Public schools banned nearly 12,000 books during the 2025-2026 school year, according to a new report released from PEN America, a group dedicated to freedom of expression for writers. That represents the highest number of bans in a single year since PEN started tracking them in 2021.The 11,982 bans
Story not found
Back to all storiesrights
Janelle Sarauw, a former senator in the US Virgin Islands (USVI) legislature, is coming to the US Congress as the territory's next at-large congressperson. The out legislator won the Democratic primary in August by a wide margin and faces only token opposition in her very blue, i...
rights
Sen. Darline Graham Nordone (R-SC) was asked what she thought about Donald Trump calling her opponent, Democrat Dr. Annie Andrews, a "tr***ie," and she refused to answer the question. In a separate interview, Graham Nordone implied that Trump's use of the slur was justified. Grah...
culture
LGBTQ+ fans of the Avatar universe, rejoice! With the debut of the latest installment in the Avatar: The Last Airbender franchise, Avatar: Seven Havens, the animated fantasy series has debuted a gay couple as part of its roster of characters. One of the main characters, Jae, is a...
rights
Daniela Fuentes came to the United States from Cuba and worked as a hairstylist and drag performer in Miami. Then she was picked up by ICE, detained, and deported to the Central African Republic, a country she’s never been to, where she knows no one, doesn’t speak the language, a...
rights
Several crew members attached to the production of Ben Shapiro’s pro-ICE film Pawn Shop, which is currently in production in Livingston, Montana, left the film early after originally being told they were going to work on a “fun action movie,” and were allegedly kept in the dark a...
rights
Come, I will make the continent indissoluble, I will make the most splendid race the sun ever shone upon, I will make divine magnetic lands, With the love of comrades, With the life-long love of comrades. Dive deeper every day Join our newsletter for thought-provoking commentary ...
rights
Nearly a dozen crew members working on Pawn Shop, The Daily Wire's pro-ICE film that mocks queer shooting victim Renee Good, reportedly left a recent shoot in Livingston, Montana, after learning of the film's right-wing politics, IndieWire reported yesterday. The film, which star...
rights
Conservatives rejoiced this week after the Washington Post reported that 2025 data from the U.S. Centers by Disease Control and Prevention appears to indicate that LGBTQ+ identification among young teenagers has dropped over the past few years. But even in the Post’s own reportin...
safety
Donald Trump's first State of the Union (SOTU) address of his second term is scheduled for next Tuesday, February 24, and Democrats are already working on how they'll respond. The New York Times reports that many Democratic members of Congress are planning to boycott it. Related ...
rights
Ohio Democratic Senate candidate Sherrod Brown released an ad Thursday refuting a new, lie-filled attack ad featuring a detransitioned activist named Soren Aldaco. Aldaco's ad claimed that Brown supports "sex changes for minors [and] irreversible surgery" which she was "a kid." B...
rights
Democratic Senate candidate Annie Andrews of South Carolina recently released a political ad saying that she neither supports "biological men playing women's sports" nor "gender surgery for minors." While her ad is intended to deflect political attacks from her opponent, Sen. Dar...
rights
The BBC has reached a "substantial" settlement with the online UK LGBTQ+ outlet PinkNews over allegations the BBC now agrees were "false and defamatory," including accusations of sexual misconduct and misogyny by the publication's founder Benjamin Cohen and his husband, Anthony J...
