作者： root

Biden admin used abortion group dossiers, including photos of minors, to target Christians, DOJ report reveals

Report alleges abortion groups sent DOJ personal addresses, drivers’ license numbers, and photos of activists’ children

2026-04-30T14:13:29-04:00 / Fox News

By Elaine Mallon, Fox News

Published April 30, 2026 2:13pm EDT | Updated April 30, 2026 2:32pm EDT

Kash Patel: A FACE Act violation is a federal charge

FBI Director Kash Patel details ongoing investigations into Minneapolis and new arrests on ‘Hannity.’

NEW You can now listen to Fox News articles!

Listen to this article

4 min

The Trump administration is accusing President Joe Biden’s Justice Department of colluding with pro-abortion organizations to create personal “dossiers” on Christian pro-life advocates that included personal information and photographs of their children as part of a wider campaign by Biden officials to prosecute them under the FACE Act.

The Justice Department published “The 2026 Report by the Task Force to Eradicate Anti-Christian Bias,” which details in more than 200 pages incidents that occurred under and policies from the Biden administration alleging that Biden Justice Department officials “zealously pursued” prosecuting Christians.

“The Biden Administration’s policies regularly clashed with a Christian worldview and burdened traditional religious practices,” the report stated. “These conflicts frequently arose over abortion, gender ideology, and sexual orientation. Ultimately, the Biden Administration penalized Christians who lived in accordance with their beliefs.”

The report, compiled based on an executive order signed by President Donald Trump, alleged that former Attorney General Merrick Garland “weaponized” the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act (FACE Act) against pro-life protesters and activists through the revival of the National Task Force on Violence Against Reproductive Health Care Providers.

FAITH RETURNS TO THE PUBLIC SQUARE DURING TRUMP’S SECOND TERM, CHRISTIAN LEADER SAYS

Anti-abortion rights demonstrators march to the Supreme Court for the 52nd annual March for Life in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 24, 2025.(Bryan Dozier/Middle East Images/AFP)

The FACE Act makes it illegal to obstruct or block entrances to reproductive health care centers, including both pregnancy resource centers and abortion clinics, but the report alleged that Biden Justice officials worked closely with abortion clinics and advocacy groups to prosecute pro-life protesters.

The report alleged that Garland’s Task Force would ask abortion groups about the travels and advocacy work of pro-life individuals, which prompted a warning from the FBI. The bureau told the Justice Department that pro-choice groups were tracking pro-life activists engaged in “1st Amendment protected activity.”

Despite the warning, the Task Force “monitored” pro-life activists who were flagged by abortion groups, which alleged the activists were in violation of the FACE Act for participating in protests outside clinics.

CLINTON-ERA LAW ‘WEAPONIZED’ BY BIDEN AGAINST PRO-LIFERS MUST GO, PENCE GROUP URGES HOUSE GOP

Planned Parenthood is shown on Newtown Road in Virginia Beach on Thursday, April 24, 2025.(Kendall Warner/The Virginian-Pilot/Tribune News Service)

Garland’s Task Force would monitor suspected FACE Act violators for years, and abortion groups allegedly sent the Justice Department “security reports” or “dossiers” detailing the activities of pro-life activists, including their addresses and their driver’s license numbers, as well as photos of their families and minor children.

In 2021, a pro-choice group sent the Task Force and the FBI a 137-page memorandum detailing a pro-life conference, including the schedule, lodging, and several dossiers on numerous “anti-choice individuals.” Many of the individuals included in the dossiers were later prosecuted by the Justice Department.

The report said abortion groups repeatedly complained to the task force about a particular female pro-life activist.

TRUMP’S ‘TWO SEXES’ EXECUTIVE ORDER COMES ON HEELS OF SCOTUS ACCEPTING ANOTHER CHALLENGE TO LGBT AGENDA

Anti-abortion demonstrators hold a banner in front of the U.S. Supreme Court building during the annual March for Life rally in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 24, 2025.(Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters)

“The Biden DOJ investigated this woman’s conduct around the country until one of the United States Attorney’s Offices brought charges,” the report stated. “After her conviction and lengthy sentence, the NGOs stopped complaining about her.”

The report alleged that the Task Force director would text with the National Abortion Federation’s security team and was in regular communication with Planned Parenthood Federation of America and the Feminist Majority Foundation. NAF’s security team was dubbed the “MVP” by the Task Force for its ability to flag protests for the Justice Department “often in real-time, which usually result[ed] in an investigation/prosecution.”

The report suggests that in many instances the Task Force was alerted before local law enforcement could respond.

DOJ TASK FORCE FINDS ‘NUMEROUS INSTANCES’ OF ANTI-CHRISTIAN GOVERNMENT BIAS UNDER BIDEN

President Joe Biden speaks in the White House Rose Garden as Attorney General Merrick Garland looks on during an event highlighting state and local leaders investing American Rescue Plan funds to improve community safety on May 13, 2022, in Washington, D.C.

In January 2025, Trump issued full and unconditional pardons to 23 pro-life activists and protesters who were prosecuted under the FACE Act.

The report comes just weeks after the Justice Department published an 800-page report revealing 700,000 internal records from the Biden administration that showed how the SAVE Act was unfairly used against conservative activists.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP

“This Department will not tolerate a two-tiered system of justice,” said Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche. “No Department should conduct selective prosecution based on beliefs. The weaponization that happened under the Biden Administration will not happen again, as we restore integrity to our prosecutorial system.”

A source close to Biden declined to comment. Fox News Digital reached out to the National Abortion Federation for comment.

Elaine Mallon is a writer for Fox News Digital and Fox Business covering national politics.

Congress votes to reopen key parts of DHS, after House GOP caves on ICE funding

Apr 30, 2026, 1:13 PM ET / CNN

By Sarah Ferris, Manu Raju, Annie Grayer, Lauren Fox
Updated Apr 30, 2026, 1:33 PM ET

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson walks to the House chamber on Wednesday, April 29, 2026.

Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc./Getty Images

Congress voted to reopen key parts of the Department of Homeland Security — including the Transportation Security Administration — Thursday after weeks of GOP infighting that prolonged a record shutdown of the critical agency.

The bill to fund the department, which has gone unfunded for 75 days, now goes to President Donald Trump for his signature.

House GOP leaders conceded in a weeks-long DHS funding fight in a major retreat by Speaker Mike Johnson as he faced a growing revolt from centrists in his party, multiple sources told CNN. The House abruptly passed the package — which includes no money for federal immigration enforcement, in a major win for Democrats — by a voice vote Thursday afternoon.

The move brings an end to a historic shutdown that led to long lines at airports across the country and comes just before paychecks were about to stall out once again for DHS employees. The Trump administration had warned the department would run out of emergency funds that had been tapped to pay staffers impacted by the shutdown.

It caps weeks of drama on Capitol Hill, with Republicans choosing not to take a recorded vote on the measure that has sharply divided their party. Some House Republicans had been adamant that House GOP leaders should not cave, though leadership argued that their members took a key step a day earlier toward unlocking immigration enforcement money — which paves the way to end the funding impasse over the rest of DHS.

“I think it’s asinine that we’re funding the government this way,” Rep. Chip Roy of Texas said just before the vote.

Related article House Speaker Mike Johnson speaks with reporters as he emerges from the House chamber at the US Capitol on Wednesday, April 29. Francis Chung/Politico/AP Inside the GOP’s barely functioning Congress 9 min read

And it’s not the end of the drama for Congress this week. GOP leaders also need to convince those same disgruntled members to back another unpopular bill — a short-term extension of government warrantless foreign survillence powers. The dueling issues of spending and spy powers have underscored that Johnson and his GOP have effectively lost their ability to govern in a House rife with divisions and infighting.

For nearly a month, Johnson has refused to pass that same partial funding measure already passed by the Senate because of members like Roy. House Republicans broadly detest the Senate’s partial DHS funding bill, which they fear sets a precedent that Democrats can exploit in future funding fights.

Even Florida Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, a senior spending leader who rarely picks fights with his own party, was firm that the House should not allow Senate Democrats to decide simply not to fund one piece of a department outside of the annual spending process.

“The Senate is more concerned about preserving the filibuster than they are about preserving the Constitution. The filibuster is not in the Constitution. The appropriations bills are,” he said, also noting that it is “really really dangerous” that DHS remains shut down.

Many in the House GOP take specific issue with one aspect of the bill: it includes language that specifically zeroes out money for US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which many Republicans fear sets them up for primary challenges at home, facing attacks that they defunded ICE. (Johnson has privately sought to tweak the language, but has run into resistance from Senate GOP spending leaders, according to people familiar with the discussions.)

But as the House prepared to leave for a week-long recess, Johnson and his leadership team decided in a private leadership meeting earlier Thursday that they had little choice but to move the bill. It’s not just their own members warning them to act, DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin, a former House member, has stressed publicly that he is almost out of money.

Johnson has also been under intensifying pressure from centrist Republicans, including key chairmen and vulnerable members, to resolve the standoff before the House leaves town for next week’s recess. Many believed that voters are likely to blame their party for further chaos, including with TSA.

GOP Rep. Zach Nunn, a centrist who represents a battleground seat, was direct with his leadership about not leaving town until DHS funding is passed.

“This should have been done a long time ago,” Nunn told CNN. “I want to see a resolution today to make sure these guys are paid.”

Until now, Johnson had refused to put the Senate’s DHS compromise bill on the floor, arguing that members would not fund certain parts of the department without assuring money for ICE and border patrol.

Instead, Johnson pressured Senate GOP leaders to move quickly toward unlocking a special power to pass certain budget-related bills without Democratic votes. House Republicans have insisted that they will only advance the partial DHS funding measure once they have money for ICE and border patrol ready to go — even as they acknowledge the process, known as budget reconciliation, would likely take weeks.

Underscoring the difficult task at hand, a senior House Republican told CNN earlier this week that the votes simply didn’t exist to partly end the DHS shutdown this week without having money “in hand” for immigration enforcement.

“No one is going to vote to fund Homeland without money for ICE and CBP,” Rep. Jodey Arrington of Texas, who leads the House Budget Committee, said Tuesday when asked about when the House would move on the partial DHS funding bill that has been sitting in the chamber for weeks.

Arrington — a retiring Republican who is respected among the party’s ultraconservative wing — was not alone.

But GOP Rep. Nick Langworthy urged his colleagues on Wednesday to not “screw around” as the path to ending the record-breaking DHS shutdown remains unclear.

“There needs to be a sense of urgency,” he told CNN when asked about Johnson’s handling of the issue.

Johnson had expressed a reluctance to bring a bipartisan Senate-passed bill to fund critical DHS agencies, like FEMA and TSA, to the floor, citing disagreements with the “language” in the bill. But Langworthy, a centrist who is not typically outspoken about leadership, said Johnson needs to act.

“There’s no time to screw around with this anymore. There’s too many people worrying about Washington score cards and who’s winning, who’s losing, whose idea things were,” he said. “I don’t see how we can leave here without passing it.”

This story has been updated with additional developments.

CNN’s Alison Main and Ellis Kim contributed to this report.

Trump administration ends funding for fentanyl test strips, baffling public health groups: “It doesn’t make sense”

April 30, 2026 / 3:35 PM EDT / CBS News

Test strips used to determine if illicit drugs contain deadly contaminants including fentanyl will no longer be covered by federal funding, reversing a position the Trump administration held as recently as July and leaving public health organizations worried that the U.S. will lose the progress it has made combatting fatal overdoses.

In a letter reviewed by CBS News, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration said that agency funding cannot be used to purchase test strips used to check drugs for dangerous adulterants like fentanyl, xylazine and medetomidine.

Test strips cost about $1 each and can be used to check drugs — from powders to pills to party drugs — for contamination. They are a “critical, life-saving tool” that can prevent fatal overdoses, said Maritza Perez Medina, director of federal policy at the Drug Policy Alliance. Medina said the sudden change in policy has left advocates scrambling.

“People are just astonished,” Medina said. “There has been a lot of confusion about where this came from.”

A fentanyl test strip. Michael Siluk/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

Letter reverses previous support

The “Dear Colleague” letter references an executive order signed by President Trump in July 2025 that declares SAMHSA funding cannot be used for programs that “only facilitate illegal drug use.” A Health and Human Services spokesperson said that the letter clarifies guidance for SAMHSA grantees and furthers the agency’s clear shift away from harm reduction and “practices that facilitate illicit drug use and are incompatible with federal laws.”

However, fentanyl test strips are not considered drug paraphernalia in 45 states and Washington, D.C. Some states, including Nevada and California, provide information on where to find them online. SAMHSA began supporting harm reduction efforts, including the use of test strips, in 2021. A July 2025 letter from the agency listed test strips as a tool that SAMHSA funding could be used to support. The SUPPORT Act, passed by Congress in 2018 and reauthorized in 2025, also protected their use.

Knowing what’s in a given substance allows people to make informed choices and potentially avoid a fatal overdose, Medina said. Cutting support for the tests and other harm reduction efforts is “stripping people of the tools we know save lives,” she said.

“It’s really a low barrier way to ensure that people know what they’re putting in their bodies,” Medina said. “Overdose deaths have come down from the peak that we saw during COVID, and that’s great, and that was done intentionally, because there was a lot of investment from the government to ensure that communities had what they needed.”

Organizations react to sudden budget cuts

Shreeta Waldon, the executive director of the Kentucky Harm Reduction Coalition, told CBS News that her organization was informed Friday that it will be losing a $400,000 grant. The organization distributed 48,465 fentanyl test strips in the first quarter of the 2026 fiscal year, Waldon said. KHRC now only has about a month’s worth of test strips before it enters a “full-blown crisis,” she said.

“It doesn’t make sense that one day something is an evidence-based protocol, and you decide, because of political climate, it is no longer evidence-based,” Waldon said. “If they follow the science and the data, we would never move in this direction.”

A’zhane Powell, the founder and CEO of Fyrebird Recovery in South Carolina, said her organization has lost a $4,000 grant. The amount is small, but Fyrebird already operates on tight margins, she said, and purchasing bulk supplies of test strips strains their budget.

Lost funding can’t be easily replaced: Fyrebird is searching for other sources of funding, including asking for donations. Waldon said she hopes to see states use money they received from opioid crisis settlements to support harm reduction organizations. Christine Minhee, who operates a database of such funds, said that such efforts are complicated by varying state policies and a debate about whether funds should be used to backfill budget gaps.

A variety of drug testing strips. Angela Weiss/AFP via Getty Images

Lauren Kestner, a division director at the Center for Prevention Services in North Carolina, said she worries the changes will limit the organization’s access to pass-through block grant funding, where federal money is disbursed to state governments and then funneled into nonprofits, local agencies and other subrecipients. Those agencies do everything from providing medication for opioid use disorder to treating HIV.

The HHS spokesperson said that SAMHSA still prioritizes life-saving interventions, including the overdose-reversing medication naloxone. Powell said that it’s hard to have faith in those priorities after the sudden changes around testing strips.

“How far will it go until we’re back to square one again?” Powell said.

“Still in the midst of the overdose crisis”

The United States has seen a sharp decline in overdose deaths in recent years. There were 111,000 overdose deaths in 2023, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. For the 12-month period ending in November 2025, the reported number of drug overdose deaths plummeted to about 68,000, according to the CDC.

The decrease in deaths can be attributed to a number of factors, including the increased availability of the overdose-reversing medication naloxone, a less potent drug supply and harm reduction efforts including the use of test strips. Medina cautioned that funding cuts could roll back the progress that has been made.

“Our fear is that if we are gutting all the things that work, that when people seek help, they won’t find any doors open,” Medina said. “We’re still in the midst of the overdose crisis. Federal funding cuts, coupled with taking away the real tools to help people … could very well lead to more drug use harms, including overdose.”

Fact check: Amid spike, prominent Republicans make false claims about gas prices

2026-04-30T19:38:54.552Z / CNN

By Daniel Dale

21 min ago

PUBLISHED Apr 30, 2026, 3:38 PM ET

A person fills up their vehicle at a gas station in Brooklyn on April 21.

Spencer Platt/Getty Images

Republicans face political risk from the spike in gasoline prices caused by the war President Donald Trump launched against Iran. Over the last two days, prominent Republicans have made a series of false claims about gas prices.

Sen. Tim Scott, chair of Senate Republicans’ campaign committee, falsely claimed Thursday that “gas prices continue to come down” – even though average gas prices in the US as a whole and in his home state of South Carolina had actually gone up over the last day, week, month and year, according to AAA data.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth falsely suggested Wednesday that the average gas price in California was $8 per gallon right before the Iran war started in late February. The state average at the time was actually $4.64 per gallon, according to AAA.

And House Majority Leader Steve Scalise falsely claimed Thursday that gas prices are much lower now than they were “two years ago,” when, he claimed, they were “$6.” Thursday’s AAA national average, $4.30 per gallon, was actually higher, not lower, than the average two years prior, when it was $3.66 per gallon.

Here is a more detailed fact check.

Scott on current gas prices

In a Thursday interview on Fox Business, Scott said, “The fact of the matter is that all of the cylinders are kicking. It is good news. You can even feel in our environment how good things are getting. Gas prices continue to come down, which means that your groceries will come down a little bit as well.”

But gas prices do not “continue to come down,” Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at the firm GasBuddy, responded to Scott’s comments with an incredulous social media post: “LOL WHAT? EVERY SINGLE STATE IS HIGHER.”

On Thursday, the national average for a gallon of regular gas, $4.30, was up 7 cents from a day prior, up 27 cents from a week prior, up 31 cents from a month prior, up $1.12 from a year prior, and up $1.32 from the day the Iran war began at the end of February, according to AAA.

In South Carolina, the Thursday state average for a gallon of regular gas, just under $3.90, was up about 1 cent from the day prior, up 24 cents from a week prior, up 25 cents from a month prior, up $1.07 from a year prior, and up $1.23 from the day the war began, per AAA data.

Gas prices are volatile, they can vary from station to station, and oil prices on global markets fell Thursday morning after rising overnight (though that certainly doesn’t mean the gas prices paid by US drivers will quickly fall). But Scott’s suggestion that there was some ongoing decline in gas prices was just not true.

Hegseth on gas prices when the war began

At a congressional hearing Wednesday, Democratic Rep. Maggie Goodlander of New Hampshire asked Hegseth if he knew what the national average price for a gallon of gas was on February 28, the day the US and Israel began the war with Iran.

Hegseth replied, “Well, it depends on where you live. If you live in California, it’s 8 bucks.”

False. The California average for regular gas wasn’t anywhere close to $8 per gallon on February 28. It was $4.64 per gallon, according to AAA. That was far below the state’s $5.98 average on Wednesday.

And while there were some California stations at $8 per gallon or more on February 28, the number was tiny – “less than 5” of the approximately 10,500 stations GasBuddy tracks in the state, De Haan said in an email. De Haan said these stations were the “usual suspects” that “always” have exceptionally high prices.

The national average on February 28 was $2.98, per AAA data; Goodlander wrongly told Hegseth during their exchange that it was “$2.83.” (Asked for comment, a spokesperson said Goodlander had been trying to cite a chart published by NBC News Wednesday morning that showed the national average was $2.83 at the beginning of January, not $2.83 at the end of February; “her point is that gas prices have increased from before the war to now,” the spokesperson said.) Goodlander correctly said the national average had gone up to $4.23 on Wednesday, per AAA data.

Scalise on gas prices two years ago

In a Thursday interview on CNBC, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise was asked if he thought there was any way Republicans would win the House again in the 2026 midterms. Scalise said that Republicans have delivered for the public – and added, “People will remember – you go back two years ago, we were paying almost $6 a gallon for gasoline. Right now it’s in the $3s. Obviously we’ve seen a jump with the Iran conflict, but it’s still…”

“When were we paying $6?” CNBC host Joe Kernen interjected in an exchange highlighted on social media by liberal journalist Aaron Rupar. Scalise claimed, “Two – two-and-a-half years ago.” Kernen responded, “That wasn’t the average price.” But Scalise asserted moments later, “We’re over 30% below where we were just two years ago.”

In reality, the national average gas price exactly two years ago Thursday, on April 30, 2024, was $3.66 per gallon, per AAA data – lower, not higher, than Thursday’s average of $4.30 per gallon. Going back to “two-and-a-half years ago,” so to the fall of 2023, doesn’t make Scalise’s claim true, either. Until the Iran war this year, the national average had been below $4 since the summer of 2022.

Asked for comment, a Scalise spokesperson said Thursday that Scalise had been “referring to 2022, when gas prices surged to record highs,” California’s state average hit a record $6.44 per gallon and prices also exceeded $6 in “parts of Washington” state.

But, obviously, 2022 was four years ago, not two or two-and-a-half years ago. And Scalise made it sound like he was talking about the country as a whole, not a small number of specific places. The national average has never hit $6 per gallon; the all-time peak was $5.02 per gallon in June 2022, in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine earlier that year.

Scalise’s claim that “right now it’s in the $3s” is on somewhat more solid ground than his other remarks. Sixteen states, including Scalise’s home state of Louisiana, had a Thursday state average gas price below $4 per gallon, per AAA. But that left 34 states and the District of Columbia with an average above $4 per gallon; again, the national average was $4.30.

Speaker Johnson calls for redistricting Southern states before November

2026-04-30 12:39 p.m. EDT / The Washington Post

After the Supreme Court limited the Voting Rights Act, Johnson said states should consider redrawing House maps before the midterms. New boundaries would help the GOP.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) in February. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post)

By Erin Cox

House Speaker Mike Johnson said Thursday that states should consider promptly redrawing congressional districts after the Supreme Court’s ruling limiting the Voting Rights Act — a move that would help Republicans gain seats in this year’s midterm elections.

Senate rejects House’s FISA bill, pitches 45-day extension ahead of looming deadline

April 30, 2026 3:11pm EDT / Fox News

The House passed a three-year extension with a ban on central bank digital currencies that Thune said was a nonstarter in the Senate

By Adam Pack, Fox News

Fox News chief congressional correspondent Chad Pergram reports on the 13-day FISA extension. Rep. Ben Cline, R-Va., discusses the measure and Virginia’s controversial redistricting vote on ‘Fox Report.’

NEW You can now listen to Fox News articles!

Listen to this article

1 min

The Senate scrapped the House’s reauthorization of the nation’s controversial spying powers and is instead moving on a temporary extension to the program.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., told Fox News Digital that the upper chamber would extend the divisive Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) for 45 days as lawmakers continue to work on reforms to the program.

“We’ll kick it over there and process it quickly, and we’ll kick the can down the road again,” Thune said.

The maneuver comes after the House on Wednesday passed a three-year extension to the program with modest reforms that included a ban on central bank digital currencies — a priority of conservatives in the lower chamber.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., talks to reporters before entering the Senate chamber in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 5, 2026.(Heather Diehl/Getty Images)

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP

But the inclusion of that provision was a nonstarter in the Senate, given that it was unrelated to the underlying bill and was already baked into a housing affordability package passed by the Senate in March that the House has yet to move on.

Iran war’s true cost closer to $50 billion, not $25 billion, U.S. officials say

April 30, 2026 / 3:41 PM EDT / CBS News

Washington — The true price tag of the Iran war is closer to $50 billion, U.S. officials familiar with internal assessments told CBS News, roughly double the public estimate the Pentagon cited in congressional testimony this week.

In testimony Wednesday on Capitol Hill, a Pentagon official placed the cost of the Defense Department’s Operation Epic Fury at about $25 billion, a figure that did not fully account for damaged or destroyed equipment or U.S. military installations damaged.

As Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, appeared before lawmakers this week to defend the Pentagon’s sprawling $1.5 trillion budget request, U.S. officials familiar with internal assessments suggested the war’s price tag is closer to $50 billion so far.

Much of the gap is accounted for by munitions that have been used and need to be replaced. For instance, the Pentagon has lost 24 MQ-9 Reaper drones — sophisticated unmanned aircraft that can cost $30 million or more apiece — underscoring how quickly the financial toll has mounted. Taken together, the higher estimate reflects not only the tempo of operations but also the often unseen costs of attrition, as material lost in the field reshapes the ledger.

The Pentagon’s acting comptroller, Jules Hurst, testified before the Senate on Thursday that the cost of military construction is hard to estimate.

“We don’t know what our future posture is going to be or the future construction of those bases,” Hurst said when Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut questioned what was included in the $25 billion.

CNN first reported that the real estimate is closer to $40-50 billion.

On Wednesday, Democratic Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware expressed doubt that the war so far has cost only $25 billion: “I am frankly certain that that is low,” he said, suggesting that figure did not include the cost of deploying and holding forces in theater for two months and other expenses.

The war is hitting Americans’ pocketbooks more immediately, too.

In a congressional hearing this week, Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna of California asked Hegseth how much the war will cost Americans through higher prices.

“Do you know how much it will cost Americans in terms of their increased cost in gas and food over the next year because of Iran?” Khanna asked.

Hegseth didn’t respond directly. “I would simply ask you what the cost is of an Iranian nuclear bomb,” the defense secretary said, accusing Khanna of “playing gotcha questions about domestic things.”

The right-of-center American Enterprise Institute estimates higher fuel and fertilizer costs alone translate to an extra $150 per month for each U.S. household.

Kathryn Watson contributed to this report.

https://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch-sen-blumenthal-grills-pentagon-officials-on-cost-of-iran-war/

US banks left guessing over scope of looming order on citizenship data

2026-04-30 10:06:46 UTC / Reuters

By Pete Schroeder, Tatiana Bautzer and Michelle Price

April 30, 2026 10:06 AM UTC Updated 1 hour ago

节点运行失败

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent attends a Senate Appropriations Financial Services and General Government Subcommittee hearing on President Trump’s fiscal year 2027 budget request for the Department of the Treasury, on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., U.S., April 22, 2026. REUTERS/Annabelle Gordon/File Photo

• Summary

• Bankers say they are in the dark on what major executive order may require
• Think tank warns order could cost billions of dollars to implement
• Experts and industry cite major IT, legal and enforcement challenges for banks
• Order could disproportionately impact lower-income Americans

WASHINGTON, April 30 (Reuters) – U.S. banks say they are largely in the dark about an expected White House order requiring them to collect data on their customers’ citizenship or immigration status, a directive senior industry executives warn would be costly and disruptive.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told media outlet Semafor this month that the administration is working on the executive order, but did not provide details. It was first reported in February by the Wall Street Journal, which characterized the effort as an extension of the administration’s crackdown on immigrants living in the United States illegally.

Jumpstart your morning with the latest legal news delivered straight to your inbox from The Daily Docket newsletter. Sign up here.

Advertisement · Scroll to continue

Bank lobby groups initially pushed back on the effort in meetings with administration officials, warning it would be operationally and legally complex, expensive, and could potentially lead to millions of people becoming unbanked, according to three of the people.

But in recent weeks, banks have had little communication from the administration and say they are largely in the dark, despite the magnitude of the potential requirement, the people said.

Center-right think tank American Action Forum estimated last month that just for new accounts, collecting citizenship data could cost the industry between $2.6 billion and $5.6 billion annually.

Advertisement · Scroll to continue

“The logistical challenges for banks are significant,” said Kathryn Judge, a professor at Columbia Law School.

“Overall, the initiative is bad news for banks but worse news for ordinary Americans. Even for citizens, the process could create significant headaches.”

The effort is another example of the Trump administration causing potential headaches for the banking industry in the pursuit of broader policy goals, even as it relaxes other rules it says are stifling lending. In January, Trump blindsided the industry by calling for credit card providers to cap interest rates in a bid to address cost-of-living concerns, and he has targeted Wall Street banks for discriminating against conservatives, a claim they deny.

A White House official said in an email that the administration continues to explore ways to protect the banking system from “unacceptable credit risks and to ensure that banking services remain available and affordable for all Americans.”

A spokesperson for the Treasury Department did not respond to a request for comment. Bessent told Semafor it was not unreasonable to have more information about who is using the banking system.

The bank executives requested anonymity to discuss sensitive regulatory issues.

MASSIVE OVERHAUL OF IT SYSTEMS

Existing know-your-customer regulations require banks to verify a customer’s identity and gather other basic personal data, including Social Security or tax identification numbers. But they do not require lenders to gather and verify citizenship or immigration status information.

Banks say that doing so would entail a massive overhaul of their document processing and IT systems, as well as extensive training for frontline staff so they could identify and assess the validity of more than 180 different types of visas listed by the State Department.

Verifying such documents for new customers would be extremely burdensome, say bankers, but doing so for existing customers would be almost “impossible,” said a fourth source who runs a retail bank, a sentiment echoed by other executives.

The requirement would also create massive new enforcement risks for banks if the authorities decide to pursue lenders for failing to adequately check customer paperwork, said one of the sources and a fifth person who is a top banker.

Bank regulatory data suggests there are hundreds of millions of existing personal U.S. bank accounts. Roughly half of Americans, however, do not have passports, according to State Department data, and more than 9% of American citizens of voting age, or 21.3 million people, do not have readily available proof of citizenship, according to 2024 research by the Brennan Center for Justice, a think tank at NYU School of Law.

And many account-holders, most notably women who have been married, may have different names on their birth certificates.

GREATER IMPACT ON LOWER-INCOME AMERICANS

Even if the order targets only new accounts, those documentation gaps would still create challenges, say bankers and lawyers, especially for lower-income Americans who may struggle to afford birth certificates or passport fees.

Most banks would likely restrict online account opening, two of the people said. That would also make it harder for Americans in rural banking “deserts” — where average household incomes are lower, according to research from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau — to open bank accounts.

“The initial implementation would be a lot of extra work because nobody would be accustomed to following the process,” said Ross Delston, an attorney specializing in anti-money laundering compliance. “And then you run the risk that banks would just start turning customers away,” with a potential discriminatory impact on some groups, he said.

For an executive order to become legally effective, the Treasury or bank regulators would typically have to write new rules and allow public feedback, giving the industry another chance to water down the requirements.

Dan Goldbeck, director of regulatory policy at the American Action Forum, who authored the research on the potential costs, said it was unclear what statutory authority regulators could potentially invoke to implement such an order.

That could open the door to “significant legal challenges,” he added.

Writing and reporting by Michelle Price; Reporting by Pete Schroeder in Washington and Tatiana Bautzer in New York; additional reporting by Megan Davies and Paritosh Bansal in New York; Editing by Alistair Bell

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Despite change atop the Fed, investor hopes for rate cuts hit hurdles

2026-04-30 10:13:37 UTC / Reuters

By Lewis Krauskopf and Suzanne McGee

April 30, 2026 10:13 AM UTC Updated 1 hour ago

节点运行失败

U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell walks to testifying before a Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee hearing on “The Semiannual Monetary Policy Report to the Congress,” at Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., February 11, 2025. REUTERS/Craig Hudson

• Summary

• Fed holds rates steady but three on board dissent on easing bias
• Powell to hand Fed chair to Warsh, Trump’s nominee
• Energy price surge complicates path to lower rates

NEW YORK, April 30 (Reuters) – Investors are turning the page to a newly led U.S. Federal Reserve that has long been expected to have a more dovish bent, but instead faces a bumpier rates path ahead.

The Fed meeting that concluded on Wednesday ​was set to be Jerome Powell’s last as the chair of the central bank, with Kevin Warsh on track to take over. Warsh was picked by U.S. President Donald Trump, ‌who heavily favors rate cuts, but the divisions revealed in the Fed decision showed barriers to monetary easing.

The Week in Breakingviews newsletter offers insights and ideas from Reuters’ global financial commentary team. Sign up here.

Advertisement · Scroll to continue

A move to lower rates over the past couple of years and the expected bias toward further easing have supported risk assets, but a more hawkish-than-anticipated rate path could become problematic for equities and many corners of the fixed income market. Meanwhile, some investors have shifted their portfolios to protect against inflation amid the energy price surge, such as by buying inflation-protected Treasuries.

“The markets and those following the ​Fed have kind of said, well, this new Fed chair is going to be dovish regardless,” said Matthew Miskin, co-chief investment strategist at Manulife John Hancock Investments. “And I think as we get closer ​to that time, with this meeting … with the data not really helping the cause for cuts, you add it all up and it’s not clear that the ⁠Fed should cut or that the Fed will cut.”

Advertisement · Scroll to continue

Indeed, following the meeting, futures pricing indicated markets had ruled out cuts for the remainder of the year.

‘SHOT ACROSS THE BOW’

The Fed held interest rates steady in its monetary policy ​decision on Wednesday, which was widely expected. But the decision was the central bank’s most divided since 1992, including three dissents from officials who no longer feel the Fed should communicate a bias towards lowering borrowing costs.

The ​dissents represented “a shot across the bow” to Warsh, said Chris Grisanti, chief market strategist at MAI Capital Management. “The dissenters are saying ‘you cannot take for granted that we will support your easing intentions.’ I suspect there will be a lot of drama ahead.”

Uncertainty over the U.S.-Israeli war in Iran and its impact on energy prices and inflation cast a shadow over the meeting, with U.S. crude up over 80% this year. Oil prices surged on Wednesday, with U.S. crude settling at about $107 a barrel, as ​deadlocked negotiations caused investor worries about prolonged disruptions to Middle Eastern supply.

Following the Fed decision, benchmark Treasury yields hit one-month highs, with the 10-year yield at 4.42% late on Wednesday.

The benchmark S&P 500 stock index (.SPX) ended little ​changed on the day after falling initially following the Fed decision. The U.S. dollar index modestly extended gains against a basket of currencies.

PRICING OUT CUTS IN 2026?

The Fed cut its benchmark rate by 175 basis points in 2024 and 2025, ‌but has held ⁠it steady in the 3.5%-3.75% range so far this year. Heading into 2026, markets had expected about two more standard quarter-percentage-point cuts by the end of this year, but the Middle East war and the resulting higher energy prices undercut those hopes.

“At the beginning of the year, the Fed had a pretty clear path to rate cuts,” said Joseph Purtell, a portfolio manager at Neuberger. “The advent of the Iranian conflict and the oil price shock have changed all of this.”

Following Wednesday’s meeting, Fed Funds futures had largely ruled out rate cuts this year and were pricing in a potential hike in the first half of next year, according to LSEG data.

“We’ve seen ​some of the more dovish members move toward the ​center,” said Dustin Reid, chief strategist, fixed income ⁠at Mackenzie Investments in Toronto. “The real discussion becomes could the Fed hike, should it and will it, in the second half of the year.”

Trump has consistently chastised Powell — who began as chair in 2018 after being nominated by Trump — for the Fed not cutting rates more significantly. Investors have anticipated that Warsh may take a more ​dovish stance but at his confirmation hearing earlier this month, Warsh said he had made no promises to Trump about cutting interest rates.

Warsh “is still dealing with an ​administration that is fervently in ⁠the corner of cutting rates at a time that it may not necessarily be called for quite yet because the unemployment picture still doesn’t necessarily warrant it,” said Gregg Abella, CEO at Investment Partners Asset Management. “I’d be surprised, if right out of the gate, he’s able to persuade the other governors on the board of the Fed that this (rate cuts) needs to happen imminently.”

Not everyone had taken rate cuts off the table entirely this year. Analysts at Citi ⁠said in a ​note that they continue “to project that cooler inflation and renewed loosening labor markets” will lead to rate reductions in September, adding that “rate ​cuts can be rapidly priced back in by markets if oil prices fall.”

Michael Reynolds, vice president of investment strategy at Glenmede, said his firm was looking for opportunistic bets on shares of smaller companies, which tend to benefit from lower rates.

“I’m kind of skeptical of this ​emerging narrative that a hike is more likely than a cut this year,” Reynolds said.

Reporting by Lewis Krauskopf and Suzanne McGee; additional reporting by Laura Matthews and Saqib Iqbal Ahmed; editing by Megan Davies and Sam Holmes

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Prosecution of ex-FBI chief Comey over seashell post is flawed, experts say

2026-04-30 11:04 AM UTC / Reuters

By Jan Wolfe

April 30, 2026 11:04 AM UTC Updated 1 hour ago

节点运行失败

[1/2]FBI Director James Comey testifies before the House Intelligence Committee hearing into alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. election on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., March 20, 2017. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab

• Legal experts say Comey’s post is protected speech, not a true threat
• Prosecution seen as part of Trump administration’s targeting of political adversaries
• Experts expect charges to be dismissed, citing First Amendment and prior Supreme Court rulings

April 30 (Reuters) – The latest criminal charges against James Comey are fundamentally flawed and will be dismissed on ​free speech grounds, according to legal experts, who said the former FBI director is being singled out for his criticism of President Donald Trump.

The charges relate to a post Comey made on Instagram last May showing seashells arranged on a beach to form the numbers “86 47.” Prosecutors say the post threatened Trump.

Jumpstart your morning with the latest legal news delivered straight to your inbox from The Daily Docket newsletter. Sign up here.

Advertisement · Scroll to continue

Comey, who appeared in court on Wednesday, a day after being indicted over the post, has said he is innocent and will fight the accusations.

Comey’s photo was in “bad taste” but “protected speech,” said David Hudson, a professor at Belmont ​University College of Law, adding that the post fell far short of being a true threat.

“More reasonably, the message likely means opposition to the president ​or ejecting the president out of office,” said Hudson. “One of the most fundamental of all First Amendment principles is the ​ability of individuals to criticize government officials – even intemperately and harshly.”

Advertisement · Scroll to continue

The indictment marks a renewed push by Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, who took over leadership of ​the Justice Department earlier this month, to target perceived political enemies of the president with criminal prosecution. Trump mentioned Comey last year by name in a social media post ​calling for criminal charges against his adversaries.

The number “86″ is used by restaurants to mean eject, refuse service, or run out of an item. The term is associated with the Prohibition-era speakeasy Chumley’s, located at 86 Bedford Street in Manhattan.

In some military contexts, the term has evolved to mean eliminate or kill.

Forty-seven is a possible reference to Trump as the 47th U.S. president. ​Prosecutors allege that a reasonable recipient of the message would interpret it as a threat to Trump.

Comey deleted the post shortly after it was published, saying ​he “didn’t realize some folks associate those numbers with violence.”

Comey, a longtime Trump foe, has now faced two criminal cases from the Justice Department during Trump’s second administration. A previous case accusing ​Comey of ​lying to Congress about leaking to the media was dismissed by a federal judge, who said the interim prosecutor spearheading the case was unlawfully appointed.

Experts said he will succeed in having the new charges dismissed as well.

BROAD PROTECTIONS

Americans have broad free speech protections under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits government infringement on the freedoms of religion, speech, press, assembly, and petition.

In a case from 1969, Watts v. United States, the Supreme Court said the First Amendment does not protect “true threats,” ​but it does allow for “vehement, caustic, ​and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on ​government and public officials.”

That case involved criminal charges against an 18-year-old man who allegedly threatened President Lyndon Baines Johnson during an anti-war demonstration.

The defendant had told a crowd: “If they ever make me carry a rifle the first man I want to ​get in my sights is L.B.J.”

The Supreme Court threw out his conviction, saying his remarks were “political hyperbole.”

In later cases, ​the high court has ​said “true threats” are “serious expressions of an intent to commit an act of unlawful violence.”

Clay Calvert, a First Amendment scholar affiliated with the American Enterprise Institute think tank, said Comey’s photo of seashells was more benign than the rhetoric at issue in the Watts case.

“Seashells on a beach would be an odd context to convey a threat of violence,” Calvert ​said, adding ​that the case “fits a pattern of retribution by the Trump administration against his perceived political enemies.”

Comey ​is the “poster child” for someone who has been subjected to a “frivilous prosecution” and “harrassment” by the Justice Department, said Thomas Berry, a constitutional lawyer at the libertarian Cato Institute.

Bery said that while Comey “will never ​be convicted,” he will have to waste time and money defending himself.

“The process is the punishment,” Berry said.

Reporting by Jan Wolfe; Editing by Noeleen Walder and Stephen Coates

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab