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President Joe Biden has convened a group of technology leaders in San Francisco to debate the risks and promises of artificial intelligence. The Biden administration is seeking to figure out how to regulate the emergent field of AI, looking for ways to nurture its potential for economic growth and national security and protect against its potential dangers. Biden says, “We’ll see more technological change in the next 10 years that we saw in the last 50 years,” adding that “AI is already driving that change.” His meeting Tuesday included eight technology experts from academia and advocacy groups.
June 20, 2023-
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Days after the bipartisan deal on the debt limit became law, House Republicans proposed a slew of tax cuts, leading to charges of hypocrisy by Democrats in a squabble that shows clashing visions for the U.S. economy. GOP lawmakers are pushing deep tax cuts for companies and the affluent as the primary driver for sustaining economic growth. President Joe Biden and fellow Democrats seek more targeted tax cuts to achieve social goals such as reducing child poverty and shifting to renewable energy. The differences will come to the forefront in 2025, when the debt limit drama returns and tax cuts passed in 2017 are due to expire.
June 19, 2023 The next round of COVID-19 vaccines will target one of the latest versions of the coronavirus. The Food and Drug Administration's decision was announced Friday, one day after a panel of outside advisers supported the recipe change. The FDA told vaccine makers to provide protection against the omicron strain, known as XBB.1.5. Today’s shots include the original coronavirus and an earlier version of omicron. The three U.S. companies that make the shots said they had geared up to make many millions of new doses available for the fall. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will eventually decide who should get the new shots.
June 16, 2023U.S. officials say the Department of Energy is among a small number of federal agencies compromised in a Russian cyber-extortion gang’s global hack of a file-transfer program popular with corporations and governments. They say the impact is not expected to be great. Jen Easterly, director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, told reporters that the hacking campaign was short, opportunistic and caught quickly. A senior CISA official said neither the U.S. military nor intelligence community was affected. Known victims to date include Louisiana’s Office of Motor Vehicles and Oregon's Department of Transportation.
June 16, 2023-
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Fending off a U.S. default, the Senate has given final approval to a debt ceiling and budget cuts package. It's now on its way to President Joe Biden’s desk to become law before a fast-approaching deadline.
June 02, 2023 -
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The House has approved the debt ceiling and budget cuts package, sending it to the Senate. President Joe Biden negotiated the deal with Speaker Kevin McCarthy to avert a U.S. default crisis. They worked to assemble a coalition of centrist Democrats and Republicans to push it to approval over blowback from conservatives and some progressives. The U.S. was facing a potentially disastrous default in less than a week if Congress failed to act. Despite deep disappointment from hard-right Republicans that budget cuts don't go far enough, it was approved on a bipartisan House vote with Democrats. The Senate is expected to act quickly by the end of the week.
May 31, 2023 -
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The debt ceiling deal has come with just days to spare before a potential first-ever government default. On Sunday, President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy reached a final agreement and they are urging Congress to quickly pass it. Biden pronounced the development “good news” in remarks at the White House announcing the agreement. This followed a tentative compromise announced late Saturday. The deal risks angering some Democratic and Republican lawmakers as they begin to unpack the concessions, which include spending cuts. McCarthy and Biden spoke Sunday evening as negotiators drafted legislative text. They face a June 5 deadline when Treasury says the U.S. would risk a debt default.
May 28, 2023 -
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An upbeat President Joe Biden says a deal to resolve the government’s debt ceiling crisis seems “very close." He spoke late Friday, shortly after Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen pushed the deadline for a potentially catastrophic default back to June 5. That announcement seemed likely to drag negotiations between the White House and Republicans into another frustrating week. House Republicans led by Speaker Kevin McCarthy spent the day negotiating by phone and computers with the White House. One Republican negotiator, Rep. Patrick McHenry of North Carolina, called Biden’s comments “a hopeful sign” but also cautioned that there’s still “sticky points” impeding a final agreement.
May 26, 2023 -
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The Biden administration will send 1,500 troops to the U.S.-Mexico border amid an expected migrant surge following the end of coronavirus pandemic-era restrictions. The White House says the troops will be sent to focus on administrative tasks so that U.S. Customs and Border Protection can work in the field. The troops will not do law enforcement work. President Joe Biden’s actions follow similar moves by then-President Donald Trump, who deployed active-duty troops to the border to assist border patrol, on top of National Guard forces that were already there, in processing large migrant caravans.
May 02, 2023 -
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The federal government will “not hesitate to crack down” on harmful business practices involving artificial intelligence, the head of the Federal Trade Commission warned Tuesday in a message partly directed at the developers of widely-used AI tools such as ChatGPT. FTC Chair Lina Khan joined top officials from U.S. civil rights and consumer protection agencies to put businesses on notice that regulators are working to track and stop illegal behavior in the use and development of biased or deceptive AI tools. Amid a fast-moving race between tech giants such as Google and Microsoft in selling advanced AI tools, Khan also raised the possibility of the FTC wielding its antitrust authority to protect competition.
April 25, 2023 -
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One of the most important munitions of the Ukraine war comes from a historic factory in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Steel rods are brought in by train to the Scranton Army Ammunition Plant to be forged into the artillery shells Kyiv can’t get enough of. The plant is at the vanguard of a multibillion-dollar Pentagon plan to modernize and accelerate its production of ammunition and equipment. It is one of just two sites in the U.S. that make the steel bodies for the 155 mm howitzer rounds that the U.S. is rushing to Ukraine. The lack of 155 mm shells has alarmed U.S. military planners, who see it as a critical shortage.
April 23, 2023 -
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President Joe Biden has signed an executive order that would create the White House Office of Environmental Justice. The president says ” The White House says the Democratic administration wants to ensure poverty, race and ethnic status don't lead to worse exposure to pollution and environmental harm. Biden wants to draw a contrast between his agenda and that of Republicans. GOP lawmakers have called for less regulation of oil production to lower energy prices. The Biden administration says the GOP's policies would surrender the renewable energy sector to the Chinese.
April 21, 2023 -
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President Joe Biden has signed an executive order containing more than 50 directives to increase access to child care and improve the work life of caregivers. But the White House said Tuesday the directives in the order would be funded out of existing commitments. That likely means the directives' impact would be limited and they'd carry more of a symbolic weight. The Democratic president was more ambitious in 2021 by calling to provide $425 billion to expand child care, improve its affordability and boost wages for caregivers. White House Domestic Policy Council director Susan Rice says the order shows Biden isn’t waiting on Congress to act.
April 18, 2023 -
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The Supreme Court is allowing challenges to the structure of two federal agencies to go forward in federal court. The high court ruled unanimously Friday to allow challenges to the structures of the Federal Trade Commission and the Securities and Exchange Commission to go forward in federal court. In one case, the FTC had brought an enforcement action against Axon Enterprise, the Arizona-based company best known for developing the Taser, arguing that its purchase of its competitor Vievu for approximately $13 million was improper. The other case involved an SEC enforcement action against Michelle Cochran, a certified public accountant. Axon and Cochran responded by suing in federal court and arguing that the structure of the FTC and SEC respectively are unconstitutional.
April 14, 2023
