Center for Strategic Communication

Here's a quick glimpse at what happened this week on WhiteHouse.gov:

NASA Success: On Monday, President Obama congratulated NASA’s Curiosity Team on the success of their rover touching down on the surface of Mars, praising them on their ingenuity and urging them to continue the good work. "Through your dedicated efforts, ‘Curiosity’ stuck her landing and captured the attention and imagination of millions of people not just across our country, but people all around the world, including Times Square," he said. "And being able to get that whole landing sequence to work the way you did is a testimony to your team."

Read the full remarks here

Drought Relief: President Obama also toured McIntosh Family Farms in Missouri Valley, Iowa to see drought damage first-hand and offer relief to those being effected. The President announced that the Department of Agriculture will begin to buy up to $170 million worth of pork, chicken, lamb, and catfish. And the President is directing the Department of Defense — which purchased more than 150,000 million pounds of beef and pork in the last year alone — to encourage its vendors to accelerate meat purchases for the military and freeze it for future use.  

"Understand this won't solve the problem. We can't make it rain," the President said. "But this will help families like the McIntoshes in states across the country, including here in Iowa. And we're going to keep doing what we can to help because that's what we do. We are Americans. We take care of each other."

To learn more, the Department of Agriculture is collecting resources for farmers, ranchers, and small businesses wrestling with this crisis at USDA.gov/drought. More information still is available at WhiteHouse.gov/drought.

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