It's Monday and The Takeaway is handing out a road map to this week's top stories. The House of Representatives is out on August recess, but the Senate is still working on its plan for national health care reform. Meanwhile, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is in Africa, visiting seven countries in eleven days. Our guides to this week's news are Martin Plaut, the Africa editor for the BBC, and Chris Hayes, Washington DC editor for The Nation and a fellow at the New America Foundation.

With David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez being outted as steroid users, The Takeaway’s Sports Contributor Ibrahim Abdul-Matin – who has remained relatively quiet about steroids in baseball – has decided it's time to take a harder line against cheaters.

For more from Ibrahim, read his blog post, Baseball's Cheating Heart.

While many people think the GI Bill pays for college, for a lot of vets, the monthly payment wasn't enough to cover tuition. This weekend, the post-9/11 GI Bill was rolled out across the country. For vets returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, the bill will pay 100 percent of the tuition at a state college (plus living expenses and even books). This bill is expected to help in recruiting and retaining troops, as well as transform the lives of a new generation of veterans. The Takeaway talks to Lance Zaal, a sergeant who served two tours in Iraq and just graduated from the College of William and Mary. And for a historical perspective on the GI Bill we are joined by Glenn Altschuler, a professor of American studies at Cornell University and author of The GI Bill: The New Deal for Veterans (Pivotal Moments in American History)

For more on the GI Bill, head to newGIbill.org to calculate your benefits and watch this interview with the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America's counsel below:

The BBC's David Loyn joins The Takeaway from Afghanistan with a look at what was the deadliest month in the Afghan war. August is likely to be equally grim. After a violent weekend where six American soldiers died, a roadside bomb in western Afghanistan killed at least 12 people and injured many more this morning. Will the U.S. offensive be able to rout the Taliban before the presidential elections later this month?

Mozart: The Complete Collection just got a little bit bigger. Two new pieces of music have now been identified as compositions of the young Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, written when he was seven or eight years old. These two pieces of musical history have been in possession of the International Mozarteum Foundation since 1864. Its Research Department Director, Dr. Ulrich Leisinger, who is responsible for identifying these two pieces, joins us from Salzburg, Austria. Also joining us is Terrance McKnight, host of WNYC’s Evening Music.

Yesterday, Israeli security forces evicted two Palestinian families from their homes in East Jerusalem. The families waged a lengthy court battle to block the eviction, but failed in their mission to remain in their homes. The issue of settlements has been a roadblock to peace negotiations and been a point of contention in the U.S.-Israel relationship. Joining The Takeaway with more is BBC Diplomatic Correspondent Jonathan Marcus.

While working fathers are content with their job-life balance, moms are increasingly angry as they try to balance being great employees and great parents. Who are they mad at? The dads. Joining The Takeaway to discuss the continuing inequality of parenting are Lisa Belkin, author of the Motherlode blog for The New York Times, and Jeremy Adam Smith, author of The Daddy Shift: How Stay-at-Home Dads, Breadwinning Moms, and Shared ParentingAreTransforming the American Family.

There are two major events taking place in Iran this week. On Sunday, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will be inaugurated. He is remaining in office after a questionable landslide victory that sparked six weeks of protests, international condemnation, and violent crackdowns. Also happening this week is a trial of some of the protesters rounded up in the weeks following the embattled election. Some 100 protesters will be tried en masse, a move that may be outside the normal Iranian judicial proceedings. For more, Robert Worth, Beirut bureau chief for The New York Times, and Roger Cohen, New York Times columnist, join The Takeaway.

For more, read Robert Worth's article, The Making of an Iran Policy, in The New York Times.

An outbreak of pneumonic plague in China has killed two men. The pneumonic plague is a bacterial infection similar to the infamous bubonic plague. Authorities in northwestern China have quarantined the town of Ziketan in Qinghai province to prevent further spread of the disease. However, it is unlikely that the disease will cause the mass fatalities associated with historical outbreaks such as the Black Death. Early diagnosis and treatment with antibiotics cuts plague patients’ mortality rate to less than 15 percent, the WHO said on its Web site. The Takeaway goes for a check-up with Hugh Pennington, a bacteriologist at Aberdeen University.

For a historical look at the effects of the plague, watch below:

Eric Jones, director of IT at iPass in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, hasn't taken a vacation in a long time. That wouldn't be the case if he worked for Eric Berridge, co-founder and CEO of Bluewolf, a global IT services company, because his company offers unlimited vacation. The company doesn't even track the number of days. As long as work is done, the company is happy. Is that the wave of the future? Kari Henley thinks so. She's director of the board at the Women and Family Life Center in North Haven, Connecticut. Only 14 percent of Americans took two weeks of vacation last year and the number of Americans taking family vacations has dropped by a third in the past generation. Are we just too busy to take a break?

It's the end of an 18-year old mystery. The remains of the first U.S. serviceman killed in the first Gulf War have been found. The discovery lays to rest the confusion surrounding the disappearance of Captain Michael "Scott" Speicher, who was shot down the first night of the first Gulf War in 1991. He was originally declared missing in action when his plane was discovered in 1993. But whether he was captured or killed remained a mystery until now. Gordon Lubold, the Pentagon correspondent for the Christian Science Monitor has the rest of the story.

It's August and the sun is shining. But two new studies show that kids are not getting nearly enough sun. The studies show that millions of children have disturbingly low levels of vitamin D, the vitamin that comes from the sun. The lack of vitamin D can potentially increase the risk for bone problems, heart disease, and diabetes. The studies come out as the National Academy of Sciences prepares to review the federal government's official guidelines for the recommended daily intake of Vitamin D. For all about you need to know about kids, sunshine, and Vitamin D The Takeaway talks to Dr. Michal Melamed from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, who conducted one of the studies.

President Barack Obama officially hit his half-year mark this weekend. As the airways are flooded with pundits, policy wonks and politicos, The Takeaway turns to the public to see how they think the president is measuring up. Joining our roundtable of voters — including some we spoke to during the election season — are Tracey Rousey from Alberton, Georgia, Alice Craft-Kerney of New Orleans, Louisiana, Brian Hinkle, from Chicago, and Pat Gallagher, in Louisville, Kentucky.