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. 

Janet Yellen Following FOMC Meeting: "On financial regulation we lived through a devastating financial crisis that took a huge toll on our economy. Most members of Congress and the public came away from that experience feeling it was important to take a set of steps that would result in a safer and stronger financial system. I feel that we have done that. That has been our mission since the financial crisis; that's what *Dodd Frank was designed to do."

For the new work, Joel Cracraft, George Barrowclough, and their colleagues at Nebraska University, Lincoln and Washington University examined a random sample of 200 bird species through the lens of morphology — the study of the physical characteristics like plumage pattern and color, which can be used to highlight birds with separate evolutionary histories. This method turned up, on average, nearly two different species for each of the 200 birds studied. This suggests that bird biodiversity is severely underestimated, and is likely closer to 18,000 species worldwide. 

Margaret Cullison writes: Other than my two grandmothers, we didn’t have any relatives living nearby. Most of my parents’ families had moved away from Iowa. This was not the norm in our small town of Danish and German families whose gatherings ran to thirty or forty family members. It made me feel slightly deprived not to enjoy the closeness of a large family like my friends did. But my parents had developed a circle of friends with whom we got together for family dinners.

Benjamin Han, assistant professor at the New York University School of Medicine and the study’s lead author, fears that marijuana used with prescription drugs could make the elderly more vulnerable to adverse health outcomes, particularly to falls and cognitive impairment. "While there may be benefits to using marijuana such as chronic pain," he said, "there may be risks that we don’t know about." Study participants said they did not perceive the drug as dangerous, a sign of changing attitudes.

Several pharmaceutical executives and managers, formerly employed by Insys Therapeutics, Inc., were arrested on charges that they led a nationwide conspiracy to bribe medical practitioners to unnecessarily prescribe a fentanyl-based pain medication and defraud healthcare insurers. The Massachusetts indictment alleges that these executives conspired to bribe practitioners in various states, many of whom operated pain clinics, in order to get them to prescribe a fentanyl-based pain medication. The medication, called “Subsys,” is a powerful narcotic intended to treat cancer patients suffering intense episodes of breakthrough pain. In exchange for bribes and kickbacks, the practitioners wrote large numbers of prescriptions for the patients, most of whom were not diagnosed with cancer.

"Full disclosure: I'm an early riser and fade in the afternoons. I exercise regularly but need someone to open jar lids. I gave up my car when moving downtown, so if you still drive, including "at night," you're my hero. Sorry if you're down in the dumps, but I'm looking for someone upbeat. You should be able to text. Please have a smart phone and know how to send messages. I love quality TV. If you haven't heard of Netflix, we're likely not a match. And if you don't have a sense of humor, we have nothing in common."

About 7.4 million Americans are blind or visually impaired and may face difficulty reading prescription drug container labels. Food and Drug Administration Safety and Innovation Act required the US Access Board to develop best practices for accessible labels and NCD to conduct an informational campaign on these best practices. However, stakeholders GAO contacted said these individuals continue to face barriers accessing drug label information, including identifying pharmacies that can provide accessible labels.

"Polluters would clearly be the ones who benefit from Pruitt being the Environmental Protection Agency Administrator. Regular Americans would be the losers. The head of the Environmental Protection Agency should be making sure that our air is clean to breathe and our water is safe to drink, not working to make sure polluters make more money."

The Emoluments Clause appears in Article I, Section 9 of the Constitution. It bars any "person holding any office of profit or trust under" the United States from accepting any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign state” "without the consent of the Congress." The word "emolument" comes from the Latin emolumentum, meaning profit or gain.  

'To be back in Holland is always an important moment for me and especially in order to present the exhibition 'To Audrey with Love', an emotional tribute to Audrey Hepburn in her native country and in the great Gemeentemuseum. I am convinced that Audrey would have been very proud and happy with this beautiful project of exhibition. We love you Audrey.' — Hubert de Givenchy 

On December 1, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform held a hearing entitled “Examining Sexual Harassment and Gender Discrimination at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).” The hearing is in response to widespread media coverage and reporting of sexual harassment of female employees at the Forest Service. One of the witnesses, Ms. Denise Rice, testified in her capacity as a whistleblower about her own experience of sexual assault, reporting, and retaliation.

Jo-Ellen Darcy said she based her decision on a need to explore alternate routes for the Dakota Access Pipeline crossing. Her office had announced on November 14, 2016 that it was delaying the decision on the easement to allow for discussions with the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, whose reservation lies 0.5 miles south of the proposed crossing. Tribal officials have expressed repeated concerns over the risk that a pipeline rupture or spill could pose to its water supply and treaty rights.         The Department of the Army will not approve an easement that would allow the proposed Dakota Access Pipeline to cross under Lake Oahe…

In Is Uncle Sam Inducing the Elderly to Retire? a working paper published by the National Bureau of Economic Research, a team that includes Alan Auerbach, a UC Berkeley professor suggests that prospective retirees can forget the Social Security Administration-provided benefit calculations that come in the mail. "They’re completely meaningless," says Auerbach.

When Tamara Sims started the research, she didn't expect to find much of a correlation between technology use and well-being because adults over 80 are considered to be the most unfamiliar with these technologies and are least likely to use them. "Part of me wondered whether the use of technology would make much of a difference for this population because pervasive stereotypes characterize this age group as technologically inept, in addition to being physically and cognitively frail."