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NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT · TUESDAY, MARCH 3, 2026 · VOL. CXLVIII, NO. 24 · yaledailynews.com · @yaledailynews
Mayor floats auditor job in budget Trustees met after dining with students
BY ELIJAH HUREWITZ-RAVITCH STAFF REPORTER
Elijah Hurewitz-Ravitch, Contributing Photographer
Mayor Justin Elicker proposed a $733.3 million budget for New Haven’s government in the next fiscal year amid federal funding cuts, continued economic growth and a promise from Yale not to reduce its voluntary contribution. At City Hall on Friday afternoon, Elicker stressed fiscal responsibility and financial accountability. His proposed budget is 4.4 percent larger than the approved budget for the 2026 fiscal year. He pointed to pension costs, debt service and employee healthcare expenditures — which together make up around 40 per-
BY ARIA LYNN-SKOV AND LEO NYBERG STAFF REPORTERS Yale’s trustees met with students on Friday while they were gathered on campus for the first Yale Corporation meeting of 2026, which was on Saturday. While the meeting minutes and agenda will not be released until 2076, per the Corporation’s regulations, one trustee interviewed by the News before the Saturday meeting said they would be discussing fiduciary responsibilities, and another mentioned artificial intelligence as a topic of focus for the weekend. The Corporation’s meetings, agendas and locations are not publicized — a longtime source of student criticism. Ahead of their meeting, the trustees met with about 25 stu-
SEE BUDGET PAGE 5
Yale maintains year’s payment BY ELIJAH HUREWITZ-RAVITCH STAFF REPORTER Yale’s annual payment to New Haven will not drop for the 2027 fiscal year as it had been scheduled to do, Mayor Justin Elicker announced while unveiling a proposed $733.3 million municipal budget Friday afternoon. A decrease from around $24 million to $16 million in Yale’s voluntary contribution to New Haven’s budget was built into the final year of a deal that the University and the city reached in 2021. Yale officials confirmed
that the University had agreed to avert that drop. Negotiators for Yale and New Haven have not yet reached an agreement for another multiyear agreement involving the voluntary contribution. “Yale has agreed to commit to, while these negotiations are ongoing, not dropping its payment by $8 million but keeping that payment level as we negotiate,” Elicker said at a Friday press conference at City Hall. The mayor said in December that he was “cautiously optimistic” that the negotiations with Yale
McInnis talks layoffs, Epstein and priorities BY ASHER BOISKIN STAFF REPORTER University President Maurie McInnis has spent the last year navigating one of the most turbulent periods in Yale’s recent history, after President Donald Trump was elected during her first semester on the job. In an interview with the News last week, McInnis denied credit for keeping the University out of the Trump administration’s crosshairs, compared to peer institutions that have been battered by funding freezes tied to Trump administration demands. But federal legislation passed last year included an increased tax on
endowment returns for wealthy universities like Yale, leading the University to adopt budget cuts. Amid those pressures, McInnis sat down last Wednesday for a 30-minute interview with the News. She fielded questions on her responses to the Jeffrey Epstein files and to a December shooting at Brown University. She also spoke about her priorities for the University’s future and her life outside the office. When asked to describe her tenure thus far as Yale’s president in three words, McInnis offered “listening, collaboration and steadiness.” SEE MCINNIS PAGE 4
Inside The News Sen. Richard Blumenthal attended a vigil held by the Ukrainian students to mark four years since Russia's full-scale invasion began. PAGE 6
SEE TRUSTEES PAGE 5
Aria Lynn-Skov, Contributing Photographer
would wrap by March 1, his deadline to submit a budget proposal to New Haven’s Board of Alders. On Wednesday, University President Maurie McInnis indicated in an interview with the News that Yale and New Haven were unlikely to meet that deadline, which she had previously said was “possible.” But Yale’s assurance allowed the mayor to factor a $24 million contribution from the University into the budget he proposed, he said at the press conference. SEE CONTRIBUTION PAGE 4
Iranian group protests regime
Abby Assouad, Staff Photographer
BY ANAYAH ACCILIEN STAFF REPORTER
tified in Streater’s 1990 trial that he was at church when the shooting took place, according to the National Registry of Exonerations. In 2022, Streater received a pardon from the Connecticut Board of Pardons and Paroles. In January 2024, he brought his suit against the city of New Haven, seeking $100 million in damages. He separately sought $12 million from the state, in accordance with a state statute that prescribes a formula for calculating damages. On Feb. 10, Robert Shea Jr., the state’s claims commissioner, issued a decision recommending that the state give Streater around $5.75 million. “No amount of money can compensate you for funerals you missed. My son’s graduation from
Just two weeks before the weekend attacks on Iran by the United States and Israel, a group of Iranian students founded a new organization at Yale advocating for military intervention against the Iranian regime. The Yale Alliance for Solidarity with Iran held its first event on Feb. 14. Three members of the alliance’s board criticized a preexisting Iranian student group, the Persian Student Association, and said they founded the alliance in response to what they describe as the association’s focus on Iranian culture rather than current politics. The Yale Alliance for Solidarity with Iran — composed of undergraduates, graduate students and faculty — has set out to lead campus demonstrations representing the needs of Iranian people, its organizers said. The United States and Israel launched a joint attack on Iran on Saturday, killing Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s longtime supreme leader. For Hadi Mahdeyan ’27 — who grew up in Iran and said he founded the Yale Alliance for Solidarity with Iran last month with about nine students and two faculty members — the recent events have reinforced the need for an organization devoted to advocating for voices suppressed by his home country’s government.
SEE STREATER PAGE 4
SEE ALLIANCE PAGE 5
Once imprisoned, alder is now after damages BY NELLIE KENNEY STAFF REPORTER
Christina Lee, Senior Photographer
dent leaders on Friday at an invitation-only lunch, where they discussed topics including divestment and student life, according to Yale College Council President Andrew Boanoh ’27, who attended. “We generally have some type of contact with students,” trustee Felicia Norwood LAW ’89 — the executive vice president of the insurance company Elevance Health — said in an interview on Saturday. She described the Friday lunch with students as “fantastic.” “To me that’s always the highlight,” Norwood said, referring to opportunities to connect with students. Norwood added that she loved hearing about the student’s spring break plans. “I wish I was going!” she said.
A New Haven alder whose district stretches from Science Hill to Dixwell and Newhallville is seeking millions of dollars from the city and state after he served 23 years in prison for murder, before receiving an absolute pardon in 2022. In 1993, Troy Streater — then 26 — was convicted of the 1990 murder of 19-year-old Terrance Gamble. The conviction hinged largely on evidence from four witnesses — all of whom have since recanted, according to a lawsuit Streater, now the alder for Ward 21, filed against the city of New Haven in 2024. Streater has maintained that he was innocent of the crime, and his minister and his brother both tes-
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IRAN Three Yale Law School professors criticized U.S. strikes on Iran. Some said President Donald Trump violated the Constitution and the United Nations charter. PAGE 7 NEWS SWIM & DIVE At the Ivy League Championships, Yale swimmers broke team, pool and meet records, and multiple qualified for the NCAA Championships. PAGE 10 SPORTS