This report discusses the current political state of Afghanistan, focusing particularly on the influence of the Taliban and other militant groups and on the leadership of Afghan President Hamid Karzai. This report also discusses the U.S.-Afghanistan relationship, in both the short and long term, and U.S. efforts under the Obama Administration to provide military, reconstructive, and stabilization aid.

Report that discusses the FY2012 budget for energy and water development as approved by Congress, including how the funding will be used.

Report that provides information about federal and private sector efforts to promote and support global Internet freedom, a description of Internet freedom legislation from the 112th Congress, and suggestions for further reading on this topic. Two appendixes describe censorship and circumvention technologies.

This report compares key provisions of S. 696 and S. 1009 with provisions of TSCA Title I (15 U.S.C. 2601 et seq.) that would be affected if either bill became law. These provisions are summarized in Tables 1 through 6 of this report.

This report discusses the background of the G-20 (an international forum for discussing and coordinating economic policies) and some of the issues that it has addressed. It includes historic background on the work of the G-20, information about how the group operates, overviews of G-20 summits, major issues that the group is likely to address and the likely effectiveness of the G-20 in the near future. The members of the G-20 include Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the European Union.

This report discusses the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF)- block grant that provides grants to states, Indian tribes, and territories for a wide range of benefits, services, and activities that address economic and social disadvantage for families with children.

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins ""

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "GAO identified 15 key aerostat and airship efforts that were underway or had been initiated since 2007, and the Department of Defense (DOD) had or has primary responsibility for all of these efforts. None of the civil agency efforts met GAO's criteria for a key effort. Most of the aerostat and airship efforts have been fielded or completed, and are intended to provide intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) support. The estimated total funding of these efforts was almost $7 billion from fiscal years 2007 through 2012. However, funding estimates beyond fiscal year 2012 decline precipitously for aerostat and airship efforts under development, although there is an expectation that investment in the area will continue."

This report provides an annotated list of Congressional Research Service (CRS) resources and analyses relevant tothe funding gap that commenced on October 1, 2013, and terminated on October 17, 2013, with the enactment of P.L. 113-46, a continuing appropriations measure providing appropriations through January 15, 2014; historical funding gaps; and continuing appropriations measures.

This report provides background information and potential oversight issues for Congress on the Columbia-class program, a program to design and build a new class of 12 ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs) to replace the Navy's current force of 14 Ohio-class SSBNs. The program was previously known as the Ohio replacement program (ORP) or SSBN(X) program. The Navy has identified the Columbia-class program as the Navy's top priority program, and wants to procure the first Columbia-class boat in FY2021.

This report provides resources to help answer frequently-asked questions regarding the Affordable Care Act (ACA). It includes information and links for topics such as the individual mandate, private health insurance, exchanges and subsidies, employee-sponsored coverage, Medicaid and Medicare, specific populations, behavioral health, state innovation waivers, taxes, costs and statistics, and regulatory issues.

This report provides background information and issues for Congress on three new ship-based weapons the Navy is developing that could improve the ability of Navy surface ships to defend themselves against missiles, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), and surface craft: the Surface Navy Laser Weapon System (SNLWS), the electromagnetic railgun (EMRG), and the gunlaunched guided projectile (GLGP), previously known as the hypervelocity projectile (HVP).

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Second generation (2G) technologies to fabricate high-performance superconducting wires developed at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) were transferred to American Superconductor via this CRADA. In addition, co-development of technologies for over a decade was done to enable fabrication of commercial high-temperature superconducting (HTS) wires with high performance. The massive success of this CRADA has allowed American Superconductor Corporation (AMSC) to become a global leader in the fabrication of HTS wire and the technology is fully based on the Rolling Assisted Biaxially Textured Substrates (RABiTS) technology invented and developed at ORNL.

The objective of this project was to discover the protein complexes and control mechanisms that determine the location of actin filament roadways in plant cells. Our work provided the first molecular description of protein complexes that are converted from inactive complexes to active actin filament nucleators in the cell. These discoveries provided a conceptual framework to control to roadways in plant cells that determine the location and delivery of plant metabolites and storage molecules that are relevant to the bioenergy economy.

Ion Exchange column loading and elution of cesium from spherical resorcinol-formaldehyde resin have been conducted for two potential non-acid eluants -(NH{sub 4}){sub 2}CO{sub 3} and CH{sub 3}COONH{sub 4}. The results revealed encouraging cesium elution performance. 100% elution was achieved in at most 22 hours ({approx}28 bed volumes) of elution. Elution performance was fairly high at 6 hours ({approx}8 bed volumes) of elution for some of the eluants and also practically comparable to the benchmark acid eluant (HNO{sub 3}). Hence, it is quite possible 100% percent elution will be closer to the 6th hour than the 22nd hour. Elution is generally enhanced by increasing the concentration and pH of the eluants, and combining the eluants.

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This is a Regulatory Impact Analysis (RIA) as it relates to greenhouse gases and climate change.

This report discuses recently proposed bills in the Senate (KIDS Act) and the House (HEALTHY KIDS Act) to extend funding for the State Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) which is currently unfunded for the 2018 fiscal year and running off of unused funds in each state from previous years. On October 4, 2017, both the Senate Finance Committee and the House Energy and Commerce Committee had markups on different bills that would extend CHIP federal funding through FY2022, among other provisions.

This report discusses requirements for states with Additional Protocol Agreements under a Comprehensive Safeguard Agreement (CSA) administered by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) as a part of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. It provides background and information about additional protocol including information required under the Additional Protocol (AP) and locations and access.

This report provides an overview of the series of three executive actions -- (the first two taking the form of executive orders, and the third issued as a presidential proclamation) commonly referred to as the "Travel Ban," which restrict the entry of specified categories of non-U.S. nationals (aliens) into the United States -- as well as the litigation related to those executive actions.

This report discusses disposal of nuclear waste, primarily highly radioactive spent fuel from nuclear power plants. Presidential and Congressional actions regarding nuclear waste disposal sites and the Yucca Mountain Project, other alternatives previously proposed by the Obama Administration, and temporary solutions are discussed.

Thermoelectric materials have generated interest as a means of increasing the efficiency of power generation through the scavenging of waste heat. Materials containing nanometer-sized structural and compositional features can exhibit enhanced thermoelectric performance due to the decoupling of certain electrical and thermal properties, but the extent to which these features can be controlled is often limited. Here we report a simple synthesis of M{sub 2}O{sub 3}(ZnO){sub n} (M = In, Ga, Fe) nanowires with controllable polytypoid structures, where the nanostructured features are tuned by adjusting the amount of metal precursor. After the introduction of nanometer-scale features (individual atomic layers and alloying), thermal and electrical measurements on single In{sub 2-x}Ga{sub x}O3(ZnO){sub n} nanowires reveal a simultaneous improvement in all contributing factors to the thermoelectric figure of merit, indicating successful modification of the nanowire transport properties.

The I2B coal seam in the Charqueadas coal field has been evaluated as a target for enhanced coal bed methane production and CO{sub 2} sequestration. The samples were low rank coals (high volatile bituminous and sub-bituminous) obtained from the I2B seam as �3� cores. Such properties as sorption capacity, internal structure of the samples, porosity and permeability were of primary interest in this characterization study.