New Federal Rules Aim to Speed Repatriations of Native Remains and Burial Items; ProPublica, December 8, 2023

Mary Hudetz, ProPublica; New Federal Rules Aim to Speed Repatriations of Native Remains and Burial Items

"The Biden administration has revised the rules that institutions and government agencies must follow to comply with the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act — a law long hampered by limited funding and the unwillingness of many museums to relinquish Indigenous remains and burial items.

Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, the first Native American to hold a U.S. cabinet position, said Wednesday that the regulations will “strengthen the authority and role of Indigenous communities in the repatriation process” by requiring institutions to defer more to tribes’ knowledge of their regions and histories in their decision-making about repatriations.

Thirty-three years ago, Congress passed NAGPRA to prevent grave looting and push museums to return human remains and items excavated from Native American gravesites to tribes. But the promise of repatriation that many tribal nations once saw in the law has not been fully realized, with federal data showing institutions continue to store about half of the 200,000 ancestral remains they reported holding following passage of the 1990 law.

This year, ProPublica’s Repatriation Project investigative series revealed that archaeologists and scientists at some of the nation’s top universities and museums have exploited loopholes in NAGPRA to delay or resist turning over holdings reported under the law."

Gallup poll finds most Americans give Biden administration a negative ethics score; The Hill, August 3, 2023

 ALEX GANGITANO, The Hill; Gallup poll finds most Americans give Biden administration a negative ethics score

"Americans rate the ethics of the Biden administration more negatively than positively, with only 42 percent of people giving it a positive rating, according to a Gallup poll released Thursday.

The 42 percent ethics score given to the “top Biden administration officials,” in the poll’s language, is just above the 37- and 38-percent scores given to former President Trump’s top officials during his administration. The poll is the first ethics assessment from Gallup since President Biden took office.

The poll found that 34 percent of Americans find the Biden officials’ ethics standards good, and 37 percent find them poor. Among Democrats, 84 percent rated the Biden administrations’ ethics as excellent or good, while only 6 percent of Republicans gave them that rating."

Top tech firms sign White House pledge to identify AI-generated images; The Washington Post, July 21, 2023

  Cat Zakrzewski, The Washington Post; Top tech firms sign White House pledge to identify AI-generated images

"The White House on Friday announced that seven of the most influential companies building artificial intelligence have agreed to a voluntary pledge to mitigate the risks of the emerging technology, escalating the Biden administration’s involvement in the growing debate over AI regulation.]

The companies — which include Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Meta and Chat GPT-maker OpenAI — vowed to allow independent security experts to test their systems before they are released to the public and committed to sharing data about the safety of their systems with the government and academics.

The firms also pledged to develop systems to alert the public when an image, video or text is created by artificial intelligence, a method known as “watermarking.”

In addition to the tech giants, several newer businesses at the forefront of AI development signed the pledge, including Anthropic and Inflection. (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post. Interim CEO Patty Stonesifer sits on Amazon’s board.)"

The Biden administration is without a confirmed ethics czar; Government Executive, July 18, 2023

Eric Katz, Government Executive; The Biden administration is without a confirmed ethics czar

"The lack of a confirmed director should not hinder the Office of Government Ethics' daily operations, but Biden would be smart to pick a new permanent leader soon to signal he is serious about ethics, former agency officials said. 

Emory Rounds, a President Trump appointee whose term carried over into Biden’s tenure, stepped down July 12 when his term expired. Shelley Finlayson, chief of staff and program counsel at the ethics agency, will fill in on an acting basis. 

The agency is responsible for overseeing the ethics plans at each executive branch department and collecting and approving disclosure documents from the federal officials who are required to submit them. It occasionally issues new ethics regulations to update policies and provides guidance and reminders to employees across government."

Biden Picks Lawyers Tasked With Undoing Trump Ethics Legacy; Bloomberg Law, January 11, 2021

 Courtney Rozen, Dean Scott, Bloomberg Law; Biden Picks Lawyers Tasked With Undoing Trump Ethics Legacy 

"President-elect Joe Biden named more than 20 lawyers to his White House counsel’s office, where they will help the new president revise ethics standards and put his imprint on the federal bench.

The attorneys draw on expertise in civil rights, health, and environmental law, all topics that Biden has also said will be focal points in his administration."