Federal Independent Agencies
News releases, reports, statements and associated documents from federal independent agencies.
Featured Stories
CFPB Financial Well-Being Scale: Scale Development Technical Report
WASHINGTON, May 27 -- The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau issued the following report summary and conclusion:
Summary:
This technical report describes the development of the CFPB Financial Well-Being Scale. It is designed to serve as a resource for researchers and others who seek the technical details related to the development of the scale and the scoring procedures. The report provides information on the reliability of scores and validity of inferences derived from the use of the scale. It also introduces a custom Stata package that researchers can use to score responses to the scale
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WASHINGTON, May 27 -- The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau issued the following report summary and conclusion:
Summary:
This technical report describes the development of the CFPB Financial Well-Being Scale. It is designed to serve as a resource for researchers and others who seek the technical details related to the development of the scale and the scoring procedures. The report provides information on the reliability of scores and validity of inferences derived from the use of the scale. It also introduces a custom Stata package that researchers can use to score responses to the scaleitems.
FULL REPORT
Read the full report (https://www.consumerfinance.gov/documents/4800/201705_cfpb_financial-well-being-scale-technical-report.pdf)
Conclusion:
The CFPB Financial Well-Being Scale was built to measure what consumers say defines financial well-being to them: control over day-to-day, month-to-month finances; the capacity to absorb a financial shock; being on track to meet financial goals; and the financial freedom to make the choices that allow for the enjoyment of life. The data analysis conducted during the development of the scale model reinforced the idea that the items can be used to measure financial well-being as a cohesive general construct.
With this new free and reliable scale, it is now possible to measure and compare financial wellbeing across individuals and over time. The scale provides practitioners and researchers a way to understand financial well-being using a tool that was developed using large samples and rigorous statistical analyses. The end result of this work is a scale that can provide reliable financial well-being scores that have been supported by our initial validation exercises. These scores offer a complement to objective measures such as income, credit scores, and other common measures of financial situation, in that they were purposefully designed to reflect a respondent's holistic and subjective sense of their financial situation.
At the CFPB, we are using this measurement tool to continue our work to uncover what specific types of knowledge, skills, behavior, and attitudes tend to help people to improve their financial well-being, with the goal of helping move consumer financial capability-building practices forward in ways that can benefit American consumers.
We hope this tool will prove useful to others in their programmatic or policy work to support improvements in consumer financial well-being, or in kindred research efforts. We look forward to engaging with the broader field to collectively advance our shared understanding of how to support consumers in achieving their life goals and greater financial well-being.
Smithsonian's National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute Scientists Artificially Inseminate Giant Panda Mei Xiang
WASHINGTON, May 26 -- Smithsonian's National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute issued the following news release:
The Smithsonian's National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute's team of reproductive scientists, veterinarians and panda keepers performed two artificial inseminations on 18-year-old female giant panda Mei Xiang (may-SHONG) on May 25. The first procedure started at 2 p.m. and the second at 11:30 p.m. Scientists and keepers had been closely monitoring Mei Xiang's behavior and hormones for the past several weeks. Daily hormone reports showed Mei Xiang's estrogen levels peaked
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WASHINGTON, May 26 -- Smithsonian's National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute issued the following news release:
The Smithsonian's National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute's team of reproductive scientists, veterinarians and panda keepers performed two artificial inseminations on 18-year-old female giant panda Mei Xiang (may-SHONG) on May 25. The first procedure started at 2 p.m. and the second at 11:30 p.m. Scientists and keepers had been closely monitoring Mei Xiang's behavior and hormones for the past several weeks. Daily hormone reports showed Mei Xiang's estrogen levels peakedMay 24, an indication that she was ovulating and able to become pregnant. Female giant pandas are only in estrus, or able to become pregnant, for 24 to 72 hours each year.
Animal care staff closely monitored Mei Xiang and 19-year-old male Tian Tian (tee-YEN tee-YEN) for any affiliative behaviors that would indicate that the pair were interested in breeding. The pandas exhibited these behaviors, but at incongruent times; therefore, there was no natural breeding this season. The Zoo's panda team artificially inseminated Mei Xiang using semen from Tian Tian for the procedures. Li Rengui from the China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda was at the Zoo for the procedures.
Giant panda pregnancies and pseudopregnancies generally last between three and six months. Zoo veterinarians will conduct ultrasounds to track changes in Mei Xiang's reproductive tract and determine if she is pregnant during the next several months. Scientists will also monitor her hormones to determine when she is near the end of a pseudopregnancy or pregnancy. There is no way to determine if a female is pregnant from hormone analysis and behavior alone. Mei Xiang's hormones and behavior will mimic a pregnancy even if she is pseudopregnant. The only definitive way to determine if she is pregnant is to see a developing fetus on an ultrasound.
The Zoo received approval for its breeding plans from the China Wildlife and Conservation Association and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which monitors giant panda research programs in the United States.
Giant pandas are listed as "vulnerable" in the wild by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. There are an estimated 1,800 in the wild. Scientists and animal care specialists at the Smithsonian's National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute work with scientists in China studying giant panda reproduction and cub health, habitat and disease.
IRAN: Release Maryam Naghash Zargaran
WASHINGTON, May 26 -- The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom issued the following news release:
The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) strongly urges the Iranian government to release Maryam Naghash Zargaran from prison. Not only has she been detained unjustly because of her Christian faith, but the Iranian authorities have denied her urgently needed medical care. On this day last year, Maryam launched a hunger strike, sadly one of many, to protest the authorities' disregard of her medical needs and refusal to grant her conditional release or medical
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WASHINGTON, May 26 -- The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom issued the following news release:
The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) strongly urges the Iranian government to release Maryam Naghash Zargaran from prison. Not only has she been detained unjustly because of her Christian faith, but the Iranian authorities have denied her urgently needed medical care. On this day last year, Maryam launched a hunger strike, sadly one of many, to protest the authorities' disregard of her medical needs and refusal to grant her conditional release or medicalleave.
"For more than four years, Maryam Naghash Zargaran has suffered in an Iranian prison, falsely charged with 'propagating against the Islamic regime and collusion intended to harm national security'," said USCIRF Commissioner Clifford D. May. "The Iranian government must cease its targeting of Christians and release Maryam and other religious prisoners of conscience. They should be honored for their contributions to society rather than penalized for who they are or what they believe."
Commissioner Clifford D. May (http://www.uscirf.gov/about-uscirf/clifford-d-may-commissioner) has taken up the case of Maryam Naghash Zargaran (http://www.uscirf.gov/maryam-naghash-zargaran) as part of USCIRF's Religious Prisoners of Conscience Project (http://www.uscirf.gov/uscirfs-religious-prisoners-conscience-project). This project highlights the plight of individuals who have been imprisoned for their religious beliefs, practices, or identity.
Ms. Zargaran was arrested in January 2013 and in July 2013 began serving a four-year prison sentence. Her sentence appeared to be in connection with her work at an orphanage alongside Iranian-American Christian pastor Saeed Abedini, who also had been unjustly imprisoned and was released in January 2016 after much international attention and protest.
Maryam suffers from several serious health issues, including heart disease for which she underwent surgery prior to her arrest and imprisonment. In September 2013, after an apparent heart attack, she reportedly was transferred from Evin Prison to Modares Hospital for treatment. Since then, she has undertaken multiple hunger strikes to protest her prison treatment, and has been granted several temporary medical leaves as a result. However, officials forced her to return to prison before her treatments were finished, causing her condition to worsen. In December 2016, Maryam was informed that her four-year sentence had been extended for 42 days because of the time she spent outside of the prison during the summer of 2016.
Since 1999, USCIRF has recommended, and the State Department has designated, Iran as a "country of particular concern" (CPC), for its "systematic, ongoing and egregious" violations of religious freedom. For more information, please see the chapter on Iran (http://www.uscirf.gov/sites/default/files/Iran.2017.pdf) in USCIRF's 2017 Annual Report. Read the chapter in Persian here (http://www.uscirf.gov/reports-briefs/annual-report-chapters-and-summaries/iran-chapter-2017-annual-report-persian).
First Group of Two-Year Peace Corps Volunteers to Begin Service in Myanmar
WASHINGTON, May 26 -- The Peace Corps issued the following news release:
Today, Acting Peace Corps Director Sheila Crowley joined U.S. Charge d'affaires Kristen Bauer and the Rector of East Yangon University, Dr. Kyaw Kyaw Khaung, in Yangon, Myanmar to swear in Myanmar's first-ever two-year Peace Corps volunteers. After ten weeks of pre-service training, the 15 new volunteers were sworn in at a ceremony at the Karaweik Palace before leaving for their communities where they will teach English at local middle and high schools. Myanmar is the 141st country to invite Peace Corps volunteers to work
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WASHINGTON, May 26 -- The Peace Corps issued the following news release:
Today, Acting Peace Corps Director Sheila Crowley joined U.S. Charge d'affaires Kristen Bauer and the Rector of East Yangon University, Dr. Kyaw Kyaw Khaung, in Yangon, Myanmar to swear in Myanmar's first-ever two-year Peace Corps volunteers. After ten weeks of pre-service training, the 15 new volunteers were sworn in at a ceremony at the Karaweik Palace before leaving for their communities where they will teach English at local middle and high schools. Myanmar is the 141st country to invite Peace Corps volunteers to workand live in local communities.
"This day marks a new chapter not just in our volunteers' lives and careers - but also for the Peace Corps, and for the partnership between the United States and the Republic of the Union of Myanmar," Acting Director Crowley said. "I thank our Myanmar partners for their kindness, love, and warm welcome. We are honored to serve your communities, and we look forward to working with you, side by side, shoulder to shoulder, towards a brighter future for all our children."
At the request of the Government of Myanmar, Peace Corps is providing qualified American men and women to assist Myanmar in meeting education goals while also promoting a better understanding between the people of the United States and Myanmar. The Peace Corps' Myanmar program began in 2016 with a group of short-term Peace Corps Volunteers who served in Yangon Region. Volunteers worked side by side with Myanmar teachers of English in basic education middle and high schools.
Peace Corps volunteers around the world work with communities to strengthen local capacity, facilitate cultural exchanges and build relationships that last a lifetime. The Peace Corps works closely with local governments to support their goals and priorities such as upgrading education standards, improving the capacities of teachers, and providing quality English language instruction to students.
FAQ on NEH Current Operations and Fiscal Year 2018 Budget
WASHINGTON, May 26 -- The National Endowment for the Humanities issued the following news release:
Is NEH closed?
No. NEH is not closed. NEH is not in the process of shutting down. Using funds appropriated for the current fiscal year, NEH is continuing its normal operations and intends to award additional grants following the meeting of the National Council on the Humanities in July 2017.
For FY 2018, which begins on October 1, 2017, President Donald J. Trump has requested that Congress appropriate $42 million to NEH to meet matching grant offers and to cover administrative expenses for
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WASHINGTON, May 26 -- The National Endowment for the Humanities issued the following news release:
Is NEH closed?
No. NEH is not closed. NEH is not in the process of shutting down. Using funds appropriated for the current fiscal year, NEH is continuing its normal operations and intends to award additional grants following the meeting of the National Council on the Humanities in July 2017.
For FY 2018, which begins on October 1, 2017, President Donald J. Trump has requested that Congress appropriate $42 million to NEH to meet matching grant offers and to cover administrative expenses forclosure. The President's proposed budget, however, is only the first step in a long budget process. Ultimately, Congress will decide whether and to what extent to fund NEH for FY 2018, and the President will decide to sign or veto the relevant appropriations bill.
Is NEH closed to new applications?
NEH will continue to accept grant applications for FY 2018 according to its established deadlines and will continue to operate as usual unless and until the President and Congress require otherwise. NEH staff are actively working with potential applicants and current grantees every workday. Please review upcoming grant deadlines (https://www.neh.gov/grants) on our website.
Can NEH ever advocate for its budget?
As an agency of the Executive Branch of the Federal government, NEH answers to the President and must support his proposed budget, including his request that Congress eliminate the agency.
Since Congress created NEH in 1965, the agency has issued more than 63,000 grants, totaling more than $5.3 billion. This public investment has led to the creation of award-winning books, films, museum exhibits, spurred innovative research and discovery, and ensured the preservation of significant cultural resources in all 50 states. Congress may well consider these achievements and seek additional information directly from NEH in considering the agency's value and whether to fund the agency for FY 2018 and beyond.
What can NEH grantees, humanities organizations, and national service organizations do to share information about the agency's value?
NEH partners can educate their communities on NEH's impact by crediting the National Endowment for the Humanities:
* Within any materials that describe an NEH-funded project
* On signage and in remarks at an event or in a venue that promotes an NEH-funded project
* In opinion editorials published in your local newspaper or other media outlets about your grant
* By sharing and/or linking to NEH materials on your project website
* By including @NEHgov when you tweet about an NEH-funded project
If you are a current grantee who needs access to the NEH logo, you can find it here.
For grantees:
What if I have already received an NEH grant award, or an offer for a grant award?
NEH has set aside the full funding amount for grants awarded, as is reflected in the Notice of Action and other grant documents you have received. NEH will continue to provide funds under awards as requested and as appropriate.
What if I have a grant offer, but have not yet completed the necessary paperwork to receive the formal award?
You should submit your paperwork as soon as possible so that formal awards can be made. These funds too are already set aside, and ready to be obligated (i.e., formally funded) as soon as the process is completed and the Notice of Action generated.
What about the ability to "front load" a payment, can you do that?
NEH is restricted from doing that, as OMB regulations and the award's governing documents limit advance payments to the grantee's immediate cash needs; that is, payments not to exceed anticipated expenditures for a thirty-day period.
I'm a grantee who is supposed to get matching funds--what about those?
If you are a grantee funded through Challenge Grants, or with other types of matching funds, as your notices and other grant documents also indicate, you will receive the full amount of the award once the matching funds have been received and certified.
For applicants:
Should I still apply for an NEH grant?
Yes. We are continuing to do the important work of our agency for the humanities community, and therefore plan on running full competitions for all grant programs that are now posted on the website.
For panelists:
Am I still needed to serve as an NEH panelist?
Yes. We will continue accepting applications, holding panel meetings, reviewing recommendations, and preparing for presentation of recommendations to NEH's advisory group, the National Council on the Humanities.
BURMA: Interfaith Prisoners of Conscience Pwint Phyu Latt & Zaw Zaw Latt Released
WASHINGTON, May 26 -- The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom issued the following news release:
The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) expressed satisfaction that the government of Burma has released prisoners of conscience Pwint Phyu Latt and Zaw Zaw Latt. They were released along with more than 250 other prisoners Burma's government freed as part of a presidential amnesty.
USCIRF Vice Chairman Daniel Mark, who has advocated on behalf of Pwint Phyu Latt and Zaw Zaw Latt, stated that he "welcomed this long-overdue step by Burma's government. Pwint
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WASHINGTON, May 26 -- The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom issued the following news release:
The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) expressed satisfaction that the government of Burma has released prisoners of conscience Pwint Phyu Latt and Zaw Zaw Latt. They were released along with more than 250 other prisoners Burma's government freed as part of a presidential amnesty.
USCIRF Vice Chairman Daniel Mark, who has advocated on behalf of Pwint Phyu Latt and Zaw Zaw Latt, stated that he "welcomed this long-overdue step by Burma's government. PwintPhyu Latt and Zaw Zaw Latt, both Muslim, were wrongfully imprisoned for their interfaith activities. Although I welcome and applaud their release, the fact remains that they never should have been imprisoned in the first place. I hope their release signals a more positive trajectory for the freedom of religion or belief in Burma."
Vice Chairman Mark took up the case of Zaw Zaw Latt and Pwint Phyu Latt (http://www.uscirf.gov/pwint-phyu-latt-and-zaw-zaw-latt) as part of USCIRF's Religious Prisoners of Conscience Project (http://www.uscirf.gov/uscirfs-religious-prisoners-conscience-project). This project highlights the plight of individuals who have been imprisoned for their religious beliefs, practices, or identity and the laws and practices that led to their imprisonment.
At an event in Washington, DC last week for the release of the USCIRF 2017 Annual Report (http://www.uscirf.gov/reports-briefs/annual-report), Vice Chairman Mark cited the case of these interfaith advocates as a dramatic example of a country using security laws to crack down on those pressing for religious freedom. He highlighted that the Immigration (Emergency Provisions) Act, one of the laws under which Zaw Zaw Latt and Pwint Phyu Latt had been detained and sentenced, had been repealed, yet they were not released and their sentences were not reduced. Their initial sentence was, in fact, extended in 2016 by two years of hard labor on the same day that more than 100 other prisoners were amnestied.
Vice Chairman Mark called on "the government of Burma to repeal repressive laws and policies that target individuals for peaceful dissent and expression and abide by international human rights standards and the rule of law."
Although the 2017 USCIRF report noted a historic and peaceful transition of government in Burma in 2016, the Commission still recommended that the U.S. State Department designate Burma as a "Country of Particular Concern." This recommendation is due to the government perpetrating or tolerating religious freedom violations that are "systematic, ongoing, and egregious," with the most famous example being the abysmal treatment of the Rohingya Muslims in that country.
For more information, please see the chapter on Burma (http://www.uscirf.gov/reports-briefs/annual-report-chapters-and-summaries/burma-chapter-2017-annual-report) in USCIRF's 2017 Annual Report (http://www.uscirf.gov/reports-briefs/annual-report). Read the chapter in Burmese (http://www.uscirf.gov/reports-briefs/annual-report-chapters-and-summaries/burma-chapter-2017-annual-report-burmese) as well.
A Whole New Jupiter: First Science Results from NASA's Juno Mission
WASHINGTON, May 26 -- NASA issued the following news release:
Early science results from NASA's Juno mission to Jupiter portray the largest planet in our solar system as a complex, gigantic, turbulent world, with Earth-sized polar cyclones, plunging storm systems that travel deep into the heart of the gas giant, and a mammoth, lumpy magnetic field that may indicate it was generated closer to the planet's surface than previously thought.
"We are excited to share these early discoveries, which help us better understand what makes Jupiter so fascinating," said Diane Brown, Juno program executive
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WASHINGTON, May 26 -- NASA issued the following news release:
Early science results from NASA's Juno mission to Jupiter portray the largest planet in our solar system as a complex, gigantic, turbulent world, with Earth-sized polar cyclones, plunging storm systems that travel deep into the heart of the gas giant, and a mammoth, lumpy magnetic field that may indicate it was generated closer to the planet's surface than previously thought.
"We are excited to share these early discoveries, which help us better understand what makes Jupiter so fascinating," said Diane Brown, Juno program executiveat NASA Headquarters in Washington. "It was a long trip to get to Jupiter, but these first results already demonstrate it was well worth the journey."
Juno launched on Aug. 5, 2011, entering Jupiter's orbit on July 4, 2016. The findings from the first data-collection pass, which flew within about 2,600 miles (4,200 kilometers) of Jupiter's swirling cloud tops on Aug. 27, are being published this week in two papers in the journal Science, as well as 44 papers in Geophysical Research Letters.
"We knew, going in, that Jupiter would throw us some curves," said Scott Bolton, Juno principal investigator from the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. "But now that we are here we are finding that Jupiter can throw the heat, as well as knuckleballs and sliders. There is so much going on here that we didn't expect that we have had to take a step back and begin to rethink of this as a whole new Jupiter."
Among the findings that challenge assumptions are those provided by Juno's imager, JunoCam. The images show both of Jupiter's poles are covered in Earth-sized swirling storms that are densely clustered and rubbing together.
"We're puzzled as to how they could be formed, how stable the configuration is, and why Jupiter's north pole doesn't look like the south pole," said Bolton. "We're questioning whether this is a dynamic system, and are we seeing just one stage, and over the next year, we're going to watch it disappear, or is this a stable configuration and these storms are circulating around one another?"
Another surprise comes from Juno's Microwave Radiometer (MWR), which samples the thermal microwave radiation from Jupiter's atmosphere, from the top of the ammonia clouds to deep within its atmosphere. The MWR data indicates that Jupiter's iconic belts and zones are mysterious, with the belt near the equator penetrating all the way down, while the belts and zones at other latitudes seem to evolve to other structures. The data suggest the ammonia is quite variable and continues to increase as far down as we can see with MWR, which is a few hundred miles or kilometers.
Prior to the Juno mission, it was known that Jupiter had the most intense magnetic field in the solar system. Measurements of the massive planet's magnetosphere, from Juno's magnetometer investigation (MAG), indicate that Jupiter's magnetic field is even stronger than models expected, and more irregular in shape. MAG data indicates the magnetic field greatly exceeded expectations at 7.766 Gauss, about 10 times stronger than the strongest magnetic field found on Earth.
"Juno is giving us a view of the magnetic field close to Jupiter that we've never had before," said Jack Connerney, Juno deputy principal investigator and the lead for the mission's magnetic field investigation at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. "Already we see that the magnetic field looks lumpy: it is stronger in some places and weaker in others. This uneven distribution suggests that the field might be generated by dynamo action closer to the surface, above the layer of metallic hydrogen. Every flyby we execute gets us closer to determining where and how Jupiter's dynamo works."
Juno also is designed to study the polar magnetosphere and the origin of Jupiter's powerful auroras--its northern and southern lights. These auroral emissions are caused by particles that pick up energy, slamming into atmospheric molecules. Juno's initial observations indicate that the process seems to work differently at Jupiter than at Earth.
Juno is in a polar orbit around Jupiter, and the majority of each orbit is spent well away from the gas giant. But, once every 53 days, its trajectory approaches Jupiter from above its north pole, where it begins a two-hour transit (from pole to pole) flying north to south with its eight science instruments collecting data and its JunoCam public outreach camera snapping pictures. The download of six megabytes of data collected during the transit can take 1.5 days.
"Every 53 days, we go screaming by Jupiter, get doused by a fire hose of Jovian science, and there is always something new," said Bolton. "On our next flyby on July 11, we will fly directly over one of the most iconic features in the entire solar system -- one that every school kid knows -- Jupiter's Great Red Spot. If anybody is going to get to the bottom of what is going on below those mammoth swirling crimson cloud tops, it's Juno and her cloud-piercing science instruments."
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, manages the Juno mission for NASA. The principal investigator is Scott Bolton of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. The Juno mission is part of the New Frontiers Program managed by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, for the agency's Science Mission Directorate. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, in Denver, built the spacecraft.
More information on the Juno mission is available at:
https://www.nasa.gov/juno
http://missionjuno.org
