• The Trump Administration’s Continued War Against Science, Research, Public Health, and the Rule of Law – Part 4 – This the fourth in a series by Sabrina I. Pacifici documenting the Trump administration’s relentless attacks against science, medicine and public health, government sponsored data collection and reporting, climate science, and censorship of government documents and federally funded academic research and scholarship. Our country continues to face daily attacks on our civil liberties, access to accurate, actionable and science based medical and health information, broadening censorship of government information, and the dismantling of our non partisan federal workforce. These attacks have bypassed laws and regulations that exist to ensure equality, justice, the rule of law and the safeguarding of civil liberties. These dangerous cracks in the pillars of US democracy have shattered long agreed upon norms that have until January 20, 2025 defined how the institutions, procedures and norms of our three co-equal branches of government, the legislative, executive, and judicial branches sustain democracy. In the month of October alone, our government and the economy, public health and safety, our legal system, science and research, food and nutrition programs, public health and critical vaccine programs, have sustained irrevocable blows by the Trump administration.
• Keeping up with 2025 executive orders and related litigation – As of October 1, 2025, Donald Trump has signed a total of 210 executive orders during his current administration. Attorneys in many areas of practice need to know how to keep up with the latest EOs, as these orders may impact the funding, operations, staff or rights of the companies, individuals, and organizations they represent. Those who typically practice outside of federal administrative law may be less familiar with researching EOs, beyond what they learned in law school. Law Librarian, attorney and educator Michelle M. LaLonde’s guide pinpoints key primary and secondary sources to keep pace with this torrent of government documents.
• Case Closed: Why Every Lawyer Needs to Be Listening to Podcasts – Jerry Lawson explains why podcasts belong in every lawyer’s toolkit. Lawson states that podcasts have not only helped him professionally but also added some joy to his life. They offer a rare opportunity for busy lawyers the chance to learn and grow even while doing routine tasks. It’s learning that fits into your life, not the other way around. Lawson recommends number of legal centric as well as general interest podcasts.
• Courts Adapt to the Challenges of Generative AI – AI in Law & Legal Tech Expert Nicole L. Black frames how AI is changing how legal work gets done, and the effects aren’t limited to law offices. Other legal organizations are equally impacted, including the courts. As judicial offices around the country grapple with the how and why of secure AI adoption, new rules, policies, and processes are being implemented to address the ethical and practical issues presented.
• The remarkable rise of eBird – the world’s biggest citizen science project – eBird is the flagship program of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, located in Ithaca, New York state. Everyone uses eBird. Program Manager Darryl Jones describes why.
• FEMA buyouts vs. risky real estate: New maps reveal post-flood migration patterns across the US – Prof. James R. Elliott and Research Analyst Debolina Banerjee study flood resilience and have been mapping the results of government buyout programs across the U.S. that purchase damaged homes after disasters to turn them into open space. Their new national maps of who relocates and where they go after a flood shows that most Americans who move from buyout areas stay local. However, they also found that the majority of them give up their home to someone else, either selling it or leaving a rental home, rather than taking a government buyout offer. That transfers the risk to a new resident, leaving the community still facing future costly risks.
• Federal shutdown deals blow to already hobbled cybersecurity agency – Prof. Richard Forno, Associate Director, UMBC Cybersecurity Institute, elucidates why the current Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) situation is grim, as the agency was already experiencing deep cuts to its staff and resources before the ongoing shutdown. And now, coinciding with the shutdown, a key law that enabled the agency to facilitate information-sharing with the private sector has expired. United States experiences its latest government shutdown, most of the daily operations of the federal government have ground to a halt. This includes much of the day-to-day work done by federal information technology and cybersecurity employees, including those at the nation’s leading civilian cybersecurity agency, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.
• AI In Finance and Banking, October 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 provided are to the primary sources, and as available, indicate links to alternate free versions. Five highlights from this post: Sequoia invests in AI tool that could replace junior bankers; Artificial intelligence and central banks: monetary and financial stability implications; Making AI Count: The Next Measurement Frontier; Defining The Big Picture Framework When It Comes To The Economics Of Transformative AI; and A Review of AI Applications in Digital Banking Platforms: Enhancing Accessibility, Usability, and Engagement.
• AI In Finance and Banking, October 15, 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 provided are to the primary sources, and as available, indicate links to alternate free versions. Five highlights from this post: AI Risk Disclosures in the S&P 500: Reputation, Cybersecurity, and Regulation; TabbFORUM Report: The State of AI in the Capital Markets 2025; OCC grants preliminary approval to Erebor Bank, a Peter Thiel-backed startup focusing on crypto and AI; Exploring household adoption and usage of generative AI: new evidence from Italy; and Artificial Intelligence in Research and Development.
• Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, October 25, 2025 – Privacy and cybersecurity issues impact every aspect of our lives – home, work, travel, education, finance, health and medical records – to name but a few. On a weekly basis Pete Weiss highlights articles and information that focus on the increasingly complex and wide ranging ways technology is used to compromise and diminish our privacy and online security, often without our situational awareness. Five highlights from this week: Publishers Adopt Aggressive New Tactics to Block AI Scraping; What the Huge AWS Outage Reveals About the Internet; Social Security Administration (SSA) is warning the public about a new government imposter scam; Image Scrubber for obscuring faces, stripping out the identifying metadata attached to your photos; and Clickbait Gives AI Models ‘Brain Rot,’ Researchers Find.
• Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, October 18, 2025 – Privacy and cybersecurity issues impact every aspect of our lives – home, work, travel, education, finance, health and medical records – to name but a few. On a weekly basis Pete Weiss highlights articles and information that focus on the increasingly complex and wide ranging ways technology is used to compromise and diminish our privacy and online security, often without our situational awareness. Five highlights from this week: Frustrated Job Seekers Are Trying to Manipulate AI; ChatGPT Is Wrecking Real-Life Marriages – Couples use AI to argue, vent, and even divorce; Is the AI bubble about to pop? Ed Zitron weighs in; Layoffs, reassignments further deplete Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA); and Satellites Are Leaking the World’s Secrets: Calls, Texts, Military and Corporate Data.
• Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, October 11, 2025 – Privacy and cybersecurity issues impact every aspect of our lives – home, work, travel, education, finance, health and medical records – to name but a few. On a weekly basis Pete Weiss highlights articles and information that focus on the increasingly complex and wide ranging ways technology is used to compromise and diminish our privacy and online security, often without our situational awareness. Five highlights from this week: People are poorly equipped to detect AI-powered voice clones; Meta [Facebook, Instagram] is preparing another way to show you targeted ads and you can’t opt out; Gmail stopped loading hidden trackers when I changed this one setting; Opt Out October: Daily Tips to Protect Your Privacy and Security; and Employees regularly paste company secrets into ChatGPT.
• Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, October 3, 2025 – Privacy and cybersecurity issues impact every aspect of our lives – home, work, travel, education, finance, health and medical records – to name but a few. On a weekly basis Pete Weiss highlights articles and information that focus on the increasingly complex and wide ranging ways technology is used to compromise and diminish our privacy and online security, often without our situational awareness. Five highlights from this week: Meta Will Start Using Your AI Chats to Target Ads at You; Chatbots Are Trapping Us With Endless Engagement Prompts; How to deactivate AI on your Android phone; Apple, Google Remove ICE Tracking Apps; and Tile Tracking Tags Can Be Exploited by Tech-Savvy Stalkers, Researchers Say.

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