Washington, DC - Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack today announced that 10 states have been selected to take part in SNAP to Skills, a first-of-its-kind, peer-to-peer effort to help state agencies design improved employment and training programs for adults participating in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) in order to help them find employment and ultimately move off the SNAP program.

Washington, DC - The spot price of wholesale gasoline in Los Angeles fell as low as 66 cents per gallon (¢/gal) on February 18, the lowest spot gasoline price in the nation and something that has only occurred on 24 days in the past 10 years. From February 12 to February 23, the Los Angeles spot price for California reformulated oxygenate blendstock (CARBOB, the petroleum component of gasoline in California) remained the lowest in the nation. On February 23, the specification for CARBOB switched to summer-grade gasoline, which resulted in a one-day price increase of 57%, from 68¢/gal on February 23 to $1.20/gal on February 24.

Davis, California - Hype followed by disappointment: That’s been the general pattern over the past few decades when an alternative fuel is presented to the public. It’s a fuel du jour phenomenon, from methanol to hydrogen, where government leaders and the media hype a new fuel, only to abandon it when lofty expectations are not met.

Washington, DC - A Utah man and three companies he controls have agreed to settle Federal Trade Commission charges that they assisted a deceptive work-at-home scheme that the FTC charged, in February 2014, with conning millions of dollars from consumers.

Stamford, California - A new study that assesses the accuracy of modern human-genome-sequencing technologies found that some medically significant portions of an individual’s DNA blueprint are situated in complex, hard-to-analyze regions that are currently prone to systematic errors.

Washington, DC - The return of supersonic passenger air travel is one step closer to reality with NASA's award of a contract for the preliminary design of a “low boom” flight demonstration aircraft. This is the first in a series of ‘X-planes’ in NASA's New Aviation Horizons initiative, introduced in the agency’s Fiscal Year 2017 budget.