Has Oprah’s Star Fallen Since Endorsing Barack Obama?: Writing at Politico.com, Costas Panagopoulos, director of Fordham University’s Center for Electoral Politics and Democracy, questions whether the talk show host’s dip in popularity ratings has political overtones.

Higher Call-Back Rates as Mammograms Go Digital: As doctors learn to interpret digital mammograms, they are more likely to request second tests, reports The New York Times. Denise Grady writes:

At many centers, these nerve-racking calls are on the rise, at least temporarily — the price of progress as more and more radiologists switch from traditional X-ray film to digital mammograms,
in which the X-ray images are displayed on a computer monitor.

Problems can arise during the transition period, while doctors learn to interpret digital mammograms and compare them to patients’ previous X-ray films. Comparing past and present to look for changes is an
essential part of reading mammograms. But the digital and film versions can sometimes be hard to reconcile, and radiologists who are retraining their eyes and minds may be more likely to play it safe by requesting additional X-rays — and sometimes ultrasound exams and even biopsies — in women who turn out not to have breast cancer.

Looking From the Outside In: Photographer Rosanne Olson spent six years on her newly released book, “This Is Who I Am: Our Beauty in All Shapes and Sizes,” a collection of interviews about body image with women age19 to 95 — all of whom agreed to pose nude.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer book critic John Marshall writes:

Its revealing photographs and startling interviews provide a devastating look at women’s dissatisfaction with their own bodies, often born during young womanhood and lasting decades afterward. But this remarkable book also offers a persuasive argument for greater acceptance and compassion for one’s own body, as well as those of other women with other shapes.

There is already some evidence that Olson’s might be the little book that could. The 57-year-old photographer is heading to New York City for an April 13 appearance on “Good Morning America,” along with five of the women in the book.

Ten of the images, along with women’s quotes about their bodies, are available at the PI website. Book excerpts are online at BodyImageBook.com.

American Red Cross Names New Leader: The American Red Cross on Tuesday named Gail J. McGovern, 56, a professor of marketing at Harvard Business School, as its new president. McGovern, who previously held top management positions at AT&T Corp. and Fidelity Investments, replaces Mark Everson, who resigned last year amid a sex scandal.

McGovern started with AT&T in 1974 as a computer programmer and worked her way up to executive vice president of the consumer markets division. In an interview with the AP about her new position,
McGovern said, “It’s all about making a difference in the world … I would not want to take a job that didn’t have challenges.”

New Dreams in New York: For 25 years, Jayne Houdyshell lived out a childhood dream of performing in regional theater, “traveling from city to city, getting the juiciest roles and working nonstop.”

Today she’s known for her Broadways roles in “Wicked” and “Well,” and she’s now appearing in “The New Century,” which opened Monday at Lincoln Center’s Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater. She also just signed on to Robert De Niro’s new film, “Everybody’s Fine.”

“There was something really beautiful at having your Broadway debut at 52,” Houdyshell,
now 57, told The New York Times. “I felt really ready.”

Slight Gains for Women in Radio Management: “As of November 2007, women managed 15.9 percent of the 10,625 AM and FM radio stations in the U.S., according to the latest ‘General Manager Gender Analysis Study’ from the Mentoring and Inspiring Women in Radio group. That’s a slight gain from 2006’s 15.3 percent — and the number was better in the top 100 markets, where 16.7 percent of 2,222 stations are managed by women,” reports Radio Ink.