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Int'l Business Times
28-05-2025
- Automotive
- Int'l Business Times
Businesses With 'DEI' in Their Names Suffer Backlash After Conservatives Make False Connections to Diversity Initiatives
Owners of businesses with the letters "DEI" in their names have voiced their frustrations at becoming swept up in the Trump administration's attacks on diversity, equity and inclusion despite having nothing to do with policies associated with "wokeness". Ohio resident David Markley, who owns a firm that manufactures car parts called Design Engineering Inc. (DEI), voiced his frustrations about becoming embroiled in an agenda unrelated to him to the Wall Street Journal. "You're reading these headlines: 'DEI is wrong,' 'Terrified of the aftermath of DEI,'" said Markley. "It's disheartening when somebody's, like, bashing your baby." Since assuming office, President Donald Trump has pursued multiple courses of action and signed various executive orders with the goal of eliminating DEI related federal and private programs. However, these efforts often have unintended consequences, such as the impact on Markley's business. Earlier this year, the Pentagon removed images of Enola Gay, an aircraft piloted by Paul Tibbets that dropped an atomic bomb on Japan, from its website due to the inclusion of the word "Gay". The aircraft was named after its pilots mother, Enola Gay Tibbets. Markley shared how his business had already been embroiled in problems relating to its name due to the existence of former race team Dale Earnhhardt Inc., with which it shared initials. Design Engineering Inc. was often confused with the team, and frequently recieved phone calls intended for the team instead. "We finally got over that hump," said Markley. "Then the new DEI came. It's just like, oh, God, not again." Restaurant supply company owner Ricardo Gomez faced similar issues due to his company's name, DEI equipment. Gomez got the idea from the latin word "dei", meaning divine. "I'm a minority that owns a business—it's not that I'm against it," said Gomez. "We're very, very careful about doing anything that will offend anybody from either side." Originally published on Latin Times
Yahoo
21-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Congresswoman questions Hegseth about book removals at Naval Academy, other military libraries
Rep. Sarah Elfreth is seeking answers from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth as military libraries face a deadline to remove books and other materials to comply with a Pentagon directive on diversity, equity, and inclusion. In a letter exclusively obtained by The Baltimore Sun, Elfreth, D-Md., writes to Hegseth asking for details from the department on 'targeting books and historical materials that this Administration has ideological disagreements with.' The letter requests more information on a department memorandum, issued earlier this month, that directed military leaders to remove all books focusing on perceived DEI issues by Wednesday. The memo stated that 'promoting divisive concepts and gender ideology are incompatible with the Department's core mission,' according to the AP. Since Hegseth was confirmed as Defense secretary, the department has deleted or removed thousands of historical images, documents, and stories from online archives that contain perceived references to DEI, only for some to be restored after outside complaints. They included an article on the military service of Jackie Robinson — restored after ESPN asked the department about its removal — and images and references to the Enola Gay, the World War II aircraft that dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima. The Nimitz Library at the U.S. Naval Academy department removed 381 books in April after Hegseth's office issued directives to evaluate and eliminate works focused on DEI. 'We knew it was bigger than the Naval Academy,' Elfreth told The Sun. 'It's a distraction — of time, energy, resources, capital — towards culture wars and not towards what's actually going to make us ready to defend this country against our adversaries.' The letter lists five questions for the secretary to respond to about the memo. One asks about the formation of the Academic Libraries Committee, the temporary committee that provided a list of search terms for military leaders to target in the book removal. Other questions refer to potential criteria to inform the list of search terms, the department institutions impacted by the memo, the future of the removed books and the costs associated with the removal. More disturbing than the targeting of books, Elfreth's letter states, 'is the lack of explanation, and the contradiction between the books this Administration thinks should be removed and the books that remain, like Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler and The Doctrine of Facism by Benito Mussolini.' Elfreth is a member of the U.S. Armed Services Committee. Seven Armed Services Democrats joined the letter. Hegseth has been weathering a maelstrom of mistakes. It started with the Signalgate incident, when then-National Security Advisor Mike Waltz created a group chat of America's highest-ranking officials to discuss military strikes in the Middle East. Hegseth sent sensitive information about the strikes in the chat, which included a journalist whom Waltz had mistakenly added. Additional reporting revealed another chat used to discuss the strikes. Hegseth included his wife in the second chat, marking another security breach. He also fired top Pentagon staffers, alleging they were leaking to the media, while his chief of staff resigned. 'This is what the media does,' Hegseth said at the time. 'They take anonymous sources from disgruntled former employees, and then they try to slash and burn people and ruin their reputations. It's not going to work with me, because we're changing the Defense Department, putting the Pentagon back in the hands of war fighters.' He has faced public calls from resignation from his former chief spokesperson, John Ullyot, and Rep. Don Bacon, a Nebraska Republican. 'In your confirmation hearing, you reiterated the importance of lethality in our fighting forces — how does erasing our history from public display and removing books from military educational institutions serve this goal?' the letter states. 'Time and energy spent attempting to expunge our historical record simply means diverting resources away from critical readiness.' 'Our servicemembers are tested every day physically and mentally, and they have the capacity to critically examine and engage with texts they disagree with,' it continues. _____
Time of India
20-05-2025
- General
- Time of India
US pilot, who dropped the bomb over Hiroshima recalls his experience; shares horrifying details
World War II was more than just a conflict between nations, it was a deeply scarring tragedy that wrecked generations. The war spanned across six long years, and cost the lives of millions, tore families apart, and left entire cities in ruins. As the war reached its final stages, the world saw a kind of destruction it had never seen before. On August 6, 1945, the United States dropped the first atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima. In a single, blinding flash, tens of thousands of lives were lost. People vanished from where they stood. Homes, schools, and streets disappeared into dust. Survivors carried burns, grief, and trauma that would never fully heal. The bombing wasn't just an act of war; it was, in fact, a turning point that forced the world to face the terrifying power of nuclear weapons and the unbearable cost of such violence. This terrifying incident is remembered not just for its historical impact but for the pain it caused and the humanity it forever changed. At the heart of this moment was a man named Colonel Paul Tibbets (later General), the pilot of the Enola Gay, the aircraft that dropped the bomb into the city of Hiroshima. He discusses his account of that day and how he lived with its memories in various interviews over the years. He called it the 'most boring' flight of his life Colonel Paul Tibbets, in his reflections on the Hiroshima mission, described the flight as "the most boring flight of my life." He explained, stating, "Nothing went wrong. Everything went exactly as planned." which tells about the meticulous preparation and execution of the mission. Before starting the mission, Tibbets gathered his crew and informed them of the gravity of their task. He told them, "We are on the way to drop a special weapon on target today, which happens to be Hiroshima. The blast and the explosion are going to be big as hell. You've never conceived anything like what we are going to see." This candid briefing was intended to prepare the crew for the unprecedented nature of their mission, as reported by the official handle of the US Air Force. While reflecting on the aftermath of the bombing, in an interview with the Washington Post, Tibbets described the scene as "a city that was a black, boiling mess of tar, tumbling debris, the flames, the steam and the cloud tumbling over it." The impact was immediate and devastating. He had no regrets! Throughout his life, Colonel Tibbets maintained that he had no regrets about the mission. He asserted, "I've never lost a night's sleep over it, and I never will." In a 1982 interview with UPI, Tibbets said, "You've got to remember that the entire population of the United States was behind World War II and the idea was to beat the Japs. With that thought in mind, and war being what it is, give me the same set of conditions and I wouldn't hesitate to do it again." Tibbets revealed the reality to the crew in the air The people who helped make the Hiroshima mission possible, the aircrew, mechanics, engineers, suppliers, and support teams, had no idea what the true purpose of their work was until after it was done. Even the men aboard the Enola Gay didn't fully understand the nature of the mission as they took off. Colonel Paul Tibbets only revealed the truth once they were in the air. He walked to the back of the aircraft to give his crew a pep talk, finally explaining the gravity of the weapon they had nicknamed 'the gimmick. ' Tibbets said he chose to share the details mid-flight to make sure the crew understood just how serious the mission was. Knowing the risks involved, he even offered cyanide capsules to the crew in case anything went wrong. Out of the entire team, only two accepted. While Tibbets is best known for leading the Enola Gay and working on the top-secret Manhattan Project, he said that his military career included other assignments he was proud of, assignments he earned through his leadership and skill. Still, he admitted that flying the atomic bomb mission would always be the defining moment of his life, which most people would question him for. Tibbets accepted the heavy legacy that came with it. He acknowledged that the bomb killed around 80,000 people, and that public opinion about his role would always be divided. But he stood by his decision. He said. 'I thought I was doing the right thing, and I still think I did the right thing. I've had thousands of enlisted men and officers come by and say 'You saved my butt.' That's what I wanted to do, and I'm damn glad.'
France 24
29-04-2025
- Politics
- France 24
First 100 days: The race to save digital records from the Trump administration
It only took a few days for things to start going missing on US government websites once Trump began his second term. In a blizzard of change, federal agencies have struggled to comply with the barrage of executive orders signed by Trump since Day 1. Environmental policies have been rolled back, entire government departments and bureaus dismantled, and decades-long diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives were abruptly ended. Thousands of websites have disappeared or been modified as a consequence. Scientific articles, the precious results of long-term research, data sets and digital tools have been deleted. Trump's executive order that falsely claims there are only two genders is now reflected on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) website. Pages that previously referred to "pregnant people", for example, now refer to "pregnant women". The first nationwide database tracking federal police misconduct has been impossible to access since late February. And tools tracking climate risks and environmental justice concerns have been scrubbed. Hundreds of employees of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) were fired, and looming funding cuts could eviscerate what many consider the world's most advanced climate modeling and forecasting systems. But just as quickly as government data falls victim to Trump's policies, digital archivists, scientists, researchers and citizens swiftly salvage it from the digital grave. The race to save data from oblivion 'When it all began, [I worked] every morning and every night,' says Lynda Kellam, a data librarian and organiser with the Data Rescue Project, a platform that coordinates efforts between different projects saving public government data. 'I used to be able to step away from my computer on the weekend, but now it has been a lot harder not to use the evenings to just check in and see what's happening,' Kellam admits. Though it is difficult to predict when the next chunk of government data will be flagged as doomed to disappear, prompting Kellam to jump in with hundreds of other volunteers to save it from oblivion, specific topics are more vulnerable than others. 'Direct targets include data with sexual orientation and gender identification variables,' Kellam explains. Federal agencies have flagged hundreds of words to limit or avoid, which news outlets like the New York Times and free expression non-profits like PEN America compiled into long lists. Some research or data sets have been scrapped simply because they used words like 'transgender'. In some cases, photos were flagged for removal simply because their file name included 'gay' – like an image of the Enola Gay aircraft that dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima. The White House later responded and said it did not have a list of banned words. 12:54 This is not the first time Kellam has participated in efforts to rescue digital data under Trump. She worked with a group called Data Refuge in 2017, but says the scope of deletions is on an unprecedented scale this time around. 'There were data rescue efforts [back then] but the data wasn't disappearing,' Kellam explains. '[And] the focus was on environmental and climate change data. Now it's a whole breadth of government data, it's a much wider net, especially when it comes to what I call 'social' data, meaning data that involves humans and that doesn't fit within the ideology of the administration.' 'We definitely haven't seen anything like the pace that we are seeing data disappear now,' she adds. The Data Rescue Project is just one of many organisations engaged in activities to save government resources from oblivion. Other non-profits like the Internet Archive and its Wayback Machine, a tool that captures screenshots of web pages and caches government data, are also playing an essential role. And data rescue efforts are even taking place beyond US borders. An international effort 'It was clear things were going to happen [and they] would be much worse than the first presidency when Trump won the election in November,' says Henrik Schoenemann, a digital historian at Humboldt University in Berlin. He started Safeguarding Research & Culture, an independent organisation that archives public data, five days before Trump was inaugurated on January 20. Schoenemann put out a call on decentralized social media platforms like Mastodon asking if researchers needed their data to be hosted or backed up elsewhere than on US institutional or agency websites. Along with a colleague, he started archiving research papers they knew would be targeted by the Trump administration, like articles using LGBTQ terminology like 'non-binary' or 'transgender'. Then, they quickly moved on to bigger fish. 'Just a few days before the CDC went offline, we archived the whole website and its data sets,' Schoenemann said. 'We started out by proactively thinking about what kind of data would be in danger.' Before data is archived, the organisation either receives a request or picks up on a specific area that is at risk of disappearing – after an executive order is signed by Trump, for example. Volunteers then download data sets or archive websites that could be taken down and back the information up on hard drives. The data is then added to a public catalogue online where the information is shared using a torrent system – a safer way to transfer files online. 'It's not just happening to health or climate data, it's happening to cultural heritage, too,' explains Schoenemann. Trump issued an executive order on March 27 directing Vice President JD Vance to 'remove improper ideology' from the Smithsonian Institution, including its celebrated museums, research centres and the National Zoo. 'The US is a major hub for research infrastructure, a lot of which is in danger right now,' Schoenemann says. 'Having one big institution taking care of [data] infrastructures is a model that doesn't work anymore.' A 'historical precedent' Data experts say it is too early to tell the exact percentage of what has been taken down since Trump took office. But looking back at the kind of content that has been deleted in the first 100 days of his presidency draws a clear picture of the agenda the Trump administration is pursuing. 'The intent behind the deletions is either based on ideological differences or it is about so-called efficiency,' says Kellam. The vast overhaul of US government agencies was spearheaded by Tesla CEO Elon Musk and his self-described Department of Government Efficiency, known as DOGE. Within weeks of Trump taking office, the department dissolved USAID – the country's main foreign aid organisation. It also tried to shut down the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a watchdog agency that protects US citizens from bank malpractice. And now the Department of Education is at risk of being dismantled. 'I think the intention is to control how people think or feel, but also demonise others,' says Schoenemann. 'There is a historical precedent for autocratic regimes changing what they want people to know, or changing reality according to their point of view … The end goal is controlling the population.' He cites the Berlin Institute of Sexual Science, founded in 1919, as an example. 'There is a reason why transgender studies seem so recent,' he says. The institute could have been a bedrock for trans research were its library not set on fire by the Nazi party on May 10, 1933. It lies just a three-minute walk from where Schoenemann works. 'People have already tried to erase research [in the past]. We want to make sure that won't happen again.' How data shape policies When it comes to climate and environmental data, scientists are worried that efforts to gather new data will fall by the wayside. The NOAA announced mid-April that a list of datasets on ocean monitoring will go dark in early May. And an observatory in Hawaii that has been tracking atmospheric greenhouse gases since 1958 is on a list of facilities whose leases may be cancelled following mass cuts by Trump. 'By removing access to information, the Trump administration is able to tell whatever narrative they want about the quality of their policies,' says Jessie Mahr, the technology director at the Environmental Policy Innovation Center. Mahr is part of a project that archives hundreds of sets of environmental data and is simultaneously trying to recreate tools needed to make sense of that data. The Public Environmental Data Project also do advocacy work to raise people's awareness on the importance of the data being deleted. Before the Trump administration removed access to a screening tool on the Environmental Protection Agency's website that mapped environmental hazards in different areas across the US, 'people could check whether the drinking water in their neighbourhood was safe, what the flood risks were but also see if there was sewage in the area', Mahr explains. 'By removing access to [this data], you are not only making it hard for the public to understand, but also for governments to take action and prioritise where they should be investing to improve livelihoods,' she says. Public governmental data also allows communities to use numbers and statistics to bolster their complaints about environmental hazards like pollution. State and federal agencies can then confirm 'how bad things are and direct resources to address the issue', Mahr says. 'That's what actually sparks change.' But for now, there is no sign of the Trump administration letting up. The digital archivists, researchers, scientists and everyday citizens banding together to save the data that is threatened will have to keep up the effort. Schoenemann believes there is a lot to be learned from what is taking place in the US at the moment. 'In Europe, we need to think about how we can prevent the need for rescue operations too,' he says. 'We can't save people, but at least we can save data.'
Yahoo
24-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Federal DEI threats are a tough lesson for Palm Beach County schools
What is the real lesson that the federal government is teaching students at the Palm Beach County School District when it comes to diversity, equity and inclusion? Money talks and policy, no matter how much needed, just walks? It's clear that the Trump administration frowns on DEI policies and programs. Whether it's rolling back contracting goals with minority- and women-owned businesses, removing photos of distinguished Jewish graduates from a display case at the U.S. Naval Academy, or purging photos of the Enola Gay from the U.S. Defense Department because of, well, "gay." That anti-DEI sentiment has hit home as the Palm Beach County School Board, in an emergency vote, ended district DEI programs for fear of losing $300 million in federal funding. No more diversity goals in minority- and women-owned contracting, hiring or curriculum programs. No more data collection to determine how effectively the district is using its resources to help more than three-quarters of its students who aren't white. 'The threat was real': Palm Beach County School board to end DEI programs over objections We don't blame the School Board for this painful decision. We do blame a narrow-minded Trump White House for putting them in this position. Editorial: Florida Senate poised to pass legislation to protect state parks. Get it done. A federal judge in New Hampshire ruled to limit Trump's withholding of federal funds from schools that have certain DEI programs, but that decision isn't a nationwide pause on the policy. The cuts could move forward as the controversy plays out in court. In the meantime, money still talks and the harsh lesson of school budgets under the Trump regime continues to be taught. The district earlier this month got bad news that it could lose up to $47 million in state revenue as state lawmakers consider cuts to popular college and career coursework like Advance Placement and industry certification programs. The fact that those cuts are coming at a time of dwindling public school student enrollment isn't helpful. State funding follows students. The fewer the students, the less money Palm Beach County and other school districts have to work with. Editorial: After FSU shooting, will we repeat our cycle of anguish, anger and inaction? The Trump administration already cancelled the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Local Food for Schools Cooperative Agreement, which provides funding to local farmers to provide food to school districts. Now comes the threat of more federal cuts, amounting to another budgetary body blow the district simply can't afford. The district needs every dollar it can get to assist schools with significant numbers of low-income students, educate special needs students and train teachers. The money has to come from somewhere. If not the federal government, the Florida Legislature, then locally in either higher property and sales taxes. Or, residents could sit back, grumble and just tolerate deep cuts to school services that will affect the district's bond rating and overall status for quality education. Money talks. Principled programs that are key to a child's education? Not so much. That's a lesson Palm Beach County school students shouldn't accept. This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Palm Beach County schools end DEI effort for money's sake | Editorial
