March 2011
41 posts
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Which Schools Have the Best Broadband Connections?
Access to broadband at school gives teachers and students access to a wealth of online educational resources. With a quality broadband connection, students from rural areas, inner cities and the suburbs have equal access to the same educational tools.
To see which areas of the country have high quality broadband access, view the interactive Education Broadband Map.
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Check Out Your Local Farmers Market
Michelle Obama shopping at a farmers market in Washington, D.C.
Spring is the perfect time to explore your local farmers market. You can stock up on the fruits and veggies you enjoy the most and try produce that you’ve never tasted. Farmers markets are also a great chance to chat with farmers about their farm operations and to learn more about how they grow their food. This is especially...
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Your Rights Under the New Healthcare Law
It’s been just over a year since President Obama signed the new healthcare law.
This week Healthcare.gov highlighted some of the different benefits you and your family may be eligible for under the new law:
Most young adults can stay on their parent’s family plan until they turn 26. It doesn’t matter whether you’re married, living with your parents, in school, or financially...
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Top FTC Complaints
Rank Category № of Complaints Percentage1Identity Theft250,85419%2Debt Collection144,15911%3Internet Services65,5655%4Prizes, Sweepstakes and Lotteries64,0855%5Shop-at-Home and Catalog Sales60,2054%6Imposter Scams60,1584%7Internet Auctions56,1074%8Foreign Money/Counterfeit Check Scams43,8663%9Telephone and Mobile Services37,3883%10Credit Cards33,2582% Each year the Federal Trade Commission shares...
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110,460 people are waiting for an organ donation... →
Learn how to become an organ or tissue donor at organdonor.gov.
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Spring Break Safety Tips for Travel Abroad
Surfing Along Malibu Beach, California from The U.S. National Archives on Flickr.
Are you, or your kids, packing bags for spring break? If you’re traveling to a different country, review these safety tips from the State Department before you leave.
Avoid underage and excessive alcohol consumption, which, leads to the majority of accidents, arrests and crime suffered by American students on...
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WatchFrom the National Park Service’s Badlands in Brief:
Seven year old Kylie Ferguson discovered a rare saber tooth cat skull while on vacation in Badlands National Park. Learn about her amazing fossil discovery in this 5 minute video.
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USA.gov/Japan2011 →
Up-to-date Japan tsunami and radiation information from the Environmental Protection Agency, Federal Emergency Management Agency, Department of State and other agencies can now be found at USA.gov/Japan2011.
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What We Pay For in a Gallon of Gas
Chart from the U.S. Energy Information Administration
To learn more about each element you pay for in a gallon of gas or to download the raw data from this chart, check out Today in Energy.
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How to Arrange Travel Out of Japan
From the Department of State:
The U.S. Embassy in Tokyo informs U.S. citizens in Japan who wish to depart that the Department of State is making arrangements to provide transportation to safehaven locations in Asia. This assistance will be provided on a reimbursable basis, as required by U.S. law. U.S. citizens who travel on US government-arranged transport will be expected to make their own...
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Super Full Moon this Saturday
From NASA:
Mark your calendar. On March 19th, a full Moon of rare size and beauty will rise in the east at sunset. It’s a super “perigee moon”—the biggest in almost 20 years.
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Celebrate Irish-American Heritage Month this St....
The Irish have contributed a great deal more to American culture than just potatoes, and March is Irish-American heritage month, when we celebrate the contributions of Irish Americans to our nation.
In the 1840s, many Irish immigrants came to America to escape the potato famine that left more than a million people dead from starvation and disease. The immigrants who came to America at this time...
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Motion-Triggered Cameras Capture Animals in the...
Photo of a Jaguar in Peru from the Smithsonian WILD project
This picture of a Jaguar was captured by a motion-triggered camera as part of the Smithsonian WILD project.
Scientists are using these cameras, which automatically take pictures when they sense the body heat or movement of an animal, to help answer a variety of ecological questions about the animals and their habitats
You can see more...
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How to Safely Donate to Disaster Relief
Dept. of Defense photo of U.S. military members helping Japanese citizens clean up a park in Japan after the earthquake and tsunami.
Many places are taking donations to help the disaster relief efforts in Japan after the earthquake and tsunami that took place on March 11. As donations to help the victims flow in, the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) warns that con-artists are quick to try...
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How to Report Your Product Safety Issues
What do cribs and chain saws have in common?
The fact that safety is the number one consideration with their use.
Now, if you’re in the market for baby equipment, power tools, toys, or space heaters, you can check what other people are saying about them, in terms of safety, on SaferProducts.gov, a new online database created by the Consumer Product Safety Commission.
The database lets you...
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Japan's Coast Before and After the Tsunami
From NASA.gov:
These images show the effects of the tsunami on Japan’s coastline. The image on the left was taken on Sept. 5, 2010; the image on the right was taken on March 12, 2011, one day after an earthquake and resulting tsunami struck the island nation.
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Small Steps to Improve Your Nutrition
A healthy diet isn’t about looking good in your skinny jeans. Obesity rates are much higher than they were in the 1970s and if you’re obese, you have an increased risk of health problems like type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and some types of cancer. March is National Nutrition Month, here to remind us to make informed, healthy food choices every day.
We can all do a thing or two to improve our...
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Happy Pi Day!
Photo “Happy Pi Day (to the 36th digit)” taken by Mykl Roventine on Flickr
Celebrated on March 14, Pi Day’s purpose is to raise awareness about math education.
Pi, often shortened to 3.14, represents the relationship between the width of a circle and its circumference.
Don't Forget to Change Your Clocks!
At 2:00 a.m. on Sunday, March 13, Daylight Saving Time begins. You should set your clocks one hour forward. This creates more sunlight hours in the evening during months when the weather is the warmest.
Why we change the clocks:
The law that governs the use of Daylight Saving Time is the Uniform Time Act of 1966. This Act provided a standard for establishing the dates when Daylight Saving Time...
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Tsunami Warning for Western United States
Energy Map of the Tsunami from the National Weather Service
An 8.9 magnitude earthquake hit off the coast of Japan Friday setting off a tsunami in Japan and tsunami warnings along the west coast of the United States and Hawaii.
If you’re in Hawaii, you can find a list of evacuation centers and refuge sites (PDF) to go for safety.
Tsunami waves are expected to hit the coasts of...
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Look for USA.gov Short URLs
If you use Twitter, you may have noticed a lot of tweets with 1.USA.gov URLs in them over the past week. Those are the result of a new service that we created with bit.ly, the popular URL shortening service. Now, whenever anyone uses bit.ly to shorten a URL that ends in .gov or .mil, they will receive a 1.USA.gov URL in return.
This makes it easier for people know when they encounter links to...
Good Morning from Space Shuttle Discovery
An orbital sunrise brightens this view of space shuttle Discovery.
Good morning! See more pictures from Discovery’s final mission at NASA.gov.
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How to Stay Safe With Wifi
Whether you’re waiting to board an airplane or hanging out at a neighborhood café, public wireless networks can be a great way to stay connected.
Convenient? Yes. Secure? Hmm, not so much.
Unfortunately, most hotspots don’t encrypt what goes over the internet. So if you send email, manage your calendar, use social networks, or transmit financial data while using a public network, you may make...
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How to be a Savvy Consumer
National Consumer Protection Week, which runs from March 6-12, is a nationwide campaign that encourages you to learn your rights as a consumer so you can spend your money wisely and protect yourself from scams and frauds.
The Federal Trade Commission and several other organizations are hosting events across the country where you can learn about consumer safety and shred old documents with...
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Meet the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
Logo of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
This week is National Consumer Protection Week, and Elizabeth Warren has written a great post on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB) blog about how she and the CFPB are working to help citizens understand the costs of borrowing money.
From the blog post:
Too many families that work hard and play by the rules are stretched to...
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WatchThe Kilauea volcano in Hawaii has been very active lately, as you can see in this time-lapse video of the volcano from Feb 23 to Feb 25 from the U.S. Geological Survey:
Time-lapse movie showing lava erupting from vents on the floor of Pu`u `Ō `ō crater. Each frame is a composite of eight images comprising a panorama of the crater that is captured every five minutes. During daylight hours, the...
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Space Shuttle Launch - Booster Camera Views
From NASA:
Video recorded by cameras mounted on Discovery’s twin solid rocket boosters provide unique views of the February 24 launch.
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How to Increase Your Car's Fuel Efficiency
Photo “Stopping for gas” taken by Average Jane on Flickr
You’ve probably noticed the steep increase in gas prices over the past week. Nationwide, drivers have seen average gas prices of $3.38 per gallon, similar to what we normally see in the peak of the summer driving season. The price increases are a result of the unrest in Libya and the Middle East.
This sudden jump in prices is...
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File Your Taxes for Free this Year
Taxes can be—well—taxing. We want to change that, which is why we at the IRS have partnered with tax software companies to bring Free File to all taxpayers. Free File lets you do your federal taxes for free on the Internet by using a variety of software programs or online fillable forms. Free File is available exclusively through IRS.gov.
You can use Free File if your income for 2010 was $58,000...
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The End of the Mercury Thermometer
Photo: “Mercury” taken by p.Gordon on Flickr.
You may have noticed your doctor using electric rather than mercury thermometers in recent years. Mercury thermometers have become much harder to find over the past decade. Twenty states banned them for medical use since 2001, and starting this month, the National Institute of Standards and Technology will stop calibrating mercury...
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Maya Lin - Women's History Month
Photo of Maya Lin, 1988 by Michael Katakis from the National Portrait Gallery.
March is Women’s History Month. Today we recognize Maya Lin, who designed the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.
From the Library of Congress:
The Vietnam Veterans Memorial, originally designed as a student project by Maya Lin at Yale University’s School of Architecture in 1981, has become a profound symbol that...
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Happy Read Across America Day
Read Across America Day, calls for every child in every community to celebrate reading on March 2, the birthday of beloved children’s author Dr. Seuss.
The research is clear: children who are read to, and who read for pleasure, are more successful in school. Reading is a wonderful way to spend fun time with any child, and learning to read gives a child the gift of lifetime learning.
So get...
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Tornado Season Begins Today
Image from National Severe Storms Laboratory
Peak tornado season in southern states is March through May, but tornadoes can occur in any state at any time of the year.
Get ready for tornadoes and stay safe with these tips from Ready.gov.
