Results tagged “huntercollege”

Controversy is swirling around a course offered at Hunter College that an untenured professor says he was pressured to “teach.” The course was paid for last year by the International Anti-Counterfeiting Coalition [IACC], an industry group combating the proliferation of cheap counterfeit clothes, jewelry, accessories, etc.

They may have grown up privileged and prepped for success from birth, but a record number of four-year-olds are facing rejection from New York's top kindergarten programs. Fortunately, the parents of the doomed children are probably still young enough to procreate again and hope for better chances with their younger progeny.

Former President Bill Clinton laid out his wife's chances for voters during a speech - and didn't sound terribly confident about them. He told them, "If she wins Texas and Ohio, I think she will be the nominee. If you don't, then I don't think she can. It's all on you." And the Post quickly dug up the Davy Crockett hat for its Photoshop job.

Mayor Bloomberg spoke out about the unofficial results from NYC's primary night undercounted votes in 78 districts. These districts' unofficial results raised eyebrows because no votes at all were recorded Barack Obama.

The story around the possible hate crime attack on a Q train the other night seems to be made for the season. Not only does it come while subway violence is a big topic, it also involves a group of Jewish subway riders being called "dirty Jews" and "Jew bitches" and attacked by people who cried, "Happy Hanukkah, that's when the Jews killed Jesus." And here's the kicker: The only person who stepped in...

It's no shock that many drivers aren't totally on the ball when driving, but it turns out that one in three New York drivers multi-task in their cars. According to a Hunter College study (PDF) conducted at 50 intersections in the Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan and Queens, of the over 3,000 drivers observed, 23% were talking on a cellphone, 5.7% were smoking, 4.5% were drinking, 3.1% were drinking, and 1.7% were grooming. Time to quote Rihanna:...

A freshman from New York University apparently committed suicide yesterday morning. The student, Allan Oakley Hunter III, jumped from the roof of University Hall, a 15-story dorm at 110 East 14th Street; his body was found in the courtyard. The Washington Square News reports that police were searching his room around 10AM yesterday morning and that his body was removed by 1PM.

A bus full of students from Hunter College High School was pursued by a hammer-wielding road rager yesterday afternoon in Queens. It's unclear what made the driver so irate, but bus driver Jose Bautista noticed a man driving crazily in his rear view mirror and pulled over to the left. That is when the angry driver got out of his car and kicked in one of the panes of glass on the school bus's front door, then began hammering the vehicle.

The NYCLU and ACLU are suing the Transportation Security Administration and Jet Blue over an incident where a passenger was forced to cover/change his shirt, which had Arabic lettering. Last year, Reid Jarrar, an American resident of Iraqi descent, was taking a JetBlue flight at JFK when a TSA official asked him to over his shirt, which read "We Will Not Be Silent" in both English and Arabic. The shirt's message is taken from the motto of an anti-Nazi resistance group, the White Rose.

Thirteen-year-old Bramdon Ragnot was found in a Brooklyn alley, shot in the head, yesterday afternoon. He was discovered around 5PM by a Marine Park neighbor who told the Daily News, "I didn't know he was shot. I thought he was just beat up. I said, 'I know it hurts, but keep your eyes open.'"

The public school year will end on a scandalous note. An aide at the prestigious Hunter College High School was arrested on charges of raping a 15-year-old student. Timothy Avery, a 25-year-old Staten Island resident, was charged with statutory rape and endangering the welfare of a child. The NY Times reports that "friends of the girl had expressed concerns about the girl’s behavior to school authorities."

Laurel Wright-Hinckson, a spokeswoman for the city Education Department’s Office of the Special Commissioner of Investigation, said that the 15-year-old girl had not been a student of Mr. Avery’s...

Continue reading "Hunter College HS Aide Charged With Raping Student"

One casualty of MAS's proposal would be the Robert Moses Playground, home of the East End Hockey Association. The mostly featureless lot hosts the local roller hockey league, which is claiming that Robert Moses Playground is the only area of its type on the East Side that it can use. MAS is proposing that the playground be traded to the U.N., which would build a 35-story tower on the land, in exchange for waterfront access to complete the greenway.

We can't possibly choose only one music event for the weekend, so check out OhMyRockness for the jam packed weekend listings. We will say, however, that one of the openers for Snowden at Maxwell's tonight...is We Are Scientists, trying out some new tunes. Though closer to home are The Clientele and Beach House at Bowery Ballroom. Listen: Apple Orchard.mp3 - Beach House

Congratulations to everyone graduating this month! As NYU's commencement was today, with speaker jazz musician Wynton Marsalis, we decided to list the many NYC commencement speakers, with help from The Chronicle of Higher Education (if we've missed any or gotten it wrong, let us know in comments):

Stars of stage and screen will be rearing their boldface names on April 9th to blow out 443 candles for the boldest face of all: Billy Shakespeare. Broadway’s Michael Cerveris (Sweeney Todd), Debra Messing (Will & Grace), the esteemed Philip Bosco (Copenhagen) and other notables will perform scenes from the Bard’s plays at The Shakespeare Birthday Marathon at Hunter College’s Kaye Playhouse. But perhaps the most anticipated star at this free event is TV’s Rainn Wilson – who embodies the obsessive Dwight Schrute in The Office – as he unleashes of his Shakespearean side. (Safety goggles recommended.) Details.

Judge Larry Seidlin wept when he gave custody of Anna Nicole Smith's body would go to her baby Danielynn Smith. Well, make that Danielynn's legal guardian, Richard Milstein. Five-month-old Danielynn was practically the only person who wasn't fighting for her mother's body, and the AP called it a "surprise middle course" decision. However, Newsday's Star Struck blog called Seidiln's sobbing "possibly the most embarrassing thing on television since 'The Magic Hour.'" E! Online has the Seidlin quotes

"I want you to understand that I reviewed absolutely everything," Seidlin said before issuing the ruling. "I have struggled with this. I have shed tears.

Continue reading "Bronx Blubber: Crying Judge Gives Anna Nicole to Baby"

As the fight over Anna Nicole Smith's body continues in a Florida courtroom, the judge presiding over the proceedings has become something of a media star. And Judge Larry Seidlin is ready, telling people that he's ready for a TV show. We chalk up his chutzpah to a Bronx background.

EVENT: The Academy presents Meet the Oscars. On top of learning fun facts about Oscar, you'll get to see the little gold guy (and tons of tourists) up close and personal, as the statuettes are on display in Times Square. We suggest you bring a fake acceptance speech with you.

A 21 year old Hunter College student committed suicide by jumping off the West Building at 67th and Lexington yesterday afternoon. Anton Frolov had sneaked onto the 20 floor building's roof earlier, but had been escorted off by security guards. But 15 minutes later, at 5:40PM, Frolov managed to get back onto the roof and jumped before guards could stop him.

An emotionally disturbed Brooklyn man died of a heart attack after being Maced and Tasered by the police. A relative called the police when Blondel Lassegue was acting up at his uncle's house in Queens, saying he was depressed and delusional (he had recently gone off medication for bipolar disorder and depression, according to the Daily News).

A man was shot at Ninth Avenue and West 23rd Street after leaving the Chelsea Square Restaurant Saturday morning. Two men robbed him of a necklace then shot him in the foot. The victim then went back to the restaurant and crawled into the kitchen for help. As the Post tries to make the point that there's a lot of violence in the club area, there's a quote from a restaurant employee who says the victim and a friend "seemed to be having a good time. They did appear to be drunk, and they were talking about a club. I don't know which one."

Who would residents say is the worse neighbor - Columbia or NYU? For today, at least, the controversy surrounds Columbia, plus the Department of Education. Columbia and the DOE will be opening a secondary magnet public school this fall for sixth through twelfth grade. The school will eventually be located on the university's planned Manhattanville campus, but until the building is completed, the DOE has decided to put the school in PS 36, a pre-K to second grade school on Morning Side Drive and West 121st. Enter the angry parents.

Parents hoping to get their little Einsteins into some of the city's 137-odd programs for young and "gifted students" take note: The city has announced that it is now going to institute a uniform admissions test for all of them.

With just 55 days left, the dance cards are set for the general election. As expected, Attorney General Eliot Spitzer and Senator Hillary Clinton won their respectives primaries for governor and Senate. The NY Times noted that Clinton's reosounding win showed that her support of the Iraq war did not affect voter sentiment:

“Clinton’s work ethic, her lack of enemies, and her fund-raising help for other Democrats have insulated her from party criticism, including on Iraq,” said Ken Sherrill, a political scientist at Hunter College. “I got a taped phone call from Susan Sarandon urging support for Tasini, but that’s all I really heard about him.”

- Ask for a nude photograph, and if they wouldn't agree, he would threaten to "plaster the bikini or lingerie shots around their schools unless they complied"Manhattan DA Robert Morgenthau said, "Students think that because they're on a secure Web site like Facebook that they're safe from online predators. They're not." We cannot wait for Dateline to do a "To Catch a Facebook Predator" show!

It's a brou-ha-ha in a mass-produced glossy, leather (or vinyl) bound book: Hunter College High School faculty halted production of their "Annals" yearbook, leading some students to threaten a First Amendment lawsuit against the school. The NY Sun has the inside track on why the yearbook was pulled: Because of its "100 jokes that typically run alongside photos of the students clubs."

In past years, some of those jokes teetered on offensive. Yearbook staff said they took special pains to be sensitive this year.

Continue reading "Students Battle Hunter College H.S. Over Yearbook"

The tragic story of Romona Moore finally saw some justice yesterday as the two men who kidnapped, raped, tortured, sodomized and eventually killed the 21-year-old Hunter College student were both found guilty. Troy Hendrix, 22, and Kayson Pearson, 24, now face maximum penalities of life in prison without parole.

The trial of Romona Moore's accused murderers took a strange turn when one of the defendants, Kayson Pearson, testified. Since Pearson, along with co-defendent, Troy Hendrix, tried to stab a defense lawyer with a knife and take on other court officers during their first trial (it ended in mistrial), Pearson had to be shackled while on the witness stand, wearing black foam mittens. He was also ordered not to make any outbursts and not to show the jury his cuffs by the judge, who said that if Pearson attempted to cause a mistrial again, it wouldn't happen. Pearson denied that he killed Moore and instead claimed he hugged her good-bye, saying that his statement to the police about dumping Moore's body was the product of "creativity." Of course, a former friend of Pearson and Hendrix testified earlier that he saw Moore, a 23 year old Hunter College student, chained and beaten up in Pearson's basement.

One of the most depraved crimes in recent memory is being relived at a murder trial in Brooklyn. Raymondo Jack, witness for the Brooklyn DA, testified to seeing Hunter College student Romona Moore tortured and chained in a Brooklyn basement in 2003. Jack had been visiting his friends Troy Hendrix and Kayson Pearson when they showed him Moore. Hendrix and Pearson had kidnapped the 23 year old as she was walking to a Burger King in East Flatbush, and subjected her to beatings, cuttings, cigarette burns and rape. Though Jack questioned the pair why they did this (and remembering they had smirks on their faces), Jack never told the police, simply leaving the apartment to go to a baby shower. Jack did tell his fiancee and fiancee's uncle, and suspects that the uncle called police, who only found Moore dead, dumped near a an ice cream truck. In a defense tactic, Pearson's lawyer tried to paint Jack as a criminal for not reporting the crime, "Did you understand that what you say you saw at that time was inhuman?"