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This Happened

This Happened — March 21: Obama Goes To Cuba

Barack Obama visited Cuba on this day in 2016 as part of his efforts to improve relations between the United States and Cuba. The visit was the first by a U.S. president in nearly 90 years and came after the two countries had re-established diplomatic relations in 2015.


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What did Barack Obama do during his visit to Cuba?

During his visit to Cuba, Barack Obama met with Cuban President Raul Castro and other Cuban officials. He also gave a speech to the Cuban people, visited cultural sites, and attended a baseball game between the Cuban national team and the Tampa Bay Rays.

What were the goals of Barack Obama's visit to Cuba?

The goals of Barack Obama's visit to Cuba were to further improve relations between the United States and Cuba, promote greater economic ties between the two countries, and encourage greater political freedom and human rights in Cuba.

How have U.S.-Cuba relations evolved since Barack Obama's visit?

U.S.-Cuba relations have continued to evolve since Barack Obama's visit. In 2017, the Trump administration rolled back some of the Obama-era policies toward Cuba, but the Biden administration has signaled that it will seek to restore some of those policies. In 2021, the United States and Cuba held talks on a range of issues, including human rights, migration, and economic cooperation.

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Society

Get That Dog *On The Couch! Diagnosing And Treating Canine Anxiety

As with people, some dogs may be more neurologically prone to anxiety. But canine stress is often mistaken for mischief.

Get That Dog *On The Couch! Diagnosing And Treating Canine Anxiety

Pug in a blanket.

Ula Chrobak

A couple of week after I adopted my dog, Halle, I realized she had a problem. When left alone, she would pace, bark incessantly, and ignore any treats I left her in favor of chewing my belongings. When I returned, I’d find my border collie mix panting heavily with wide, fearful eyes. As frustrated as I was, though, I restrained the urge to scold her, realizing her destruction was born out of panic.

Halle’s behavior was a textbook illustration of separation anxiety. Distressed over being left alone, an otherwise perfectly mannered pup might chomp the couch, scratch doors, or relieve themselves on the floor. Problem behaviors like these tend to be interpreted as acts of willful defiance, but they often stem from intense emotions. Dogs, like humans, can act out of character when they are distressed. And, as with people, some dogs may be neurologically more prone to anxiety.

So concluded a recent brain imaging study, published in PLOS One, in which researchers performed resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging on 25 canines that were deemed behaviorally “normal,” and 13 that had been diagnosed with anxiety, based on a behavioral evaluation. The scans revealed that anxious dogs had stronger connections between several of five brain regions that the researchers called the anxiety circuit: the amygdala, frontal lobe, hippocampus, mesencephalon, and thalamus.

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