Serena Nanda Reviews: The Local Stop of Gregg's title is the upper West side of New York City, which Gregg calls the Avenue, from the early 20th century through the 1950s. Gregg, who lived in the neighborhood, so authentically recreates its ambience and its residents that the novel reads like a compelling urban ethnography. Gregg’s evocative dialogue and descriptions wonderfully express how the Avenue impacts each resident in unpredictable ways, as we follow their lives and relationships throughout the book.  

Students are issued badges or tags with embedded chips that either broadcast a radio signal, (battery-powered active systems) or are read when they are near a radio-frequency reader (passive systems).RFID badges are read at school doors, on buses or at school events so educators know who’s where. The technology also allows school doors to be locked and allow entry to only those with RFID badges. "And once you collect the information, there is no rolling back."

Joan L. Cannon writes: My first job out of college paid $35 a week. Even in 1950, that wasn't much in New York City. I lived at home, rode the subway to work, paid for my clothes, and doctor and dentist bills, but nothing else. My granddaughter is paying for a car, beginning to pay off tens of thousands of dollars in student debt, fretting at being a burden on her parents, and afraid to take any kind of financial risk.

"Do scientists have specific recommendations for effective ways to boost cognition in healthy, older adults? Are there merits to the claimed benefits of the brain games and if so, do older adults benefit from brain-game learning in the same ways younger people do? How large are the gains associated with computer-based cognitive exercises? Are the gains restricted to specific skills or does general cognitive aptitude improve? How does playing games compare with other proposed means of mitigating age-related declines, such as physical activity and exercise, meditation, or social engagement?"   

The Voting Information Project offers technology tools that give voters access to the customized information they need to cast a ballot on or before Election Day. For instance: A short messaging service (SMS) provides voters with election information via text message. By texting "VOTE" or "VOTO" to 69520, voters can find polling places, contact information for local election officials.

There were five of us seated around the table — circular, so much better than rectangle where an empty chair would have been haunting. Four dear friends, who didn't want me alone on my aborted 15-year wedding anniversary, treated me to dinner at a favorite neighborhood restaurant. It was the same spot Tommy and I, and this very same group, celebrated at each year.

Rose Madeline Mula writes: As a writer, email has been a special boon to me. In the predigital age, when I wanted to submit an article to publishers, I had to take my typed originals to Staples or Kinko's to make copies and snail mail them to editors, along with return-addressed stamped envelopes. Expensive! Slow! Today I have no copying costs, no postage, no gas costs or waiting for mail responses. I can now receive rejections cheaply and quickly. Oh, wait! That's not good!

As fears of an Ebola outbreak rise, federal agencies are taking steps to protect and inform the public. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta is taking the lead on most aspects of the effort — issuing containment guidelines to hospitals and other health workers, training airport personnel on screening methods, and creating uniform lab tests to diagnose the deadly disease. But as in all public health emergencies, state and local public health departments are the nation’s first line of defense.

Built in 1877, the Whitney Studio originally served as a carriage house until its conversion in 1907 to a studio and private salon for sculptor and arts patron, Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney. As the eldest daughter of Cornelius Vanderbilt II, Whitney was well-known for stepping out of her society role to create art and advocate for fellow American artists, including John Sloan, Edward Hopper, Stuart Davis, and Joseph Stella, to name a few.

It was the kind of day that helps a person breathe deeper, to set aside whatever might be on your mind, if only for a brief time. But that respite is truly a treasure in our frenetic world. And all it took was a short ride and the willingness to look deeper into what seemed like nothing special. I hadn't realized that hummingbirds were so territorial, chasing away other birds, even hummers, with their aggressiveness. These little beings were not easily intimidated.

Women's unemployment rate was higher than men’s for first time since December 2012, according to new analysis by the National Women's Law Center of data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Women's largest gains in September were in professional & business (+29,000), private education & health services (+24,000), retail (+16,600) and leisure & hospitality (+16,000).

Jill Norgren writes: One pleasure of A Fighting Chance and Off the Sidelines lies in the telling of each woman's path to the United States Senate. Warren announced her plan to apply to law school only to be met with the critical response of her mother: "Stay at home, have more children, and do not become one of those crazy women libbers." Gillibrand relates how a male senator walked up to her after she had succeeded in losing weight gained in pregnancy and said "Don't lose too much weight now. I like my girls chubby."

"US Customs and Border Protection personnel review all travelers entering the United States for general overt signs of illnesses (visual observation, questioning, and notification of CDC as appropriate) at all US ports of entry, including all federal inspection services areas at US airports that service international flights." State Department Advisory: "The cost for a medical evacuation is very expensive. We encourage US citizens traveling to Ebola-affected countries to purchase travel insurance that includes medical evacuation for Ebola Virus Disease (EVD)."

Highlights of the exhibition include a vampire slaying kit and 18th and 19th century Gothic fashions, as well as one of Alexander McQueen's catwalk creations. Also on display is a model of the Wallace and Gromit Were-Rabbit, showing how Gothic literature has inspired varied and colourful aspects of popular culture in exciting ways over centuries.

All things Manhattan Project, including histories, websites, a listing of the Manhattan Project Signature Facilities, and background on the proposed Manhattan Project National Historical Park. In July 2013, the Department launched The Manhattan Project: Resources, a website designed to disseminate information and documentation on the Manhattan Project to a broad audience including scholars, students, and the general public.

Carmen Segarra became a polarizing personality inside the New York Fed — and a problem for her bosses — in part because she was too outspoken and direct about the issues she saw at both Goldman and the Fed. In a tense, 40-minute meeting recorded the week before she was fired, Segarra's boss repeatedly tries to persuade her to change her conclusion that Goldman was missing a policy to handle conflicts of interest.

The percentage of PDP plans with no deductible will decline to 42 percent from 47 percent, and, once again, about three quarters of plans won’t offer any coverage in the "donut hole", the coverage gap in which beneficiaries are responsible for shouldering a greater share of drug costs. "It's one example of how plans are tightening up coverage," and pushing more costs onto consumers, says a researcher/consultant.

The seventeenth century saw periodic and often raucous pamphlet wars over the status, roles and education of women. Many girls attended school but the curriculum they followed prioritized the attainment of socially acceptable skills and moral worth over intellectual achievement.

From the World Health Organization: Nearly 1000 new cases were reported in the week ending 14 September alone — certainly an underestimate of the true burden of disease. If the present rate of increase continues — if nothing is done to intervene — somewhere between 2500 and 5000 cases will occur, each week, just four weeks from now. Affected countries could be seeing more than 10,000 cases weekly by mid-November.

The FBI is releasing a study of 160 active shooter incidents that occurred between 2000 and 2013 throughout the US. The largest percentage of incidents — 45.6 percent — took place in a commercial environment (73 incidents), followed by 24.3 percent that took place in an educational environment (39 incidents. The remaining incidents occurred in open spaces, military and other government properties, residential properties, houses of worship, and health care facilities.

Julia Sneden writes: No amount of exercise or cosmetic surgery or brain games or vitamin pills or even love notes will change the fact that biology is destiny. We age, and if we have put any energy into living, our faces and bodies show it. Remembering my grandmother's beloved faces, lined and soft and gentle as they were, is dear to me. I hope that my face, too, gives evidence of a life lived energetically, with past sorrow and joy and fatigue right there for the world to see.

Parmigianino painted the Schiava Turca in the early to mid-1530s. The sitter wears an extravagant, almost theatrical costume comprised of a ball-shaped headdress, voluminous sleeves, and a striped garment with a plunging neckline. She holds an ostrich-feather fan in her left hand. In the early eighteenth century, when the portrait was in the collection of the Uffizi Gallery, the style of the woman’s costume inspired a cataloguer to invent the title 'Turkish Slave' by which she has since been known.

Joan L. Cannon writes: Most people read poetry (if they read it at all) for the pleasure of it. I get very irritable when the author makes that impossible on purpose — very much like the 'modern' artists and composers who seem not to care a whit if their production is pure fraud. Of course, they get a way with it a lot because no one can figure out how to prove it's bogus.