Each week, syracuse.com will look back at some of our most important and valuable journalism from the previous week. Here are six stories for the week of Sept. 6, 2026.
Staffing at the Syracuse Police Department has been steadily declining for several years, but it’s not been due to budget cuts. There has been no “Defund the Police” initiative in Syracuse. Instead of budget cuts, the force has slowly but steadily shrunk because of simple math: Retirements consistently outpace new hires. In the past year and a half, 54 SPD officers have retired. Just 32 new cops have joined. The result is a police department struggling to do anything more than provide the basic service of responding to calls, investigating crimes and making arrests.
Reporter Steve Featherstone lived in Jersey City in 2001. His apartment had a panoramic view of the Manhattan skyline, including the World Trade Center. He watched the Sept. 11 attacks unfold. Last month, he returned to Jersey City for the first time in 25 years. He also visited the National September 11 Memorial & Museum, another first. He writes that he wanted to revisit a part of his past that is growing more distant.
The Syracuse football team opened the season by racing on the field through a sea of smoke and columns of fire. The new entrance was a bigger and bolder show than anything the school has attempted during its football pregame before, highlighting the attention to showmanship that new athletic director Bryan Blair has pledged. The entrance was one of a number of upgrades that made tangible improvements in the atmosphere, something that Blair has said he is making a priority during his first year. He has made some improvements in just six months on the job.
Courtroom erupts with relief, anger as Nordquist killers get life sentence: ‘You’re the devil!’
Precious Arzuaga and her former girlfriend, Jennifer “Brooklyn” Quijano, were sentenced to life in prison for the role they played in the kidnapping, murder and torture of Sam Nordquist. Arzuaga led Quijano and five others in a crime that prosecutors and the judge said was like nothing they had ever encountered. “This is the worst of worst,” Ontario County First Assistant District Attorney James Nobles said. “It may be common on television or in the movies, but not in real life.” It horrified the small Finger Lakes town and captured the attention of national and international media outlets…