Judy Lucas

Update: Judge rejects attempt to stop detainment of Cornell pro-Palestine activist - The Ithaca Voice Update (March 31, 2025): Cornell University graduate student and anti-war activist Momodou Taal has left the U.S. on his own volition, according to posts on his social media accounts Monday. […]

UPDATE: Cornell graduate student and anti-war activist Momodou Taal has left the U.S. by choice, according to his social media posts Monday night.

vacationing in nyc is diabolical and you cannot convince me otherwise

Cornell pro-Palestine activist's visa revoked after filing lawsuit - The Ithaca Voice ITHACA, N.Y. — The U.S. Department of State revoked the student visa of Cornell graduate student and pro-Palestine activist Momodou Taal, court documents filed Saturday show. Taal is one of […]

BREAKING: Momodou Taal's student visa was REVOKED by the State Department March 14, the day before his lawyers filed a federal lawsuit challenging two EO's. Taal was notified his visa was revoked in an email sent March 21, according to new court documents.
ithacavoice.org/2025/03/corn...

A Cornell pro-Palestine activist sued Trump. Days later he was told to surrender to ICE. - The Ithaca Voice SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. — Cornell University international student and anti-war activist Momodou Taal was told by federal attorneys to surrender himself to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE...

The move comes just days after federal agents were reportedly seen on campus and near Taal’s home in Ithaca. @ithacavoice.bsky.social
ithacavoice.org/2025/03/a-co...

Via Taal’s IG: He believes, along with other eyewitnesses, that unidentified federal officers came to his home in Ithaca, NY yesterday morning to detain him. The first hearing for the lawsuit Taal filed to block EO’s that stifle free speech has been postponed from yesterday to March 25.

Momodou Taal and his lawyers filed a suit today seeking a national injunction against Trump’s executive orders allowing mass deportations across the US. It’s a court order that binds the feds from enforcing a law nationwide.Taal faced deportation after organizing pro-Palestinian protests at Cornell.

A New Missouri Bill Would Let Residents Donate to Anti-Abortion Centers Instead of Paying Any Taxes Four months after Missouri voted to legalize abortion, Republican lawmakers are proposing a 100% tax credit — capped at $50,000 per year — for taxpayers who donate to crisis pregnancy centers.

This story is WOW: A New Missouri Bill Would Let Residents Donate to Anti-Abortion Centers Instead of Paying Any State Taxes @jeremykohler.bsky.social

He’s the Face of a White House Press Corps Under Attack by Trump Eugene Daniels, president of the White House Correspondents’ Association, is pushing back on the administration’s hostility to reporters as he navigates a move to MSNBC from Politico.

Eugene Daniels, the president of the White House Correspondents’ Association, has emerged as a key figure in an escalating fight between the Trump White House and the news media over press access and freedom. “It’s unfortunate that this is where we are,” he said in an interview.

Cornell freezes hiring, asks department heads to cut costs amid “financial uncertainty” ITHACA, N.Y. — Cornell University has initiated a four-month hiring freeze in all college, school and administrative units, citing “a time of significant financial uncertainty” in an internal letter to department heads Thursday afternoon. The announcement comes on the heels of potential National Institute of Health (NIH) research reimbursement cuts as well as congressional proposals to impose new federal taxes on universities with large endowments.

Cornell freezes hiring, asks department heads to cut costs amid "financial uncertainty"

ProPublica Updates Its Database of Museums’ and Universities’ Compliance With Federal Repatriation Law Institutions across the U.S. returned more than 10,300 Native American ancestors to tribes in 2024, making it the third-biggest year for repatriation under the Native American Graves Protection and Re...

When @propublica.org first published data and reporting on the tens of thousands of Native American human remains and artifacts held by museums and universities, compliance with the nation’s 30-year old repatriation law shot up. Today, we update the data to show where thise institutions stand now.

You’d think the damned attorney general would know the difference between criminal charges and a civil suit.

Local establishment barred from selling namesake non-alcoholic beverage ITHACA, N.Y. — A recent February evening at the Sacred Root Kava Lounge and Tea Bar appeared, at first glance, to be business as usual. A band played extended folk-rock songs from the stage to a small but engaged audience. Customers ordering a variety of non-alcoholic drinks chatted with owner Paul Galgoczy, who stood behind a counter adorned with a large golden figurine depicting the head of the Buddha.

State regulations now restrict the sale of kava, a beverage derived from the root of a tropical shrub, due to potential health risks.

Trump administration sues Illinois and Chicago over immigration policies The lawsuit claims the state and city are interfering with federal law.

The Trump administration is suing the city of Chicago, Cook County and the state of Illinois over sanctuary laws that prohibit local law enforcement from aiding ICE in arresting undocumented immigrants.

Common Council “reaffirms” Ithaca’s sanctuary status after ICE arrest, DOJ threats  - The Ithaca Voice ITHACA, N.Y. — Common Council members unanimously reaffirmed the city’s sanctuary city resolution in a vote Wednesday that bars police and city officials from assisting U.S. Immigration and Customs En...

This doesn't change Ithaca's non-compliance policy Trump's DOJ publicly condemned Tompkins County Sheriff Derek Osborne for following last week. But it does send a message. Despite administration's threats to cut funds from sanctuary cities, Ithaca won't assist ICE. ithacavoice.org/2025/02/comm...

National Archives Workers Unsure If Marco Rubio Has Secretly Been Their Boss for Weeks The current Archivist of the United States held an all-hands this week in which she still seemed to be in charge, 404 Media has learned.

ABC News reported Marco Rubio has been acting as head of the National Archives for weeks. This is news to everyone at the National Archives, including, apparently, the current head of NARA:

www.404media.co/national-arc...

Ringleader in Rath torture, murder convicted, faces life in prison - The Ithaca Voice This story contains graphic descriptions of violent and sexual acts. Please take care when reading. ITHACA, N.Y. — A 12-person jury in Tioga County found Joseph Howell, the man accused […]

BREAKING: Joseph Howell, alleged ringleader and organizer in the kidnapping, torture and murder of Thomas Rath in May 2023, was sentenced to min. 31 years in state prison minutes ago. Story/details coming. Trial coverage: ithacavoice.org/2024/11/ring...

ICE agents arrest at least one person during Thursday raids in Ithaca - The Ithaca Voice ITHACA, N.Y. — U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents arrested at least one person in Ithaca Thursday in the first known instance of federal immigration enforcement action in Tompkins [...

Jesus Romero-Hernandez (27) was arrested outside of the Tompkins County Department of Social Services building in Ithaca. U.S. Attorney's Office said he's a "Mexican citizen" released from local custody Tuesday night after he was arrested Sept. 2023 for assault. ithacavoice.org/2025/01/ice-...

A spokesperson from NYS Police Troop C confirmed state police "assisted ICE today" in an email to @ithacavoice.bsky.social. More to come.

Pictures shared on a community Facebook group of what eye witnesses assume are ICE agents outside the Tompkins County Department of Social Services. Taken ~ 1 hr. ago.

A reliable source tells me they've been reported at "several locations" throughout the city, including at Ithaca's homeless encampment "The Jungle." Agents have since left the encampment, the source said. It's unclear if any arrests were made at the locations agents were spotted.

We're getting reports of ICE agents spotted in Tompkins County and the Ithaca area, specifically in Dryden and at the Asteri housing complex on Green Street in downtown Ithaca.
@ithacavoice.bsky.social

White House Budget Office Orders Pause in All Federal Loans and Grants The full extent of the order was not immediately clear, but the directive sent to government agencies on Monday threatened to paralyze a vast swath of federal programs.

like clockwork, NYT doesn’t credit my scoop

this is very cool media reporting

Sign the Petition Save the Museum of the Earth from Imminent Closure

A petition launched yesterday calling on Cornell University to help keep Ithaca's Museum of the Earth from foreclosing has over 1,300 sigs. Its financial woes intensified after a group of once reliable donors couldn't fulfil a $30M pledge-via:@ithacavoice.bsky.social.
www.change.org/p/save-the-m...

Rhetorically, the story of Laken Riley has primed people to accept the arrest and indefinite detention of any immigrant suspected of being undocumented and/or having committed a crime. It has done so by activating a script deep in the American story: the protection of white women’s innocence, at all costs. Throughout our history, Americans have crossed their own imagined moral line to allow “what appears to be unconstitutional arbitrary detention, as long as it is done to immigrants,” noted Andrea Pitzer, author of One Long Night: A Global History of Concentration Camps, in an essay this December. As Trump’s second Inauguration Day approaches, many Americans are thinking about what sorts of moral lines the new administration may try to cross, and what it will mean for ordinary people to attempt to hold them back. Democrats entertaining this destructive bill are also demonstrating what little they will do to help hold that line. They are saying they don’t even know what side of that line they are on.

I'm uneasy. I hope that comes cross. We are on a brink. newrepublic.com/article/1902...

I guess democracy died

Left: One day before Inauguration Day, 1981
Right: Five days before Inauguration Day, 2025

Warren Allmon (the museum director) said they're a year and a half behind on mortgages payments after a $30M donation wasn't fulfilled.
“We’ve never been flush with funds. We’re proud of the fact that we can do a lot with a little. We can’t do it with this little, exactly."

Apparently folks think that writing that contains an em dash is a dead giveaway that it's from ChatGPT, which I guess is a sign that most people have never read anything in their lives.

Thanks to @judylucas.bsky.social and @ithacavoice.bsky.social for this in-depth article. PRI and the Museum of the Earth do so much great work and I hope this will bring forth some donors to help with the mortgage.