Trade Book Publisher Sales Increased Slightly in August 2017

In yet another legal victory for freedom to read advocates, a federal judge has blocked two key portions of SF 496, a recently passed Iowa state law that sought to ban books with sexual content from Iowa schools and to bar classroom discussion of gender identity and sexuality for students below the seventh grade. In a 49-page opinion and order, judge Stephen Locher criticized the law as “incredibly broad” and acknowledged that it has already resulted in the removal of “of hundreds of books from school libraries, including, among others, nonfiction history books, classic works of fiction, Pulitzer Prize–winning contemporary novels, books that regularly appear on Advanced Placement exams, and even books designed to help students avoid being victimized by sexual assault.”

The U.S. Postal Service provided new service performance data this week to the House Committee on Oversight and Reform and the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee for the week of Oct. 10 through Oct. 16, 2020. Key performance indicators for the week of Oct. 10 include: *First-Class Mail: 85.58 percent of First-Class Mail was delivered on time, a 0.57 percent decrease from the week of Oct. 3 *Marketing Mail: 86.00 percent of Marketing Mail was delivered on time, a 3.17 percent decrease from the week of Oct. 3 *Periodicals: 77.43 percent of Periodicals were delivered on time, a 1.11 percent decrease from the week of Oct. 3

The Home Depot® reported sales of $36.8 billion for the third quarter of fiscal 2021, an increase of $3.3 billion, or 9.8 percent from the third quarter of fiscal 2020. Comparable sales for the third quarter of fiscal 2021 increased 6.1 percent, and comparable sales in the U.S. increased 5.5 percent. Net earnings for the third quarter of fiscal 2021 were $4.1 billion, or $3.92 per diluted share, compared with net earnings of $3.4 billion, or $3.18 per diluted share, in the same period of fiscal 2020. For the third quarter of fiscal 2021, diluted earnings per share increased 23.3 percent from the same period in the prior year.