Author: Reporter

Billionaire Elon Musk said on November 27 that advertisers who have halted spending on his declining social media platform X in response to antisemitic and other hateful material were engaging in “blackmail.” The controversial South African-born entrepreneur unleashed a profanity-laced tirade, telling detractors to “Go f@ck yourself.” “Don’t advertise,” Musk said. He appeared to specifically call out Walt Disney Co. CEO Bob Iger, saying, “Hey Bob, if you’re in the audience … that’s how I feel.” In an on-stage interview at The New York Times DealBook Summit, Musk also apologized for endorsing an antisemitic conspiracy theory in response to...

Israel’s military was aware of plans by Hamas to launch an attack on Israeli soil over a year before the devastating October 7 operation that killed hundreds of people, The New York Times reported on December 1. It was the latest in a series of signs that top Israeli commanders either ignored or played down warnings that Hamas was plotting the attack, which triggered a war against the Islamic militant group that has devastated the Gaza Strip. The Times said Israeli officials were in possession of a 40-page battle plan, code-named “Jericho Wall,” that detailed a hypothetical Hamas attack...

Hope Reed was seeing stark disparities a decade ago at her high school in the suburbs of Columbia, South Carolina. Nearly half the school’s students were White, but the freshman remedial math classes were made up of almost all students of color. Reed, then chair of the math department at Blythewood High School, intervened with an experiment. She taught a ninth-grade remedial class and used the regular Algebra 1 curriculum with nearly 50 students. They were honors students, and they were going to do honors work, she recalled telling them. At the end of the year, about 90% of...

On the 60th anniversary of the March on Washington this summer, a few Black queer advocates spoke passionately before the main program about the ongoing struggle for LGBTQ+ rights. As some of them got up to speak, the crowd was still noticeably small. Hope Giselle, a speaker who is Black and trans, said she felt the event’s programming echoed the historical marginalization and erasure of Black queer activists in the Civil Rights Movement. However, she was buoyed by the fact that prominent speakers drew attention to recent efforts to turn back the clock on LGBTQ+ rights, like the attacks...