A U.S. state is a federated state of the United States of America that shares sovereignty with the United States federal government. Since the admission of Hawaii as a state in August 1959, there are fifty U.S. states. Because of the shared sovereignty between a U.S. state and the U.S. federal government, an American is a citizen of both the federal entity and of his or her state of domicile. Kentucky, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Virginia use the official title of Commonwealth rather than State. State citizenship is flexible and no government approval is required to move between states, with the exception of paroled convicts.

The United States Constitution allocates certain powers to the federal government. It also places some limitations on the state governments. State governments are allocated power by the people (of each respective state) through their individual constitutions. By ratifying the United States Constitution, the people transferred certain limited sovereign powers to the federal government from their states. Under the Tenth Amendment, all powers not delegated to the federal government nor prohibited to the states are retained by the states or the people. Historically, the tasks of public safety (in the sense of controlling crime), public education, public health, transportation, and infrastructure have generally been considered primarily state responsibilities, although all of these now have significant federal funding and regulation as well (based largely upon the Commerce Clause, the Taxing and Spending Clause, and the Necessary and Proper Clause of the Constitution).

The United States of America (commonly abbreviated to the United States, the U.S., the USA, America, and the States) is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its forty-eight contiguous states and Washington, D.C., the capital district, lie between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, bordered by Canada to the north and Mexico to the south. The state of Alaska is in the northwest of the continent, with Canada to the east and Russia to the west, across the Bering Strait. The state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific. The country also possesses several territories in the Pacific and Caribbean.

At 3.79 million square miles (9.83 million km²) and with over 312 million people, the United States is the third or fourth largest country by total area, and the third largest by both land area and population. It is one of the world's most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, the product of large-scale immigration from many countries. The U.S. economy is the world's largest national economy, with an estimated 2011 GDP of $15.1 trillion (22% of nominal global GDP and over 19% of global GDP at purchasing-power parity). Per capita income is the world's sixth-highest.

Victoria Nuland (born 1961) is the spokesperson for the United States Department of State.

In summer 2011, Nuland became the State Department Spokesperson. She was declared a "consummate professional who proved that Foreign Service officers could be trusted to put professionalism over politics."

She was Ambassador of the United States to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization from 2005 to 2008. As NATO Ambassador, she focused heavily on strengthening Allied support for the Afghanistan war, on NATO-Russia issues, and on the Alliance’s global partnerships and continued enlargement.

A career Foreign Service officer, she was Principal Deputy National Security Advisor to Vice President Cheney from July 2003 until May 2005, where she worked on the full range of global issues, including those relating to Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon and the broader Middle East.

Nuland was the Deputy Permanent Representative to NATO from July 2000 to July 2003. There she was instrumental in NATO's invocation of Article 5 of its charter – "an attack on one ally is an attack on all" – in support of the United States after September 11, 2001. She also worked intensively on the enlargement of the Alliance to include seven new members, the creation of the NATO-Russia Council, NATO's first deployment "out of area" to Afghanistan and its defense of Turkey during the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Jordan Roseman (aka DJ Earworm) is a San Francisco-based mashup artist who has achieved recognition for his technically sophisticated, songwriting oriented music and video mashups. His annual “United State of Pop” mashups, short mixes featuring the top 25 songs of the year according to Billboard magazine, have reached the Top 100 for national radio play.

Roseman was born into a big family of musicians and raised in eastern Iowa and Evanston, Illinois. In his early life, he played piano and produced original electronic music on a computer, later majoring in music theory and computer science at the University of Illinois. He began using ACID recreationally in 2003. After encouragement from DJ Adrian at Club Bootie, Roseman created the moniker DJ Earworm ("earworm" referencing a song that repeats uncontrollably in one's mind) and began releasing mashups via a website.

DJ Earworm has a unique mashup style that consists of a compositional, songwriting approach. He gradually layers samples on top of one another, matching keys and subtly altering melodies. His mashups often convey an entirely new meaning than the original material, such as a political message in “No More Gas”. He has been contrasted with mashup artist Girl Talk, who has a more DJ-oriented style.