Is print dead? Well, it is at Starbucks

NEW YORK — Newspapers at Starbucks are yesterday’s news.

Starbucks will quit selling The New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Gannett papers like USA Today in more than 8,600 U.S. stores in September, citing “changing customer behavior.” Starbucks has sold The Times since 2000 and other papers since 2010.

Indeed, the smells and smears of newsprint are in decline. While some papers are adding digital subscribers, newspaper weekday circulation has declined by more than half since its peak in the mid-1980s.

The Times says it is “disappointed” and the Journal confirmed that Starbucks is stopping print sales. Gannett did not immediately respond to questions.

This isn’t the first time Starbucks has decided old media is too passe for its cafes. Remember CDs? Sales of those ended in 2015. No word yet if Starbucks is going to start selling records, which are trendy again.

The New York Post first reported Starbucks’ decision to drop newspapers.

MONTPELIER, Vt. — Almost three dozen cannabis plants have been found growing in the flower beds in front of the Vermont Statehouse, police said Friday.

A visitor to the Statehouse alerted police to what turned out to be 34 plants found by officers this week among the cultivated flowers that line the walkway in front of the building in Montpelier.

Workers for the branch of state government responsible for the gardens might have found more plants, according to Capitol Police Chief Matthew Romei.

The chief said that he didn’t know whether the immature plants were marijuana or hemp and that he doesn’t intend to have the plants tested to see because he foresees no criminal case.

In Vermont, possession of small amounts of marijuana for recreational use is legal, but it remains illegal to grow it in public. Farmers can plant hemp as a cash crop.

“The only way we can make a criminal case is if someone comes down and claims it,” Romei said Friday.

Officials have made similar discoveries in the Statehouse flower gardens in previous years, Romei said, but it was the first instance in the two years he has been chief.

“This was a humorous thing to come back to off from vacation,” Romei said of Monday’s discovery.

MATTHEW ROMEI/VERMONT CAPITOL POLICE VIA AP THIS PHOTO shows cannabis plants growing on the at the Statehouse in Montpelier, Vt.

ASSOCIATED PRESS THIS JUNE 26 FILE PHOTO SHOWS A STARBUCKS sign outside a Starbucks coffee shop in downtown Pittsburgh. The coffee chain will quit selling major newspapers in September, citing “changing customer behavior.”