Culture and Arts

Sexual assaults in the military continue to increase, although Congress, the Department of Defense, and the Coast Guard have taken actions to prevent and address them. Congress passed 249 statutory requirements between 2004 and 2019 to improve how the military: helps sexual assault victims; prevents sexual assaults; manages and oversees prevention efforts; investigates cases and conducts judicial proceedings. DOD and the Coast Guard have met most of these requirements but not all of them. Also, they don't have enough oversight to know whether some of their efforts are effective. Our 23 recommendations address these and other issues. more »

Findings highlight that a sense of being cared for, supported, and belonging at school — called “school connectedness” — had an important effect on students during a time of severe disruption. Youth who felt connected to adults and peers at school were significantly less likely than those who did not to report persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness (35% vs. 53%); that they seriously considered attempting suicide (14% vs. 26%); or attempted suicide (6% vs. 12%). However, fewer than half (47%) of youth reported feeling close to people at school during the pandemic. “School connectedness is a key to addressing youth adversities at all times – especially during times of severe disruptions,” said Kathleen A. Ethier, PhD, Director of CDC’s Division of Adolescent and School Health.   more »

Ferida Wolff wrote: “Goodnight,” I crooned. I gently patted his back until he settled down. When I heard his breathing get deeper, I thought it was safe to tiptoe out of the room as I had done so many years ago with my tiny toddlers. I didn’t reckon on my joints. My toes cracked with my first step. How could anything so little sound so loud? It was loud enough to wake him. So I patted and shhhed until, once again, he was asleep. I wiggled my toes before starting my retreat to warm them. Then I moved very slowly, keeping each step balanced and light. I almost made it to the door when my knee exploded. Crack. There was no way my grandson would sleep through that! Sure enough, I heard him call me. more »

"The goal was to offer women work that would be in line with a domestic role and 'not interfere with their primary maternal duties." Pullman centralized the laundry operations and built a new facility on Florence Boulevard (now 111th Street), where in 1892, more than 100 women washed “soiled bed linens, tablecloths and napkins.” In 1899, a Chicago Tribune article marveled at the laundry’s machines that could wash and iron “30,000 pieces in a day” and the “young women” who fed pieces through the tumbler and the mangler, folded them, and tied them in bundles. The encyclopedic 1893 book, The Town of Pullman, described the laundry facility in even more gushing terms: a structure “supplied with every modern convenience for the comfort of employes [sic],” rooms buzzing with “busy girls, all wearing white caps and white aprons while attending to their multifarious duties” and spotlessly clean linens that 'when handled by the girls, [were] sweet and clean.'" more »