WASHINGTON – On Feb. 23, the men and women of the Department of Veterans Affairs will mark the 20th anniversary of the start of ground combat in the 1990-1991 Gulf War. Fighting ended 100 hours later after a U.S.-led coalition drove Iraqi forces from the small nation of Kuwait. “All Americans should be proud […]
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Labor’s Veterans’ Employment and Training Service, known as VETS, has proposed a rule establishing a uniform national threshold performance level to be applied to state grantees that provide employment services to veterans. The national threshold applies to those state grantees responsible for serving veterans under both the Wagner-Peyser State […]
WASHINGTON – As part of President Obama’s America’s Great Outdoors initiative, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar and National Park Service Director Jon Jarvis today marked the 150th anniversary of President-elect Abraham Lincoln’s arrival in Washington by officially kicking off the National Park Service’s observance of the 150th anniversary of the American Civil War. Following […]
The President called Prime Minister John Key of New Zealand to express deep condolences over the devastating earthquake that struck Christchurch, New Zealand, on February 22, and to reaffirm the offer of American assistance as New Zealand recovers. The President noted that a U.S. search and rescue team was on its way to New Zealand, […]
TAMPA, Fla. (Feb. 22, 2011) — At approximately 1 a.m. EST today, while negotiations were ongoing to secure the release of four American hostages, U.S. forces responded to gunfire aboard the pirated vessel (S/V) Quest. As they responded to the gunfire, reaching and boarding the Quest, the forces discovered all four hostages had been shot […]
On behalf of the American people, Michelle and I extend our deepest condolences to the people of New Zealand and to the families and friends of the victims in Christchurch, which has suffered its second major earthquake in just six months. Our thoughts and prayers are with all those whose lives have been touched by […]
The United States is gravely concerned with disturbing reports and images coming out of Libya. We are working to ascertain the facts, but we have received multiple credible reports that hundreds of people have been killed and injured in several days of unrest – and the full extent of the death toll is unknown due […]
All the World’s a Stage Comic actor Joseph Jefferson, one of the best-known American stage personalities of the nineteenth century, died in Palm Beach in 1905. Born into a family of actors in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on February 20, 1829, Jefferson achieved one of his first major successes in 1858 in Tom Taylor’s Our American Cousin. […]
For nearly 200 years, America generally adhered to the constitutional system adopted by the framers: the nation could go to war only when Congress either adopted a declaration or enacted authorization bills. Beginning in 1950 with the Korean War, presidents began to assert unilateral authority to embark on war by seeking “authority” from outside organizations […]
Nearly 60 small and moderate earthquakes struck Arkansas since Feb. 15, 2011, the most recent a magnitude 4.3 earthquake this morning 37 miles away from Little Rock. Many of the earthquakes are large enough to be felt. “These earthquake swarms are not that unusual for the region,” said Harley Benz, scientist in charge at the […]
