Independent bookstores make quiet comeback as big chains dominate retail About 422 indie bookshops opened in 2025, up 31%, defying predictions of retail consolidation

In other news: Indie bookstores looking up! 👊🏼💛✨ www.theguardian.com/business/202...

Summer in the city 🤩 secretchicago.com/summer-stree...

What to Do If Civil Unrest Arises While You’re Traveling Abroad In a world where conflict has become increasingly common, experts offer their tips and advice on how to prepare, stay safe, navigate travel insurance and emergency assistance, and return home swiftly.

According to the Institute for Economics and Peace, global peacefulness has declined for 11 consecutive years. Many preconflict conditions—political instability, resource competition, neighboring-country conflict—sit at their highest levels since World War II.
www.afar.com/magazine/wha...

Lucinda Williams Has Had Enough

“They were like hymns, almost,” Williams said in January, on the eve of releasing her fourteenth album of original music, World’s Gone Wrong. “Everybody knew them. And that feeling of a group of people standing close together singing like that—it’s very powerful.”
oxfordamerican.org/oa-now/lucin...

PEN America Literary Awards awards Dayna Bateman a PEN/Jean Stein Grant for Literary Oral History

So this happened ✨☺️ if a memoir+oral history about growing up on the spinning edge of the vinyl record business interests you -- supported by a PEN/Jean Stein Grant for Literary Oral History -- then share your email here and I'll loop you in on the drop » www.daynabatemanwrites.com/tell-me-when

A crocodile marionette devours an adult male marionette

Crocodile, from "Titeres Populares Mexicanos"
www.metmuseum.org/zh/art/colle... via @metmuseum.org

As an affordable hyper-local fermented beverage that follows the seasons? I think that wine will always be with us, wherever folks can still grow the vines (see: climate change) but as a >$30 /bottle luxury commodity? I think that market will be tougher to sustain

One year later, Canadian bans on US wine cost American industry $357 million in 2025

wineinstitute.org/press-releas...

Buíochas le Dia ☘️🙏🏼

The US national counterterrorism Chief has resigned in protest at the war with Iran. US army veteran Joe Kent said in his resignation letter to Donald Trump that he quote cannot support sending the next generation off to fight and die in a war that serves no benefit to the American people".

Middle East war live: US counterterrorism chief quits over Iran war - giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/... via @FT #giftlink

St Patrick’s Day Message from President Catherine Connolly | President of Ireland A Chairde Uaisle, is mór an onóir dom ar mo chéad Lá Fhéil’ Pádraig mar Uachtarán na hÉireann, beannac...

president.ie/en/diary/det...

4/4

“and continue to make, to the countries they now call home, sometimes even in the face of great adversity.

Patrick’s story speaks not only to the Ireland of the 5th century, but to the millions still subjected to trafficking, forced labour and displacement today.”

And Happy St Pat’s y'all ☘️
3/

“...only to return to Ireland as a missionary, giving voice and his life to fostering an awareness of the consequences of slavery.

The story of Patrick’s life serves as a reminder of the resilience and courage of migrants, the invaluable contributions that they have made, ... 2/

Well said, President Catherine Connolly of Ireland:

“As we gather together to celebrate Saint Patrick’s Day, it is appropriate that we recall the foundational story upon which our national day is based. Patrick was trafficked across the Irish Sea from Britain as a young man in the 5th century... 1/

Thank you @bridportprize.bsky.social and Judge Manni Coe🙏🏼💛✨ Grateful and glad to be named Runner Up among this talented cohort of Bridport Memoir Prize winners ✨ #amwriting

The text of the amendment reads, "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction."

Soon after the Confederacy's defeat in the Civil War, the Thirteenth Amendment was designed to abolish slavery nationwide.

Mar. 16, 1995 | Mississippi Finally Ratifies the 13th Amendment After Failing to Do So for 130 Years Learn more about our history of racial injustice.

After failing for 130 years to ratify the Thirteenth Amendment, which abolished slavery except as punishment for crime, the state of Mississippi finally did so on March 16, 1995.

calendar.eji.org/racial-injus...

“We’re not savage. We’re not animals. We’re not aliens. We are humans, and we are Americans.” —Bad Bunny

FBI’s Fulton County raid may have been illegal, legal experts warn. But it definitely raises fears for 2026 'This is a test run for 2026... Trump could try to seize voting machines or otherwise interfere with state ballot tabulation processes in swing districts around the country.'

Election law experts are questioning the legality of the FBI’s unprecedented seizure of 2020 election ballots in Fulton County, Ga. in a raid that has further inflamed fears of federal interference in the upcoming midterm elections. www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/...

PRESS RELEASE: It is 85 seconds to midnight At the 2026 Doomsday Clock announcement, the Bulletin’s Science and Security Board moved the Doomsday Clock forward from 89 seconds to 85 seconds to midnight, citing a failure in global leadership.

It is 85 seconds to midnight
thebulletin.org/2026/01/pres...

refuse silence when you can still sing

—Diana Di Prima

a poster that says measles is very contagious on it ALT: a poster that says measles is very contagious on it

“Secretary Kennedy's vaccine policy will ruin more than just Americans' health -- it'll ruin our economic security.”

www.medpagetoday.com/opinion/pres...

Just how many scientists have abandoned careers in the United States may not emerge for years. ... “There have definitely been some cuts and delays in getting funded,” one chemist says. But “what we’re more seeing is the toll of the uncertainty.”

www.science.org/content/arti...

How Trump has used his office as President of the United States to pocket $1.4B

That's some grift » www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

#giftlink

Trump's Iceland ambassador nominee jokes country will become a U.S. state - ArcticToday Trump’s nominee for U.S. ambassador to Iceland joked about making Iceland a U.S. state as Washington prepares for high-level talks on Greenland.

Not funny.

“Billy Long, Trump’s nominee for ambassador to Iceland, joked with lawmakers this week that Iceland will become the 52nd U.S. state (it remains unclear, which country Long suggests will become the 51st state) and that he would serve as its governor.”

www.arctictoday.com/trumps-icela...

We Emit a Visible Light That Vanishes When We Die, Surprising Study Says Life truly is radiant, according to an experiment conducted by researchers from the University of Calgary and the National Research Council of Canada.

We Emit a Visible Light That Vanishes When We Die, Surprising Study Finds www.sciencealert.com/we-emit-a-vi...

Federal Prosecutors Open Investigation Into Fed Chair Powell

“If there were any remaining doubt whether advisers within the Trump administration are actively pushing to end the independence of the Federal Reserve, there should now be none.” —Senator Thom Tillis, Republican of North Carolina and member of the Banking Committee

www.nytimes.com/2026/01/11/u...

Jens-Frederik Nielsen, the Greenlandic leader under pressure The Arctic island’s 34-year-old prime minister is at the centre of one of the world’s most meaningful geopolitical struggles

“Enough is enough. No more pressure. No more insinuations. No more fantasies of annexation,” he said this week, calling Trump’s comments “entirely unacceptable”. —Jens-Frederik Nielsen, Prime Minister of Greenland
#giftlink
giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/... via @FT

I keep thinking of you @joellemunch.bsky.social and your close encounter -- could have so easily gone the other way 🙏🕯️ so glad you're okay