Naturalization provides immigrants with virtually the same rights and benefits as native-born citizens, including the right to vote, access to federal jobs and protection from deportation. A recent report from the National Academy of Sciences found that having more naturalized immigrants is good for the national income and increases political participation and integration of those immigrants within American society. Surveys show that most US immigrants want to become citizens. But compared to other similar countries, like the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia, the United States has a lower naturalization rate, which has been decreasing over recent decades. 

"Assuming the findings are confirmed in a larger study, individuals now have a low-cost, non-toxic way for looking younger or to augment other cosmetic or anti-aging treatments they may be seeking," said Dr. Murad Alam, vice chair and professor of dermatology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and a Northwestern Medicine dermatologist. Says a senior study author: "Muscle growth is increasing the facial volume and counteracting the effects of age-related fat thinning and skin loosening."

With infrastructure crumbling, budgets teetering on the edge of being in the red in many states, and the growing popularity of fuel-efficient cars, which means gas taxes generate less revenue than they used to, officials are looking to tolls. Giving a boost to the efforts, President Donald Trump’s initial infrastructure proposal also called for widespread use of tolling on interstate highways, which now are limited by federal regulations to certain stretches of road.

The State Department Travel Advisories for each country replace previous Travel Warnings and Travel Alerts. For instance, we may advise US citizens to "Exercise Increased Caution" (Level 2) in a country, but to "Reconsider Travel" (Level 3) to a particular area within the country. Forgot Your ID? In the event you arrive at the airport without valid identification, because it is lost or at home, you may still be allowed to fly. The TSA officer may ask you to complete an identity verification process which includes collecting information such as your name, current address, and other personal information to confirm your identity. If your identity is confirmed, you will be allowed to enter the screening checkpoint. You may be subject to additional screening, to include a patdown and screening of carry-on property.  

Elaine Soloway writes: It wasn't DNA that matched us, simply years of traveling together through life's joys and sorrows. A trio of these friends had known me through first marriage and divorce, and all cleaved to me through my second husband's illness and death. In the dark Evanston, Morton Grove, and Chicago mornings, we'd bring each other up-to-date on the goings on during the nearly five months since I departed from my longtime home. And even though I chat frequently with these friends, and view Facebook status reports, these early morning kitchen conversations were as precious as an heirloom.

Due to a federal court order, USCIS has resumed accepting requests to renew a grant of deferred action under DACA. Until further notice, and unless otherwise provided in this guidance, the DACA policy will be operated on the terms in place before it was rescinded on Sept. 5, 2017.

Amanda Bayer: "The percentage female at the undergraduate level in economics is well below the percentage female in other social sciences, in business, in humanities and even below the percentage female in STEM fields. Economics is an outlier...There's a huge misconception that it's the math component of economics that's keeping women away. And that's actually not the situation. About 45 percent of math majors at the undergraduate level are women. So, women major in math at a higher rate than they do in economics. Other studies with regression evidence show that math isn't the factor that explains the gap."  

Editor's Note: We thought about Sally Yates again today when journalist and commentator Mike Barnicle (on Morning Joe) referred to the former Acting Attorney General as a "truly noble, heroic figure" and so decided to rerun the Harvard Law School article on her speech to the graduating class. "Being bold, taking a risk and owning it, isn't easy to do, and the instinct for self-preservation may continually draw you to the safe, risk-free course," she said. "But I urge you to resist that instinct. Not only is a life of hedging your bets unsatisfying, but it means you're unlikely to make much of a difference."

In November, the Trump administration exempted nursing homes that violate eight new safety rules from penalties for 18 months. Homes must still follow the rules, which are intended, among other things, to reduce the overuse of psychotropic drugs and to ensure that every home has adequate resources to assist residents with major psychological problems...The shift in the Medicare program's penalty protocols was requested by the nursing home industry. The American Health Care Association, the industry's main trade group, has complained that under Obama inspectors focused excessively on catching wrongdoing rather than helping nursing homes improve...Since 2013, nearly 6,500 nursing homes — 4 of every 10 — have been cited at least once for a serious violation, federal records show.

If you live in Canada or New Zealand, January 1st 2018 would be the day when the works of René Magritte, Langston Hughes, Dorothy Parker, Jean Toomer, Edward Hopper, and Alice B. Toklas enter the public domain.1 So would the musical compositions of John Coltrane, Billy Strayhorn, Paul Whiteman, Otis Redding, and Woody Guthrie. Canadians can now add a wealth of books, poems, paintings, and musical works by these authors to online archives, without asking permission or violating the law. And in Europe, the works of Hugh Lofting (the Doctor DoLittle books), William Moulton Marston (creator of Wonder Woman!), and Emma Orczy (the Scarlet Pimpernel series) will emerge into the public domain, where anyone can use them in their own books or movies.

The centerpiece of Dreams of the Kings is a 2,000-year-old, life-sized jade and gold burial suit, meticulously assembled from more than 4,000 pieces of jade linked together with gold wire. Jade is China's most precious material and has been exalted in that country since the Neolithic period as having deep spiritual significance associated with the afterlife. It was only during the Han Dynasty (206 B.C.E –220 C.E.) that it was used to completely encase the corpse to reflect the belief that the body would not decay if encased in jade.    

Editor's note ... We stumbled upon this essay while preparing the post for SeniorWomen.com: Nicolas Ricketts, a Curator at The Strong, asks: "What makes a game classic? Part of the answer is longevity. Most people consider chess classic; we've played it for centuries. What about playing cards? Woodblock-printed cards appeared during China's Tang dynasty (618–907), while written rules for card games were first seen in 15th-century Europe. Games such as Monopoly in the 1930s and Scrabble during the 1950s broke sales records at first... Like chess and playing cards, these games are now available in electronic formats, but people still enjoy the tabletop versions. In the spirit of those other famous games, I’d like to propose the tile game Mahjong as a potential classic."

"Humans learn object manipulation skills without any teacher through millions of interactions with a variety of objects during their lifetime. We have shown that it possible to build a robotic system that also leverages large amounts of autonomously collected data to learn widely applicable manipulation skills, specifically 'object pushing skills,' said Frederik Ebert, a graduate student in Sergey Levine's lab who worked on the project.

Joan Cannon wrote: In a corner stood a small Louis XVI vitrine. It contained a blown ostrich egg, a small opalescent flask made of Roman glass that had a strange bloom on the surface like that on a grape still on the vine, and several other small objects collected from the family’s travels. On the mantelpiece in the living room hung a tiny brass lamp. On the lid covering the oil chamber sits a tiny crudely cast mouse. It now hangs on my mantel. In my living room is an Empire table of mahogany veneer in fairly deplorable condition. Desperate to recover some of its good looks, I took a steam iron to the blistered and cracked veneer on the top, stripped its clouded finish off, and refinished it. It's the only piece of furniture from my father’s Memphis forbears remaining after the Civil War. As one advances in years, one accumulates possessions the way a caddis fly larva accumulates grit. The glue that makes us carry it all along with us is in a way self-secreted as well. However, it's psychic rather than physical — emotional rather than material.

Nearly 1 in 5 women with severe cognitive impairment — including older patients like Elena Altemus — are still getting regular mammograms, according to the American Journal of Public Health — even though they're not recommended for people with a limited life expectancy. And 55 percent of older men with a high risk of death over the next decade still get PSA tests for prostate cancer. Among people in their 70s and 80s, cancer screenings often detect slow-growing tumors that are unlikely to cause problems in patients' lifetimes. These patients often die of something else — from dementia to heart disease or pneumonia — long before their cancers would ever have become a threat. Prostate cancers, in particular, are often harmless.

Rose Madeline Mula writes: As for the kids on my list, all the little boys already own everything from motorized mini sports cars to back-yard tree houses with indoor plumbing. And the girls are all flying to Paris with their parents regularly to replenish their Barbie dolls' wardrobes at Christian Dior. Now I ask you, what in the name of Rudolph do you buy these little sophisticates to put the old Christmas sparkle in their eyes? Selecting gifts for my friends is no easier. It seems we keep playing, "Can you top this?" You know how it is.

Margaret Cullison's Christmas Desserts: Food comes immediately to mind when reflecting on the holidays of my childhood. I remember sitting by a window near the kitchen stove, basking in the warmth of the winter sun behind me while playing with my most prized present that year, an oil painting set. Not old enough to be expected to help, I watched my mother preparing our Christmas dinner and asked her more than once how much longer until the special meal was ready. Dad liked a bowl of mixed nuts in their shells — walnuts, almonds, hazel nuts and pecans — for snacks during the holidays. Sometimes we had Brazil nuts, their exotic shells so dark and oddly shaped that I thought them too strange to eat.  

Jo Freeman reviews: Leader and Hyatt look at each of the planks in the National Plan, assessing what has changed and what hasn't. Spruill pays more attention to politics, following the ways in which feminists and anti-feminists polarized party politics and presidential elections. She finds that both the Democratic and Republican parties were substantially changed by the feminist and anti-feminist blocks within them. In the 2016 election, Phyllis Schlafly endorsed Donald Trump long before he won the primaries, while organized feminism turned out the troops for Hillary Clinton. Abortion has become a litmus test in each party, and women, both feminists and anti-feminists, write the relevant planks within each party's platform.  

The president claimed in late November that the tax plan would “cost me a fortune.” Unlike past presidents, Trump hasn’t released his tax returns, so we can’t say exactly how he would be affected. But, again, several provisions would cut taxes for wealthy individuals like Trump. The final legislation cuts the corporate rate, increases exemptions for the AMT and estate tax, and cuts the top individual income tax rate. The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center found 91 percent of the top 1 percent income earners would get a tax cut in 2018, averaging nearly $62,000. He repeatedly and wrongly claimed the plan was “the biggest tax cut in our history.” The final GOP plan will reduce tax revenues by nearly $1.5 trillion over 10 years, which still ranks it eighth or fourth place, as measured by a percentage of gross domestic product or in inflation-adjusted dollars, respectively. Trump said “more than 30 million” small-business owners would get a marginal tax rate reduction that, in reality, could have affected no more than about 670,000 high-income taxpayers who report business income. Trump also pushed the popular myth that farm families often have to “sell the farm” in order to pay the estate tax. One expert told us he has never seen such a case in decades of studying the issue.

ON BEHALF OF MY COLLEAGUES THAT I'M HONORED TO JOIN IN WELCOMING SOME VERY SPECIAL GUESTS TODAY, WHO WILL TELL THEIR STORIES AND WHY WHAT IS HAPPENING ON THE FLOOR OF THE HOUSE IS AN IMMORALITY. IT'S A BETRAYAL OF THE ROLE WE HAVE TO MEET THE NEEDS OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE, WILL INDEBT FUTURE GENERATIONS AND LET'S HEAR THEIR STORIES, ADDIE BARKIN, CAMPAIGN FOR DEMOCRACY DIAGNOSED WITH ALS. THANK YOU FOR BEING WITH US. I THINK AS RACHEL -- ARE RACHEL AND CARL HERE? THEY WERE HERE LAST NIGHT. THEY HAVE BEEN AROUND THE CAPITAL ADVOCATING FOR A BETTER AND HEALTHIER AMERICA. THANK YOU. LAUREN HATCHER, MOTHER OF SIMON. SIMON IS HERE WITH HIS PARTY ANIMAL T-SHIRT ON AND TIGGER. DIAGNOSED WITH CEREBRAL PALSY AND SOME OTHER ISSUES LAURA WILL DISCUSS AND UNIQUE DISORDER. SIMON BENEFITS FROM MEDICAID. AND YOU ALL KNOW SISTER SIMONE CAMPBELL, A LOBBY FOR CATHOLIC SOCIAL JUSTICE. YOU'LL BE HEARING FROM THEM AND FROM OUR DISTINGUISHED RANKING MEMBER OF THE WAYS AND MEANS COMMITTEE RICHIE NEAL OUR CHAMPION ON THIS ISSUE. THANK YOU.

The House Judiciary Committee approved, by voice vote, H.R. 1865, the Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act of 2017, as amended. The House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Communications and Technology and Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, Homeland Security, and Investigations have held hearings on the bill (see The Source, 12/1/17 and 10/6/17, respectively). Sponsored by Rep. Ann Wagner (R-MO), the bill, among other provisions, would ensure the ability to enforce federal and state criminal law relating to sexual exploitation of children or sex trafficking.

Sonya Zalubowski writes: A little gold ribbon each side, the hinges I remembered. More gold squiggles printed on the cover inside, the regal stamp of British royalty, two lions flanking a crown."By appointment. Yardley London." Not even a faint smell of lavender anymore. Something much better. Those envelopes. I took the top one out, addressed to Miss Helen Romer in Seattle, Washington. The postmark Kenosha, Wisconsin. The postage just three cents. The date Sept 8, 1939. Now, as an adult, I realized what they represented, love letters from Dad to Mom at the start of their relationship.

Title I would amend numerous provisions of U.S. tax law. Among other changes, the bill would reduce most income tax rates for individuals and modify the tax brackets for those taxpayers; increase the standard deduction and the child tax credit; repeal deductions for personal exemptions; repeal or limit certain itemized deductions; and increase the exemption amounts for the individual alternative minimum tax. Those changes would take effect on January 1, 2018, and would be scheduled to expire after December 31, 2025. The bill also would permanently repeal the penalties associated with the requirement that most people obtain health insurance coverage (also known as the individual mandate).