In Afghanistan, a recent change of command ceremony saw Major General Charles M. Gurganus assume command of NATO’s Regional Command Southwest (RC-SW) from Major General John A. Toolan, Jr. RC-SW consists of the Afghan provinces of Helmand and Nimruz.

The U.S. Marine Corps has held the responsibility for RC-SW for some time. Helmand Province has been the scene of fierce fighting against the Taliban while Nimruz has been far calmer. MG Toolan spoke with reporters yesterday about the situation in his AOR at the end of his tour.
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Major General Tony Cucolo, Director of Force Development for the Deputy Chief of Staff, G-8 at Headquarters, Department of the Army, and several senior staff members briefed reporters recently on the future of the Army’s vehicle fleet. The over 270,000 vehicles used by the Army give it the lead in vehicle ownership in the Federal government, surpassing even the Postal Service. After over a decade of war, the lessons learned on the battlefield coupled with new budget constraints are changing the composition of the Army’s vehicle fleet. Some of the changes are:
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The Romney campaign is highlighting the record of the Obama administration on employment for women. The following graphs illustrate the record. Click on the graph for a larger view.

Graph showing female unemployment rate in the US 1992 to March 2012. Created by Charles Simmins from BLS data.	This graph shows the unemployment rate for women age 20 and older from January 1992 to March 2012.
Graph showing female unemployment rate in the US 1992 to March 2012. Created by Charles Simmins from BLS data.	This graph shows the unemployment rate for women age 20 and older from January 2000 to March 2012. Note the record low during the last Clinton term in 2007.
Graph showing female unemployment rate in the US 2006 to March 2012. Created by Charles Simmins from BLS data.	This graph shows the unemployment rate for women age 20 and older from January 2006 to March 2012. The graph illustrates the onset of the recession and female unemployment rates during the Obama administration.
Graph illustrating the number of unemployed women in the US from 2000 to March 2012. Graph prepared by Charles Simmins using BLS data.	Graph illustrating the number of unemployed women in the US from 2000 to March 2012. Note the record low number and compare it to the number of women unemployed in March 2012. Over three million more women are unemployed now.
Graph illustrating the number of women employed in the U.S. from 2000 through March 2012. Prepared by Charles Simmins from BLS data.	This graph illustrates the number of American women over age 20 employed from 2000 through March 2012. Note the record number employed in June 2008. The loss of employment from June 2008 to March 2012 is 759,000 women.

The increase in unemployed women coupled with a net loss of women in the work force is dramatic. Couple that with the fact that 34 percent of Americans living in poverty live in a household headed by a woman and you can see the damage that the current economy has done to women.

USA in the UK

The Summer Olympics will take place in London From July 27 to August 12, 2012. Hundreds of thousands of Americans will travel to England to see the show and they will be bringing lots of souvenirs home with them. Without precautions, those souvenirs may include mumps or measles.

The United Kingdom has been struggles with large numbers of cases of these two illnesses for a decade. Much of the British public lost faith in childhood vaccines in the late 1990′s when the now debunked Wakefield paper on a link between the MMR vaccine and autism was published. An 2009-20010 outbreak of mumps in the New York City region that grew to almost 2,000 patients was traced to one tourist who had traveled to England.
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U.S. Coast Guard

The U.S. Coast Guard took delivery of its first fast response cutter, the Bernard C. Webber, Friday in Miami. Webber is the first of 58 planned Sentinel Class patrol boats replacing the Coast Guard’s venerable but aging Island Class patrol boat fleet.

“Consistent with the Sentinel Class name, the cutter Webber will guard our coasts and its citizens and protect the nation’s vital maritime interests,” said Rear Adm. Karl Schultz, Coast Guard director of governmental and public affairs.
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