Alabama city bemoans ‘rogue' library and 'woke' city council over sexually explicit books on library shelves
Residents of a city in Alabama are pushing back against what they deem sexually explicit books being shelved in areas reserved for children and teens.
In a vote on April 21, 2025, AL.com reported that Fairhope Public Library will keep two books in the teen section, including "Sold," which covers sexual slavery in India, and "Grown," which is about sexual exploitation.Residents said they were concerned about the placement of the books, and want them to be moved from the children's and teens' areas to the adults' section.
'WOKE' HOSPITAL COULD BE IN CROSSHAIRS OF TRUMP ADMIN AFTER SCATHING COMPLAINT ALLEGES DEI DISCRIMINATION On January 20, 2025, President Donald Trump signed an executive order prohibiting federal funds to agencies that promote "gender ideology."
"You are not on board with the Trump agenda," Brian Dasinger, a Fairhope attorney, said Tuesday during a meeting with the Fairhope City Council. According to reports from AL.com, Dasinger said the city council was "worthless."
The local coverage also reported that "The library board critics also called the board 'rogue' and the city council 'woke,' while city officials defended board members as unpaid volunteers who do not have a political agenda."
"The six of you should not be called 'worthless' and not be threatened," Emyle Mann, a Fairhope resident, said, speaking of the five council members and Fairhope Mayor Sherry Sullivan. "It's unfair and unprofessional."
"There are two books they are leaving (in the teen section)," Sullivan said. "There are some people not happy about that decision. They feel there is sexually explicit content in them. But our library board has reviewed that and didn't feel that way."
Sullivan also reportedly said that the library is reviewing an additional 12–14 books, and has transferred six other books from the teen section to the adult area.
Fairhope City Councilman Kevin Boone thanked the residents who waited until the meeting had concluded before leaving.
"After listening to both sides of this discussion, I'm not real big [on] people coming up giving their one side and walking out the door and not listening to what anyone else has to say," Boone said. "We need to be here listening to both sides."
Fairhope resident and library supporter Jeanine Normand said, "The world is watching."
Another supporter, William Henry of Fairhope, said, "Please don't be bullied by these people to do their agenda. They have shown their true colors and it's political."
Wendy Pickering of Orange Beach said that "We are not asking books to be burned or banned. We are asking them to be properly shelved."
Fox News Digital reached out to the Fairhope City Council, Fairhope Public Library, as well as Fairhope Mayor Sherry Sullivan for comment.
Corey Martin, who is serving his first term on the city council, told Fox News Digital in a statement that "The council listened to both sides of this argument. The process to identify books that are concerning to any parent is in place. This process has been in place from the beginning. What was added was a tiered identification card for each adolescent that has to be signed off by the parent."
Martin added that "There has been at least six books that have been placed in the adult section that our librarians and board decided on. There are two books that the librarians and board, after review, decided that these books were not inordinate to the law. We as a council and the Mayor will follow up with the state to try and create alternate review board/ committee on books that are opinionated on both sides as to whether these books have artistic or literary value. All sides are in agreement that no one wants any child to be exposed to something that is not appropriate for their cognitive aptitude or maturity level."
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In New Hampshire's open 1st Congressional District race, a trio of Seacoast Democrats lead the way
First Congressional District candidates (from left) Maura Sullivan, Stefany Shaheen, and Carleigh Beriont will face off in the Democratic primary. (Photos courtesy of the Sullivan, Shaheen, and Beriont campaigns, respectively) A military veteran with a previous unsuccessful bid for Congress, the daughter of a household name in New Hampshire politics, and a Harvard University professor — all Democrats — are the first to jump in the 2026 race for New Hampshire's 1st Congressional District. Maura Sullivan, a Marine Corps veteran and former Obama administration staffer, became the first candidate to join the race in April. Former Portsmouth City Councilor Stefany Shaheen, who is the daughter of U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, followed late last month. On Wednesday, Carleigh Beriont, who teaches at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government and serves on Hampton's select board, announced her campaign. No Republican has officially entered the race yet. The district, which has been in Democratic hands for nearly a decade, is being closely watched to see whether a Republican can flip it or whether it's become a Democratic stronghold. Sullivan, Shaheen, and Beriont are vying to represent the eastern half of New Hampshire, including Manchester, the state's largest city; the Seacoast cities of Portsmouth, Dover, and Exeter; and parts of the Lakes Region, including Laconia. Chris Pappas has represented the 1st District since 2018, but it became an open contest in April when Pappas announced a run for the Senate seat being vacated by Jeanne Shaheen. Both Sullivan and Shaheen targeted President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk in their opening pitches to voters. Sullivan put particular emphasis on her military service in Iraq and Southeast Asia. 'I saw too many of my fellow Marines give their lives for this country to just sit by and watch Donald Trump and Elon Musk tear it down,' Sullivan said in her announcement video. 'They're driving up costs for New Hampshire families, making it even more difficult to own a home and pay the bills, and that's why I'm running for Congress.' Born in the Chicago area, Sullivan holds degrees from Northwestern University and Harvard. After serving in the Marine Corps, Sullivan worked in the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and the Department of Defense under former President Barack Obama. In 2017, she moved to New Hampshire and within three months announced she was running for Congress, a move widely criticized by people who pointed out how few ties she had to the state. She finished runner-up to Pappas among 11 candidates in the primary. In her campaign announcement, Shaheen focused on health care-related issues, saying her experience raising a daughter with type 1 diabetes inspired her to fight for medical research. 'When I see Donald Trump crushing medical research in our country,' Shaheen said in her video, 'when I see Elon Musk with a chainsaw chasing out our best scientists and doctors, when I see Bobby Kennedy Jr. allowing measles to run rampant because he believes in conspiracy theories instead of proven vaccines, and when I see congressional Republicans slashing Medicaid, children's health care, veterans' health care, all to fund massive tax breaks for billionaires and corporations, well, I'm going to fight.' Shaheen's mother, a mainstay of New Hampshire politics for decades, served as governor from 1997 to 2003 and has represented the state in the U.S. Senate since 2009 (she announced her upcoming retirement in March). In addition to formerly serving on the Portsmouth City Council, the younger Shaheen was chairwoman of the Portsmouth Police Commission. She works as chief strategy officer for the Manchester-based biomanufacturer ARMI and founded Good Measures, a company that seeks to connect people with chronic illnesses to proper supports. In announcing her candidacy, Beriont characterized herself as an outsider rather than an establishment candidate. 'I'm not a career politician — I'm a mom, an educator, a neighbor,' she said in a press release. 'I've spent my life standing up for people who don't always have a voice in the room. Now, I'm ready to bring that same fight to Washington — not for the powerful, but for the rest of us.' Beriont teaches religion, government, and U.S. history at Harvard. She previously worked as an organizer with Democratic campaigns. She said she hopes to build a grassroots campaign. New Hampshire's 1st Congressional District has historically been a challenging swing district. From 2006 to 2018, it switched hands four times between Republican Frank Guinta and Democrat Carol Shea-Porter. However, after Pappas took the seat in 2018 and won reelection three consecutive times, the seat has sat squarely in Democratic hands. 'It'll be interesting to see once Pappas is not on the ballot — at least not for CD1 (Pappas is running for Senate) — whether the district reverts back to being more swingy than it otherwise has been during the Pappas years,' Dante Scala, a political science professor at the University of New Hampshire, said. 'And that raises the second question, which is … how much of that can you attribute to Pappas' strengths as an incumbent and how much should we chalk up to the trend that, during the Trump era since 2016, New Hampshire Democrats have been unbeaten in terms of federal elections?' Scala said if it turns out Pappas' success was driven by his strength as a candidate, a Democratic nominee could have more difficulty. 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Maggie) Hassan and Pappas, held steady, despite the fact that we saw the wave happen elsewhere.' Scala pointed to Pappas' centrism and the fact that he'd been on a ballot in so many races as possible drivers of success. 'He quietly goes about the business of being an incumbent,' he said. 'In some ways, it's a throwback to an earlier era of representation, where you're just looking out for your district. You're not looking to make waves. You're not trying to be a polarizing figure. You're low-profile. But that allows people who voted for (former Republican Gov.) Chris Sununu to feel comfortable turning around and voting for Chris Pappas.' Scala believes Trump will have an outsized influence in 2026. A Trump endorsement could play a big part in the Republican primary. Looking toward the general election, Scala pointed to a recent UNH poll that found 45% of Granite Staters approve of Trump's job performance, which is 'not terrible, but what does that look like in a year's time?' 'Trump's not on the ballot and on the ballot,' he said. 'Trump just takes up so much oxygen politically. Once it gets past the primaries, I really think it's a referendum on Trump. I think you have to assume that's going to benefit the Democratic candidate, whoever that may be, and I think it's increasingly difficult now for a Republican in particular to try, especially for the House, to develop any sort of identity that's distinctive enough to separate himself or herself from Trump.' On Sullivan, Shaheen, and Beriont's side of the race, Scala said 'there's a lot of discontent with the Democratic Party in general.' 'There's a lot of unhappiness and finger-pointing among Democrats about how they should be facing off against Trump,' he said. 'Is there lightning out there that could be harnessed in a Democratic primary? You know, the way that Shea-Porter was able to do?' Scala said it was Shea-Porter's ardent opposition to the Iraq War in 2006 that won her the seat originally. 'She went from nobody, but was really very much a grassroots activist on an issue, the Iraq War, that split the party, and she just went like gangbusters and rode that to Congress,' he said. 'You look at Shaheen, Maura Sullivan (Scala spoke with the Bulletin before Beriont's announcement), nothing strikes me about either of those candidates as insurgent, for lack of a better word. I mean, they're pretty much standard issue Democratic candidates. Is there someone out there who, you know, would have the wherewithal to stir the pot?' Where Scala thinks it's an open question as to whether the district solidly leans democratic, Shea-Porter has no doubts. 'I wouldn't have retired in January 2019 if I thought we hadn't flipped it blue,' Shea-Porter told the Bulletin. 'But I knew that we had.' She argued that the Republican Party nationally has moved too far right for New Hampshire voters while Democrats from New Hampshire have stayed moderate. 'They don't want the ugliness that we're seeing from the MAGA party,' she said. 'And they didn't want it then either. They don't want extremists in either camp. And we have not had a Democratic extremist.' Shea-Porter argued that the state 'is not an extremist state,' and that it typically votes 'center, center-left, sometimes center-right, but never far left or far right.' She's been paying attention to the current political landscape. 'As I have watched this unfold, I've thought, 'My gosh, this just feels in so many ways like 2006,'' she said. Shea-Porter said when she criticized the Iraq War and other actions taken by then-President George W. Bush people accused her of not supporting the troops. Today, she said when people criticize Trump and conservative policies, they're accused of 'not thinking about America first.' She also argued the MAGA movement is an extension of the Tea Party of the early 2010s. 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Today, it's the same thing.' Shea-Porter said, in retirement, she's still in touch with former colleagues and she's 'not quiet on what's happening.' 'If I were any of these candidates right now,' she said, 'I would ask constitutional scholars to go to town halls with me and talk about how endangered we are right now with a very authoritarian president and a MAGA party in Washington who's really threatening so many groups of people and ignoring our Constitution.' 'I think these candidates need to not be afraid to go out and say, 'Look, I plan to do everything I can to produce legislation to vote to stop this,'' she said. 'But then they have to have the facts. … I would keep a list like I used to keep on George Bush and his administration, so that people would understand, here's the list of what is wrong.' Shea-Porter said she's spoken to candidates in the race, offering advice, though she wouldn't say who. For now, she said she plans not to publicly take sides in the primary, but will strongly support the Democratic nominee in the general election. She anticipates the primary being friendly without personal attacks. Her advice for the candidates: 'to not be afraid to lead on these issues. People are looking for people who will not lead from behind, but lead up front.'
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When Donald Trump calls, one Big Law firm answers
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Could Giuffra — Trump's personal lawyer — help? Privately, Giuffra had expressed concerns about the order, seemingly worried about its implications for the legal industry, according to two people. Over the next day, Giuffra helped hash out an agreement between Trump and Paul Weiss: the law firm pledged tens of millions in pro bono work toward Trump's political priorities, and Trump rolled back the executive order. The phone call drew Giuffra deeper into an ethical drama familiar to many Trump lawyers: the blurring of lines between government work, the president's priorities, and the law itself. This time, the stakes are higher. Giuffra isn't an outsider lawyer plucked from obscurity like Alina Habba or a longtime political ally like Rudy Giuliani. He leads one of the most powerful law firms in America. As the chair of Sullivan & Cromwell, Giuffra is a titan of the legal industry. The 146-year-old firm made $2 billion in revenue last year, and its highly paid lawyers have represented the likes of OpenAI in its partnership with Microsoft and Discover in its merger with CapitalOne, and participated in the thorny bankruptcy of FTX. Giuffra, with no official role in the White House, was weighing in on how the president of the United States used the powers of his office to subjugate a rival law firm. The Giuffra-negotiated deal between Trump and Karp to roll back the March 14 executive order stunned and divided the legal profession. It also became a template. Following Paul Weiss, eight firms agreed to deals with the president, collectively pledging over $900 million in free work to advance his policies. The deals have introduced myriad logistical and ethical legal issues; it's not even clear if they're legal, and no one has publicly said how their terms are supposed to be enforced. Four other firms, all targeted by executive orders, chose to fight and won court rulings blocking the president's decrees. Sullivan & Cromwell has been spared either fate, thanks in part to Giuffra's deft hand. Shortly after Trump's second inauguration, Giuffra announced that the firm would represent the president in two appeals: a Manhattan criminal conviction and a half-billion dollar judgment over falsified tax and bank loan documents from the Trump Organization. At the same time, Giuffra has helped Trump collapse the distinction between the presidency and personal matters. During the negotiations with Paul Weiss, Giuffra didn't appear to draw any distinction between his role as Trump's personal lawyer and as someone who was weighing in on how Trump would use his presidential powers, one person familiar with the negotiations told Business Insider. Shortly after Trump issued the executive order, Karp brought on Bill Burck, one of the leaders at the firm Quinn Emanuel, to represent Paul Weiss in suing the administration. Burck engaged with people working in the White House, including the White House Counsel's office, to determine whether they could reach a resolution, a person familiar with the discussions said. But Giuffra — along with Trump's personal senior counsel, Boris Epshteyn — took over the negotiations several days later, without any apparent involvement from White House lawyers, according to the person. Giuffra acted as an intermediary between Epshteyn and Burck in the discussions, two people said. A spokesperson for Sullivan & Cromwell said Giuffra served as a go-between, helping "the Administration and Paul Weiss reach a mutually acceptable resolution." A spokesperson for Paul Weiss declined to comment on the record. The White House referred questions to Epshteyn, who declined to comment for this story. The blurred lines raise "very severe issues of ethics and professional responsibility," according to Harold Koh, a law professor who served as the top State Department lawyer in the Obama administration. Epshteyn and Giuffra played a role in how Trump should use his government powers. But as Trump's personal lawyers, rather than government employees, it's not clear if they're acting on behalf of the people of the United States, or on behalf of Trump's personal interests, Koh said. "Government lawyers should do the government's business and personal lawyers should deal with personal matters," Koh added. "And the fact that we can't tell whether these lawyers are operating in official or personal capacity shows why they're so problematic." Despite Giuffra's hope that the deal would ultimately help his industry, it created public friction between two of its most powerful figures. Karp and Sullivan & Cromwell have each been telling slightly different stories about how the deal came to be. The firms can't even agree on when Giuffra became involved, itself a sign of how blurred the lines had become between Trump's personal and official business. In Sullivan & Cromwell's telling, Paul Weiss — rather than Trump — initiated Giuffra's involvement. Giuffra's involvement was a personal favor for a peer firm, not part of his representation of Trump. According to a letter Sullivan & Cromwell partner Sharon Nelles sent to Congress, Giuffra contacted people within the Trump administration after he "received an outreach on behalf of" Paul Weiss on March 15, a day after the executive order, to help reach a deal. Karp, meanwhile, has said he was unaware of Giuffra's involvement until March 19. On that day, Karp met with Trump in the Oval Office, and Trump dialed Giuffra into the meeting, according to three people familiar with the negotiations. Trump announced the deal on March 20 and rescinded the executive order the next day. Giuffra had believed he was offering Karp and Paul Weiss a boon, according to one of the people familiar with the deal. Instead of being treated as a peacemaker, Giuffra found Sullivan & Cromwell under attack. He was hurt by the publication of a story in the New York Times, published several days after the deal, reporting that Karp felt pressured to make a deal because rival firms — including Giuffra's — were trying to snap up its partners and clients. Giuffra fumed that Paul Weiss insiders had thrown his and other firms under the bus to try to justify their deal. In a letter to Congress, a Sullivan & Cromwell partner said many lawyers at the two firms were "law school classmates, neighbors, former partners and longtime friends and colleagues" and denied the firm had tried to "poach" anyone from Paul Weiss. In a March 23 letter to employees explaining the deal, Karp said he was dismayed that other law firms had not rallied to Paul Weiss's side. Instead, he wrote, "certain other firms were seeking to exploit our vulnerabilities by aggressively soliciting our clients and recruiting our attorneys." In his second term, Trump has demonstrated his confidence in Sullivan & Cromwell, and there's no doubt the firm has benefitted. In the same Truth Social post where he designated several of his personal lawyers to high-ranking Justice Department positions, he also named Sullivan & Cromwell lawyer Jay Clayton to lead the US Attorney's office for the Southern District of New York. And in May, Giuffra filed papers to represent the president, Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump, and the Trump Organization itself in the civil fraud case. Still, Giuffra and his firm are engaged in a delicate dance. Trump has churned through a number of lawyers over the years. More than a dozen, after acting on Trump's behalf, have been disbarred or sanctioned. Even more have been bench-slapped by judges in hearings and trials. Trump's second term is already claiming casualties. Eric Trump fired Burck from his role as an outside ethics counsel for the Trump Organization in April after the lawyer agreed to represent Harvard University, which Trump has also targeted with executive orders. Giuffra isn't staking just his own reputation on working for Trump. Since Trump became involved in politics, elite law firms have typically shunned him. Todd Blanche, his lead lawyer in most of his criminal cases, quit Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft to represent Trump after the firm's leadership disapproved of taking him on as a client. In embracing Trump, Sullivan & Cromwell, with its 900 attorneys and high-profile client list, is marking a different path for Big Law. Read the original article on Business Insider
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National Black Farmers Association Condemn Proposal to Repeal Duty Drawback
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