Business News
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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 -
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 -
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 -
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 -
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 Federal officials say they have asked the FBI to consider criminal charges against more than 250 unruly airline passengers since late 2021. The Federal Aviation Administration said Thursday that 17 of those cases have been referred to the FBI in the first three months of this year. That's a slower pace, and it seems tied to a decline in passengers acting up on planes since a judge struck down the requirement for passengers to wear masks. The FAA can levy civil fines for misbehaving on planes, but it has to ask the FBI to file criminal charges in the most serious cases.
April 13, 2023-
Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy says he’s growing increasingly concerned about President Joe Biden’s unwillingness to negotiate on lifting the nation’s borrowing authority. He says in a letter to the president dated Tuesday that the White House position “could prevent America from meeting its obligations and hold dire ramifications for the entire nation.” The White House says McCarthy and the Republicans are to blame, refusing to put forward their own budget plan before formal negotiations. The Treasury Department has resorted to “extraordinary measures” to avoid default on the nation’s $31.4 trillion borrowing authority. But those measures will run out, possibly as early as June.
March 28, 2023 -
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has notified Congress that the U.S. is projected to reach its debt limit on Thursday and will then resort to “extraordinary measures” to avoid default.
January 13, 2023 -
Thousands of flights across the U.S. were canceled or delayed after a system that offers safety information to pilots failed. The government launched an investigation into the breakdown, which grounded some planes for hours. The Federal Aviation Administration said preliminary indications traced the outage to a damaged database file.
January 11, 2023 -
Explaining the history of locality pay and how it affects federal employees on the General Schedule.
January 05, 2023 -
The new leader of Navy shipbuilder Bath Iron Works said he's been rejuvenated by a shift from his former aerospace job to building ships.
December 27, 2022 -
House investigators say a federal contractor that provided identity verification services for the Internal Revenue Service overstated its capacity to perform its services. The investigators say ID.me also made false claims about the amount of money lost to pandemic fraud in an apparent effort to increase demand for its services. The investigation of firm ID.me began in April after critics said the facial recognition software could become a target of cyberthreats and presented privacy concerns. A company representative says “calling ID.me’s estimate too high or baseless is premature, and we welcome additional oversight on this important matter."
November 17, 2022 -
The U.S. Interior Department's plan to withdraw hundreds of square miles in New Mexico from oil and gas production for the next 20 years is expected to result in only a few dozen wells not being drilled on federal land surrounding Chaco Culture National Historical Park. Land managers on Thursday released an environmental assessment of the plan first outlined by Interior Secretary Deb Haaland in 2021 in response to the concerns of Native American tribes in New Mexico and Arizona. Environmentalists say the agency needs to take a broader look at the cumulative effects of development if they want to preserve cultural sites and limit pollution from ongoing development beyond the proposed withdrawal zone.
November 11, 2022 -
The U.S. is celebrating Veterans Day at a time when the nation is experiencing some of its lowest monthly veteran unemployment rates on record. The Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that the seasonally adjusted veteran jobless rate was 2.7% in October. Experts say the low numbers are due in part to the tight labor market. But they also credit significant efforts in recent years by the federal government and veteran service organizations to provide assistance to former service members. Leaving the military can be one of the most difficult transitions a person can make. The transformation sometimes takes years of working unfulfilling jobs, while finding a new purpose beyond serving one’s country.
November 11, 2022 -
Postmaster General Louis DeJoy says the postal service gave a solid performance in delivering mail-in ballots for the midterm elections and is ready to dive into the crush of holiday deliveries. DeJoy told the Board of Governors on Thursday that 11.3 billion pieces of mail and 567 million packages were delivered last month. He says the Postal Service has stabilized its workforce and is ready for the next challenge of delivering holiday cards and parcels. The Postal Service announced an adjusted annual operating loss of $473 million for the fiscal year when a one-time adjustment under the Postal Service Reform Act was excluded from the results.
November 10, 2022