As Banned Books Week begins, report finds over 10,000 books removed in last school year
(NEW YORK) — More than 10,000 books were removed from school library shelves over the 2023-2024 school year, free expression advocacy group PEN America said in a new report released Monday at the start of national Banned Books Week. The tally marks a nearly triple-fold increase from the 3,362 bans in the previous school year.
The count includes books both temporarily and indefinitely removed from shelves.
About 8,000 of these book removals were recorded in just two states: Florida and Iowa. Both states have laws in place restricting content related to sex, gender and LGBTQ content.
The book bans have overwhelmingly featured stories that are by or about people of color and the LGBTQ community, according to PEN America.
The study also found that the book-banning efforts have increasingly restricted stories by and about women and girls, and include depictions of or topics concerning rape or sexual abuse.
The restrictions have impacted titles by well-known authors including James Baldwin, Agatha Christie, Alice Walker, Jodi Picoult, Toni Morrison and more.
PEN America predicts higher book removal totals are to come as more laws concerning content restriction are set to impact classrooms in the ongoing 2024-2025 year.
This includes laws like Utah’s H.B. 29, signed in March, which requires all schools to remove a book if school officials from at least three school districts or at least two school districts and five charter schools have determined that a book constitutes “objective sensitive material.”
Critics of these laws say they are akin to censorship, while supporters argue that these laws protect students from what they believe to be inappropriate content.
PEN America found that both legislation and political “parents rights” groups were two key factors in the spike in book removals.
“Our numbers are certainly an undercount, as stories of book bans often go unreported,” PEN America stated in the report. “These numbers also do not account for the many reports of soft censorship, including increased hesitancy in book selection, ideologically-driven restrictions of school book purchases, the removal of classroom collections, and the cancellations of author visits and book fairs.”
(NEW YORK) — A 15-year-old was charged after allegedly making bomb threats against his Maryland high school in May, police said.
According to the Montgomery County Police Department, the teen allegedly worked with a 12-year-old boy from Pennsylvania to call in the threats to Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School, prompting the school to go into lockdown.
The 15-year-old found the 12-year-old on social media, according to police, and allegedly paid him an undisclosed amount of money to call in the threat. Neither child has been named by the authorities.
Police said the 15-year-old “communicated in real-time with the 12-year-old, providing information, updates and instructions as the threats were being made.”
“The caller demanded that a certain dollar amount be paid to prevent bombs from detonating at the school,” police added in a release.
A SWAT team and K-9 units responded to the school, and a search of the campus turned up no explosives. Students were dismissed for the day, police said.
The two also allegedly made threats to Walt Whitman High School and Bethesda Elementary School the next day, police said.
The 15-year-old has been charged with multiple felonies, including threats of mass violence, making a false statement and extortion.
He was released to his family, police said.
Under Maryland state law, charges cannot be filed against the 12-year-old, according to police.
“However, the actions of both individuals caused disruption to the school day, forcing a lockdown, and taking an emotional toll on the students, staff, and the community,” police said.
(NEW YORK) — Longtime Defense Department researcher Luis “Lue” Elizondo has become well-known for reporting the existence of UFOs (unidentified flying objects), now known as unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAPs).
In his new book, “Imminent: Inside the Pentagon’s Hunt for UFOs,” which is available now, former Pentagon insider Elizondo invites the reader into this hidden world.
He joined ABC News’ Stephanie Ramos to discuss why he decided to write the book, government secrecy around UAPs, official comments on these phenomena and some of his own unusual experiences.
ABC NEWS: Unidentified flying objects have fueled decades of speculation and conspiracy theories. In his new book, “Imminent: Inside the Pentagon’s Hunt for UFOs,” longtime Defense Department researcher Lue Elizondo, the former head of the Pentagon program responsible for the investigation of UFOs, now known as unidentified anomalous phenomena, reveals long hidden truths with profound implications for not only national security, but our understanding of the universe.
Joining us now is Lue Elizondo. Thank you so much for joining us. Really appreciate it. So “Imminent” tells the story of your courageous fight to make public what the government knows and doesn’t know about UAPs. What made you want to write about this?
ELIZONDO: Yeah, well, I wanted to be able to tell the American public my experiences and what the government has been doing for a very long time, not just when I was in the program, but for decades about the government’s interest in UFOs or now what we call UAP. You’re absolutely right, unidentified anomalous phenomenon. The fact is, they’re real and they are a national security issue for this country.
ABC NEWS: And it’s so interesting because many, many years ago I worked at the Pentagon for ABC, and I remember getting a tour of some of the hallways and, and somebody said “Oh, that’s where they study UFOs, UAPs. But it’s top secret.” Like that’s all they would say. So there’s this secrecy approach to all of this, right?
You write in your book, “While there are valid reasons for secrecy around some aspects of UAPs. I do not think humanity should be kept in the dark about the fundamental fact that we are not the only intelligent life in the universe.” So why do you think the United States government and other major governments have taken a secrecy approach to UAPs?
ELIZONDO: Sure. I think if we look at this, temporally speaking, the U.S. government, when we started really looking at this, was at the height of the Cold War. And you had this contentious relationship at best with then-Soviet Union.
And what we didn’t want to do was necessarily tip our hand to any information, perhaps, that we’ve gleaned from UAP or UFOs and, certainly, perhaps any information gaps or maybe information that we don’t know about the UFOs. So that’s one reason. And then I think the other reason is that governments inherently are responsible for ensuring the protection of their people, their citizens.
ABC NEWS: So Lue, for those who may be skeptical and are thinking “Nope, there’s no such thing as UFOs, it’s non-existent.” And you’re here to tell us that there is fact and research that they do exist.
ELIZONDO: Let’s not forget, Stephanie, that we’ve had already a former director of national intelligence, a former director of the CIA, and even a former president of the United States all come out on the record and say “Yeah, looks like these things are real.”
Our very best, most sophisticated technology is picking these things up. We also have eyewitness testimony from our trained observers, our combat pilots. And then you’ve also got the radar data all basically substantiating the same event at the same time, at the same place, under the same circumstances.
ABC NEWS: And so much technology that’s been analyzed and researched. Now, let’s talk about your own personal experience. You mentioned in this book that UAPs have appeared both in and around your home. How did these personal experiences influence your views on UAP and what exactly did you see?
ELIZONDO: Yeah, sure. So first of all, let me preface. We’re not sure if they are actually UAP-related. What we do know is that a lot of people that were in the program that I was in also had very similar encounters while they were in the program.
So not before or not after, but during the time that we were researching these UAP and from our experience, when I say ours, I mean my families and even our neighbors, witnessed some of these – are these luminous green balls of light. Very diffuse in nature. No hard edges. That would just seem to kind of peruse the house and go down the hall and go through a wall.
I know it sounds rather bizarre. And look, there are absolutely possible natural explanations, right? You could say ball lightning or Saint Elmo’s fire or some sort of plasma static charge in the air. But the bottom line is, it was very bizarre. It was witnessed by not only my family, but again, neighbors and other individuals who were part of our effort, and the government, also experienced, very, very similar encounters at their residences.
ABC NEWS: Absolutely fascinating. Thank you so much Lue, for sharing your experience and for documenting what you know and what you think we should all know in your book, “Imminent: Inside the Pentagon’s Hunt for UFOs,” which is available now to purchase. Thanks Lue.
(NEW YORK) — Harvey Weinstein’s criminal sexual assault case is scheduled to return on Wednesday to a Manhattan courtroom — and if Weinstein shows up he will be arraigned on a new indictment.
The charges remain sealed until Weinstein appears. The former movie mogul missed his last court date after being rushed to the hospital for emergency heart surgery.
The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office presented to the grand jury allegations of three separate women who said Weinstein sexually assaulted them. Their allegations were not part of the initial trial of Weinstein that ended in a conviction, which was later overturned on appeal.
“We will do everything in our power to retry this case, and remain steadfast in our commitment to survivors of sexual assault,” a spokeswoman for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said in a statement earlier this year, when the conviction was overturned.
Weinstein has denied all claims of sexual misconduct, saying his encounters were consensual.