Category: National

(NEW YORK) — The execution of the only woman on Tennessee’s death row was paused at the 11th hour as a federal appeals court reviews the case.

The state has since asked the U.S. Supreme Court to vacate the appeals court’s stay.

Christa Pike, 50, was scheduled to be executed by lethal injection on Wednesday at 10 a.m. CT. She was sentenced to death after being convicted of the 1995 murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer.

In a 2-1 decision issued within two hours of the scheduled execution, Judge Jane Branstetter Stranch of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit wrote that a stay is necessary in the “interests of justice and the finality of Pike’s impending execution” in order to review whether her allegations of sexual abuse and rape as a child were fully considered before Pike was sentenced to death. The execution is stayed “until further order of this court,” the order stated.

In his dissenting opinion, Judge Richard Allen Griffin called the matter “another last-ditch meritless effort to delay a lawful execution.”

In an application asking the Supreme Court to vacate the stay, Tennessee Department of Correction Warden Kenneth Nelsen argued that Pike is not likely to succeed because her claim was “already unsuccessfully presented.” The state’s “strong interest in finality and the surviving victims’ right to closure” also require the high court to vacate the stay, he argued.

Members of Slemmer’s family — including her mother, stepfather and father — plan to attend Pike’s execution, according to Nelsen’s filing.

“It is far past time for Colleen’s family to receive the closure they seek,” the filing stated, asking the Supreme Court to vacate the stay of execution to “avoid rewarding Pike’s abusive delay tactics” and “prevent further trauma to Colleen’s family.”

In a June court filing challenging her execution, Pike argued that due to her history of rape and sexual abuse, being “the lone female in a vulnerable position surrounded by male corrections officers during the last days of her life will trigger her PTSD and result in a torturous execution or mental decompensation to the point she will be incompetent to be executed.”

The Tennessee Supreme Court rejected her claims. She subsequently filed an application for stay of execution, requesting that the U.S. Supreme Court review her claims alleging the method of execution would inflict cruel and unusual punishment because of her PTSD from childhood rapes and abuse. The Supreme Court denied that request on Tuesday.

Later that day, Pike filed a motion seeking to review her claim that her trial counsel provided ineffective assistance at sentencing and failed to introduce evidence of her history of child sexual abuse.

In a statement on the stay of execution, Pike’s attorney, Stephen Ferrell with the Federal Defenders Services of Eastern Tennessee, said, “The court has stayed this recognizing the serious concerns about Christa’s scheduled execution.”

In 1996, Pike was found guilty of first-degree murder for beating, torturing and killing Slemmer, a fellow Jobs Corps worker from Knoxville, in a remote area of the University of Tennessee Agricultural campus.

Pike, who was 18 when she committed the crime, had told a friend she planned to kill Slemmer because she “just felt mean that day” and admitted to committing the crime with her then-boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, according to court filings. Shipp was also convicted of first-degree murder for his role in the killing and sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole.

While incarcerated, Pike was convicted in 2001 of attempted first-degree murder in the assault on an inmate, according to the Tennessee Department of Correction.

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(NEW YORK) — As prosecutors reopened an investigation into a former Cornell University student’s allegations of being drugged and gang-raped at a fraternity house in 2024, a state-mandated survey of undergraduate students revealed that more than one-third of undergraduate women said they had experienced sexual assault during their time at the Ivy League university.

According to the school’s 2025 Survey of Sexual Assault and Related Misconduct (SARM), 35% of undergraduate women at the Ithaca, New York, school reported experiencing nonconsensual sexual contact involving force or incapacitation since entering Cornell. Among undergraduate men, 8% said they experienced the same.

“Despite a long history of actions to address sexual assault, culminating in Cornell’s Sexual Violence Framework … rates of sexual assault remain persistently high,” according to a summary report released in March by the Cornell University Presidential Task Force on Campus Sexual Assault (TFSA).

The report also found that alcohol played a part in “the majority of reported incidents,” with the perpetrator having consumed it prior to the incident in 62% of cases and the victim having done so in 55% of incidents.

“In 50% of cases, respondents reported being conscious but incapacitated by alcohol or drugs during all or part of the incident,” according to the report, with 19% saying they were “passed out or unconscious for some or all the time.”

Reported instances of sexual assault were significantly higher among Cornell undergraduate women who were “Greek-affiliated” compared to those who were not: 52% to 29%, respectively, according to the report.

“If there’s one takeaway from all of this, it’s that we know for certain that sexual assault is underreported,” Jennifer Simmons Kaleba, vice president of communications for the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN), the nation’s largest anti-sexual assault organization, told ABC News.

“Whether the numbers grew 2%, 3%, something like that, the reality is it’s probably much higher than that,” Kaleba said.

Kaleba said her group, which runs a national sexual assault hotline, estimates that 1 in 6 freshman women experience sexual assault in their first year of college, and that 1 in 4 undergraduate women and 1 in 14 undergraduate men experience rape or sexual assault by force or incapacitation before they leave school.

Tompkins County, New York, District Attorney Matthew Van Houten said this week that his office is reopening an investigation into the 2024 alleged “gang rape” of a former female student by seven former and current members of the Chi Phi fraternity after the alleged victim, identified only as Jane Doe, filed a civil lawsuit earlier this month, sparking outrage when news of the suit became public.

Cornell’s Chi Phi chapter was barred from campus after the Oct. 19, 2024, rape allegations were made. Trey Robb, the interim executive director of Chi Phi fraternity, said in a statement that all the accused members were kicked out of the Cornell chapter within three days of Jane Doe filing her police report in 2024.

Three of the defendants named in the suit have denied the allegations through their attorneys.

“Any suggestion that the University did not impose consequential punishments for those involved is false,” Cornell said in a statement Monday, in part.

In an earlier statement, Cornell said it conducted a thorough Title IX investigation of Jane Doe’s allegations. “At its conclusion, the hearing panel issued a range of sanctions, which included expulsions and suspensions from Cornell,” the university’s statement said.

Van Houten said in a statement that his office is considering whether to bring criminal charges related to the incident, though he said the allegations in the civil complaint are “dramatically different” than the woman’s statement to police two years ago. He further said that his office did not bring charges in 2024 because the woman’s statement to Cornell police officers at the time did not allege she was drugged without her knowledge or that she did not consent to engage in sexual activities.

“It’s our intention to present the case to the Tompkins County grand jury with Jane Doe’s cooperation,” Van Houten told ABC News. “We want to reexamine whether there’s additional evidence that we were not aware of in November of 2024, that exists now that would change our assessment of the case and would result in the grand jury finding that there was criminal conduct.” 

Kaleba told ABC News that some victims of sexual assault often do not recall exact details of what occurred to them until years later.

“One of the first things that people will say on the hotline is, ‘I think something happened,'” Kaleba said. “And so what we want is some black-and-white narrative that says everybody absolutely recognizes what sexual assault is and it’s this and it’s that, and the victim must also know exactly what happened to them and retell it to the detail with exactly the right emotion for the remainder of their lives.”

“That is profoundly unrealistic and another avenue to blame victims,” according to Kaleba.

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(NEW YORK) — A parent has been arrested after a toddler was found with a loaded gun inside a Michigan daycare facility, authorities said.

A teacher noticed the gun Monday morning and took “immediate action,” Canton Police Chief Joseph Bialy told ABC Detroit affiliate WXYZ.

Officers then responded to the incident in Canton, just outside of Detroit, and secured the weapon, according to Canton police.

No injuries were reported.

Charges against the parent were not immediately clear, but the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office told ABC News the parent is expected to be arraigned on Thursday.

“The message here is that no matter how busy our lives are, we have a great responsibility if we’re going to choose to own a firearm,” the chief told WXYZ.

Guns are the No. 1 cause of death for children in the U.S., according to Everytown For Gun Safety.

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(NEW YORK) — A Cornell University student detailed the night that she was allegedly sexually assaulted in a statement to police two years ago — describing that she was felt incapacitated, saying she declined to participate in some of the sexual activity and that the incidents at Chi Phi fraternity house “felt like coercion,” according to a copy of the police report obtained by ABC News.

The developments in the case, which sparked a furor, come in the wake of the alleged victim in the case filing a lawsuit claiming she was gang raped and the local district attorney saying he would reopen the case.

In the Nov. 15, 2024, statement, she appeared to suggest some of the activity was consensual but detailed multiple instances where she declined to participate in certain sexual acts suggested by the men.

The woman’s statement was central to a decision by the Tompkins County District Attorney Matthew Van Houten not to bring charges in 2024 and he said that the allegations in the civil suit are “dramatically different” than those in the statement.

In an interview with ABC News this week, Van Houten described the allegations as “morally disturbing” but argued Jane Doe’s 2024 account of the incident suggested that she consented to the sexual activity.

He said that she did not withdraw her consent, and that when she raised concerns, the fraternity members “stopped and did not pursue what they were doing.”

According to her 2024 statement, Jane Doe did say that shat one point she said “no to the foursome” one of the fraternity brothers proposed, she said in her statement. At another point she recalled “a group of multiple men” walking into a room and “I was instantly horrified, and I remember squealing out loud and running across the room and hiding under the covers on another bed,” the statement said.  “I was horrified because I was really embarrassed that these individuals had seen me completely naked.”

Jane Doe used the word “rape” to explain why she took an additional hit of ketamine.

“I had become extremely uncomfortable with how this night was turning out so my thought was, if I do Ketamine again maybe I will pass out. My thought was that if I passed out and these men had sex with me, then they could be charged with Rape,” the statement said.

The men persisted, according to her statement.

During the final threesome, Jane Doe said, “I remember being totally disgusted at the situation, and I felt very tired and intoxicated. I would say that my level of overall intoxication was about a 8 out of 10 level of intoxicated. I would say that it was the most intoxicated I’ve ever been in my life. I felt like I was unable to make any decision because of how intoxicated I was,” the statement said.

“To me, that felt like coercion,” she wrote in the statement. “Also I felt like due to my intoxication, they should have known how intoxicated I was based on how I was slurring my words.”

She recalled being so “extremely tired” she simply uttered, “Sure” when a group of men asked to snort ketamine off of her body, according to her statement. “[The] group of men all started pouring various things all over my body. I couldn’t tell what they were pouring on me, as I had my face covered with my hands.”

Jane Doe said she slept until 10 a.m. and was driven home by the same Chi Phi member who had originally invited her to the house and who she said had participated in the sexual acts.

By the time she woke up that Sunday afternoon, “I was made aware that what had happened to me at Chi Phi was becoming public knowledge,” she wrote in the statement. “It was made clear to me by several friends that the members of Chi Phi were bragging about having an ‘eightsome’ with me. Some rumors said it was ten people, but nonetheless, it was now obvious that everyone knew it was me that this had happened to.”

In the civil lawsuit, filed earlier this month, the woman alleged that she was drugged, assaulted and gang raped by seven former and current members of the Chi Phi fraternity at Cornell. The lawsuit has drawn outrage and calls for an outside investigation into the matter.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul on Tuesday called for an outside investigation into Cornell University’s campus culture and its response to allegations by the student. Cornell’s Chi Phi chapter was barred from campus after the alleged Oct. 19, 2024, incident, though none of the individuals allegedly involved faced criminal charges, according to the DA.

Cornell University has said the former student’s allegations were investigated by the university’s Office of Civil Rights and the Office of Student Conduct and Community Standards under the school’s Title IX policies.

On its website, the university said the investigation was conducted over several months and included hearings before a panel of trained faculty and staff.

“At its conclusion, the hearing panel issued a range of sanctions, which included expulsions and suspensions from Cornell,” the university said.

Cornell said it took the reports “very seriously” and conducted a thorough investigation but said: “At the same time, responding to an incident of this seriousness cannot end when an investigation is completed or sanctions are imposed. We have an obligation to ask what more we can learn, what we can do better, and how we can reduce the likelihood that anything like this happens again.”

Attorneys for multiple fraternity brothers named as defendants in the civil lawsuit have denied the allegations in the complaint.

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The combination of widespread extreme heat and human-caused air pollution has exposed nearly 40% of the global population to dangerous levels of ground-level ozone so far this year, according to a new report by the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS).

The analysis shows that ozone pollution across much of the Northern Hemisphere ranks above the recommended level by the World Health Organization (WHO). Year to date, Asia is the continent most impacted by ozone pollution globally, followed by Europe and North America, according to the report.

The researchers said ground-level ozone, a pollutant that develops when specific pollutants react with sunlight and high temperatures, harms human health, ecosystems and crop yields.

“Ozone pollution is a stark reminder of how interconnected our atmosphere, climate, health, and livelihoods really are, with pollution and our changing climate impacting the chemistry of the air we breathe, determining the health of our ecosystems, and even governing our ability to grow food,” Laurence Rouil, director of CAMS, said in a statement.

The report, called Atmosphere Watch, is a new publication by CAMS. The organization provides one of the most comprehensive assessments of Earth’s atmosphere by combining satellite and ground-based observations with advanced atmospheric modelling to monitor the composition of the atmosphere globally. The findings include data through the first eight months of 2026.

In North America, ozone levels remained relatively unchanged despite rigorous efforts to reduce pollution in recent decades. According to researchers, a combination of emissions from wildfires, long-term ozone effects and climate change impacts is likely delaying progress.

According to the American Lung Association, ozone exposure this year is higher than the past five years, with more than 4 in 10 people in the United States currently living in areas with unhealthy levels of air pollution.

The report found that so far this year, Asia has faced the greatest impacts of ozone pollution, fueled by widespread anthropogenic emissions from industrialization, economic development, urban expansion and transport across the continent. Meanwhile, Oceania, which includes Australia and New Zealand, ranked as one of the cleanest regions on the planet, with 100% of the population experiencing ‘good’ and ‘fair’ levels of ozone, CAMS says.

The report also highlights the far-reaching effects of air pollution, showing how wildfire smoke, dust and other pollutants can travel thousands of miles, affecting air quality for people far from the original source.

Exposure to wildfire smoke continues to rise despite a decrease in global emissions from biomass burning in recent decades, according to researchers. This increase is primarily driven by a recent stretch of extreme wildfires that have burned near more populated areas.

Wildfires and other forms of biomass burning release numerous pollutants, including fine particulate matter and greenhouse gases. According to the WHO, 99% of the world’s population lives in areas where atmospheric pollution exceeds its air quality guidelines.

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The Transportation Security Administration says it’s taking away chairs at airport checkpoints nationwide and that TSA officers who check passengers’ IDs must stand, saying the move is designed to help officers remain alert.

“This welcome change reinforces both our security posture and our commitment to hospitality by having these officers on their feet and alert,” a TSA spokesperson said in a statement to ABC News. “All officers must meet fitness for duty requirements to be capable of performing their vital national security function while simultaneously creating a welcoming and professional environment for travelers.”  

The union representing TSA workers is pushing back on the chair ban, saying they were not consulted before the decision was made and that “these chairs serve as basic ergonomic and safety support for officers that stand and walk on hard surfaces all day. TSA is treating this matter like it is a privilege it is not; it is basic safety and common decency for the workforce.” 

The union has advised its local leaders to communicate with officers, as they “are moving aggressively to address this matter,” urging all members to also reach out to their congressional leaders to express their concern over the decision. 

“This disregard for employee rights and safety is an example of a broad pattern of TSA’s true consideration of the employees who keep our nation safe,” the union said.

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(NEW YORK) — A verdict has been reached in the murder trial of an Ohio man accused of fatally shooting his wife, who had called 911 to report that an intruder broke into their home and killed the mother of two.

Caleb Flynn, 40, who once appeared as a contestant on “American Idol” in 2013, was charged with aggravated murder, murder, felonious assault and tampering with evidence in connection with the death of his wife, 37-year-old Ashley Flynn. He has pleaded not guilty.

The jury deliberated for nearly 2 1/2 hours before reaching a verdict Tuesday afternoon. The verdict has not yet been announced.

The former pastor called 911 early on Feb. 16 to report that his wife had been shot by an intruder at their home in Tipp City, north of Dayton. He was arrested three days later.

Prosecutors alleged that Caleb Flynn “executed” his wife by shooting her twice in the back of the head in bed so that he could be with his mistress and manipulated the crime scene to make it seem as if an intruder had broken in through the garage.

Miami County Assistant Prosecutor Matthew Joseph pointed to evidence including the physical scene, 911 call, text messages between Caleb Flynn and his mistress discussing the end of his marriage and digital records from the night of the shooting, which he argued “leads straight to the defendant.”

“The evidence showed that being the victim would allow the defendant to keep his lucrative job working for Ashley’s family business, he would benefit from Ashley’s life insurance, and he could keep his position as a working worship leader with zero impact to his reputation within the church,” Joseph said during closing arguments Tuesday in the Miami County courtroom. “The evidence does not tell the story of an intruder.”

Joseph argued that key details in Caleb Flynn’s recounting of what happened that night changed, and at the time when he told investigators he was sleeping before being woken up by gunshots, “his devices say he was awake and moving.”

No gun has been found in the shooting, though Joseph told jurors that the recovery of the gun is not an element the state has to prove.

“But you heard the defendant kept a 9mm handgun in his truck console. His truck was parked in the garage. That console was up before law enforcement arrived and the gun was missing,” Joseph said. “You heard that Ashley was shot twice in her head with 9mm bullets.”

Defense attorney Patrick Mulligan argued during his closing that the state’s evidence is circumstantial, and that the only thing prosecutors proved was that Caleb Flynn was having an affair.

“Connecting a couple of meaningless dots doesn’t solve the case,” Mulligan told jurors.

Mulligan said Caleb Flynn voluntarily spoke with detectives three times when he “didn’t have to,” consented to a search of his home and phone and voluntarily gave his fingerprints.

“He wanted to figure out who shot Ashley,” Mulligan said.

On rebuttal, Miami County prosecuting attorney Paul Watkins urged jurors to use “common sense” and argued that the “evidence is clear” that Caleb Flynn is guilty.

The evidence in the case did not begin with the two gunshots, but months earlier, he argued, citing text messages between the defendant and his mistress, Alleigha Botner.

“The defendant, he had Alleigha, and he wanted out of his marriage,” Watkins said. “The evidence shows that his feelings toward Ashley went far beyond simply wanting a divorce. He hated her.”

Watkins said the language in the more than 100,000 messages Caleb Flynn and his mistress had sent each other “escalated” in months before the shooting while recounting some of the texts, including one from the defendant that said, “I want my girls full time in a life with you, but I can’t have both. So I weigh the options, and I choose you.”

“Not just hours before Ashley’s execution, the defendant wrote this: ‘Actions will come tomorrow. I’ll never not be scared to do this, as I never want to hurt my daughters. That will always be there. But this month away from you has terrified me beyond belief,'” Watkins said, continuing to read the message. “‘I know I can’t live without you, and so again, if this gives me a 1% chance to spend my life with you, it’s the 100% right decision. I choose you. I’m free.'”

“We are not here only because of someone’s words,” Watkins told jurors. “We are here because the defendant put actions to those words. The defendant made decisions.”

Twenty days before Ashley Flynn was killed, Watkins said Caleb Flynn removed security cameras that had been in his home for years, including one that would have captured an intruder coming in from the garage. The day of the shooting, Watkins said the evidence shows that the defendant was also deleting apps off his phone and trying to delete his messages.

“In the hours after Ashley was murdered, the defendant was not mourning the death of his wife. He was whispering to his mistress, ‘It didn’t happen the way we thought it would,'” Watkins said. “I am confident after you deliberate, your verdict will tell the world this case did not end the way the defendant thought it would. The defendant wanted a new life. He wanted Ashley out of their life, and he didn’t want to face the consequences of making the choice to pursue divorce.”

Caleb Flynn could be seen crying throughout the closing arguments. He did not testify during the trial and the defense called no witnesses.

He denied killing his spouse in an interview with police days after the deadly shooting, according to video shown during the trial.

His former mistress testified for the state during the trial, reading from some of the more than 100,000 messages they exchanged over her two days of testimony.

“If I could literally kill her and not go to hell, I would do it in a heartbeat,” Caleb Flynn said in one message from May 2025, Botner testified.

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(WASHINGTON) — The Trump administration can continue deporting migrants to third countries without prior notice after the Supreme Court on Tuesday paused a lower court order blocking the controversial policy.

In granting the government’s request for a stay, the high court on Tuesday cleared federal officials to enforce rapid third-country removals for now while also agreeing to take up the case for oral argument in December.

Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented.

Earlier this month, a three-judge panel for the First Circuit ruled that immigrants were not receiving adequate notice before being deported to nations where they have no ties or connections.

“An individual’s right to contest removal to a country based on a fear of persecution in that country means little if one does not receive prior notice of the intended removal destination and a meaningful opportunity to contest that destination,” wrote Circuit Judge Seth Aframe.

About 25,000 people have been deported to so-called third countries during the Trump administration’s ongoing immigration crackdown, according to the immigrant rights organizations Human Rights First and Refugees International.

According to immigration lawyers and advocates, third-country removals are not new, but they are rare. In recent months, the Trump administration has ramped up third-country deportations after creating a web of formal deals with nearly three dozen countries to deport asylum seekers, refugees, and migrants with criminal records with little to no warning.

ABC News previously interviewed a group of Latin American men who were deported to the Central African Republic and were not informed of their destination until several hours into the flight.

“I feel kidnapped,” one of the men, Aristides Fernandez Garcia, said. “They have violated all the rights that exist in life, because we are human beings.”

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An elderly couple was arrested in connection with the shooting death of their son-in-law, a director for the New York Times’ games division, over the weekend in California, police said.

While court documents detailed a long a history between Jonathan McKinsey and his in-laws, Shouyong Zhang and Shili Chen, and a divorce between McKinsey and his wife, investigators didn’t immediately disclose a motive behind Saturday’s shooting.

McKinsey, 40, of Dublin, California was found by an officer in the parking lot of a sports complex Saturday afternoon with multiple gunshot wounds and was pronounced dead at the scene, the Dublin Police Services said in a statement.

Eyewitnesses helped officers track Zhang and Chen, both 77, and they were arrested on suspicion of murder, police said. They were set to be arraigned on their charges Wednesday morning, the Alameda County District Attorney said.

Attorney information for the suspects wasn’t immediately available.

The New York Times said in a statement that McKinsey was director of engineering for the games department and joined the news company in 2023.

The investigation is ongoing, police said.

Court documents detailed a nearly year-long divorce battle between McKinsey and his estranged wife Candice Jang, that included accusations of abuse and domestic violence.

The documents show that Jang obtained a domestic violence order of protection against McKinsey in October 2025 after he was arrested for allegedly striking their son.

McKinsey was charged with two counts of child abuse and pleaded not guilty, according to court documents. His trial was pending before his death, and he had a pre-trial hearing schedule for October, according to court documents.

McKinsey, who was transgender, claimed his wife framed him in the incident and accused Jang and her parents of abuse and using anti-LGBTQ slurs against him during arguments in a restraining order filed in December 2025, court documents said.

He filed for divorce that same month, court records show.

Jang denied her husband’s allegations in court filings.

The couple, who had two other children, were living separately at the time of his death, according to court documents.

Jang’s attorney didn’t immediately respond to ABC News for comment.

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(NEW YORK) — New York Gov. Kathy Hochul on Tuesday called for an outside investigation into Cornell University’s campus culture and its response to allegations by an unidentified female former student that she was raped by several men at a fraternity there in 2024.

The governor said in part that she is seeking to determine whether “Cornell met every obligation to protect its students and pursue justice.”

“The allegations in this case are nothing short of horrifying. For any student to come forward after an experience like this takes extraordinary courage,” Hochul said in her statement.

“I support the district attorney’s decision to reopen the criminal investigation. But there are also serious questions about Cornell’s campus culture and its systems for prevention, reporting, and response,” Hochul’s statement continued. “That is why I am calling for outside counsel to conduct a transparent, independent review of the university’s response to determine whether Cornell met every obligation to protect its students and pursue justice.”

“No student should ever be left wondering whether the institutions meant to protect them will listen and act,” the statement also said.

“Cornell shares Governor Hochul’s commitment to addressing campus culture issues, which affect universities across the nation and New York. We are committed to continuing to work with state officials to advance student safety and wellbeing,” a Cornell spokesperson said in a statement provided to ABC News.

Prosecutors in central New York this week announced that they are reopening the investigation of the alleged sexual assault after a former Cornell student filed a civil lawsuit alleging that she was drugged, assaulted and gang raped by seven former and current members of the Chi Phi fraternity at Cornell, sparking outrage about the incident. 

Tompkins County District Attorney Matthew Van Houten said in a statement that his office is considering whether to bring criminal charges related to the incident, though he said the allegations in the civil complaint are “dramatically different” than the woman’s statement to police two years ago.

In an interview with ABC News, Van Houten acknowledged that he relied on the investigation conducted by Cornell Police and said his office didn’t “independently investigate” the allegations.

Ithaca Mayor Robert Cantelmo said on Monday that he would issue a directive for the city to stop issuing permits for student events at Cornell “until such time that the University conducts an accounting of its protocols to prevent and prosecute crimes of sexual violence and publicly releases new standards and practices to keep our community safe.” 

“Despite the severity of these crimes, Cornell University administrators and police failed to contact or coordinate any response with the Ithaca Police Department. Furthermore, the University failed to hold the perpetrators to account,” Cantelmo’s statement said. “This is a miscarriage of justice and continues to pose a significant threat to students and residents who may be victimized at unsafe and under-monitored on- or off-campus student events.”

Ithaca’s Common Council would have to adopt the resolution for it to take effect.

The Ithaca Police Department said in a statement Monday that the alleged incident wasn’t reported to them at the time and that they “learned of these allegations recently through the media.”

“We understand these allegations are being taken very seriously by Cornell University and the Tomkins County District Attorney’s Office,” the statement further said. “We encourage members of our community to report allegations to the Ithaca Police Department.”

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