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In 1848 — a year of political revolution across Europe — seven young Englishmen with aspirations to rebel against the art world formed a secret artistic alliance. Calling themselves the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, the artists — including William Holman Hunt, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and John Everett Millais — opposed the Royal Academy of Art’s prevailing aesthetic tenets embodied by its first president, Sir Joshua Reynolds, whom they christened “Sir Sloshua.”
"We’ve recently become aware of a growing number of manufacturers marketing “vaginal rejuvenation” devices to women and claiming these procedures will treat conditions and symptoms related to menopause, urinary incontinence or sexual function. The procedures use lasers and other energy-based devices to destroy or reshape vaginal tissue. These products have serious risks and don’t have adequate evidence to support their use for these purposes. We are deeply concerned women are being harmed."
Earlier this season I had found that a shallot in my fridge had started growing. I took a chance and planted it. Then I forgot about it, never really expecting anything to come of it. Then the garden surprised me. A tall stalk reached out of the dirt. I thought it was a wild onion and left it alone. It continued to shoot up and then there was an intriguing flower at the end of it. When I dug it up to see what was growing, I saw the shallot had grown and multiplied! Not only was the flower beautiful to see but the shallots were delicious to eat.
Few American homeowners were spared from the broad housing collapse a decade ago, but Generation Xers were hit particularly hard. Newer to the housing market, more likely to be buying at peak prices and taking on more mortgage debt to buy their homes, they lost more wealth than other generations. But a new Pew Research Center analysis of Federal Reserve data finds that Gen Xers are the only generation of households to recover the wealth they lost during the Great Recession.
Joan L. Cannon wrote: An editor no longer can browse the slush pile for something that might be to his or her individual taste and take a flier on it. As for fiction: the formulas for success (read enormous sales) have multiplied. Does the story have a thriller pace? Check. Plenty of sex, preferably explicit and at least somewhat unconventional? Check. Violence? Check. Shocking characters, scenes, plots? Check. Or, perhaps to fit into another category, it may need to be gently bland, without a suggestion of the unpleasant realities of life and certainly no more than a hint of sex, and make every character call regularly and verbally on the Almighty. Even the category romances of my day have become less rather than more convincing.
"A 2017 study in the Journal of Economic Perspectives examined the consumption of false news in the US during the months leading up to the 2016 presidential election. In a survey of 1,208 U.S. adults, 15 percent said they remembered seeing false news stories, and 8 percent acknowledged seeing one of these stories and believing it. The study’s authors — Hunt Allcott, an associate economics professor at New York University, and Matthew Gentzkow, an economics professor at Stanford University — estimated that US adults, on average, 'read and remembered on the order of one or perhaps several fake news articles during the election period.'"
The authors stress that rising temperature and climate change should not be viewed as direct motivations for suicide. Instead, they point out that temperature and climate may increase the risk of suicide by affecting the likelihood that an individual situation leads to an attempt at self-harm. “Hotter temperatures are clearly not the only, nor the most important, risk factor for suicide,” Burke emphasized. “But our findings suggest that warming can have a surprisingly large impact on suicide risk, and this matters for both our understanding of mental health as well as for what we should expect as temperatures continue to warm.”
When wives earn more than their husbands do, a puzzling thing can happen: Husbands say they earn more than they are and wives underreport their income. New Census Bureau research shows that the incomes couples report on Census Bureau surveys do not always match their IRS filings. The Census Bureau is working to improve the quality of reported earnings by comparing an individual’s survey response with their reported response from another source.
"The Trump administration has enacted tariffs on imported solar panels, washing machines, steel, and aluminum, plans to impose tariffs on Chinese imports, and is investigating further tariffs on Chinese imports and automobile imports. • The effects of each tariff will be lower GDP, wages, and employment in the long run. The tariffs will also make the US tax code less progressive because the increased tax burden would fall hardest on lower- and middle-income households. • Rather than erect barriers to trade that will have negative economic consequences, policymakers should promote free trade and the economic benefits it brings."
“What we’re seeing is just like what happened with opioids in the 1990s. It really does begin with overprescribing. Liberal therapeutic use of drugs in a medical setting tends to normalize their use. People start to think they’re safe and, because they make them feel good, it doesn’t matter where they get them or how many they use ... We have this whole infrastructure set up now to prevent overprescribing of opioids and address the need for addiction treatment, said Dr. Anna Lembke, a researcher and addiction specialist at Stanford University. “We need to start making benzos part of that.”
Rose Madeline Mula writes: Within an hour, a slate of ten contestants on The Proposal is quickly winnowed down to one, who then becomes engaged to a mystery man or woman, who has been hidden behind a pod until the end. Before the climactic engagement, the couple has spent a total of less than five minutes or so talking to each other. What’s next? A program where a marriage of strangers will be consummated, on camera, before the first commercial break?And I really don’t understand apps like Tinder that enable guys and gals to dial up an immediate “hook-up” with an unknown partner as easily as ordering delivery of a pizza.
According to the allegations of the complaint, the City failed to recognize that the work of predominantly-female registered nurses and midwives was “physically taxing,” while deeming other predominantly-male occupations “physically taxing.” As a result, City employees in the predominantly-male “physically taxing” jobs were allowed to retire with full pensions as early as age 50, while registered nurses and midwives, who are predominantly female, had to wait until age 55 or 57 to retire with full pensions.
“The Department of Justice will pursue those who attempt to fraudulently profit at the expense of the United States, particularly when the stakes are life or death,” said Acting Associate Attorney General Jesse Panuccio. “Bullet proof vests protect the brave men and women of our nation’s law enforcement community, and those who manufacture and sell these products have a solemn duty to ensure their safety and efficacy.”
"Fraudulently presenting false claims to the government regarding products intended to protect the lives of public servants is illegal and utterly unacceptable," said Carol F. Ochoa, Inspector General of the U.S. General Services Administration.
"The Internet allows foreign adversaries to attack America in new and unexpected ways. Free and fair elections are hard-fought and contentious. There will always be adversaries who work to exacerbate domestic differences and try to confuse, divide, and conquer us. So long as we are united in our commitment to the values enshrined in the Constitution, they will not succeed. The partisan warfare fueled by modern technology does not fairly reflect the grace and dignity of the American people. The blame for election interference belongs to the criminals who committed election interference. We need to work together to hold the perpetrators accountable and keep moving forward to preserve our values, protect against future interference, and defend America."
Sonya Zalubowski writes: First, it was just a hitch in my step, then my legs began to feel sore and weirdly hollow during my daily walk with my dog, especially if I lollygagged along the way and spent time standing and chatting with friends we met. By the time I’d get home, down a steep hill, my right hip outright throbbed with the aching. I was young, my early 70s, and had had only one operation in my whole life. Some 30 years before. I had miles to go, no room for a hip replacement.
This year in the United States, Idaho became the last to protect mothers who are nursing in public against fines for public indecency. Utah enacted a similar law a few days before, so all 50 states now allow public breastfeeding. New Jersey expanded its civil rights law to protect nursing mothers from discrimination at work, joining 28 states that offer workplace protections. New York will begin requiring breastfeeding rooms in all state buildings open to the public by next year. The choices made by mothers in the United States and those abroad may seem unrelated, but in fact are closely intertwined.
From Dr. Gilad D. Evrony: "I would never have predicted that I would spend my final month of medical school performing fetal ultra-sounds on a pregnant gorilla, phlebotomizing a 500-pound tapir with hemochromatosis, caring for a meerkat in heart failure, and investigating medical mysteries across the animal kingdom. Yet spending the final month of my MD-PhD program working at the veterinary hospital of a zoo was one of the more remarkable and humbling experiences I had during medical school — a unique capstone to my education as a physician-scientist;" - And a Peaceable Primate Sanctuary created to fill an unmet need and to provide a sanctuary for baboons retired from use in biomedical research, as pets or entertainers
On June 21, 2018, the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) introduced Open Bookshelf, a one-stop shop for hundreds of e-books that are freely available online. This collection, which currently features over 1,000 books, includes titles that are in the public domain along with titles that are Creative Commons licensed. These titles are selected by the Curation Corps, a team of librarians from across the country that includes public, school, and academic librarians. The books available on Open Bookshelf reflect the diversity of the Curation Corps: the collection features classical literature (including Pride and Prejudice and Little Women), textbooks, academic titles, and children's books.
Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar (on June 28th) pushes back against questioning from Finance Committee Ranking Member Ron Wyden over his agency's handling of over 2,000 migrant children placed in its custody as a result of the Trump administration's family-separation policy. Secretary Azar declines to provide specific numbers on how many parents know the whereabouts of their children, but says they can find the information at agency portals and with the help of case workers.
Jo Freeman writes: Once inside [the Hart Office Building] women occupied a central atrium and intentionally disturbed the peace. The US Capitol Police said that they arrested 575, though some reports said there were over 600. After about ten percent of the women had been arrested, several Democratic Members of Congress came to greet the women. These included Sen. Ed Markey, Kirsten Gillibrand and Tammy Duckworth. Sen. Gillibrand sat down and linked arms with the protestors. Sen. Duckworth rolled in with her new daughter in her lap. Rep. Pramila Jayapal sat down and was arrested with the other women. Sen. Elizabeth Warren waved to them from an upper floor.
Julia Sneden wrote: On hot days, my brother and I could bike down one hill and up another to a little green puddle partly ringed with a stone wall and a gate with a curved sign above it. There was no clubhouse; no tennis court; no amenity beyond a couple of outdoor restrooms and a trucked-in sandy beach. The lake had a raft in the middle, and a tall swing next to the high diving platform on the edge. On the Fourth of July, there were swimming races for children. I won mine a couple of times when Kay Belden moved up to the older age group, but in the years that we were in the same group, there was no touching her. I learned to dive by watching Kay, and every now and again she'd deign to notice my efforts, and offer advice, which thrilled me.
“People tend to experience social change as this irresistible tide of public opinion,” he said. “But there are always many people who worked countless hours to create the context for change actually happening. It’s the same with Freedom to Marry. There were hundreds of deeply engaged people, many of whom we interviewed for this project, who worked to change the discourse so that people would feel that changing their opinion on same-sex marriage was actually the right thing to do.”
“My husband accidentally shot me,” Hill, 75, of The Dalles, Ore., groaned on the May 16, 2015, call. “In the stomach, and he can’t talk, please …” Less than four feet away, Hill’s husband, Darrell Hill, a former local police chief and two-term county sheriff, sat in his wheelchair with a discharged Glock handgun on the table in front of him, unaware that he’d nearly killed his wife of almost 57 years. The 76-year-old lawman had been diagnosed two years earlier with a form of rapidly progressive dementia, a disease that quickly stripped him of reasoning and memory. “He didn’t understand,” said Dee, who needed 30 pints of blood, three surgeries and seven weeks in the hospital to survive her injuries.
Large and growing federal debt over the coming decades would hurt the economy and constrain future budget policy. The amount of debt that is projected under the extended baseline would reduce national saving and income in the long term; increase the government’s interest costs, putting more pressure on the rest of the budget; limit lawmakers’ ability to respond to unforeseen events; and increase the likelihood of a fiscal crisis. (In that event, investors would become unwilling to finance the government’s borrowing unless they were compensated with very high interest rates.)
A working paper entitled “Millennial Marriage: How Much Does Economic Security Matter to Marriage Rates of Young Adults” finds that socio-economic indicators associated with labor force participation, wages, poverty and housing all relate to marriage rates for young adults ages 18 to 34. Specifically, full-time employment, median annual wages for all types of workers, and owning a home were associated with higher marriage rates.
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