Happy smart kids with school bags rush to the lessons to school running up the stairs. Back to school. An African-American schoolgirl and her classmate walk down the street after school.

(NAPSI)—Whether your child just started grade school or is considering graduate schools, it’s essential to ensure any online learning needs are seamless and affordable. That starts with making sure they have access to the right broadband Internet speed and bandwidth.

In today’s fast-paced world, slow loading times and interrupted video calls can create frustrating experiences and educational setbacks.

Fortunately, SmartMove has the resources you need to overcome obstacles and turn your home into a high-performance digital hub. At www.smartmove.us/back-to-school-Internet, you’ll find tips like the below: Continue reading →

(NAPSI)—A well-stocked supply of medicine must-haves can sometimes mean the difference between a minor inconvenience and a potential emergency room visit. From summer sunburns to allergy flare-ups, headaches or tummy troubles, keeping stock of appropriate over-the-counter products—and knowing how and when to use them—can help to support health at home.

To help, CVS pharmacists across the country shared their top recommendations for what every household should consider having on hand, including some surprising items consumers might not think of. Whether you’re restocking your first-aid kit, preparing for seasonal allergies or updating your emergency supplies, CVS Pharmacy can make it easy to build a collection of essentials that support everyday and unexpected health needs. Continue reading →

Child playing with clay molding shapes, learning and play

By Alexis Treat

(NAPSI)—For school-aged kids, summer is about relaxing after a long school year and recharging for the next one. Playdates, pool time, or afternoons at the park may be some staple components of your family’s summer power-up. Reading should be as well. Research has shown that summers spent without exposure to reading can drain your child’s literacy battery—a phenomenon known as the summer slide. Here are some fun ways to ensure your children have enough reading juice to start the fall with their minds revving and ready for action!

Early Readers

Sound Hopscotch: Exercise your mind and body! For easy indoor or outdoor play that still gets your kids moving, write letters or letter pairs, such as ch, on sheets of paper and place them on the ground. Then have children say the sound the letter makes as they hop from one to the next. Bonus points if they think of a word that starts with the sound.

Go Fish: Help your reader identify the letters of the alphabet with uppercase/lowercase letter pairs. Make pairs of cards together, i.e. A/a, G/g, R/r. Then, shuffle the cards and play Go Fish! Urge them to share a word beginning with the letter after collecting a related pair. You can even up the ante by having them make a full sentence with the word. Continue reading →

(NAPSI)—When school years come to a close, many families hit the road for vacations, camps, and college visits. This makes summer an excellent time for drivers to do a routine check to make sure their vehicle is safe—checking the tire pressure, lights, and fluid levels; confirming that there are safety supplies in the trunk; and making that scheduled visit to a dealer or mechanic to change the oil or replace the wiper blades.

One important step drivers often forget is checking for vehicle safety recalls. Unlike other vehicle maintenance, repairing a safety recall is completely free at any authorized dealer.

The Problem

A recent public opinion survey commissioned by Stellantis, maker of Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep, and Ram, found that 43% of American drivers don’t know how to check if a vehicle has an open safety recall.  Continue reading →

(NewsUSA)  – As we get back to summer travel, cookouts, and time with friends and family, COVID-19 is still something to watch out for. While the virus may not be making big headlines, it hasn’t gone away. In fact, in each of the last four years, COVID-19 rates have gone up in July and August.

Why does this happen? The summer heat often means more indoor get-togethers and events in air-conditioned spaces, more travel, and more time spent around other people. These are just a few of the things that give the virus more chances to spread.

While a mild case of COVID-19 may feel like a bad cold for some, it can lead to serious health issues, hospitalization, or even death for many others. Doctors say nearly 3 out of 4 U.S. adults are more likely to get very sick from COVID-19. This includes people with common health conditions like heart disease, diabetes, cancer, asthma and other lung problems. Even adults over age 50 have a greater chance of getting sick enough to need medical care.

Vaccines are still a strong defense against COVID-19. But they may not fully protect everyone, especially those with other health issues. And whether someone’s vaccinated or not, it’s important to be prepared and know that there are antiviral treatments that can help. Continue reading →

(NAPSI)—Americans are living nearly a decade longer than they were in the 1970s. That’s great news—but staying healthy into your 80s and beyond requires extra care and an eye towards prevention. The protection provided by vaccines plays a key role in helping keep you healthy and preventing severe illness and potential long-term complications, especially for older adults and individuals with immunocompromised conditions.

As people age, their immune system naturally weakens—it becomes slower at recognizing and fighting off viruses. At the same time, lungs become more vulnerable, and chronic conditions such as heart disease or diabetes can make it harder to recover from illnesses such as COVID-19. Similarly, people of all ages with weakened immune systems—whether from certain health conditions or medications—face a higher risk of severe illness because their bodies also struggle to mount a strong defense. In both cases, a reduced ability to fight infectious respiratory disease increases the risk of serious complications and hospitalization. Continue reading →

Tap and glue scams leverage the convenience of tap-to-pay technology at ATMs, combined with a simple but effective trick involving glue. Scammers first disable the card insertion slot by pouring glue into it, forcing customers to use the tap function. While this may seem like an easy fix, it sets the stage for the scam.

Once a customer taps their card and withdraws cash, they often forget to log out of their account. This leaves the session open, allowing the scammer to step in and continue withdrawing funds. The scam relies on the victim’s unfamiliarity with tap-to-pay procedures, making it a lucrative tactic for fraudsters.

(NAPS)—Rachel Oh sat in an office at a military hospital, shifting in her seat and clicking the pen an American Red Cross representative had just given her. It was a day of much anticipation but at that moment, all she felt was nerves.

“I initially joined the Red Cross because I was interested in volunteering at the hospital where my mom worked,” said Oh. “It was straight out of COVID, and I was looking for something productive to do.”

The Red Cross, thanks to its Congressional Charter, which authorizes the organization to provide emergency communication services to deployed service members around the world, is granted unique access to U.S. military installations, military hospitals and veteran care facilities.

Oh lives in Kaiserslautern, Germany. Her mother is a doctor in the oncology department at the largest U.S. military hospital outside of the continental U.S.

“I was always interested in the hospital where my mom worked and wanted to be closer to her.”

But she was too young at the time, so they introduced her to the International Humanitarian Law (IHL) Youth Action Campaign (YAC) instead.

AC is an educational outreach campaign that promotes awareness of and commitment to humanitarian principles in times of war. Outreach like this holds special significance to children of active-duty military parents like Oh, who describes the military as being a part of her life for as long as she can remember.  Continue reading →

Medicare Now Covers Less Invasive Colorectal Cancer Tests

(NewsUSA) – Expanded Screening Coverage Can Reduce Needless Deaths

Colorectal cancer deaths are declining, but shocking regional, racial and ethnic disparities remain. Ac-cording to the American Cancer Society, Latinos in the United States are more likely to die from colorec-tal cancer than those in many Central and South American countries, and death rates among Black men and women are 40% higher than their white counterparts. Rural residents are also far more likely to die from this often-preventable disease than those in urban areas. Much of this is due to lack of screening.

Colorectal cancer care groups, minority healthcare advocates and doctors have long held that virtual colonoscopy, or CT Colonography, can overcome cultural stigmas and anxiety associated with this screening. In January, Medicare began covering virtual colonoscopy – which uses a CT scanner to gen-erate 3D, moving images of the colon that doctors examine for signs of cancer and for precancerous polyps, which can be removed before they become cancers. Continue reading →