Savvas Learning Company Receives 2023 Chicago Top Workplaces Award

The impact the coronavirus can have on physical stores was illustrated by the release of first quarter results by Barnes & Noble Education. For the quarter ended August 1, sales in B&NE’s retail segment dropped 42.2% from the comparable period a year ago, falling to $158.8 million. In the period, comparable store sales fell 42.8%, which B&NE said accounted for $106.6 million in lost revenue. B&NE operated 772 physical outlets in the quarter and 670 virtual stores. The company noted that since the majority of its campus stores were closed during the quarter, sales of digital textbooks increased, as did online sales of general merchandise, which includes clothing and food.

A federal appeals court on Friday upheld the major rate hikes imposed in August by the U.S. Postal Service, saying the Postal Regulatory Commission’s order underlying the increases was neither arbitrary and capricious, nor did it exceed the Commission’s statutory authority. The decision, by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, preserves a 6.8% increase for first-class mail and an 8.8% increase for package services — hikes of unprecedented size in recent years. The increases came after the PRC late last year finished an overhaul of the existing rate-setting system, which it had deemed inadequate. The new rate system ties price caps to what the PRC identified as the USPS’ most significant cost drivers: fewer pieces of mail going to more addresses and benefits payments the agency is required to make for future retirees.

The Association of American Publishers today filed reply comments in the U.S. Copyright Office inquiry into the intersection of copyright law and artificial intelligence (AI) in response to flawed and inaccurate assertions submitted by some tech companies and/or their investors in the first comment round including tired assertions that the rights of authors and publishers are an obstacle to innovation. AAP filed a lengthy submission that includes a multitude of points, including: *Big tech petitions the government “for cover from liability for their calculated disregard of authorship, also ignoring that rights holders today already routinely license their works for all kinds of digital uses.” *“Rather than working with copyright owners, these companies seek to appropriate literature and other invaluable intellectual property for their own commercial gain, and to bend the law to their will."