This report discusses the current political state of Afghanistan, as well as the Afghan government. This report also discusses Afghanistan's relationship with the United States, particularly U.S. efforts to urge President Hamid Karzai, to address corruption within the Afghan government. The report also includes discussion of election fraud and corruption in Afghanistan.

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This report discusses several key provisions related to extended federal unemployment benefits that are temporary and, therefore, scheduled to expire. This report describes the consequences of these expirations for the financing and availability of unemployment benefits in states. It also summarizes the last three laws that have extended these expiring provisions: P.L. 112-240, P.L. 112-96, and P.L. 112-78.

This report summarizes legislative and other actions taken to repeal, defund, or delay the Affordable Care Act (ACA), since the law's enactment. The information is presented in four appendixes.

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Minority AIDS Initiative (MAI) grantees reported providing services similar to the medical services, support services, and HIV testing and prevention services provided with core HIV/AIDS funding, which is provided by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to grantees. In addition, MAI grantees faced administrative challenges managing HIV/AIDS funding that was fragmented across several grants. Various agencies within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) awarded MAI grants to grantees. The agencies included CDC, HRSA, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, and seven other offices within HHS. The MAI grantees in GAO's sample reported providing mostly support services with their MAI grants, similar to the types of support services grantees provided with core HIV/AIDS funding from CDC and HRSA. These support services included community outreach and education, and staff or provider training. Twenty percent of the grantees also reported providing medical services to their clients. According to the limited data HHS agencies and offices maintain on the demographics of the population served with MAI grants, the majority of recipients of MAI services were from …

This report discusses pay equity litigation, including Wal-Mart Stores v. Dukes, a case in which the Supreme Court rejected class action status for current and former female Wal-Mart employees who allege that the company has engaged in pay discrimination.

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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 an employee with consistent but periodic delivery of employment services qualifies for the nepotism continuous-employment exception in Government Code section 573.062 (RQ-1125-GA).

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 an individual licensed as a specialist in school psychology who is employed by a university in that capacity is exempt from the Psychologists' Licensing Act (RQ-1126-GA).

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 a state employee may run for and assume an elected county office (RQ-1128-GA).

A weekly publication, the Texas Register serves as the journal of state agency rulemaking for Texas. Information published in the Texas Register includes proposed, adopted, withdrawn and emergency rule actions, notices of state agency review of agency rules, governor's appointments, attorney general opinions, and miscellaneous documents such as requests for proposals. After adoption, these rulemaking actions are codified into the Texas Administrative Code.

This report provides an estimate of the initial impact of the changing oil prices on the nation's merchandise trade balance.

This report provides information about the Dairy Policy Proposals in the Next Farm Bill. Dairy producers have argued that a simple price-based system failed to reflect the sharp increase in milk production costs.

This report discusses programs that promote the financial and personal responsibility of noncustodial fathers to their children and increase the participation of fathers in the lives of their children. These programs have come to be known as "responsible fatherhood" programs.

This report discusses the federal financial reporting -- defined here as the process of recording retrospective executive department-level financial and performance information -- may provide both a snapshot of the government's financial health at a given moment in time, as well as an accounting of its financial performance over a given time frame.

This report discusses the federal government's role in the country's information technology (IT) research and development (R&D) activities. The government's support of IT R&D began because it had an important interest in creating computers and software that would be capable of addressing the problems and issues the government needed to solve and study.

The overall goal of the project was to define the cellular processes that underlie embryo development in plants at a mechanistic level. Our studies focused on a critical transcriptional regulator, Arabidopsis LEAFY COTYLEDON (LEC1), that is necessary and sufficient to induce processes required for embryo development. Because LEC1 regulates lipid accumulation during the maturation phase of embryo development, information about LEC1 may be useful in designing approaches to enhance biofuel production in plants. During the tenure of this project, we determined the molecular mechanisms by which LEC1 acts as a transcription factor in embryos. We also identified genes directly regulated by LEC1 and showed that many of these genes are involved in maturation processes. This information has been useful in dissecting the gene regulatory networks controlling embryo development. Finally, LEC1 is a novel isoform of a transcription factor that is conserved among eukaryotes, and LEC1 is active primarily in seeds. Therefore, we determined that the LEC1-type transcription factors first appeared in lycophytes during land plant evolution. Together, this study provides basic information that has implications for biofuel production.

This report focuses on selected legal issues related to the use of hydraulic fracturing. It examines some of the requirements for hydraulic fracturing contained in major federal environmental laws. It also provides an overview of issues involving state preemption of local zoning authority, as well as state tort law.

Uncertainties associated with the core bypass flow are some of the key issues that directly influence the coolant mass flow distribution and magnitude, and thus the operational core temperature profiles, in the very high-temperature reactor (VHTR). Designers will attempt to configure the core geometry so the core cooling flow rate magnitude and distribution conform to the design values. The objective of this project is to study the bypass flow both experimentally and computationally. Researchers will develop experimental data using state-of-the-art particle image velocimetry in a small test facility. The team will attempt to obtain full field temperature distribution using racks of thermocouples. The experimental data are intended to benchmark computational fluid dynamics (CFD) codes by providing detailed information. These experimental data are urgently needed for validation of the CFD codes. The following are the project tasks: • Construct a small-scale bench-top experiment to resemble the bypass flow between the graphite blocks, varying parameters to address their impact on bypass flow. Wall roughness of the graphite block walls, spacing between the blocks, and temperature of the blocks are some of the parameters to be tested. • Perform CFD to evaluate pre- and post-test calculations and turbulence models, including sensitivity studies to …

This report discusses the aggravated identity theft, which is punishable by a mandatory minimum sentence of imprisonment for two years or by imprisonment for five years if it relates to a terrorism offense.

This report presents background information and potential oversight issues for Congress on the Navy's Arleigh Burke (DDG-51) and Zumwalt (DDG-1000) class destroyer programs. Decisions that Congress makes concerning these programs could substantially affect Navy capabilities and funding requirements, and the U.S. shipbuilding industrial base.

This report provides background information and potential oversight issues for Congress on the Ohio replacement program (ORP), 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. This report focuses on the Ohio replacement program as a Navy shipbuilding program.

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