What's New
| VA Secretary Pressed by Senator on High Percentage of Wrongly Denied Benefit Claims |
March 16, 2010, Washington, DC (CQ Politics) - A leading Republican senator on Tuesday asked Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki to explain why so many veterans’ benefit claims are wrongly denied, resulting in a high rate of reversal on appeal. |
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| Profile of New Veterans' Courts in New York Times |
Defendants Fresh From War Find Service Counts in Court - VCS Supports Veterans' Courts March 15, 2010, Charleston, West Virginia (New York Times) — When Judge Robert C. Chambers handed down Timothy Oldani’s federal sentence for selling stolen military equipment on eBay, he gave the former Marine a break. |
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| Presdent Obama Donated $250,000 of Nobel Prize Money to Fisher House |
March 11, 2010, Washington, DC (New York Times) - President Obama made good on his promise to give his $1.4 million Nobel Prize money to charity, releasing the names on Thursday of the organizations that will benefit. |
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| Philanthropist Bobby Willis to Build New $3.3 Billion Hospital for VA in Farmington, NM for Rural and Native American Veterans |
Proposed state-of-the-art Kirtland veterans clinic could provide as many as 8,000 jobs March 14, 2010, Farmington, New Mexico (Farmington Daily Times) — A proposed veterans complex in Kirtland centered around a new hospital, backed by a wealthy entrepreneur and costing an estimated $3.3 billion promises to bring state-of-the-art medicine and other benefits to veterans, as well as 8,000 jobs to the local economy. |
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| Dr. Haley at UTSW Presents Compelling Brain Images Showing Gulf War Illness |
VCS Asks VA: Since UTSW Research Remains Vital to Understanding Gulf War Illness, Then Why Did a Handful of VA Staff in Washington Impede UTSW Contract and Then End Funding for UTSW? March 9, 2010, Salt Lake City, Utah (Science News) - Nearly two decades after vets began returning from the Middle East complaining of Gulf War Syndrome, the federal government has yet to formally accept that their vague jumble of symptoms constitutes a legitimate illness. Here, at the Society of Toxicology annual meeting, yesterday, researchers rolled out a host of brain images – various types of magnetic-resonance scans and brain-wave measurements – that they say graphically and unambiguously depict Gulf War Syndrome. |
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Troops Move to Secure Southern Afghanistan Before Vote
Written by CNN
Wednesday, 12 August 2009 09:03
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August 12, 2009 - Hundreds of U.S. Marines and Afghan soldiers have moved into southern Afghanistan to protect citizens during upcoming elections, military officials said. Afghans will go to the polls on August 20 to vote in second presidential election since the fall of the Taliban regime in 2001. Provincial elections also will be held that day.
About 400 Marines and 100 Afghan soldiers moved to the Now Zad district in Helmand province Wednesday morning, a U.S. military statement said. "Our mission is to support the Independent Election Commission and Afghan national security forces. They are the ones in charge of these elections. Our job is to make sure they have the security to do their job," said Brig. Gen. Larry Nicholson, commanding general of the Marine Expeditionary Brigade in Afghanistan. "While we encourage every Afghan to exercise his right to vote, who he or she votes for is none of our business." The area in which the operation was launched has been known to be a Taliban stronghold, and American, British and Afghan forces have been involved in fierce battles with Taliban militants there in recent weeks. In other developments in Afghanistan, a police chief was killed Tuesday night during a gunbattle with Taliban fighters, officials said. * Four NATO troops killed in Afghanistan Noor Mohammad, chief police commander of a district in Kunduz province, was killed along with one of his bodyguards, said a spokesman for the provincial governor. Three police officers also were wounded. The fighting lasted for hours until police forced insurgents to retreat, the spokesman said. In addition, two journalists working for The Associated Press were wounded in a roadside blast in southern Afghanistan, the news agency reported Wednesday. Photographer Emilio Morenatti and cameraman Andi Jatmiko were traveling with the U.S. military when a bomb hit their vehicle Tuesday, the AP said. Afghanistan is the 11th-most dangerous country in the world for journalists, according to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists. Eighteen journalists have been killed there since 1992, including 16 since the war began in 2001.
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