logo
Prank call prompts police response at Amherst Regional High School

Prank call prompts police response at Amherst Regional High School

Yahoo16-05-2025
AMHERST, Mass. (WWLP) – A prank phone call received Thursday morning by Amherst Regional High School prompted an immediate safety response and a police presence on campus.
In a letter issued by the Amherst-Pelham Regional School District, Superintendent Dr. Xi informed the school community that the Amherst Police Department is on site 'out of an abundance of caution' to support safety protocols.
'This morning, Amherst Regional High School received a prank phone call that prompted an immediate safety response,' the letter states. 'Out of an abundance of caution, the Amherst Police Department is present on site to support school safety protocols.' While the nature of the prank was not disclosed, school officials emphasized that there is no active threat to students of staff.
'Please know that all students and staff are safe. We are working closely with law enforcement to ensure the continued security of the building, and we are following all established procedures,' the superintendent wrote.
No disruptions to the school day were mentioned in the notice, and officials indicated that more information would be shared if necessary.
WWLP-22News, an NBC affiliate, began broadcasting in March 1953 to provide local news, network, syndicated, and local programming to western Massachusetts. Watch the 22News Digital Edition weekdays at 4 p.m. on WWLP.com.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

State Department Spotlights Beijing's Global Repression in New Report
State Department Spotlights Beijing's Global Repression in New Report

Epoch Times

time6 days ago

  • Epoch Times

State Department Spotlights Beijing's Global Repression in New Report

The State Department has called out the Chinese regime for intimidating and exacting reprisals against targets globally to advance its political goals. In its long-anticipated international human rights report, published on Aug. 12, the department noted the wide-ranging ways the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP's) campaign takes form, including assaults, harassment, hacking, anonymous threats, and bullying through proxies. Victims of the regime's long-arm tactics, often called transnational repression, are wide ranging, with the report listing ethnic Uyghurs, spiritual practitioners, dissidents, foreign journalists, and Chinese students and faculty members studying outside China as common targets. The department cited research by the D.C.-based nonprofit Freedom House, which found that the CCP is responsible for 'the most comprehensive and sophisticated' transnational repression campaign in the world, at times co-opting other countries' institutions to force targeted individuals back to China—where they're often in danger of persecution. One of the most prominent episodes took place during CCP leader Xi Jinping's visit to San Francisco for the Asian-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in late 2023. During the multi-day event, protesters arranged through Chinese foreign influence programs, attacked pro-democracy activists with flagpoles and chemical spray, the State Department's report said. There have been repercussions for these transnational acts of violent repression. In May, the Justice Department indicted two men for allegedly harassing and surveilling a victim by installing a tracking device on the victim's car and slashing their tires in an effort to stop them from protesting Xi's trip. The report noted the case of a former Chinese undercover agent who after defecting to Australia, revealed his 15-year-long involvement in targeting Chinese dissidents in several countries under orders from the CCP's secret police operating on foreign soil. The agent, Eric, in 2024 told The Epoch Times that his handler in 2021 asked him to locate a Thailand-based Falun Gong practitioner who had fled China to escape the CCP's persecution of his faith. The handler, in assigning him the job, gave him photos showing the name and location of the target's apartment, as well as several photos of the man and his family. The victim, Li Guixin, confirmed that one of these photos was never previously posted on the internet. Threats from the CCP have also been experienced by the international media. In June 2024, a French reporter and a French filmmaker received threatening phone calls from a China-based number, following the broadcast of their documentary about the attempted forced repatriation of a Chinese dissident, the State Department reports. According to Reporters Without Borders, an unidentified individual hacked into the journalists' group chat on an encrypted app, sending Chinese-language messages asking them not to release the film. Those reporters weren't alone in being hacked by agents of the CCP. The United States has, in recent years, identified a number of Chinese state-sponsored cyber attackers like Salt Typhoon and i-Soon—whose victims include The Epoch Times—that pilfer intelligence from Western governments, civil groups, and others deemed to suit the regime's interests. Crimes of transnational repression were highlighted in one major segment in the State Department report under 'Security of the Person,' as well as two other sections focused on 'Life' and 'Liberty.' The report also covered forced labor in China's northwestern region of Xinjiang, where over 1 million Uyghurs and other ethnic Muslim minorities are detained, with the regime suppressing dissident voices in their communities, with many cases of forced disappearances. The State Department also cited the seven-year sentence given to former Chinese state media editor and columnist Dong Yuyu on espionage charges, arrests of citizens for sharing political views or facts reflecting public concerns, detention and disappearance of journalists—including Swedish publisher Gui Minhai and Australian journalist Yang Hengjun, both of Chinese descent—and acts of aggression to undermine foreign and local reporting. The report named dozens of political prisoners: pastors, a Catholic bishop, Falun Gong practitioners, Tibetans, Uyghurs, rights lawyers, scholars, and others. The report covers the 2024 calendar year before the Trump administration began. The text underwent revisions in March, which the department said was made to improve readability and better align with the legislative and presidential mandates of the new administration. It pared down the volume of content focused on abuses based on gender identity. Regarding the 'China' section of the report, Nina Shea, who has served on the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom for over a decade, said the information only 'scratches the surface of the Chinese Communist Party's human rights atrocities and violations.' 'I understand the need not to duplicate the annual reports on religious freedom and human trafficking but that leaves a big hole in this report, since religious communities across the board are the largest CCP targets today,' she told The Epoch Times. She said the report 'would benefit with stand alone sections on China's surveillance system as a method of control and limitation on individual freedom, as well as ones on the CCP's social credit system, ideological indoctrination measures, forced ethnic assimilation, and one on forced organ harvesting and other coerced bio- and medical interventions.' The report should also expand sources to include the various Justice Department cases against CCP agents and spies in the United States, who have targeted Chinese American members of religious and political groups that the regime has labelled the 'five poisons' to the CCP, she said, calling the omission a 'major oversight' in the transnational repression section. 'A fuller picture is needed to accurately describe the totalitarian suppression of human rights under CCP rule today,' she said. The China report was part of the department's set of Country Reports on Human Rights Practices delivered annually to Congress.

US State Department Spotlights Beijing's Global Repression in New Report
US State Department Spotlights Beijing's Global Repression in New Report

Epoch Times

time7 days ago

  • Epoch Times

US State Department Spotlights Beijing's Global Repression in New Report

The State Department has called out the Chinese regime for intimidating and exacting reprisals against targets globally to advance its political goals. In its long-anticipated international human rights report, published on Aug. 12, the department noted the wide-ranging ways the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP's) campaign takes form, including assaults, harassment, hacking, anonymous threats, and bullying through proxies. Victims of the regime's long-arm tactics, often called transnational repression, are wide ranging, with the report listing ethnic Uyghurs, spiritual practitioners, dissidents, foreign journalists, and Chinese students and faculty members studying outside China as common targets. The department cited research by the D.C.-based nonprofit Freedom House, which found that the CCP is responsible for 'the most comprehensive and sophisticated' transnational repression campaign in the world, at times co-opting other countries' institutions to force targeted individuals back to China—where they're often in danger of persecution. One of the most prominent episodes took place during CCP leader Xi Jinping's visit to San Francisco for the Asian-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in late 2023. During the multi-day event, protesters arranged through Chinese foreign influence programs, attacked pro-democracy activists with flagpoles and chemical spray, the State Department's report said. There have been repercussions for these transnational acts of violent repression. In May, the Justice Department indicted two men for allegedly harassing and surveilling a victim by installing a tracking device on the victim's car and slashing their tires in an effort to stop them from protesting Xi's trip. The report noted the case of a former Chinese undercover agent who after defecting to Australia, revealed his 15-year-long involvement in targeting Chinese dissidents in several countries under orders from the CCP's secret police operating on foreign soil. The agent, Eric, in 2024 told The Epoch Times that his handler in 2021 asked him to locate a Thailand-based Falun Gong practitioner who had fled China to escape the CCP's persecution of his faith. The handler, in assigning him the job, gave him photos showing the name and location of the target's apartment, as well as several photos of the man and his family. The victim, Li Guixin, confirmed that one of these photos was never previously posted on the internet. Threats from the CCP have also been experienced by the international media. In June 2024, a French reporter and a French filmmaker received threatening phone calls from a China-based number, following the broadcast of their documentary about the attempted forced repatriation of a Chinese dissident, the State Department reports. According to Reporters Without Borders, an unidentified individual hacked into the journalists' group chat on an encrypted app, sending Chinese-language messages asking them not to release the film. Those reporters weren't alone in being hacked by agents of the CCP. The United States has, in recent years, identified a number of Chinese state-sponsored cyber attackers like Salt Typhoon and i-Soon—whose victims include The Epoch Times—that pilfer intelligence from Western governments, civil groups, and others deemed to suit the regime's interests. Crimes of transnational repression were highlighted in one major segment in the State Department report under 'Security of the Person,' as well as two other sections focused on 'Life' and 'Liberty.' The report also covered forced labor in China's northwestern region of Xinjiang, where over 1 million Uyghurs and other ethnic Muslim minorities are detained, with the regime suppressing dissident voices in their communities, with many cases of forced disappearances. The State Department also cited the seven-year sentence given to former Chinese state media editor and columnist Dong Yuyu on espionage charges, arrests of citizens for sharing political views or facts reflecting public concerns, detention and disappearance of journalists—including Swedish publisher Gui Minhai and Australian journalist Yang Hengjun, both of Chinese descent—and acts of aggression to undermine foreign and local reporting. The report named dozens of political prisoners: pastors, a Catholic bishop, Falun Gong practitioners, Tibetans, Uyghurs, rights lawyers, scholars, and others. The report covers the 2024 calendar year before the Trump administration began. The text underwent revisions in March, which the department said was made to improve readability and better align with the legislative and presidential mandates of the new administration. It pared down the volume of content focused on abuses based on gender identity. Regarding the 'China' section of the report, Nina Shea, who has served on the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom for over a decade, said the information only 'scratches the surface of the Chinese Communist Party's human rights atrocities and violations.' 'I understand the need not to duplicate the annual reports on religious freedom and human trafficking but that leaves a big hole in this report, since religious communities across the board are the largest CCP targets today,' she told The Epoch Times. She said the report 'would benefit with stand alone sections on China's surveillance system as a method of control and limitation on individual freedom, as well as ones on the CCP's social credit system, ideological indoctrination measures, forced ethnic assimilation, and one on forced organ harvesting and other coerced bio- and medical interventions.' The report should also expand sources to include the various Justice Department cases against CCP agents and spies in the United States, who have targeted Chinese American members of religious and political groups that the regime has labelled the 'five poisons' to the CCP, she said, calling the omission a 'major oversight' in the transnational repression section. 'A fuller picture is needed to accurately describe the totalitarian suppression of human rights under CCP rule today,' she said. The China report was part of the department's set of Country Reports on Human Rights Practices delivered annually to Congress.

China is suppressing coverage of deadly attacks. Some people are complaining online

time30-07-2025

China is suppressing coverage of deadly attacks. Some people are complaining online

BEIJING -- Late last month, a car struck children near an elementary school in an outlying district of Beijing, according to a Chinese news report. A four-sentence police statement said a 35-year-old male driver hit pedestrians due to 'improper operation' of the car. It didn't mention the school or that the victims included children. Photos of the aftermath, which showed a half-dozen people lying in the street, were scrubbed from China's closely controlled internet. 'We need the truth,' said one post on Weibo, a leading social media platform similar to X. The ruling Communist Party has expanded information control since leader Xi Jinping came to power in 2012, seeing it as a way to prevent unrest. More and more topics, from negative news about the economy to LGBTQ+ identity, have become subject to some form of censorship. In the past half year, mass attacks — in which a person kills or injures multiple people with a vehicle or knife — appear to have been added to the list. Some people in China are pushing back, complaining online in at least two cases in recent months after drivers hit pedestrians. The government may be trying to prevent copycat crimes, experts have said. Another motivation could be local authorities wanting to cover up when they fail to do so. There was a spate of attacks last fall, but it's difficult to gauge whether they are increasing, given the dearth of information. The attacks weren't always a taboo topic. In the past, authorities released the basic details. Typically, the assailant was described as taking out their anger on society, often over financial losses. That appears to have changed following a particularly horrific case in November that killed 35 people in Zhuhai in southern China. Authorities said the driver was upset about a divorce settlement. Orders came from the very top — from Xi — to take steps to prevent similar attacks. Eight days later, an SUV hit students arriving at an elementary school in Hunan province. The number of injured — 30 children and adults — wasn't made public until nearly a month later when the driver was sentenced. The clampdown on information has tightened further since. In April, reports circulated online that a car had run into people outside a primary school in Jinhua city. At least three provincial state media outlets posted stories — but they were quickly taken down. To date, authorities haven't released any information. Twelve days later, a fast-moving car veered off a street and into people at a bus stop in the city of Tengzhou in eastern China. Authorities said nothing. Videos of the May 4 crash were taken down from social media. The next day, online criticism of the silence began to appear. People said the police should release basic information such as the driver's identity and the number of casualties. A few defended the police, saying it happened on a holiday. 'If a few such precedents are set, and more local governments follow this way in the future, the rules of information disclosure may not be upheld and may be compromised,' Hu Xijin, the former editor of a state-owned newspaper, warned in a social media post. Local governments want to cover up news that reflects badly on them or their polices, said Jennifer Pan, a Stanford University professor who researches how political censorship and information manipulation work in the digital age. The central government sometimes has other priorities. 'When the issue gains attention despite local censorship efforts, the center has an incentive to preserve the legitimacy of the overall system through responsiveness and acknowledgement of the event and underlying issues,' she said in an email response. The details came out 48 hours after the crash. Six people had died, and it had not been an intentional attack: The driver was drunk, a state media report said. Since then, local authorities, at least in two cases in Beijing, seem to be taking a new approach: Issue a report quickly but with scant details. Eleven days after the drunk driving case, a car hit people outside an elementary school in Beijing on May 15. The Beijing Traffic Police issued a report within a few hours but left out that the location was near a school. It said only that four people had been injured when a car sideswiped pedestrians on Jian'an West Road, and that the driver had been detained. Authorities appeared to impose an information shutdown that evening. Police were stationed along the stretch of road and a person who appeared to be a neighborhood watch volunteer cautioned people in a nearby residential compound not to speak to strangers. Six weeks later, posts appeared online on June 26 saying a car had hit children in Miyun, about 60 kilometers (40 miles) northwest of central Beijing. One well-reputed media outlet, Caixin, reached area shop owners who said that children had been hit, and a hospital that confirmed it was treating some child victims. Whether it was an intentional act remains unclear.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store