The U.S. Secretary of Defense declared that the Global Positioning System, accurate within 100 meters, had 24 GPS satellites operating in their assigned orbits, available for navigation use at Standard Positioning Service (SPS) levels for civil users. This Initial Operational Capability was followed on 27 Apr 1995 with a formal declaration by the U.S. Air Force Space Command that the GPS satellite constellation had met the requirement for Full Operational Capability after successful testing for military functionality. This worldwide, satellite-based radionavigation system used as the DoD's primary radionavigation system provided authorized users encrypted Precise Positioning Service accurate to at least 22 meters.

The Obama administration has announced that it would pay Native Americans $3.4 billion to settle a class-action lawsuit that claims the federal government cheated them for more than a century of royalties for oil, mineral and other leases. This settlement will be ending a thirteen-year legal battle that has led to 3,600 filings, millions of pages of discovery documents and eleven separate appellate decisions. It is the largest settlement Native Americans have ever received from the federal government, and eclipses the sum of all previous settlements. The dispute stems from a 19th century decision to grant parcels of land to individual Indians and place the properties in trust accounts.