School districts from Pennsylvania to Wyoming are bowing to pressure from conservative groups to purge library books about LGBTQ issues and people of color, Axios' Russell Contreras reports.

• Deborah Caldwell-Stone, director of the American Library Association's Office for Intellectual Freedom, told Axios: "I've worked for this office for 20 years, and we've never had this volume of challenges come in such a short time."
• Librarians are using the hashtag #FReadom to fight book bans.

Why it matters: As the nation's public schools become more diverse, conflicts over what books students can access — or must read — are posing new questions about free speech and the purpose of education.

Zoom out: A pivotal midterm election year, COVID frustrations and a backlash against efforts to call out systemic racism are turning public schools into ground zero in the culture wars.

Zoom in: In Virginia, just over an hour south of D.C., the Spotsylvania County School Board in November ordered staff to remove "sexually explicit" books from libraries after a parent raised concerns about their LGBTQ themes.

• Texas school districts are scrambling to review and ban some library books after state Rep. Matt Krause, a [former — Updated] candidate for state attorney general, asked school superintendents to confirm whether any books on his list of 850 titles were on their shelves.

From the left: Some progressive activists have sought to pull literary staples from school syllabi under the argument that in today's context, they perpetuate racist or sexist constructs.

• Liberal-leaning parents also have called for books to be banned over the use of dated racial epithets and themes of "white saviorism."
• The ALA's Caldwell-Stone says such challenges are sporadic and nothing compared to the current conservative-backed efforts.

From the right: Tiffany Justice, co-founder of Moms for Liberty, told Axios parents want educators to listen to parents' concerns and not force certain subjects on children.

• She said parents have the right to challenge books from Black scholars like Ibram X. Kendi if they see it as indoctrination.
• Justice says Moms for Liberty has 70,000 members in 33 states and plans to expand.

The bottom line: John L. Jackson, dean of the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania, said the fight over books is a microcosm of our political divisions.

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Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker — who was among the four hostages at Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, Texas, on Saturday — said his congregation has taken security training over the years from Colleyville police, FBI, Anti-Defamation League and Secure Community Network.

• "We are alive today because of that education," he said in a statement. "I encourage all Jewish congregations, religious groups, schools, and others to participate in active-shooter and security courses."
• "In the last hour of our hostage crisis, the gunman became increasingly belligerent and threatening. Without the instruction, ... we would not have been prepared to act and flee when the situation presented itself."

Zoom in: The FBI identified the hostage-taker as British citizen Malik Faisal Akram, 44.

• Two teenagers in South Manchester, England, were detained for questioning about the siege. Go deeper.

Zoom out: President Biden said in Philadelphia: "This was an act of terror."

• Biden said he told Attorney General Merrick Garland "that I wanted to make sure we got the word out to synagogues and places of worship that we’re not going to tolerate this, that we have this capacity to deal with the assaults on particularly the antisemitism that has grown up."

Greece today imposed a vaccination mandate for people over 60, with fines to back it up, AP reports:

• Older people failing to get vaccinated will face a €50 ($57) fine in January, followed by a monthly fine of €100 ($114) after that.
• Health Minister Thanos Plevris said fines would be collected through the tax office with the money to be used to help fund state hospitals.

The context: The vaccination rate in Greece is below the EU average. A recent spike in infections has poured pressure on hospitals.

• Go deeper: "Return of the flu ... EU faces threat of prolonged 'twindemic.'"

In a long-exposure photo, lights from a snowplow illuminate sleet last night at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial in Washington.

It's that kind of day: Spotted in Orange County, N.C., near Hillsborough.

A 98% illuminated Wolf Moon sets behind the Statue of Liberty before sunrise yesterday.

The Washington Post examined thousands of pages of census records and historical documents to create a database of 1,739 former congressmen who once enslaved Black people:

• "From the founding of the United States until long after the Civil War," The Post reports, "hundreds of the elected leaders writing the nation’s laws were current or former" enslavers.
• "More than 1,700 people who served in the U.S. Congress in the 18th, 19th and even 20th centuries owned human beings at some point."

The big picture: "The link between race and political power in early America echoes in complicated ways, from the racial inequities that persist to this day to the polarizing fights over voting rights and the way history is taught in schools," The Post writes.

The findings: "[E]nslavers in Congress represented 37 states, including not just the South but every state in New England, much of the Midwest, and many Western states."

• "For the first 18 years of American lawmaking, from 1789 to 1807, more than half the men elected to Congress each session" enslaved people.

Follow-up thread by Julie Zauzmer Weil, lead reporter on the project:

This first-of-its-kind credit was added to the online story, and appeared in print yesterday: "The following Washington Post readers contributed research used to update the database."

Go deeper: Explore the story.

• Outside the paywall: The Post asks for help identifying members of Congress who enslaved people, with a checklist of lawmakers left to research, sorted by state.
• Full database available on GitHub.

Texas is home to three of the pandemic era's top 10 metro growth areas, according to data from the New York Fed.

• Losers include Honolulu, Buffalo and New York City.

Go deeper: Excel spreadsheet at "Chart data" at end of this post.

• Axios Local brings you daily coverage from these areas.

"After nearly six years of legal wrangling, parties to Prince's estate have finally agreed on its value: $156.4 million." —Minneapolis Star Tribune

Novak Djokovic takes his seat on a flight from Dubai to his native Belgrade, Serbia, where he landed today after losing his visa fight.

• The Australian Open went on without him.

The world's No. 1 tennis player took selfies with fans when he arrived in Dubai from Melbourne.

• Go deeper: "Rising above reality ... How Djokovic bends his mind to succeed."