- Growing calls for CUNY to be stripped of government funding after commencement speech Daily Mail
- Jewish groups, allies demand CUNY Law lose funding after student’s ‘vile’ anti-Israel commencement speech Fox News
- Outraged critics rip CUNY law grad’s ‘hate-filled’ commencement speech, demand billions in tax dollars be stripped New York Post
- US lawmakers blast NYC public colleges for anti-Zionist commencement event The Times of Israel
- CUNY Law commencement speaker claims laws are ‘White supremacy,’ attacks ‘fascist’ police and military Fox News
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Jewish groups, allies demand CUNY Law lose funding after student’s ‘vile’ anti-Israel commencement speech – Fox News
- Jewish groups, allies demand CUNY Law lose funding after student’s ‘vile’ anti-Israel commencement speech Fox News
- Outraged critics rip CUNY law grad’s ‘hate-filled’ commencement speech, demand billions in tax dollars be stripped New York Post
- US lawmakers blast NYC public colleges for anti-Zionist commencement event The Times of Israel
- CUNY Law commencement speaker claims laws are ‘White supremacy,’ attacks ‘fascist’ police and military Fox News
- Commencement speaker slams CUNY Law for supporting ‘fascist’ NYPD, oppressive systems New York Post
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NYC student arrested for threatening to ‘shoot up’ City College — then freed without bail
A student at City College was arrested for allegedly sending messages threatening to “shoot up” the Manhattan school last week, and then released without bail, The Post has learned.
City University of New York officials issued a warning to the school community on Monday about the case involving 21-year-old Din Bajrektarevic, who has been suspended and barred from campus.
Bajrektarevic, of Old Bridge, New Jersey, was busted when he returned to the college in Harlem on Nov. 25 following Thanksgiving — two days after he had allegedly sent the hateful messages.
“When I shoot up the school, know who is to blame,” one of the missives said, according to the criminal complaint against him.
“The city will go to war you dumb N***** M****** (comparing the defendant’s race to an animal),” the court document states. “Your brains will be left on the f****** pavement.”
The NYPD charged him with making terroristic threats, cops said.
The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office prosecuted him on charges of second-degree aggravated harassment as a hate crime, first-degree harassment as a hate crime and second-degree aggravated harassment.
None of the charges, including the one filed by cops, were eligible for bail under New York state law, so he was released on his own recognizance. A restraining order also was issued against him, the DA’s office said.
In its message to the school community, City College said that its public safety office “acted on the threat with the NYPD and the FBI, and the student was promptly identified and arrested.”
“All CCNY Public Safety Officers have been informed that Mr. Bajrektarevic has been suspended and barred from campus, and they are fully prepared to enforce the bar should he attempt to enter the City College campus,” the email obtained by The Post states.
Safety officials also released a photo of the student — asking for the community to “remain alert, and should you encounter Mr. Bajrektarevic on the City College campus, please immediately notify CCNY Public Safety.”
The email noted: “We have no reason to believe at this time that Mr. Bajrektarevic intends to violate the directive and attempt to enter the City College campus. Nor do we have any indication that Mr. Bajrektarevic is in possession of any firearm or any other deadly weapon.”
Bajrektarevic’s next court date is set for Jan. 11. He couldn’t be reached Tuesday. His defense attorney didn’t immediately return a request for comment.
Mayor Eric Adams says he’ll make decision on Key 2 NYC, school masks next week; state school masking mandate lifts March 2
NEW YORK CITY (WABC) — New York state is dropping it’s school masking mandate Wednesday, but for now, masks will remain in New York City public schools.
Mayor Eric Adams said he will decide next week if students and staff inside city schools can unmask after he takes a look at the numbers this week.
He said he will look at the same indicators before deciding if the Key2NYC mandate, which requires vaccines for restaurants, gyms and entertainment venues, could also go away.
Adams said he is giving businesses the week to adapt while monitoring the numbers, while the city employee vaccine mandate will remain in place for now.
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For many, this is a step in the right direction.
“We think it’s a fantastic thing,” Keuka Kafe and Wine Bar owner Olga Sakhmo said. “People should come out and enjoy themselves.”
Adams released a statement on Sunday, saying in part:
“I want to thank the millions of New Yorkers who have gotten vaccinated to help stop the spread. New Yorkers stepped up and helped us save lives by reaching unprecedented levels of vaccination. I also want to thank Governor Hochul for her partnership in the fight against COVID-19 and for making clear that parents should be part of this conversation. Additionally, New York City’s numbers continue to go down day after day, so, as long as COVID indicators show a low level of risk and we see no surprises this week, on Monday, March 7 we will also lift Key2NYC requirements. This will give business owners the time to adapt and will allow us to ensure we are making the best public health decisions for the people of New York.”
Catholic schools in the Archdiocese of New York announced that in light of the announcement made by Governor Kathy Hochul, they are no longer legally obligated by New York State to mandate mask-wearing in school as of Wednesday March 2, and that effective March 2, the wearing of a mask by an adult or children in all Catholic Schools in the Archdiocese of New York will be recommended but not required.
In addition, most school districts outside the city are lifting their mandates starting Wednesday.
“My friends, the day has come,” said Hochul, citing recent CDC guidance which classified much of the state as “low risk” for coronavirus infection.
Hochul said there will be additional guidance for counties that have a higher positivity rate.
“We will lift the statewide requirement based on all the data,” Hochul said. “However, there are some counties that have higher rate of transmission. We will allow them to determine what is best for their county.”
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She added that parents will have the choice to continue to send their children to school with masks and urged people to not bully those who still chose to wear them.
Hochul also said certain indoor settings like adult care facilities, nursing homes, correctional facilities homeless shelters, domestic violence shelters, and public transit will still have masking guidance.
This announcement moves the original timetable up about a week. Hochul pointed to the CDC guidance and current metrics for making the decision sooner.
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Pandemic Lessons: What happens after Omicron? | Local News
Russo was hoping the Delta wave that slammed into upstate New York this fall would subside in early 2022. But then another variant crept in, one that is far less lethal, but much more transmissible.
“Omicron showed up,” Russo continued. “Then I said, ‘Ah, Omicron is going to prolong this.’ ”
For this installment of Pandemic Lessons, we asked epidemiologists to project how much longer Omicron will grip us, and what life will look like when it’s done.
The answer depends on your own health status, where – and with whom – you spend your days, and who else is going. It becomes even trickier when you consider that many infected individuals may not show symptoms.
The projections from when it emerged last month are proving to be true. It is extremely contagious, generally (but not always) mild, and because it impacts so many people quickly, Omicron is loading up hospitals.
Almost 4,000 people tested positive in Erie County on Jan. 5, which is a record – and a misleading number, because it doesn’t include unreported at-home tests.
State officials reported on Jan. 7 that across New York, cases among teenagers have multiplied by 10 in the last few weeks, while adult cases have more than doubled. Pediatric hospital cases for Covid-19 have nearly quadrupled since Christmas, rising from 150 to 570, most of them unvaccinated.
While the vast majority of people infected with Omicron aren’t hospitalized, the spike is still causing people to miss school and work and prompting cancellations and closures. The continued spread also puts people who are immunocompromised or have other health conditions at increased risk, and it is further delaying our ability to reclaim any semblance of the freedom, openness or normalcy that we crave.
New Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal raises free-speech concerns
Some critics fear Twitter’s new CEO has a worse record on free speech than his predecessor —given his “terrifying” public statements on the issue, an “appalling” new rule implemented on his first day on the job, and a major executive restructuring Friday.
The concern is that Parag Agrawal’s leadership will bring even more restrictions to the site than Jack Dorsey’s — who infamously censored The Post over its Hunter Biden email exposés, banned President Trump and suspended former Customs and Border Patrol Commissioner Mark Morgan for tweeting favorably about the border wall — actions Dorsey later admitted were a “mistake.”
“You’re talking about an organization where free speech is integral to what they do. I’ve seen the left talk about how this appears likely that Twitter is going to endorse the more European view of free speech — which is not free speech,” said Dan Gainor, of the conservative nonprofit watchdog Media Research Center.
In a 2018 interview, Agrawal said Twitter should “focus less on thinking about free speech, but thinking about how the times have changed.”
“Where our role is particularly emphasized is who can be heard,” he went on. “And so increasingly our role is moving towards how we recommend content … how we direct people’s attention.”
Wikipedia co-founder and Internet theorist Larry Sanger slammed the comments.
“So this is how he feels about free speech. Of course. Another Silicon Valley jerk engaging in doublespeak, using what should be an open public square for manipulation and indoctrination,” he fumed in a tweet.
Naysayers didn’t get much solace on Agrawal’s first full day, when Twitter announced it would no longer allow posting images or videos of people without their consent.
Media theorist and CUNY Journalism School professor Jeff Jarvis said the move could negatively “affect how journalism is done on Twitter.”
“If we go overboard in a moral panic,” he said, “it can have an impact on freedom of expression in general.”
“The woman who took the video of George Floyd, if she had not been able to post that video, that case would not have happened and that murderer would have gotten away with it. That concerns me,” Jarvis added.
Gainor called the new restrictions “very alarming.”
“I’m bothered because Jack Dorsey, for all of his flaws, he came from Twitter when Twitter cared about free speech. He had to be dragged into the safe-space era. This guy is new. And based on the actions they’ve taken on day one, he’s already there,” Gainor said.
Councilman Joe Borelli (R-SI) said the new policy was “appalling.”
“People should have the right to make the most cruel and obscene images of me, without my consent. … Twitter sounds like they would have banned burning the statue of George III,” he said.
A Twitter rep told The Post in a statement that images and videos of people at large events “would generally not violate this policy.” It’s not clear how posts will be reviewed under the vague diktat, which the rep said was intended to protect “women, activists, dissidents, and members of minority communities.”
On Wednesday, Tesla CEO Elon Musk tweeted a meme portraying Agrawal as Josef Stalin — and Dorsey as Nikolai Yezhov, a secret-police official who was executed and edited out of a famous photo with the Soviet premier.
The rep didn’t comment on whether Musk’s tweet featuring Agarwal’s likeness violated the policy — or on Agrawal’s plans for speech on the platform generally.
And on Friday, Agrawal restructured the leadership team, according to securities filings. Under the changeup, the company’s current engineering and design leads will leave the company, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Little is known about the political views of the mostly behind-the-scenes software engineer, who replaced co-founder Dorsey on Monday. At 37, he’s the youngest CEO of any firm in the S&P 500.
Born in Rajasthan, India, Agrawal studied computer science at the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay. He earned his PhD at Stanford University and joined Twitter in 2011 to work on its advertising tech.
Agrawal will get a $1 million salary, $1.5 million “target” bonus, “golden parachute”-style executive severance plan — and $12.5 million in Twitter stock, according to securities filings.
He didn’t broach on free-speech or politics in an introductory email to employees. “The world is watching us right now, even more than they have before. Lots of people are going to have lots of different opinions about today’s news,” he wrote.