News and Issues

Curiosity's main assignment is to investigate whether its study area ever has offered environmental conditions favorable for microbial life. By designing the aeroshell enclosing Curiosity to create lift and be steerable, engineers were able to build a system that lands much more precisely instead of dropping like a rock. Watch a video explaining the '7 minutes of terror'. more »

Doris O'Brien writes: There’s an odd assumption that people tend to become invisible as they grow old ... women, in particular. I figure I could rob a bank and nobody would even notice who done it. But, in reality,seniors are the least likely to break the law, and maybe even the most reluctant to publicly express their opinions on controversial subjects, for fear of refutation, ridicule, or even recrimination. more »

The exhibit draws from the millions of immigration case files in the Archives to tell a few of these stories from the 1880s through World War II. It also ex­plores the attachment of immigrants to fam­ily and community and the attachment of government organizations to immigration laws that reflected certain beliefs about im­migrants and citizenship. These are dramatic tales of joy and disappointment, opportu­nity and discrimination, deceit and honesty. more »

More than 48 million Medicare cards display the SSN (Social Security Number), which increases Medicare beneficiaries’ vulnerability to identity theft. GAO was asked to review the options and associated costs for removing SSNs from the Medicare card. more »