The US suffers a median rate of violent crime (all types, including homicides) similar to the rate in other western democracies, such as Britain, France and Germany, but the homicide rate is much greater in America than in these other countries, particularly with firearms. For instance, in 2010, the US, with a population around five times greater than Britain's population, experienced 244 times more murders by firearms than Britain, with only 41 murders by firearms.

Bill introduced to direct the secretary of VA to establish a pilot program to award grants to health care entities to lease, purchase, or build health care facilities for female patients to qualified female veterans; A bill to authorize spouses of servicemembers to elect to use the same residences as the servicemembers; A bill to require the secretary of Defense to provide expedited evaluation and treatment for prenatal surgery under the TRICARE program; A bill to prevent the abuse of opiates, to improve response and treatment for the abuse of opiates and related overdoses.

"So yes, our retirement savings vehicles ought to be better. Until they are, however, home equity may end up being the biggest asset that many people have to draw on in retirement. That is where reverse mortgages come in for people who use their homes as a primary residence. If you are 62 or older, you can apply to extract some of that equity in a variety of ways, including through a lump sum or a line of credit. Your age, prevailing interest rates and the amount of equity in your home will help lenders determine what you can borrow." NYTimes article

In the ceaseless war of man versus rattlesnake, the rattlesnake has long been the loser. Now, some states are trying to give the sometimes deadly pit viper better odds of survival. The shift follows a dramatic decline in some US rattlesnake populations, as habitats have been lost to development and the reptiles have been killed, accidentally and intentionally. And it is threatening old traditions and forcing people to come to grips with animals many would rather avoid.  

Joan L. Cannon writes: For readers who like adventure and macho behavior, subdued heroism with a dollop of basic cynicism, this will be a memorable experience. Descriptions are nothing short of brilliant, so vivid and evocative are they. For others who prefer some entertainment with a slice of terrible life, The North Water will be a trial in spite of its artistry.

Americans spent $14.7 billion out-of-pocket on visits to complementary practitioners such as chiropractors, acupuncturists or massage therapists. That is almost 30 percent of what they spent out-of-pocket on services by conventional physicians. They spent more on visits to complementary practitioners than on natural product supplements or self-care purchases, and the mean annual out-of-pocket expenditure for practitioner visits was $433. 

"This year's Human Rights Watch Film Festival presents an array of women's rights issues through inspirational and personal stories of remarkable women," said John Biaggi, the festival’s creative director. "From a tenacious women's rights activist in China to a teenage Afghan rapper fighting child marriage to a courageous director of a women’s health clinic in Mississippi — the festival is spotlighting women and amplifying their voices in society through film.

Wildlife doesn't recognize country boundaries, and citizen science can help make it easier to track key species. The North American Breeding Bird Survey is an international effort between the US Geological Survey's Patuxent Wildlife Research Center and Environment Canada's Canadian Wildlife Service to monitor North American bird populations. Each year, thousands of dedicated birdwatchers collect data on more than 400 bird species throughout the continent.    

English novelist William Thackeray observed: "That is not a smear of purple you see yonder, but a beautiful whale, whose tail has just slapped a half-dozen whale-boats into perdition; and as for what you fancied to be a few zig-zag lines spattered on the canvas at hap-hazard, look! they turn out to be a ship with all her sails." Apparently Turner undertook the painting — which was returned to him — for the collector Elhanan Bicknell, who had made his fortune in the whale-oil business.

"Inflation has been lower than our objective of 2 percent, but I expect it to move up over time for reasons that I will describe. If incoming data are consistent with labor market conditions strengthening and inflation making progress toward our 2% objective, as I expect, further gradual increases in the federal funds rate are likely to be appropriate and most conducive to meeting and maintaining those objectives. However, I will emphasize that monetary policy is not on a preset course and significant shifts in the outlook for the economy would necessitate corresponding shifts in the appropriate path of policy."

The British Museum is staging a major exhibition on two lost Egyptian cities and their recent rediscovery by archaeologists beneath the Mediterranean seabed. Opening for an extended run of six months, The BP exhibition Sunken cities: Egypt’s lost worlds is the Museum's first large-scale exhibition of underwater discoveries.

Sanders declined to comment on the Democratic National Convention, where the party's candidate could be selected if the candidates do not secure enough delegates. He repeated his conviction that there is a path forward to make a university education more affordable. We are the richest country in the history of the world," Sanders said. "We will not succeed unless we have the best-educated workforce in the world."

The women of the United States who, in response to great need, created a grassroots movement that came "to the rescue of the crops." Whether the forces consisted of farm wives driving tractors, college women milking cows, housewives picking apples, or secretaries spending summer vacations harvesting vegetables, these workers responded with energy and ingenuity to the wartime need for farm labor.

The US Congress established the James Madison Memorial Foundation to teach the constitution in high schools across the country. In exchange for graduate school funding, students agree to teach history and civics a year after graduation. Discovery Education examines Upton Sinclair's muckraking novel, The Jungle. A Civil War course taught by Prof of American History and Director of the Gilder Lehrman Center Yale University, traces the Civil War from its antecedents to its effects in the late 1870s. The Buddhism course uses scriptural and informational readings to take readers into the complex matrix of art, devotional acts, and literary works that make up the ancient religion.

Rose Madeline Mula writes: I love to travel. Not any more. Not since my trip last winter to Florida where I fled to escape the Northeast blasts. At the beach, I found I could no longer sit in a sand chair. I could sit in it but no way could I get up out of it. I had to depend on strangers to hoist me up before the tide came in. If I pulled out my cell phone invariably it would attract the attention of someone nearby who would gush patronizingly, "Look at you!" as if I had just transformed water into wine. Apparently it's equally miraculous that someone of my advanced years has enough live brain cells to have mastered a basic electronic device.

Stanford psychologist Jeanne Tsai found that the more a particular country's culture values excitement, the more its political leaders show enthusiastic smiles. On the other hand, when the specific culture emphasizes calm, those leaders show more reserved smiles. Culturally different emotions and expressions may create misunderstandings between leaders from different nations involved in negotiations or crises.

Jane Shortall writes: Pulling on a woolly hat, scarf, gloves, heavy jeans, rubber boots and a waxed jacket, on that wild morning, I went out and walked the legendary Bull Wall in Clontarf, a long, long seafront walk, loved by the citizens of Dublin for hundreds of years. This is the area where the High King of Ireland, Brian Boru, was slain in a battle against the Danes in 1014. On that particular morning, I felt I was battling too.

Joan L. Cannon writes: A writer doesn't write, darn it, for him or herself; that labor goes to satisfy a reader, or more accurately, multiple readers. Maybe we don't expect to make a living at it, much less get rich doing it, but we bother in the hope that there will be a few minds elsewhere that might crack open far enough to let us in, and if they do, that they may enjoy themselves or learn something from what that poor benighted scribe tapped out on a keyboard. The ultimate dream reward is to elicit a response.

Stanford political scientist Andrew Hall found that contentious primaries that receive heavy media coverage and voter attention tend to produce nominees who do less well in the general election. But, if the primary has not generated much attention, then the primary winner is less affected — and sometimes even helped — in the general election.

Ferida Wolff writes: Three years ago I noticed a couple of geese outside of a shopping center. I wondered if they were lost. They seemed to be scouting around looking for something, which I thought might be the rest of their flock. After a few days they had settled onto a garden display and it looked as if they were making a nest. The landscapers delayed planting until the geese left.

California's chief of workforce development, is trying different tactics to keep senior workers on the job: offering a flexible work schedule, promoting work-life balance and creating the first government-wide employee management survey to assess the needs of workers. The idea is to find out who is leaving — and why.

Several tracking apps were marketed to individuals for the purpose of tracking or intercepting the communications of an intimate partner to determine if that partner was cheating. About one-third of the websites marketed their tracking apps as surreptitious, specifically to track the location and intercept the smartphone communications of children, employees, or intimate partners without their knowledge or consent.

Julia Sneden wrote: I remember that when I was small, my mother baked bread every week despite a killer schedule as a graduate student and teacher, never mind running a household that included two children, two grandmothers and a great aunt. She did have what was the 1930's most modern bread-making appliance, a large, galvanized tin tub with a handle that protruded from the lid to turn the large, reverse-S dough hook inside. In practice, she would always knead by hand because she said she needed to "feel the dough."