Jo Freeman writes to Congressman Nadler: Even though confirmation of Jeff Sessions to be the Attorney General is not a House function, as a member of the House Judiciary Committee, I know you are concerned with who heads the DoJ. Therefore I want to give you a little background on one of the reasons Sessions was not confirmed to be a federal district judge in 1986. At that time he was the US Attorney for the Southern District of Alabama.

The Huntington was founded in 1919 by Henry E. Huntington, an exceptional businessman who built a financial empire that included railroad companies, utilities, and real estate holdings in Southern California. Huntington was also a man of vision – with a special interest in books, art, and gardens. During his lifetime, he amassed the core of one of the finest research libraries in the world, established a splendid art collection, and created an array of botanical gardens with plants from a geographic range spanning the globe.

Fed Reserve Board Chair Janet Yellen addresses educators in Washington and nationwide via webcast. "Very importantly for students, we try to make sure that the job market is strong so that students entering it will have a wealth of job opportunities.. we do work to make sure that unemployment is low and job opportunities plentiful. And we try to keep inflation low and stable. And that's something that is important to savers who are concerned about providing for their retirement."

Rusty patched bumble bees once occupied grasslands and tallgrass prairies of the Upper Midwest and Northeast, but most grasslands and prairies have been lost, degraded, or fragmented by conversion to other uses. Bumble bees are keystone species in most ecosystems, necessary not only for native wildflower reproduction, but also for creating seeds and fruits that feed wildlife as diverse as songbirds and grizzly bears.

By coincidence or by design, drawings by the same artist, for the same project, and even from the same sketchbook, have made their way separately into galleries and museums on the West Coast. Bringing these long-estranged drawings together again at the Crocker Art Museum illuminates the work and process of specific artists in the rich history of European draftsmanship and brings forward the history of drawings collectors and scholars in the West.

The letter was organized by the legislative arm of Women's Action for New Directions (WAND), a Cambridge-based grassroots advocacy organization dedicated to amplifying women's voices in national security, disarmament, and anti-militarization campaigns. Signed by 125 female and male state legislators, the letter has the backing of groups including the Arms Control Association, Global Zero, National Priorities Project, Peace Action, and Win Without War.

Employees Entering Government: Individuals who join the executive branch may be required to take actions, either before becoming an employee or shortly thereafter, in order to comply with ethics laws and regulations concerning conflicting financial interests and impartiality. Hearings to examine the nomination of Jeff Sessions, of Alabama, to be Attorney General, Department of Justice will begin on Tuesday this week.

"The reason these women are able to be in the positions they are and influencing the policy and the science that's being done at NASA today has very much to do with the female pioneers who came to NASA, and to its predecessor the NACA, back in the 1930s, the 1940s, through the 1950s and '60s," says Hidden Figures author Margot Lee Shetterly.

The new study shows that dogs will leave out irrelevant actions when there is a more efficient way to solve a problem, even when a human repeatedly demonstrates these actions. "Although dogs are highly social animals, they draw the line at copying irrelevant actions," said Angie Johnston, Yale Ph.D. student and lead author on the study. "Dogs are surprisingly human-like in their ability to learn from social cues, such as pointing, so we were surprised to find that dogs ignored the human demonstrator and learned how to solve the puzzle on their own."    Dogs are less likely to follow bad advice than children, according to a new study conducted at the Canine Cognition Center at Yale. Yale Prof. Laurie Santos found that, in contrast to children, dogs only copy a human’s actions if they are absolute…

Julia Sneden wrote: Anyone who has ever hand-scrubbed a damask napkin across a washboard, rinsed it, set it in the sun to bleach, hung it on the line to dry, dampened it before ironing, and then ironed and folded it and placed it back in the drawer, is not about to take on the task more often than necessary. Unless there had been an utter disaster like a spill of grape juice, or an emergency napkin thrown on spilled gravy to keep it from flowing over the edge of the table, or an uncle who had had a bit too much Scotch and thoughtlessly blew his nose on the best double damask, we refolded our napkins at meal's end and placed them neatly in napkin rings that were clearly ours, each one different from anyone else's.  

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) today took action against Equifax, Inc., TransUnion, and their subsidiaries for deceiving consumers about the usefulness and actual cost of credit scores they sold to consumers. The companies also lured consumers into costly recurring payments for credit-related products with false promises. The CFPB ordered TransUnion and Equifax to truthfully represent the value of the credit scores they provide and the cost of obtaining those credit scores and other services. Between them, TransUnion and Equifax must pay a total of more than $17.6 million in restitution to consumers, and fines totaling $5.5 million to the CFPB.

"I think [the] 'skills gap' has run its course. It's overhyped and overrated," said Janice Urbanik of Partners for a Competitive Workforce, the umbrella organization for workforce efforts in the Cincinnati area. "I don't think it's the only factor, and to some extent it's not even the primary factor." President-elect Donald Trump made restoring lost manufacturing jobs a centerpiece of his campaign. He says he will bring back jobs by cutting taxes, rolling back regulations and renegotiating trade deals. His position on education and training for displaced workers is unknown.  

A different crowd, dressed more soberly and warmly, was headed to another nearby destination — the Shakespeare Theatre Company — to fulfill their civic duty as jurors at the theatre group’s 25th mock trial. Echoing Romeo and Juliet, ancient grudge had again broken to new mutiny, and a wrongful death suit filed by the Montagues and the Capulets against Friar Laurence found itself before a panel of distinguished judges: Justice Samuel Alito of the US Supreme Court, Judges Thomas Griffith, Brett Kavanaugh and Robert Wilkins of the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, and Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson of the US District Court for the District of Columbia. 

Panelist Jacquelyne Campbell from Johns Hopkins School of Nursing, noted that in the United States, when women are murdered, 40 to 50 percent are killed by their husband, boyfriend or ex-partner. That's nine times the rate killed by strangers. In comparison, 5 to 8 percent of men are killed by their partner. Panelist April Zeoli presented data from four longitudinal studies showing that when laws are in place that restrict abusers from purchasing guns, there is an associated decrease in intimate partner murders.

However, for as often as Americans rely on their mobile devices, most are not thinking about the risks associated with connected devices nearly enough. This holiday season, the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is urging everyone to keep their cybersecurity at the top of their list as they use their phones, tablets, and other connected devices while on the go.

Rose Madeline Mula writes: Am I glad I didn't live in Babylonia four thousand years ago. There the New Year celebration lasted eleven days. One is bad enough. By the eleventh day, the Babylonians must have had prodigious hangovers. They probably weren't even fully conscious for the first month of the new year. That's not for me. It would mean missing all those great post-holiday sales. When I was young, I hated New Year’s — the whole shebang, beginning with New Year’s Eve. The forced gaiety. The pressure to be happy! It was all so depressing.

Ferida Wolff writes: We were taking a drive to nowhere on Christmas Eve, looking at the lights that call attention to the holiday, and came across a small house with a simple display. It almost felt like a coloring book illustration. When we returned home, my husband put his photo of the house through a painting app and came up with something that plays on the simplicity and, like the light at the front door, draws you inside. I like the creative way it makes me think.

Research by immigration think tanks indicates that serious crimes committed by noncitizens are rare. The Migration Policy Institute estimates that of the roughly 1.9 million noncitizens who are eligible for deportation based on their criminal history, about 820,000 are undocumented. Of those, 37 percent, or roughly 300,000, were convicted of a felony, which can range from murder to attempting to re-enter the country illegally, said Faye Hipsman, an MPI policy analyst.      Last December, Mayra Machado was pulled over for a routine traffic stop in Arkansas. Turns out she had an unpaid ticket for failing to yield. And as a teen, she’d spent four months in boot camp for writin…

Whitson and her crewmates, Cosmonaut Oleg Novitskiy and ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet launched on November 17, 2016. The Iowa native completed two six-month tours of duty aboard the station for Expedition 5 in 2002, and as the station commander for Expedition 16 in 2008. She has accumulated 377 days in space between the two missions, the most for any US woman at the time of her return to Earth. Whitson has also performed six spacewalks, totaling 39 hours and 46 minutes.

Jean Pond wrote: There are always the antique hunters and I think the fact that I was an antique myself was helpful. A prospective customer would say, "How old is this?" and, when true, I would say, "Well, it’s older than I am" and it would immediately be an antique even if it was only a potato masher. A pretty 18 year old girl spotted a seed pearl pin that was in the shape of the letter J. She asked, "When did you wear this?" I replied, "When I was about your age I wore it on my Lana Turner sweater. It had considerable pick-up power." The Lana Turner reference didn’t mean anything to her. Her name turned out to be Jennifer and she went home with the pin as a gift.

The public may lose confidence in the integrity of Government if it perceives that an employee is using public office to serve a private interest, and it expects that Government information, property, and time (including the time of a subordinate) will be used to serve the public’s interests. Accordingly: An employee is required to act impartially: An employee may not make improper use of Government position, title, or authority. An employee may not use Government property, nonpublic information, or time (including the time of a subordinate) for other than authorized purposes.

Joan L. Cannon recalls: Wanamaker's sold pianos: grand, spinet, or upright; upholstery fabrics, draperies, and kitchen appliances. Everything that our family needed, except for standard groceries and alcohol, could be found at Wanamaker's. Gift items, gourmet treats and fancy chocolates, musical instruments other than pianos, sporting goods and evening clothes, waffle irons and radios were at hand. There was mass-produced and one-of-a-kind art, gift items, radios and phonographs … and on and on. I wish something like Wanamaker's could be created someday when we can look for beauty, utility and art for art's sake in a commercial venue — when we no longer need all our resources for trying to save our species and our planet.

This brief explores the implications for Medicare and beneficiaries of repealing Medicare provisions in the ACA. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has estimated that full repeal of the ACA would increase Medicare spending by $802 billion from 2016 to 2025. Full repeal would increase spending primarily by restoring higher payments to health care providers and Medicare Advantage plans. The increase in Medicare spending would likely lead to higher Medicare premiums, deductibles, and cost sharing for beneficiaries, and accelerate the insolvency of the Medicare Part A trust fund. Policymakers will confront decisions about the Medicare provisions in the ACA in their efforts to repeal and replace the law.