Delaware
Pa, NJ, Delaware campuses rise up against Gaza war – WHYY
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Hundreds of students and faculty are getting arrested on college campuses nationwide for setting up encampments and protesting against the U.S.’s stance on the war in Gaza. In the Philadelphia and tri-state area, the protests have remained largely peaceful so far, but tensions are beginning to flare.
This week there was a large gathering involving students from several area universities and new encampments have sprouted in some of the universities and colleges in the tri-state area.
Here’s what’s going on at campuses around the region:
University of Pennsylvania
Students at Philadelphia’s Ivy League school have started an encampment at the College Greens in the center of the university just steps away from a statue of American revolutionary Benjamin Franklin. Penn was the final stop of the march across the city Thursday, which included students from Temple University and Drexel University. Later that evening, some students pitched tents, the number of which has now ballooned to dozens.
Late Friday night, the university’s interim president, J. Larry Jameson, ordered students to disband the encampment after a campus statue was vandalized. The student activists have said that they will stay put until their demands for the university to cut financial ties with Israel are met. The university already shut down the local chapter of Students Against the Occupation.
Penn has not fared well during the recent tension at universities related to the war in Gaza. Their last president, Liz Magill, resigned after a poorly received Congressional appearance.
Swarthmore University
Swarthmore University students have also set up an encampment occupying Parrish Lawn with a few dozen tents. Like at Penn, students there are also demanding that the university divest from Israel.
Unlike Penn, however, the university officials have said they respect the students’ right to assemble. “In keeping with the College’s long standing values around peaceful protest and free expression, we have not interfered with the encampment,” Vice President for Communications Andy Hirsch said in a statement to the student paper. In January, University President Val Smith emailed the community that “Peaceful protest and dissent are an important part of the College’s history.”
Princeton University
Students at Princeton started to set up an encampment despite warnings from the school’s Department of Safety. Two graduate students–Achinthya Sivalingam and Hassan Sayed–were arrested. They are facing disciplinary action and have been barred from campus. Hundreds of Princeton students had joined the nationwide walkouts in October.
Delaware
Nearly 60 year old Christmas tree farm in Delaware to close for good
This holiday season, the very last of one local family’s Christmas trees are being shaken, bundled and getting their fresh cuts.
After this Christmas Eve, the Poynter’s Tree Farm and ornament shop is closing for good.
The family behind the beloved holiday tradition says that they’ll miss their customers, but they say this is just the right time to say goodbye.
Jeannie Wood and her father made their very first sale back in 1970 when Bob and Bonnie Poynter started the farm in Felton, Delaware, to help pay for their three daughters’ college dreams.
The farm became a tradition for many in Kent County and a way for the family to come back together every holiday season.
We’ve all been doing it for a long time so I think we are all ready to retire,” Wood told NBC10. My dad and I planted the first trees in 1967.”
When Bob Poynter died a few years ago followed by his wife Bonnie last summer, the family agreed that this year would be the last for the tree farm.
“It’s going to be different but I don’t know what it’s gonna be like because we’ve never experienced it. We’ve always been doing this,” Wood said.
From the Christmas shop to the wreath workshop, it’s a bittersweet moment for the family and for their loyal customers.
Many of the customers come from a couple of hours away just to buy their tree at Poynter’s every year.
All of the trees that are ready for sale have been sold already. Before the family sells the land, they will have to decide what to do with all of the little trees that are still too small to be sold this year.
If you want to check out Poynter’s before they close, you have until Christmas Eve to shop for ornaments and nutcrackers.
Delaware
Biden honors the memory of his late first wife and baby daughter who died in a 1972 car crash
Associated Press
WILMINGTON, Del. (AP) — President Joe Biden is remembering his first wife and baby daughter who were killed in a car crash in Delaware in 1972 weeks after he was first elected to the Senate. Biden, his current wife Jill, and son Hunter and his family attended a private memorial mass at a Delaware church on Wednesday’s 52nd anniversary of their deaths. Biden was in Washington when he was informed about the crash that killed his wife, Neilia, and year-old daughter, Naomi, a week before Christmas. Their young sons, Beau and Hunter, were gravely injured. Beau died of brain cancer in 2015 at age 46.
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Delaware
Gunshot victim flags down school bus for help in Delaware
Wednesday, December 18, 2024 5:01AM
NEW CASTLE, Del. (WPVI) — A gunshot victim jumped on a school bus full of students on Tuesday while trying to seek help in New Castle, Delaware.
The shooting happened just before 4 p.m. on Old Forge Road, near Appleby Road.
The bus driver called 911 to report the incident.
Police say the victim is hospitalized at Christiana Hospital. There was no word on his condition.
No other injuries were reported.
Further details on the shooting have not been released.
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