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Want to save on student loan payments? Here’s how to get a discount.

2026-07-30 2:09 PM EDT / CBS News

By Megan Cerullo Reporter, MoneyWatch
Megan Cerullo is a New York-based reporter for CBS MoneyWatch covering small business, workplace, health care, consumer spending and personal finance topics. She regularly appears on CBS News 24/7 to discuss her reporting.

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People with federal student loans may be eligible for a break on their monthly payments — if they act before an upcoming deadline.

Student loan borrowers can earn a stepped-up interest rate discount of 1%, compared to the usual 0.25%, if they enroll in the U.S. Department of Education’s automatic payment feature before Sept. 30.

“This interest rate reduction will help borrowers as they consider new, affordable repayment plans and work to repay their loans on time,” Under Secretary of Education Nicholas Kent said in a statement when the enhanced discount was adopted last month. “We expect this temporary incentive to drive up repayment rates and significantly improve the overall health of the federal student loan portfolio.”

Here’s what to know.

What is auto pay?

When enrolled in the optional feature, student loan borrowers’ payments are automatically deducted from their checking or savings account every month. Enrolling in the service is free of charge.

Currently, only about 40% of student loan borrowers are registered for automatic repayments. The Education Department would like to double that to roughly 80%, the figure before the pandemic.

Who is eligible?

Borrowers with government loans issued after July 1, 2012, are eligible for the interest rate discount.

People who are already enrolled in automatic student loan payments, as well as borrowers who sign up before the September deadline, are eligible for the discount. That rate relief, which is available only to borrowers enrolled in autopay before the Sept. 30 deadline, is scheduled to remain in effect until June 30, 2028.

The autopay discount means an undergraduate borrower with a loan charging, for example, 6.39% interest would see that reduced to 5.39% until mid-2028.

How do I enroll?

Borrowers can sign up for free on their loan servicer’s website and will need to provide their bank account information to enable automatic monthly payments.

People should sign in to their loan servicer account, select “auto pay” from the navigation menu, enter their banking details and confirm the payment amounts, according to guidance from the Education Department.

Are there any drawbacks?

People who enroll in automatic loan payments could face overdraft fees if they exceed their account balance.

“Automatic payments can help you avoid late fees on your bills. But if you forget to track your account balance and it’s too low when a payment is due, you might have to pay overdraft or nonsufficient funds fees,” the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) warns.

The Urban Institute also notes that the financial benefits of an interest-rate cut on student loans may be minor. For instance, over 10 years, a 1 percentage point interest rate reduction for a borrower with $5,000 in loans at a 6.39% rate would save only $2 per month on their payment, according to the nonpartisan think tank.

The savings could be significantly higher for larger loan amounts, however. The average federal student loan borrower owes roughly $40,000, according to research firm Education Data Initiative.

Roughly 9.5 million Americans, or 1 in 5 federal student loan borrowers, are in default, meaning they are more than nine months behind on their payments.

Edited by Alain Sherter

Sen Darline Graham drops campaign video on heels of brother’s funeral services amid tight primary timeline

July 30, 2026 2:55pm EDT / Fox News

Sen Darline Graham is running for election with President Donald Trump’s support

By Alex Nitzberg Fox News

Sen. Darline Graham, the late Sen. Lindsey Graham’s sister, shared a campaign video as she runs in the South Carolina special GOP U.S. Senate primary. (X/@DarlineGrahamSC)

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U.S. Sen. Darline Graham, R-S.C., the sister of the late Sen. Lindsey Graham, who died earlier this month, posted a campaign video Thursday in which she described herself as a “conservative Republican” and declared that she is “ready to serve.”

“Thank you all for your prayers. They provided strength through an incredibly difficult time. I’m honored to serve South Carolina and grateful for President Trump’s endorsement. And I’ll work hard every day to earn it,” she said in the video.

“I’m a conservative Republican, and I believe this: Every life is precious. Men don’t belong in women’s sports. And only American citizens should vote in our elections. I’m Darline Graham. I approve this message, and I am ready to serve,” she added.

DARLINE GRAHAM REVEALS WHAT TRUMP TOLD HER INSIDE OVAL OFFICE AFTER BROTHER LINDSEY’S DEATH

The video release Thursday came on the heels of funeral services to honor the late Sen. Lindsey Graham in Washington, D.C., Tuesday and in South Carolina on Wednesday. A press release explained that, after the service on Wednesday, July 29, there would be “a private family burial in Pickens County, South Carolina.”

The new senator, who is running to win a full six-year Senate term, is facing a tight election schedule. The Aug. 11 South Carolina GOP U.S. Senate primary is less than two weeks away, and early voting begins Wednesday,

Aug. 5.

U.S. Senator Darline Graham, R-S.C., sister of late U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, mourns by his casket during a congressional tribute in the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol on July 28, 2026, in Washington, D.C.(Nathan Howard/Pool/Getty Images)

Her social media posts featuring the campaign video said, “I’m ready to serve and I humbly ask for your support on August 11th.”

At the end of the video, a notice appeared at the bottom of the frame that says, “PAID FOR BY NRSC AND AUTHORIZED BY DARLINE FOR SENATE.”

Sen. Lindsey Graham, who died July 11, had won the June 9 Republican U.S. Senate primary in the Palmetto State while running for a fifth term.

South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster, a Republican, announced July 13 the appointment of Graham’s sister to fill the remainder of her brother’s Senate term. She was sworn in the next day.

DARLINE GRAHAM FOCUSES ON KITCHEN TABLE ISSUES AS SHE ANNOUNCES FULL-TERM SENATE BID

Sen. Darline Graham Nordone, R-S.C., after she was sworn in on the Senate floor July 14, 2026(Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

President Donald Trump issued a Truth Social post July 17 in which he declared he had asked the new senator to run in the upcoming August special Republican U.S. Senate primary contest.

“Darline, who comes from an absolutely incredible family, has been a WINNER all of her life and, should she accept, has my Complete and Total Endorsement in the Special Election for U.S. Senate in South Carolina — SHE WILL NEVER LET YOU DOWN. RUN, DARLINE, RUN!” he declared in part of the post.

Graham told Fox News Channel’s Sean Hannity during an interview July 20 that she would run.

“I’m in,” she said.

SEN DARLINE GRAHAM REVEALS WHETHER SHE WILL RUN FOR A FULL-TERM DURING ‘HANNITY’ EXCLUSIVE

Sen Darline Graham reveals whether she will run for a full-term in the fallhttps://www.foxnews.com/video/6401658933112

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“It’s official. I’m running to represent South Carolina in the United States Senate,” she said in a July 20 post on X. “Today, I’m stepping forward to carry my brother Lindsey’s legacy on behalf of the people of South Carolina. President Trump told me, ‘Run, Darline, Run.’

“With his support, I’m running all the way through the finish line in November. I hope you’ll join me,” she noted, adding a link to her campaign site.

Darline Graham faces a crowded GOP primary with candidates including U.S. Reps. Ralph Norman and Russell Fry, former Gov. Mark Sanford and businessman Mark Lynch. Lynch challenged Lindsey Graham in the June primary and lost to the late senator.

Alex Nitzberg is a writer for Fox News Digital.

Nearly two-thirds of kids have caffeine in their diet, the CDC says. It’s not all coming from soda.

July 30, 2026 / 2:45 PM EDT / CBS News

By Alex Sundby

Alex Sundby is a senior editor at CBSNews.com. In addition to editing content, Alex also covers breaking news, writing about crime and severe weather as well as everything from multistate lottery jackpots to the July Fourth hot dog eating contest.

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A new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that nearly two-thirds of American children aged 2-19 have caffeine in their diet.

On any given day, kids consume an average of 19.4 milligrams of caffeine, which is about two-thirds of what’s in a can of Coke, according to the report released Thursday.

CBS News medical correspondent Dr. Céline Gounder said on “CBS Mornings” that health experts don’t know how much caffeine is considered to be too much for children. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that childrenshouldn’t consume any caffeine.

Researchers also found that sodas aren’t the only way caffeine is getting into kids’ diets.

For kids aged 2-11, goodies like brownies, cookies and pastries — called “sweet bakery products” in the report — were the top source of caffeine.

“It’s the chocolate that has the caffeine,” Gounder said.

The baked goods were followed by flavored milk, candy, soda and tea, respectively, for that age group. For those aged 12-19, soda was the top source, followed closely by sweet bakery products and then tea, coffee and candy.

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Gounder noted that caffeine can affect how some children sleep.

According to a 2021 study in the journal Food and Chemical Toxicology, 3% of kids aged 13-15 who consumed a low amount of caffeine got less than six hours of sleep a night. That increased to 24% for those in that age group who had a high amount of caffeine.

“Some of this also depends on timing, if they’re having the caffeine in the evening,” Gounder said. “So it’s not just you don’t want to have coffee in the evening. If you’re a kid, you may not want to have that cake and cookies in the evening either.”

Why Trump has shown little interest in taking up the anti-Fauci crusade

2026-07-30T16:50:34.206Z / https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/30/politics/fauci-trump-fifth-amendment

President Donald Trump usually doesn’t need any invitation to demonize and even push for criminal investigations of people he doesn’t like. But he’s been conspicuously absent from Republicans’ and MAGA’s crusade against Dr. Anthony Fauci.

One possible explanation: All of this is a bit awkward for the president.

Trump not only worked willingly alongside Fauci for months during the Covid pandemic, but also has said some pretty nice things about him. Trump even gave Fauci a presidential commendation on his way out of office in 2021 — after Fauci did many of the supposedly horrible things Republicans now accuse him of.

Republicans have increasingly accused Fauci, who repeatedly invoked the Fifth Amendment in Senate testimony Wednesday, of not just illegal behavior, but even crimes against humanity.

Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida on Wednesday referred to Fauci as “Dr. ‘Mengele’ Fauci” — referring to the infamous Nazi doctor who performed gruesome experiments on concentration-camp prisoners. Sen. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama claimed Fauci “killed or had something to do with killing nine million people,” drawing the Fox Business Network host interviewing him to note that this claim lacked proof.

It’s far from the only claim against Fauci that lacks proof. The central one is that he lied about the US government funding potentially dangerous “gain-of-function” research in Wuhan, China, which some have suggested might have contributed to the coronavirus outbreak, though it’s never been proven.

Trump would typically be all over these kinds of allegations, if for no other reason than that it really animates his base. But when asked about the situation on Wednesday, Trump was remarkably muted.

During an appearance on Fox News before Fauci pleaded the Fifth, Trump was asked about new disclosures from Fauci’s diaries, which conservative media have pitched as damning.

Trump basically shrugged.

“He was a much bigger player in the Biden administration,” Trump said. “I grew tired of him. He was — you remember that, you know he wanted to close everything down.”

After Fauci pleaded the Fifth and sparked outrage among some Republicans — who called for him to be held in contempt of Congress — Trump downplayed Fauci’s role in decision-making during the pandemic.

“I inherited Fauci,” Trump said at a White House event Wednesday afternoon. Trump added that Fauci “made a lot of mistakes and he wasn’t a big factor for me.”

Trump even shrugged off Fauci pleading the Fifth, simply noting he was probably advised to do so by his lawyers. Contrast that with Republicans like Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri, who said that “no honest person pleads the Fifth”. (The president himself, of course, has invoked the Fifth Amendment more than 400 times in a single deposition.)

And this tracks with how Trump has talked about Fauci for years. While he’s occasionally criticized Fauci’s advice, he’s also praised him as a man and downplayed his significance. He certainly hasn’t joined in the most speculative theories, despite his propensity for conspiracies.

Indeed, before Wednesday, the last time Trump expounded on Fauci at length, according to the Factbase archive of Trump’s public comments, was more than two years ago.

During an appearance on the “All In” podcast, a host asked Trump about Fauci supposedly covering up the government’s role in gain-of-function research.

Trump instead said he canceled a research grant related to the Wuhan Institute of Virology during his first term because it amounted to “paying money to China.”

And when asked twice if Fauci had lied to him about the origins of Covid, Trump punted both times.

When right-wing podcaster Tim Pool asked him the month prior about Elon Musk’s “Prosecute Fauci” post on social media, Trump instead talked about canceling the research grant and downplayed Fauci’s importance in his administration.

During the 2024 presidential primaries, Trump occasionally tried to link Fauci to his opponent, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. But otherwise, it wasn’t even a campaign issue for him.

Looking back to late in Trump’s first term and the months after, Trump would occasionally talk about how he liked Fauci personally, even if he didn’t rely on his advice.

“I like Dr. Fauci,” Trump said in July 2021. “I actually get along with him great. But they said, ‘Why didn’t you fire him?’ I said, no, he was good. He’d recommend something, I’d do the opposite, and we always turned out to be right.”

“I get along very well with Anthony,” Trump said in October 2020.

During a May 2021 interview on Candace Owens’s podcast, Trump even seemed to ask for some of the credit Fauci was being given for the Covid vaccine, saying, “They praised Fauci. And yet, Fauci worked for me.”

In between these comments, Trump gave Fauci a presidential commendation. In doing so, the White House credited Fauci and dozens of others “for their exceptional efforts on Operation Warp Speed”.

It all illustrates why the GOP’s sudden Fauci focus might be problematic for Trump.

This was a guy who was front and center for the Trump administration for months during the pandemic. While he and Trump certainly tussled publicly, Trump never seemed inclined to go for a full break. That happens occasionally with Trump when it comes to certain people; it seems like someone is a likely target for his typical demonization campaigns, but he pulls his punches.

And if Fauci indeed helped kill millions of people — a completely unfounded allegation, to be sure — Trump would have played a major role in enabling him. He would even have given him an award after much of that supposed damage was done.

It’s a lot like how the GOP’s anti-vaccine fervor was so tough for Trump, in that he played a major role in creating the Covid vaccine.

Even aside from that, Trump might be skeptical there is all that much to be gained politically from this.

A poll last year showed a majority of Americans still trusted Fauci, after all. And Trump barely mentioned him on the 2024 campaign trail, even as much of the conservative base remained apoplectic over Covid lockdowns.

It’s unclear if the GOP will indeed feature Fauci during the home stretch of the 2026 campaign. At the very least, it could help them inject some enthusiasm into a dejected base.

But to do so, they probably need some help from Trump. And he doesn’t seem overly keen.

Mortgage rates hit highest level in a year amid persistent inflation fears

July 30, 2026 / 3:18 PM EDT / CBS News

Mortgage rates in the U.S. hit their highest level in a year on Thursday as renewed tensions in the Middle East and the Federal Reserve’s interest rate decision this week fanned inflation concerns.

The rate on a conventional 30-year mortgage averaged 6.66% in the week ending July 30, the highest level since July 2025, according to data from Freddie Mac.

Inflation can drive up mortgage rates, which tend to track the bond market, particularly the 10-year Treasury yield. Those yields jumped after the Fed on Wednesday left its benchmark interest rate unchanged.

Despite that decision, three members of the central bank’s rate-setting panel voted for a rate hike, fueling concerns that the Fed could eventually raise rates. Investors also appeared to question Federal Reserve Chairman Kevin Warsh’s commitment to raising interest rates to bring consumer prices under control.

New government data released on Thursday shows the Fed’s preferred measure of inflation slowed in June, a hopeful sign, although inflation remains stubbornly above the central bank’s 2% annual target.

“While it’s unclear if or when the central bankers might raise the funds rate, there’s plenty of concern that inflation’s running unchecked,” Kate Wood, a lending expert at NerdWallet, told CBS News in an email. “Between that and Iran, we’re seeing Treasury yields surge, and mortgage rates are being dragged up along with them.”

Rate hikes ahead?

Deutsche Bank expects the Fed to raise rates twice this year by a total of 0.50 percentage points, which would bring the federal funds rate to between 4% and 4.25%.

Mortgage rates are also drifting higher amid concerns that fighting in the Middle East could accelerate inflation, as shipping disruptions in the region push up oil and fuel prices.

“Because oil remains the primary channel through which the Iran conflict feeds inflation, a de-escalation and a reopening of the Strait of Hormuz remain the clearest path back toward lower rates,” Realtor.com senior economist Anthony Smith said in an analysis.

Hopes for a peace deal have unraveled as Iran and the U.S. continue to exchange strikes. The conflict appeared to expand to Egypt on Wednesday after drone strikes caused two natural gas vessels to catch fire in Egypt’s Mediterranean port of Damietta.

Democratic Rep. Garcia says GOP Sens. Cornyn and Tillis are doing ‘the right thing’ with Blanche nomination

2026-07-30 1:06 PM EDT / CNN

By Wolf Blitzer, CNN

Published 1:06 PM EDT, Thu July 30, 2026

https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/30/politics/video/cnn-sitroom-blitzer-california-robert-garcia-acting-attorney-general-todd-blanche-john-cornyn-thom-tillis

Democratic Rep. Garcia says GOP Sens. Cornyn and Tillis are doing “the right thing” with Blanche nomination

California Democratic Rep. Robert Garcia joins CNN’s Wolf Blitzer to discuss the stalled confirmation of Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, saying he hopes they are able to “end” the process with their votes.

1:49 • Source: CNN

Trump threatens to yank his own AG nominee as GOP revolt grows

July 30, 2026 12:12pm EDT / Fox News

Trump says he will resubmit Blanche’s name after GOP Sens Cornyn and Tillis leave office next year

By Alex Miller, Adam Pack, Fox News

Senate resumes Todd Blanche confirmation hearing amid fiery testimony

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche faces renewed scrutiny during his Senate confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill.

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President Donald Trump is taking a hardball tactic against Republican rebels demanding concessions for their vote to confirm Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche.

After Blanche’s confirmation hearing was postponed late Wednesday night, Trump took to Truth Social Thursday morning to excoriate the two key holdouts on the Senate Judiciary Committee standing in the way of his personal lawyer becoming the nation’s top prosecutor: Sens. John Cornyn, R-Texas, and Thom Tillis, R-N.C.

Trump threatened to withdraw Blanche’s nomination until both are out of office next year.

TRUMP AG PICK BLANCHE STALLED AS KEY REPUBLICANS REFUSE TO BUDGE

President Donald Trump addresses the nation from the East Room of the White House in Washington, D.C., on July 16, 2026.(Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images)

“Todd Blanche is a STAR, and everyone knows it! He has the potential to go down as one of the Greatest Attorney Generals of All Time,” Trump said. “However, John Cornyn, of Texas, and Thom Tillis, of North Carolina, both of whom I refused to Endorse, and whose political careers have been ended by my action, are refusing to vote for this Great Nominee, who will remain, in any event, as Acting.”

“Remember, both Cornyn and Tillis voted for Merrick Garland, and others, too numerous to mention,” he continued. “I have no objection to temporarily withdrawing Todd’s name, if they do not do the right thing, and putting him back after Cornyn and Tillis are out of office.”

While Trump did thwart Cornyn’s re-election bid by backing Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton as the Republican nominee, Tillis opted to retire on his own volition last year after raging over Trump’s “big, beautiful bill.”

DEMS REJECT TRUMP’S TOP SPY PICK AFTER DEMANDING REPLACEMENT, LEAVING COUNTER-TERROR TOOL IN AIR

https://www.foxnews.com/video/6392459672112

Cornyn shrugged off the threat almost immediately. Both he and Tillis are in pursuit of explicit, written proposals to modify the settlement deal reached between the IRS and Trump and his family earlier this year.

“POTUS is mistaken if he believes concerns about the provisions in his tax lawsuit settlement are limited to me and Senator Tillis,” Cornyn said on X.

Negotiations are still ongoing, but so far the duo have not gotten specifically what they want to permanently kill the now-defunct, nearly $2 billion anti-weaponization fund and a rewrite of Trump’s audit immunity baked into the settlement deal.

And there’s no guarantee that the Senate would be more accepting of Blanche next year, either, given that Republicans have more seats in danger than Senate Democrats.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said that waiting until 2027 is “a calculation they’ll have to make.”

“The best answer to this is to figure out how to answer, to resolve, the questions that Tillis and Cornyn have,” Thune said. “And I think there’s a way to do that, and then let’s get him confirmed. That would be my take. But, I mean, I’ll defer to whatever the White House, the president decides what they’re gonna do.”

DOZEN GOP REBELS FAIL TO PERMANENTLY KILL TRUMP’S CONTROVERSIAL $2B FUND

Trump says he will resubmit the acting attorney general’s name after GOP Sens. John Cornyn, R-Texas, and Thom Tillis, R-N.C., leave office next year.(Getty Images)

Trump could leave Blanche as acting attorney general for some time, similar to how former President Joe Biden left former acting Labor Secretary Julie Su in the role from 2023 to the end of his presidency. But that also comes with its own time limit.

Under the Federal Vacancies Reform Act, a cabinet-level official can stay in an acting role for 210 days. That timer resets if there is a pending nomination in the Senate. If Trump were to formally withdraw his nominating paperwork, the clock would start over.

If Trump were to formally yank Blanche from consideration on Thursday, he would be allowed, under law, to stay as acting attorney general until late February.

Tillis and Cornyn’s argument isn’t necessarily against Blanche, either. The problem lies with the administration and resistance to their demands, specifically for him putting a permanent end to the anti-weaponization fund. Tillis feared that “there is somebody who wants to enable it,” and that in doing so it would harm Republicans’ chances in the midterm elections.

“Look, I’ve said I’m not a no [on Blanche],” Tillis said. “I’m still working on getting this done, and I’m still optimistic that we will.”

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Meanwhile, their resistance and demands are what caused Senate Judiciary Chair Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, to postpone Blanche’s confirmation hearing scheduled for Thursday morning. Without their support, he wouldn’t be able to make it to the Senate floor.

Grassley said after Trump’s threat that Blanche was “well qualified, and I want to get him approved.”

“I think that right now I’m concentrating on the next few days to get this nomination through, and I’m not going to consider anything else,” Grassley said.

Alex Miller is a writer for Fox News Digital covering the U.S. Senate.

Pulte expected to temporarily overlap with his replacement as intelligence chief

2026-07-30T17:27:14.942Z / CNN

By Kristen Holmes

Updated 1 hr ago

Updated Jul 30, 2026, 3:02 PM ET

PUBLISHED Jul 30, 2026, 1:27 PM ET

Bill Pulte, the acting director of national intelligence, arrives before President Donald Trump holds an event to honor the 2025 World Series champions in the Rose Garden of the White House, on July 23, 2026.

Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP

Acting Director of National Intelligence Bill Pulte will not immediately leave his office after his more permanent replacement, Jay Clayton, is sworn in, according to a source familiar with the matter. Instead, the two men’s tenures at the top of the office will overlap for at least two weeks.

Clayton, who was confirmed by the Senate earlier this week, is expected to be sworn in as director of national intelligence next week, according to the source. Pulte is expected to stay in the office for at least two weeks after that, the source said, cautioning that the timeline could shift.

Pulte made a case to President Donald Trump directly that he wasn’t finished with the job and wanted to stay on to complete what he had set out to do, multiple sources told CNN. The combative and controversial housing executive, who had no prior national security experience, has made sharp staffing cuts to the intelligence community and played a role in declassifying certain documents related to Trump’s false claims of election fraud in 2020.

While Trump likes Pulte and was happy with his performance, including the staffing cuts, one source said the president also was fond of Clayton and understood that there was a desire to get him in the role quickly — including by senators who had initially balked at Trump’s decision to tap Pulte for the acting role.

US officials familiar with Pulte’s tenure previously suggested to CNN that he did not have enough time to accomplish all his goals tied to declassifying certain material. The declassification project largely fell to the conservative commentator John Solomon, who became a special government employee earlier this summer.

Pulte and CIA Director John Ratcliffe got into a heated dispute last week over the scope of redactions in the documents the White House planned to release related to foreign interference in the 2020 election, according to four sources familiar with the exchange. Pulte argued to make more of the text public, according to those sources, and both parties raised their voices.

But ultimately, Pulte backed down and began to defer to Ratcliffe, the sources said.

It’s difficult to measure how deep Pulte’s staffing cuts went. Current and former officials alike say the Office of the Director of National Intelligence has been deeply degraded. Pulte announced on Tuesday a fifth and “near final” round of firings, claiming in a post on X that the dismissals had cumulatively axed “approximately 30%” of staff at the top spy agency; his predecessor Tulsi Gabbard had previously announced that she planned to cut the workforce, then around 2,000 people, by 40%. CNN was not able to independently confirm those figures.

But even those who support the agency broadly cautioned against hysteria about the depth of the cuts.

For some critics, the far deeper concern with Pulte beyond his inexperience was whether he would weaponize sensitive intelligence against the president’s critics. As Director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, he helped facilitate mortgage fraud investigations against the president’s top political opponents.

This story was updated with additional context.

CNN’s Katie Bo Lillis and Zachary Cohen contributed to this report.

Father of Georgia school shooter sentenced to 15 years in prison

July 30, 2026 6:03 PM UTC Updated 1 hour ago / Reuters

Colin Gray, 54, the father of Apalachee High School shooter Colt Gray, 14, who is charged as an adult with four counts of murder in the deaths of Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo, both 14, Richard Aspinwall, 39, and Cristina Irimie, 53, enters the Barrow County courthouse for his first appearance, in Winder, U.S., September… Read more

July 30 (Reuters) – A man who gave his troubled son the rifle he used to kill four people at a Georgia high school was sentenced on Thursday to 15 years in prison, ​the culmination of the state’s first case in which a parent was convicted of ‌second-degree murder for a mass shooting committed by his child.

Colt Gray, 16, was sentenced to life in prison without parole on Tuesday for the 2024 school shooting by a Barrow County Superior Court judge. Two days later, the same judge ​sentenced his 55-year-old father, Colin Gray, to far less than the 80 years prosecutors had ​requested.

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Judge Nicholas Primm noted that none of the charges underlying Colin Gray’s conviction ⁠entailed mandatory prison time while acknowledging the “immeasurable heartache” his negligence had caused.

“The loss here is profound,” ​Primm said, following tearful testimony by several relatives of those killed in the shooting. “But I still have ​to distinguish your acts from the malignant heart and the acts that Colt Gray committed.”

Colin Gray is the latest U.S. parent to be prosecuted for a mass shooting committed by a child — an emerging legal strategy employed by prosecutors in ​a bid to tackle the epidemic of gun violence in U.S. schools.

Months before Colt Gray’s shooting, ​the parents of a Michigan teenager who shot and killed four classmates were sentenced to 10 to 15 years in ‌prison after ⁠being convicted for manslaughter.

In that case, a jury found Jennifer and James Crumbley guilty of not securing guns in their home and of ignoring signs that their son was mentally disturbed.

Colin Gray’s defense attorney on Thursday urged the judge to give his client a sentence of 10 years in prison and ​10 years in probation, ​arguing the Michigan parents ⁠had more advance notice of their son’s problems and noting that Gray was the first parent in the state to be charged for a child’s ​mass shooting.

“We would ask the court not to make Georgia the national ​outlier in this ⁠first case of its kind, against a defendant whose warnings came with less and whose efforts were more,” Hobbs said.

Barrow County District Attorney Brad Smith rejected Hobbs’s claim that Colin Gray had little warning of ⁠his son’s ​violent plans, showing the judge a replica of a bedroom ​wall on which Colt had created a shrine to the gunman behind the 2018 mass shooting at a high school in ​Parkland, Florida.

The risk was “staring him in the face every day,” Smith told the judge.

Reporting by Julia Harte

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Florida AG threatens Fauci investigation after Senate hearing

July 30, 2026 12:59pm EDT / Fox News

Uthmeier cited revelations from Rand Paul showing Fauci privately estimated a far lower COVID death rate than he testified

By Robert McGreevy, Fox News

Fauci pleads Fifth Amendment in Senate hearing, faces contempt vote

Dr. Anthony Fauci pleaded the Fifth Amendment over 100 times in a Senate hearing, leading Senator Rand Paul to accuse him of lying and destroying public records related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Paul advocates for holding Fauci in contempt of Congress.

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Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier said he will be opening up an investigation into Dr. Anthony Fauci, former National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) director, following Fauci’s explosive decision to invoke his Fifth Amendment right and not answer any questions during a congressional hearing Wednesday.

“Fauci’s lack of candor to Congress is unbelievable. My office is launching an investigation into Dr. Fauci. It’s past time we get the truth of what happened during COVID,” Uthmeier wrote in a Wednesday post on X.

Uthmeier expanded on his decision in an exclusive statement to Fox News Digital.

FAUCI PLEADS FIFTH WITH ‘ZERO LEGAL JUSTIFICATION’ AS CRITICS ERUPT AND DEMAND CONTEMPT CHARGES

James Uthmeier spoke at the National Conservative Convention on Sept. 3, 2025, in Washington, D.C.(Dominic Gwinn/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images)

“In light of recent reports exposed by Senator Rand Paul, we will investigate any and all potential violations of Florida law involving Anthony Fauci,” Uthmeier told Fox News Digital.

“Our inquiry will focus on what Fauci knew, when he knew it, and how he misled the American people. We will examine the physical and monetary harms to Floridians that may have resulted from his deceptions and determine whether his conduct exposes him to liability under state law,” Uthmeier’s statement concluded.

Uthmeier cited revelations published by Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., which revealed internal notes Fauci wrote on government computers during his time at NIAID.

FAUCI’S NEWLY RELEASED COVID DIARIES REVEAL BIZARRE FIXATION ON FAME AS PANDEMIC DEATHS MOUNTED

Former NIH Director Anthony Fauci listens during a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing on July 29, 2026, in Washington, D.C. Fauci declined to answer questions, asserting his Fifth Amendment right.(Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

The internal notes, which Paul and others have taken to referring to as Fauci’s “diary,” suggest Fauci appeared to publicly overstate the death rate from COVID-19 compared to what he wrote privately.

“Former CDC Director Tom Frieden called me this AM and we discussed various aspects of the outbreak,” Fauci wrote on Feb. 8, 2020.

“He and I are on the same page in thinking tht [sic] this is acting like a bad influenza in its transmissibility and that the denominator is much greater than 34,867 (above) making the case fatality rate (CFR) more like 0.2-0.3 % rather than 2.0%,” Fauci’s entry concluded.

However, a month later, in congressional testimony to the House Oversight Committee on March 11, 2020, Fauci pegged the mortality rate at 1%.

“I think if you count all the cases of minimally symptomatic or asymptomatic infection, that probably brings the mortality rate down to somewhere around 1%, which means it is 10 times more lethal than the seasonal flu,” he testified.

Anthony Fauci declined to testify in a Senate committee hearing on his role in the U.S. response to COVID-19, invoking his Fifth Amendment right.(Alex Wroblewski/AFP via Getty Images; Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

When called to testify on the revelations before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on Wednesday, Fauci exercised his Fifth Amendment right and refused to answer legislators’ questions 111 times.

Uthmeier is not the only Republican to take aim at the former COVID czar in light of the revelations.

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said Wednesday that Fauci should be held in congressional contempt for refusing to answer questions despite receiving a presidential pardon.

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“I think Anthony Fauci has had contempt for Congress and contempt for the American people for decades,” he said. “His diary shows that he deliberately lied to the American people over and over and over again.”

Paul, for his part, said his committee will vote on whether to hold Fauci in contempt next week.