This report provides government-wide, multi-agency, and individual agency analyses of the President's FY2014 request as it relates to R&D and related activities. The President's budget seeks $142.773 billion for R&D in FY2014, a 1.3% increase (0.7% CAGR) over the actual FY2012 R&D funding level of $140.912 billion. Adjusted for inflation, the President's FY2014 R&D request represents a decrease of 2.6% from the FY2012 level (1.3% CAGR).

This report provides background information on the organization, practice, and funding of U.S. diplomatic security efforts. It also provides summary information on the September 11, 2012, attack on U.S. facilities in Benghazi, Libya, as well as on the subsequent Accountability Review Board.

This report provides a brief history of the chemical weapons program in Syria. It discusses policy issues, latest development regarding the current chemical weapons program.

This report provides data on the minimum wage that was changed, and it presents its nominal and real value.

This report discusses the federal proposal addressing multiple state insurance producer licensing requirements through the creation of a National Association of Registered Agents and Brokers (NARAB).

This report provides a brief overview of the key issues for the 113th Congress related to Egypt.

This report briefly summarizes and tracks congressional and State Department actions in response to the attack on U. S. facilities in Benghazi, Libya, and will be updated as necessary to reflect further developments and actions on ongoing policy proposals.

This report discusses reports of a mass casualty chemical weapons attack in the suburbs of Damascus and the possible punitive U.S. military action against the Asad regime.

This report discusses the current law with respect to the loss of the federal pension of a Member of Congress for the conviction of certain crimes and the recent law to limit a former Member's receiving service credit toward a federal pension for any time served as a Member of Congress if that person is convicted of any one of a number of criminal offenses involving abuse of the public trust.

This report discusses the Child Support Enforcement (CSE) program that was enacted in 1975 as a federal-state program (Title IV-D of the Social Security Act) to help strengthen families by securing financial support for children from their noncustodial parent on a consistent and continuing basis and by helping some families to remain self-sufficient and off public assistance by providing the requisite CSE services.

This report discusses the strategic significance of Guam for defense buildup and the force relocation and deployments from the U.S. mainland. It also discusses the concerns and issues for Congress, such as allies and partner, China, and legislation.

This report discusses the financial assistance for global climate change initiatives in developing countries. The Global Climate Change Initiative (GCCI) -- one of the three main pillars to the 2010 directive -- aims to integrate climate change considerations into relevant foreign assistance, from FY2008 enacted funding request for FY2010 through the FY2014.

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "GAO found that the GEAR framework generally addresses previously identified key practices for effective performance management, such as aligning individual performance expectations with organizational goals, but refinements could improve future government-wide implementation. Five federal agencies are piloting GEAR--the Departments of Energy (DOE), Homeland Security/Coast Guard (DHS/Coast Guard), Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Veterans Affairs/National Cemetery Administration (VA/NCA), and the Office of Personnel Management (OPM)--with the intention to expand GEAR government-wide. The Chief Human Capital Officers Council (CHCO Council) is developing a toolkit based, among other things, on the experience of the pilot agencies. The toolkit is intended to help additional agencies implement the GEAR framework; CHCO Council representatives expect the toolkit to be complete by the end of September 2013. However, beyond the toolkit, neither the CHCO Council nor OPM have identified next steps to implement GEAR government-wide, such as identifying roles and responsibilities. Further, neither OPM nor the CHCO Council has plans to regularly update the GEAR framework or toolkit to include additional lessons learned, or to make such information available more broadly to key stakeholders, such as human resource professionals who may be responsible …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Of the 590 information technology (IT) investments reviewed, GAO identified 12 potentially duplicative investments at three key federal agencies--namely, the Departments of Homeland Security (DHS), Defense (DOD), and Health and Human Services (HHS). These investments accounted for about $321 million in reported IT spending for fiscal years 2008 through 2013. Of the 12 investments, GAO identified:"

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Several federal entities, including the Government Accountability and Transparency Board (GAT Board), the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board (Recovery Board), and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), have initiatives under way to improve the accuracy and availability of federal spending data. The GAT Board, through its working groups, developed approaches to standardize key data elements to improve data integrity; link financial management systems with award systems to reconcile spending data with obligations; and leverage existing data to help improve oversight. With no dedicated funding, GAT Board plans are incremental and leverage ongoing agency initiatives designed to improve existing business processes as well as improve data transparency. These initiatives are in an early stage, and some progress has been made to bring greater consistency to award identifiers. The GAT Board's mandate is to provide strategic direction, not to implement changes. Further, while these early plans are being developed with input from a range of federal stakeholders, the GAT Board and OMB have not developed mechanisms for obtaining input from non-federal fund recipients."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "On the basis of GAO's analysis of a representative sample of 131 alien sex offenders under U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) supervision, GAO estimates that as of September 2012, 72 percent of alien sex offenders were registered, 22 percent were not required to register, and 5 percent did not register but should have. According to officials, offenders were not required to register for various reasons, such as the offense not requiring registration in some states. Of the 6 offenders in GAO's sample that should have registered, officials from ICE's Enforcement and Removal Operations (ICE-ERO) field offices informed 4 of their registration requirements. However, officials at some of these field offices identified several reasons why they did not ensure that these offenders actually registered. For example, the offender may have moved and no longer resided in the area of responsibility for that particular field office. ICE had not informed the remaining 2 offenders of their registration requirements."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Patriot Express loans valued at about $703 million have defaulted at a higher rate than loans under the Small Business Administration's (SBA) other related loan guarantee programs, and losses for Patriot Express have exceeded its income. With the exception of loans approved in 2007, Patriot Express loans have defaulted at a higher rate than loans made under SBA's main 7(a) program or loans made under SBA's streamlined loan guarantee program (SBA Express). The Patriot Express program's overall default rate was significantly higher for smaller loans, especially for loans below $25,000 (20 percent). Additionally, one lender accounted for more than 64 percent of these smaller loans and experienced higher default rates than the remaining lenders. From 2007 through 2012, losses in the Patriot Express program exceeded income by $31.1 million (not accounting for future fee revenues or funds recovered from loans in default)."

Weekly newspaper from Port Aransas, Texas on Mustang Island that includes local, state and national news along with extensive advertising.

Semiweekly student newspaper from the University of North Texas in Denton, Texas that includes local, state, and campus news along with advertising.

Application materials submitted to the Texas Historical Commission requesting a historic marker for the Ireland and Mary Graves House, in Austin, Texas. The materials include the inscription text of the marker, original application, narrative, floor plans, and photographs.

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Traditionally, the importance of inorganic nitrogen (N) for the nutrition and growth of marine phytoplankton has been recognized, while inorganic N utilization by bacteria has received less attention. Likewise, organic N has been thought to be important for heterotrophic organisms but not for phytoplankton. However, accumulating evidence suggests that bacteria compete with phytoplankton for nitrate (NO3-) and other N species. The consequences of this competition may have a profound effect on the flux of N, and therefore carbon (C), in ocean margins. Because it has been difficult to differentiate between N uptake by heterotrophic bacterioplankton versus autotrophic phytoplankton, the processes that control N utilization, and the consequences of these competitive interactions, have traditionally been difficult to study. Significant bacterial utilization of DIN may have a profound effect on the flux of N and C in the water column because sinks for dissolved N that do not incorporate inorganic C represent mechanisms that reduce the atmospheric CO2 drawdown via the ?biological pump? and limit the flux of POC from the euphotic zone. This project was active over the period of 1998-2007 with support from the DOE Biotechnology Investigations ? Ocean Margins Program (BI-OMP). Over this period we developed a tool kit …

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Weekly newspaper from Cooper, Texas that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.