"It will be the first of an expected pair of announcements directing Mr. Pruitt to begin dismantling the major pillars of Mr. Obama’s environmental legacy. In the coming week, Mr. Trump is also expected to sign a similar order directing Mr. Pruitt to begin the lengthy legal process of withdrawing and rewriting Mr. Obama’s signature 2015 climate change regulation, aimed at curbing emissions of planet-warming greenhouse gases from coal-fired power plants."New York Times

The Army National Guard and Army Reserve have implemented sexual assault prevention and response programs, but face challenges in areas such as staffing, budget management, and investigation timeliness that may hinder program implementation. Data on Guard cases investigated by its Office of Complex Administrative Investigations in fiscal year 2015 show that 57%, or 45 of 79 cases, took 6 to 9 months to complete; 39%, or 31 of 79 cases, took 3 to 6 months; and the remaining 4 percent (3 of 79 cases) took longer than 9 months.

A winner of both the Presidential Medal of Freedom (from President Barack Obama, in 2014) and the National Medal of Science (from President George H.W. Bush, in 1990), Dresselhaus was a member of the MIT faculty for 50 years. "Among her many 'firsts,' in 1968, Millie became the first woman at MIT to attain the rank of full, tenured professor. She was the first solo recipient of a Kavli Prize and the first woman to win the National Medal of Science in Engineering."

"The paintings from Monet’s early career are profoundly daring and surprising," comments Esther Bell, Curator in Charge of European Paintings at the Fine Art Museums of San Francisco. "You see his mastery of light and texture everywhere — in his depictions of large and small moments, with friends and loved ones, in the solitude of forests and fields and in the quiet scenes of everyday life. Every stroke commands our attention."

"President Trump last month signed an executive order barring American aid to international organizations that discuss abortion as a family-planning option with clients. American law already forbids the use of taxpayer money to fund the procedure itself. In Europe, the president’s order brought an unexpected response. Lilianne Ploumen, 54, minister of foreign trade and development cooperation in the Netherlands, established a nongovernmental organization, She Decides, to raise money for aid groups whose funding is threatened under the new order."

All of these planets are the best targets found so far to search for signs of life, and it is remarkable that they are all transiting the same star. This means that the system will allow us to study each planet in great depth, providing for the first time a rich perspective on a different planetary system than ours, and on planets around the smallest main sequence stars. Only 39 light years away from Earth!

A bill to provide that six of the 12 weeks of parental leave made available to a federal employee shall be paid leave; A bill to provide for the eligibility for beneficiary travel for veterans seeking treatment or care for military sexual trauma in specialized outpatient or residential programs at facilities of the Department of Veterans Affairs; A bill to extend the civil statute of limitations for victims of federal sex offenses; A bill to clarify report dates, modify the criteria for determinations of whether countries are meeting the minimum standards for elimination of trafficking, and highlight the importance of concrete actions by countries to eliminate trafficking.

Small in scale, yet teeming with life, miniature boxwood carvings have been a source of wonder since their creation in the Netherlands in the 16th century. The execution of these prayer beads and diminutive altarpieces seems almost as miraculous as the stories they tell and, in this first exhibition of its kind, the wizardry of the carvers who created these precious panoramas is revealed. Fit for a king, this magnificent cello was made for George IV when he was Prince Regent and is emblazoned with the royal coat of arms of Great Britain and the Prince of Wales' feathers. Its ribs bear the motto "Liberty and Loyalty."

Mary Garber began her trailblazing sports journalism career in 1944, when the sports editor of the Winston-Salem Journal joined the Navy and Garber replaced him. "Not because I had any ability in sports," Garber once told the Women’s Sports Foundation, "but because it was the war, and every man was in the armed forces."Even though she was banned from locker rooms and forced to sit with the players’ wives instead of in the press box, Garber lobbied to continue covering sports after World War II ended.

Two-thirds of Americans say they are stressed about the future of our nation, including a majority of both Democrats and Republicans, according to the American Psychological Association's report. "The stress we're seeing around political issues is deeply concerning, because it's hard for Americans to get away from it," said Katherine C. Nordal,PhD, APA's executive director for professional practice. "We're surrounded by conversations, news and social media that constantly remind us of the issues that are stressing us the most."

During the first 50 years that women were able to vote and serve in public office in Colorado (1895-1945), 30 women served in the House and three served in the Senate. During the next 50 years (1945-1994), 101 women served in the House and 23 women served in the Senate. Between 1995 and 2013 Colorado saw another 87 women serve in the State House and another 40 women serve in the State Senate.

Previous studies have found differences in the way female and male physicians practice but this is the first national study to look at whether the differences in the way male and female physicians practice affect clinical outcomes. The researchers found that the patients if treated by a female physician, had a 4% lower relative risk of dying prematurely and a 5% lower relative risk of being readmitted to a hospital within 30 days. Date: Jan 31 2017   Following is a statement from Georges C. Benjamin, MD, executive director of the American Public Health Association, regarding an executive order signed yesterday by President Donald Trump. The order dire…

Julia Sneden wrote: It never occurred to me that ironing was evidence of being out of step with modern times. Apparently, the rest of the world sends cotton shirts out to the laundry, these days. Not this old-fashioned (not to say retrograde) woman. Not only do I iron; I actually enjoy it. Handling the clean clothes, smoothing them on the board, gliding the hot iron as the steam hisses up around it, seeing the pristine, unwrinkled surface one has brought into being, is for me a sensual pleasure.

Do you visit public lands that charge entrance fees often? Consider purchasing a public lands pass. There are a number of pass options but they give you access to more than 2,000 national parks, forests, wildlife refuges, grasslands and other federal lands. Of the 400 + US national park sites, only 120 charge an entrance fee (which range from $3 to $30 per vehicle for an entire week). For the national wildlife system, 31 refuges charge admission (ranging from $3 to $8 per vehicle) to help fund their recreation-related projects.

Roberta McReynolds writes: My mother asked me, out of the blue, to model for a painting she wanted to do ... minus clothing. Ever so slowly I turned my head 90 degrees to peer at this strange woman who looked and sounded exactly like my mother. Yet how could this be? Once my mother had effectively shamed me to the core with a single laser-beam glare from across the room because I had shortened the hem of one of my dresses above the knees. All my friends were sporting mini-skirts while I wore clothes more appropriate for a middle-aged woman. So, who was this woman and was I even in the right house?

President Donald Trump signed an executive order Jan. 25 promising to punish any "sanctuary jurisdictions" that "attempt to shield aliens from removal from the United States." The order threatened cuts to federal funding and public shaming of "any jurisdiction that ignored or otherwise failed to honor any detainers." But the new administration in Washington hasn’t altered the legal landscape — at least not yet. Court rulings over the past several years have dissuaded even red-state sheriffs from honoring detainers, fearing that doing so would make them vulnerable to civil rights lawsuits.

Bills Introduced: A bill to ensure affordable abortion coverage and care for every woman, and for other purposes. A bill to increase the child credit for children under the age of six, and for other purposes. A bill to establish the Stop, Observe, Ask, and Respond to Health and Wellness Training pilot program to address human trafficking in the health care system. A bill to extend the coverage of the federal prohibition against stalking in order to provide protection to friends and co-workers.

"[I]t is my strongly-held view that the appointment of Jefferson Sessions to the federal bench would irreparably damage the work of my husband, Al Turner, and countless others who risked their lives and freedom over the past twenty years to ensure equal participation in our democratic system." The late Coretta Scott King famously opposed Sessions’ 1986 nomination to a federal judgeship in Alabama. But because then-Judiciary Chairman Strom Thurmond (R-TN) had never entered her 1,800-word letter testifying against Sessions into the congressional record, no copies were publicly available as Sessions faced his Senate colleagues on Tuesday morning.

"The alleged actions by RD Legal — scamming 9/11 heroes and former NFL players struggling with severe injuries — are simply shameful. RD Legal used deceptive tactics to charge unlawfully high interest rates for advances on settlement and compensation funds, allowing them to profit off the backs of these unsuspecting individuals," said New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman.

Joan L. Cannon reviews: Alistaire Horne is the author of over a dozen books of modern history. In this narrative, we realize that the half-century surrounding World War II has lost much of its impact, if only perhaps because of the wars that have succeeded it. A Bundle from Britain is a completely engaging account of Alistaire Horne's evacuation from England near the beginning of the Nazi onslaught on Europe and especially England. As it happened, he was sent to a section of the American world that can hardly stand in as typical of the USA.

The government will have a new website devoted to the 2013 settlement that will include information on how claims should be handled, as well as a simple explanation that improvement is not a criterion for coverage. The statement the judge accepted was largely written by the plaintiffs' lawyers and says, in part, "that the Medicare program will pay for skilled nursing care and skilled rehabilitation services when a beneficiary needs skilled care in order to maintain function or to prevent or slow decline or deterioration (provided all other coverage criteria are met)."

A new exhibition at the New-York Historical Society examines three centuries of tattooing in New York, including the city's central role in the development of modern tattooing and the successive waves of trend and taboo surrounding the practice. Tattooed New York features more than 250 works dating from the early 1700s to today — exploring Native American body art, tattoo craft practiced by visiting sailors, sideshow culture, the 1961 ban that drove tattooing underground for three decades, and the post-ban artistic renaissance.

In its first few days in session, Congress has used a backdoor tactic known as the Congressional Review Act to eviscerate a clean water protection that took years of scientific research and public engagement to create. The Stream Protection Rule was a common sense safeguard that provided the monitoring of streams near coal mining operations — many of which feed into drinking water sources — for pollutants such as lead, arsenic, selenium, and manganese.