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(TALLAHASSEE, FLORIDA) — The decision by children’s book publisher Scholastic to create a separate, optional section for its elementary school book fairs for titles written predominantly by and about people of color and LGBTQ people is meeting resistance from groups that oppose book bans.

The news comes as attempts to ban books spike across the country and as dozens of states continue to implement policies that restrict how the subjects of race, gender and sexual orientation are discussed in schools.

“Because Scholastic Book Fairs are invited into schools, where books can be purchased by kids on their own, these laws create an almost impossible dilemma: back away from these titles or risk making teachers, librarians, and volunteers vulnerable to being fired, sued, or prosecuted,” Scholastic said about its decision to create a book section that schools can opt out of.

Scholastic’s “Share Every Story, Celebrate Every Voice” is made up of 64 titles, according to a preview of the list provided to EdWeek. The list includes books such as “I Am Ruby Bridges” by Ruby Bridges, “I Color Myself Different” by Colin Kaepernick, “She Dared: Malala Yousafzai” by Jenni L. Walsh, and more.

Scholastic argues that not all stories by LGBTQ authors and authors of color will be placed into the optional category.

The decision was criticized as censorship, with advocacy groups claiming the move will encourage those behind book bans and restrictive laws.

In the first eight months of the year, the American Library Association (ALA) recorded 695 attempts to censor library materials, impacting 1,915 unique book titles.

The vast majority of challenges were to books written by or about a person of color or LGBTQ authors, according to the ALA.

“Censorship is anti-democratic and undermines one’s freedom to learn,” said the National Black Justice Coalition in a statement. “We condemn Scholastic for its decision to segregate books on race, gender, and sexuality at book fairs in a disappointing effort to appease a loud minority using politics to attack children and public schools to turn out voters using ignorance, fear, and hate.”

Color Of Change, a racial justice advocacy group, added: “The inclusion of Black and queer characters, authors, and stories in school book fairs is not optional. We call on Scholastic’s leadership to remove this exclusionary feature and commit to taking meaningful action to protect Black and LGBTQ books.”

Scholastic, alongside several other advocacy groups, recently signed an open letter against book bans. Several of the co-signers on that letter denounced Scholastic’s decision to create a separate section for such stories.

“Sequestering books on these topics risks depriving students and families of books that speak to them,” said PEN America, a nonprofit organization focused on free expression, arguing that book bans “deny the opportunity for all students to encounter diverse stories that increase empathy, understanding, and reflect the range of human experiences.”

But Scholastic said it had no other option.

Scholastic noted that more than 30 states across the country have either enacted or are considering restrictions on certain content in classrooms — including the topics of racism, race, gender, and LGBTQ identities. Therefore, it “cannot make a decision for our school partners around what risks they are willing to take, based on the state and local laws that apply to their district,” the organization said in a statement.

Their statement continued: “We don’t pretend this solution is perfect – but the other option would be to not offer these books at all – which is not something we’d consider. There is a wide range of diverse titles throughout every book fair, for every age level. And, we continue to offer diverse books throughout our middle school fairs, which remain unchanged.”

Several authors whose books are on the reported list condemned Scholastic’s move.

Amanda Gorman, the nation’s first Youth Poet Laureate, posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, that her book’s inclusion in the section “is not sharing our stories — it’s treating them as separate but equal.”

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(NEW YORK) — The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission has announced a recall of more than 60,000 biometric gun safes because of a programming feature that “can allow unauthorized access to the safes.”

At least one person has died, according to the CPSC.

The CPSC said there have been 39 incidents of consumers reporting that their safes have been accessed by unauthorized fingerprints.

“Consumers can believe they have properly programmed the biometric feature when in fact the safe remains in the default to open mode, which can allow unauthorized users, including children, to access the safe to remove hazardous contents, including firearms,” the CPSC said in an announcement.

CPSC said consumers should immediately stop using the biometric feature, remove batteries from the safe and only use the key for the recalled safes.

Fortress Safe, the company behind the biometric gun safes, announced a recall “due to serious injury hazard and risk of death” and noted one death had been reported.

Fortress Safe said the safes can be opened by “unauthorized users, posing a serious injury hazard and risk of death.”

“The recalled gun safes are portable lock boxes, personal safes, pistol vaults and gun cabinets with brand names Fortress, Cabela’s, Gettysburg and Legend Range & Field,” Fortress Safe said.

Model numbers of safes included in the recall are available on Fortress Safe’s website.

“The recalled safes were sold at Bass Pro Shops, Cabela’s, Scheel’s, Sportsman’s Guide, Optics Planet, Dick’s Sporting Goods, Gander, Rural King, Lowe’s and other stores nationwide and online at Amazon.com and Ebay.com from January 2019 through October 2023 for between $44 and $290,” the CPSC said in a statement.
 

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(NEW YORK) — Fisher-Price is recalling about 21,000 units of some of their popular Thomas & Friends toys.

Parents and customers are being advised to stop using Thomas & Friends Wooden Railway Troublesome Truck & Crates and Thomas & Friends Wooden Railway Troublesome Truck & Paint toys because a small magnet encased in a plastic piece that can connect the toys to additional train toy pieces “can detach or become loose, posing choking and magnet ingestion hazards,” according to a Consumer Product Safety Commission notice released Thursday.

Fisher-Price said in a statement shared on their parent company Mattel’s website that the company has received one report of the plastic part loosening and detaching from one of the Thomas & Friends toys but that no injuries have been reported so far.

“Fisher-Price’s greatest concern and primary focus has always been the safety of the children who use our products,” the company said in part. “For that reason, we’ve taken action to recall the Thomas & Friends Wooden Railway Troublesome Truck & Crates and Troublesome Truck & Paint.”

The recalled Troublesome Truck & Crates toys with model number HBJ89 have a black and gray coloring while the Troublesome Truck & Paint toys with model number HBJ90 are gray with a yellow paint splatter design on the sides of the toys. Both toy types are designed to look like Thomas & Friends characters and have light gray faces painted on them as well and measure about 3.6 inches long and 2.1 inches high, according to the CPSC.

The CPSC said the Troublesome Truck toys, which were made in Indonesia and retailed for about $17, were sold online and in stores nationwide including at Amazon.com and at Barnes & Noble stores from February 2022 through August 2023.

Anyone with the recalled toys can contact Fisher-Price through the Mattel website for a prepaid mailing label that they can use to request a refund. Fisher-Price said it will refund U.S. customers $17 for each recalled toy. If customers have additional questions, they can reach out to the company at 1-855-853-6224 between Monday to Friday and from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. ET.

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(NEW YORK) — The 30-year fixed mortgage rate this week climbed to 8%, reaching that level for the first time since 2000, according to Mortgage News Daily.

The milestone arrives after months of rate increases. As recently as last April, the 30-year fixed mortgage rate stood below 5%, Mortgage News Daily data shows.

An aggressive series of interest rate hikes by the Federal Reserve since last year has pushed up the 10-year Treasury bond yield, which loosely tracks with long-term mortgage rates.

The Fed has increased interest rates to fight elevated inflation, attempting to slash price hikes by slowing the economy and choking off demand.

While inflation has fallen significantly from a peak of about 9% last summer, price increases remain more than a percentage point higher than the Fed’s inflation target.

The persistence of elevated inflation has prompted the Fed to espouse a policy of holding interest rates at high levels for a prolonged period, which in turn has increased the 10-year Treasury yield and put upward pressure on mortgage rates.

Mortgage rates have increased for five consecutive weeks, according to data released by Freddie Mac last Thursday.

Major housing industry groups voiced “profound concern” about rising mortgage rates in a letter last week that urged the Federal Reserve to stop hiking its benchmark interest rate.

“The speed and magnitude of these [mortgage] rate increases, and resulting dislocation in our industry, is painful and unprecedented,” wrote the real estate groups, among them the National Association of Realtors and the National Association of Home Builders.

High mortgage rates have dramatically slowed the housing market, since homebuyers have balked at the stiff borrowing costs, and home sellers have opted to stay put with mortgages that lock them into comparatively low rates.

Mortgage applications have fallen to their lowest level since 1996, the Mortgage Brokers Association said earlier this month.

Sales of previously owned homes, meanwhile, plummeted more than 15% in August compared to a year ago, according to the National Association of Realtors. The slowdown has coincided with a sharp rise in costs for potential homebuyers.

When the Fed initiated the rise in bond yields with its first rate hike of the current series, in March of 2022, the average 30-year fixed mortgage rate stood at just 4.42%, Mortgage News Daily data shows.

Each percentage point increase in a mortgage rate can add thousands or even tens of thousands in additional costs each year, depending on the price of the house, according to Rocket Mortgage.

Speaking at a press conference in Washington, D.C., last month, Fed Chair Jerome Powell acknowledged the continued effect on mortgages of rising interest rates, noting then that activity in the housing market “remains well below levels of a year ago, largely reflecting higher mortgage rates.”

The Fed expects to raise rates one more time this year, according to projections released last month. The central bank plans to make its next rate-hike decision in early November.

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(NEW YORK) — Good news for flyers who opt for the window seat — your boarding zone will soon be prioritized on United Airlines.

According to an internal memo from the Chicago-based carrier obtained by ABC News, starting on Oct. 26, the airline will change its boarding process for economy class passengers that will speed up getting seated and situated by two minutes.

United Airlines’ new WILMA boarding process

“WILMA” boarding, which was tested at four domestic line stations, seats economy window passengers first followed by middle seats and aisle seats.

While this does not affect pre-boarding groups, premium cabins and flyers with premier or alliance status before Group 3, the revision ensures that window seats and exit rows are followed by middle in Group 4 and aisle passengers in Group 5 during the boarding process.

“Multiple customers in a same economy reservation will receive the same and highest applicable boarding group excluding Basic Economy customers in boarding Group 6,” the memo stated.

According to United, this change comes at a time when there’s a need for more efficiency, with the airline stating that “boarding times have increased by up to two minutes since 2019.”

The change also comes ahead of the busy holiday travel season that has previously been fraught with delays, in which a speedy boarding process can be extremely helpful in ensuring on-time departures.

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(NEW YORK) — With just over one month remaining until Thanksgiving and the start of the winter holiday season, Americans are already eyeing grocery prices to gauge how much their festive gatherings are going to cost this year. But one major retailer is ignoring inflation in order to keep a traditional turkey dinner more affordable.

John Furner, president and CEO of Walmart U.S. — the largest retailer in the country — joined ABC News’ Good Morning America on Wednesday and, in an ABC News exclusive, revealed Walmart’s new plan to make Thanksgiving more affordable.

“Last Thanksgiving we decided we were going to sell a Thanksgiving meal at the same price as 2021,” Furner said of the strategy they implemented across other major holidays. “This year, finally, we are able to have the Thanksgiving basket that the prices are coming down versus a year ago — we are really proud to say that the price of a Thanksgiving meal is going to come down.”

This year, the Thanksgiving basket from Walmart includes ingredients to make a meal for up to 10 people, which Furner said will “sell for around $2 less than last year” at just over $70.

Furner added that the move comes on the heels of consumer feedback: “92% of our customers tell us they are concerned about food inflation.”

Inflation is up 3.7% from a year ago and, according to Moody’s Analytics, American households are spending $235 more per month on the same goods and services than they spent a year ago.

As Americans have seen shifts in supply chains, changes in consumer habits and other financial impacts that came out of the pandemic, Furner said “it’s been an interesting couple years — from last year, when inflation really started things like food and consumables picked up and we see more people eating at home.”

“Whether it’s food or getting ready for guest, people are buying early,” Furner also said.

Starting Nov. 1, the holiday food basket at Walmart will be offered at the lower price through Dec. 26. There will be two purchasing options: one with ingredients for customers who want to cook from scratch, and one for customers that like more convenient, ready-to-bake options.

“Walmart’s Thanksgiving meal includes customers’ favorites and fixings including many national brands, from turkey (for under $1/lb.!) and ham to stuffing and pumpkin pie,” a Walmart press release stated.

The holiday meal baskets are available for online order, pickup and delivery, as well as in-store.

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(NEW YORK) — Nearly half of all injuries reported from electric bikes in the last six years took place in 2022, according to a new report from the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC).

The CPSC estimates more than 360,000 injuries related to micromobility devices were treated in emergency rooms across the country between 2017 to 2022.

According to the report, injuries rose more than 20% in 2022, compared to the year prior.

There have been at least 233 deaths associated with e-bikes, e-scooters and hoverboards from 2017 through 2022, the report said. CPSC acknowledged that reporting on deaths associated with the devices is “ongoing and incomplete.”

This comes as sales and usage of e-bikes, e-scooters and hoverboards are on the rise. According to the market research firm Circana, the U.S. e-bike market grew 269% between 2019 and 2022, with $885.5 million in sales last year.

CPSC’s report also highlighted “significant” fire hazards from the devices — CPSC said it was aware of at least 19 deaths associated with micromobility device fires from 2021 through late November 2022.

Last year, CPSC called on more than 2,000 manufacturers and distributors of the devices to review their product lines and ensure they comply with voluntary safety standards “to reduce the serious risk of dangerous fires with these products.”

CPSC also “urged” consumers to take steps to prevent fires from e-bikes, e-scooters, and hoverboards by always being present when charging the devices and only using approved battery replacements.

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(NEW YORK) — As travelers race to book flights for the holidays, Southwest Airlines has announced new changes that will make it easier to earn higher status, with better access to upgrades and more perks for elite members.

The largest low-cost carrier announced new perks for flyer loyalty through its Rapid Rewards program.

Starting Jan. 1, Southwest will be lowering its threshold to qualify for A-List and A-List preferred status, which allows for better access to upgrades and perks such as free drinks.

“It’s really bucking the trend of what we see with other airlines, which are actually making it harder, making it so that you need to spend more money to achieve this sort of level of status,” David Slotnick, senior aviation business reporter for The Points Guy, told ABC News’ Good Morning America.

Recently, Delta Airlines CEO Ed Bastian said the company “probably went too far” with its loyalty program changes, which were announced mid-September and would have made it harder to reach top status, as well as restricted access to lounges. Those changes were set to take effect in 2025, but the airline has since said it is “assessing” customer feedback — particularly from longtime Delta loyalists who were unhappy with the changes — and that “modifications” will be made “sometime over the next few weeks.”

Other airlines have made changes to their loyalty programs similar to those Delta announced earlier in September.

Changes amid the airline industry are coming as more Americans look to score holiday travel deals and experts caution that the booking window is closing.

“If you’re planning to fly for Thanksgiving or Christmas this year — now is the time to book to take advantage of the lowest prices,” Hayley Berg, lead economist for travel site Hopper, told GMA.

According to Berg and other industry experts, airfare prices for each holiday will jump $5 to $10 a day, whereas in the final three weeks before travel, those prices could spike between $10 to $30 each day.

Berg said “if you can fly on the less popular days around the holidays, you can save upwards of 40%.”

“When you fly is just as important as when you book your tickets,” she said.

Check out even more expert holiday travel tips — including the best times to book and fly — here.

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(NEW YORK) — Since war broke out between Israel and Hamas last week, a Palestinian-American apparel store owner in San Diego, California, has received a spate of death threats online, she said.

The founder of a chain of Palestinian restaurants in the Northeast U.S., meanwhile, said a person last week screamed expletives at him and his employees at a location in Manhattan, accusing them of being terrorists.

The co-director of an Ontario, California-based clothing company — which sells traditional garments to Palestinians for special occasions — said business has ground to halt because customers are postponing celebrations.

Palestinian business owners in the U.S. and Canada who spoke to ABC News described a swirl of emotions in recent days: Grief for thousands in the region who have died and dread as the death toll continues to grow, fear for themselves or their peers amid an outpouring of hate and the challenge of weathering all of it as they oversee their companies.

However, the conflict has also elicited support from customers or members of local communities, nearly all of the five business owners said, describing notes scribbled on receipts or appended to delivery orders.

“It’s been very heart wrenching and difficult,” Aminah Mufa, the co-founder of the San Diego-based apparel store PaliRoots, who has faced death threats, told ABC News. “I think every Palestinian is unable to sleep right now — we’re sick to our stomachs.”

At the same time, Mufa said, she has drawn encouragement from a simultaneous upswell of compassion for Palestinians. “It has honestly been so hopeful for us,” she said.

The militant group Hamas launched an unprecedented attack last Saturday that has left at least 1,400 people dead and 3,400 people injured in Israel.

In Gaza, 3,000 people have been killed and another 12,500 were injured, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.

The U.N. Relief and Work Agency (UNRWA) said that Gaza is running out of body bags, as well as clean water. The Palestinian territory also has no electricity, UNRWA officials said.

Sara Jayyusi, a Palestinian-Candian who runs an online clothing store based in Ontario, Canada, said she mourns the lives lost and worries about the bloodshed likely to come.

A business partner is among those in Gaza, Jayyusi said. “Every day I don’t know if she’s alive,” Jayyusi added.

Jayyusi and her husband run Deerah, a clothing company that specializes in traditional garments worn at Palestinian celebrations. She has received a barrage of threatening messages online, Jayyusi said. “Instagram is a cruel place,” she added.

Meanwhile, sales have plummeted because customers are delaying special occasions amid the war, Jayyusi said. “They’re not in a mental state to really be celebrating,” she said, noting that her husband has begun to look for another job to make up for lost income.

Still, she added, the hardship falls well short of the danger faced by Palestinians in Gaza. “As we all sleep in our homes, Palestinian people are being bombed and starved,” she said.

Israeli officials have said the military is targeting Hamas and attempting to limit civilian casualties. “We are currently striking Hamas in its entirety,” Israel Defense Forces Lt. Col. Peter Lerner told ABC News “This Week” co-anchor Martha Raddatz on Sunday.

Abdul Eleanani, the co-owner of Ayat NYC, a chain of five Palestinian restaurants in New York and Pennsylvania, said the company has faced hateful remarks made to company staff face-to-face and over the phone, as well as an onslaught of negative Google reviews.

Last week, someone walked into the company’s lower Manhattan location at around 10:30 p.m. and yelled, “You guys are terrorists,” while adding an expletive.

The sense of fear has grown after the fatal stabbing on Saturday of a 6-year-old Palestinian boy in Illinois, Eleanani said. “Why did it have to lead to that?” he added.

Alongside the hateful messages, however, the restaurant chain has received far more gestures of solidarity, Eleanani said.

On Instagram, the company posted a photo of a delivery order on which a customer had included a note of support. “My heart is with you all,” the note said. “All solidarity and care to the people of Palestine.” Others have put in orders but asked the restaurant to donate the food to Palestinians instead of delivering it, Eleanani said.

Eleanani said he expects the hateful comments to continue but he remains hopeful.

“The good will overpower the small part of negativity,” he said.

“The purpose of this restaurant and what I’m building around it is just to build awareness of what’s going on back home,” he added. “Palestinians want to live in peace and coexist together.”

ABC News’ Kiara Alfonseca contributed to this report.

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(NEW YORK) — As war broke out in recent days with a Hamas attack and an Israeli response that has left an estimated more than 4,100 people dead in Israel and Gaza, gruesome images and disinformation spread widely on major social media platforms.

From repurposed video game footage masquerading as videos showing military engagements to imposter accounts spreading false information about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to violent and graphic footage flooding newsfeeds — the fast-moving conflict and the volume of such posts have posed a challenge for social media platforms as they attempt to enforce rules against false or violent content.

False or horrifically graphic posts have spread across X and Meta-owned Instagram and Facebook, as well as TikTok.

European Union Commissioner Thierry Breton wrote public letters to TikTok, X and Meta in recent days warning them of the indication that their respective platforms had been used for the spread of “illegal content” in violation of the EU’s data regulations around hate speech and disinformation. Financial penalties could result from the possible offenses, Breton added.

In a post on X, on Monday, the company said it had paid close attention to the outpouring of content on the platform related to the Israel-Hamas war.

There had been over 50 million posts globally on the Hamas attack on Israel in the two days after the attack began on Oct. 7, X said.

“As the events continue to unfold rapidly, a cross-company leadership group has assessed this moment as a crisis requiring the highest level of response,” the company said. “This means we’re laser focused and dedicated to protecting the conversation on X and enforcing our rules as we continue to assess the situation on the platform.”

In response to the letter from Breton, X CEO Linda Yaccarino said on Wednesday that the company had labeled or removed tens of thousands of pieces of content related to the Israel-Hamas war. “We continue to respond promptly to law enforcement requests from around the world,” Yaccarino added.

In response to a request for comment from ABC News, Meta pointed to a statement released by a company spokesperson after receipt of the letter from Breton: “Our teams are working around the clock to keep our platforms safe, take action on content that violates our policies or local law, and coordinate with third-party fact checkers in the region to limit the spread of misinformation. We’ll continue this work as this conflict unfolds.”

In a blog post on Friday, Meta said it had removed or marked as disturbing more than 795,000 pieces of content in Hebrew and Arabic for violating its content moderation policies over a three-day period following the Hamas attack last Saturday.

Responding to ABC News’ request for comment, a TikTok spokesperson said the company uses automated tools as well as 40,000 content moderators in order to police posts on the platform. In response to the outbreak of war between Israel and Hamas, the company has increased the content moderation resources that it devotes to related posts as well as posts in Hebrew and Arabic, the spokesperson added.

Each of the platforms — X, Meta and TikTok — has a policy banning accounts tied to Hamas, since the group has been labeled a foreign terrorist organization by the U.S. government.

Under an EU law called the Digital Services Act, or DSA, social media platforms are required to combat misinformation. Fines resulting from violations of the law can total up to 6% of each company’s global revenue.

On Thursday, the EU took an additional step toward enforcement against X, opening an investigation of the alleged spread of illegal content and making a formal request for information from the company. The EU called on X to provide the relevant information no later than next Wednesday.

The order follows indications of “the alleged spreading of illegal content and disinformation, in particular the spreading of terrorist and violent content and hate speech,” Breton said.

X did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment about the investigation, nor has the company responded publicly to it.

 

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