“The Internal Revenue Service submitted a report today to Congress evaluating a Direct File option for taxpayers and is taking steps to begin a pilot project for the 2024 filing season following a directive from the Treasury Department. The report to Congress, required by the Inflation Reduction Act, evaluated the feasibility of providing taxpayers with… Continue Reading
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Category Archives: Legislation
S.1564 – AI Leadership Training Act
S. 1564 – To require the Director of the Office of Personnel Management to establish, or otherwise ensure the provision of, a training program on artificial intelligence for Federal management officials and supervisors, and for other purposes. May 11, 2023. “U.S. Senators Gary Peters (D-MI), Chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, and… Continue Reading
Casey Tree Report – DC
“Last year Casey Trees reported that DC lost 550 acres of canopy—an area roughly the size of the National Mall—largely to development. While we recognize that a growing DC is a healthy DC, development that does not preserve existing trees and replace those that are lost makes neighborhoods hot, unhealthy, and unsustainable. In response, this… Continue Reading
Threat of TikTok ban has creators scrambling to build followings on Instagram, YouTube
CNBC: “With U.S. officials threatening a nationwide TikTok ban, creators and small business owners who rely on the app are growing concerned. “They’ve captured the lightning in the bottle that other platforms just haven’t been able to do yet,” said Chad Spangler, who uses his large TikTok following to promote his art. Creators have been turning… Continue Reading
The Luring Test: AI and the engineering of consumer trust
FTC – Michael Atleson, Attorney, FTC Division of Advertising Practices: “In the 2014 movie Ex Machina, a robot manipulates someone into freeing it from its confines, resulting in the person being confined instead. The robot was designed to manipulate that person’s emotions, and, oops, that’s what it did. While the scenario is pure speculative fiction, companies… Continue Reading
Has AI hacked the operating system of human civilization
The New York Times: ‘The Godfather of A.I.’ Leaves Google and Warns of Danger Ahead – For half a century, Geoffrey Hinton nurtured the technology at the heart of chatbots like ChatGPT. Now he worries it will cause serious harm. Gizmodo – AI Will Make Our Society Even More Unequal, Economists Warn – AI threatens… Continue Reading
Federal Reserve Board announces the results from the review of the supervision and regulation of Silicon Valley Bank
“The Federal Reserve Board on Friday, April 28, 2023 announced the results from the review of the supervision and regulation of Silicon Valley Bank, led by Vice Chair for Supervision Michael S. Barr. The review finds four key takeaways on the causes of the bank’s failure: Silicon Valley Bank’s board of directors and management failed… Continue Reading
The FDIC’s Report on the Failure of Signature Bank
FDIC Releases Report Detailing Supervision of the Former Signature Bank, New York, New York – April 28, 2023 “Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) Chief Risk Officer Marshall Gentry released FDIC’s Supervision of Signature Bank, an internal review evaluating the agency’s supervision of Signature Bank, New York, New York, from 2017 until its failure in March… Continue Reading
GAO Report on SVB, NY Fed Report on SVB
Bank Regulation – GAO-23-106736 – Preliminary Review of Agency Actions Related to March 2023 Bank Failures – Report to the Committee on Financial Services, House of Representatives, April 2023. Released April 28, 2023: “Risky business strategies along with weak liquidity and risk management contributed to the recent failures of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank.… Continue Reading
Mapping Attacks on LGBTQ Rights in U.S. State Legislatures
“In the last few years states have advanced a record number of bills that attack LGBTQ rights, especially transgender youth. The ACLU is tracking these attacks and working with our national network of affiliates to support LGBTQ people everywhere. While more states every year work to pass laws to protect LGBTQ people, state legislatures are… Continue Reading
Nearly a Year After Roe’s Demise, Americans’ Views of Abortion Access Increasingly Vary by Where They Live
Pew Report: Nearly a year after the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark Dobbs ruling overturned the Roe v. Wade decision that had guaranteed a national right to abortion, overall public support for legal abortion remains largely unchanged. However, a growing share of Americans living in states where abortion is prohibited say abortions are hard to obtain in their… Continue Reading
Change in Monthly Abortions Since Roe v. Wade Overturned
Data is Beautiful – this statistic is for legal abortions. See also Washingtonian – The Abortion Battle on Virginia’s Border. When Roe fell, an abortion clinic moved from Tennessee to Virginia. Providing care has been complicated, but the staff won’t back down…Bristol is a twin city, half in Tennessee and half in Virginia, bisected by… Continue Reading
