Does religion need a glow-up?
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Chicago Tribune
3 hours ago
- Chicago Tribune
Today in History: Illinois senatorial contenders Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas debate
Today is Thursday, Aug. 21, the 233rd day of 2025. There are 132 days left in the year. Today in history: On Aug. 21, 1858, the first of seven debates took place between Illinois senatorial contenders Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas. Also on this date: In 1831, Nat Turner launched a violent slave rebellion in Virginia, resulting in the deaths of at least 55 white people; scores of Black people were killed in retribution in the aftermath of the rebellion, and Turner was later executed. In 1911, Leonardo da Vinci's 'Mona Lisa' was stolen from the Louvre Museum in Paris. (It was recovered two years later in Italy.) In 1944, the United States, Britain, the Soviet Union and China opened talks at Dumbarton Oaks in Washington that helped pave the way for establishment of the United Nations. In 1959, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed a proclamation officially declaring Hawaii the 50th state. In 1983, Filipino politician Benigno Aquino Jr. was assassinated as he exited an aircraft at Manila International Airport. (His widow, Corazon Aquino, would become president of the Philippines three years later.) In 1991, a hardline coup against Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev collapsed in the face of a popular uprising led by Russian Federation President Boris N. Yeltsin. In 1992, an 11-day siege began at the cabin of white separatist Randy Weaver in Ruby Ridge, Idaho, as government agents tried to arrest Weaver for failing to appear in court on charges of selling two illegal sawed-off shotguns; on the first day of the siege, Weaver's teenage son, Samuel, and Deputy U.S. Marshal William Degan were killed. In 1993, in a serious setback for NASA, engineers lost contact with the Mars Observer spacecraft as it was about to reach the red planet on a $980 million mission. In 2000, rescue efforts to reach the sunken Russian nuclear submarine Kursk ended with divers announcing none of the 118 sailors had survived. In 2010, Iranian and Russian engineers began loading fuel into Iran's first nuclear power plant, which Moscow promised to safeguard to prevent material at the site from being used in any potential weapons production. In 2015, a trio of Americans, U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Spencer Stone, National Guardsman Alek Skarlatos and college student Anthony Sadler, and a British businessman, Chris Norman, tackled and disarmed a Moroccan gunman on a high-speed train between Amsterdam and Paris. In 2017, Americans witnessed their first full-blown coast-to-coast solar eclipse since World War I, with eclipse-watchers gathering along a path of totality extending 2,600 miles across the continent In 2018, Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump's former personal lawyer and fixer, pleaded guilty to campaign-finance violations and other charges; Cohen said Trump directed him to arrange the payment of hush money to porn star Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal to fend off damage to his White House bid. (Trump was found guilty of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to the payments in May 2024.) In 2020, a former police officer who became known as the Golden State Killer, Joseph James DeAngelo, told victims and family members in a Sacramento courtroom that he was 'truly sorry' before he was sentenced to multiple life prison sentences for a decade-long string of rapes and murders. Today's Birthdays: Rock and Roll Hall of Famer James Burton is 86. Singer Jackie DeShannon is 84. Film director Peter Weir is 81. Football Hall of Famer Willie Lanier is 80. Actor Loretta Devine is 76. Two-time Heisman Trophy winner Archie Griffin is 71. Actor Kim Cattrall is 69. Former NFL quarterback Jim McMahon is 66. Rock musician Serj Tankian (System of a Down) is 58. Actor Carrie-Anne Moss is 58. Google co-founder Sergei Brin is 52. Singer Kelis is 46. TV personality Brody Jenner is 42. Olympic gold medal sprinter Usain (yoo-SAYN') Bolt is 39. Country singer Kacey Musgraves is 37. Soccer player Robert Lewandowski is 37. Actor Hayden Panettiere is 36. Comedian-singer-filmmaker Bo Burnham is 35.
Washington Post
8 hours ago
- Washington Post
Miss Manners: Cigarette smoker shocks fellow guest
Dear Miss Manners: At a dinner party, my companion quietly excused herself after the meal to smoke a cigarette. She went outside, over our nonsmoking hostess's protestations that inside was fine. As I escorted my friend outside, I heard a fellow guest, the wife of a mutual acquaintance, shriek, 'What? She SMOKES?' in a tone that would have been appropriate only if my companion had excused herself to murder people or purchase heroin. I ignored it, but I felt like I should have said something. Is this kind of behavior going to become conventionally accepted as smoking is increasingly stigmatized? One may have health concerns for those close to you who smoke — or for yourself, if people smoke around you — but there are legitimate ways to express those concerns. The case you describe fits neither. This does not, however, entitle you to borrow your companion's cigarette so that you can return to the dinner table and put it out in the rude guest's entrée. Miss Manners suggests you tell your smoking companion that you are sorry for the rudeness shown her — and be grateful that at least the perpetrator was insecure enough to frame it as a loud stage whisper rather than a full-throated lecture to your companion's face. Dear Miss Manners: I've been given a budget to take some out-of-town folks to dinner the day before a conference. I emailed an invitation to everyone, and received back a lot of replies indicating that they were accepting — and bringing a spouse. I was a little surprised. Now I'm over budget, and I think I'm in trouble. Is this really my fault? Did I not word the invitation properly? I'm at a loss for how to word an invite without sounding like I'm assuming they could bring someone unless I told them not to. What should I do next year — demand the budget be expanded to cover extra people, just in case? Where is your boss in all this? Miss Manners asks because, while she is happy to get you out of this mess, she wants you to understand that this is a business operations issue, like the other hundreds you face every year. You are not entertaining these people because you don't have enough work during the day, nor because these people are your friends, nor because it is your idea of a good time. You are doing it because someone believes that it is in the business's interests that these customers/clients/employees be made to feel welcome while attending the conference. In formulating the budget, no one thought to include spouses. With the benefit of experience, this was a mistake in judgment, as it leaves behind spouses who have made the trip and thought to participate in after-hours events. Rather than demanding anything, you should be asking what your boss feels is of most value. Is it better to incur the added expense of inviting spouses, to incur the cost of displeasing these people, or to drop the preconference meal? You are hoping there is a fourth option — to convince these people to attend happily without their spouses — but you already know there is not. New Miss Manners columns are posted Monday through Saturday on You can send questions to Miss Manners at her website, You can also follow her @RealMissManners. © 2025 Judith Martin
Boston Globe
18 hours ago
- Boston Globe
Fewer people are reading for fun, study finds
There is evidence that reading for pleasure has been declining since the 1940s, the researchers said, but they called the size of the latest decrease 'surprising,' given that the study defined reading broadly, encompassing books, magazines and newspapers in print, electronic or audio form. Advertisement Many previous studies' results could be questioned because they didn't explicitly account for e-books and audiobooks, said Daisy Fancourt, a co-author of the study and a professor of psychobiology and epidemiology at University College London. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up The study did not answer the question of why Americans were reading less. But the authors suggested some possible explanations, including increased use of social media and other technology, or more time spent at work because of economic pressure. Further research would be needed to confirm those theories. The decline in reading could have implications for Americans' learning, relationships and overall well-being, the researchers said. 'Even though reading is often thought of as more of an individual activity, when we read stories, we actually form connections with characters,' Fancourt said. 'The empathy that we feel for them is actually real, and these connections with characters can be ways that we can feel less alone, that we can feel socially and emotionally validated.' Advertisement The new study, published in the journal iScience, relied on data from the American Time Use Survey, which asks thousands of Americans per year to describe in detail how they spent a day. Over the 20 years the researchers analyzed, more than 236,000 Americans completed the survey. The findings showed significant demographic disparities among those who read for pleasure. For example, in 2023, the most highly educated people were more than twice as likely to read as the least educated, and high-income people were about 1.5 times as likely to read as low-income people. Those disparities widened over time. The researchers also found that, while more than 20% of people surveyed had a child under 9 years old, only 2% of those surveyed read with a child -- a finding that stayed largely flat throughout the study period but that could contribute to further declines in adult reading going forward, the researchers said. Research indicates that reading can have a wide range of benefits for educational attainment, reasoning and comprehension skills, imagination, empathy, mental health, cognitive health and more. Jill Sonke -- a co-author of the new paper and a director of the EpiArts Lab at the University of Florida, which studies how engagement in the arts and culture affects health -- said she would like to see more awareness that reading is a resource 'for our health and well-being.' 'As we're living in this really complex and really challenging time, we really need to be intentional about the ways in which we support our health,' Sonke said. Advertisement Fancourt expressed particular concern about the increase in demographic disparities among those who read for fun. Not only were people reading less, she said, but 'potentially the people who could benefit the most for their health -- so people from disadvantaged groups -- are actually benefiting the least.' People may draw particular benefits from thinking deeply about what they read and talking about it with others. It is not the case that 'I can sit you down and give you a Jane Austen novel, you read it, and you come out with better mental health,' said James Carney, an associate professor at the London Interdisciplinary School and the lead author of a 2022 study on reading and mental health. But discussing and reflecting on fiction -- as opposed to just reading it -- was linked to better mental health and social capabilities, including the ability to perceive nuances in interpersonal relationships, said Carney, who was not involved in the new study. Engaging with many forms of nonfiction would probably have similar benefits, he said. This article originally appeared in
