Restrictions on travel to Cuba have been a key and often contentious component in U.S. efforts to isolate the communist government of Fidel Castro for much of the past 40 years. Under the Bush Administration, enforcement of U.S. restrictions on Cuba travel has increased, and restrictions on travel and on private remittances to Cuba have been tightened. Several legislative initiatives have been introduced in the 109th Congress that would ease restrictions on travel and remittances to Cuba. These bills would, among other things, lift overall restrictions on travel to Cuba, lift the overall embargo, and ease restrictions on exporting agricultural commodities to Cuba.

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Report on the military retirement system, including benefits, recent developments, key elements and issues, political climate, and more.

Report on prisoners of war and those missing in action, including issues in identifying them, historical context, Congressional interest, relevant terms, and more.

This report provides an overview of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and discuses NASA budget and its new Vision for Space Exploration, especially whether it is maintaining a balanced portfolio of programs that include science and aeronautics.

This report discusses the FY2007 budget request for the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) includes $96.4 billion in budget authority.

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Recent events have focused attention on the threat that terrorists with shoulder fired surface-to-air missiles (SAMs), referred to as Man-Portable Air Defense Systems (MANPADS), pose to commercial airliners. This report discusses SAMs and examines options for mitigating missile threats.

This report focuses on the interactions between Mexico and the United States on migration and border issues during the administrations of President George W. Bush and President Vicente Fox of Mexico. The discussions and agreements fall into four areas: (1) the bilateral migration talks, (2) the Partnership for Prosperity, (3) the Border Partnership Agreement, and (4) the trilateral “Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) of North America.

This report focuses on the interactions between Mexico and the United States on migration and border issues during the administrations of President George W. Bush and President Vicente Fox of Mexico. The discussions and agreements fall into four areas: (1) the bilateral migration talks, (2) the Partnership for Prosperity, (3) the Border Partnership Agreement, and (4) the trilateral “Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) of North America.

This report discusses the FY2007 budget request for the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) includes $96.4 billion in budget authority.

This report, which will be updated periodically, focuses on the interactions between Mexico and the United States on migration and border issues during the administrations of President George W. Bush and President Vicente Fox of Mexico. These interactions are increasingly tense in 2006 due to violence in the border region and debate over U.S. immigration reform. The discussions and agreements fall into four areas: (1) the bilateral migration talks, (2) the Partnership for Prosperity, (3) the Border Partnership Agreement, and (4) the trilateral "Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) of North America."

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "To lawfully work in the United States, individuals must have a valid Social Security number (SSN) and, if they are not citizens, authorization to work from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Noncitizens seeking work must provide both an SSN and evidence of work authorization to their employer. Yet individuals without these required authorizations have gained employment with false information. How these instances of unauthorized work can be identified or prevented challenges the federal agencies involved. Congress asked GAO to discuss how federal agencies can better share reported earnings data to identify unauthorized work. Specifically, this testimony addresses two issues: (1) the Social Security data that could help identify unauthorized employment and (2) coordination among certain federal agencies to improve the accuracy and usefulness of such data."

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "During disasters, administrators of health care facilities are faced with decisions about how to operate and care for patients, including when and how to evacuate patients if the facility becomes unable to support adequate care, treatment, or services. Hospitals and nursing homes are required to have plans in place that describe how they will operate during emergencies. Hurricanes Katrina and Rita were incidents of national significance that highlighted the challenges involved in evacuating vulnerable populations, including those in hospitals and nursing homes. Federal officials used the National Disaster Medical System (NDMS) to help evacuate patients due to Hurricane Katrina--the first time the system has been used to evacuate such a large number of patients. Formed in 1984, NDMS is a partnership among the Department of Defense (DOD), the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). We have begun work to assess the evacuation of hospital and nursing home patients due to disasters. We are performing this work under the Comptroller General's authority to conduct evaluations on his own initiative. To conduct our review, we obtained …

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This report discusses the free trade agreement (FTA) between United States and Morocco. The United States and Morocco reached agreement on March 2, 2004 to create a free trade agreement.

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This report includes federal laws and regulations related to Hurricane Recovery and Reconstruction of Historic Preservation.

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This report provides an overview of the funding trends on the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).

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We use molecular dynamics simulation to investigate thermal transport characteristics of water with various degree of orientational and translational order induced by the application of an electric field. We observe that orientational ordering of the water dipole moments has a minor effect on the thermal conductivity. However, electric-field induced crystallization and associated translational order results in approximately a 3-fold increase of thermal conductivity with respect to the base water, i.e., to values comparable with those characterizing ice crystal structures.

Analysis of the composition, strain-relaxation, layer-tilt, and the crystalline quality of In{sub y}Ga{sub 1-y}As/InP{sub 1-x}As{sub x} thermophotovoltaic (TPV) diodes grown by metal organic vapor phase epitaxy (MOVPE) is demonstrated using triple-axis x-ray reciprocal space mapping techniques. In{sub 0.53}Ga{sub 0.47}As (E{sub gap} = 0.74eV) n/p junction diodes are grown lattice matched (LM) to InP substrates and lattice mismatched (LMM) In{sub 0.67}Ga{sub 0.33}As (E{sub gap} = 0.6eV) TPV diodes are grown on three-step InP{sub 1-x}As{sub x} (0 < x < 0.32) buffer layers on InP substrates. X-ray reciprocal space maps about the symmetric (400) and asymmetric (533) reciprocal lattice points (RELPs) determine the in-plane and out-of-plane lattice parameters and strain of the In{sub y}Ga{sub 1-y}As TPV active layer and underlying InP{sub 1-x}As{sub x} buffers. Triple-axis x-ray rocking curves about the LMM In{sub 0.67}Ga{sub 0.33}As RELP show an order of magnitude increase of its full width at half maximum (FWHM) compared to that from the LM In{sub 0.53}Ga{sub 0.47}As (250asec vs. 30asec). Despite the significant RELP broadening the photovoltaic figure of merits show that the electronic quality of the LMM In{sub 0.67}Ga{sub 0.33}As approaches that of the lattice matched diode material. This indicates that misfit-related crystalline imperfections are not dominating the photovoltaic response …