News and Issues

It is hard to describe the impact of seeing a tiger in the wild. The animal is big, a housecat on unbelievable steroids. It has authority; the sheer bulk of its muscular body demands attention and caution. In this natural setting, its presence is both stunning and formidable. I felt privileged to have had the chance to see them unburdened by any cage, free in their own environment. more »

Labor Secretary Perez inducts Esther Peterson into the Labor Hall of Honor on Tuesday, Dec. 10th, and Council of Economic Advisors’ Betsey Stevenson will moderate a panel on the status of women in the 21st century workforce. A live webcast of both events will be available at http://www.dol.gov/dol/media/webcast/live/ and recognize the 50th anniversary of the American Women report produced by JFK's Commission on the Status of Women, of which Peterson was Executive Vice Chairman. more »

Charles Ornstein writes: Comparison shopping sounds like a no-brainer, but for many reasons, it’s not. It is time consuming and eye glazing even for a health-care journalist to enter in drugs and review the resulting options. A study commissioned by the Kaiser Family Foundation in October found that only 13 percent of Part D enrollees, on average, switched plans each year between 2006 and 2010. Seven out of 10 people continuously enrolled in plans from 2006 to 2010 never switched. more »

This research is the first to investigate associations between sex hormones and cognition in both younger and older postmenopausal women, and to determine whether the hormones affect women differently based on their age and how much time has elapsed since they reached menopause. more »