Northeast
Fake Yale student scandal raises alarms over academic fraud, foreign influence risks
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An Ivy League student accused of making up an entire life story to gain admission was expelled earlier this semester, prompting fresh concerns over academic fraud and gaps in university vetting that experts say could also expose elite institutions to foreign influence and espionage risks.
At Yale University in Connecticut, administrators recently kicked out an undergrad student identified as “Katherina Lynn” after she allegedly lied about her background, according to the Yale Daily News, a student-run paper.
She reportedly comes from California’s Bay Area but adopted a “Western name” to distance herself from her Chinese-American roots, the online magazine Air Mail reported, and allegedly concocted a fake origin story, reinventing herself as a daughter of rural North Dakota.
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Cleanup crews work on an oil spill just north of Tioga, North Dakota, Oct 24, 2013. The town is where an alleged Yale fraudster claimed to be from. She was really from California’s wealthy Bay Area. (Ken Cedeno/Corbis via Getty Images)
“She knew that… when it comes to diversity, it’s not just about race,” said Adam Nguyen, founder of Ivy Link and a former Columbia admissions advisor. “Diversity for colleges has a much broader definition. It also includes socioeconomic diversity… and geographic diversity. So she made herself into basically a White applicant with a very Caucasian-sounding name from a little town in North Dakota.”
Next, she spent years plotting to fool Ivy League admissions teams and forging paperwork until she wound up as a Yale freshman. It was a suspicious roommate who uncovered the scheme, according to the report — by looking at her luggage tags and finding another name and address.
“As with any institution, whether it’s elite universities like Columbia, Harvard, Yale or workplaces, any employer, you’ll see that if someone has the intent and the talent to do it, they can get through the screening process, whether it’s faking your transcript, faking employment record, faking even testimonials from former employers or teachers, etc.,” Nguyen said. “So you’re seeing that here, this particular individual went through great lengths, right, and knew how to do all the right things. That said, the college admissions process is essentially trust but verify. Right now, they use different things like software, they do spot checking, but at the end of the day, it’s not 100% foolproof.”
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Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, which recently expelled a freshman student after reportedly learning that she’d misrepresented her academic credentials to get accepted. (Plexi Images/GHI/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
While there’s no evidence she has ties to a foreign government, the scandal raises questions about keeping schools safe from bad actors.
The State Department has been warning of Chinese influence on American and Canadian university campuses going back to at least 2020, when officials said Chinese government-linked groups were using academic partnerships and exchange programs to collect sensitive research and influence U.S. students and faculty.
And the Heritage Foundation lists the infiltration of the Chinese Communist Party into American education as a threat at “all levels” of academia, from kindergarten classrooms up to elite universities.
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The Old Campus Courtyard at Yale University on Sept. 28, 2022, in New Haven, Connecticut. (Stan Godlewski for The Washington Post via Getty Images)
Nguyen said graduate programs could pose the highest risk, because students often gain access to sensitive research and laboratory systems.
The recent exposure of an Iowa superintendent as an illegal immigrant with a criminal record and allegedly falsified academic background is yet another example of lax vetting in education.
Ian Roberts, who had been superintendent of Des Moines Public Schools, was making $270,000 a year. And the district announced a lawsuit this month against the consulting firm that helped hire him.
Former Des Moines superintendent Ian Andre Roberts, who was detained by ICE and federally charged. (Polk County Sheriff)
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Last year, after a web sleuth exposed a student from India as an academic fraud, Lehigh University in Pennsylvania launched an internal investigation into its admissions process, according to The Brown and White, a campus newspaper.
The student, identified as then-19-year-old Aryan Anand, allegedly outlined his scheme in a Reddit post that described using a sock puppet email to pose as his high school principal, faking his father’s death to get more financial aid money, editing his transcripts and tax fraud, the student outlet reported.
And then the internal probe led to criminal charges against four more students from Ghana who were accused of financial aid fraud.
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Yale University campus in New Haven, Connecticut, on April 7, 2024. (Joe Buglewicz/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
The Lehigh scandals prompted the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington think tank that advocates for lower immigration levels, to urge Homeland Security Investigations to launch a wider review last year.
“If a random slacker can pull off this scam, terrorists and the Chinese government can, too,” the think tank warned, while also noting one of the 9/11 hijackers had been in the U.S. on a student visa, and immigration authorities denied entry to five other would-be conspirators, finding they were not students or tourists as they claimed.
The Yale University campus on April 4, 2015. It is a private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, founded in 1701. (iStock)
“There’s always going to be some successful fraudster that will make it through,” Nguyen said. “That will make for a good story, but the vast majority of students are legitimate.”
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And if “Katherina Lynn” had put as much effort into her studies as her fake background story, she could probably have gotten into an elite school on her own merit, he said.
Fox News’ Alec Schemmel contributed to this report.
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Northeast
Man with machete shot and killed by police, who then find 3 more dead inside home: officials
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Officials in Piscataway, New Jersey, noted Tuesday that an individual with a machete was shot and killed by police, who then found the subject’s mother and grandparents dead inside a home, WABC reported.
Piscataway Mayor Brian Wahler noted that the suspect’s father dialed 911, the outlet noted.
When authorities arrived at the home, the man had a machete, authorities said, according to the outlet. Authorities attempted to utilize tasers against the man but indicated it did not stop the suspect, WABC noted.
He allegedly charged at law enforcement officers with the weapon, and they opened fire and killed him, the outlet reported.
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Authorities with the Piscataway Police Department responded to a 911 call about someone with a knife. (Kyle Mazza/UNF News/Shutterstock)
After the shooting, police found three people dead in the home, a press release from the New Jersey attorney general’s office notes.
“The Office of Public Integrity and Accountability is investigating a fatal officer-involved shooting that occurred on Monday, January 5, 2026, in Piscataway Township in Middlesex County, New Jersey,” the release states.
Preliminary information indicated that authorities with the Piscataway Police Department had responded to a 911 call from someone who reported a person with a knife, the release indicates.
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Police shot a man armed with a knife Jan. 5, 2026, in New Jersey. (Kyle Mazza/UNF News/Shutterstock)
“Officers subsequently shot and killed a man armed with a knife who they encountered at the residence,” the press release noted.
“A 2019 law … requires the Attorney General’s Office to conduct investigations of a person’s death that occurs during an encounter with a law enforcement officer acting in the officer’s official capacity or while the decedent is in custody. It requires that all such investigations be presented to a grand jury to determine if the evidence supports the return of an indictment against the officer or officers involved,” the release explains.
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Law enforcement shot a person armed with a knife in New Jersey. (Kyle Mazza/UNF News/Shutterstock)
According to a post on X, New Jersey State Policemen’s Benevolent Association President Peter Andreyev noted, “We are aware of the horrific crime in Middlesex County tonight. All our members that were involved are being evaluated. Thank you to all who have reached to offer support.”
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Boston, MA
Battenfeld: Michelle Wu should demand better security after Boston Medical Center rape
In the middle of Michelle Wu’s orchestrated inaugural celebration, prosecutors described a senseless hospital horror that unfolded at Boston Medical Center – a rape of a partially paralyzed patient allegedly by a mentally ill man allowed to freely roam the hospital’s hallways.
It happened in September in what is supposed to be a safe haven but too often is a dangerous campus. Drug addicts with needles frequently openly camp in front of the hospital, and in early December a security guard suffered serious injuries in a stabbing on the BMC campus. The alleged assailant was finally subdued by other security guards after a struggle.
In the September incident, prosecutors described in court this week how the 55-year-old alleged rapist Barry Howze worked his way under the terrified victim’s bed in the BMC emergency room and sexually assaulted her.
“This assault was brutal and brazen, and occurred in a place where people go for help,” Suffolk County prosecutor Kate Fraiman said. “Due to her partial paralysis, she could not reach her phone, which was under her body at the time.”
Howze, who reportedly has a history of violent offenses and mental illness, was able to flee the scene but was arrested two days later at the hospital when he tried to obtain a visitor’s pass and was recognized by security. Howze’s attorney blamed hospital staff for allowing him the opportunity to commit the crime and some city councilors are demanding answers.
“This was a horrific and violent sexual assault on a defenseless patient,” Councilor Ed Flynn said. “The safety and security of patients and staff at the hospital can’t be ignored any longer. The hospital leadership must make immediate and major changes and upgrades to their security department.”
Flynn also sent a letter to BMC CEO Alastair Bell questioning how the assailant was allowed to commit the rape.
Where is Wu? She was too busy celebrating herself with a weeklong inaugural of her second term to deal with the rape at the medical center, which is near the center of drug-ravaged Mass and Cass.
If the rape had happened at a suburban hospital, people would be demanding investigations and accountability.
But in Boston, Wu takes credit for running the “safest major city in the country” while often ignoring crimes.
Wu should intervene and demand better security and safety for the staff and patients at BMC.
Although the hospital is no longer run by the city, it has a historic connection with City Hall. It is used by Boston residents, many of them poor and disabled or from marginalized communities. She should be out front like Flynn demanding accountability from the hospital.
Boston Medical Center, located in the city’s South End, is the largest “safety-net” hospital in New England. It is partially overseen by the Boston Public Health Commission, whose members are appointed by the mayor.
BMC was formed in 1996 by the Thomas Menino administration as a merger between the city-owned Boston City Hospital, which first opened in 1864, and Boston University Medical Center.
Menino called the merger “the most important thing I will do as mayor.”
When he was appointed CEO by the hospital board of trustees in 2023, Bell offered recycled Wu-speak to talk about how BMC was trying to “reshape” how the hospital delivers health care.
“The way we think about the health of our patients and members extends beyond traditional medicine to environmental sustainability and issues such as housing, food insecurity, and economic mobility, as we study the root causes of health inequities and empower all of our patients and communities to thrive,” Bell said.
But the hospital has been plagued by security issues in the last few years, and a contract dispute with the nurses’ union. The nurses at BMC’s Brighton campus authorized a three-day strike late last year over management demands to cut staffing and retirement benefits.
Kirsten Ransom, BMC Brighton RN and Massachusetts Nurses Association co-chair, said, “This vote sends a clear message that our members are united in our commitment to make a stand for our patients, our community and our professional integrity in the wake of this blatant effort to balance BMC’s budget on the backs of those who have the greatest impact on the safety of the patients and the future success of this facility.”
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