Good Morning! Yale University bestowed two honorary degrees to two 19th century Black students. The ceremony was used to apologize for Yale’s prior racist principles.
Rev. James Pennington and Rev. Alexander Crummell studied theology at the university but were barred from registering or speaking in class due to their race. Born into slavery, Pennington would escape slavery from Maryland and audited classes at the Divinity School from 1834 to 1837.Crummell was born to a family of abolitionists in New York City where he would help his parents and others publish the first African American newspaper, Freedom's Journal. Crummell would audit classes at Yale from 1840 to 1841.
Both men went on to become pastors and advocates for racial justice. Pennington went on to publish the first African American history textbook in 1841, and his memoir “The Fugitive Blacksmith", working closely with abolitionist Frederick Douglass. Crummell would later found the St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in 1875, the denomination’s first independent Black church in Washington D.C., and the American Negro Academy in D.C. in 1897, the first organization in the United States to support African American academic scholarship.
Here’s a bite-sized look at what else we are hearing:
Dismissed court cases are on the rise in New York. From 2021 to 2022, dismissals due to speedy trial deadlines increased 97% in Suffolk County to nearly 1,000 cases, according to the Office of Court Administration. Nassau County dismissals jumped more than 40% — to just over 1,000. Lawyers cite low staffing in district attorney's offices and a new law that requires prosecutors to turn over evidence more quickly as causes for the spike in dismissals.
A Republican New Haven mayoral candidate is accusing incumbent Democrat Justin Elicker of corruption. Tom Goldenberg claimed he discovered Elicker and a local methadone clinic, the APT Foundation, conspired to help the clinic move in 2021. The clinic has received backlash from residents, accusing it for causing an increase in substance use, drug dealing and violence. Elicker dismissed the accusation as “fear mongering politics."
A Babylon high school teacher has pleaded down to endangering the welfare of a child. Timothy Harrison was arrested in 2022 after a month-long police investigation. He divulged that he engaged in sexual intercourse with a 15-year-old student in 2013. Harrison will return to Suffolk County Court on Nov. 9 for sentencing where he will be required to surrender his teaching license.
Twenty-seven Connecticut police supervisors were flagged in the false ticket scandal. The audit in June found that tens of thousands of traffic tickets were falsified by State Police troopers over the past decade. The Connecticut State Police Union filed a lawsuit to block officials from releasing the names of flagged troopers but it was dismissed last week. The supervisors were flagged for potentially creating false or inaccurate tickets and failing to submit tickets to a state database used to identify potential racial profiling.
New York Governor Kathy Hochul signed legislation to strengthen the state’s red flag laws. Red flags, also known as the Extreme Risk Protection Orders, allow residents to submit ERPO applications to prevent threatening individuals from purchasing or possessing guns. The legislation exempts ERPO applications from requiring an index number fee to help ensure there is no financial barrier for New Yorkers to keep their communities safe.
The International Longshoremen’s Association union plans to protest at a New London, Connecticut pier on Wednesday. The union is protesting against energy companies Ørsted and Eversource for allegedly ignoring ILA work jurisdiction by assigning multiple job functions to other workforces. Longshoremen have been working on unloading components for the South Fork Wind project at the pier but sought work to operate cranes and heavy transport vehicles. Instead, these jobs were subcontracted to the International Union of Operating Engineers.
The Riverhead School Board is investigating a racist incident at a football game that occurred on Saturday, Sept. 9. The first football game of the season at Pulaski School saw two Riverhead students and several audience members use racial slurs and become violent. Superintendent Dr. Augustine E. Tornatore plans to ban the students from attending football games in the future and ensure that they face further consequences.
Governor Kathy Hochul released a roadmap to help New York's public schools to shift their bus fleets to electric by 2035. The roadmap outlines costs, challenges and proposed recommendations for schools and bus drivers to transition to electric buses. Electric buses could be made affordable to public schools through state and federal incentive programs. This is part of New York’s goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 85% by 2050.
A car crashed into a tractor trailer full of bananas in Rocky Hill on Sunday. Around 5 a.m., the truck rolled over and was subsequently hit by a car on Interstate-91 North. The Rocky Hill Fire Department responded to the accident and sent two people to a nearby hospital. Parts of the highway were closed for several hours. (The bananas likely have a few bruises, too.)
