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WEDNESDAY
feb. 24, 2016 high 44°, low 44°
t h e i n de p e n de n t s t u de n t n e w s pa p e r of s y r a c u s e , n e w yor k |
N • Father charged
The father of the 21-month-old child who was the subject of an Amber Alert Sunday was charged in the second degree for the murder of his daughter. Page 3
O • Power outage
Business columnist Theo Horn argues that the ordeal between local power plants and the state government is representative of an industry spiraling out of control. Page 5
dailyorange.com
S • Standing tall
P • One shot
SU’s Valeria Salazar is 11-4 this season. She’s battled several injuries in her career and is one of just three returning players on SU this season. Page 16
In the One-Take Super 8 festival, participants get one chance to shoot a film and don’t see it until it is shown for the first time in front of an audience. Page 9
Students start petition Community members stand in solidarity with Indian university By Sara Swann Asst. news editor
Sixty-six members of the Syracuse University, Colgate University and SUNY-ESF communities have signed a statement of solidarity for students at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, India. Kanhaiya Kumar, the JNU student union head, organized a student protest at the university on Feb. 9 in response to the 2013 hanging of Mohammed Afzal Guru, a Kashmiri man convicted of the 2001 Parliament attacks, according to BBC. At the protest, “anti-India slogans” were allegedly raised.
66
The number of SU, SUNY-ESF and Colgate community members who have signed the petition
As a result of the protest, Kumar was arrested by Indian law enforcement on sedition charges, according to BBC. Five other students were also named for arrest on the same charges, but those students went missing before the arrests could be made. The signatories from SU, Colgate and the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry said in a statement that they stand in solidarity with the “comrades” at JNU against the “ongoing anti-democratic actions by the Indian state.” “We demand an immediate end to the police action against students on campus, and withdrawal of all charges against Kanhaiya Kumar, President of the JNU Students’ Union,” the petition reads. “We further demand that the Central Government put an immediate end to its prejudiced persecution of student activists on campuses across the country.” The petition goes on to say that the signatories believe the arrest of Kumar was to root out dissenting voices on the JNU campus, a move intended to convert educational institutions like JNU into an arm of the authoritarian state, according to the petition. see petition page 8
Driving forces As advocates lobby to bring Uber to Syracuse, critics express concern over safety, insurance regulations By Michael Burke asst. news editor
T
he vote on the expansion of ride-hailing services to cities such as Syracuse has been delayed as state lawmakers have decided to prioritize other issues. Currently, those services can’t operate in Syracuse or elsewhere in the state, except for in New York City, because state law does not include ride-hailing services in its insurance regulations. Bill A.6090, which would change state law to provide insurance for those services and thus legalize them in the state, is sitting at the moment in the New York State Assembly’s Transportation Committee. The vote on that bill — originally expected to occur last month — now might not happen until June because the assembly has prioritized the state budget, said Assemblyman John McDonald, a cosponsor of the bill. As the wait for the vote continues, proponents of bringing ride-hailing services to New York state have argued that the
services would have positive economic effects and would increase safety by reducing drunk driving accidents. But critics have expressed concerns that ride-hailing services wouldn’t need to play by the same rules as the taxi industry, primarily when it comes to providing workers’ compensation insurance to their drivers and administering adequate background checks and safety screeners for those drivers. Lawmakers in the assembly have listened to those concerns and will likely update the bill to address them, McDonald said. “We will be reviewing and contemplating what else we should add to this before we make ride-hailing legal in New York state,” he said. The debate over the effectiveness of Uber’s background check process was thrown into the national spotlight on Saturday, when Jason Dalton, a 45-year-old Uber driver, was suspected of shooting and killing six people in Kalamazoo, Michigan, between transporting passengers. One passenger, Matt Mellen, told
WWMT, a CBS affiliate in Michigan, that he was a passenger of Dalton’s about five hours before the first person was killed. Mellen referred a complaint to Uber because Dalton was driving 80 miles per hour and sideswiping cars — a report Uber confirmed to The Guardian. But Uber did not review that report, according to The Guardian. An Uber spokesman told The Guardian that Uber’s safety screeners didn’t prioritize the report because it was about erratic driving rather than explicit violence. Uber officials did not return an email requesting comment for this story. The incident came less than two weeks after Uber announced on Feb. 11 that it agreed to settle two lawsuits and pay $28.5 million to about 25 million drivers after the lawsuits — Philliben v. Uber Technologies Inc. and Mena v. Uber Technologies Inc. — accused the company of misrepresenting its safety measures. The Philliben lawsuit criticized Uber’s “Safe Ride Fees,” which have been used in part to support what Uber claims are see uber page 6
illustration by devyn passaretti head illustrator