Houthis Vow to Step Up Shipping Attacks to Press Israel on Gaza
The targeted ships will be attacked 'in any location within the reach of our armed forces,' a spokesman for the Iranian-backed group, Yahya Saree, said in televised comments. 'All our military operations will be ceased immediately upon the cessation of aggression against Gaza and the lifting of the blockade.'
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38 minutes ago
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Opinion - Antisemitism's newest safe space: Teachers' unions
At Nysmith School in Virginia, three Jewish siblings were expelled after their parents notified the headmaster about the relentless antisemitic bullying faced by one of the daughters. At Concord-Carlisle High School in Massachusetts, students gave Nazi salutes in school hallways, divided themselves into teams called 'Team Auschwitz' and 'Team Hamas' during athletic games, drew swastikas in notebooks and on school property and told Jewish students to 'go to the gas chamber.' At Etiwanda School District in California, a 12-year-old Jewish student was beaten by another student, and when she called for help, she was told to 'shut [her] stupid Jewish ass up.' You have likely seen the recent onslaught of antisemitism in K-12 schools. But is it surprising that Jewish and Israeli K-12 students are experiencing antisemitism in schools, when so many teachers unions are promoting antisemitic curricula and engaging in anti-Israel political advocacy? Nor should it be surprising that, across the country, Jewish teachers are facing the same antisemitism, only from their own peers, employers and the very people who are supposed to be protecting them from this kind of harassment in the first place — their unions. In many instances, teachers unions play a role in curriculum development, resolve disputes between teachers and administrators and address issues related to school resources. Unions are also the bargaining representative of teachers. As such, federal labor law imposes on a union the legal duty to fairly represent all its employees. Unions cannot choose to favor one protected identity over another or facilitate discrimination against a group of its members. By developing antisemitic curricula and encouraging teachers to include discriminatory materials and propaganda in the classroom, the bias is clear. The Massachusetts Teachers Association, the state's largest teacher union, released a curriculum resource list earlier this year whose materials on the Israel-Palestine conflict not only heavily favored the anti-Israel narrative, but were also outwardly antisemitic. They included, for example, a poster that read, 'Zionists f— off' and a replica of the Star of David made out of folded dollar bills. When some union members pushed back against this, the union's board of directors claimed that the protesters were 'weaponizing' antisemitism to 'suppress learning about the Palestinians.' Three thousand miles away in California, unions have come under fire for similar actions. Last year, the United Teachers of Los Angeles union tried to implement a vehemently antisemitic and one-sided 'liberated ethnic studies curriculum' that identifies Israel as a 'colonialist,' and 'settler state,' created through 'genocide,' 'ethnic cleansing' and 'apartheid.' The Oakland Teachers Association encouraged teachers to bring unauthorized materials — including a book for elementary students with the lesson, 'I is for Intifada, Intifada is Arabic for rising up for what is right, if you are a kid or a grown-up!' — into the classroom, and vowed to protect teachers who faced discipline for doing so. Following in their neighbor's footsteps, the California Teachers Association recently opposed a bill that would strengthen the state's capacity to prevent and respond to antisemitism. The bill, which passed the state assembly unanimously, would strengthen anti-discrimination protections, increase accountability for schools and districts, establish California's first-ever State Antisemitism Coordinator to lead statewide efforts, and more. Opponents of the bill claim that it would be 'weaponized to silence critical perspectives on Palestine and global injustice and sets a troubling precedent for censorship in our state.' This kind of underhandedness isn't just happening at the state level. The most prominent national teachers union — in fact, the largest labor union in the country — is the National Education Association. Its annual Representative Assembly debated last month whether Jewish American Heritage Month was worth recognizing. Attendees discredited rates of antisemitism in schools. Members also endorsed a proposal to cut ties with the Anti-Defamation League, which was ultimately unsuccessful. According to a joint letter from numerous Jewish organizations to National Education Association leadership, Jewish attendees who spoke out against the resolution were harassed and ostracized, left fearing for their safety, and felt abandoned by their union. Through these actions, teachers unions are putting all other identities above 'Jewish.' They are saying that discrimination and harassment is okay, as long as it's against one of the Jewish members. Not only are actions such as these — actions by the group that is tasked with protecting its members — morally reprehensible, they are illegal. When a union violates its duty to fairly represent the interests of its Jewish employees, it also violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Unfortunately, teachers unions are not unique cases. Jewish union members in every sector are feeling isolated as labor unions continue to adopt more anti-Zionist approaches in their workplace, as evidenced in Brandeis Center's recent legal claims brought against the unions of New York Legal Assistance Group and the Association of Legal Aid Attorneys. From posters that supported Hamas's Oct. 7 massacre to retaliatory expulsions, Jewish union members are being shunned or outwardly harassed, their concerns silenced and their heritage spat on. They are being told that they are not worthy of protection because of where they are from and who they are. Teachers unions have extraordinary power to make positive change, including the power to fight antisemitism now and in future generations. They must acknowledge their role in molding young minds and take responsibility for protecting children from bigotry in the classroom. Without action by union leaders to discourage the use of antisemitic materials and language, Jewish teachers feel ostracized in union spaces, and Jewish children will feel unsafe in their own classrooms. But it's not just the unions: Parents, educators, policymakers and community leaders must insist on zero tolerance for antisemitism in our schools and unions alike, including ensuring curricula are free from bias and propaganda. If we fail to act now, we allow hatred to shape our children's education and their future. Kenneth L. Marcus is the chairman and CEO of The Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law and the former assistant secretary for Civil Rights at the United States Department of Education under two administrations. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Solve the daily Crossword
Yahoo
an hour ago
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Syria signs $14 billion in investment deals, including $4 billion airport expansion
DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — Syria signed agreements worth $14 billion with regional and international companies on Wednesday for 12 investment projects, including modernizing the international airport in Damascus and a new subway system, state media reported. The deals are the largest so far since foreign companies and countries started an investment push into the war-torn country after Western sanctions were eased following the fall of the 54-year rule of the Assad family. The head of Syria's Investment Authority, Talal al-Halili, was quoted by state-run news agency SANA as saying that the expansion of Damascus' International Airport will cost $4 billion and will be done by the Qatar-based UCC Holding. SANA said that the airport will be able to serve up to 31 million travelers a year, after the expansion. SANA added that the agreement for the new subway system in the capital is worth $2 billion, and the network is expected to be used by 750,000 people a day. The deal for the subway was signed by Syria's Transportation Ministry and the United Arab Emirates' National Investment Corporation, SANA said. Other projects include the $2 billion construction of 60 residential towers with 20,000 housing units outside of the capital. 'Syria is open for investments and determined to build a bright future,' al-Hilali said during the ceremony, which was attended by President Ahmad al-Sharaa. In late July, Syria and Saudi Arabia announced 47 investment agreements, valued at more than $6 billion to mark a significant step in rebuilding Syria's war-battered economy. In May, Syria signed an agreement with a consortium of Qatari, Turkish and U.S. companies for the development of a $7 billion 5,000-megawatt energy project to revitalize much of Syria's war-battered electricity grid. 'The future of a prosperous and peaceful Syria is in the hands of Syria and its regional partners,' said the U.S. special envoy to Syria, Tom Barrack, who attended Wednesday's signing in Damascus.
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Grok, is that Gaza? AI image checks mislocate news photographs
This image by AFP photojournalist Omar al-Qattaa shows a skeletal, underfed girl in Gaza, where Israel's blockade has fuelled fears of mass famine in the Palestinian territory. But when social media users asked Grok where it came from, X boss Elon Musk's artificial intelligence chatbot was certain that the photograph was taken in Yemen nearly seven years ago. The AI bot's untrue response was widely shared online and a left-wing pro-Palestinian French lawmaker, Aymeric Caron, was accused of peddling disinformation on the Israel-Hamas war for posting the photo. At a time when internet users are turning to AI to verify images more and more, the furore shows the risks of trusting tools like Grok, when the technology is far from error-free. Grok said the photo showed Amal Hussain, a seven-year-old Yemeni child, in October 2018. In fact the photo shows nine-year-old Mariam Dawwas in the arms of her mother Modallala in Gaza City on August 2, 2025. Before the war, sparked by Hamas's October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, Mariam weighed 25 kilograms, her mother told AFP. Today, she weighs only nine. The only nutrition she gets to help her condition is milk, Modallala told AFP--and even that's "not always available". Challenged on its incorrect response, Grok said: "I do not spread fake news; I base my answers on verified sources." The chatbot eventually issued a response that recognised the error -- but in reply to further queries the next day, Grok repeated its claim that the photo was from Yemen. The chatbot has previously issued content that praised Nazi leader Adolf Hitler and that suggested people with Jewish surnames were more likely to spread online hate. - Radical right bias - Grok's mistakes illustrate the limits of AI tools, whose functions are as impenetrable as "black boxes", said Louis de Diesbach, a researcher in technological ethics. "We don't know exactly why they give this or that reply, nor how they prioritise their sources," said Diesbach, author of a book on AI tools, "Hello ChatGPT". Each AI has biases linked to the information it was trained on and the instructions of its creators, he said. In the researcher's view Grok, made by Musk's xAI start-up, shows "highly pronounced biases which are highly aligned with the ideology" of the South African billionaire, a former confidante of US President Donald Trump and a standard-bearer for the radical right. Asking a chatbot to pinpoint a photo's origin takes it out of its proper role, said Diesbach. "Typically, when you look for the origin of an image, it might say: 'This photo could have been taken in Yemen, could have been taken in Gaza, could have been taken in pretty much any country where there is famine'." AI does not necessarily seek accuracy -- "that's not the goal," the expert said. Another AFP photograph of a starving Gazan child by al-Qattaa, taken in July 2025, had already been wrongly located and dated by Grok to Yemen, 2016. That error led to internet users accusing the French newspaper Liberation, which had published the photo, of manipulation. - 'Friendly pathological liar' - An AI's bias is linked to the data it is fed and what happens during fine-tuning -- the so-called alignment phase -- which then determines what the model would rate as a good or bad answer. "Just because you explain to it that the answer's wrong doesn't mean it will then give a different one," Diesbach said. "Its training data has not changed and neither has its alignment." Grok is not alone in wrongly identifying images. When AFP asked Mistral AI's Le Chat -- which is in part trained on AFP's articles under an agreement between the French start-up and the news agency -- the bot also misidentified the photo of Mariam Dawwas as being from Yemen. For Diesbach, chatbots must never be used as tools to verify facts. "They are not made to tell the truth," but to "generate content, whether true or false", he said. "You have to look at it like a friendly pathological liar -- it may not always lie, but it always could." dou-aor/sbk/rlp
