Latest news with #reading
Washington Post
7 hours ago
- Health
- Washington Post
You are hardwired to blindly trust AI. Here's how to fight it.
Two newspapers recently published summer reading recommendations that included made-up books. The list was created using artificial intelligence chatbots. The Washington Post identified in recent days telltale signs of AI in a White House health report that cited nonexistent research. And attorneys keep getting scolded for using AI that generates bogus legal research in court filings.
Associated Press
8 hours ago
- Business
- Associated Press
Radians donation boosts literacy programs in the Mid-South
MEMPHIS, Tenn., June 3, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Radians®, a top-tier Memphis-based PPE manufacturer, recently demonstrated its dedication to the community by donating to Literacy Mid-South. This meaningful contribution will help unlock the power of reading for individuals of all ages and backgrounds across Memphis and the Mid-South, opening doors to brighter futures and lifelong opportunities. To improve reading abilities, the donation will support various literacy programs, providing crucial resources, free books, and face-to-face tutoring opportunities. 'Radians' contribution to Literacy Mid-South isn't just about giving money,' said Radians CEO Mike Tutor. 'Improved literacy leads to personal success, better education, stronger job opportunities, and higher earning potential. It's about empowering people and building a more thriving and prosperous Mid-South. We're very excited to partner with a local organization like Literacy Mid-South that shares our commitment to helping others grow,' said Tutor. In addition to the financial donation, Radians Sr. MarCom Specialist and local author Mary Padron is donating 40 paperback copies of Christmas Fairy Tale to Literacy Mid-South. These uplifting children's books will go to Le Bonheur Children's Hospital to bring joy and inspiration to young patients spending the holidays there. 'Reading is one of the most important skills a person can have,' said Padron. 'It shapes how we learn, communicate, and navigate the world. Without the ability to read, it's harder to succeed in school, at work, and in life. That's why supporting literacy is so important to us at Radians.' Radians encourages others in Memphis and the Mid-South to support the vital cause of literacy. Visit to learn how you can get involved. A fun way to get involved right now is through Literacy Mid-South's Literatini 2025 fundraiser on Saturday, June 7 at Novel in Laurelwood Shopping Center. Tickets start at $100 and sponsorship packages are still available. For more information about Radians safety solutions for the industrial, construction, and retail marketplace, visit or call toll free 1-877-723-4267. About Radians Radians® is on a mission to protect lives worldwide by manufacturing high-quality Personal Protective Equipment (PPE). With over 25 years of expertise, Radians offers a comprehensive line of safety products designed to reduce injuries and safeguard individuals across diverse markets, including industrial safety, construction, public safety, and retail. Radians has partnered with highly respected brands including DEWALT®, STANLEY®, DUCKS UNLIMITED®, CRAFTSMAN® and DSM Dyneema to provide high-performance personal protection products. Radians' brands include Bellingham®, Crossfire®, Neese™, VolCore™, Arctic Radwear®, Nordic Blaze®, and VisionAid®. An ISO 9001:2008 certified leader in the PPE industry, the company is headquartered in Memphis, TN. It has additional facilities in Thomasville, NC, Bellingham, WA, Mexico, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands. For more information, visit View original content to download multimedia: SOURCE RADIANS
Sky News
a day ago
- Entertainment
- Sky News
'I might not make it': Sarah Jessica Parker on the stress of reading two books a day
Sarah Jessica Parker was the subject of some unwanted headlines over the past few weeks after saying she reads two books a day. While speculation of her reading capabilities circulates, the actress continues the challenging mountain of novels she has to get through in order to be a judge for the Booker Prize. The actress is part of a panel of judges for the literary award which announces the "Booker Dozen" of 12 or 13 books on 29 July, its shortlist on 23 September and the overall winner on 10 November. The winner receives £50,000. "I have one by my side now," Sarah Jessica tells Sky News during an interview for her show And Just Like That. "It's been hard these last two weeks because we've been promoting the show and I thought I would be able to read between interviews, but you can read two words. You can read these three sentences, so I'm feeling very anxious about how many books I have yet to read for our next deliberation," she says. The Sex And The City actress compares the workload to preparing to take an exam. "I've not ever felt this behind, including in high school. Like, I really am not entirely sure how I'm going to read the required amount of books by our next deliberation," she says. "I thought about this last night in bed, that even if I stay up every day and don't sleep, I might not make it. So I'm not sure how. I have to not make dinner for anybody, not do anybody's laundry. I have cut out all tasks. So we'll see. It's pretty fantastic, this burden is pretty wonderful." Turning to her spin-off series, she says she never paid much attention to the cultural impact Sex And The City had on portraying women in their 30s on screen without a rose-tinted lens. "I think we're just always wanting to tell interesting stories," she says. "And the rule in the writing room has been, for as long as I've known, the story can only be as far removed as one person from the writer, so every single story told has either happened to a writer or to a friend or family member or colleague of the writer." She says what makes it real is that the show deals with real moments that happen to women as they age, from children flying the nest to navigating the dating pool. "You don't flat line at 50 or 60. People are living pretty colourful, interesting, exciting lives and they have influence and authority. They're trying new things. They're leaving marriages. They're saying goodbye to kids. They're starting new jobs, they're leaving jobs, and they're getting married, they are widows, there's just endless amounts to talk about and it should be," she says. 'It is insane there aren't more shows like us' Her co-star Kristin Davis agrees and states her main hope for returning was to break certain taboos for women now in their 50s. "It is insane that there aren't more shows like us, you know? I'm hoping that there will be," she says. "It's very interesting that somehow women, especially at a certain age, you're just supposed to just vanish. I don't know where we're supposed to be and that just makes no sense." Sex And The City was 'incredibly white', says Cynthia Nixon For Cynthia Nixon, playing Miranda now as a lesbian character allowed the show to explore the challenges that face people coming out later in life and navigating the world they find themselves in. She says although Sex And The City broke taboos for white women in their 30s, she felt the original iteration of their show wasn't as reflective of the real world as it could have been. "The one thing that didn't really sit well with me in the past was how incredibly white the show was," she says. "So, I think to expand the universe of, you know, who gets to be centred in the show has been a tremendous boon. Whether you're talking about people of colour, whether you're talk about queer people, people of different ages. We used to have a wonderfully fascinating lens, but it was fairly narrow. "We've moved in our view of queer people… for so long, if you wanted to put a gay person on screen, one of the ways to make them palatable was to really emphasise their funniness and I think we have many very funny gay characters, but we're able to, I think, have a more well-rounded view of them."
The Independent
a day ago
- Entertainment
- The Independent
10 best thriller books to read in 2025, from classics to new releases
If you're in a reading slump and want something to capture your attention, we've found the best thriller books that will have you hooked from the get-go. With everything from red herrings and unreliable narrators to disappearances, blackmail, toxic relationships and plenty of twists, the thriller genre consistently dominates the charts. Plus, with subgenres including spy, crime, suspense and mystery, there truly is something for everyone. Many thriller books have become classics, adapted for the big and small screens (Gone Girl and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo have become blockbuster movies). But there are plenty of releases that are lesser-known or a bit out of the ordinary but just as riveting (Wrong Place, Wrong Time, for example). As someone who reads several thrillers a month and always keeps an eye out for the latest and greatest releases, I've compiled a list of the best of the best, highlighting authors who should definitely be on your radar. How I tested Taking into consideration a number of popular reads and emerging subgenres, I've curated this list based on the books that feature great storytelling, characters, twists and shocking moments, to find the ones that kept me gripped the whole way through. I assessed how the story flowed as a whole, along with the accessibility of the writing. Drawing up my final list of top titles meant whittling down the stories to those that have stuck with me for months (and on some occasions years). Why you can trust IndyBest reviews Ellis Cochrane is an avid reader who has thumbed her way through hundreds of thrillers over the years, so, she knows how to spot great storylines and compelling characters. She's reviewed a wide range of literature for IndyBest, from the best romance novels to epic fantasy books, and will only recommend titles she believes are worth a spot on your bookcase. The best thriller books for 2025 are:
The Guardian
2 days ago
- Health
- The Guardian
‘It's so boring': Gen Z parents don't like reading to their kids - and educators are worried
Last week, former elementary school teacher Spencer Russell posed a question to parents who follow his Instagram account, Toddlers Can Read: 'Why aren't you reading aloud to your kids?' The responses, which Russell shared with the Guardian, ranged from embarrassed to annoyed to angry. 'It's so boring,' said one parent. 'I don't have time,' said another. One mother wrote in: 'I don't enjoy reading myself.' Others reported difficulty getting their children to sit still long enough for a full dose of Goodnight Moon or Mother Goose: 'He's always interrupting,' or 'my son just wants to skip all the pages.' They noted the monotony of story time, with one saying: 'I love reading with my kids, but they request the same book over and over.' Parents who struggle to read to their children tend to be younger themselves, according to a recent survey from HarperCollins UK. Fewer than half of gen Z parents called reading to their children 'fun for me', and almost one in three saw reading as 'more of a subject to learn' than something to be enjoyed – significantly more than their gen X counterparts. This mindset undoubtedly trickles down to their kids: the survey also found that only a third of five-to-10 year olds frequently read for fun, compared to over half in 2012. This could be because their parents are less likely to read to them before they turn five: 41% of parents of all ages reported doing so, a steep drop from the 64% in 2012. If parents are reading out loud to their children less, US educators can tell. Russell, who offers courses to teach literacy skills to kids as young as 18 months, regularly gets inquiries from parents of older children – some as old as 14 – who still struggle to crack open a book. There are other tell-tale signs. 'We see children who can sit still and focus for hours on YouTube or Miss Rachel, but when you sit them down with a book, they move, wiggle, or scream and run away,' said Russell, who lives in Houston. Gen Z parents inherited an economy racked by inequity and instability that makes child rearing all the more stressful. The cost of childcare in the US – roughly $11,000 a year on average – has skyrocketed since the 90s. It's no wonder they might be too tired or stressed to read to their kids at night, even if they realize it's important to do so. At the same time, screens are inescapable – notably, gen Z parents were the first generation to grow up with them. 'I don't think we can divorce the role of technology influencing gen Z parents and their kids with the decline in reading out loud,' Russell said. 'Screen time is replacing one-on-one, quality interactions between parent and child.' Loads of evidence shows that excessive screen time can harm a child's cognitive, linguistic and social-emotional growth, and doctors recommend that parents limit 'non-educational screen time' for children ages two to five to about one hour per weekday, and three on the weekends. But you try getting a toddler to settle into story time without giving in to her demands to watch Bluey. Most parents see the iPad as a necessary evil. America's so-called 'literacy crises' is well-documented; an Atlantic report from last fall found that many elite college students fail to complete English assignments, as they never had to read a full book in high school. The pandemic wreaked havoc on students' performance in both math and reading, with scores in both subjects dropping to the lowest margin in over 30 years. On TikTok, teachers have taken to posting PSAs urging parents to read to their children with the caption: 'I bet you I can't tell who was breast-fed vs formula-fed, but I can tell you who has grown ups that read to them every night.' Kids who don't get a head start reading at home often have trouble catching up to those who do, says Dawna Duff, an associate professor of speech language pathology at Suny's Binghamton University. 'Books are a really rich source of learning new words, and if kids don't have that experience reading at home, they're likely to come to school knowing less vocabulary – and that makes a big difference in how successful you're going to be throughout school,' she said. But kids don't just learn to read at school. Becky Calzada, president of the American Association of School Librarians, stresses the importance of parents as 'reading role models'. Reading out loud to children not only helps them learn vocabulary, but it builds emotional intelligence, such as the ability to empathize and connect, Caldaza says. Sign up to Well Actually Practical advice, expert insights and answers to your questions about how to live a good life after newsletter promotion According to the HarperCollins report, more than one in five boys aged zero to two are rarely or never read to, while 44% of girls in that age group are read to every day. This comes as boys continue to fall behind girls in school – they are more likely to enter kindergarten behind girls, earn lower GPAs and not graduate high school. Russell acknowledges that books are 'never going to compete with YouTube', and that the pressures of parenthood in 2025 are immense. As one parent told him: 'I just don't have the energy to read to my kid. Me and my wife don't 'have a village', so it's hard to rest.' But there are ways to wean kids away from their phones. 'Just scale it back a little, as much as you can at first.' Calzada encourages parents who don't like reading to their children to start slowly. 'You don't have to sit there for 20 minutes to an hour,' she said. 'A two-year-old doesn't have much reading stamina, but you can read them something that has maybe five pages, that's mostly 'the cow says moo, the pink says oink,' and you gradually build up from there.' Nor should parents give up if their children aren't paying full attention during story time. According to Duff, 'you shouldn't feel like you need to read every word on the page, or even any words on the page.' Talking about the book's pictures, or asking kids to tell the story in their own words counts, too. 'We know one of the most helpful ways to read books is by having a conversation with children about what they're interested in,' she added. 'Follow their lead.'
