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Hundreds of federal employees who lost their jobs in Elon Musk’s cost-cutting blitz are being asked to return to work.The General Services Administration has given the employees who managed government workspaces until the end of the week to accept or decline reinstatement, according to an internal memo obtained by The Associated Press. Those who accept must report for duty on Oct. 6 after what amounts to a seven-month paid vacation, during which time the GSA in some cases racked up high costs passed along to taxpayers to stay in dozens of properties whose leases it had slated for termination or were allowed to expire.“Ultimately, the outcome was the agency was left broken and understaffed,” said Chad Becker, a former GSA real estate official. “They didn’t have the people they needed to carry out basic functions.”Becker, who represents owners with government leases at Arco Real Estate Solutions, said GSA has been in a “triage mode” for months. He said the sudden reversal of the downsizing reflects how Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency had gone too far, too fast. Rehiring of purged federal employees GSA was established in the 1940s to centralize the acquisition and management of thousands of federal workplaces. Its return to work request mirrors rehiring efforts at in several agencies targeted by DOGE. Last month, the IRS said it would allow some employees who took a resignation offer to remain on the job. The Labor Department has also brought back some employees who took buyouts, while the National Park Service earlier reinstated a number of purged employees.Critical to the work of such agencies is the GSA, which manages many of the buildings. Starting in March, thousands of GSA employees left the agency as part of programs that encouraged them to resign or take early retirement. Hundreds of others those subject to the recall notice were dismissed as part of an aggressive push to reduce the size of the federal workforce. Though those employees did not show up for work, some continue to get paid.GSA representatives didn’t respond to detailed questions about the return-to-work notice, which the agency issued Friday. They also declined to discuss the agency’s headcount, staffing decisions or the potential cost overruns generated by reversing its plans to terminate leases.“GSA’s leadership team has reviewed workforce actions and is making adjustments in the best interest of the customer agencies we serve and the American taxpayers,” an agency spokesman said in an email.Democrats have assailed the Trump administration’s indiscriminate approach to slashing costs and jobs. Rep. Greg Stanton of Arizona, the top Democrat on the subcommittee overseeing the GSA, told AP there is no evidence that reductions at the agency “delivered any savings.”“It’s created costly confusion while undermining the very services taxpayers depend on,” he said.DOGE identified the agency, which had about 12,000 employees at the start of the Trump administration, as a chief target of its campaign to reduce fraud, waste and abuse in the federal government.A small cohort of Musk’s trusted aides embedded in GSA’s headquarters, sometimes sleeping on cots on the agency’s sixth floor, and pursued plans to abruptly cancel nearly half of the 7,500 leases in the federal portfolio. DOGE also wanted GSA to sell hundreds of federally owned buildings with the goal of generating billions in savings.GSA started by sending more than 800 lease cancellation notices to landlords, in many cases without informing the government tenants. The agency also published a list of hundreds of government buildings that were targeted for sale. DOGE’s massive job cuts produced little savings Pushback to GSA’s dumping of its portfolio was swift, and both initiatives have been dialed back. More than 480 leases slated for termination by DOGE have since been spared. Those leases were for offices scattered around the country that are occupied by such agencies as the IRS, Social Security Administration and Food and Drug Administration.DOGE’s “Wall of Receipts,” which once boasted that the lease cancellations alone would save nearly $460 million, has since reduced that estimate to $140 million by the end of July, according to Becker, the former GSA real estate official.Meanwhile, GSA embarked on massive job cuts. The administration slashed GSA’s headquarters staff by 79%, its portfolio managers by 65% and facilities managers by 35%, according to a federal official briefed on the situation. The official, who was not authorized to speak to the media, provided the statistics on condition of anonymity.As a result of the internal turmoil, 131 leases expired without the government actually vacating the properties, the official said. The situation has exposed the agencies to steep fees because property owners have not been able to rent out those spaces to other tenants.The public may soon get a clearer picture of what transpired at the agency.The Government Accountability Office, an independent congressional watchdog, is examining the GSA’s management of its workforce, lease terminations and planned building disposals and expects to issue findings in the coming months, said David Marroni, a senior GAO official. Foley reported from Iowa City, Iowa. Joshua Goodman and Ryan J. Foley, Associated Press
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E-Commerce
Artificial intelligence is joining the list of big and complex global challenges that world leaders and diplomats will tackle at this week’s annual high-level United Nations meetup.Since the AI boom kicked off with ChatGPT’s debut about three years ago, the technology’s breathtaking capabilities have amazed the world. Tech companies have raced to develop better AI systems even as experts warn of its risks, including existential threats like engineered pandemics, large-scale misinformation or rogue AIs running out of control, and call for safeguards.The U.N.’s adoption of a new governance architecture is the latest and biggest effort to rein in AI. Previous multilateral efforts, including three AI summits organized by Britain, South Korea and France, have resulted only in non-binding pledges.Last month, the General Assembly adopted a resolution to set up two key bodies on AI a global forum and an independent scientific panel of experts in a milestone move to shepherd global governance efforts for the technology.On Wednesday, a U.N. Security Council meeting will convene an open debate on the issue. Among the questions to be addressed: How can the Council help ensure the responsible application of AI to comply with international law and support peace processes and conflict prevention?And on Thursday, as part of the body’s annual meeting, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres will hold a meeting to launch the forum, called the Global Dialogue on AI Governance.It’s a venue for governments and “stakeholders” to discuss international cooperation and share ideas and solutions. It’s scheduled to meet formally in Geneva next year and in New York in 2027.Meanwhile, recruitment is expected to get underway to find 40 experts for the scientific panel, including two co-chairs, one from a developed country and one from a developing nation. The panel has drawn comparisons with the U.N.’s climate change panel and its flagship annual COP meeting.The new bodies represent “a symbolic triumph.” They are “by far the world’s most globally inclusive approach to governing AI,” Isabella Wilkinson, a research fellow at the London-based think tank Chatham House, wrote in a blog post.“But in practice, the new mechanisms look like they will be mostly powerless,” she added. Among the possible issues is whether the U.N.’s lumbering administration is able to regulate a fast-moving technology like AI.Ahead of the meeting, a group of influential experts called for governments to agree on so-called red lines for AI to take effect by the end of next year, saying that the technology needs “minimum guardrails” designed to prevent the “most urgent and unacceptable risks.”The group, including senior employees at ChatGPT maker OpenAI, Google’s AI research lab DeepMind and chatbot maker Anthropic, wants governments to sign an internationally binding agreement on AI. They point out that the world has previously agreed on treaties banning nuclear testing and biological weapons and protecting the high seas.“The idea is very simple,” said one of the backers, Stuart Russell, a computer science professor and director of University of California, Berkeley’s Center for Human Compatible AI. “As we do with medicines and nuclear power stations, we can require developers to prove safety as a condition of market access.”Russell suggested that U.N. governance could resemble the workings of another U.N.-affiliated body, the International Civil Aviation Organization, which coordinates with safety regulators across different countries and makes sure they’re all working off the same page.And rather than laying out a set of rules that are set in stone, diplomats could draw up a “framework convention” that’s flexible enough to be updated to reflect AI’s latest advances, he said. Kelvin Chan, AP Business Writer
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E-Commerce
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) will start phasing out paper tax refund checks on Tuesday, September 30. This change stems from an executive order issued on March 25, directing the secretary of the Treasury to cease issuing paper checks for all Federal disbursements inclusive of intragovernmental payments, benefits payments, vendor payments, and tax refunds. The order made exemptions for cases such as people who dont have access to electronic payment systems. Why is this change being made? In an update on Tuesday, IRS laid out three core benefits of the change: protecting taxpayers, speeding up refunds, and cutting costs. To start, the government body claims that paper checks have a 16-times higher likelihood of being stolen, altered, lost, or delayed compared to an electronic option. As for speed, the IRS claims that people who file electronically and choose direct deposit should receive their refunds in under three weeks. In contrast, it can take over six weeks to receive a refund in the mail. As for the last point, the revenue service simply states that not using paper checks saves them money. What do I need to do? Chances are, this switch won’t affect you. The IRS reports having issued 93.5 million tax refunds to individuals during the 2025 season, but that only 7% of people received their refund in the mail. However, if you do get paper check refunds, you will eventually need to provide the IRS with banking details. In its update on Tuesday, the IRS urged taxpayers to “act now” and make sure they know their banking details. It further said that taxpayers without bank accounts should consider opening one. If you don’t have a bank account, you will still have the option to use prepaid debit cards or digital wallets to receive your refund. Still, critics claim that the executive order has been rushed and could harm taxpayers. The IRS and Treasury need to better understand why these 5 million taxpayers opt for paper checks before attempting to move them to alternative payment systems, Kathleen Bryant, a policy adviser at the Tax Law Center at NYU, wrote. Many of these taxpayers likely do not have bank accounts or face other barriers to sending or receiving payments electronically. September 30 will also bring an end to paper checks for Social Security beneficiaries, a move that has further caused many unhappy responses, along with calls for providing the elderly with greater help in setting up and managing electronic bank accounts. The exact details on how and when to update your information are coming. The IRS will publish detailed guidance for 2025 tax returns before the 2026 filing season begins. Until further notice, taxpayers should continue using existing forms and procedures, including those filing their 2024 returns on extension of a due date prior to December 31, 2025.
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