Good morning, Friday has arrived. Just a few more hours to power through, and then the weekend will be upon us.
I used to be a voracious book reader. Note there that I specifically added “book” as a qualifier. I still read an enormous amount. In fact, I sometimes feel like I spend an inordinate amount of time reading – news articles, emails (hundreds and hundreds of them), social media posts, text messages, long-form features, listicles, etc. and so forth.
The vast majority of all this reading takes place online – either on my phone or on the laptop. I even read my New Yorker subscription online.
I don’t know when, exactly, I fell out of the habit of picking up hard copy-dead tree reading material. It doesn’t really make sense, because I actually prefer the tangible feeling of turning the page and advancing through a piece of reading material until the accomplishment of finishing it and then putting it on the shelf.
It turns out that I’m not alone. According to a National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) survey, 53% of U.S. adults said they read literature and/or books of some kind in 2022, compared to 57.1% in 2017. And reading of this sort has been steadily declining over the past decade – both in print AND electronically.
The number of people who reported reading at least one book in any medium at all in 2022 was 48.5, which is 6.1 percentage points lower than in 2012. And reading is down across the board when it comes to genre – plays, novels, poetry, short stories, you name it.
Interestingly, despite hyped up claims to the contrary, Americans are indeed still buying books – even the dead tree printed kind – to the tune of an estimated more than 1 billion a year, which doesn’t include used book sales or books purchased by libraries (and yes, people do still patronize libraries, too).
Print sales are actually going up, perhaps, some speculate, due to the growing popularity of adult fantasy tomes by authors like Sarah J. Maas and Rebecca Yarros, who churn out titles with alarming frequency.
The publishing industry is notoriously opaque, and self-publishing is increasingly popular. Unless you’re a really big-name author, my understanding is that much of the promotion a traditional publishing house used doesn’t happen anymore. Then again, options for procuring a title far exceed what used to exist – basically, readers were limited to going to a store and buying a book. These days, you can download reading material on demand, which helps keeps costs down on the production side.
As much as it pains me to say it, the rise of online reading is a really good thing for the planet. Some 320 million books end up in landfills every year. I don’t know if you’ve tried to donate books recently, but it’s really hard to do. Not all libraries take them – they’re basically drowning in donations. And even prisons aren’t particularly interested.
There’s a movement to recycle books, with some cities even setting up donation bins – basically along the same lines of used clothing and housewares receptacles.
Some independent citizens are getting in on the action, too, but erecting little lending libraries on their front lawns, and some cafes have them, too. I really love these, though in my experience, the offerings are, let us say, eclectic.
Reading is not only educational and a good way to expand your mind while passing the time, but it’s also relaxing. A study by the University of Sussex revealed that just six minutes of reading can reduce stress levels by 68 percent, working even faster to put you at ease than going for a walk or listening to music.
Today is National Book Lovers Day. I’m going to make a point of setting aside some time to do some non-work reading. I hope you do, too.
Tropical Storm Debby, who made landfall a second time in the Carolinas, is still making herself felt across New York.
There will be showers in the morning today, with thunderstorms developing in the afternoon and a chance of isolated tornados. Rainfall will be potentially over an inch, which is a LOT of water in a short period of time. Temperatures will be in the high 70s.
The weekend is looking promising, but the forecast has been shifting around a lot. Right now, though, both days look to be mostly sunny, with temperatures in the low 80s. I’ll take it.
In the headlines…
Donald Trump and Kamala Harris are set to debate on ABC on September 10 after the former president said he had agreed to the face off, along with two others next month.
“ABC News will host qualifying presidential candidates to debate on September 10 on ABC. Vice President Harris and former President Trump have both confirmed they will attend the ABC debate,” the network said in a statement.
Speaking at a news conference at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, Trump said that he was “looking forward” to debating the vice president and that he had agreed to upcoming dates with Fox News, ABC and NBC.
Trump spoke at a news conference at Mar-a-Lago, where he repeatedly mispronounced Ms. Harris’s first name, criticized her intelligence and resurrected a series of familiar attacks casting her as “a radical left person.”
“She’s a woman,” Trump said when asked to explain Harris’ rise in polls. “She represents certain groups of people, but I will say this, when people find out about her, I think she’ll be much less.”
Trump called Harris’ running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz a “radical left man,” adding: ““Between her and him, there’s never been anything like this. There’s certainly never been anybody so liberal like these two.”
In the nearly three weeks since President Joe Biden withdrew his candidacy, catapulting Harris to the top of the Democratic ticket, the vice president has shown little eagerness to meet journalists in unscripted settings.
Harris fielded a handful of questions from reporters in Michigan. She defended Walz from GOP criticism about his representation of his military service, saying, “I praise anyone who has presented themselves to serve our country and I think that we all should.”
Trump suggested presidents should have input on interest rates, a comment likely to stoke fears that he could try to limit the Federal Reserve’s political independence.
The entire Republican Party, from Trump on down, is working to adjust its strategy to taking on Harris.
Defense attorneys said they would challenge Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s decision to throw out a plea deal with accused 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and two of his co-defendants.
Austin’s surprise decision to overrule the plea deals with three 9/11 terror defendants, including the attack’s alleged architect Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, may muddy their ongoing military hearings.
A trio of Republicans from New York have introduced legislation that would prevent the Biden administration, or any future president, from offering a deal to Mohammed.
Mortgage rates have fallen to their lowest level in more than a year, a balm for prospective home buyers and sellers in a challenging real estate market.
The decline, from 6.73 percent a week earlier, was the biggest this year.
The average rate on 30-year mortgages, the most popular home loan in the United States, dropped to 6.47 percent this week, Freddie Mac reported.
This year is on track to be the warmest on record after the previous high set in 2023, according to the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service.
Two days in July were the hottest days on record in a data set that extends back to 1940. The month was the second-warmest July on record, ending the more than yearlong streak of global monthly temperature records.
New York State Attorney General Letitia James will not defend Gov. Kathy Hochul in two lawsuits newly filed to “un-pause” and enforce the congestion pricing law.
James’ office said that a “conflict” bars her from representing Hochul, state Department of Transportation Commissioner Marie Therese Dominguez and the MTA in the cases.
In the last month, Hochul has continued to project a message that she’s focused on affordability for New Yorkers, a leading concern for most voters. But prominent anti-poverty groups say the centrist Democrat isn’t doing enough.
Hochul yesterday announced the state has issued nearly $200 million in food assistance to more than 1.5 million low-income children. The funds provided is part of the state’s new Summer Electronic Benefits Transfer (Summer EBT) program.
As New York continues putting money back in the pockets of working families, we’ve already begun sending food assistance to more than 1.5 million kids – and we’re going to keep delivering these benefits to more families in need,” Hochul said.
The Assembly recently asked a judge to bar the state Division of Human Rights from holding a public hearing on a sexual discrimination complaint a woman filed against Buffalo-area Assembly Member Patrick Burke.
Climate activists and elected officials – including newly-minted New York City mayoral candidate Brad Lander – are calling on Hochul to sign the Climate Change Superfund Act, armed with new numbers on how much money it could be saving taxpayers.
Hochul warned New Yorkers of possible heavy rain and flash flooding as remnants of Debby approached the state.
Starting around midday, Debby is expected to produce between 2-4 inches of rainfall with locally heavier amounts of 3-5 inches for parts of the North Country, Central New York, Finger Lakes, Mohawk Valley, Capital, Mid-Hudson and Southern Tier regions.
New York City officials, including Mayor Eric Adams, announced a joint effort to improve public safety and enhance the quality of life on 14th Street in Manhattan.
Adams announced that an NYPD-anchored coalition of city agencies and local groups will aim to fix public safety and quality-of-life problems along 14th Street, where three New Yorkers were recently knifed in broad daylight.
Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine took the first official step this week to run for city comptroller in 2025 — a move that paves the way for a competitive Democratic primary for the fiscal watchdog post.
Spanish trash containers will be at the vanguard of New York City’s “trash revolution.”
Families with young children are increasingly grappling with whether to leave the five boroughs in search of more affordable child care and housing.
As New York City grapples with the formidable challenge of housing nearly 65,000 asylum seekers from the southern border, a related problem has emerged: A noticeable and growing number of them are sleeping outside.
The Correction Department failed to take detainees to medical appointments thousands of times a month, sometimes not notifying them and later saying they “refused care,” according to a court filing by groups suing over health care access in the city’s jails.
New York City has started applying for new preschool special education classes, after advocates sounded the alarm about young children with disabilities who could be shut out of the program on the first day of school.
A federal judge on Long Island said he would vacate the sentence of a 75-year-old man convicted on tax fraud charges and instead place him on house arrest if he were sent to serve time at a troubled jail in Brooklyn, citing “inhumane treatment” at the facility.
A high ranking NYPD official is among several defendants in a lawsuit accusing him of body slamming a woman to the pavement in lower Manhattan during a May 2023 protest.
Three Columbia University deans who exchanged disparaging text messages that the university president said “touched on ancient antisemitic tropes” during a forum about Jewish issues in May are resigning, a spokeswoman said.
A lawsuit filed this week alleges that a man was severely injured at the Museum of Ice Cream’s sprinkle pool in Manhattan because the venue “fails to warn visitors of the danger” of jumping in.
A New York court set aside 46 convictions in cases that featured testimony from a former Police Department detective who had perjured himself, the Queens district attorney announced.
Long Island’s Nassau County was listed as the safest in America this week — in rankings that found the New York metropolitan area had 10 of the nation’s top 25 safest counties.
County Executive Bruce Blakeman hailed Nassau’s victory in the US News & World Report study as a credit to the area’s law-and-order values.
Saying it needs it to offset the state’s 51% tax rate, DraftKings, one of New York’s leading mobile sports book betting platforms, wants to impose a new surcharge on winning bets starting in January.
After yesterday ended up sloppy and soaked at the Spa — and in anticipation of the heavy rainfall and winds expected until early Saturday morning as a result of Tropical Depression Debby — the New York Racing Association canceled today’s 10-race card.
A trial that could determine if Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. appears on the ballot in New York ended yesterday with explosive arguments about where the independent presidential candidate actually lives and if, under the law, that even matters.
An Irish couple wanted by British police since 2018 on 19 counts of money laundering and alleged ties to a transnational crime organization were arrested in Ulster County last month.
The City of Albany is pushing the developer behind the long-delayed apartment building at 1211 Western Ave. to fix the sidewalk and roadways as construction drags on.
One half of a pair of French bulldogs reported stolen this week in Albany has been reunited with its family. The other is still missing.
The Capital Region’s first 7 Brew Coffee is opening Sept. 9 at 1893 Central Ave. in Colonie.
The Cold Case Analysis Center — an internship program that tasks students with investigating cold cases and was one of the many casualties when The College Saint Rose closed this year — has a new home: UAlbany.
Averill Park graduate Rudy Winkler posted on Instagram that he was “incredibly grateful and proud” after placing sixth in the men’s hammer throw at the Olympics last Sunday.
Less than 24 hours after the arrest of two teenagers who the Austrian authorities say planned to attack a Taylor Swift concert in Vienna, security officials outlined a picture of a terrorist assault designed to kill as many people as possible.
The alleged architect of the thwarted terror attack recently pledged allegiance to the current leader of the Islamic State group militia, while his accomplice secured employment at the venue.
Swift fans from around the world grappled with disappointment and fear after a terrorism plot derailed the Vienna dates of the Eras Tour.
Photo credit: George Fazio.
