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 Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images for PEN AmericaWriters group PEN America has canceled its 2024 literary awards ceremony following months of protests by pro-Palestine writers who criticized its stance on Gaza as milquetoast and too sympathetic to Israel.
Instead of holding the planned April 29 Manhattan event, PEN America released the names of its finalists and winners. Some authors had chosen to withdraw their names from consideration in the nominee pool, but PEN said they had selected winners before the exits were made.
In a release, the organization's Literary Programming Chief Officer, Rosaz Shariyf, called it a "very difficult decision" not to move forward with the public celebration.
Read more at The Daily Beast.
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 Photo Illustration by Luis G. Rendon/The Daily Beast/Getty ImagesFor reporters at Columbia University's independent, student-run paper the Columbia Daily Spectator, covering the chaos flaming the university's metal gates over the Israel-Hamas war has become both a mission to get the first draft of history right and a quest to make sure the national press doesn't get it wrong.
"Our reporters have really been working overtime," said Esha Karam, the 21-year-old managing editor of the Daily Spectator. "We've been on the ground, covering protests both inside and outside of campus at all times and all hours. We've faced unique challenges both as students who are living on campus and reporting at the same time. We've tried to gain a diverse array of perspectives."
Columbia has had to deal with hordes of protestors in and outside its gates, an uprising from its staff and students, a shift to virtual classes, and calls for President Minouche Shafik to join other Ivy League leaders in resignation over her decision to allow the NYPD to clear out a "Gaza Solidarity Encampment" that resulted in the largest mass arrests on Columbia's campus since 1968, when officers used violence to clear out students protesting the Vietnam War. It followed her
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