The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an oral interview with Utah Hamilton. Hamilton joined the Navy in December, 1941 and trained in Virginia. Afterwards, he was assigned to the USS Southampton (AKA-66). Hamilton was aboard during the invasion of Iwo Jima and recalls seeing the flags raised and watching the beach get cleared of debris. At Okinawa, he participated in the decoy landing. When the war ended, Hamilton shipped a lot of occupation troops to Japan. He returned to the US in November. He decided to extend his service for two more years and eventually served aboard an icebreaker before retiring from the Navy in 1961.

News release about the opening of DART's light rail extension to DFW International Airport.

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an oral interview with Bernard McKeone. McKeone was born in Omaha, Nebraska on 29 September 1927. In 1944 he joined the Marine Corps and went to San Diego for two months of boot camp followed by a period of training as a mortar man. Assigned to the 2nd Marine Division, 8th Marine Regiment, he boarded the USS Collins (AP-147) bound for Tinian. He landed on the island by means of an LCVP. McKeone recalls a personal encounter where he captured a Japanese soldier. Telling of his landing on Okinawa, he remembers the enemy launching banzai charges at night. After Okinawa was secured, the division returned to Saipan.

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an oral interview with George O'Brien. O'Brien volunteered for service in the Army Air Forces in April, 1944 and trained to be a gunner at Harlingen, Texas. He went overseas to New Guinea in February 1945 and joined the 5th Bomb Group, 72nd Bomb Squadron. He was a nose gunner on a B-24. Soon, he went to Samar with his unit. He started flying combat missions in May over the Philippines. O'Brien flew on about 20 missions bombing refineries, airfields, warehouses and even ships over the Philippines, Taiwan and Borneo. Japanese aerial opposition at the time was very light. O'Brien remarks on the Filipino people he encountered. He returned to the US in December, 1945 and was discharged the following January, right before his 20th birthday.

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 the Lottery Commission may deny or revoke an entity's bingo-related license based on the criminal history of an individual associated with that entity (RQ-1173-GA).

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2012, amended the Clean Air Act to transfer regulatory authority for air emissions on the outer continental shelf (OCS) off Alaska's north coast, including the Chukchi and Beaufort seas, from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to the Department of the Interior. Since the act was passed on December 23, 2011, there has been limited activity subject to air emission regulations or permitting on the OCS off Alaska's north coast, according to officials at the EPA and Interior. EPA officials stated that, before the act was passed, EPA had issued to Shell Gulf of Mexico Inc. and Shell Offshore, Inc., collectively, three air emission permits for drilling and other activities on the OCS off Alaska's north coast. Interior's Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) is responsible for reviewing and approving plans for exploration, development, and production activities; this process includes projections of air emissions. According to a BOEM official, after the act passed, Shell conducted exploratory drilling on the OCS off Alaska's north coast in 2012, but it did so under its existing air emissions permits from EPA. Ancillary activities, such as surveys of the …

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Defense’s (DOD) processes for selecting in-kind projects in Asia vary by country and by whether the project is intended to support force structure initiatives or enduring installations, although these efforts are not mutually exclusive; domestically, DOD’s processes for selecting in-kind projects vary by military service and statutory authority. In Asia, the selection of in-kind projects to support initiatives for relocating U.S. troops within Japan and the Republic of Korea generally results from a schedule-driven process based on resources and infrastructure made available by the host nation to fulfill initiatives agreed to in prior years with target dates for completion, and input from affected military bases. The selection of in-kind projects to support enduring installations is characterized by priority-based processes with input from installations and unit commanders. All in-kind projects to support U.S. forces in Asia result from host nation support as agreed to bilaterally, with the exception of facilities provided through the Japan Facilities Improvement Program, which is a voluntary effort on the part of Japan. All DOD facility planning and project selection at enduring locations is based on military and operational requirements, independent of …

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "GAO found that there is substantial federal funding for health care workforce training programs but that obtaining comprehensive information about the scope of such programs is challenging. In GAO's August 2013 report on the federal role in health care workforce training, GAO found that four federal departments—the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), the Department of Defense (DOD), and the Department of Education (Education)—administered 91 programs that supported postsecondary training or education specifically for direct care health professionals in fiscal year 2012. All together, the four departments reported obligating about $14.2 billion for health care workforce training programs in fiscal year 2012, with HHS funding the most programs (69) and having the largest percentage of total reported funding (82 percent). The majority of funding for health care workforce training in fiscal year 2012—about $11.1 billion, or 78 percent—was invested in seven programs that supported postgraduate residency training for physicians, dentists, and certain other health professionals, called Graduate Medical Education. The remaining 84 programs administered by HHS, VA, DOD, and Education accounted for obligations of about $3.2 billion and provided varying levels …

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Social Security Administration (SSA) reported in January 2014 that it is behind schedule in assessing the continued eligibility of recipients in its two disability programs, Disability Insurance (DI) and Supplemental Security Income (SSI),and has accumulated a backlog of 1.3 million continuing disability reviews (CDRs). From fiscal years 2000 to 2011, the numbers of adult and child CDRs conducted fell about 70 percent. Children make up about one fifth of all SSI recipients, and GAO reported in 2012 that many of their CDRs were overdue. For example, more than 24,000 CDRs for children with mental impairments were overdue by 6 or more years, including over 6,000 CDRs for children who were expected to medically improve within 6 to 18 months of their initial determination. GAO also identified several cases which exceeded their scheduled review date by 13 years or more. When CDRs are not conducted as scheduled, the potential for improper payments increases as some recipients receive benefits for which they are no longer eligible. In September 2011, SSA's Office of the Inspector General estimated that SSA had paid about $1.4 billion in SSI benefits to children who …

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "GAO's ongoing work examining VHA's management of outpatient specialty care consults identified examples of delays in veterans receiving outpatient specialty care, as well as limitations in the Department of Veterans Affairs' (VA), Veterans Health Administration's (VHA) implementation of new consult business rules designed to standardize aspects of the clinical consult process. For example, for 4 of the 10 physical therapy consults GAO reviewed for one VAMC, between 108 and 152 days elapsed with no apparent actions taken to schedule an appointment for the veteran. For 1 of these consults, several months passed before the veteran was referred for care to a non-VA health care facility. VA medical center (VAMC) officials cited increased demand for services, and patient no-shows and cancelled appointments among the factors that lead to delays and hinder their ability to meet VHA's guideline of completing consults within 90 days of being requested. GAO's ongoing work also identified variation in how the five VAMCs reviewed have implemented key aspects of VHA's business rules, such as strategies for managing future care consults—requests for specialty care appointments that are not clinically needed for more than 90 days. Such …