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The university had set a Monday deadline for protesters to vacate the encampment or face suspension, and tensions have been rising after some students who had defied the deadline received notices of suspension from the university. Administrators would not say how many students had been suspended. As an additional condition of suspension, some students also lost their eligibility to be employed by the university, a penalty that cut off the income of graduate student employees who were suspended. “I don’t know what comes next,” said Prahlad Iyengar, a first-year graduate student who said he had lost his income and housing as a result of his suspension. “I have friends and a community, and I can find a place, but there are people affected who are housing- and food-insecure, some with children.”

Persons: ”, “, Prahlad Iyengar

☆ Maine Secretary of State to Appeal Ruling on Her Decision to Exclude Trump From Ballot
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-19 | by ( Jenna Russell | More About Jenna Russell | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Maine’s top election official said on Friday she intends to appeal the ruling by a state Superior Court judge this week that placed on hold her decision to exclude former President Donald J. Trump from the state’s Republican primary ballot. In a statement, the official, Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, said she welcomed the guidance of the U.S. Supreme Court, which is expected to hear arguments on a similar case on Feb. 8. But in the meantime, she said, she will seek the input of Maine’s highest court. “I know both the constitutional and state authority questions are of grave concern to many,” Ms. Bellows wrote in a short statement on Friday. The 14th Amendment disqualifies government officials who “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” from holding office.

Persons: Donald J, Trump, State Shenna Bellows, “, ” Ms, Bellows, Ms Organizations: Court, Republican, State, U.S, Supreme, State Legislature, Capitol Locations: Maine

Mr. Ali Ahmad, a Trinity College sophomore described as a gifted writer, web designer and conversationalist, was shot in the chest. The homes of Mr. Awartani’s uncle and grandmother in Burlington, a city of 45,000 on the shores of Lake Champlain, had been a welcome refuge. “I think they were really glad to reconnect, and provide each other comfort, after a fraught few weeks,” said Rich Price, Mr. Awartani’s uncle, who hosted the friends for the holiday. “They are normal 20-year-olds, but they’re also extraordinary 20-year-olds,” Mr. Price said. “They have shown remarkable resilience and strength, even humor, and I think being Palestinian in this world demands those traits.

Persons: Awartani, Ali Ahmad, Awartani’s, ”, Rich Price, they’re, ” Mr, Price, “ Organizations: Brown University, Trinity College, West Bank, Quaker Locations: Burlington, Lake Champlain, United States, Ramallah, Israel, Gaza

As residents across Maine sat riveted to their TVs on Oct. 27, waiting anxiously for updates on the manhunt for a gunman who had killed 18 people, state officials opened their news briefing with a stern directive for the cameras in the room. “For the consideration of the four Deaf victims and their families, we are requesting that the ASL interpreter is in all frames for language access,” Michael Sauschuck, the state’s public safety commissioner, said after a flurry of complaints from Deaf viewers about broadcasts cutting the interpreter out. “They are grieving and have a right to know the latest information.”It was a stinging reminder of the heavy toll borne by Maine’s small Deaf community, which counted four of its own among the dead and three more among the 13 injured in the shootings on Oct. 25 in Lewiston. And it reflected its ongoing fight for access and recognition, a struggle rooted in a history of trauma that, amid their pain, has fostered solidarity. Closely connected by a shared language and culture, and a statewide web of social ties, many Deaf residents of Maine first met and forged friendships at the Governor Baxter School for the Deaf, on Mackworth Island near Portland, long the only public, residential school for Deaf students in the state and a beloved center of Deaf society.

Persons: Michael Sauschuck, Governor Baxter Organizations: Governor, Governor Baxter School Locations: Maine, Lewiston, Portland

On Sunday, Arthur Barnard will bury his oldest child, Artie Strout, 42, who was one of the 18 people killed in the country’s deadliest mass shooting so far this year. “They’re not going to try to do a mass shooting with a pistol,” he said. In the aftermath of the mass shooting in Lewiston, Maine, on Oct. 25, the state is facing intense scrutiny over its permissive gun laws. For instance, Maine allows most adults to carry a concealed weapon in public without a permit. Recent attempts to enact laws requiring universal background checks and waiting periods have failed.

Persons: Arthur Barnard, Artie Strout, Barnard, They’re, ” Locations: Lewiston , Maine, Maine

WHY WE’RE HEREWe’re exploring how America defines itself one place at a time. Halloween has become part of the identity of Salem, Mass., which attracts huge crowds and results in a lot of litter. Oct. 29, 2023The list of public nuisances in Salem., Mass., in high Halloween season is long and weird: Rowdy crowds imperiling 17th-century gravestones. Skirmishes over parking spaces at Gallows Hill or the Museum of Torture. Weary of the crunchy plastic carpet underfoot — and wary of their appeal to teens and closet drinkers — a growing roster of cities and towns is moving to ban nips altogether.

Persons: ” Organizations: imperiling, Museum of Locations: Salem, nuisances, Salem ., Massachusetts

The man suspected of killing 18 people and injuring 13 others at a bar and a bowling alley in Lewiston, Maine, on Wednesday night was found dead of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound on Friday, officials said, ending a sweeping manhunt that had forced thousands of residents throughout the region to remain in their homes. The body of the man, Robert R. Card II, 40, was found at a recycling center where he used to work, according to authorities briefed on the matter. The owner of Maine Recycling, Leo Madden, confirmed in an interview that the suspect had worked at the company, which is in Lisbon Falls, a little more than 10 miles southeast of Lewiston. Commissioner Michael J. Sauschuck of the Maine Department of Public Safety said the body was found at 7:45 p.m. but did not specify when officials think the suspect died. The hunt for Mr. Card had extended across much of a largely rural state with many potential hiding places, producing an atmosphere of high anxiety as helicopters whirred over farms and forests, police cruisers roared along rural roads and divers plunged into the chilly waters of the Androscoggin River.

Persons: Robert R, Leo Madden, Michael J, Card Organizations: Maine Recycling, Maine Department of Public Safety Locations: Lewiston , Maine, Maine, Lisbon Falls, Lewiston, Androscoggin

☆ ‘Lewiston Strong’: After Mass Shooting, Residents Emerge With Grit
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-28 | by ( Jenna Russell | More About Jenna Russell | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

On a sparkling October morning, with peak fall foliage blazing red and yellow, the residents of Lewiston emerged from two long days of lockdown on Saturday into a city forever changed. Sidewalks came to life. And the families of 18 people killed by a mass shooter here on Wednesday night tried to move on in a haze of grief, their losses piling an almost unbearable weight on a place that prides itself on its resilience. Lewiston, Maine — a city of 36,000 that feels more like a small town — sits away from the picturesque harbors and privileged enclaves of the coastline, in the sprawling inland interior of this vast rural state. With a history bookended by two waves of immigration, a century apart, and hollowed out by the lost textile mills that once defined its economy, it is frequently described by outsiders with well-worn, vaguely disparaging adjectives.

Persons: — Locations: Lewiston, Lewiston , Maine

☆ Night Out in Lewiston Turns Deadly for a Group of Deaf Friends
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-27 | by ( Jenna Russell | More About Jenna Russell | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

Josh Seal and Bryan MacFarlane reveled in their Wednesday night outings at Schemengees Bar and Grille in Lewiston, playing on a cornhole team that was all their own. For their nine-member team, part of a competitive cornhole league hosted by the bar, the weekly matches were a rare and treasured chance to socialize with other deaf adults. On Wednesday evening, not long after gathering with their team, Mr. Seal and Mr. McFarlane were among those fatally shot by a rampaging gunman. “Some of them were really passionate about the competition, but really, it was just an opportunity for deaf folks to hang out together, apart from the hearing world,” said Mr. Seal’s wife, Elizabeth Seal, who is also deaf and signed through an interpreter. “To be together and communicate with your people in your language — it is priceless.”

Persons: Josh Seal, Bryan MacFarlane reveled, Seal, McFarlane, ”, Seal’s, Elizabeth Seal Locations: Lewiston

After spending the night indoors, afraid to even open the curtains, Traelynn Smith, 19, and Serenity Moczara, 18, ventured out around lunchtime Thursday to get something to eat. “I’ve never seen my state like this.”Colonel Ross said on Thursday that a vehicle found at a boat landing in Lisbon, Maine, about eight miles from Lewiston, had been connected to Mr. Card. He had no combat deployments and served as a petroleum supply specialist, shipping and storing vehicle and aircraft fuel. The official said that Mr. Card was later evaluated at a mental health facility. The first 911 call reporting gunfire at the bowling alley on Wednesday came in at 6:56 p.m., Colonel Ross said.

Persons: Traelynn Smith, Moczara, Smith, ”, “ I’ve, Colonel Ross, Card, Camp Smith Organizations: Mr, Military, Army Reserve, 3rd Battalion, 304th Infantry Regiment, National Guard Locations: Lisbon , Maine, Lewiston, Saco , Maine, West, New York

The first of the two shootings in Lewiston, Maine, took place at a bowling alley, interrupting an American pastime on an ordinary Wednesday evening. “See you again in your spare time!”On the bowling alley’s Facebook page, the management has posted photos of smiling customers and congratulated people for bowling perfect games. Around 2 a.m., a few reporters were congregating near a sports bar and a Subway sandwich shop at the corner of Mollison Way, a road leading to the bowling alley. “We all went bowling as kids growing up here,” said Mar Mcenery, 52, who lives four miles from the bowling alley and had come to see the scene for herself at 4 a.m. despite the citywide lockdown order. “Especially when the weather gets colder — the bowling alley and the ice rink, that’s what we do.”Ms. Mcenery said the bowling center was a popular hangout for local teenagers.

Persons: ”, Mar Mcenery, Ms, Mcenery, “ Organizations: Facebook, Lewiston police Locations: Lewiston , Maine, Lewiston

As Hurricane Lee churned closer to coastal New England on Friday, with winds expected to intensify by nightfall, cruise ships sought refuge in Portland, Maine, and homeowners in Provincetown, Mass., piled sandbags. An arborist in Halifax, Nova Scotia, fielded dozens of calls from residents expecting tree damage. Yet, like others in a region accustomed to powerful nor’easters, if not hurricanes, Mr. Crobar was not particularly fazed by what was coming. “We like to sensationalize the weather, but it’s just a natural part of the earth,” he said. The storm was expected to make landfall in the Canadian province of New Brunswick late on Saturday, but forecasters said its sprawling size meant that severe effects would be felt in New England, too.

Persons: Lee, John Crobar, Crobar, ” Locations: New England, Portland , Maine, Provincetown, Mass, Halifax , Nova Scotia, Sandwich, Cape Cod, Canadian, New Brunswick

Officials estimate that as many as half of currently sheltered families are recently arrived migrants from other countries; most have come from Haiti, drawn by word of mouth and the pull of the state’s well-established Haitian community. Maura Healey declared a state of emergency on Aug. 8 in a bid for federal help, joining New York, Chicago and Washington, D.C., which have taken similar steps. The state is also housing migrants on two college campuses and on a Cape Cod military base, and has opened two welcome centers to process arrivals, with many coming from the southern border, advocates said. On average, 10 new families show up at the center each day, staff members said. The goals are to assess their health, help them set short- and long-term goals, sign them up for key state services, and move them to housing elsewhere, all within five days.

Persons: Maura Healey, Healey Organizations: Gov, D.C, National Guard, Cape Locations: Haiti, New York, Chicago, Washington, Quincy, Boston, Haitian

☆ A Trump Stronghold, Unbothered by Indictments, Worries About Winning
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-14 | by ( Jenna Russell | More About Jenna Russell | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Follow our live updates on the Trump investigation in Georgia. Donald J. Trump has amassed a load of legal baggage that is hard to ignore: three indictments and 78 felony counts, including four for conspiring to overturn the 2020 election. In interviews this month with more than 20 residents who voted for Mr. Trump in 2016 and 2020, all but two dismissed the indictments as manufactured political theater. But in a twist that hints at burgeoning complexity within Republican circles, roughly half of the Trump voters interviewed here in recent days also said that while the indictments don’t bother them, they are increasingly concerned that Mr. Trump may not be able to win the general election. He was drinking coffee with a group of men; most of them agreed with his assessment.

Persons: Trump, Donald J, “ Trump, Roger, Alton McDonald’s Organizations: Mr, Trump, Alton Locations: Georgia, Fulton County ,, Alton, N.H

☆ The Fight Over the Dune Shacks of Cape Cod: No Power, No Water — but Eugene O’Neill Was Here
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-06 | by ( Jenna Russell | More About Jenna Russell | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

Among those inspired by the solitude and natural wonder they found there were the playwrights Eugene O’Neill and Tennessee Williams, painters Willem de Kooning and Jackson Pollock, novelists Jack Kerouac and Norman Mailer and poets E.E. “A grand place to be alone and undisturbed,” O’Neill once said of his hideaway there. “I’m ashamed that the Park Service would try to capitalize on it, without realizing the point of the shacks was to get away from civilization, from capitalism.”The Park Service set no limit on financial offers from bidders. The structures’ use must be private and residential, not commercial; modern upgrades are not allowed, and lease holders will bear the full costs of their upkeep. The agency declined to say how many bids were submitted by the July deadline, or when it will notify the winners.

Persons: Eugene O’Neill, Tennessee Williams, Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollock, Jack Kerouac, Norman Mailer, E.E . Cummings, Mary Oliver, “, O’Neill, ”, Salvatore Del Deo, John F, Kennedy Organizations: Service, Coast Guard

Dangerous heat that has scorched other parts of the country for more than a month spread to the nation’s most populous region on Thursday, with spiking temperatures and a blanket of oppressive humidity that prompted widespread heat warnings in New England and the Mid-Atlantic states. The heat will probably peak in the region on Friday, when about 118 million Americans, more than a third of the population, were expected to be in the “danger” zone, where the heat index — a measure that combines temperature and humidity — would rise into the 100s, according to a New York Times analysis of National Weather Service and U.S. Census Bureau data. That’s among the largest proportions of the U.S. population to be threatened at the same time by extreme heat so far this year. More than a dozen daily heat records could be set across the Northeast on Thursday and Friday, meteorologists said, with many of them likely to occur at night, when temperatures are unlikely to cool down as much as usual.

Organizations: New York Times, National Weather Service, Census Locations: New England

☆ They Put Down Roots In Small-Town Vermont. Then the River Reared Up.
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-15 | by ( Jenna Russell | More About Jenna Russell | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Their town of 2,100 people had suffered some of the worst flooding in the state amid more than seven inches of rain. It was a painful setback for Vermont at the height of its summer tourist season. While much of the state was untouched by the flooding — even in Ludlow, which is in south-central Vermont, some businesses were unscathed — national news coverage of disasters typically leads to a wave of cancellations. In Ludlow — first settled by farmers in 1783, later home to woolen mills powered by the river, and now best known as the home of Okemo Mountain Resort — momentum had been building. Since Vail Resorts bought the ski area in 2018, upgrading lifts and boosting marketing and year-round recreation, new businesses had sprung up to serve new visitors.

Persons: Ludlow —, Prasse, Kovalsky Organizations: Tourism, Vail Resorts Locations: Montpelier, Barre, Vermont, Ludlow

☆ Vermont Storm Exposes the Strengths, and Limits, of New Flood Defenses
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-12 | by ( Jenna Russell | More About Jenna Russell | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

Vermont, a state known for peaceful green mountains, grazing cows and tidy covered bridges, is not often seen as a place where mudslides threaten highways, rivers churn with debris and murky, propane-fouled floodwaters fill downtown streets. But those kinds of images of destruction were seared into memory when Tropical Storm Irene battered Vermont in 2011, and led to a drastic reassessment of how to protect the state against storms supercharged by a warming climate. A forceful storm walloped Vermont again this week, causing severe flooding, damaging thousands of homes and businesses, and revealing the effectiveness of some mitigation measures taken since Irene. At the same time, officials and experts said, the storm demonstrated the need for ongoing adaptation, as storms become more extreme and less predictable.

Persons: Irene Locations: Vermont

☆ In Cities and Small Towns, Vermonters Reckon With the Devastation of Flooding
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-11 | by ( Jenna Russell | More About Jenna Russell | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

As floodwaters began to ebb on Tuesday, and Vermonters reckoned with the devastation of a record-breaking storm, shock mixed with a growing sense of dread at the long recovery ahead — and with a lingering uneasiness that more losses might yet be uncovered. As residents began to sift through ruined businesses, and hundreds of people sought temporary housing away from flooded homes, calls for search and rescue missions continued up and down the state, fueling an anxious, unsettled mood. “It was an apocalyptic feeling,” said Dylan Woodrow, 29, of Montpelier, who paddled his kayak through more than three feet of water there on Tuesday, asking people stranded in second-floor apartments if they needed help.

Persons: Vermonters, ”, Dylan Woodrow Locations: Montpelier

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