The guests were Blair Underwood, Nicole Ari Parker and Daphne Rubin Vega – cast members from the rebooted production of "A Streetcar Named Desire" that includes minority actors playing roles traditionally played by white actors. "I think it is important for us as African-American people to understand that Broadway doesn’t belong to white folk only," Flake said. Broadway audiences historically have been overwhelmingly white. Last season, 83 percent of Broadway audiences were Caucasians – the highest percentage since the industry began keeping numbers in 1998, according to the Broadway League. The recent outreach effort in Queens was part of a push by "Streetcar" producers to tap into black Broadway audiences. Just 1.5 percent of the overall audience last season was African American – the lowest ... Continue reading →

PRINCETON, NJ -- Americans are more than twice as likely to identify themselves as conservative rather than liberal on economic issues, 46% to 20%. The gap is narrower on social issues, but conservatives still outnumber liberals, 38% to 28%. These results are based on Gallup's annual Values and Beliefs poll, conducted May 3-6. Since 2001, the poll has asked Americans to say whether they are liberal, moderate, or conservative on "economic" and, separately, "social" issues. The interpretation of what qualifies as social or economic issues is left to the respondent, given that the question does not define or provide examples of these types of issues. In the same poll, on Gallup's standard measure of ideology -- not asked in reference to any set of issues ... Continue reading →

Josep Lago/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images The police and protesters at the Caixa bank Tuesday in Barcelona. Officials hope economic worries will not result in a bank run, which could be difficult to stem. Ángel de la Peña, a Spanish government worker, is seriously considering the once unthinkable: converting some of his savings from euros to British pounds. Alvaro Saavedra Lopez, a senior executive for I.B.M. in Spain, says many of his corporate counterparts across the country are similarly looking for safer havens by transferring their spare cash to stronger euro zone countries like Germany “on a daily basis.” It is only a trickle so far, and not nearly enough to constitute a classic bank run. But these growing transfers of deposits out of troubled ... Continue reading →

What book is on your night stand now? Alan Hollinghurst’s “The Stranger’s Child,” Daniel Kahneman’s “Thinking, Fast and Slow,” Katherine Boo’s “Behind the Beautiful Forevers,” “The Civil War: The Second Year Told by Those Who Lived It” (Library of America). I always seem to be reading several books at once. Where and when do you like to read? Everywhere and anywhere — but always at night before I go to sleep. What was the last truly great book you read? Not having read “Huckleberry Finn” since high school, I returned to it last summer — ordering it on my Kindle on a bit of a whim. I was astonished to find how much of what I had been teaching and studying about race and slavery ... Continue reading →

Studies Illustrate Plight of Introverted Students Demitri Lynch, a kindergartner at City Neighbors Hamilton Charter School in Baltimore, plays by himself in his classroom. The school is designed to be "introvert friendly" so that students have spaces to work alone or in groups on the school's project-based curriculum. —Matt Roth for Education Week Educators often look for ways to bring quiet children out of their shells, but emerging research suggests schools can improve academic outcomes for introverted students by reducing the pressure to be outgoing and giving all students a little more time to reflect. "Whoever designed the context of the modern classroom was certainly not thinking of the shy or quiet kids," said Robert J. Coplan, a psychology professor and shyness expert at Carleton ... Continue reading →

Kevork Djansezian/Getty ImagesStudents on campus at the University of California, Los Angeles, which has one of the largest international student populations in the country.A California lawmaker is proposing to limit the number of out-of-state and international students who can enroll at University of California campuses.The 10 campuses that make up the U.C. system — including selective universities like Berkeley and the University of California, Los Angeles — would be prohibited from enrolling more than 10 percent of non-Californians as members of the freshman class. The proposed California Students First Act, which was introduced by Senator Michael J. Rubio, a Democrat from Shafter, Calif., would also cap undergraduate enrollment of nonresidents at 10 percent.The measure, which was introduced last week, would ensure that California students had ... Continue reading →

Top, Obama for America; bottom, Romney for President An Obama ad, top left and right, featured steelworkers who lost their jobs years after Bain Capital took over GST Steel. In contrast, a Romney ad showed employees of Steel Dynamics discussing how Bain Capital’s investment helped them achieve the American dream. In an advertisement released this month by President Obama’s campaign, Mitt Romney and the private equity firm he co-founded, Bain Capital, are painted as vampires. They sucked the lifeblood out of GST Steel in the 1990s, which pushed it into bankruptcy, destroying jobs and eliminating pensions. In a quick counterattack, the Romney campaign released an ad that highlighted the robust job growth at another Bain investment, the manufacturing company Steel Dynamics. The ad featured employees ... Continue reading →

Los Angeles became the largest city in the nation Wednesday to adopt a ban on plastic bags at supermarket checkout lines, handing a major victory to clean-water advocates who sought to reduce the amount of trash clogging landfills, the region’s waterways and the ocean. Egged on by actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus and an array of environmental groups, the City Council voted 13 to 1 to phase out plastic bags over the next 12 months at an estimated 7,500 stores. Councilman Bernard Parks cast the lone no vote. "Let’s get the message to Sacramento that it’s time to go statewide," said Councilman Ed Reyes, who has focused on efforts to revitalize the Los Angeles River. Council members quietly backed away from a more controversial plan to also ... Continue reading →