Advocacy

A California bill that is expected to be signed into law will require private-sector companies with five or more employees either to offer an employer-sponsored retirement plan or to automatically enroll their employees in a new state-run Secure Choice retirement plan.

George by Alex Gino receives NAIBA’s Carla Cohen Free Speech Award; 2016 Hugo Award and John W. Campbell Award winners announced; Marilynne Robinson wins 2016 Holbrooke Award

In his latest column on the history of the fight for free speech, ABFE Director Chris Finan looks at the case against a bookseller that finally led the Massachusetts legislature to change the state’s obscenity law.

Following a controversial proposal by Rutland, Vermont’s mayor to accept up to 100 Syrian refugees, Will Notte, senior bookseller at Phoenix Books Rutland and president of the city’s Board of Aldermen, created a book display to educate residents about the country and its people.

This week, the city councils of Minneapolis and Cleveland rejected minimum wage increase proposals; Colorado took a step towards putting a statewide minimum wage initiative on the November ballot; and Iowa’s Linn County supervisors are voting on whether to draft a minimum wage ordinance.

Time is running out for ABA bookstore members that want to receive the 2016 Banned Books Week display kit, distributed by American Booksellers for Free Expression.

The sharp decline in the number of small, independent businesses in the U.S. is due, at least in part, to “anticompetitive behavior by large, dominant corporations,” according to a report by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance.

American Booksellers for Free Expression has joined a protest against a Virginia school district’s decision to remove several books from its summer reading list after a parent complained that they are “pornographic.”

Here’s a look at some of this week’s minimum wage stories making the news in Colorado, Connecticut, Maryland, Minnesota, and Washington State.

A government review board has recommended that Mohamedou Ould Slahi, the author of Guantánamo Diary and an inmate of the U.S. prison in Cuba for 14 years, be released.

Daybreak Press Global Bookshop in Minneapolis provides a safe space where people from all walks of life can safely come together to share their passions, learn from one another, and engage with complex social issues.

On Monday, the Republican Party adopted a national platform that includes provisions relating to the role of small businesses in the American economy.

Senate confirms Carla Hayden as Librarian of Congress; NEA Big Read announces new focus; Christopher Myers to launch imprint with Random House Children’s Books; Carl Lennertz named Children’s Book Council executive director; Inaugural edition of Buzz Books: Romance released; AAP survey reveals book industry net revenue of $28 billion in 2015; Malaprop’s owner discusses post-H.B. 2 decline in business; Longlist for the 2016 Center for Fiction First Novel Prize announced; PEN America introduces PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers

This past weekend, the Democratic Party finalized a national platform that promises to tackle antitrust violations, increase the federal minimum wage, and pursue single-payer healthcare.