The following is a press release issued by the the Polarization Research Lab at Dartmouth College:

A new, online tool—America’s Political Pulse—developed by the Polarization Research Lab is tracking the rhetoric and actions of all 535 members of the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate.

And while a majority of Americans have long held a negative view of Congress as a whole, the online tracker finds that the House and Senate may have more workhorses than showboats.

Updated daily, the dashboard tracks, analyzes, and catalogs all public statements in real-time by members of Congress, including Twitter/X posts, newsletters, press releases, and floor speeches, using artificial intelligence models. More than 1.5 million data points dating back to Aug. 31, 2022, have been analyzed to date. 

Public statements are classified into five categories: personal attacks, policy discussion, constructive debate, accomplishments, and bipartisanship/compromise.

Users can run searches by category, legislator, or state, and filter results by party, as well.

Our data show that Congress is not nearly as dysfunctional or polarized as people may think.

According to America’s Political Pulse, 66 members of Congress, or 12.2%, have never insulted anyone during the current Congress, while 350, or 64.8%, have done so in less than 1% of their communication.

“What we’ve identified is that there are a lot of members of Congress who are showing up and doing their jobs and engaging in meaningful debate and they’re not getting the attention they deserve,” says Sean Westwood, director of the Polarization Research Lab and an associate professor of government at Dartmouth. “What is instead happening is that firebrands are absorbing all of the media attention.”

“Our data show that Congress is not nearly as dysfunctional or polarized as people may think,” says Westwood. 

The Polarization Research Lab is also studying Americans’ attitudes on key issues leading up to and following the presidential election in November through a monthly report series, The Path to 2024.

The following is a press release issued by the Archivist of the United States Dr. Colleen Shogan:

Thursday, August 15, 2024

Washington, DC

Archivist of the United States Dr. Colleen Shogan announced the appointment of 20 individuals to the National Archives and Records Administration’s 2024–2026 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Advisory Committee. The individuals named will serve a two-year term and will begin meeting in September 2024.

The FOIA Advisory Committee consists of no more than 20 individuals who are all FOIA experts from both inside and outside of government. Members of the FOIA Advisory Committee foster dialogue between the administration and the requester community, and develop recommendations for improving FOIA administration and proactive disclosures. Dr. Shogan has appointed the following individuals: 

Government Members 

• Kevin Bell – Federal Energy Regulatory Commission
• Nieva Brock - Department of Defense
• Whitney Fraizer-Jenkins – Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation
• Scott Hodes - Department of Homeland Security
• Marianne Manheim - Department of Health and Human Services
• Joan Moumbleaux – Environmental Protection Agency
• Deborah Moore - Department of Education
• Melissa Pickworth - Department of Health and Human Services
• Alina M. Semo – Chair, National Archives and Records Administration, Office of Government Information Services 
• Bobak Talebian – Department of Justice, Office of Information Policy 

Non-Government Members 

• Jason R. Baron – University of Maryland 
• David Cuillier – University of Florida, Brechner Center for the Advancement of the First Amendment
• Elizabeth Hempowicz – American Oversight
• Shelley Kimball – Johns Hopkins University
• Margaret Kwoka – The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law
• Frank LoMonte – Cable News Network (CNN)
• Ryan Mulvey – Americans for Prosperity Foundation 
• Richard Peltz-Steele – University of Massachusetts School of Law
• Nicholas Wittenberg - Armedia 
• Sarah Jones Weicksel – American Historical Association

Background

The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) established the FOIA Advisory Committee in accordance with the United States Second Open Government National Action Plan, released on December 5, 2013. The Committee’s work helps fulfill the Office of Government Information Services (OGIS) congressional mandate to “identify procedures and methods for improving compliance” with FOIA, 5 U.S.C. §552(h)(2)(C). The Committee is governed by the provisions of the Federal Advisory Committee Act, as amended, 5 U.S.C. §§ 1001-1014. NARA initially chartered the Committee on May 20, 2014. The Archivist of the United States renewed the Committee's charter for a sixth term on April 26, 2024, and certified that renewing the Committee is in the public interest. OGIS provides administrative support along with chairing the Committee in accordance with the charter. For a complete list of recommendations from the Committee, visit https://www.archives.gov/ogis/foia-advisory-committee/dashboard.

From an article by Fatima Hussein published in the Associated Press:

WASHINGTON (AP) — In the name of consumer protection, a slew of U.S. federal agencies are working to make it easier for Americans to click the unsubscribe button for unwanted memberships and recurring payment services. 

A broad new government initiative, dubbed “Time Is Money,” includes a rollout of new regulations and the promise of more for industries spanning from healthcare and fitness memberships to media subscriptions.

“The administration is cracking down on all the ways that companies, through paperwork, hold times and general aggravation waste people’s money and waste people’s time and really hold onto their money,” Neera Tanden, White House domestic policy adviser, told reporters Friday in advance of the announcement.

“Essentially in all of these practices, companies are delaying services to you or really trying to make it so difficult for you to cancel the service that they get to hold onto your money for longer and longer,” Tanden said. “These seemingly small inconveniences don’t happen by accident — they have huge financial consequences.”

Efforts being rolled out Monday include a new Federal Communications Commission inquiry into whether to impose requirements on communications companies that would make it as easy to cancel a subscription or service as it was to sign up for one. 

The Federal Trade Commission in March 2023 initiated “click to cancel” rulemaking requiring companies to let customers end subscriptions as easily as they started them. 

Also Monday, the heads of the departments of Labor and of Health and Human Services are asking health insurance companies and group health plans to make improvements to customer interactions with their health coverage, and “in the coming months will identify additional opportunities to improve consumers’ interactions with the health care system,” according to a White House summary.

The government already has launched several initiatives aimed at improving the consumer experience.

You can read more at: https://bit.ly/3AlDCMi.

Forty years after the brutal murder of UTA student Terri McAdams, investigators credit advanced technology and investigative genetic genealogy – which combines crime scene DNA with genealogical research – for the breakthrough that identified her killer.

"We finally get to provide answers that the department wanted to provide for nearly 40 years," Arlington Police Chief Al Jones said in a press conference.

Investigators say they finally connected DNA to a suspect named Bernard Sharp, who police say committed a double murder and killed himself about nine months after his attack on McAdams.

Police say McAdams was brutally beaten, sexually assaulted and killed in her fiancé's Arlington apartment on Valentine's Day in 1985. She was 22 years old and the oldest of three sisters. 

"She was feisty and fun, and she truly loved life," sister Karen Hooper said. "To know her was to love her. As I stand here today, I know that she and my mom and dad are smiling down on this miraculous moment."

Years of investigating led to dead ends in the case until Arlington detectives and the FBI reopened it in 2021, using a new technique called "investigative genetic genealogy."

"IGG, as we call it, combines unidentified crime scene DNA with meticulous genealogy research and the use of historical public records to identify new leads," said Chad Yarbrough, a special agent with the FBI Dallas Office.

Investigators say genealogists were able to track down a distant relative, whose DNA proved Sharp was the killer.

ARLINGTON POLICE DEPARTMENT

"She had gone into her fiancé's apartment," said Karin Anderson, the host of The Reporter's Notebook Podcast. "He was out of town at the time, and she made him a Valentine's Day cake, a heart-shaped cake, and chatted a little bit that night on the phone with her sister. After she hung up, an intruder broke into the apartment and brutally attacked her. It was devastating." 

Arlington police say no charges will be filed because Sharp is deceased.

Genealogists have always been taught to record our sources of information. We not only record the name of the book or other source of genealogy information, but we also record the location of the building (repository) where we found it. Typically we record the building's name, street address, city and state.

With today's technology, shouldn't we also be recording the geographic coordinates? With GPS receivers and the plethora of high-quality on-line maps, it is now easy to find the exact latitude and longitude of any address. Unlike street names, the longitude and latitude will never change.

I have written about finding cemeteries and other locations of genealogical interest by using GPS receivers. Shouldn't we be recording the exact latitude and longitudes of those cemeteries into our genealogy databases? Perhaps the cemetery's location alone isn't enough. Should we record the exact location of the ancestor's tombstone.

How about the location of great-great-grandfather's farm? I believe the latitude and longitude of that farm would be a valuable entry in your database so that future genealogists who have access to your data can find that farm's location, even if it has since become covered with weeds or perhaps become a high-rise apartment building. In short, I think we should record the geographic coordinates of every location in our genealogy databases.

You can enter the latitude and longitude of any location as a text note into most any modern genealogy program. However, several of the better genealogy programs have specific database fields for these coordinates.

If you own a GPS receiver, the next time you visit an ancestral site of any sort, you should record its geographic coordinates into your database. You can also find similar information by consulting topographic maps.

An important piece of Japanese Canadian history is at risk of disappearing from BC.

The archive of The New Canadian newspaper, which published from 1938 to 2001 and shared stories of the Japanese Canadian experience, is currently available for online access through Simon Fraser University. But it’s set to be removed from online hosting this fall (along with over two dozen other papers by and for minority groups). A new petition aims to raise awareness about the issue and preserve The New Canadian archive access for BC residents.

The New Canadian began in BC as an English-language paper, and thus holds the unique distinction of being the only Japanese Canadian newspaper that was allowed dto be published in the province during the Second World War.

“It began as ‘The Voice of the Second Generation,’” the organizers of the petition explain, “and served as a forum for young Japanese Canadians to share ideas and formulate their Canadian identities at a time when those in power saw them as un-Canadian.”

The archive is currently owned by the Multicultural History Society of Ontario, meaning the files will still be able to be viewed in-person at the society’s York University headquarters; however, being removed from online platforms will make it extremely difficult for BC residents to access this important part of our province’s history.

Being unable to use this resource in BC also serves as a painful reminder that the reason why the paper initially moved out of province was due to the BC Government’s forced rehoming of Japanese Canadians post-war.

Arizona's ballot will include a major reproductive rights measure this fall alongside the presidential, Senate and other battleground races, putting a key issue directly before voters in the swing state.

JP Martin, the deputy communications officer for the Arizona secretary of state's office, told NBC News on Monday evening that the Arizona for Abortion Access Act will go before voters this election cycle, after organizers shattered the record for the number of valid signatures gathered for a ballot initiative in the state.

The secretary of state's office estimates that 577,971 valid signatures were turned in by Arizona for Abortion Access, a coalition of reproductive rights organizations that includes the American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona and Planned Parenthood Advocates of Arizona. The signature haul far surpassed the 383,923 signatures required to make it onto the ballot. The Arizona for Abortion Access Act will go before voters under the title "Proposition 139."

“This is a huge win for Arizona voters who will now get to vote YES on restoring and protecting the right to access abortion care, free from political interference, once and for all,” Cheryl Bruce, campaign manager for Arizona for Abortion Access, said in a statement. 

You can read more in an article by Alex Tabet and Adam Edelman published in NBC News at https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/arizona-certifies-abortion-rights-initiative-november-ballot-rcna166321.

A close up of the front page of the The New York Times newspaper dated Aug. 10, 1974, with The New York Times reporting Vice President Gerald R. Ford sworn in as the 38th president of the United States, following the Watergate scandal. - iStock

Grand Rapids — On the 50th anniversary of Gerald R. Ford’s swearing in as the 38th president of the United States, his museum and library launched a new website with expanded features for educators and visitors alike.

The new Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library & Museum website launched Aug. 9. The website includes expanded access to a growing Digital Artifact Collection, more access to research tools for students and teachers, and a streamlined school visit registration form. The site covers both the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum in Grand Rapids and the Ford Library, which is in Ann Arbor.

The Ford Museum is currently hosting an original temporary exhibition called “Ford at 50: Decisions that Defined A Presidency,” which tells the stories of some of President Ford’s most difficult and controversial decisions during his time in office.

https://bit.ly/3AnPDRB

“She would be so honoured.”

Carol Miller was close to tears. She and her brother, Robert Williamson, came down from Sydney to witness their mother’s wartime service records being added to the National Archives of Australia digital collection.

It marks the end of a five-year, $10-million project to digitise the more than one million World War II service records kept by the archives.

“We’re just everyday people,” Carol told Region.

“Of all the people who served overseas or at home like our mother – she was just a small person supporting those who helped give freedom to our country, for which a lot gave their lives.

“We know she’d be so humbled.”

The National Archives collects Australian Government records to “preserve them, manage them and make them public”.

More than 45 million items are kept in storage facilities across the country, available on request, but there have been efforts in recent years to make digital copies available through the National Archives website.

In 2019, the National Archives was awarded $10 million from the government to digitise its WWII records.

These include enlistment forms (with personal details like age, medical conditions and next-of-kin), service and casualty forms, discharge forms, and negative photographs of the Australian men and women who served in the Army, Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) and Royal Australian Navy from 1939 to 1945.

Last month, the National Archives put out a call for the public to help locate the family of Margaret (or ‘Peggy’) Williamson, the subject of the last record to be digitised.

Margaret (or Peggy) Williamson. Photo: National Archives of Australia.

“Margaret’s service record represents the culmination of years of effort to digitise these paper records, but also an opportunity to honour the memory of the many individuals who served the country,” project director Rebecca Penna said.

Margaret was born Margaret McCredie in Paddington, NSW, in 1920. She went to Bankstown Domestic Science School and worked in the mail order department at David Jones on Market Street before enrolling on the Women’s Auxiliary Australian Air Force (WAAAF) at the age of 20.

During her time in the WAAAF, Margaret worked as a storekeeper and equipment assistant in various locations across Australia, including Robertson, Parkes, Point Cook, Laverton and Sydney.

You can read the full story in an article by James Coleman published in the the-riotact.com web site at: bit.ly/3YCRiNd web site.