Former UB student gets conditional discharge for inciting to riot at Jewish Student Union demonstration
The demonstration came after multiple days of pro-Palestine protests on UB's North Campus for several days in early May.
The 19-year-old student, from Newburgh, N.Y., made a social media post on May 6, 2024, 'directing people to engage in tumultuous and violent conduct' towards the demonstrators. The student was 18 years old at the time.
He pleaded guilty in February to one count of inciting to riot.
Aidan Joly joined the News 4 staff in 2022. He is a graduate of Canisius College. You can see more of his work here.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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Los Angeles Times
33 minutes ago
- Los Angeles Times
UCLA will negotiate with Trump over $339 million medical and science grant freezes
Since federal agencies surprised UCLA by freezing roughly $339 million in research grants, faculty, graduate workers and students have sought out details on what the university — the first public higher education institution targeted by President Trump — will do. Will UCLA challenge the federal government in court, negotiate and potentially pay a large fine or tap into emergency reserves to support researchers? With more than a third of its federal grant and contract funds frozen, will UCLA be forced to lay off employees, as Columbia, Harvard and other elite private universities did? As Trump battles to remake colleges, the administration has accused UCLA of illegally allowing antisemitism, using race in admissions and letting transgender players compete on sports teams that match their gender identity. Ivy League schools have similarly been faulted by the administration over their responses to pro-Palestinian encampments last year. Senior administrators outlined answers during a virtual town hall attended by about 3,000 faculty Monday and also at department-level meetings, including at the UCLA Medical School, which has lost hundreds of grants from the National Institutes of Health. But they cautioned that there were no final decisions. 'There is a time period to resolve the questions the government has for us,' Marcia L. Smith, associate vice chancellor for UCLA research administration, said during the virtual town hall. Smith said the leaders were 'preparing' to contact the NIH, National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy — which froze roughly 800 grants over several days last week — 'to talk about what kinds of information they need to lift these suspensions.' Smith said she was 'very hopeful' that UCLA will 'find a solution.' There was no mention of the University of California potentially making a payout like Columbia, which agreed last month to a more than $200 million fine as part of a sweeping agreement with Trump to restore suspended grants. UC as a system oversees federal relations for UCLA and nine other campuses. Speaking on background to The Times on Monday, three senior UC leaders echoed a similar message: UCLA will likely enter into negotiations, but it is too early to determine the terms. The officials were not authorized to speak publicly about internal deliberations. Negotiations would also not preclude a potential lawsuit, they said. 'Every single public institution in the nation is watching us very carefully,' UCLA vice chancellor for research Roger Wakimoto said during Monday's town hall. He later added: 'We're out of the gate setting the pace.' 'This is not just a UCLA decision, certainly our chancellor is going to be intimately involved in whatever path forward we decide, but it is also going to involve the regents of the University of California' Wakimoto said, as well as the new UC President James B. Milliken, who began the job Friday. Wakimoto and UCLA leaders also said other UC campuses were offering to help, including by taking care of lab animals that may need aid. The grant suspensions last week, affecting research into neuroscience, clean energy, cancer and other fields, came after the Justice Department and U.S. Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi said UCLA would pay a 'heavy price' for acting with 'deliberate indifference' to the civil rights of Jewish and Israeli students who complained of antisemitic incidents since Oct. 7, 2023. That's when Hamas attacked Israel, which led to Israel's war in Gaza and the pro-Palestinian student encampment on Royce Quad. The DOJ gave UCLA until Tuesdayto indicate it would negotiate over those findings. Otherwise, a letter to UC said the Trump administration would sue by Sept. 2. That letter was sent just a day before the federal agencies began notifying UCLA Chancellor Julio Frenk that vast portions of the university's research enterprise must come to a halt. In statements since last week, Frenk has challenged the idea that UCLA's alleged antisemitism is justification for pulling grants. 'A sweeping penalty on life-saving research doesn't address any alleged discrimination... We have contingency plans in place and we are doing everything we can,' Frenk said without elaborating on the plan. In a video posted to social media Monday, Milliken did not directly address suspensions but broadly mentioned the 'challenges' facing universities. 'Higher education is facing greater challenges and change than at any point in my career,' Milliken said. 'At the same time, I know that our work is essential to improving lives, strengthening the economy and providing lifesaving health care, more so than ever. The future of our state and our country and our world depend on thriving, innovative and accessible universities.' Hundreds of faculty have their own ideas. In a petition circulating across UCLA and UC campuses, professors are asking UC to challenge the government more head-on. A growing number have signed. 'We do not have to bend to the Trump administration's illegitimate and bad-faith demands... We demand in the strongest possible terms that the University of California demonstrate our strength as the world's largest university system and reject the malicious demands of the Trump administration,' said the petition from the UCLA Faculty Assn. As of Monday afternoon, the petition had garnered more than 600 signatures, mostly from UCLA professors. 'We demand that the UC name these demands as what they are: efforts to erode the strength of American higher education. Each university that falters legitimates the Trump administration's attacks on all of our institutions of higher education and we must stand up now. To protect our democracy we must protect our universities. Only when academic workers and the community as a whole collectively organize can we fight back against the threat to our campuses and our democracy,' the petition said. It also made another suggestion: that UC tap into billions in unrestricted endowment funds to bridge the gap left by suspended grants. University leaders have not publicly indicated whether that is on the table. Carrie Bearden, a professor at UCLA's Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior and Brain Research Institute, is among those who signed. She is the director of a now-suspended five-year, $2.36-million NIH training grant that funds students doing neurogenetics research. 'That is an immediate, terrible impact on all the trainees. We do not know what other funding will cover them right now,' said Bearden, who said she was told by faculty leaders to potentially expect further grant cancellations, which is the way freezes took place at East Coast universities in recent months. Vivek Shetty, a UCLA professor of oral and maxillofacial surgery and biomedical engineering, also had an $828,154 four-year NIH grant frozen. His, which had been renewed over 11 years, focused on training digital health researchers, such as those who develop apps and wearables to flag irregular heartbeat, steer daily diabetes control and deliver medical care remotely. 'The funding freeze endangers the very care that will protect us and our families tomorrow,' said Shetty, a former UCLA Academic Senate chair. 'Starve these brilliant minds today, and we extinguish an entire generation of life-saving ideas. However fierce its public objections, the University of California will likely acquiesce to Washington's terms, painfully aware of the deep human and scientific costs of this harsh decree.'
Los Angeles Times
33 minutes ago
- Los Angeles Times
South Korea dismantles its propaganda loudspeakers on the border with North Korea
SEOUL — South Korea has begun dismantling loudspeakers that blare anti-North Korean propaganda across the border, as President Lee Jae Myung's liberal administration seeks to mend fractured relations with Pyongyang. In a statement, a spokesperson for the defense ministry said the removal was 'a practical measure to ease inter-Korean tensions without impacting the military's readiness posture.' The move follows the suspension of propaganda broadcasts in June on orders from Lee, an advocate of reconciliation who has framed warmer relations with North Korea as a matter of economic benefit — a way to minimize a geopolitical liability long blamed for South Korea's stock market being undervalued. 'Strengthening peace in the border regions will help ease tensions across all of South Korea, and increasing dialogue and exchange will improve the economic situation,' Lee said at a news conference last month. First used by North Korea in 1962, with South Korea following suit a year later, propaganda loudspeakers have long been a defining feature of the hot-and-cold relationship between Seoul and Pyongyang, switched on and off with the waxing and waning of goodwill. The last major stoppage was during a period of detente in 2004 and lasted until 2015, when two South Korean soldiers stationed by the border were maimed by landmines that military officials said had been covertly installed by North Korean soldiers weeks earlier. Played by loudspeakers set up in the DMZ, or demilitarized zone, a 2.5 mile-wide stretch of land between the two countries, South Korea's broadcasts once featured live singing and propagandizing by soldiers stationed along the border. In recent years, however, the speakers have played pre-planned programming that ranges from outright opprobrium to more subtle messaging intended to imbue listeners with pro-South Korea sympathies. The programming has included K-pop songs with lyrics that double as invitations to defect to South Korea, such as one 2010 love song that goes: 'come on, come on, don't turn me down and come on and approach me,' or weather reports whose power lies in their accuracy — and have occasionally been accompanied by messages like 'it's going to rain this afternoon so make sure you take your laundry in.' With a maximum range of around 19 miles that makes them unlikely to reach major population centers in North Korea, the effectiveness of such broadcasts has come under question by some experts. Still, several North Korean defectors have cited the broadcasts as part of the reason they decided to flee to South Korea. One former artillery officer who defected in 2013 recalled being won over, in part, by the weather reports. 'Whenever the South Korean broadcast said it would rain from this time to that time, it would always actually rain,' he told South Korean media last year. North Korea, however, sees the broadcasts as a provocation and has frequently threatened to retaliate with military action. In 2015, Pyongyang made good on this threat by firing a rocket at a South Korean loudspeaker, leading to an exchange of artillery fire between the two militaries. Such sensitivities have made the loudspeakers controversial in South Korea, too, with residents of the border villages complaining about the noise, as well as the dangers of military skirmishes breaking out near their homes. 'At night, [North Korea] plays frightening noises like the sound of animals, babies or women crying,' one such resident told President Lee when he visited her village in June, shortly after both sides halted the broadcasts. 'It made me ill. Even sleeping pills didn't work.' But it is doubtful that the dismantling alone will be enough for a diplomatic breakthrough. Relations between Seoul and Pyongyang have been in a deep chill following the failure of the denuclearization summits between Trump and Kim Jong Un in 2018, as well as a separate dialogue between Kim and then-South Korean president Moon Jae-in. Tensions rose further during the subsequent conservative administration of Yoon Suk Yeol, who was president of South Korea from 2022 until his removal from office earlier this year. Yoon is currently being investigated by a special counsel on allegations that he ordered South Korean military drones to fly over Pyongyang last October. Ruling party lawmakers have alleged that the move was intended to provoke a war with North Korea, and in doing so, secure the legal justification for Yoon's declaration of martial law in December. During Yoon's term, Kim Jong Un formally foreswore any reconciliation with Seoul while expanding his nuclear weapons program. That stance remains unchanged even under the more pro-reconciliation Lee, according to a statement by Kim Yo Jong, the North Korean leader's younger sister, published by state news agency KCNA last month. 'No matter how desperately the Lee Jae Myung government may try to imitate the fellow countrymen and pretend they do all sorts of righteous things to attract our attention, they can not turn back the hands of the clock of the history which has radically changed the character of the DPRK-ROK relations,' she said.
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Israeli cabinet may order complete Gaza takeover
By Maayan Lubell and Nidal al-Mughrabi JERUSALEM/CAIRO (Reuters) -Israel's cabinet could authorise on Tuesday a complete military takeover of Gaza for the first time in two decades, media reported, despite international pressure for a ceasefire to ease appalling conditions in the besieged Palestinian territory. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is leaning towards an expanded offensive and taking control of the entire enclave after 22 months of war against militant group Hamas, Israeli Channel 12 reported. A senior Israeli source told Reuters on Monday that more force was an option following the collapse of indirect ceasefire talks with Hamas. Seizing the entire territory would reverse a 2005 decision by Israel to pull settlers and military out of Gaza while retaining control over its borders - a move right-wing parties blame for Hamas gaining power there. It was unclear, however, whether a potential full takeover of Gaza would entail a prolonged occupation or a short-term operation aimed at dismantling Hamas and freeing hostages. Israel's coalition government is regarded as one of the most right-wing in its history, with the cabinet including parties that seek to annex both Gaza and the West Bank and encourage Palestinians to leave their homeland. The country's military has throughout the war pushed back against the idea of Israel trying to fully occupy Gaza and establish military rule there, which would require it to take over long-term governance. The military has also struggled with manpower issues as the war has dragged on, with reservists being repeatedly called up and putting a strain on capabilities. The conflict was triggered by a Hamas attack on October 7, 2023, when gunmen stormed the border from Gaza, killing more than 1,200 people and seizing around 250 hostages according to Israeli tallies. Israel's military campaign has devastated the tiny, crowded enclave, killing more than 60,000 people according to Palestinian health authorities. It has forced nearly all of Gaza's over 2 million people from their homes and caused what a global hunger monitor called last week an unfolding famine. That has caused widespread international anger and prompted several European countries to say they would recognise a Palestinian state next month if there was no ceasefire. Inside Gaza on Tuesday, Israeli gunfire and strikes killed at least 13 Palestinians, local health authorities said, including five people in a tent in Khan Younis and three aid seekers near Rafah in the south. TANK PUSH Israeli tanks pushed into central Gaza earlier on Tuesday but it was not clear if the move was part of a larger ground offensive. Palestinians living in the last fifth of the territory where Israel has not yet taken military control via ground incursions or orders for civilians to leave said any new move to occupy the area would be catastrophic. "If the tanks pushed through, where would we go, into the sea? This will be like a death sentence to the entire population," said Abu Jehad, a Gaza wood merchant, who asked not to be named in full. A Palestinian official close to the talks and mediation said Israeli threats could be a way to pressure Hamas to make concessions at the negotiation table. "It will only complicate the negotiation further, at the end, the resistance factions will not accept less than an end to the war, and a full withdrawal from Gaza," he told Reuters, asking not to be named. Israel said it would allow merchants to import goods. A source in Gaza told Reuters some trucks had already entered carrying chocolates and biscuits for a merchant. It is hoped that essential items such as children's milk, fresh meat and fruits, sugar, and rice could be allowed in, which would alleviate scarcity and drive down prices of what is available in the markets. U.S. Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff said last week he was working with the Israeli government on a plan that would effectively end the war in Gaza. But Israeli officials have also floated ideas including expanding the offensive and annexing parts of Gaza. The failed ceasefire talks in Doha had aimed to clinch agreements on a U.S.-backed proposal for a 60-day truce, during which aid would be flown into Gaza and half of the hostages Hamas is holding would be freed in exchange for Palestinian prisoners jailed in Israel. The Israeli military was expected on Tuesday to present alternatives that include extending into areas of Gaza where it has not yet operated, according to two defence officials. Solve the daily Crossword
