Good morning, Ithaca.

Tompkins Weekly is hiring a full- or part-time community news reporter to build local sources and cover government, education, and public affairs across Tompkins County, offering $44,000 to $45,000 (based on experience); email a résumé, brief cover letter, and 3 to 5 writing samples to Jamie Hughes at editorial@VizellaMedia.com (subject: Community News Reporter).

The Johnson Museum is showing "Garden Invaders" by Iftikhar and Elizabeth Dadi, featuring four backlit, pixelated alien sculptures inspired by Japanese aesthetics and technology and installed on an exterior wall overlooking the Morgan Japanese Garden (on view through spring 2027).

Cornell will run a free Halloween weekend shuttle for students from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. on Friday and Saturday, looping around campus, Collegetown, and the Ithaca Commons (riders must show Cornell ID and each bus holds 30).

Buses will stop at eight marked Red Shuttle Stop locations every 15 minutes, alcohol is prohibited, and each shuttle will have licensed drivers and a Cornell-affiliated ambassador.

Emily Cho has grown JSTEM into a network of 7,000 volunteers reaching 20,000 teens in juvenile detention, and L'Oréal named her a 2026 Women of Worth honoree with a $25,000 grant she plans to use to expand into Louisiana + build impact-tracking software.

Cornell’s College of Arts and Sciences launched the Humanities, Social Sciences + AI initiative to build interdisciplinary research, a postdoctoral fellowship program, visiting practitioners, and an AI & Society minor.

The postdoc program is recruiting five fellows and applications are open through Nov. 15.

An environmental group says the proposed TeraWulf AI data center site at the former Milliken Station is contaminated with lead, mercury and more than a billion pounds of coal ash (a 1994 draft study flagged the toxins) and is urging Governor Hochul to withhold permits until the site is cleaned.

The Open Space Institute announced Oct.

29 that it bought land to add more parking and a new trailhead (off Route 13) to create a welcoming gateway to Buttermilk Falls State Park, with design and construction to follow.

Marta Wisniewska built BaleWorks from timber frames and stacked straw bales for BuildFest 2026 at Bethel Woods, and the shelter will be converted into a restroom as weathered straw is replaced and reused for soil remediation.

Her Regenerative Architecture Lab (Cornell) researches mycelium, hemp, and rammed-earth as low-carbon building materials.

City officials are reviewing a proposal to redevelop the nearly 40-year-old parking structure at 118 Dryden Rd in Collegetown into a hotel with restaurants and a new public parking garage to preserve parking and boost the local economy, and no final decision has been made.

Apartment asking rents in Ithaca rose 12% year-over-year to a median $2,244 in September, with two-bedroom listings up 16% to a median $2,200 and one-bedrooms at $1,700; out of (601 listings none were subsidized).