Today’s Big Story

Bookstores Are Back

A wave of new owners bring fresh energy to independent bookselling

What are you reading these days? Or perhaps an even more pertinent question is: Where are you getting your reading material? Because there’s a new wave of book shops who are helping the independent book community dramatically expand, intensify and diversify.

As the Associated Press points out, independent bookselling is not a field for fortune seekers: Most local stores, whether run by retirees, bookworms or those switching careers in middle age, have some sense of higher purpose. But for many who opened in recent years, it’s an especially critical mission during an era where minority voices are being drowned out and books are being banned from local libraries and schools.

Of course, independent stores will likely never recover their power of 50 years ago, before the rise of Barnes & Noble superstores and the online giant Amazon.com. But the days of industry predictions of their demise seem well behind. In 2016, there were 1,244 members in the American Booksellers Association trade group, at 1,749 locations. As of this month, the ABA has 2,863 individual members, at 3,281 locations. And more than 200 stores are in the process of opening.

There’s no denying the ease and quickness of one-tap ordering for Prime members, but many readers still turn to their local indies because those small shops offer qualities that the e-commerce behemoth doesn’t possess: soul, authenticity, and knowlegable sales associates that are happy to help. Plus, there’s that unique papery smell that I personally just love.

And the savviest of shops aren’t just stocking paperbacks and hard cover tomes. They are embracing their vital social capital as necessary “third spaces” where strangers can mix and mingle. Which is why many are starting to attract a wider customer base by combining people’s love of books with other things they love: gourmet coffee, cocktails, dinner and experiences in a unique, aesthetically pleasing environment. The stylish interiors might explain why more and more young people are getting engaged in bookstores.

Trump’s War With Harvard Continues

The White House just revoked the university’s ability to enroll international students

In a continuation of an already ugly fight, the Trump administration on Thursday said it would halt Harvard University’s ability to enroll international students—taking aim at a crucial funding source for the nation’s oldest and wealthiest college in a major escalation of the administration’s efforts to pressure the elite school to fall in line with the president’s agenda.

Harvard said the move by the White House is not legal and its newspaper, The Crimson, pointed out that the announcement comes just one week before thousands of international students at Harvard are set to graduate. When a university’s SEVP certification is revoked, currently enrolled international students must choose between transferring to a different institution, changing their immigration status, or leaving the country, according to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement website. Of course, the move is likely to prompt a legal challenge from the university.

If the administration follows through with the decertification, the action threatens to transform the population and culture at the nation’s oldest university, where more than a quarter of the students come from other countries. It could also essentially wipe out several of the school's sports teams. The revocation arrives a month after Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem demanded that Harvard submit records on foreign students alleged to have engaged in “illegal and violent activities” or face losing certification.

AI’s Energy Footprint

The emissions from individual queries seem small—until you add up what isn’t being tracked

Last month, we learned that just saying “please” and “thank you” to ChatGPT was costing its parent company millions of dollars in unnecessary power to fuel such interactions. But it just goes to show you how quickly all those queries add up. The energy required to power artificial intelligence already represents as much as 20% of global data-center power demand, research published Thursday shows. That demand could double by the end of this year, comprising nearly half of total data-center electricity consumption worldwide, excluding the electricity used for bitcoin mining.

Also on Thursday, a new analysis by MIT Technology Review provided an unprecedented and comprehensive look at how much energy the AI industry uses—down to a single query—to trace where its carbon footprint stands now, and where it’s headed, as AI barrels towards billions of daily users. By their calculations, more than half of the electricity going to data centers will be used for AI in less than three years. At that point, AI alone could consume as much electricity annually as 22% of all U.S. households.

Did you know that ChatGPT is already estimated to be the fifth-most visited website in the world—just after Instagram and ahead of X? That was fast. And why shouldn’t it be? The chatbot can be incredibly helpful and entertaining. But the fact is that right now, countless variables beyond your control—like which energy grid is connected to the data center your request is sent to and what time of day it’s processed—can make one query thousands of times more energy-intensive and emissions-producing than another.

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