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Biden did that

Leveraging Public Streets CCTV and AI Technologies to Enhance Public Safety and Reduce Law Enforcement Costs | Crime in America

Tech firms face new international restrictions on data and privacy

March 11, 2024

The rapid growth of e-commerce in recent decades has been accompanied by an increase in digital trade barriers. Those include requirements for companies to store their data in the country where it is collected or to hand over their source code to a joint venture partner in order to do business in a particular market. Until now, the United States has been a leading voice on the international stage pushing back against such provisions, which it argued not only hurt big tech companies but small and medium-size companies that increasingly rely on the internet to do business.

Biden moves to bring microchip production home

March 11, 2024

The Covid pandemic sharpened bipartisan fears in Washington about U.S. reliance on microchips produced overseas — primarily in China or Taiwan. As factories shut down in Asia and supply chains snarled, U.S. automakers and other manufacturers were unable to get the chips they needed, idling their plants and spiking prices for cars and other goods. That led the Biden administration and lawmakers from both parties to consider policies to bring production of the most advanced microchips back to the U.S.

A penalty for college programs that trap students in debt

March 11, 2024

For decades, the federal government has gone back and forth on the best way to solve the problem of workers who struggle to earn a living after graduating from the country’s for-profit colleges or career training programs. The Obama administration first laid out specific metrics requiring schools who want access to a lucrative stream of government funds to prove that its graduates are prepared for “gainful employment” and don’t end up with lots of student debt relative to their income. But Obama’s team never fully implemented its rules after lengthy legal fights. The Trump administration eventually scrapped the effort. Then Biden won office, and revived Obama’s plan — with a twist.

Biden recommends loosening federal restrictions on marijuana

March 11, 2024

Since the Nixon administration, marijuana has been classified in federal law in the same category as LSD and heroin — drugs categorized as having a high propensity for addiction and no known medical value. In October 2022, as more and more states have moved to legalize cannabis, Biden issued an executive order directing the Department of Health and Human Services to conduct a review of all available cannabis science and recommend whether the classification of marijuana should be changed.

A new agency to investigate cyberattacks

March 11, 2024

Organizations that fall victim to hacks often keep tight-lipped about what happened due to fear of legal liability or brand damage. But cybersecurity experts have long warned that the country will never break free from an endless cycle of computer breaches unless companies and government agencies become more transparent about how they got infiltrated. The danger was underscored in 2020 when a sophisticated Russian hack breached nine federal agencies.

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Giving smaller food producers a boost

March 11, 2024

Soaring food prices and supply chain crunches for meat and other staples during the Covid-19 pandemic drew attention to the highly consolidated agriculture sector, in which key sectors like meatpacking are dominated by a handful of “Big Ag” behemoths. Biden entered office promising to crack down on food monopolies and support small and midsize U.S. farmers, whose numbers have cratered in recent decades.

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First over-the-counter birth control pill to hit U.S. stores in 2024

February 28, 2024

The push to make an oral contraceptive available without a prescription predates Biden’s presidency. But the issue took on fresh urgency when the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, particularly as conservatives openly questioned the legal precedent establishing the right to privacy for birth control access. Within weeks of the ruling, a contraceptive maker, which had spent more than six years studying consumers’ ability to use the product correctly without a doctor’s supervision, applied to the FDA for over-the-counter approval.

Infrastructure Law Transforms American Airports with $25 Billion Investment | #BidenDidThat

February 27, 2024

Explore the transformative impact of Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law’s investment into America’s airports, including groundbreaking funding for major terminals. Discover how the Biden-Harris Administration is reshaping America’s air travel landscape, with the Airport Terminal Program and 70 projects in construction. From safety enhancements to economic growth, witness the comprehensive efforts underway to modernize and revitalize airport infrastructure nationwide.

Expanded overtime guarantees for millions

February 26, 2024

President Barack Obama late in his second term oversaw a regulation that called for workers making up to $47,476 to be automatically entitled to time-and-a-half overtime pay. The move infuriated businesses and Republicans, who sought to block the rule in both Congress and the courts. Donald Trump’s election and a Texas judge’s ruling in 2016 led the Labor Department to revisit the matter and set a significantly lower threshold of $35,568.

Cracking down on cyberattacks

February 24, 2024

During Biden’s first six months in office, government agencies and critical companies were beset by cyberattacks. These incidents included the SolarWinds hack, which involved Russian government hackers infiltrating around a dozen agencies for at least a year. Ransomware attacks were also a major source of concern, with the administration forced to reckon with Colonial Pipeline, the source of almost half of the East Coast’s fuel supply, shutting down operations in May 2021. In the years since, cybersecurity concerns have only increased, including a Chinese-linked breach last year that impacted email accounts at the Commerce and State departments, skyrocketing new vulnerabilities opened up by the use of artificial intelligence technologies, and new geopolitical-linked targeting of critical systems.

The Biden administration helps broker a deal to save the Colorado River

February 23, 2024

Climate change and decades of overuse have shrunk the Colorado River and are forcing the seven states that use the river to negotiate how to divvy up cuts or risk it going dry. At stake is the water for 40 million people from Wyoming to the U.S.-Mexico border as well as powerhouse farming operations that irrigate some of the country’s most productive farmland.

rump got personally involved in negotiations for Boeing’s Air Force One replacement soon after he took office, bragging on Twitter that he had successfully reduced the price of the contract with Boeing by “over $1 billion.” Soon after, Boeing agreed to a $3.9 billion contract with the Air Force stipulating the company would be responsible for any cost overruns on the planes. But Trump’s involvement in the project didn’t stop there. In 2019, he told ABC News he wanted a new red, white and blue paint scheme, which bore a striking resemblance to his private 757. When Biden took office, he was faced with a decision on whether to keep Trump’s paint scheme, or go back to the traditional colors.

Biden scraps Trump’s paint scheme for Air Force One

February 22, 2024

Trump got personally involved in negotiations for Boeing’s Air Force One replacement soon after he took office, bragging on Twitter that he had successfully reduced the price of the contract with Boeing by “over $1 billion.” Soon after, Boeing agreed to a $3.9 billion contract with the Air Force stipulating the company would be responsible for any cost overruns on the planes. But Trump’s involvement in the project didn’t stop there. In 2019, he told ABC News he wanted a new red, white and blue paint scheme, which bore a striking resemblance to his private 757. When Biden took office, he was faced with a decision on whether to keep Trump’s paint scheme, or go back to the traditional colors.

biden did that nations farms get big bucks to go green

The nation’s farms get big bucks to go “climate-smart”

February 21, 2024

Agriculture produces about 10 percent of U.S. carbon emissions, and it’s been a priority of Biden’s climate plan to nudge the nation’s farmers and ranchers toward greener, less carbon-intensive ways of producing food.

Building armies of drones to counter China

February 20, 2024

Defense officials have for years talked about how drones will play a central role in future wars, but other than fiddling at the margins, little has been done to build a large, AI-enabled network of military uncrewed vehicles. The worry in Washington has been that Beijing is ahead of the United States in developing the military use of drones and its growing drone fleets could swarm and confuse the radars and air defenses of U.S. warships, and critical bases in Guam and Japan.

Preventing another Jan. 6

February 19, 2024

Trump and his supporters caused chaos throughout the certification of the 2020 election in Congress, pushing slates of “fake electors,” pressuring then-Vice President Mike Pence to toss out the votes from legitimate electors, and even after the counting of electoral votes was interrupted by insurrectionists, pro-Trump Republicans in both chambers voted to object to the results. When it was over, there was a sense that the holes in our election certification process needed to be plugged.

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Forcing Chinese companies to open their books

February 18, 2024

Since the Enron and WorldCom scandals, the U.S. has allowed companies to publicly list their stocks only if they agree to let federal watchdogs review their auditors’ work. Yet for years, Beijing authorities, citing national security concerns, refused to allow U.S. inspectors to examine the books of China- and Hong Kong-based companies. Biden’s regulators finally forced their hand with the help of Congress and even former President Donald Trump.

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A sweeping crackdown on “junk fees” and overdraft charges

February 17, 2024

Biden touted his campaign to eliminate so-called junk fees — the hidden charges that often come as a surprise to the consumer, taking aim at the fees levied by airlines, cable companies, concert ticket-sellers and hotels, among other businesses. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in 2022 launched an initiative to expand the crackdown to target financial fees, training its scrutiny in particular on credit card late charges and the insufficient-fund fees that banks impose.

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Preventing discriminatory mortgage lending

February 16, 2024

In 1977, Congress passed a law to combat a practice known as redlining, where for decades the government had discouraged lenders from extending mortgage loans to borrowers in Black neighborhoods. The law requires banks to lend to creditworthy lower-income people in the same neighborhoods where they have branches that take deposits. But the growth of the internet and mobile banking have made those rules increasingly obsolete. Banks, in effect, had a major presence in many neighborhoods where they had no branches.

Renewable power is the No. 2 source of electricity in the U.S. — and climbing

February 15, 2024

Biden entered the White House putting climate change and job creation from the expansion of a clean energy economy at the top of his agenda — an about-face from energy policy during the Trump administration. At the time, renewable energy sources were already on the rise and the industry was optimistic about its future, especially buoyed by promises from the new president to invest trillions of dollars into clean energy development and research, and the global trend toward cleaner forms of power.

Making airlines pay up when flights are delayed or canceled

February 14, 2024

Never mind luxury travel, now some airline passengers pay extra just for the basics. But getting your money back when a flight gets canceled or significantly delayed is one effort the Biden’s administration’s Transportation Department has tried to address as part of a new tough stance on the airline industry, especially after multiple instances of air travel gone awry.