"Menus are minor, transient documents that tell us how people have dined outside the home over time. Examine one and be transported back to the everyday life of the past - whether to a lavish banquet in the Gilded Age or a food-relief eatery during the Great Depression. They aid our cultural memory by providing historical evidence, not only of what people were eating, but what else they were doing and with whom they were doing it; and what they valued."

The racial and ethnic gaps are wider in doctors’ offices than pharmacies, which are more likely to stock both high-dose and standard vaccines, said Dr. Salaheddin Mahmud, director of the Vaccine and Drug Evaluation Centre at the University of Manitoba and first author in the report, which was funded by Sanofi. Mahmud found that Southerners were less likely to get the high-dose vaccine than other Americans, and high-dose vaccine appeared to be less available in communities where more than 20% of the population were minorities. A decision to give all seniors the enhanced shots isn’t as simple as it seems... Since none of the vaccines have great efficacy in older people, the most important thing is to cocoon the vulnerable by “vaccinating the people around them,” said ... a family doctor in Albuquerque.

In a new paper appearing in the current issue of the journal Acta Palaeontologia Polonica, paleontologist Kevin Padian floats a new hypothesis: The T. rex’s arms shrank in length to prevent accidental or intentional amputation when a pack of T. rexes descended on a carcass with their massive heads and bone-crushing teeth. A 45-foot-long T. rex, for example, might have had a 5-foot-long skull, but arms only 3 feet long — the equivalent of a 6-foot human with 5-inch arms. “What if several adult tyrannosaurs converged on a carcass? You have a bunch of massive skulls, with incredibly powerful jaws and teeth, ripping and chomping down flesh and bone right next to you. What if your friend there thinks you’re getting a little too close? They might warn you away by severing your arm,” said Padian, distinguished emeritus professor of integrative biology at the University of California, Berkeley, and a curator at the UC Museum of Paleontology (UCMP). “So, it could be a benefit to reduce the forelimbs, since you’re not using them in predation anyway.”

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.

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.  

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.

"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.'"

VHA typically relies on four types of mental health professions to provide psychotherapy services: psychologists, social workers, and, since 2010, LPMHCs and MFTs. The Commander John Scott Hannon Veterans Mental Health Care Improvement Act of 2019 included a provision for GAO to review staffing levels for mental health professionals in VA, in particular for LPMHCs and MFTs. Demand for VA mental health care is growing. The number of veterans provided mental health care services by VHA increased by 85 percent from 2006 through 2020. This growth poses challenges for VHA in maintaining an adequate mental health workforce that provides timely, high-quality services. It is compounded by the nationwide shortage of mental health professionals.

"Kaiser Health News uses campaign finance reports from the Federal Election Commission (FEC) to track donations from political action committees (PACs) registered with the FEC by pharmaceutical companies. Totals include donations to the principal campaign committees and leadership PACs for current members of Congress. We include only donations to members for election cycles in which they hold office (even if they weren’t in office for the full cycle, in the case of special elections)... Discover which lawmakers rake in the most money (or the least) and which pharma companies are the biggest contributors. Or use our search tool to look up members of Congress by name or home state, as well as dozens of drugmakers that KHN tracks."

"When President Obama presented Madeleine Albright with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, he praised her remarkable achievements: As the first woman to serve as America’s top diplomat, Madeleine’s courage and toughness helped bring peace to the Balkans and paved the way for progress in some of the most unstable corners of the world. And as an immigrant herself -- the granddaughter of Holocaust victims who fled her native Czechoslovakia as a child -- Madeleine brought a unique perspective to the job. This is one of my favorite stories. Once, at a naturalization ceremony, an Ethiopian man came up to her and said, 'Only in America can a refugee meet the Secretary of State.' And she replied, 'Only in America can a refugee become the Secretary of State.' Thanks to former Reporter/Writer Alain L. Sanders who suggested and wrote a piece for Time Magazine a number of years ago on Albright's famous pins and their meaning.

Ferida Wolff Writes: "Seeing the daffodils perking up brings to mind the rest of my backyard. My weedy vegetable garden needs to be cleared for new plantings. I have cucumber seeds and tomato seeds and lots of herbs all waiting to be given their chance to thrive. I’ll remove the dead branches from the hibiscus plants when the new ones start to come up. What a wonderful way to view the season. The daily temperatures may still be shifting but I am eager to start Spring planting."

“Regardless of the naming history, such monikers have no place in a diverse society that values the contributions of all individuals and groups and Greenlee County is supportive of name changes that reflect this shared respect,” Rapier said in an email. The word has not always been considered offensive. Shannon O’Loughlin, CEO and attorney for the Association on American Indian Affairs, said in an email that the word comes from the Algonquian language, where it means “woman,” and she said a similar word in the Mohawk language means “vagina,” but that it gained a negative connotation over time. “The term has been used in derogatory ways by colonizers until today, as a sexualized stereotype of a Native American woman,” said O’Loughlin, who is a citizen of the Choctaw Nation. Coupled with the violence against – and trafficking of – Native American women and girls in the United States, the s-word is not appropriate to honor and acknowledge the sacrifices that Native Peoples have made to protect the honor of the United States,” her email said.

Roughly a third of Americans (32%) say that the United States is providing about the right amount of support to Ukraine as it fights to hold off the Russian invasion. A larger share – 42% – say the US should be providing more support to Ukraine, while just 7% say it is providing too much support. About one-in-five (19%) say they are not sure. The new Pew Research Center survey, conducted March 7-13, 2022, among 10,441 U.S. adults on the Center’s American Trends Panel, finds wide partisan differences in views of the administration’s handling of the crisis and the level of support the U.S. has provided to Ukraine. However, virtually identical shares in both parties – 51% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents and 50% of Democrats and Democratic leaners – regard the Russian invasion as a “major threat” to U.S. interests. Today, nearly identical shares of Republicans (70%) and Democrats (71%) say they have heard or read a lot about the invasion.

"Ordering Process: Starting on January 19th, Americans [were] able to order a test online at COVIDTests.gov. To ensure broad access, the program will limit the number of tests sent to each residential address to four tests. Tests will usually ship within 7-12 days of ordering. Distribution and Delivery Process: The Administration [partnered] with the United States Postal Service to package and deliver tests to Americans that want them. All orders in the continental United States [are being] sent through First Class Package Service, with shipments to Alaska, Hawaii, and the U.S. Territories and APO/FPO/DPO addresses sent through Priority Mail."

Ferida Wolff writes: Turkey vultures were gathering on a local street. There was a dead squirrel for lunch. Sadly, it must have been hit by a speeding car but it provided a welcome meal for the large birds. I often see the vultures flying overhead looking for food. They sometimes swoop down to check out a possible dead critter and if one is found, a bunch of them will gather for the feast. They aren’t the prettiest of creatures but they are practical as they help clean up the environment. The is no nest structure. The female Turkey Vulture lays 1 to 3 eggs directly on ground in caves, crevices, mammal burrows, hollow logs, under fallen trees, or in abandoned buildings. The eggs are creamy-white with dark blotches around large end.

"The sense of the House of Representatives that corporations should commit to utilizing the benefits of gender diversity in boards of directors and other senior management positions; A bill to exclude a basic allowance for housing from income for purposes of eligibility for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP); A bill to address the disparate impact of climate change on women and support the efforts of women globally to address climate change; resolution recognizing Girl Scouts of the United States of America on its 110th birthday and celebrating its legacy of providing girls with a safe, inclusive space while supporting the next generation of women leaders; A bill to support stillbirth prevention and research; Budget - On Wednesday, the House Budget Committee will hold a hearing, “Ensuring Women Can Thrive in a Post-Pandemic Economy.”    

"Women continue to be underrepresented in management roles in the U.S. workforce, with a slight increase in 2019 compared to our 2010 report. Female managers continued to earn less than male managers, with the pay gap remaining unchanged. Among other things, our analysis of Census Bureau data showed that in 2019: An estimated 42% of managers were women, which was less than the percentage of women in the overall workforce (48%). Female managers were more likely to be younger, more educated, and unmarried — and less likely to be White than male managers. Full-time female managers earned 71 cents for every dollar earned by full-time male managers."

Like early 20th century cultural anthropologists, John Lenoir set out in the 1970s, to spend some adventurous years doing fieldwork in an idyllic tropical paradise isolated from Western culture. But John never imagined how adventurous it would be. The readers of this fascinating and deeply moving memoir will experience the same surprises. John chose to work in the newly independent nation of Guyana, in the Amazon basin of South America. His aim was to explore the effect of African culture on a slave plantation society only recently freed from European colonialism.

This study, led by Ueli Rutishauser, Ph.D., professor of neurosurgery, neurology and biomedical sciences at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, started with a deceptively simple question: how does our brain form and organize memories? We live our awake lives as one continuous experience, but it is believed based on human behavior studies, that we store these life events as individual, distinct moments. What marks the beginning and end of a memory? This theory is referred to as “event segmentation,” and we know relatively little about how the process works in the human brain. To study this, Rutishauser and his colleagues worked with 20 patients who were undergoing intracranial recording of brain activity to guide surgery for treatment of their drug-resistant epilepsy.

"Thermobarics have extremely limited utility against military targets; their primary use has been against civilian areas. They still fall far short of nuclear weapons. A better comparison for thermobarics is to incendiary munitions, cluster munitions and barrel bombs. There is a legal argument that thermobaric weapons may be prohibited under the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons if they count under Protocol III: Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Incendiary Weapons, but they are not explicitly listed. Further, since the United States also keeps them in its military inventory, it is unlikely that they will be explicitly listed or that there will be a treaty banning their use."

CMS has rebuffed requests to mandate higher staffing levels in the past, saying each facility should “make thoughtful, informed staffing plans.” But multiple examinations — including a thorough CMS study in 2001 — have concluded staffing levels are frequently inadequate, particularly on nights and weekends. Studies have found that homes with higher staffing levels have fewer patient injuries. The 2001 study set a standard that many nursing homes currently don’t meet, saying optimal care required roughly one staffer for every seven short-stay patients — like those recovering from a hospital stay — and one staffer for every six long-stay residents.

One example of the programs available: Book Talk – Female Genius: Eliza Harriot and George Washington at the Dawn of the Constitution, Tuesday, March 8, at 1 p.m. ET; Register in advance; watch on the National Archives YouTube Channel; Mary Sarah Bilder looks to the 1780s — the age of the Constitution — to investigate the rise of a radical new idea in the English-speaking world: female genius. English-born Eliza Harriot Barons O’Connor delivered a University of Pennsylvania lecture attended by George Washington as he and other Constitutional Convention delegates gathered in Philadelphia. As the first such public female lecturer, her courageous performance likely inspired the gender-neutral language of the Constitution.

GAO collected and analyzed publicly available reports from federal and nonfederal organizations to identify risks to internet architecture components GAO also reviewed federal law and policy and its prior work to identify federal internet architecture security roles and responsible agencies. Based on the agencies' roles, GAO collected and analyzed relevant documents and conducted interviews with officials from the responsible agencies. In addition, GAO convened two panels with subject matter experts. The panelists have experience in various aspects of the internet architecture, such as owning and operating elements of the infrastructure, participating in and contributing to standards-setting organizations, and studying and participating in various multistakeholder governance entities.