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      Ex-Cornell Student Admits Targeting Jewish Students With Online Threats

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      Patrick Dai pleaded guilty to posting a series of messages in which he threatened to stab, rape and behead Jewish people.A former Cornell University student pleaded guilty on Wednesday to posting a series of online messages shortly after the war in Gaza began last fall in which he threatened to stab, rape and behead Jewish people, federal prosecutors said.The former student, Patrick Dai, pleaded guilty to posting threats to kill or injure another person using interstate communications, according to federal prosecutors with the U.S. attorney’s office for New York’s Northern District.Mr. Dai, 21, who is originally from Pittsford, N.Y., is scheduled to be sentenced in August and faces up to five years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000, prosecutors said.“This defendant is being held accountable for vile, abhorrent, antisemitic threats of violence levied against members of the Cornell University Jewish community,” Kristen Clarke, an assistant attorney general in the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, said in a statement.Lisa Peebles, a federal public defender representing Mr. Dai, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. In an interview with WHEC, a local television station, outside the federal courthouse in Syracuse, N.Y., on Wednesday, she said the threats were a product of a “bad decision” over “a bad couple of days.”“He’s very remorseful,” she said. “He accepts responsibility.”A university spokesman declined to comment on the plea.Mr. Dai was a junior majoring in computer science when he made the threats. In pleading guilty, he admitted to posting them anonymously on Oct. 28 and Oct. 29 in the Cornell section of an online discussion forum about fraternity and sorority life, prosecutors said.The threats included saying he was “gonna shoot up” a kosher dining hall on the Cornell campus and was “gonna bomb” a Jewish residence there, prosecutors said.In one post, prosecutors said, he threatened to “stab” and “slit the throat” of any Jewish man he saw on campus; to rape and throw off a cliff any Jewish women; to behead Jewish babies; and to “bring an assault rifle to campus” and shoot Jews.The F.B.I. traced the threats to Mr. Dai through an IP address, and he admitted they were his in an interview with federal agents, according to a criminal complaint.The threats came amid a surge in antisemitic and anti-Muslim rhetoric across the United States, including at colleges and universities, after the war in Gaza began in October. Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York and Doug Emhoff, Vice President Kamala Harris’s husband, traveled to Cornell’s Ithaca campus to show support for rattled students. Cornell canceled classes for a day.Mr. Dai’s mother, Bing Liu, told The Associated Press in November that she believed the threats were partly the fault of medication her son had been taking for depression and anxiety.She told The A.P. that her son’s depression had prompted her to bring him home on weekends, that he was home the weekend the threats were made and that he had previously taken three semesters off. More

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      New England Journal of Medicine Ignored Nazi Atrocities, Historians Find

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      The New England Journal of Medicine published an article condemning its own record during World War II.A new article in the New England Journal of Medicine, one of the oldest and most esteemed publications for medical research, criticizes the journal for paying only “superficial and idiosyncratic attention” to the atrocities perpetrated in the name of medical science by the Nazis.The journal was “an outlier in its sporadic coverage of the rise of Nazi Germany,” wrote the article’s authors, Allan Brandt and Joelle Abi-Rached, both medical historians at Harvard. Often, the journal simply ignored the Nazis’ medical depredations, such as the horrific experiments conducted on twins at Auschwitz, which were based largely on Adolf Hitler’s spurious “racial science.”In contrast, two other leading science journals — Science and the Journal of the American Medical Association — covered the Nazis’ discriminatory policies throughout Hitler’s tenure, the historians noted. The New England journal did not publish an article “explicitly damning” the Nazis’ medical atrocities until 1949, four years after World War II ended.The new article, published in this week’s issue of the journal, is part of a series started last year to address racism and other forms of prejudice in the medical establishment. Another recent article described the journal’s enthusiastic coverage of eugenics throughout the 1930s and ’40s.“Learning from our past mistakes can help us going forward,” said the journal’s editor, Dr. Eric Rubin, an infectious disease expert at Harvard. “What can we do to ensure that we don’t fall into the same sorts of objectionable ideas in the future?”In the publication’s archives, Dr. Abi-Rached discovered a paper endorsing Nazi medical practices: “Recent changes in German health insurance under the Hitler government,” a 1935 treatise written by Michael Davis, an influential figure in health care, and Gertrud Kroeger, a nurse from Germany. The article praised the Nazis’ emphasis on public health, which was infused with dubious ideas about Germans’ innate superiority.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Donald Trump and the ‘Dune’ Messiah Have Some Things in Common

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      It is fitting that the biggest movie in the world this year is the story of a messiah gone wrong.I’m speaking, of course, about Denis Villeneuve’s “Dune” sequel, the story of a savior who broke bad in a specific way: He manipulated prophecy to unleash the religious fervor of an entire people against a hated foe.The “Dune” movies present a beautifully shot, marvelously acted, fantastical tale set in a distant future, but they’re very much grounded in the dark reality of human nature here and now. When people are angry and afraid, they will look for a savior. When that anger and fear is latched to faith and prophecy, they will yearn for a religious crusade.There’s a version of this same story playing out in the United States, but because the anger and fear are so overwrought, the prophecies so silly, and the savior so patently absurd, we may be missing the religious and cultural significance of the moment. A significant part of American Christianity is spiraling out of control.The signs are everywhere. First, there’s the behavior of the savior himself, Donald Trump. On Monday of Holy Week, he compared himself to Jesus Christ, posting on Truth Social that he received a “beautiful” note from a supporter saying that it was “ironic” that “Christ walked through his greatest persecution the very week they are trying to steal your property from you.”On Tuesday, he took to Truth Social to sell a $60 “God Bless the USA Bible” (the “only Bible endorsed by President Trump”), an edition of the King James Bible that also includes America’s founding documents. “Christians are under siege,” he said. The Judeo-Christian foundation of America is “under attack,” Trump claimed, before declaring a new variant on an old theme: “We must make America pray again.”Two weeks ago, Charlie Kirk, the founder of Turning Point USA, told a Christian gathering that Democrats “want full and complete destruction of the United States of America.” Kirk is a powerful Trump ally. He has millions of followers on social media and is hoping to raise more than $100 million in 2024 to help mobilize voters for Trump.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Indiana Law Requires Professors to Promote ‘Intellectual Diversity’ or Face Penalties

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      Faculty members in public universities could be disciplined or fired, even those with tenure, if they are found to fall short of the new requirements.A new law in Indiana requires professors in public universities to foster a culture of “intellectual diversity” or face disciplinary actions, including termination for even those with tenure, the latest in an effort by Republicans to assert more control over what is taught in classrooms.The law connects the job status of faculty members, regardless of whether they are tenured, to whether, in the eyes of a university’s board of trustees, they promote “free inquiry” and “free expression.” State Senator Spencer Deery, who sponsored the bill, made clear in a statement that this would entail the inclusion of more conservative viewpoints on campus.The backlash to the legislation, which Gov. Eric Holcomb, a Republican, signed March 13, has been substantial. Hundreds wrote letters or testified at hearings, and faculty senates at multiple institutions had urged the legislature to reject the bill, condemning it as government overreach and a blow to academic free speech.“The whole point of tenure is to protect academic freedom,” said Irene Mulvey, the president of the American Association of University Professors, who described the law as “thought policing.”Colleges nationwide have been buffeted by debates about academic freedom in recent years. Several states, including Florida, Texas and Nebraska, have proposed bills limiting tenure, some of which have passed. More broadly, Republican-led states have targeted diversity programs in universities; those bills, which have restricted or eliminated those programs, have had more success becoming law, with such measures in place in at least a half-dozen states.Under the Indiana law, which goes into effect in July, university trustees may not grant tenure or a promotion to faculty members who are deemed “unlikely” to promote “intellectual diversity” or to expose students to works from a range of political views. Trustees also may withhold tenure or promotion from those who are found “likely” to bring unrelated political views into the courses they are teaching.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Harvard’s Response to Subpoenas Is Called ‘Useless’ by House Committee

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      Harvard said it has been acting in good faith and submitted nearly 1,500 pages of new material.Representative Virginia Foxx, who is leading a House investigation of campus antisemitism, blasted Harvard University on Tuesday for handing over “useless” documents in response to subpoenas.“I don’t know if it’s arrogance, ineptness, or indifference that’s guiding Harvard,” Representative Foxx, a North Carolina Republican, said in a statement. “Regardless, its actions to date are shameful.”Many of the 2,500 pages were duplicates of already submitted documents, she said, and heavy redactions made some documents worthless. Harvard said it has been acting in good faith and since January has turned over nearly 4,900 pages of material to the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, not including any duplicate material. The university also released a four-page document detailing how it has fought antisemitism on campus, including more policing of social media and stricter enforcement of rules on demonstrations. This overview was the only part of its submission that Harvard made public; the committee did not release any of the material.“Harvard is focused on safety and ensuring a sense of belonging for our Jewish students — so that every member of our community is protected, embraced and valued, and can thrive at Harvard,” Jason Newton, a spokesman, said.In early February, after Harvard’s first round of submissions, Representative Foxx accused it of a “limited and dilatory” response. The university, she said, had handed over letters from nonprofits and copies of student handbooks that were publicly available. Subpoenas soon followed, asking for “all Harvard Corporation meeting minutes and/or summaries, whether formal or informal, since Jan. 1, 2021,” among a wide range of other documents.With Harvard and the House at loggerheads, it is unclear what the repercussions could be. “The committee is weighing an appropriate response to Harvard’s malfeasance,” Representative Foxx said.The committee was already in uncharted territory. Harvard is the first university to be served a subpoena by the Education and the Workforce Committee since it was established in 1867, according to Nick Barley, a committee spokesman.The standoff is perhaps just the most visible example of the divisions that have taken hold on campus since the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas on Israel, with many Jewish students, alumni and donors saying that Harvard was not doing enough to protect students from antisemitic slogans, social messaging and campus protests.Other universities have also been struggling with the challenges of responding to the Hamas attacks and the growing death toll and hunger in Gaza, as the war continues and campuses become the site of bitter protests by pro-Palestinian students and some faculty.Representative Foxx has also announced investigations of antisemitism at the University of Pennsylvania, Columbia and M.I.T. More

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      An Italian Holocaust Survivor Asks if She Has ‘Lived in Vain’

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      Liliana Segre, who has become Italy’s conscience on the Holocaust, says she is pessimistic in the face of rising anti-Semitism.For decades, Liliana Segre visited Italian classrooms to recount her expulsion from school under Benito Mussolini’s anti-Semitic racial laws, her doomed attempt to flee Nazi-controlled Italy, her deportation from Milan’s train station to the death camps of Auschwitz. Her plain-spoken testimony about gas chambers, tattooed arms, casual atrocities and the murders of her father, grandparents and thousands of other Italian Jews made her the conscience and living memory of a country that often prefers not to remember.Now she is wondering if it was all wasted breath.“Why did I suffer for 30 years to share intimate things of my family, of my pain, of my desperation? For whom? Why?” Ms. Segre, 93, with cotton-white hair, a steel-cage memory and an official status as a Senator for Life said last week in her handsome Milan apartment, where she sat next to a police escort. She wondered, not for the first time these days, if “I’ve lived in vain.”Even as Ms. Segre accepted another honorary degree on Saturday to mark Holocaust Remembrance Day, rising anti-Semitism and what she considers a general climate of hate have put her in a pessimistic mood.The Hamas-led massacre of Jews in Israel on Oct. 7 revolted her, she said, and Israel’s reaction in Gaza left her with a “desperate” feeling, as did what she considered the exploitation of the conflict to spread anti-Semitism under the guise of a pro-Palestinian cause. In Europe, Moscow’s aggression in Ukraine led her to ask about President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, “What is this, another Hitler?” while the rise of the far right in France and Germany make her queasy.In Italy, Ms. Segre is dismayed by a recent mass gathering of right-wing extremists giving the Fascist salute, by nasty language against migrants whose plight reminds her of her own and by a right-wing government led by Giorgia Meloni, who has condemned Italy’s racial laws and the horrors of the Holocaust, but who herself was reared in parties born from the ashes of Fascism.Musing on a cyclical view of history, Ms. Segre wondered if she had lived so long as to see history repeat itself.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More

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      The Weather in Iowa Is Not the Only Thing That Is Bitterly Cold

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      Bret Stephens: Gail, we are conversing on the eve of the Iowa caucuses — not yet knowing who came in second, but not in much doubt about who’ll come in first. I’m trying to remember the last time the Republican winner went on to win the nomination: Ted Cruz in 2016? Rick Santorum in 2012? Mike Huckabee in 2008?Losers all. Assuming Donald Trump wins, that might even be a good omen.Gail Collins: And remember, Trump won Iowa in 2020, when he was an incumbent president looking for a second term; that didn’t turn out all that well for him, either.Bret: Not that I’m rooting for him to win in Iowa. Or anywhere else for that matter.Gail: I like the way we’re starting out! Now tell me how you think the other Republicans are doing. Especially your fave, Nikki Haley.Bret: Her zinger in the debate with Ron DeSantis — “You’re so desperate, you’re just so desperate” — could be turned into a country music hit by Miranda Lambert. Or maybe Carly Simon: You’re so desperate, you probably think this race is about you. Don’t you? Don’t you?Gail: Hehehehehe.Bret: I just fear that, in the battle between Haley and DeSantis, they’re canceling each other out, like matter and antimatter. As our colleague Frank Bruni pointed out in his terrific column last week, that just clears the path for The Donald.Gail: Whenever a candidate boasts, like DeSantis, that he’s visited all 99 counties in Iowa, you hear a shriek of desperation mixed in with the bragging. But I’m not gonna totally give up hope for Haley until we see what happens in New Hampshire.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More

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      Defining Antisemitism and Anti-Zionism

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      More from our inbox:Just Keeping Trump From the White House Won’t Save DemocracyPolicies on Curbing Drug AddictionLights Dim Off BroadwayAsia’s Disappearing SeaPartidarios de Israel en Los Ángeles, el mes pasadoLauren Justice para The New York TimesTo the Editor: Re “Is Anti-Zionism Antisemitism, by Definition?” (front page, Dec. 12):What is Zionism? To me, being a Zionist in 2023 means that I accept the right and the necessity of the survival of the Jewish people and the existence of a Jewish state that ensures their survival.Anything that undermines or threatens Israel’s survival also undermines or threatens the existence of the Jewish people and is, ipso facto, antisemitic.Philip B. BergerTorontoTo the Editor:I am a Jew by culture and ancestry, albeit a secular one. I abhor contemporary violence by both Hamas and Israel. Historically, however, I have found that in recent years, Israel’s aggressive behavior has been the more objectionable, and Israel seems more determined to demoralize and destroy the Gaza population than to surgically remove Hamas.In the 1950s, when I was a young child and Israel a struggling young state, I paid small sums to buy leaves that I pasted on a picture of a tree until I had bought enough for a tree to be planted in Israel in honor of my grandmother. My father bought Israel bonds — hardly the best monetary investment — in my name and those of my siblings. In the late 1960s and early ’70s, when I had my own children and when Israel had become an expansionist power, I asked him to stop.Although a Jew, I am emphatically not a Zionist, and I resent and fear the conflation of the two.Mark CohenPlattsburgh, N.Y.The writer is distinguished emeritus professor of anthropology at the State University of New York.To the Editor:Jonathan Weisman describes radically different interpretations of Zionism as, alternately, a movement ensuring Jewish sovereignty and safety, or an oppressive colonialism. What is often lost in the debate is the historic diversity among many Zionisms (plural), which continue to struggle with one another for primacy today.One version of Zionism is expansionist, deeply nationalistic and largely unconcerned about the human rights of non-Jews, while another version on the Zionist spectrum is profoundly humanist at its core and envisions an equitable coexistence between Jews and Palestinians.Supporting a Zionism that promotes pluralism and shared society is the only vision for a better future for these two peoples whose fates are intertwined.Andrew VogelNewton, Mass.The writer is the senior rabbi at Temple Sinai in Brookline, Mass.Just Keeping Trump From the White House Won’t Save Democracy Mark Peterson/Redux, for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “The Resolute Liz Cheney,” by Katherine Miller (Opinion, Dec. 10):While I appreciate former Representative Liz Cheney’s relentless opposition to Donald Trump because of the danger he poses to the nation, keeping him out of the White House won’t alone save democracy. We also desperately need to stop Ms. Cheney’s fellow Republicans from undermining elections in their pursuit of permanent political power.Republicans have used extreme means to draw House districts in their favor and refused to join Democrats to stop those gerrymanders even though they deprive voters of fair representation and promote polarization by increasing the number of safe seats.Almost all Republicans voted against restoring provisions of the Voting Rights Act that would help assure protection against racial discrimination. They opposed measures to enact basic ballot access standards, instead allowing states to impose restrictive rules and locate polling places to make it harder for groups they don’t favor to vote.And they refused to support bills to stop the pernicious influence of big donors, opposing even basic disclosure rules to stop secret “dark” money from warping our political priorities.Standing up to Mr. Trump does little good if we allow Republicans to destroy our democracy by other means. Voters need to elect people to protect free and fair elections before Republicans succeed in rigging them in their favor. Otherwise, we will have rule by a party instead of rule by the people, and our experiment in self-governance will be at an end.Daniel A. SimonNew York Policies on Curbing Drug AddictionPolice respond to a man who died of a suspected overdose in downtown Portland in July.Erin Schaff/The New York TimesTo the Editor: Re “Rethinking Drug Policies in an Ailing Portland” (front page, Dec. 12):As a law enforcement veteran, I believe that the police have an important role in supporting community safety. But policymakers can’t keep relying on the police as a Band-Aid to every problem. We cannot arrest our way out of addiction. And increasing criminalization to solve public drug use, as some suggest in the article, won’t work.I worked and supervised police narcotics and gang units. Eventually, I saw that the laws I was charged with enforcing didn’t make my neighbors safer. No matter how much we ramped up enforcement or how many people we arrested, it didn’t stop the flow of drugs into our community or prevent people from dying.For over 50 years, the United States has prioritized criminalization as a response to drug use, yet stronger drugs like fentanyl have emerged, and our country is facing a health crisis with record-setting overdose deaths.To make any progress toward curbing addiction, we need to increase access to the addiction services and support people need: treatment, overdose prevention centers, outreach teams to connect people to care, and housing. More criminalization is a false promise of change.Diane M. GoldsteinLas VegasThe writer, a retired police lieutenant, is the executive director of the Law Enforcement Action Partnership.Lights Dim Off BroadwaySignature Theater, an important Off Broadway institution, had no shows this fall.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesTo the Editor: Re “Off Broadway, Vital to Theater Scene, Struggles” (front page, Dec. 8):It saddens me to read about the struggles and closures of our city’s intimate theaters. These are the institutions that nurture new work. Losing them darkens our future.During this crisis, I hope artistic directors will remember that it doesn’t have to cost a fortune to put on a play. Even a bare-bones staging gives us something Netflix never can: a story shared by strangers in person in real time.Rob AckermanNew YorkThe author is a playwright.Asia’s Disappearing SeaRusting boats in the sand in Muynak, Uzbekistan. Muynak was once a thriving port on the Aral Sea but is now a desert town since the sea disappeared.Carolyn Drake/MagnumTo the Editor: Re “A Giant Inland Sea Is Now a Desert, and a Warning for Humanity,” by Jacob Dreyer (Opinion guest essay, nytimes.com, Nov. 28), about the shrinking Aral Sea in Uzbekistan:Together, we — an archaeologist, a geographer and a historian — have extensive experience in the Aral Sea region. We take exception to Mr. Dreyer’s description of this place as resembling “hell.” Rather than stereotyping the region as a wasteland that people should flee from (Mr. Dreyer stresses his desire to leave the region as quickly as possible), we must recognize the meaning and value that the Aral Sea and its environs still hold for its residents today, and we should center those residents’ desired futures.We also need to consider the Aral Sea region a vital knowledge zone. As we confront shrinking bodies of water in many other regions around the globe, we can learn from the perseverance of Aral Sea residents. If we listen, what lessons can we learn from them as we prepare for future ecological disasters?Elizabeth BriteKate ShieldsSarah CameronDr. Brite is a clinical associate professor at Purdue University, Dr. Shields is an assistant professor at Rhodes College, and Dr. Cameron is an associate professor at the University of Maryland, College Park. More