The Justice Department will monitor elections on June 5th in the following jurisdictions to ensure compliance with the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and other federal voting rights statutes: Alameda, Fresno and Riverside Counties, CA.; Cibola and Sandoval Counties, NM; Shannon County, SD; and the city of Milwaukee. Complaints may be reported to the Voting Section of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division at 1-800-253-3931.

Exhibition celebrates the art of Toulouse-Lautrec and the Paris Belle Époque. Posters of Paris resurrects the boulevards of nineteenth-century France This summer, the Milwaukee Art Museum transports visitors to nineteenth-century Paris with its featur…

Julia Sneden writes: I’ve always contended that the very best of summer vacation comes before you’ve had a chance to squander even a minute of its glory. Coming home and — whether you were student or pupil — flopping on the sofa in a kind of mindless haze, or sitting on the porch with something cold and wet to drink, seems glorious.

Agnes Mary Clerke wrote in 1885: "Throughout the twentieth century there will be no transit of Venus; but the astronomers of the twenty-first will only have to wait four years for the first of a June pair. The rarity of these events is due to the fact that the orbits of the earth and Venus do not lie in the same plane."

Like smoke, this grief was intangible and invisible. Nonetheless, it was pervasive, sticking to the physicians’ clothes when they went home after work and slipping under the doors between patient rooms.

Susan Samuels Drake writes: "I know the softer side of the woman. She’s the boss I'd go to some mornings before work. That was in 1973, when César, not with great wisdom, placed her as his Administrative Assistant (imagine that tigress caged behind a desk). Dolores’ tensions spilled over to me, at that time César’s secretary, who’d been running the office longer than she had."

Roberta McReynolds writes: A sluggish metabolism and aging body have teamed up to make my commitment to lose weight a painfully slow process. The fact that my husband and I decided enough is enough at the same time has undoubtedly been the best avenue to success. We’ve teamed up and Mike has lost 27 pounds while I lost 23 this year.

Kevin Starr writes: "In its final effect and meaning, however, the Bridge is more than the sum total of any of these. The Golden Gate Bridge embodies a beauty at once useful and transcendent. It emanates a music of mathematics and design and offers enduring proof that human beings can alter the planet with reverence, can mend or complete their environment for social purposes."

Among this year's new participants are the American Civil War Center at in Richmond, VA; the New Mexico Museum of Space History; the Cleveland Botanical Garden in Cleveland, Ohio; the Children's Creativity Museum in San Francisco, CA; the Menil Collection in Houston, TX; and the World Figure Skating Museum & Hall of Fame in Colorado Springs, CO.

Ross Eisenbrey writes: More than a million college students work as interns during the summer or a school year. Where is the data on the impact of internships, paid or unpaid, on labor markets, wages and employment prospects of young people? But consider an internship with Congressman Paul Ryan.

Doris O'Brien writes: The whole world seems fixated on keeping in touch with everyone other than those who are with them. Yesterday I observed a couple seated at a table at a pleasant outdoor café, perhaps to enjoy an early dinner together. It could have been a time for hand-holding or sharing the details of one another’s day. Instead, both were staring into their own latest-technology iphones, their minds elsewhere rather than on each other.

Nearly everyone is familar with John James Audubon and his seminal color-plate book, The Birds of America. But few people are aware of another monumental 19th c. volume of artwork, Illustrations of the Nests and Eggs of Birds of Ohio.

Nearly three-quarters of sick Americans say they want their doctor to spend time with them discussing other, broader health issues that might affect their long-term health (72%), as opposed to just talking about their specific medical problem (21%).

‘I watched the Silver Swan, which had a living grace about his movement and a living intelligence in his eyes-watched him swimming about as comfortably and unconcernedly as it he had been born in a morass instead of a jeweller’s shop - watched him seize a silver fish from under the water and hold up his head and go through the customary and elaborate motions of swallowing it...' Mark Twain

I’m vigilant this morning because yesterday, when I was unaware, he rode off, leaving the helmet on a hook in the garage, and the phone, pad, and pencil on the counter. And, instead of protective covering, he was wearing a baseball cap topped with AM/FM radio headphones.

Ferida Wolff writes: "We have a Tulip Tree in our backyard. I remember being excited when we got it as a young seedling because we were told it would grow fast. We were delighted with the rapid growth idea. Several years later and forty feet higher, the Tulip Tree is a mainstay of the yard."

From idyllic rural landscapes to gritty cities, the exhibition will showcase a literary map of the British Isles and highlight how writers, from William Shakespeare and Walter Scott to John Lennon and J K Rowling, have recorded the changing spaces of the British Isles in some of their greatest literary works.

Baby boomers are five times more likely than other American adults to be infected with the disease. In fact, more than 75 percent of American adults with hepatitis C are baby boomers.

Sarah A. Leavitt writes: The most fun shopping trip of the year occurred when the NBM's exhibitions staff went to Frederick, Maryland's antique stores. We agreed on the beautiful wicker chair but were less sure when deciding among various sets of kitchen containers and vessels. Did the other set have a more unusual pattern? We already had a Hamburglar juice glass, but what about a Kentucky Derby collectible glass?

  A new study has found that a subclass of high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol, the so-called “good” cholesterol, may not protect against coronary heart disease (CHD) and in fact may be harmful.

“British tourists in Italy in the 1770s were time-travellers, imagining themselves in the classical past amidst the landscapes and ruins they encountered on their journeys. The maps, books and antiquities that they purchased and works of art they commissioned were imbued with meaning and memories." Tourists today can experience scientific discoveries in Oxford museums and their shops.

A Facebook user who uses the site multiple times per day is 43% more likely than other internet users and more than three times as likely as non-internet users to feel that most people can be trusted.

Lacy Schley writes: "Laughter is the best medicine — at least that’s the case for some anxiety sufferers trying improvisation training at The Second City. The Panic/Anxiety/Recovery Center in Chicago is partnering with a well-known theater troup to use improv to help people overcome their fears."