On July 13, 2012, the Navy submitted to Congress a 73-page report on the Navy's policies and practices for naming ships.1 The report was submitted in response to Section 1014 of the FY2012 National Defense Authorization Act (H.R. 1540/P.L. 112-81 of December 31, 2011). (For the text of Section 1024, see the entry for H.R. 1540/P.L. 112-81 in Appendix B.) The executive summary of the Navy's report is reprinted here as Appendix A.2

The UAE has been a significant U.S. partner in Gulf security for more than two decades, and the alliance has deepened in the course of the U.S.-led effort against the Islamic State organization. A 1994 U.S.-UAE defense cooperation agreement (DCA) provides for U.S. military use of several UAE facilities, primarily the air base at Al Dhafra, and about 5,000 U.S. military personnel are stationed at UAE military facilities. The UAE was the first Gulf state to order the most sophisticated missile defense system sold by the United States (the THAAD), demonstrating support for U.S. efforts to...

The Coast Guard's FY2013 budget initiated a new project for the design and construction of a new polar icebreaker. The project received $7.609 million in FY2013 and $2.0 million in FY2014. The Coast Guard's proposed FY2015 budget requests $6 million to continue initial acquisition activities for the ship. Coast Guard polar icebreakers perform a variety of missions supporting U.S. interests in polar regions. The Coast Guard's two existing heavy polar icebreakers-Polar Star and Polar Sea-have exceeded their originally intended 30-year service lives. Polar Star was placed in caretaker status on...

Given the large potential impact broadband access may have on the economic development of rural America, concern has been raised over a "digital divide" between rural and urban or suburban areas with respect to broadband deployment. While there are many examples of rural communities with state of the art telecommunications facilities, recent surveys and studies have indicated that, in general, rural areas tend to lag behind urban and suburban areas in broadband deployment. Citing the lagging deployment of broadband in many rural areas, Congress and the Administration acted in 2001 and 2002 to...

The U.S. Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) program provides non-reciprocal, duty-free tariff treatment to certain products imported from designated beneficiary developing countries (BDCs). The United States, the European Union, and other developed countries have implemented similar programs since the 1970s. The U.S. program was first authorized in Title V of the Trade Act of 1974, and is subject to periodic renewal by Congress. The GSP program was most recently extended until July 31, 2013, in Section 1 of P.L. 112-40, and has not been renewed. Imports under the GSP program in 2012...

U.S.-China economic ties have expanded substantially over the past three decades. Total U.S.-China trade rose from $2 billion in 1979 to $562 billion in 2013, and is estimated to have reached $593 billion in 2014. China is currently the United States' second-largest trading partner, its third-largest export market, and its biggest source of imports. China is estimated to be a $350 billion market for U.S. firms (based on U.S. direct and indirect exports to China and sales by U.S.-invested firms in China). Many U.S. firms view participation in China's market as critical to staying globally...

Prior to the initiation of economic reforms and trade liberalization 35 years ago, China maintained policies that kept the economy very poor, stagnant, centrally controlled, vastly inefficient, and relatively isolated from the global economy. Since opening up to foreign trade and investment and implementing free market reforms in 1979, China has been among the world's fastest-growing economies, with real annual gross domestic product (GDP) growth averaging nearly 10% through 2014. In recent years, China has emerged as a major global economic power. It is now the world's largest economy (on a...

Community Services Block Grants (CSBG) provide federal funds to states, territories, and tribes for distribution to local agencies to support a wide range of community-based activities to reduce poverty. Smaller related programs-Community Economic Development (CED), Rural Community Facilities (RCF), and Individual Development Accounts (IDAs)-also support anti-poverty efforts. CSBG and some of these related activities trace their roots to the War on Poverty, launched more than 50 years ago in 1964. Today, they are administered at the federal level by the Department of Health and Human Services...

The Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) block grant funds a wide range of benefits and services for low-income families with children. TANF was created in the 1996 welfare reform law (P.L. 104-193). This report responds to some frequently asked questions about TANF; it does not describe TANF rules (see, instead, CRS Report RL32748, The Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) Block Grant: A Primer on TANF Financing and Federal Requirements, by Gene Falk). TANF Funding. TANF provides fixed funding to states, the bulk of which is provided in a $16.5 billion-per-year basic...

This report provides U.S. war casualty statistics. It includes data tables containing the number of casualties among American military personnel who served in principal wars and combat actions from 1775 to the present. It also includes data on those wounded in action and information such as race and ethnicity, gender, branch of service, and cause of death. The tables are compiled from various Department of Defense (DOD) sources. Wars covered include the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the Mexican War, the Civil War, the Spanish-American War, World War I, World War II, the Korean War, the...