Film Shows Solar Working for America

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'Welcome Home' Program Inspires U.S. Soldiers for Last Time

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On Wednesday, more than a thousand greeters delivered a thunderous welcome, along with flowers and high-fives, to the 230 troops aboard the final arriving military charter that will use DFW airport, ending the unique Texas “Welcome Home A Hero” program

As military troop reductions continue overseas, the United States Army is ending its charter flights to DFW, consolidating the fewer flights instead to Atlanta-Hartsfield Jackson International Airport. Following the final arrival Wednesday, the U.S. Army and the Airport paid tribute to the volunteers who turned their affectionate welcome into a nationally recognized community service project that lasted eight years.


Sal Giunta, a retired U.S. Army Staff Sergeant who became the first Congressional Medal of Honor recipient in forty years, told the crowd about his personal experiences coming through DFW Airport on two different occasions.

“I felt like a true hero walking through those doors,” said Giunta. “I felt that way because of the amount of support. People don’t just give up their jobs in the middle of the day to shake anyone’s hand, cheer for them and bake cookies and take time out of their busy lives. Here at this airport, this group of people, they do that every single day.”

The “Welcome Home a Hero” program has been nationally recognized as a model for civic participation and grew into one of the largest public service projects in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. Volunteers greeted over 460,000 inbound soldiers transiting through DFW on their way home from active duty in Iraq and in Afghanistan. Hundreds of local organizations and more than 10,000 individual volunteers have greeted about 2,700 incoming flights during the life of the program. (See more of the photos from the group's Facebook page, here)

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Spring Housing Market Seeing Green Shoots

The spring buying season is just around the corner, and this year the housing market landscape might not be as daunting for buyers and sellers, according to a new report.

The number of homes for sale has been steadily creeping downward, helping list prices stabilize and giving both buyers and sellers a little more confidence. Overall, national inventories have dropped more than 20 percent since last year, according to a Realtor.com report, and houses are staying on the market for shorter periods. List prices are looking up, too, rising almost 7 percent since last February.
"The stage is set for a broad-based move towards recovery should these conditions continue in 2012," the report said. "The nation's housing markets as a whole are in better shape today than at any time since the 2009-2010 tax credits."

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Not Even Close: 3 Reasons Why the Health Care Lawsuit Is an Easy Case

In the words of Judge Laurence Silberman, a leading conservative who received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President George W. Bush, the lawsuits challenging the Affordable Care Act’s requirement that most Americans have to either carry health insurance or pay slightly more income taxes have no basis “in either the text of the Constitution or Supreme Court precedent.” Nevertheless, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit broke with three other appeals courts to hold the law unconstitutional last August.

The 11th Circuit decision was wrong, and the Supreme Court will reject it. Here are the three reasons why.

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