Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Homeownership counseling can help consumers learn about buying a home and give them tools to deal with setbacks that could keep them from making timely mortgage payments. The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) approves and provides grants to housing counseling agencies and has also implemented a requirement that borrowers seeking federally insured reverse mortgages through the Home Equity Conversion Mortgage (HECM) program receive counseling before taking out a HECM. The U.S. Department of the Treasury (Treasury) has also implemented a counseling requirement as part of its mortgage modification efforts under the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP). This statement discusses (1) what research suggests about the effectiveness of homeownership counseling and the challenges of conducting such research, (2) shortcomings that prior GAO work found in federal agencies' implementation of homeownership counseling requirements, and (3) the status of efforts to establish an Office of Housing Counseling within HUD. In preparing this statement, GAO relied on its past work on homeownership counseling, including a review of research and interviews with federal agency staff on implementing and evaluating counseling programs."

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "After supporting a Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) acquisition strategy that called for a competitive engine development of the F135 and F136 engines, the Department of Defense (DOD) stopped requesting funding for the F136 alternate engine in its fiscal year 2007 budget request, but the Congress continued to fund it through the 2010 budget. In February 2010, DOD projected that it would cost an additional $2.9 billion through 2016 to support an alternate engine program. DOD decided that an engine competition would not likely generate enough long-term savings to justify this up-front investment and subsequently terminated the alternate engine program. In 2010, at congressional request, we reviewed the basis for DOD's $2.9 billion funding projection and reported that the projection did not include the same level of fidelity and precision normally associated with a detailed, comprehensive cost estimate and that the amount of up-front investment needed could be lower if two key assumptions in DOD's analysis were changed. Moreover, since DOD's projection and our last review, several fundamental changes in the JSF aircraft and engine programs have taken place. We examined the potential implications of these changes to the …

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Globalization has placed increasing demands on the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in ensuring the safety and effectiveness of drugs marketed in the United States. The pharmaceutical industry has increasingly relied on global supply chains in which each manufacturing step may be outsourced to foreign establishments. As part of its efforts, FDA may conduct inspections of foreign drug manufacturing establishments, but there are concerns that the complexity of the drug manufacturing supply chain and the volume of imported drugs has created regulatory challenges for FDA. FDA has begun taking steps to address some of these concerns, such as the establishment of overseas offices. This statement discusses (1) FDA's inspection of foreign drug manufacturing establishments, (2) the information FDA has on these establishments, and (3) recent FDA initiatives to improve its oversight of the supply chain. The statement presents findings based primarily on GAO reports since 2008 related to FDA's oversight of the supply chain. These reports include Food and Drug Administration: Overseas Offices Have Taken Steps to Help Ensure Import Safety, but More Long-Term Planning Is Needed (GAO-10-960, Sept. 30, 2010) and Drug Safety: FDA Has Conducted More …

Document issued by the Office of the Attorney General of Texas in Austin, Texas, providing an interpretation of Texas law. It provides the opinion of the Texas Attorney General, Greg Abbott, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification; Whether chapter 603, Texas Government Code, is applicable to notaries public (RQ-0968-GA)

Part two of an interview with Dr. James Oliver Griffin, who was a school administrator during integration. Griffin discusses his involvement with desegregating Hamilton Park, the school he was principal of.

News release about a customer satisfaction survey conducted by DART. It highlights high satisfaction with the new Green Line and much lower satisfaction with bus timeliness and bus-train schedule coordination.