.Dai, a junior, also called for the deaths of Jewish people and threatened to bring an assault rifle to campus, prosecutors said. He was charged...

Cornell University was put on high alert after a series of “horrendous, antisemitic” messages — including threats to rape and gun down Jewish students and even behead babies — were posted on a public forum, school officials said. The upstate New York Ivy League school said campus cops were taking precautions — and had alerted the FBI to “a potential hate crime” just days after “(Expletive) Israel” graffiti was also scrawled on campus sidewalks. The “series of horrendous, antisemitic messages threatening violence” had specifically named 104 West, “the home of the Center for Jewish Living,” university president Martha Pollack said...

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...

The FBI has been alerted after death threats were made against Jewish students at a prestigious US university from users operating under names including “jew jenocide" and "hamas warrior", Antisemitic posts calling for violence against Jewish students at Cornell University, in Ithaca, New York, were published on a forum for members of the institution's fraternities and sororities over the weekend, local media reported. Cornell has more Jewish students than any other Ivy League university - around 2,500. Police are now stationed outside a US university's Jewish centre after the messages, accompanied by headlines including “jewish people need to be killed”...

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...

Want proof COVID alarmism is a cult, pure and simple?Look no further than the Elizabeth Anne Clune Montessori school in Ithaca.There, as chronicled by David Zweig at the Free Press, children must be masked, including outdoors, and are actually forbidden from speaking during lunch. That’s right: In 2023, long after the pandemic has recededyears after the data have established both that there is near-zero risk to kids from the disease and that interventions like masking (and monastic silences) are next to uselessStill, one tiny private school is clinging to hygiene theater with insane vigilance. Zweig reports that the enforced silence...

The federal government says the COVID is over — but tell that to this upstate New York school. A private school in Ithaca is still forcing draconian measures on its students, including making them wear masks outdoors and eat lunch in silence — three years after the pandemic began, according to a report. The Elizabeth Ann Clune Montessori School of Ithaca (EACMSI), which costs up to $18,000 a year to attend, is currently one of the last schools in the nation to still be imposing such strict COVID measures, The Free Press reported. Dr. Beth Stein, who pulled her kids...

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...

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...