分类： society

Nearly two years after an alleged sexual assault at an Ivy League campus, New York state prosecutors have relaunched a criminal inquiry into claims that seven Cornell University fraternity members gang-raped a drugged 20-year-old undergraduate in 2024. The case, which has ignited widespread public outrage over allegations the elite school failed to hold perpetrators accountable, is now set to move before a grand jury for formal consideration of criminal charges.

The accuser, identified only as Jane Doe in court documents, filed a 101-page civil lawsuit against Cornell, the local Chi Phi fraternity chapter and the seven accused men on September 16 this year. In her legal filing, Doe detailed the alleged October 19, 2024 attack: after leaving her sorority sisters to visit a friend at the Chi Phi house in Ithaca, New York, she became heavily intoxicated and was given the sedative drug ketamine without her consent. She says she was unable to give legal consent, and the seven men assaulted her over the course of several hours. The accused group has become widely known as the “Cornell Seven”.

Court documents include a screenshot of a group chat for active Chi Phi members, where members discussed the incident using vulgar language, referring to Doe as available for a “free” sexual encounter just before 2 a.m. local time on October 20. Two days after the alleged attack, CBS News New York obtained text messages from one of the accused men that appear to show him apologizing for how events unfolded. He wrote that his memory was “kinda fuzzy”, and that he and another defendant felt guilty for being too drunk to stop the assault before it escalated out of control. Doe replied that her memory was also clouded by alcohol, and she suggested meeting again without the additional men and ketamine, a message her legal team has framed as a trauma response rather than a reflection of consent. She officially reported the incident to Cornell University Police on November 8, 2024, more than two weeks after the attack.

The lawsuit sparked national anger after Doe alleged Cornell refused to properly investigate or punish the men involved, claiming the school allowed most perpetrators to avoid severe sanctions by only requiring them to submit essays about their conduct. Doe’s legal team confirmed two of the seven accused were ultimately expelled, but the lack of broader disciplinary action led the Cornell Daily Sun, the university’s independent student newspaper, to take the unprecedented step of publishing the full names of all seven defendants in a September 21 editorial titled “Cornell Won’t, We Will”. The move amplified widespread outcry across social media, putting increasing pressure on state and county authorities to revisit the criminal case.

Cornell has repeatedly pushed back against Doe’s claims that it failed to act. In multiple official statements, the university confirmed it immediately suspended the Chi Phi chapter and several students after the report, launched a Title IX civil rights inquiry and referred the case to a trained internal disciplinary panel that issued a range of sanctions, including expulsions and suspensions. The school did not deny that some students were required to write essays as part of their consequences, but emphasized that no defendant was allowed to use an essay as their sole punishment. “The events that took place on our campus in 2024 were appalling then and remain so now,” the university said in a recent statement, adding that it is committed to fostering a campus culture that does not tolerate sexual misconduct. The Chi Phi Xi chapter has remained closed and barred from campus since 2024. Cornell also confirmed that campus police turned over evidence, including the Snapchat group chat image, to prosecutors shortly after the incident was reported.

On September 29 this year, Tompkins County District Attorney Matthew Van Houten announced his office would reopen the dormant criminal investigation. When the incident was first reported in 2024, Van Houten said, prosecutors determined the initial evidence from Doe’s official statement did not meet the legal threshold to file criminal charges. Now, in light of the new allegations and evidence introduced in the civil lawsuit, the case will be presented to a grand jury, which will review all evidence and testimony to decide if criminal charges are warranted. Prosecutors have said they will pursue the case “in the most objective and impartial means possible.”

Van Houten also publicly noted a key discrepancy between Doe’s 2024 sworn statement to police and the allegations laid out in her recent civil suit. “Jane Doe’s sworn statement in November of 2024 did not allege that she was drugged against her will or gang raped,” he said. “On the contrary, Jane Doe’s statement described her participation in drug use and sexual conduct as voluntary, conscious, and consensual.” However, CBS News New York reports it has obtained a full transcript of Doe’s November 2024 interviews with campus police that contradicts this summary. In the transcript, Doe acknowledges she consented to an initial sexual encounter, but told investigators she can say “with 100% confidence I was raped” when the incident escalated beyond what she agreed to.

For anyone experiencing trauma or emotional distress related to sexual violence, support is available through global and national mental health organizations including Befrienders Worldwide.

Every autumn, as Alaska’s Katmai National Park prepares for the long, frozen winter, the global internet turns its attention to one of the most whimsical and beloved annual wildlife competitions: Fat Bear Week. This year marks the 13th iteration of the unusual contest, and after weeks of public voting that pitted some of the park’s most impressive brown bears against one another, 89 Backpack — better known simply as Backpack — has taken the 2026 championship title.

Organized by the U.S. National Park Service, Fat Bear Week celebrates the critical annual ritual of brown bears packing on fat reserves ahead of their months-long winter hibernation. The event frames this biological necessity as a friendly competition, judged entirely by public vote, that pits bears against one another based on their size, foraging skill, ability to secure nutrient-rich meals, and what organizers jokingly call “strategic loafing” — the energy-conserving resting that helps bears hold onto every calorie they consume.

In this year’s final showdown, Backpack secured a narrow victory over fellow finalist Bear 910, a popular female competitor. Final vote counts put Backpack at 103,344 votes, compared to 910’s 98,253, capping a weeks-long bracketed tournament that included 16 unwitting bear participants. In a statement following the results, the National Park Service extended recognition to all 16 bears that took part in this year’s contest.

Backpack is no stranger to Fat Bear Week fame; his mother, Holly, claimed the championship title back in 2019. The young male bear got his unusual name not from his famously bulky frame — which fans have described as having a distinct “light bulb shape” — but from a habit he developed as a tiny cub: when his mother Holly waded through Brooks River, the park’s famous salmon-rich waterway, he would climb onto her back to cross. Longtime observers of the park’s brown bear population note that Backpack has built a reputation for quiet toughness, a trait that has helped him carve out a stable space for himself among the largest, most dominant bears along the river. Fans have showered him with affectionate nicknames, calling him a “big fuzzy boy” and celebrating that he has both “the chonk and the badonk.”

Not everyone was satisfied with the final result, however. Backpack’s victory sparked fierce friendly debate among fans of runner-up 910, a female bear who successfully raised both her own biological cub and an adopted orphaned cub this year. Many 910 supporters argued that she was the larger, more deserving competitor, with one commentator noting “Backpack just has a bigger booty,” and another writing on the park’s official Facebook page that “910 really put in the work this year.” Other 910 voters echoed the sentiment, with one comment reading “She round, she thick my girl 910 got my vote.”

While the official latest weights of this year’s finalists have not been released to the public, wildlife biologists note that healthy adult brown bears follow a predictable annual weight cycle. In mid-summer, the average adult male weighs around 408 kilograms, but by autumn, most will pack on an extra 25% of their initial body weight in fat, with the largest males topping 540 kilograms. Females are smaller on average, but healthy breeding females can still reach weights over 300 kilograms, while newborn cubs emerge weighing just half a kilogram.

The entire point of this pre-hibernation weight gain is a matter of life and death for Alaska’s brown bears. As contest organizers explain, during hibernation — which can last up to six months — bears do not eat, drink, or eliminate waste, and they lose roughly one-third of their total body weight over the course of the winter. A bear’s ability to survive the cold season, and emerge healthy in spring, depends entirely on how much fat they are able to accumulate between June and mid-October, when they retreat to their dens. During those months, bears gorge almost constantly, with the nutrient-dense salmon that fill Brooks River serving as their primary food source, caught by either paw or jaw.

Fat Bear Week has grown exponentially in global popularity since its launch 13 years ago. Last year alone, the contest drew more than 1.7 million votes from voters in over 100 countries around the world, turning ordinary brown bears in rural Alaska into global internet celebrities and raising public awareness of brown bear ecology and conservation in the process. For this year’s champion Backpack, the victory comes just in time: he will soon retreat to his den to settle in for months of hibernation, resting on his (very large) laurels ahead of next year’s contest.

One of Southern California’s most iconic and high-adrenaline amusement park attractions is closing its gates for good, following years of safety allegations, hundreds of injury claims, and a high-profile wrongful death lawsuit that put the ride’s design under intense public scrutiny. Six Flags Magic Mountain, located north of Los Angeles, confirmed this week that it will permanently retire the X2 roller coaster, a 22-year-old 360-degree spinning thrill ride that long drew packed lines and a reputation as one of the park’s most exciting offerings. The ride has been shuttered since July this year, and the permanent closure announcement comes amid mounting legal pressure from hundreds of former visitors who allege the ride caused life-altering brain damage.

In a public statement announcing the permanent retirement, Six Flags Magic Mountain President Brian Oerding emphasized that the company’s own internal testing had not found active safety failures. “Ride safety has always been the foundation of our operations,” Oerding said. “When we recognized that guest trust in this ride had been irreparably impacted, we made the decision to retire it because it was the right thing to do for our community and our visitors.”

But for the law firms representing the hundreds of claimants, the decision comes far too late to undo the harm done. Dordick Law Corporation, which represents dozens of plaintiffs in civil suits against Six Flags over X2, says it has been contacted by more than 700 people who say they developed serious brain injuries after riding the coaster. “Visitors got on X2 looking for a fun, thrilling day out,” the firm said in a statement responding to the closure. “Instead, they walked away with catastrophic, life-changing brain injuries. Some required emergency brain surgery, and others are still fighting years later to rebuild the lives they lost.” While the firm acknowledged that closing the ride will prevent future harm to new visitors, it noted that the decision provides no compensation or remedy for the people already injured by the attraction.

The history of X2 stretches back to 2002, when the ride first opened to the public under the original name X. Almost immediately after opening, reports of design flaws forced Six Flags to shut it down for months of emergency repairs, the Los Angeles Times first reported. The ride reopened only to be shuttered again in 2007, when park officials replaced the original heavy trains with lighter models to reduce stress on the track and structures. It reopened under the new name X2 in 2008, and over its decades of operation, more than 16 million visitors rode the attraction, according to Six Flags data.

The most high-profile case linked to X2 is the 2022 death of 22-year-old Christopher Hawley, who died days after riding the roller coaster. Hawley’s family reached a settlement in their wrongful death lawsuit against Six Flags this past August. In a statement to the BBC, Brent Wisner, an attorney with Wisner Baum LLP representing the Hawley family, said the closure does not erase the failure that allowed a dangerous ride to operate for nearly 20 years.

“The Hawley family is relieved to know that no other visitors will be put at risk on X2, but that does not bring Christopher back, and it does not change the fact that he was killed by a dangerous roller coaster that was permitted to operate for almost two decades,” Wisner said. He called the closure insufficient, and argued that the case points to a broader failure of regulatory oversight in the amusement park industry. “That tragedy can never be undone,” Wisner added. “We cannot depend on profit-focused corporations to do the right thing only after hundreds of people have been injured and one has been killed. We need legal reform, stronger proactive regulation, and consistent governmental oversight to keep visitors safe. We can only hope that whatever attraction replaces X2 meets far higher safety standards.”