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IT. GOES. SO. FAST.

The year of no do-overs.

by Mary Louise Kelly ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 11, 2023

An accomplished journalist’s middling memoir about balancing work and motherhood.

The longtime anchor of All Things Considered documents her attempts to be a more present parent during her son’s senior year of high school.

In Kelly’s nonfiction debut—she has written two novels—the author ranges widely, writing about the challenges of conducting a radio interview with hearing aids; being called by her son’s school while working in a combat zone in Iraq; and grief over the loss of her father to cancer. Throughout, Kelly reflects on the trade-offs she’s made as a working mother, all of which have sparked complex feelings in herself and others. In a particularly poignant chapter, she recounts how she ran into a professional colleague while staying home to care for her youngest son, a decision the family made because the author’s husband had a higher salary. While Kelly found this encounter with her sharply dressed and ambitious colleague humiliating, the woman later related that it made her think about all the time she was missing with her own children. This first encounter sets the tone of the text, which is filled with revelatory moments that clearly articulate the push and pull of aging and motherhood. However, at times, the author glosses over major events without offering adequate analysis or background. For example, she alludes to the breakup of her marriage but ends the chapter abruptly. While it is certainly up to the author to exclude parts of her personal life, readers may find it unsatisfying to encounter such a life-changing moment so briefly and superficially, especially in a book focused on family dynamics. After the early chapters, the book meanders, ricocheting from Kelly’s home life to her public dispute with Mike Pompeo and her work at NPR. Many of these sections are tenuously linked to the main narrative of her children and family, and the text features too many forced metaphors and insubstantial connections to parenting.

Pub Date: April 11, 2023

ISBN: 9781250859853

Page Count: 240

Publisher: Henry Holt

Review Posted Online: Jan. 11, 2023

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2023

BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | FAMILY & RELATIONSHIPS | ENTERTAINMENT, SPORTS & CELEBRITY | GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR

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New York Times Bestseller

by Stephanie Johnson & Brandon Stanton illustrated by Henry Sene Yee ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 12, 2022

A blissfully vicarious, heartfelt glimpse into the life of a Manhattan burlesque dancer.

A former New York City dancer reflects on her zesty heyday in the 1970s.

Discovered on a Manhattan street in 2020 and introduced on Stanton’s Humans of New York Instagram page, Johnson, then 76, shares her dynamic history as a “fiercely independent” Black burlesque dancer who used the stage name Tanqueray and became a celebrated fixture in midtown adult theaters. “I was the only black girl making white girl money,” she boasts, telling a vibrant story about sex and struggle in a bygone era. Frank and unapologetic, Johnson vividly captures aspects of her former life as a stage seductress shimmying to blues tracks during 18-minute sets or sewing lingerie for plus-sized dancers. Though her work was far from the Broadway shows she dreamed about, it eventually became all about the nightly hustle to simply survive. Her anecdotes are humorous, heartfelt, and supremely captivating, recounted with the passion of a true survivor and the acerbic wit of a weathered, street-wise New Yorker. She shares stories of growing up in an abusive household in Albany in the 1940s, a teenage pregnancy, and prison time for robbery as nonchalantly as she recalls selling rhinestone G-strings to prostitutes to make them sparkle in the headlights of passing cars. Complemented by an array of revealing personal photographs, the narrative alternates between heartfelt nostalgia about the seedier side of Manhattan’s go-go scene and funny quips about her unconventional stage performances. Encounters with a variety of hardworking dancers, drag queens, and pimps, plus an account of the complexities of a first love with a drug-addled hustler, fill out the memoir with personality and candor. With a narrative assist from Stanton, the result is a consistently titillating and often moving story of human struggle as well as an insider glimpse into the days when Times Square was considered the Big Apple’s gloriously unpolished underbelly. The book also includes Yee’s lush watercolor illustrations.

Pub Date: July 12, 2022

ISBN: 978-1-250-27827-2

Page Count: 192

Publisher: St. Martin's

Review Posted Online: July 27, 2022

BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | ENTERTAINMENT, SPORTS & CELEBRITY | GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR

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by Brandon Stanton

by Brandon Stanton photographed by Brandon Stanton

by Brandon Stanton ; photographed by Brandon Stanton

LOVE, PAMELA

by Pamela Anderson ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 31, 2023

A juicy story with some truly crazy moments, yet Anderson's good heart shines through.

The iconic model tells the story of her eventful life.

According to the acknowledgments, this memoir started as "a fifty-page poem and then grew into hundreds of pages of…more poetry." Readers will be glad that Anderson eventually turned to writing prose, since the well-told anecdotes and memorable character sketches are what make it a page-turner. The poetry (more accurately described as italicized notes-to-self with line breaks) remains strewn liberally through the pages, often summarizing the takeaway or the emotional impact of the events described: "I was / and still am / an exceptionally / easy target. / And, / I'm proud of that ." This way of expressing herself is part of who she is, formed partly by her passion for Anaïs Nin and other writers; she is a serious maven of literature and the arts. The narrative gets off to a good start with Anderson’s nostalgic memories of her childhood in coastal Vancouver, raised by very young, very wild, and not very competent parents. Here and throughout the book, the author displays a remarkable lack of anger. She has faced abuse and mistreatment of many kinds over the decades, but she touches on the most appalling passages lightly—though not so lightly you don't feel the torment of the media attention on the events leading up to her divorce from Tommy Lee. Her trip to the pages of Playboy , which involved an escape from a violent fiance and sneaking across the border, is one of many jaw-dropping stories. In one interesting passage, Julian Assange's mother counsels Anderson to desexualize her image in order to be taken more seriously as an activist. She decided that “it was too late to turn back now”—that sexy is an inalienable part of who she is. Throughout her account of this kooky, messed-up, enviable, and often thrilling life, her humility (her sons "are true miracles, considering the gene pool") never fails her.

Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2023

ISBN: 9780063226562

Page Count: 256

Publisher: Dey Street/HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: Dec. 5, 2022

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2023

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Mary Louise Kelly on her memoir 'It. Goes. So. Fast. The Year of No Do-Overs'

In her new memoir, All Things Considered co-host Mary Louise Kelly talks about the time she got a call from her son's school nurse while she was boarding a Black Hawk helicopter in Baghdad. Kelly joined NPR's Scott Simon to discuss this and other stories she shares in It. Goes. So. Fast. The Year of No Do-Overs – which follows Kelly as she looks at the balance of work and motherhood, intention and memory.

New York Times   Bestselling Author

Mary louise kelly, it. goes. so. fast..

  Overview

A New York Times Bestseller

Operating Instructions meets Glennon Doyle in this new book by famed NPR reporter Mary Louise Kelly that is destined to become a classic—about the year before her son goes to college—and the joys, losses and surprises that happen along the way.

The time for do-overs is over.

Ever since she became a parent, Mary Louise Kelly has said “next year.” Next year will be the year she makes it to her son James’s soccer games (which are on weekdays at 4 p.m., right when she is on the air on NPR’s All Things Considered , talking to millions of listeners). Drive carpool for her son Alexander? Not if she wants to do that story about Ukraine and interview the secretary of state. Like millions of parents who wrestle with raising children while pursuing a career, she has never been cavalier about these decisions. The bargain she has always made with herself is this: this time I’ll get on the plane, and next year I’ll find a way to be there for the mom stuff.

Well, James and Alexander are now seventeen and fifteen, and a realization has overtaken Mary Louise: her older son will be leaving soon for college. There used to be years to make good on her promises; now, there are months, weeks, minutes. And with the devastating death of her beloved father as well as a surprising turn in her marriage, Mary Louise is facing act three of her life head-on.

Mary Louise is coming to grips with the reality every parent faces. Childhood has a definite expiration date. You have only so many years with your kids before they leave your house to build their own lives. It’s what every parent is supposed to want, what they raise their children to do. But it is bittersweet. Mary Louise is also dealing with the realities of having aging parents, and that marriages change. This pivotal time brings with it the enormous questions of what you did right and what you did wrong.

This chronicle of her eldest child’s final year at home, of losing her father, as well as other curve balls thrown at her, is not a definitive answer—not for herself and certainly not for any other parent. But her questions, her issues, will resonate with every parent. And, yes, especially with mothers, who are judged more harshly by society and, more important, judge themselves more harshly. What would she do if she had to decide all over again?

Mary Louise’s thoughts as she faces the coming year will speak to anyone who has ever cared about a child, a parent or a spouse. It. Goes. So. Fast. is honest, funny, poignant, revelatory, and immensely relatable.

“ It. Goes. So. Fast. is a moving and funny account of the deals we cut with ourselves: what we sacrifice, what we gain, and what we really want (which is everything). By holding up a mirror to her own choices, Mary Louise Kelly gives us tremendous insight into how we struggle to be true to ourselves and the people we love, and how we're never going to get it exactly right. This book is the voice of solidarity. It is a gift.” — Ann Patchett

“This compelling account of the divided heart of a dedicated journalist and devoted mother is tender and gritty and remarkably relevant.” — Hilma Wolitzer, Author of Today a Woman Went Mad in the Supermarket

“Mary Louise Kelly has written an achingly honest memoir that reflects the joys, regrets, pitfalls and triumphs of the modern working mother. Humor, heart, and humanity bounce off every. single. page. I felt like I was having a bottle (or two) of wine with a close friend whose balancing act very much resonated with mine—and probably yours too.” — Katie Couric

“A book for everyone who has to get through the sweet agony of raising children and letting them go. Kelly describes the interior shifts of this and other milestones with candor, vulnerability and wry humor.” — Katty Kay, BBC Correspondent and New York Times bestselling author of The Confidence Code

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BookBrowse Reviews It. Goes. So. Fast. by Mary Louise Kelly

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It. Goes. So. Fast.

The Year of No Do-Overs

by Mary Louise Kelly

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• Biography & Memoir
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• Parenting & Families
• Mid-Life Onwards
• Strong Women

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A year before her firstborn left for college, beloved NPR anchor Mary Louise Kelly decided it was time to move her family commitments up the priority list. This is the fruit of her reflections.

Before my husband and I got married, we planned for me to stay home when the kids came along. As such, I had a front-row seat to the societal arguments over career versus full-time motherhood. When I began writing from home, I progressed from feeling smug and self-righteous for having chosen domestic life to feeling torn between two equally beautiful callings—like so many other mothers who have worked in a field for which they have a passion. As I write these words, my firstborn is graduating high school. So the premise of Mary Louise Kelly's It. Goes. So. Fast. resonated instantly. Her son James is entering his final year at home and, recognizing how often she has prioritized work over family, she commits to putting family first for the time she has left. Kelly, known and beloved as an interviewer and anchor at NPR, proves herself to also be a sensitive memoirist. In these ...

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Beyond the Book:    The Mommy Wars

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It. Goes. So. Fast.: The Year of No Do-Overs

Mary louise kelly. holt, $26.99 (240p) isbn 978-1-250-85985-3.

Reviewed on: 03/06/2023

Genre: Nonfiction

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• Jun 29, 2023

Book Review: It. Goes. So. Fast.

It. Goes. So. Fast.: The Year of No Do-Overs , by Mary Louise Kelly, Macmillan, 240pp.

Mary Louise Kelly has reported on national security for NPR for two decades and is now co host of All Things Considered. On the East coast, ATC airs live at 4pm, which happens to be during band practice pick-up in my school district. For the three years before my son could drive, I listened to Kelly report the news as I sat in the school parking lot, waiting for yet another running-late practice to end.

I know her voice well and could hear it as I read her recent memoir about parenting, It. Goes. So. Fast.: The Year of No Do-Overs . Kelly lamented missing out on her own son’s soccer games—which also happened to be at 4pm. Meanwhile, I listened to her as I picked my son up. I was able to be where she wished she could be.

As her son James stands on the cusp of adulthood and leaving home for college, Kelly wrestles with what she’s missed along the way.

Of the early years of parenting, she writes, “I console myself with the knowledge that there will always be another game. That next time I’ll figure out a way to be there…Except that the years slip by. Ninth grade slides into tenth slides into eleventh. James is a senior. I’m out of next times. There are no more do-overs.”

The memoir is ostensibly set during James's senior year, though it includes a lot of flashbacks. A challenge to setting a memoir during this season of life is the fact that at 17, our children are naturally inclined (and able) to spend more time outside of the house. While this is the year Kelly wants to slow down and remember, this also happens to be the year her son is home the least.

So, Kelly’s slim book strays a bit from the promised topics to also include subjects such as her own father’s death and her reporting work, including the war in Ukraine. These are interesting asides but not why I picked up the book. For me, the opening chapters were the most compelling.

In the chapter “Changing Places,” she describes an encounter she had while on leave from work in order to give her two-year-old speech-delayed son her undivided attention. One day, she was out for a walk with Alexander, dressed down and without makeup, when she ran into Annie, a fellow reporter, who was on her way to work, looking as polished and professional as ever.

Kelly felt sure that Annie looked down on her in that moment, only later to discover that Annie was actually jealous of the time Kelly was getting with her child. Later, Kelly found out that Annie left reporting and started a writing consultancy agency that allowed her to work from home.

It’s easy to sympathize with Kelly’s struggle, which is common to many parents: she loves her work, and she’s good at it. She loves her children. But it’s impossible to be in two places at once. And it’s in the professional realm that our good work results only in more work. She writes, “Personally, it’s taken me a while to see that the reward for good work is not that you get to be done. It’s that people notice and ask you to do more of it. The mountain keeps growing ahead of you as you hike it.”

At times over the years, Kelly left NPR for extended periods to have a more flexible, available schedule. She shifted from journalism to novel writing and enjoyed it for a season—though she was always drawn back to journalism.

She writes, “Dare I confess that I felt I was accomplishing something just as meaningful in those years writing novels at home, as when I spent my time scurrying between Pentagon press briefings? I started asking my friends in the business world, ‘Why do we automatically assume the woman running the company is doing more with her life than the woman who was negotiated a three-day week?’”

I’m one of those women. For the first sixteen and a half years of motherhood, my husband's job allowed me the choice to work part-time jobs, which made me available for my own boys. I loved this routine, being there each day when they got home from school, picking my oldest up from band practice, running the Scholastic Book Fair at the middle school.

Then the college bills loomed. My choice to work part-time all those years meant we didn’t have a cushy college savings account. When my oldest was in his junior year, I returned full-time to the workforce, with a hybrid arrangement—in the office three days and work from home the other two.

In the past year, I myself have wrestled with what I’m missing—even only three days a week, even only in this later season of parenting. I read Kelly’s book with great interest, hearing her familiar voice and sympathizing with her feelings. Yet, overwhelmingly, I felt grateful for the time I'd had with them when they were young.

Photo by Matthias88 on Pixabay.

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Trump promotes Lee Greenwood's 'God Bless The USA Bible': What to know about the book and its long journey

• Former president Donald Trump encourages supporters to buy Lee Greenwood's "God Bless The USA Bible," a project inspired by Nashville country musician's hit song.
• Resurgent version of Greenwood's Bible project a modified version from original concept, a change that likely followed 2021 shake-up in publishers.

After years with few updates about Lee Greenwood’s controversial Bible, the project is again resurgent with a recent promotion by former President Donald Trump.

“All Americans need to have a Bible in their home and I have many. It’s my favorite book,” Trump said in a video posted to social media Tuesday, encouraging supporters to purchase the “God Bless The USA Bible.” “Religion is so important and so missing, but it’s going to come back.”

Greenwood — the Nashville area country musician whose hit song “God Bless the USA” inspired the Bible with a similar namesake — has long been allies with Trump and other prominent Republicans, many of whom are featured in promotional material for the “God Bless The USA Bible.” But that reputational clout in conservative circles hasn’t necessarily translated to business success in the past, largely due to a major change in the book’s publishing plan.

Here's what to know about the Bible project’s journey so far and why it’s significant it’s back in the conservative limelight.

An unordinary Bible, a fiery debate

The “God Bless The USA Bible” received heightened attention since the outset due to its overt political features.

The text includes the U.S. Constitution, Bill of Rights, Declaration of Independence, Pledge of Allegiance, and the lyrics to the chorus to Greenwood’s “God Bless The USA.” Critics saw it as a symbol of Christian nationalism, a right-wing movement that believes the U.S. was founded as a Christian nation.

A petition emerged in 2021 calling Greenwood’s Bible “a toxic mix that will exacerbate the challenges to American evangelicalism.” From there, a broader conversation ensued about the standards by which publishers print Bibles.

Gatekeeping in Bible publishing

Greenwood’s early business partner on the project, a Hermitage-based marketing firm called Elite Source Pro, initially reached a manufacturing agreement with the Nashville-based HarperCollins Christian Publishing to print the “God Bless The USA Bible.”  

As part of that agreement, HarperCollins would publish the book but not sell or endorse it. But then HarperCollins reversed course , a major setback for Greenwood’s Bible.

The reversal by HarperCollins followed a decision by Zondervan — a publishing group under HarperCollins Christian Publishing and an official North American licensor for Bibles printed in the New International Version translation — to pass on the project. HarperCollins said the decision was unrelated to the petition or other public denunciations against Greenwood’s Bible.

The full backstory: Lee Greenwood's 'God Bless the USA Bible' finds new printer after HarperCollins Christian passes

A new translation and mystery publisher

The resurgent “God Bless The USA Bible” featured in Trump’s recent ad is an altered version of the original concept, a modification that likely followed the publishing shake-up.

Greenwood’s Bible is now printed in the King James Version, a different translation from the original pitch to HarperCollins.

Perhaps the biggest mystery is the new publisher. That manufacturer is producing a limited quantity of copies, leading to a delayed four-to-six weeks for a copy to ship.  

It’s also unclear which business partners are still involved in the project. Hugh Kirkman, who led Elite Service Pro, the firm that originally partnered with Greenwood for the project, responded to a request for comment by referring media inquiries to Greenwood’s publicist.

The publicist said Elite Source Pro is not a partner on the project and the Bible has always been printed in the King James Version.

"Several years ago, the Bible was going to be printed with the NIV translation, but something happened with the then licensor and the then potential publisher. As a result, this God Bless The USA Bible has always been printed with the King James Version translation," publicist Jeremy Westby said in a statement.

Westby did not have the name of the new licensee who is manufacturing the Bible.

Trump’s plug for the “God Bless The USA Bible” recycled language the former president is using to appeal to a conservative Christian base.

“Our founding fathers did a tremendous thing when they built America on Judeo-Christian values,” Trump said in his video on social media. “Now that foundation is under attack perhaps as never before.”

'Bring back our religion’: Trump vows to support Christians during Nashville speech

Liam Adams covers religion for The Tennessean. Reach him at [email protected] or on social media @liamsadams.

How a cargo ship took down Baltimore’s Key Bridge

To bridge experts, the collapse of Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge after being hit by a heavy cargo ship was as inevitable as it was devastating.

When a vessel as heavy as the Singapore-flagged Dali crashes with such force into one of the span’s supercolumns, or piers, the result is the type of catastrophic, and heartbreaking, chain reaction that took place early Tuesday.

“If the column is destroyed, basically the structure will fall down,” said Dan Frangopol, a bridge engineering and risk professor at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania who is president of the International Association for Bridge Maintenance and Safety. “It’s not possible to redistribute the loads. It was not designed for these things.”

No bridge pier could withstand being hit by a ship the size of the Dali, said Benjamin W. Schafer, a professor of civil and systems engineering at Johns Hopkins University.

“These container ships are so huge,” Schafer said. “That main span has two supports. You can’t take one away.” He called the accident “a huge infrastructure failure,” but not because of the bridge collapse; he said the shipping industry needs systems to keep a ship on track when it loses power, as the Dali did before the collision.

The bridge itself, which carried more than 30,000 vehicles daily, appeared to be structurally sound. Its condition was rated fair, according to data in the 2023 National Bridge Inventory maintained by the Federal Highway Administration. Maryland state officials said they were focused on search-and-rescue operations and did not provide later inspection data. National Transportation Safety Board Chair Jennifer Homendy said excavating detailed inspection history information — and what was done in response to any earlier findings — will be a cumbersome and protracted part of the agency’s investigation.

But bridge safety and engineering experts are emphasizing a separate issue: protective barriers.

When the span opened to traffic in 1977, many ships were smaller and the standards for protecting bridges against them were lower, they said.

A few years later, a Liberian cargo ship crashed into a bridge in Florida , sending a Greyhound bus, a pickup truck and six cars into the Tampa Bay and killing 35 people, according to the NTSB. That deadly 1980 collision helped lead to the adoption of stronger national standards for bridges, including protection from errant ships, in the years that followed, safety experts said.

Sherif El-Tawil, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at University of Michigan with expertise in bridges, said if the Key Bridge had been built after those updated standards from the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials were put in place, the span could still be standing.

“I believe it would have survived,” El-Tawil said.

Maryland officials did not answer questions Tuesday about what protective devices were in place near the bridge and whether they were sufficient to withstand this type of collision.

Two examples of protective measures that did not appear to have been in place, El-Tawil said, were large fenders designed to direct marine traffic away from the bridge supports and an island built around the pier.

Some states are building these kinds of protection systems around vital bridges. Last year, officials from a joint New Jersey and Delaware bridge authority announced work on eight 80-foot-wide, stone-filled cylinders designed to protect the Delaware Memorial Bridge. The existing protection for the bridge tower piers dates to 1951. “Today’s tankers and ships are bigger and faster than those of the 1950s and 1960s,” the officials said in announcing the nearly $93 million project.

State departments of transportation “are aware of the shortcomings of these bridges,” said Roberto T. Leon, a bridge and structural engineering professor at Virginia Tech. “It’s not that they don’t know. It’s a matter of prioritizing the repairs. It is a very expensive proposition to protect a bridge.”

Ian Firth, a British structural engineer and bridge designer, said he was “not surprised” at how quickly the bridge came down after it was hit. He noted that the support structure that was struck, which would have been made of reinforced concrete, was one of two main supports responsible for doing “all the work” to hold up the bridge.

He said the ship appeared to have strayed to one side before striking the bridge.

The bridge collapse, like other calamities, is probably the result of overlapping low-probability failures, said Edward Tenner, a historian and expert on disasters — akin to what happens when, by chance, the holes in a stack of Swiss cheese slices line up perfectly.

“This might have been a case where there were just an unlikely series of failures,” said Tenner, author of “Why Things Bite Back,” a book about technology and its unanticipated consequences. But he added, “I suspect there was something about the equipment of a huge ship like that, given the potential for damage like this, there should have been more redundancy. There shouldn’t have been one point of failure that could lead to a catastrophe.”

Speaking Tuesday afternoon in Baltimore, U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg called the accident “a unique circumstance,” adding, “I do not know of a bridge that has been constructed to withstand a direct impact from a vessel of this size.”

The ship was towed into the Patapsco River initially, but the tugboats did not accompany the ship all the way to the bridge, said John Konrad, a retired ship captain who runs the gCaptain maritime news website and co-authored a book on the Deepwater Horizon oil spill .

“The safe thing to do is keep the tugs,” Konrad said. “Moving forward, I think that’s going to happen. The Coast Guard is going to say you’ve got to keep the tugs tied up until you pass the bridge.”

In video imagery, the ship can be seen losing electrical power, then briefly regaining it before going completely dark. The ship then veers to the right, directly toward the bridge’s structural support.

The rudder may have gotten stuck in a position that caused the ship to turn, said a senior retired maritime official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity while waiting for more details on the incident. It’s also possible that an incoming tide could have been a factor, he said.

“Obviously, they could not control the ship. They could not stop the ship,” he said.

A deficiency in the Dali’s systems was discovered when the ship was inspected in June, records show. Inspectors at the port of San Antonio, Chile, discovered a problem categorized as relating to “propulsion and auxiliary machinery,” according to the Tokyo MOU, an intergovernmental shipping regulator in the Asia-Pacific region. The issue was classified in the subcategory of “Gauges, thermometers, etc,” but no additional details of the deficiency were provided. The problem was not serious enough to warrant detaining the ship, according to the records.

After a follow-up inspection later the same day, the Dali was found to have no outstanding deficiencies, the records show, indicating that the problem was addressed.

Maryland Gov. Wes Moore (D) said at a news conference Tuesday that the Dali lost power and issued an emergency call for help shortly before the freighter crashed into the bridge. The “mayday” distress call allowed officials to halt vehicle traffic headed over the bridge and saved lives, Moore said.

Erin Cox, Tom Jackman, Jon Swaine, Joyce Lee and Mark Johnson contributed to this report.

An earlier version of this article misstated the title of Edward Tenner's book. It is "Why Things Bite Back." This version has been corrected.

Baltimore bridge collapse

How it happened: Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge collapsed after being hit by a cargo ship . The container ship lost power shortly before hitting the bridge, Maryland Gov. Wes Moore (D) said. Video shows the bridge collapse in under 40 seconds.

Victims: Divers have recovered the bodies of two construction workers , officials said. They were fathers, husbands and hard workers . A mayday call from the ship prompted first responders to shut down traffic on the four-lane bridge, saving lives.

Economic impact: The collapse of the bridge severed ocean links to the Port of Baltimore, which provides about 20,000 jobs to the area . See how the collapse will disrupt the supply of cars, coal and other goods .

Rebuilding: The bridge, built in the 1970s , will probably take years and cost hundreds of millions of dollars to rebuild , experts said.

Mary Louise Kelly on her memoir 'It. Goes. So. Fast. The Year of No Do-Overs'

SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

Most parents, mothers especially, have probably gotten a call from a school saying, your child is sick. Come get them. But what if you're boarding a Black Hawk helicopter in Baghdad? Mary Louise Kelly, our esteemed colleague and co-host of a show called All Things Considered, contends with the balance between work and life, anchoring the news and anchoring a family with two teen sons growing up in her new book, "It. Goes. So. Fast.: The Year Of No Do-Overs." And I'm teary just reading the intro.

MARY LOUISE KELLY, BYLINE: (Laughter).

SIMON: Mary Louise Kelly joins us in our studios. Thanks so much for being with us.

KELLY: Thank you, Scott.

SIMON: What was that like to get a call like that?

KELLY: Yeah, we're about to get loaded up into a swarm of Black Hawk helicopters. Phone rings - school nurse telling me, your son is sick. Where are you? Can you come to school? And I'm thinking, lady, if you could see where I am - no, that's not happening. And she started talking more loudly and said, I don't mean to bring him home. I mean, he's really sick. He's struggling to breathe. We need to get him to a doctor or a hospital now. Where are you? And I was trying to answer, and the cellphone died. We lost signal. And I have to get into this helicopter. And I will never forget sitting there in the Black Hawk looking down over the traffic of Baghdad and thinking, what am I doing? I'm good at my job. I worked really hard to get here. I love my work, but my 4-year-old son needs me, and I am halfway around the world. And I hit a wall. When two things that you love and sustain you come into conflict, what do you do?

SIMON: Yeah.

KELLY: Yeah.

SIMON: And let's make plain, your son Alexander is - he was then 4 - healthy and strong now.

SIMON: But there's an almost audible clock ticking through some of this memoir. And as you say, you go from counting months to weeks and days.

KELLY: Yeah. I started really thinking about writing this book when it dawned on me that James, my oldest, was about to be a senior in high school. He was going to go out and spread his wings in the world which, of course, is what you want, but I - it suddenly occurred to me, it's finite. You know, the number of nights when my nuclear family is going to be under this roof, they're dwindling. And the example that I just kept circling and coming around to was James has loved soccer since he could walk, and this has been his thing. And he was a starting striker on his high school varsity team. And their games tend to be weekdays around 4 o'clock.

SIMON: I think you have a prior obligation.

KELLY: I have a conflict at 4 o'clock on weekdays, which is that is, to the minute, when All Things Considered goes on the air. And so when there were hundreds of games, it felt relatively easy to say, OK, I'll be there next year. I'll be there next year. And then suddenly, I was out of next years, and I didn't have any more do-overs. And suddenly, I thought, I'd rather cut off my right arm than miss another game.

SIMON: You've got a phrase in here - life is what we choose to see.

KELLY: I ran into - it was a competitor from another news organization who covered the same national security beat as I had. And when I ran into her, I was taking a long spell away from the newsroom to be with my kids, and I looked like it. (Laughter) And I was working like...

SIMON: What? You had banana in your hair or something, right?

KELLY: I had applesauce in my hair.

SIMON: Applesauce. That's right.

KELLY: Thank you for reminding me. Yes. And she looked the way she always had in this killer suit and killer heels. And we chatted for a few minutes. She didn't recognize me, Scott.

SIMON: (Laughter).

KELLY: She didn't recognize me. I looked so different from what she'd used to see. And then she gets in a taxi and goes to the White House for an interview. And I stood there stricken on the sidewalk thinking, I'm not sure I recognize myself. And it was only - it was a while before I ran into her again, by which point I had gone back to work - bumped into her on the sidewalk again. She recognized me. We chatted for a few minutes, and as we're turning to go our separate ways, she said, you know, I cried all day after that last time I ran into you. And I said, what? Really? Why? You - 'cause you had it all. You had the whole thing going. And she said, no, you and your son were on your way to the park, and it was this beautiful day. And I had just dropped my own child at day care and I was off to, you know, go do some interview with somebody that I've already forgotten even what the subject was. And I was paying some stranger at day care to take my baby to the park. And I thought, what am I doing with my life? And I looked at her and thought, God, you and me both. We've both been beating ourselves up for not being able to do the impossible. You can't be in two places at once.

SIMON: You point out in the book that you had the advantage of a nanny and, for that matter, a mother. Could you tell us what she told you when you were able to see a soccer game?

KELLY: Oh, it was not just any soccer game. The soccer game in question was James' senior year. It was for the state championship. He scored with a header with three minutes on the clock. It was the goal...

KELLY: ...The goal that he will remember, our family will remember, the school will remember - it was fabulous. And as I was driving home, I called my mom to tell her about it and how wonderful it had been, and she listened and listened. And the first thing she said wasn't about James or the team or the soccer. It was for me - you know, for her own baby. And she said, oh, and you got to see it, because she knows how many I've missed and how much it meant to see that goal.

SIMON: Yeah. We should explain - of course, you've done wonderful reporting from Ukraine, but at one point fairly recently, you decided not to go back, right?

KELLY: I was asked to, after my first rotation through Ukraine, to go back through, and - not entirely clear when you're going into a war zone. It's not like you can say, well, as long as I'm out by Tuesday at 9 a.m. And the precise times that they were asking for lined up with James' very last weeks of high school. And the journalist in me was clawing my suitcase off the shelf to pack, and the mom in me thought, yeah, but sadly, there's always going to be a war out there. And there are other journalists who can cover it, but there's nobody else who can be a mom to this boy. And he's only here for a few more weeks. And it's senior prom, and it's exams, and it's the last time. And I thought, yeah, I need to sit this one out.

SIMON: Yeah. A lot of this book is becoming aware of this might be the last time something happens...

SIMON: ...When we have children.

SIMON: Yes, it's the stuff that maybe you can plan on a calendar, but it's also you don't know when the last time they might crawl into your lap.

KELLY: Yeah, or the last time they're going to call you mama or daddy instead of mom or dad 'cause they get teased at school. And I think about those moments. I remember - I didn't actually write about this, but it pops into my head now. I remember the last time I nursed a baby. I breastfed both my sons. And I remember, you know, as Alexander was, you know, crawling off my lap. And I remember so clearly where we were in the house and where the sun was in the windows and thinking this is the last time. And you can let that break your heart, or you can let it lift it up and think, how beautiful is this? How beautiful is this?

SIMON: Yeah. Your book - I'm sorry.

SIMON: This is - the two of us in here - hardened journalists.

KELLY: Oh, yeah.

SIMON: I think of Emily Webb in "Our Town." Do any human beings realize life while they live it? Every minute, do they?

KELLY: I don't know that I have found an answer to that, but I will say that this book is part of my attempt to wrestle with it and sit with it. The nature of the work you and I do, Scott, is wonderful, but it's ephemeral. You know, you and I do a show, and there are days when we nail it and days when we don't. And either way, we have to get up and do another one the next time around. And, you know, a show from six months ago might as well be six lifetimes ago. And I wanted to really wrestle with one year in my life the choices I was making, the deals I was striking with myself and, whether I got it right or wrong, be intentional about it and remember it and let it stick. That's what this book is.

SIMON: Mary Louise Kelly - her book, "It. Goes. So. Fast.: The Year Of No Do-Overs." Thanks so much for being with us.

KELLY: It does go so fast. Thank you, Scott. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

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Opinion Michelle Goldberg

The Internet Is a Wasteland, So Give Kids Better Places to Go

Credit... Damon Winter/The New York Times

Supported by

By Michelle Goldberg

Opinion Columnist

• March 18, 2024

In January, I had the odd experience of nodding along with Senator Lindsey Graham, who can usually be relied on to be wrong, as he berated the supervillain Mark Zuckerberg, head of Facebook’s parent company, Meta, about the effect its products have on kids. “You have blood on your hands,” said Graham.

That evening, I moderated a panel on social media regulation whose participants included New York’s attorney general, Letitia James, a progressive crusader and perhaps Donald Trump’s single most effective antagonist. Her position wasn’t that different from that of Graham, a South Carolina Republican. There is a correlation, she pointed out, between the proliferation of addictive social media algorithms and the collapse of young people’s mental health, including rising rates of depression, suicidal thoughts and self-harm.

“And I’ve seen that for myself,” she said, describing helping the family of a young girl find a scarce psychiatric bed during the pandemic. “She talked to me a lot about social media.”

Because alarm over what social media is doing to kids is broad and bipartisan, the social psychologist Jonathan Haidt is pushing on an open door with his important new book, “ The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness .” The shift in kids’ energy and attention from the physical world to the virtual one, Haidt shows, has been catastrophic, especially for girls.

Female adolescence was nightmarish enough before smartphones, but apps like Instagram and TikTok have put popularity contests and unrealistic beauty standards into hyperdrive. (Boys, by contrast, have more problems linked to overuse of video games and porn.) The studies Haidt cites — as well as the ones he debunks — should put to bed the notion that concern over kids and phones is just a modern moral panic akin to previous generations’ hand-wringing over radio, comic books and television.

But I suspect that many readers won’t need convincing. The question in our politics is less whether these ubiquitous new technologies are causing widespread psychological damage than what can be done about it.

So far, the answer has been not much. The federal Kids Online Safety Act, which was recently revised to allay at least some concerns about censorship, has the votes to pass the Senate but hasn’t even been introduced in the House. In the absence of federal action, both red and blue states have tried to enact their own laws to safeguard kids online, but many have been enjoined by courts for running afoul of the First Amendment. Lawmakers in New York are working on a bill that tries to rein in predatory social media apps while respecting free speech; it targets the algorithms that social media companies use to serve kids ever more extreme content, keeping them glued to their phones. But while the law seems likely to pass, no one knows whether courts will uphold it.

There are, however, small but potentially significant steps local governments can take right now to get kids to spend less time online, steps that raise no constitutional issues at all. Phone-free schools are an obvious start, although, in a perverse American twist, some parents object to them because they want to be able to reach their kids if there’s a mass shooting. More than that, we need a lot more places — parks, food courts, movie theaters, even video arcades — where kids can interact in person.

In “The Anxious Generation,” Haidt argues that while kids are underprotected on the internet, they’re overprotected in the real world and that these two trends work in tandem. For a whole host of reasons — parental fear, overzealous child welfare departments, car-centric city planning — kids generally have a lot less freedom and independence than their parents did. Sitting at home in front of screens may keep them safe from certain physical harms, but it leaves them more vulnerable to psychological ones.

Reading Haidt’s book, I kept thinking of a park in Paris’s Les Halles district where adults aren’t allowed and how much easier it would be to keep kids off the internet if there were similar parks scattered around American cities and towns. I would much rather have my children, who are 9 and 11, roaming the neighborhood than spending hours interacting with friends remotely on apps like Roblox.

But it’s hard to make them go outside when there are no other kids around. One of my favorite days of the year is my Brooklyn neighborhood’s block party, when the street is closed to traffic and the kids play in packs, most ignored by their tipsy parents. It demonstrates how the right physical environment can encourage offscreen socializing.

As I was finishing “The Anxious Generation,” a book that partly overlaps with it arrived in the mail: “Family Unfriendly: How Our Culture Made Raising Kids Much Harder Than It Needs to Be.” The author, Timothy P. Carney, is a conservative Catholic father of six who wants to encourage other people to have lots of kids. He and I agree about very little, but we’re in complete accord about the need for communities to be “kid-walkable and kid-bikeable” so that children will have more real-world autonomy. Carney cites a 2023 paper from The Journal of Pediatrics concluding that a “primary cause of the rise in mental disorders is a decline over decades in opportunities for children and teens to play, roam and engage in other activities independent of direct oversight and control by adults.”

If we want to start getting kids off line, we need to give them better places to go instead.

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips . And here’s our email: [email protected] .

Follow the New York Times Opinion section on Facebook , Instagram , TikTok , WhatsApp , X and Threads .

Michelle Goldberg has been an Opinion columnist since 2017. She is the author of several books about politics, religion and women’s rights, and was part of a team that won a Pulitzer Prize for public service in 2018 for reporting on workplace sexual harassment.

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What we know about the container ship that crashed into the Baltimore bridge

• The ship that crashed into the Francis Scott Key Bridge on Tuesday was the Singapore-flagged Dali.
• The container ship had been chartered by Maersk, the Danish shipping company. 
• Two people were recovered from the water but six remain missing, authorities said.

A container ship crashed into a major bridge in Baltimore early Tuesday, causing its collapse into the Patapsco River.

A livestream showed vehicles traveling on the Francis Scott Key Bridge just moments before the impact at 1:28 a.m. ET.

Baltimore first responders called the situation a "developing mass casualty event" and a "dire emergency," per The Associated Press.

James Wallace, chief of the Baltimore Fire Department, said in a press conference that two people had been recovered from the water.

One was uninjured, but the other was transported to a local trauma center in a "very serious condition."

Wallace said up to 20 people were thought to have fallen into the river and some six people were still missing.

Richard Worley, Baltimore's police chief, said there was "no indication" the collision was purposeful or an act of terrorism.

Wes Moore, the governor of Maryland, declared a state of emergency around 6 a.m. ET. He said his office was in close communication with Pete Buttigieg, the transportation secretary.

"We are working with an interagency team to quickly deploy federal resources from the Biden Administration," Moore added.

Understanding why the bridge collapsed could have implications for safety, in both the shipping and civil engineering sectors.

The container ship is the Singapore-flagged Dali, which is about 984 feet long, and 157 feet wide, per a listing on VesselFinder.

An unclassified Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency report said that the ship "lost propulsion" as it was leaving port, ABC News reported.

The crew notified officials that they had lost control and warned of a possible collision, the report said, per the outlet.

The Dali's owner is listed as Grace Ocean, a Singapore-based firm, and its manager is listed as Synergy Marine, which is also headquartered in Singapore.

Shipping news outlet TradeWinds reported that Grace Ocean confirmed the Dali was involved in the collapse, but is still determining what caused the crash.

Related stories

Staff for Grace Ocean declined to comment on the collision when contacted by Business Insider.

"All crew members, including the two pilots have been accounted for and there are no reports of any injuries. There has also been no pollution," Synergy Marine said in a statement.

The company did not respond to a request for further comment from BI.

'Horrified'

Maersk chartered the Dali, with a schedule for the ship on its website.

"We are horrified by what has happened in Baltimore, and our thoughts are with all of those affected," the Danish shipping company said in a statement.

Maersk added: "We are closely following the investigations conducted by authorities and Synergy, and we will do our utmost to keep our customers informed."

Per ship tracking data, the Dali left Baltimore on its way to Colombo, the capital of Sri Lanka, at around 1 a.m., about half an hour before the crash.

The Port of Baltimore is thought to be the largest in the US for roll-on/roll-off ships carrying trucks and trailers.

Barbara Rossi, associate professor of engineering science at the University of Oxford, told BI the force of the impact on one of the bridge's supporting structures "must have been immense" to lead to the collapse.

Dr Salvatore Mercogliano, a shipping analyst and maritime historian at Campbell University, told BI: "It appears Dali left the channel while outbound. She would have been under the control of the ship's master with a Chesapeake Bay pilot onboard to advise the master.

"The deviation out of the channel is probably due to a mechanical issue as the ship had just departed the port, but you cannot rule out human error as that was the cause of the Ever Forward in 2022 just outside of Baltimore."

He was referring to the incident two years ago when the container ship became grounded for a month in Chesapeake Bay after loading up cargo at the Port of Baltimore.

The US Coast Guard found the incident was caused by pilot error, cellphone use, and "inadequate bridge resource management."

Claudia Norrgren, from the maritime research firm Veson Nautical, told BI: "The industry bodies who are here to protect against incidents like this, such as the vessel's flag state, classification society, and regulatory bodies, will step in and conduct a formal investigation into the incident. Until then, it'll be very hard for anyone to truly know what happened on board."

This may not have been the first time the Dali hit a structure.

In 2016, maritime blogs such as Shipwreck Log and ship-tracking site VesselFinder posted videos of what appears to be the stern of the same, blue-hulled container vessel scraping against a quay in Antwerp.

A representative for the Port of Antwerp told BI the Dali did collide with a quay there eight years ago but couldn't "give any information about the cause of the accident."

The Dali is listed as being built in 2015 by Hyundai Heavy Industries in South Korea.

Watch: The shipwreck at the center of a battle between China and the Philippines

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Customer reviews.

It. Goes. So. Fast.: The Year of No Do-Overs

Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.

To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzed reviews to verify trustworthiness.

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Trump is selling ‘God Bless the USA’ Bibles for $59.99 as he faces mounting legal bills

Former President Donald Trump, now the presumptive 2024 Republican nominee, released a video on his Truth Social platform on Tuesday urging supporters to buy the “God Bless the USA Bible,” inspired by country singer Lee Greenwood’s patriotic ballad.

FILE - President Donald Trump holds a Bible as he visits outside St. John’s Church across Lafayette Park from the White House, June 1, 2020, in Washington. Trump is now selling Bibles as he runs to return to the White House. The presumptive Republican nominee released a video on his Truth Social platform Tuesday urging his supporters to purchase the “God Bless The USA Bible.” (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, File)

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NEW YORK (AP) — Former President Donald Trump is now selling Bibles as he runs to return to the White House.

Trump, who became the presumptive Republican nominee earlier this month, released a video on his Truth Social platform on Tuesday urging his supporters to buy the “God Bless the USA Bible,” which is inspired by country singer Lee Greenwood’s patriotic ballad. Trump takes the stage to the song at each of his rallies and has appeared with Greenwood at events.

“Happy Holy Week! Let’s Make America Pray Again. As we lead into Good Friday and Easter, I encourage you to get a copy of the God Bless the USA Bible,” Trump wrote, directing his supporters to a website selling the book for $59.99.

The effort comes as Trump has faced a serious money crunch amid mounting legal bills while he fights four criminal indictments along with a series of civil charges. Trump was given a reprieve Monday when a New York appeals court agreed to hold off on collecting the more than $454 million he owes following a civil fraud judgment if he puts up $175 million within 10 days. Trump has already posted a $92 million bond in connection with defamation cases brought by the writer E. Jean Carroll , who accused Trump of sexual assault.

“All Americans need a Bible in their home, and I have many. It’s my favorite book,” Trump said in the video posted on Truth Social. “I’m proud to endorse and encourage you to get this Bible. We must make America pray again.”

Billing itself as “the only Bible endorsed by President Trump!” the new venture’s website calls it “Easy-to-read” with “large print” and a “slim design” that “invites you to explore God’s Word anywhere, any time.”

Besides a King James Version translation, it includes copies of the U.S. Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Declaration of Independence and the Pledge of Allegiance, as well as a handwritten chorus of the famous Greenwood song.

The Bible is just the latest commercial venture that Trump has pursued while campaigning.

Last month, he debuted a new line of Trump-branded sneakers , including $399 gold “Never Surrender High-Tops,” at Sneaker Con in Philadelphia. The venture behind the shoes, 45Footwear, also sells other Trump-branded footwear, cologne and perfume.

Trump has also dabbled in NFTs, or nonfungible tokens, and last year reported earning between $100,000 and $1 million from a series of digital trading cards that portrayed him in cartoon-like images, including as an astronaut, a cowboy and a superhero.

Donald Trump is facing four criminal indictments, and a civil lawsuit. You can track all of the cases here .

He has also released books featuring photos of his time in office and letters written to him through the years.

The Bible’s website states the product “is not political and has nothing to do with any political campaign.”

“GodBlessTheUSABible.com is not owned, managed or controlled by Donald J. Trump, The Trump Organization, CIC Ventures LLC or any of their respective principals or affiliates,” it says.

Instead, it says, “GodBlessTheUSABible.com uses Donald J. Trump’s name, likeness and image under paid license from CIC Ventures LLC, which license may be terminated or revoked according to its terms.”

CIC Ventures LLC, a company that Trump reported owning in his 2023 financial disclosure, has a similar arrangement with 45Footwear, which also says it uses Trump’s “name, likeness and image under paid license from CIC Ventures LLC, which license may be terminated or revoked according to its terms.”

A Trump spokesperson and God Bless the USA Bible did not immediately respond to questions about how much Trump was paid for the licensing deal or stands to make from each book sale.

Trump remains deeply popular with white evangelical Christians , who are among his most ardent supporters, even though the thrice-married former reality TV star has a long history of behavior that often seemed at odds with teachings espoused by Christ in the Gospels.

When he was running in 2016, Trump raised eyebrows when he cited “Two Corinthians” at Liberty University, instead of the standard “Second Corinthians.”

When asked to share his favorite Bible verse in an interview with Bloomberg Politics in 2015, he demurred.

“I wouldn’t want to get into it. Because to me, that’s very personal,” he said. “The Bible means a lot to me, but I don’t want to get into specifics.”

When he was president, law enforcement officers aggressively removed racial justice protesters from a park near the White House, allowing Trump to walk to nearby St. John’s Church, where he stood alone and raised a Bible. The scene was condemned at the time by the bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington.

Before he ran for office, Trump famously hawked everything from frozen steaks to vodka to a venture named Trump University, which was later sued for fraud .