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Gibson Dunn – Client Alert | February 4, 2025 – “Ever since President Trump announced that he would create a Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), clients have raised questions regarding how it would be established, what powers it would have, and how its work could affect their operations. Gibson Dunn previously addressed some of those …
Liberal Currents – Elizabeth Popp Berman: “On Friday night [January 31, 2025], Elon Musk’s team gained access to the Department of Treasury’s payments system, which processes the federal spending that makes up more than a fifth of the U.S. economy. Social Security, Medicare, agricultural supports, the National Parks—a large majority of government spending flows through …
LawSites: I Use It to Analyze the Legality of President Trump’s Pause of Federal Grants – “Over the weekend, OpenAI released Deep Research, an AI agent capable of completing multi-step research tasks and synthesizing large amounts of online information. OpenAI’s chief product officer Kevin Weil said it can complete complex research tasks in minutes that …
Ars Technica: “Two years ago, a Canadian writer named Cory Doctorow coined the phrase “enshittification” to describe the decay of online platforms. The word immediately set the Internet ablaze, as it captured the growing malaise regarding how almost everything about the web seemed to be getting worse. “It’s my theory explaining how the Internet was …
Salon: “Bookshop.org founder and CEO Andy Hunter joked that the e-books question has been the bane of his business’ social media manager’s existence for a while now. “Every day she has people ask her, ‘When are e-books coming? When are e-books coming?’” Now Bookshop has an answer. On Tuesday, it launched a new digital platform …
Washington Post [unpaywalled]: “The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau halted much of its work to investigate and penalize corporate wrongdoing Monday, after Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent — tapped to lead the watchdog on an acting basis — ordered an agency-wide review to “promote consistency” with the new Trump administration. Shortly after assuming the post, Bessent and …
The Verge: “Treasure Secretary Scott Bessent has been named the Acting Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), the bureau announced today. Bessent quickly instructed the agency to “to stop all rulemaking, communications, litigation, and other activities,” reports Bloomberg Law. A source inside the CFPB told Bloomberg Law that his order “appeared to shut …
Reuters Graphics: “Fires are growing faster in the western United States. The fastest of them – termed “fast fires” – often erupt near towns and account for most structural wildfire damage according to researchers who analyzed over 60,000 fires from 2001 to 2020. Fast fires grow about 4,000 acres or more on their fastest day, …
Visual Capitalist: “The Trump administration is imposing a 25% tariff on imports from Mexico [this is on hold for one month – maybe] and Canada, along with a 10% tariff on imports from China. The U.S. President says he wants strong action to halt the flow of the opioid fentanyl and its precursor chemicals into …
FT.com: “Musk appeared to confirm on Saturday that DOGE had access to the Treasury system, which disperses trillions of dollars each year Elon Musk has vowed to unilaterally cancel hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of government grants after apparently gaining access to review the US Treasury’s vast payments system, a move that prompted the …
Via LLRX – AI in Finance and Banking, January 31, 2025 – This semi-monthly column by Sabrina I. Pacifici highlights news, government documents, NGO/IGO papers, conferences, industry white papers and reports, academic papers and speeches, and central bank actions on the subject of AI’s fast paced impact on the banking and finance sectors. The chronological links …
Federal Disbursement Services (FDS): The Federal Disbursement Services provides payment services for more than 250+ federal agencies. Your federal income tax refunds; Social Security benefits; Supplemental Security income; Railroad Retirement Board benefits; veteran’s pay, pension, and education benefits all come from the Federal Disbursement Services. Payments to federal workers, vendors, and grantees also come from …
