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Vice President Kamala Harris plans to announce today a slew of additional measures to curb the risks of artificial intelligence as she prepares to take part in a global summit in Britain where world and tech leaders will discuss the future of the technology, the New York Times reported. On her visit, which will kick off Wednesday with a policy address at the U.S. Embassy in London, Ms. Harris plans to outline guardrails that the American government will seek to put in place to manage the risks of AI as it asserts itself as a global leader in the arena. Taken together, the steps Ms. Harris plans to announce seek to both flesh out a sweeping executive order President Biden signed this week and make its ideals part of broader global standards for a technology that holds great promise and peril. They include a new draft policy from the Office of Management and Budget that would guide how federal agencies use artificial intelligence, which would be overseen by new chief AI officers. She is also set to announce that 30 other nations have joined a “political declaration” created by the United States that seeks to establish a “set of norms for responsible development, deployment and use of militaryAI capabilities,” as well as $200 million in philanthropic funding to help support the administration’s goals.

A federal judicial council on Monday approved a plan to hire a replacement for U.S. Bankruptcy Judge David Jones, who announced he will resign after admitting he was in a previously undisclosed romantic relationship with a lawyer whose firm regularly appeared before him, Retuers reported. The 5th U.S. Circuit Judicial Council during a meeting in Dallas signed off on a plan to seek a new judge in Houston to replace Jones, who before announcing his resignation, handled more major chapter 11 corporate bankruptcies than any judge nationally. The next step is for Chief 5th Circuit Judge Priscilla Richman to post the position and appoint a five-member selection panel to review applications, said U.S. District Judge Randy Crane, the chief district court judge for the Southern District of Texas, where Jones is based. Judge Crane, a member of the 19-member council, said the process will likely take about six months, meaning the court will be short handed for a few months after Jones' resignation takes effect on Nov. 15. In an Oct. 16 letter asking the 5th Circuit to approve hiring a replacement for Jones, Eduardo Rodriguez, the chief bankruptcy judge in the Southern District of Texas, said bankruptcy filings were at a record high in his court, with each of its five judges handling around 3,500 cases. "The Court could not continue to adequately serve the public with only four judges," Judge Rodriguez wrote.

U.S. President Joe Biden will take wider-ranging action on artificial intelligence (AI) on Monday by seeking to increase safety while protecting consumers, workers, and minority groups from the technology's related risks, Reuters reported. An executive order requires that developers of AI systems that pose risks to U.S. national security, the economy, public health or safety share the results of safety tests with the U.S. government, in line with the Defense Production Act, before they are released to the public. It also directs agencies to set standards for that testing and address related chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, and cybersecurity risks, according to the White House. The order is the latest step by the administration to set parameters around AI as it makes rapid gains in capability and popularity in an environment of, so far, limited regulation. It prompted a mixed response from the private sector. IBM said in a statement that the order “sends a critical message: that AI used by the United States government will be responsible AI." NetChoice, a national trade association that includes major tech platforms, described the executive order as an "AI Red Tape Wishlist," that will end up "stifling new companies and competitors from entering the marketplace and significantly expanding the power of the federal government over American innovation."

Texas law firm Jackson Walker said in court filings that it was an unbiased advocate for the businesses it was guiding through bankruptcy in recent years. It never mentioned that one of its bankruptcy lawyers at the time was in a romantic relationship with the judge overseeing at least two dozen of those chapter 11 cases, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Jackson Walker didn’t disclose that one of its law partners, Elizabeth Freeman, was living with bankruptcy judge David R. Jones, and didn’t correct its paperwork in the bankruptcy cases after learning of the couple’s relationship. The possible conflict of interest could have kept Jackson Walker off chapter 11 cases it filed in Houston’s bankruptcy court — and that earned the firm nearly $10 million in fees, The Wall Street Journal found through a review of court records. Judge Jones resigned from the bench earlier this month amid an official misconduct probe by the federal appeals court that appointed him after he confirmed his romantic relationship with Freeman to the Journal. Earlier this week, the Justice Department’s Office of the U.S. Trustee, which oversees the nation’s bankruptcy courts, said it has started to review Jackson Walker’s fee requests in light of Jones’s resignation. Jackson Walker told the Journal earlier this month that the firm in March 2021 first learned of an allegation that Freeman was in a relationship with Jones. Jackson Walker declined to comment on when it verified that the relationship was real and on the fee requests. It said in a court filing Thursday regarding a pending fee request that it “is working to evaluate and address the issues that have come to light over the past three weeks.”

Federal judges in the Southern District of Texas have agreed to let a different court hear any lawsuits against U.S. Bankruptcy Judge David Jones — including the case that revealed his previously undisclosed relationship with a bankruptcy lawyer and prompted his resignation, Reuters reported. Chief U.S. District Judge Randy Crane in an order on Friday said that his counterpart in the Western District of Texas, Chief U.S. District Judge Alia Moses, had consented to the referral of all cases against Judge Jones to her. Moses, in turn, may either hear those cases herself or assign them to another judge on her court. While Crane did not give an explanation for his order, courts often transfer cases to other jurisdictions when there is a potential conflict. Just two lawsuits are pending against Judge Jones, both by self-represented litigants. One of them, by a former shareholder of energy company McDermott International, helped prompt Judge Jones' announced resignation on Oct. 15. McDermott had gone through a chapter 11 restructuring approved by the Houston-based bankruptcy judge in 2020. The Oct. 4 lawsuit, by former shareholder Michael Van Deelen, accused Jones of failing to disclose his relationship with a partner at Jackson Walker, a local law firm that handled many bankruptcy cases in Jones' courthouse, including that of McDermott.

Judge David R. Jones became the nation’s leading bankruptcy judge by making his court an attractive place for troubled businesses to face their creditors. His sudden departure over a previously undisclosed romantic relationship puts that legacy at risk, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Judge Jones turned his Houston courtroom into the top landing spot for big bankruptcies over the past decade by appealing to corporate management teams and their high-priced advisers. He resigned from the Southern District of Texas bench on Sunday, facing an official misconduct investigation over his failure to disclose his romantic relationship with bankruptcy lawyer Elizabeth Freeman, who was a partner at Texas law firm Jackson Walker until she started her own firm in December 2022. The fallout from Jones’s resignation is still coming into focus, but it tarnishes the court’s reputation for efficiency and predictability that made the Houston court an alluring venue for troubled companies to restructure debt, some lawyers who practice there told the Wall Street Journal. Hundreds of his former cases are now being reassigned to different judges, adding delays to costly and time-sensitive proceedings. “Perhaps the attraction of the Southern District of Texas may be dissipated at least in the short term,” said Cliff White, former director of the Justice Department’s Office of the U.S. Trustee, which monitors the nation’s bankruptcy system. It isn’t clear if there is a legal basis to overturn Jones’s prior rulings. Freeman also worked on bankruptcies in which Judge Jones served not as a judge but as a court-appointed mediator to supervise negotiations. The U.S. Trustee said in court papers last week that Jones’s recent admissions about his relationship with Freeman may call into question at least one bankruptcy mediation he recently oversaw.