NOAA, June 15, 2016: “The Earth passed another unfortunate milestone May 23 when carbon dioxide surpassed 400 parts per million (ppm) at the South Pole for the first time in 4 million years. The South Pole has shown the same, relentless upward trend in carbon dioxide (CO2) as the rest of world, but its remote… Continue Reading
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Monthly Archives: June 2016
Federal Reserve issues FOMC statement, June 15, 2016
“Information received since the Federal Open Market Committee met in April [2016] indicates that the pace of improvement in the labor market has slowed while growth in economic activity appears to have picked up. Although the unemployment rate has declined, job gains have diminished. Growth in household spending has strengthened. Since the beginning of the… Continue Reading
2015 Annual Survey of Public Pensions
“The Annual Survey of Public Pensions provides a comprehensive look at the financial activity of the nation’s state and locally administered defined benefit pension systems, including cash and investment holdings, receipts, payments, pension obligations and membership information. Statistics are available at the national level and for individual states. Total contributions were $180.2 billion in 2015,… Continue Reading
GAO Report – FACE Recognition Technology: FBI Should Better Ensure Privacy and Accuracy
ACE Recognition Technology: FBI Should Better Ensure Privacy and Accuracy, GAO-16-267: Published: May 16, 2016. Publicly Released: Jun 15, 2016. “The Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) operates the Next Generation Identification-Interstate Photo System (NGI-IPS)— a face recognition service that allows law enforcement agencies to search a database of over 30 million… Continue Reading
GAO Report – Managing for Results, Agencies Need to Fully Identify and Report Major Management Challenges
Managing for Results: Agencies Need to Fully Identify and Report Major Management Challenges and Actions to Resolve them in their Agency Performance Plans, GAO-16-510: Published: Jun 15, 2016. Publicly Released: Jun 15, 2016. “The GPRA Modernization Act of 2010 (GPRAMA) requires agencies to describe their major management challenges and identify associated performance information in their… Continue Reading
LLSDC announces new sources and tools to research the Federal Register and CRF
Via Rick McKinney – “The Legislative Research Special Interest Section of the Law Librarians’ Society of Washington, D.C. is pleased to announce the availability of two new items on its Legislative Source Book entitled “Sources and Tools to the Federal Register and Sources and Tools to the Code of Federal Regulations. The new websites attempt… Continue Reading
DHS Daily Open Source Infrastructure Report
“The DHS Daily Open Source Infrastructure Report is collected each business day as a summary of open-source published information concerning significant critical infrastructure issues. Each Daily Report is divided by the critical infrastructure sectors and key assets defined in the National Infrastructure Protection Plan. The DHS Daily Open Source Infrastructure Report is archived on this… Continue Reading
Getty Research Portal Grows with a New Design and More Than 100,000 Digitized Volumes
Annie Rana – Getty Blog – “Marking the occasion of its four-year anniversary, the Getty Research Portal™ has been rebuilt and redesigned, making it easier to explore the digitized literature of art history. The Portal is a catalog providing free access to books and journals made available online by contributing institutions. A project of the… Continue Reading
Court decision upholds net neutrality rules
“For the third time in seven years, we confront an effort by the Federal Communications Commission to compel internet openness—commonly known as net neutrality—the principle that broadband providers must treat all internet traffic the same regardless of source. In our first decision, Comcast Corp. v. FCC, 600 F.3d 642 (D.C. Cir. 2010), we held that… Continue Reading
CRS Product – Mass Shootings and Terrorism
Follow up to Lone gunman shooting in Orlando Florida largest in escalating acts of gun violence in America – see this brief CRS report – Mass Shootings and Terrorism, Jennifer E. Lake, Section Research Manager. June 13, 2016. “Sunday, June 12, 2016, approximately 50 people were killed (including the alleged assailant), and 53 more were… Continue Reading
Freedom of Information Improvement Act passed by House and Senate
Secrecy News – “The House of Representatives yesterday approved the Freedom of Information Act Improvement Act, which had previously been adopted by the Senate. If signed by President Obama, as expected, it will strengthen several provisions of the FOIA and should enhance disclosure of government records. The bill “reaffirms the public’s right to know and… Continue Reading
Government Regulatory Prosecutions Fall to Record Low
“The latest case-by-case data from the Justice Department show that in April 2016 there were 76 new prosecutions for government regulatory matters. This is the lowest count in this program category for a single month since October 1998, the start of TRAC’s monthly time series. Government regulatory prosecutions have fallen 17 percent from the same… Continue Reading
