“We are pleased to announce the new Congressional Research Service (CRS) products collection that is searchable within Congress.gov. CRS products include coveted CRS reports, testimony by CRS analysts, infographics, and more. Find descriptions for each CRS product type on our About Congressional Research Service (CRS) Products page. Public access to CRS products, which are produced… Continue Reading
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Author Archives: Sabrina I. Pacifici
DOGE Has Deployed Its GSAi Custom Chatbot for 1,500 Federal Workers
Wired – no paywall – “Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency has deployed a proprietary chatbot called GSAi to 1,500 federal workers at the General Services Administration, WIRED has confirmed. The move to automate tasks previously done by humans comes as DOGE continues its purge of the federal workforce. GSAi is meant to support… Continue Reading
Photos are disappearing, one archive at a time
Washington Post – no paywall: “Kira Pollack, a former editor at Time and Vanity Fair, is a distinguished fellow at the Starling Lab for Data Integrity, a research lab co-anchored by Stanford University’s School of Engineering and USC Libraries. When Hurricane Milton threatened Tampa last October, photojournalist Christopher Morris faced a familiar challenge: protecting his… Continue Reading
Military marks vast imagery database for DEI purge
“The Associated Press obtained a database of tens of thousands of Department of Defense website images that have been flagged for removal [scroll down to middle of this article is find and search the database], or already removed due to having content that highlighted diversity, equity or inclusion. Images highlighting female service members’ contributions have… Continue Reading
National Cancer Institute Employees Can’t Publish Information on These Topics Without Special Approval
ProPublica: “Employees at the National Cancer Institute, which is part of the National Institutes of Health, received internal guidance last week to flag manuscripts, presentations or other communications for scrutiny if they addressed “controversial, high profile, or sensitive” topics. Among the 23 hot-button issues, according to internal records reviewed by ProPublica: vaccines, fluoride, peanut allergies,… Continue Reading
The Benefits of a Burner Number
WSJ via MSN: “Our digits have become one of the most valuable pieces of data. Just take a look at your texts: How many authentication codes, receipts, reminders or other business messages have you received lately? There are legitimate reasons to hand over your number. And then there are…more questionable applications. (Looking at you, “free”… Continue Reading
The majority of Americans support Medicaid
Your Local Epidemiologist: “A new KFF poll last week found that 80% of Americans oppose cuts to Medicaid. About one-third of Republican voters supported cuts, and over half of all respondents—especially in rural areas—said they or someone they know has used Medicaid. Medicaid programs go by different names in each state, making it tricky to… Continue Reading
These Words Are Disappearing in the New Trump Administration
The New York Times – unlocked: “As President Trump seeks to purge the federal government of “woke” initiatives, agencies have flagged hundreds of words to limit or avoid, according to a compilation of government documents…All presidential administrations change the language used in official communications to reflect their own policies. It is within their prerogative, as… Continue Reading
Signal President Meredith Whittaker calls out agentic AI as having ‘profound’ security and privacy issues
TechCrunch: “Signal President Meredith Whittaker warned Friday that agentic AI could come with a risk to user privacy. Speaking onstage at the SXSW conference in Austin, Texas, the advocate for secure communications referred to the use of AI agents as “putting your brain in a jar,” and cautioned that this new paradigm of computing — where… Continue Reading
DOGE Fires National Weather Service Staff Endangering Forecasting
Via David Ho: Radiosondes on weather balloons are essential for collecting data from the upper atmosphere for accurate forecasting. Due to the mass firing at NOAA, the NWS doesn’t have enough people to launch balloons. Accurate weather forecasts save lives. Continue Reading
European word translator
Translate any word into over 30 languages. Enter one or two lower-case English words to see translations from Google Translate. A few things to keep in mind: Translations are generated by Google Translate. Some may be inaccurate or use non-European (e.g. Brazilian Portuguese) words. Just one translation is provided for each word; watch out for… Continue Reading
Judicial Secrecy
Rowe, Elizabeth A., Judicial Secrecy (December 01, 2024). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=5154667 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.5154667 – “This Article examines the growing phenomenon of over-sealing court records and its implications for judicial transparency. While intended to protect compelling interests such as trade secrets and other confidential information, this practice has expanded to include sealing of basic legal arguments,… Continue Reading
