The Hampton Roads Conference was a peace conference held between the United States and the Confederate States on February 3, 1865, aboard the steamboat River Queen in Hampton Roads, Virginia, to discuss terms to end the American Civil War. President Abraham Lincoln and Secretary of State William H. Seward, representing the Union, met with three commissioners from the Confederacy: Vice President Alexander H. Stephens, Senator Robert M. T. Hunter, Assistant Secretary of War John A. Campbell; the representatives discussed a possible alliance against France, the possible terms of surrender, the question of whether slavery might persist after the war, the question of whether the South would be compensated for property lost through emancipation. Lincoln and Seward offered some possibilities for compromise on the issue of slavery; the only concrete agreement reached was over prisoner-of-war exchanges. The Confederate commissioners returned to Richmond at the conclusion of the conference. Confederate President Jefferson Davis announced.

Lincoln drafted an amnesty agreement based on terms discussed at the Conference, but met with opposition from his Cabinet. John Campbell continued to advocate for a peace agreement and met again with Lincoln after the fall of Richmond on April 2. In 1864, pressure mounted for both sides to seek a peace settlement to end the long and devastating Civil War. Several people had sought to broker a North–South peace treaty in 1864. Francis Preston Blair, a personal friend of both Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis, had unsuccessfully encouraged Lincoln to make a diplomatic visit to Richmond. Blair had advocated to Lincoln that the war could be brought to a close by having the two opposing sections of the nation stand down in their conflict, reunite on grounds of the Monroe Doctrine in attacking the French-installed Emperor Maximilian in Mexico. Lincoln asked Blair to wait. Davis was pressed for options as the Confederacy faced defeat. Peace movements in the South had been active since the beginning of the war, intensified in 1864.

Alexander H. Stephens, Vice President of the Confederate States, had by 1863 become an active advocate for ending the war. Stephens had begun negotiations with Lincoln in July 1863, but his efforts were thwarted after Confederate defeat in the Battle of Gettysburg. By 1864, Stephens was an outright dissident against the power of Davis's CSA government, was invited by General William T. Sherman to discuss independent peace negotiations between the State of Georgia and the federal Union. Stephens addressed the Confederate States Senate as its nominal presiding officer in Richmond on January 6, 1865, urging peace talks with the North; some Confederate legislators began to agitate for negotiations. John Campbell, another of the peace commissioners, had opposed secession. Campbell served earlier on the Supreme Court of the United States from 1853 to 1861, but began to consider resignation after Lincoln's first inaugural address in March 1861, he stayed on for the spring term of 1861 and supported the Corwin Amendment to protect slavery from federal intervention.

Hoping to prevent a war, Samuel Nelson enlisted Campbell to help broker negotiations over the status of Fort Sumter in Charleston harbor in South Carolina. On March 15, Campbell relayed to Martin Jenkins Crawford a supposed promise from Secretary of State Seward that the federal government would evacuate Fort Sumter within five days; as the Fort remained occupied on March 21, Confederate commissioners pushed Campbell to find out more. Lincoln had ordered the fort resupplied. By April 12th, diplomacy had evidently failed and the Bombardment of Fort Sumter began. Campbell went South. Fearing he would be persecuted as a Union sympathizer in his home state of Alabama, he moved instead to New Orleans. Campbell declined a number of positions in the CSA government, but accepted the post of Assistant Secretary of War in President Davis' cabinet in 1862. For the duration of the job, Campbell was criticized for trying to limit the scope of wartime conscription. By late 1864, he was pushing again for an end to the war.

In an 1865 letter to Judge Benjamin R. Curtis, he described the disastrous state of the Confederacy and marveled: "You would suppose there could be no difficulty in convincing men under such circumstances that peace was required, but when I look back upon the events of the winter, I find that I was incessantly employed in making these facts known and to no result." Lincoln would insist on full sovereignty of the Union. Slavery posed a more difficult problem; the Republican platform in 1864 had explicitly endorsed abolition. Within this precarious political situation, in July 1864 Lincoln issued a statement via Horace Greeley: To Whom It May Concern? Any proposition which embraces the restoration of peace, the integrity of the whole Union, the abandonment of Slavery, which comes by and with authority that can control the armies now at war against the United States, will be received and considered by the Executive Government of the United States, will be met by liberal terms on other substantial and collateral points.

Lincoln confided to James W. Singleton. In Singleton's words: "that he never has and never will present any other ultimatum—that he is misunderstood on the subject of slavery—that it shall not sta

Ludmila's Broken English is the second novel by Booker Prize winner DBC Pierre. It was published in March 2006; the novel follows two separate narratives set in the United Kingdom and Eastern Europe. Separated – at the age of 33 – conjoined twins Blair Albert and Gordon-Marie "Bunny" Heath struggle to cope with life in a post-globalisation and privatised London. Meanwhile, Ludmila Derev, an impoverished young woman living in the war-torn Southern Caucasus, leaves her mountain home to meet up with her boyfriend in the region's major town and send money back to her family. However, things start to go wrong and she ends up with her picture on a Russian Brides website, her life and those of the twins are drawn together. "Blair Albert and Gordon-Marie Heath were omphalopagus: conjoined anteriorly at the trunk. They shared certain organs, but not the heart." "While Blair possessed the twins' physical power – forza – their cunning resided in Gordon, making him dominant in most situations, despite being the weaker twin."

After being sent to Eastern Europe by Blair's American boss, Blair gives the twins sachets of "solipsidrine" whenever they need some confidence. Bunny however thinks the drug has a major problem: "Listen: the qualities removed by your so-called cocktail are there for a purpose, Blair. They're the little voices that stop us pillaging, it might suit your Yank mate to do away with them, but we're civilised people, from an ancient, civilised country." Bunny again talks of the drug: "Do you know what this drug does? Do you know its single active quality? The suspension of conscience, Blair. Do you hear?" The twins are named Blair Albert Heath and Gordon-Marie "Bunny" Heath – something many commentators have taken as a reference to Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. Their father is Ted Heath – a possible reference to Edward Heath. Blair is employed by a company called "Global Liberty Solutions" run by an American, Truman, to go to a foreign country and sort out a problem, he is given a drug, to get him through difficult situations.

His arrival in the country leads to the shooting of the majority of Blair's hosts, the rape of the family's daughter. Review of Ludmila's Broken English at The Sydney Morning Herald Short interview with DBC Pierre – discussing Ludmila's Broken English Faber and Faber

The Improving Trauma Care Act of 2014 is a bill that would amend the Public Health Service Act, with respect to trauma care and research programs, to include in the definition of "trauma" an injury resulting from extrinsic agents other than mechanical force, including those that are thermal, chemical, or radioactive. The bill was introduced into the United States House of Representatives during the 113th United States Congress. Similar legislation, S. 2406, was introduced in the United States Senate by Senator Jack Reed. An injury is the damage to a biological organism caused by physical harm. Major trauma is injury that can lead to serious outcomes. For research purposes the definition is based on an injury severity score of greater than 15; this summary is based on the summary provided by the Congressional Research Service, a public domain source. The Improving Trauma Care Act of 2014 would amend the Public Health Service Act, with respect to trauma care and research programs, to include in the definition of "trauma" an injury resulting from extrinsic agents other than mechanical force, including those that are thermal, chemical, or radioactive.

This summary is based on the summary provided by the Congressional Budget Office, as ordered reported by the House Committee on Energy and Commerce on April 3, 2014. This is a public domain source. H. R. 3548 would amend the Public Health Service Act to revise the definition of trauma as it applies to grants and activities authorized to provide support for trauma and emergency care. Under current law, the definition of trauma means an injury resulting from exposure to a mechanical force; the bill would expand the definition of trauma to include an injury resulting from exposure to an extrinsic agent, thermal, chemical, or radioactive. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that implementing the legislation would have no significant effect on the federal budget. Enacting H. R. 3548 would not affect direct spending or revenues. The bill would not impose intergovernmental or private-sector mandates as defined in the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act and would impose no costs on state, local, or tribal governments.

The Improving Trauma Care Act of 2014 was introduced into the United States House of Representatives on November 20, 2013 by Rep. Bill Johnson, it was referred to the United States House Committee on Energy and Commerce and the United States House Energy Subcommittee on Health. On May 20, 2014, the bill was reported alongside House Report 113-458; the House voted on June 2014 to pass the bill in a voice vote. The United States Senate voted on July 31, 2014 to pass with bill with unanimous consent and it was signed into law on August 8, 2014 by President Barack Obama; the American Burn Association, the American Association for the Surgery of Trauma, the American College of Emergency Physicians, America's Essential Hospitals, the American College of Surgeons, the American Trauma Society, the Trauma Center Association of America wrote a joint letter calling themselves "organizations representing the trauma care community" in support of H. R. 3548 and the change of the statutory definition of "trauma."

According to the organizations, the existing definition of "trauma" is too narrow and "excludes burn centers from participating in federal programs designed to support emergency medical care for those suffering from traumatic injuries or to compete for federal research support targeting trauma." List of bills in the 113th United States Congress Trauma center Library of Congress - Thomas H. R. 3548 beta.congress.gov H. R. 3548 GovTrack.us H. R. 3548 OpenCongress.org H. R. 3548 WashingtonWatch.com H. R. 3548 Congressional Budget Office's report on H. R. 3548 This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the United States Government