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Dems kill Republican’s chances of lowering Americans’ electricity bills in key election flashpoint

Chuck Schumer says the Ratepayer Protection Act is a ‘fraud’ with no real enforcement mechanism

September 30, 2026 1:45pm EDT / Fox News

By Alex Miller Fox News

Tight Senate races shift focus to AI data centers, energy prices

Ohio Senate race candidates clash over local energy costs and AI data centers as the ‘Fox News Sunday’ panel analyzes the upcoming midterm elections. The panel debates the political stakes of high utility bills and Chinese bot farm manipulation on social media. New polling shows a tight Senate race in Maine.

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Democrats blocked a push to tackle one of the key issues driving this midterm election cycle, and may have given a vulnerable Republican a political lifeline in the process.

Republicans’ effort to crack down on rising electricity costs caused by the boom in data centers across the country was stifled on Wednesday by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Democrats, despite cruising through the House in a massive bipartisan vote.

Schumer’s blockade, however, wasn’t unanimous among Democrats, with four — Sens. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., Jon Ossoff, D-Ga., Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., and Maggie Hassan, D-N.H. — breaking ranks to support the bill.

The Ratepayer Protection Act, would have created a standard for AI companies and the data centers they run to bear the brunt of electricity costs — an issue that has become a predominant concern for voters this midterm cycle.

FIRST DATA CENTER BILL CLEARS HOUSE AS BOTH PARTIES SCRAMBLE FOR ANSWERS ON AFFORDABILITY

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat from New York, speaks during a news conference following Senate Democratic policy luncheons at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, June 23, 2026.(Daniel Heuer/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

But Democrats argued it was a toothless effort that lacked any real enforcement mechanism, and merely a political ploy to give vulnerable Sen. Jon Husted, R-Ohio, a boost.

“The Ratepayer Protection Act is a fraud. It does not require any protections at all,” Schumer said. “While Americans are demanding real guardrails on AI and data centers, Republicans are offering a toothless messaging bill.”

“We need real action on data centers. And what do Republicans decide all of a sudden to push force forward a bill that is totally optional?”

While the U.S. continues its arms race with China for AI dominance, voters want to see tech companies cool their jets and slow the rapid construction of data centers. A Fox News poll from July found that 70% of voters, both Republicans and Democrats, opposed the construction of new data centers.

SCHUMER PREACHES AFFORDABILITY IN DEM MIDTERM PITCH WHILE SABOTAGING GOP FIXES FOR SOARING COSTS

https://www.foxnews.com/video/6405373073112

Republicans, including Husted, hoped that voter concerns could persuade Democrats to break from Schumer and vote in favor of the bill heading into Wednesday’s test.

“We all know that people would like to see us do something to lower their prices,” Husted said. We have the opportunity to do that.”

Data centers have become a political cudgel against Husted in his race against former Sen. Sherrod Brown, who has labeled him the “face of data centers” in a battle that could determine who wins the majority in November.

Husted argued that the bill passed the House with only three Democrats voting against it, and that this push didn’t need to be labeled a “partisan victory.” Killing the bill, however, could give Husted a needed boost to campaign on, given that Democrats stopped one of the main issues voters have going into the election, particularly in Ohio.

“It’s like, look, this can be an opportunity for the Democrats to join us and say, ‘yeah, we agree. We’re gonna work with them to get something done,’ and I hope they will,” Husted said.

ANXIETY GROWS OVER EMERGING ELECTION ISSUE, BUT GOP SAYS WASHINGTON ISN’T THE ANSWER

Sen. Jon Husted, R-Ohio, speaks to reporters following policy luncheons at the U.S. Capitol Building on Sept. 29, 2026, in Washington, D.C. Husted is pushing the Ratepayer Protection Act, which Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., has called a fraud and a toothless messaging bill.(Getty Images)

But Democrats countered the legislation was just a stunt to give Husted political ammunition.

Sen. Andy Kim, D-N.J., told Fox News Digital that voters could see through the politics being played with by the GOP, and that the bill is “good for Senator Husted, but not necessarily for them.”

“Because it’s not, it doesn’t have anything that would actually force change,” Kim said. “And so that’s what we need. We need something that is actually gonna be substantial and meet the moment rather than things that are just designed to be able to help with political elections.”

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Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., argued that it was a massive bipartisan effort in the House, and questioned “why you would say that” the effort was just a political front to give Husted an issue to campaign on.

“I just think, if you’re looking at issues that we want to get at the heart of what everybody seems to be saying, the Democrats and others are saying, are important, we’re concerned about,” Thune said. “And it’s a chance to actually make the law, it’s not just making a point here.”

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

Powell did not break the law with expensive Fed renovations that incensed Trump, report finds

2026-09-30T17:00:29.242Z / CNN

An inspector general review of the Federal Reserve’s headquarters renovation found no sign that then-Chair Jerome Powell broke the law or committed misconduct in his management of the costly project, even as it sharply criticized him and the central bank’s board for allowing the price tag to balloon beyond $2 billion.

The conclusions released Wednesday undercut President Donald Trump and his allies’ accusations that Powell had been criminally negligent in his oversight of the renovations — a charge that Trump seized on as part of a monthslong bid to pressure Powell to resign.

“We did not find reasonable grounds to believe that a violation of federal criminal law had occurred and did not identify violations of Board policy warranting an administrative misconduct finding,” the Fed’s inspector general wrote in the 120-page report on the renovations.

The report follows a yearlong investigation into a renovation project that has seen its total cost nearly double from initial estimates in 2020, the inspector general found, with the Fed now budgeting roughly $2.4 billion for the project.

Fed Chair Kevin Warsh, who took over the top post in May, concurred with the review’s findings in a separate letter to the inspector general. He also committed to conducting an independent audit of the project’s contractor. A Federal Reserve spokespesron declined to comment beyond the contents of Warsh’s letter.

Trump, who had soured on Powell over his refusal to lower interest rates despite nominating him to the position in 2017, had highlighted the cost overruns in a series of attacks on the then-chair last spring. At one point, he personally visited the Fed headquarters to inspect the renovations, putting the tensions between the two men on full display. During that visit, Powell even fact-checked Trump’s cost estimates in real time before the cameras.

The criticism prompted congressional scrutiny and spurred the Justice Department to briefly open a criminal probe into Powell, before suspending it amid intense backlash from some Republican lawmakers.

Yet while the inspector general report dismissed the most serious accusations levied against Powell, it faulted the Fed’s board for mismanaging the renovations project at several points, concluding that it “could have better controlled costs and mitigated some of the significant construction cost increases.”

The project was troubled from the beginning, the review found, with the board failing to set price caps or ensure that firms bidding on the construction submitted estimates for how much it would cost them to complete the total renovation.

The Fed board also did not monitor the project’s day-to-day developments closely enough, the inspector general wrote, and at one point decided against seeking more competitive bids for elements of the project in order to “keep the project moving.”

“We also found it concerning that a project of this magnitude had no formally established success measures to monitor the project’s progress,” the report said, later concluding that “the Board did not take numerous actions available to it that could have better controlled costs and mitigated some of the significant construction cost increases.”

However, one heavily scrutinized aspect of the renovations did not drive the cost overruns, the report found: The water fountains, marble restoration and other flourishes that Trump and congressional Republicans had highlighted as evidence of the Fed’s largess.

“These initial design plans included certain design features that have been highlighted and questioned by members of Congress and other external stakeholders,” the report said. “We did not find that these design features materially contributed to the substantial construction cost increases.”

The report did not blame Powell or any individual Fed board governors for the shortcomings, describing a process that was instead managed largely by a web of committees inside the central bank.

But the inspector general recommended that the Fed’s board take seven corrective actions, including launching an audit of the project and a search within its existing contracts for costs that might be recouped.

Warsh in his letter agreed to implement all of those recommendations, pointing to the necessity “of completing the work in the most efficient and transparent way possible.”

He also disclosed that he had already asked the Government Services Administration to examine the project and help oversee the completion of the renovations — a notable step that effectively involves a federal agency in the activities of the independent central bank.

The president has faced ongoing scrutiny over the price tags of his own set of renovation projects at the White House and across Washington. Most notably, he’s overseeing the construction of a White House ballroom that has already far exceeded its initial $200 million estimate, with the administration offering little clarity on how it’s covering those additional costs.

The report appears to close perhaps the most striking chapter in Trump’s long-running efforts to influence the Federal Reserve and its decision-making, which included targeting Powell and separate attempts to remove Fed board member Lisa Cook. In a statement, White House spokesman Kush Desai did not weigh in on the inspector general’s not finding a crime, but said the report “reinforces the gross mismanagement that President Trump has repeatedly highlighted by the Federal Reserve’s prior leadership.”

“Despite numerous assurances to Congress and OMB that the project was being carefully overseen, prior Fed leadership failed to be attentive or concerned about cost control enforcement while costs of the Fed’s renovation doubled for American taxpayers,” he added.

Trump has also frequently pressed the Fed in public to slash interest rates, breaking with previous presidents’ reluctance to meddle with the central bank’s independence. That has continued since Warsh took over in May, even as the Fed has since moved to raise interest rates. While Trump expressed frustration with the decision, he has so far declined to personally target Warsh.

Powell stepped down as Fed chair in May when his term expired but took the rare step of remaining on the central bank’s powerful board of governors. Powell explained his decision by citing “the series of legal attacks on the Fed which threaten our ability to conduct monetary policy without considering political factors.”

“I had long planned to be retiring,” Powell told reporters in late April. “The things that have happened really in the last three months have, I think, left me no choice but to stay until I see them through.” Powell added that he would not leave the Fed board until the investigation was “well and truly over with transparency and finality.”

Jeanine Pirro, the US attorney for the District of Columbia, dropped an extraordinary criminal investigation into Powell in April. However, Pirro said her office would review the inspector general report and indicated the criminal probe could be restarted, if warranted.

This story has been updated with additional reporting.

Federal regulator probing Trump critic Adam Kinzinger for betting on his own pardon

2026-09-30T16:25:35.544Z / https://www.cnn.com/2026/09/30/politics/adam-kinzinger-pardon-kalshi-bet

Federal regulators are investigating former Rep. Adam Kinzinger for trading on the prediction platform Kalshi about a pardon he received from former President Joe Biden, two sources familiar with the matter told CNN.

Biden pardoned Kinzinger last year during the final hours of his presidency, along with other members of the House committee that investigated Donald Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election. The preemptive pardons were needed, Biden argued, to protect the lawmakers from possible retaliation by the incoming Trump administration.

Prediction platforms like Kalshi and Polymarket let users wager on nearly everything – including sports, entertainment, elections and other political news.

Kinzinger, a Republican and prominent Trump critic, traded less than $1,000 on two pardon-related Kalshi markets in late 2024 and early 2025, sources said, and betted that he would get a pardon from Biden.

He acknowledged making the trades in an interview with CNN but said he never had any insider information about the pardons. He was a private citizen at the time of the trades – out of Congress and not running for office. Kinzinger is a CNN contributor.

A person familiar with the matter said the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the federal regulator that polices prediction markets, is looking into Kinzinger’s trades. Career enforcement officials started scrutinizing the Biden pardon markets on both Kalshi and Polymarket after seeing press reports about potential insider activity, the source said.

Politico previously reported the CFTC inquiry into Kinzinger, which is the first publicly known federal probe into pardon markets on prediction sites.

CNN has maintained a partnership with Kalshi since December and uses its data to cover major events, but CNN editorial employees aren’t permitted to use prediction markets.

The CFTC and Kalshi declined to comment.

In an interview with CNN, Kinzinger admitted to making the trades, saying they were two of a “few dozen” bets he placed about political topics. He said he had reviewed Kalshi’s rules beforehand and that he believed his actions did not violate the rules. He shared screenshots with CNN showing that he wagered a total of $669 and netted $823.

“It was a dumb bet, to bet on myself,” Kinzinger said. “Looking back, I’m like, yeah, I wish I’d have skipped it. But everything I saw at the time was like, you’re within your right to bet on this.”

He also denied that he engaged in insider trading, primarily because he says he did not have any advance knowledge of the pardons and did not discuss potential pardons with the Biden White House. He said he hasn’t heard from any government investigators.

“At no point, ever, had I had a conversation with anybody in the know about pardons (or) whether I’d get pardoned,” Kinzinger said. “Certainly, nobody in the White House or anybody that would know anything.”

Kalshi also uncovered Kinzinger’s trades during a broader look into “suspicious” activity and flagged them to the CFTC, another person familiar with the matter said.

The source said Kalshi tried to get in touch with Kinzinger, but he did not respond. It’s common for Kalshi to try to internally settle its probes when small amounts of money are involved and when the trader cooperates. Kinzinger told CNN he never heard from Kalshi.

Prediction platforms have exploded in popularity this year and now see billions of dollars in weekly trading volume. But as they’ve grown, so have calls for more regulation.

Last month, Kalshi fined several political candidates for betting on their own campaigns, violating the company’s insider-trading rules.

The CFTC also recently settled a case with the former Trump White House teleprompter operator for “unlawful” bets on Kalshi about what Trump would say in his speeches. And they settled with former Rep. George Santos for improper trades about whether he would attend the State of the Union.

A bipartisan coalition of 44 states have urged the CFTC to rein in prediction platforms. So have dozens of lawmakers on Capitol Hill, who are backing legislation that would stiffen penalties against insider trading.

Among those who want more regulation is Kinzinger himself. He wrote in a November 2025 Substack post that Kalshi and other prediction sites are a “corruption time bomb” and a “threat to democracy” because politicians can profit from insider knowledge.

Secret phone record seizure sparks personal lawsuit from GOP senator

September 30, 2026 12:00pm EDT / Fox News

The lawsuit challenges Smith’s constitutional authority and seeks the return and destruction of her seized Verizon records

By Charles Creitz, Fox News

Sen John Kennedy slams Jack Smith: You make me want to ‘throw up’

Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., discusses his heated clash with former special counsel Jack Smith during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on ‘America Reports.’

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FIRST ON FOX:A top Republican senator whose phone toll records were secretly subpoenaed during Jack Smith’s investigation of President Donald Trump sued the former special counsel in his personal capacity Wednesday, arguing he was never lawfully empowered to wield the authority behind the Arctic Frost investigation.

The lawsuit, Senator Marsha Blackburn v. John L. Smith, argues the prosecutor lacked lawful authority to serve as special counsel and violated the lawmaker’s rights by obtaining the records. Blackburn is asking a federal court to declare Smith’s appointment unconstitutional, order the records destroyed and award $1 in nominal damages.

The case therefore seeks to test not only Smith’s tactics, but the legitimacy of the authority he claims to have exercised as special counsel appointed by then-Attorney General Merrick Garland during the Biden administration.

“This lawsuit is solely about holding Mr. Smith accountable and ensuring that our nation’s justice system can never again be weaponized against the American people,” Blackburn, R-Tenn., told Fox News Digital.

JACK SMITH HIT WITH CRIMINAL REFERRAL AS GOP MOVES TESTIMONY FIGHT TOWARD PROSECUTION

Jack Smith, former US special counsel, arrives for a closed-door deposition before the House Judiciary Committee in Washington, DC, US, on Wednesday, Dec. 17, 2025. Smith was subpoenaed to testify about his sweeping investigations into President Donald Trump’s actions, as part of an ongoing investigation the panel is conducting into the probes he led. Photographer: Kent Nishimura/Bloomberg via Getty Images(Kent Nishimura/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

“Through his Arctic Frost witch-hunt that targeted conservatives across America and even the president of the United States, Jack Smith perpetrated one of the worst abuses of government power in our nation’s history,” she said.

Blackburn’s suit argues that Smith lacked lawful authority to hold the office he purported to exercise, while separately seeking to impose personal liability on him for the way that purported authority was used against her.

JACK SMITH THRUST BACK INTO SPOTLIGHT AT BLANCHE HEARING OVER EXPOSED SENATORS’ MESSAGES

Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., speaks as U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee in the Hart Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill on Oct. 7, 2025 in Washington, D.C.(Win McNamee/Getty Images)

The case opens a new legal front against Smith one day after his contentious Senate Judiciary Committee testimony, during which he acknowledged approving subpoenas for members of Congress despite understanding that nondisclosure orders prevented them from challenging the seizures under the Constitution’s Speech or Debate Clause.

Smith is a longtime prosecutor who most recently served as special counsel overseeing the Justice Department’s investigations into President Donald Trump. Earlier in his career, he prosecuted cases before the International Criminal Court and led the DOJ’s Public Integrity Section, which brought bribery charges against former Virginia Republican Gov. Robert F. McDonnell in a case where the Supreme Court later unanimously vacated the conviction.

Arctic Frost was the codename for the FBI investigation into Trump’s handling of classified documents and alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election before the probe was handed over to Smith by then-Attorney General Merrick Garland.

Blackburn and her data were swept up in the probe after Smith’s team subpoenaed toll records from her and several other Republicans—a move that sparked outrage at Tuesday’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing over whether obtaining the records without notification violated the Constitution.

In May 2023, Smith’s office issued a grand-jury subpoena seeking Verizon toll records, while a separate nondisclosure order barred the company from notifying affected customers—including Blackburn—that its information had been turned over.

While the records did not reveal the contents of conversations, they showed whom Blackburn communicated with, when and for how long, according to the complaint. The lawsuit alleges that Smith’s office obtained a court-approved nondisclosure order without informing the judge that the subpoena sought records belonging to a sitting U.S. senator.

JACK SMITH’S TRUMP PROBE SWEPT UP FOX NEWS, OTHER MEDIA COMMUNICATIONS AS INVESTIGATION WENT BEYOND LAWMAKERS

Former Special Counsel John L. “Jack” Smith, left; Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tennessee, right.(Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images; Brian Stukes/Getty Images)

More broadly, Smith’s team issued 197 subpoenas to 34 individuals and 163 businesses seeking information involving at least 430 Republican individuals and entities, according to Senate Judiciary Committee records.

Tuesday’s hearing also began with a scathing rebuke from Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, who accused Smith’s prosecutors of sweeping up communications between journalists at Fox News and other media organizations and sources connected to the first Trump administration.

For his part, Smith repeatedly hit back at allegations of corrupt or partisan prosecution, saying at one point his “investigation developed proof beyond a reasonable doubt that President Trump engaged in serious crimes against our nation.”

Blackburn’s suit is being brought by the nonpartisan New Civil Liberties Alliance (NCLA) on her behalf, and the Tennessee senator thanked the group for its partnership.

JACK SMITH’S SENATE PHONE RECORDS PROBE TURNS TO VERIZON’S HANDLING OF SUBPOENAS

Blackburn’s attorneys argue that Smith exercised special counsel powers without lawful constitutional or statutory authorization. Separately, the complaint names Smith in his personal capacity and seeks to hold him liable for alleged violations of Blackburn’s constitutional and civil rights arising from the subpoena and nondisclosure order.

“Jack Smith was illegally named Special Counsel in November of 2022, with Attorney General Merrick Garland handing a private citizen the sweeping powers of a special counsel,” NCLA said in a statement obtained by Fox News Digital.

“Then-President Biden did not nominate Smith, nor did the Senate confirm Smith as either Special Counsel or in any other position. And no statute authorized his appointment.”

“NCLA’s complaint asks the court to declare Smith’s appointment unlawful under the Constitution’s Appointments Clause and to hold Smith accountable, in his personal capacity, for his gross abuses of power.”

VETERAN DEM BREAKS PARTY LINE AS JACK SMITH SPYING SCANDAL GRIPS CAPITOL HILL

https://www.foxnews.com/video/6405333134112

The suit alleges the subpoena violated Blackburn’s constitutional and civil rights and that the nondisclosure order prevented her from challenging the demand under the Constitution’s Speech or Debate Clause.

“This lawsuit is not only about the faux authority granted to Smith through an unconstitutional appointment. It is also about ensuring that the Department of Justice—the very body responsible for enforcing federal law on behalf of our nation—acts only within its constitutional bounds,” NCLA counsel L. Margaret Harker said in a statement.

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The lawsuit seeks a declaration that Smith’s appointment was unconstitutional, the return and destruction of Blackburn’s phone records, and $1 in nominal damages. NCLA says the limited damages request reflects Blackburn’s stated goal of obtaining judicial accountability for what the complaint alleges were constitutional violations committed while Smith exercised special counsel powers.

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Fox News Digital reached out to Smith’s counsel for comment.

Born and raised in Allentown, Pennsylvania, worked in both the New York and Washington bureaus for Fox News since 2013.

Senate Democrats block bill to limit lawmakers’ stock trades, citing voter ID provision

September 30, 2026 / 12:55 PM EDT / CBS News

Washington — A Republican-led effort to approve a House-passed stock trading bill fell short in the Senate on Wednesday, with Democrats arguing the restrictions don’t go far enough while pushing back against a voter ID provision that they argue would gut mail voting.

In a 53 to 47 vote that fell along party lines, the measure failed to reach a 60-vote threshold needed to advance.

The bill, known as the Stop Insider Trading Act, passed the House in July with the support of all Republicans and 13 Democrats. It would prohibit lawmakers, their spouses and dependent children, from purchasing publicly traded stocks, while requiring that they publicly disclose each intended sale at least a week in advance to limit their ability to profit off insider information.

But Democrats argued that the bill doesn’t go far enough, urging that an outright ban is needed for members of Congress — along with the president and members of his administration.

“The Republican toothless stock-trading bill is as ineffective as a screen door on a submarine,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said on the Senate floor ahead of the vote. “And let’s be clear: they don’t even want it to pass. They designed the bill to fail.”

The New York Democrat railed against the legislation earlier this week, while noting it wouldn’t apply to the executive branch. He claimed that Republicans “carved the White House out of their supposed crack down on corruption.”

Democrats also saw the bill’s provision requiring voters to show photo identification when voting in federal elections as a poison pill designed to prompt them to vote against the more popular stock-trading restrictions. The unrelated provision was included in the bill as President Trump has put pressure on Congress to approve elections-related legislation ahead of the midterms.

GOP leaders moved ahead with the vote on Wednesday as senators prepare to leave town to hit the campaign trail, bringing up the vote alongside another bill aimed at shielding Americans from energy costs attributed to data centers later in the day. The votes, which were expected to fall short, aimed to put Democrats on the record on the issues at a time when Senate Republicans face several races that have grown more competitive, putting control of the upper chamber next year into question.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, a South Dakota Republican, called the bill a “common-sense piece of legislation,” pointing to its limits on stock trading and the voter ID requirement.

“It’s a pretty simple measure,” Thune said. “But an important way to ensure that members of Congress are held to the standards that America should be able to expect of their representatives.”

Lawmakers have pursued a number of efforts to ban congressional stock trading in recent years. But Schumer argued that the latest bill “isn’t a stock-trading ban, it’s Republicans’ last-ditch effort to save face.” If Republicans want to ban stock trading, the New York Democrat said his caucus is “ready to go.”

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand tells CNN she has ‘grave concerns’ about Defense Secretary Hegseth’s leadership

2026-09-30T17:47:50.701Z / CNN

By Pamela Brown, CNN

Published 1:47 PM EDT, Wed September 30, 2026

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand tells CNN she has “grave concerns” about Defense Secretary Hegseth’s leadership

Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, who serves on the Senate Armed Services Committee, joins CNN’s Pamela Brown to discuss Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s anticipated announcement of cutting the number of positions reserved for generals and admirals by 20 percent.

4:03 • Source: CNN

Harvard sued by US agency seeking records in anti-white hiring probe

2026-09-30T17:35:08.688Z / Reuters

Students walk on campus at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S., November 19, 2025. REUTERS/Reba Saldanha

• EEOC asks judge to enforce subpoena for faculty applicant data since 2018
• EEOC’s chair accused Harvard of systemic bias against white, Asian, male or straight applicants
• Harvard’s lawyers call probe part of broader government retaliation

BOSTON, Sept 30 (Reuters) – The US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed a lawsuit seeking to force ‌Harvard University to turn over records for an investigation into whether the Ivy League school’s hiring practices are discriminatory, particularly against white men.

The EEOC filed the

lawsuit
in Boston federal court late on Tuesday after the commission’s Republican chair, Andrea Lucas, last ​year filed a charge accusing Harvard of engaging in systemic discrimination on the basis of ​race and sex.

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She did so as President Donald Trump’s administration launched a broad campaign against ⁠the nation’s richest and oldest university, which contends it is being retaliated against for refusing demands to ​overhaul its hiring and academic programs to align with the Republican’s agenda.

Lucas alleged that since 2018, Cambridge, Massachusetts-based ​Harvard engaged in a pattern of discriminating against white, Asian, male or straight employees and job applicants in order to achieve what the school said was the “demographic diversification of the faculty.”

The EEOC under Lucas has been focused on scrutinizing diversity, ​equity and inclusion programs at companies and institutions. In Harvard’s case, she charged that the school adopted ​a series of programs that resulted in a growth of faculty employment in every demographic group since 2013 except white ‌men.

The EEOC ⁠said that while Harvard had produced some records, it had resisted turning over a broad series of categories of documents, including data concerning all applicants for faculty positions since 2018.

The agency asked a judge to order Harvard to comply with its subpoena, which the EEOC said was part of a valid investigation into ​whether Harvard engaged in ​discriminatory practices in violation ⁠of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Harvard did not respond to requests for comment. But in an exhibit included with the lawsuit, its lawyers ​argued the agency “is not engaged in a good-faith investigation but rather is ​part of the ⁠whole-of-government retaliation against Harvard.”

The university has already secured rulings from other judges rejecting the administration’s efforts to terminate over $2 billion in grants, block the school from hosting international students and sue it for allegedly failing to protect Jewish and Israeli ⁠students ​from harassment.

A federal judge during a Friday hearing appeared skeptical of ​a separate lawsuit the US Department of Justice filed seeking to force Harvard to turn over records for an investigation into the ​extent to which it considers race in its student admissions.

Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston Editing by Bill Berkrot

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Nate Raymond reports on the federal judiciary and litigation. He can be reached at nate.raymond@thomsonreuters.com.

Fed watchdog finds no laws broken in $2.5 billion Fed renovations Trump has called “disgraceful”

September 30, 2026 / 2:54 PM EDT / CBS News

By Richard Escobedo
Washington— The Federal Reserve’s inspector general announced Wednesday that the multibillion-dollar renovations of the Fed’s headquarters criticized by President Trump as “disgraceful” did not violate federal law, though the office concluded poor project management dramatically increased the cost.

“At no point during our evaluation did we find reasonable grounds to believe that a violation of federal criminal law had occurred requiring a referral to the U.S. Attorney General in accordance with the Inspector General Act,” the new 121-page report stated. The IG also did not find fault with features that the White House had complained were “ostentatious” and noncompliant with the approved plans.

Although the report found “deficiencies in the management of the renovation project” that resulted in a series of recommendations from the inspector general, “we did not identify administrative misconduct during our evaluation,” wrote Michael Horowitz, the central bank’s inspector general.

The report is the culmination of an internal investigation that lasted more than a year, which the IG says came at then-Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell’s request and began in July 2025.

President Trump and Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell touring the renovation project on July 24, 2025. Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images

A separate Justice Department probe was announced in January, when Powell revealed in a video message that the Fed had received grand jury subpoenas as part of an ongoing criminal investigation.

The subpoenas threatened an indictment related to Powell’s testimony before the Banking Committee in June 2025 about the years-long project to renovate the Fed’s offices. Bill Pulte, who leads the Federal Housing Finance Agency, urged Congress in July 2025 to investigate Powell over his testimony about the renovations, alleging he has been “deceptive.” He offered no evidence to back up his accusations.

The IG also reviewed Powell’s testimony and concluded there had been no criminal wrongdoing.

The criminal probe involving Powell came amid Mr. Trump’s frequent airing of frustrations with him for declining to rapidly slash interest rates. The U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., ultimately quashed the subpoenas issued by D.C. U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro, finding they were a pretext to pressure Powell into voting to lower interest rates or resigning.

In January, Mr. Trump nominated Kevin Warsh to succeed Powell as Fed chair — but Warsh’s confirmation faced a key hurdle when Republican Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina said he would not vote to confirm any nominee until Pirro dropped the criminal probe into Powell.

In April, Pirro announced that federal prosecutors had ended their criminal investigation, clearing the way for Warsh’s confirmation.

Pirro said at the time that she expected the inspector general’s office to provide her with a “comprehensive report” on its findings and said she was “confident the outcome will assist in resolving, once and for all, the questions that led this office to issue subpoenas.”

On Wednesday, Pirro told CBS News that she would review the report. CBS News has asked her office if she plans to reopen a criminal investigation.

Construction on the Federal Reserve building in Washington on July 30, 2026. Kevin Carter / Getty Images

After interviews with Fed governors, senior Board officials, staff and contractors, the IG identified four areas that caused the building renovation costs to surge and issued seven recommendations.

Horowitz’s report concluded that the Fed did not obtain a construction cost estimate from its general contractor and did not share a stated cost limitation with the contractor at the outset. Also, internal project governance was found to be “insufficient” to manage such a large-scale multibillion-dollar project.

In interviews, the IG found that officials repeatedly pointed to inflation as the chief driver of cost increases. The IG’s report assessed that “inflation was clearly a factor,” but that the cost overruns surpassed the rate of inflation.

The IG asked the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors for an assessment of inflation on the project. According to the report, the Board did not provide analysis to explain how inflation impacted the overall cost.

“Instead, the Board provided us with an assessment from two of its senior economists, who noted that while they ‘agree that the [Producer Price Index] is a good measure of general changes in new office construction costs, using this measure — or any general index of construction costs — to evaluate cost increases for any specific project can be misleading,’” the report reads.

Warsh has received a copy of the report and on Tuesday wrote to Horowitz to inform him the General Services Administration, which manages federal buildings and property, had been retained to advise the Fed on the project, reporting to both Warsh and the Board.

Warsh also said the Board would initiate a full audit of the construction in order to “determine the value of any services not received, and pursue appropriate remedies.” He said the Fed would seek to be reimbursed or credited for any work that it paid for but that was not performed.

The Fed declined to comment beyond Warsh’s letter.

According to the report, as of July, the Board had not established a guaranteed maximum price — four years after construction began and after almost all of the construction awards had been issued.

The renovations of the central bank’s headquarters were first approved in 2017 and are set to be completed in 2027. The estimated cost of the project — which encompasses two buildings — has risen from $1.9 billion to nearly $2.5 billion. The Fed has said the cost increases are a result of changes to the original building designs after consultations with review agencies; a rise in the cost of material, equipment and labor; and unforeseen conditions like soil contamination and the discovery of more asbestos than was initially expected.

The inspector general at the central bank has twice conducted audits regarding renovation projects that experienced cost overruns, and Powell told the Senate last year that he had asked the internal watchdog to “take a fresh look at the project.”

Those audits, which Wednesday’s IG report references at length, identified previous challenges including lack of proper preplanning, unreliable cost estimates, unimplemented cost-control measures and incomplete oversight. However, one of the audits, in 2022, examined the Fed’s contract modification process and found it to be “effective,” offering no recommendations because the Fed’s manual framework for modifying contracts was changed to an electronic system during the audit.

White House Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought wrote to Powell in July 2025 to take issue with plans for the renovation that “called for rooftop terrace gardens, VIP private dining rooms and elevators, water features, premium marble, and much more.” President Trump has referred to the renovations as a “very luxurious situation” and said that spending $2.5 billion on the upgrades is “disgraceful.”

But Horowitz concluded that some design features — like a private elevator for the Fed chairman, the extensive use of marble, a garden terrace and skylights — “did not materially contribute to the construction cost increases.”

Melissa Quinn, Jacob Rosen and Joe Walsh contributed to this report.

Republican glee erupts as White House boasts sharp decline in immigration from Muslim-majority nations

2026-09-30T13:47:59-04:00 / Fox News

A Cato Institute graph shows monthly admissions fell from over 22,000 per month to near zero after Trump took office

By Peter D’Abrosca Fox News

Published September 30, 2026 1:47pm EDT

Trump touts his border policies: ‘Zero illegal aliens’ admitted in 13 months

Former President Donald Trump, speaking in Washington, D.C., criticizes current border policies. He highlights the claim of “zero illegal aliens” admitted in the last 13 months versus “25 million people” previously. Trump argues “Sleepy Joe Biden’s ideology” is responsible for dangerous individuals, including murderers and drug dealers, entering the country, emphasizing the human cost of these “journeys through hell.”

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The political right celebrated after a White House X account posted a graph showing that legal immigration to the U.S. from nations with Muslim majority populations has all but halted.

The account highlighted a 96 percent cut in legal immigration from majority-Muslim countries since 2024 and attached a graph from the Cato Institute, a notoriously pro-immigration think tank.

The graph showed a drastic decline in quarterly admissions of immigrants from those countries beginning in January 2025, when President Donald Trump officially took office. It also declined in late 2024, the last year of former President Joe Biden’s tenure in office.

AMERICA NEEDS WORKERS, BUT TRUMP’S POLICIES ARE SHARPLY CUTTING LEGAL IMMIGRATION

President Donald Trump pumps his fist as he steps off Air Force One upon arrival at Palm Beach International Airport in West Palm Beach, Florida, on Feb. 14, 2025, en route to his Mar-a-Lago resort.(Roberto Schmidt/AFP via Getty Images)

At its peak, immigration from Muslim-majority nations was over 22,000 people per month between July and October of 2024, according to the graph. But by the beginning of January of this year, that number had dropped to almost zero.

Online, the political right cheered the drastic shift.

“Absolutely incredible victory for the American people, thanks to POTUS,” Rep. Brandon Gill, R-Texas, said.

“These are the wins we need to continue to deliver on,” said Brandon Herrera, the GOP nominee for Congress in Texas’ 23rd District.

“4 percent to go! Thank you, President Trump,” said Rep. Randy Fine, R-Fla.

“Let’s pump up those rookie numbers for every category of immigrant,” columnist Kurt Schlichter said.

Rep. Brandon Gill, R-Texas, arrives for the House Oversight and Government Reform Delivering on Government Efficiency Subcommittee hearing titled “Rewriting American History: Examining the Smithsonian’s Efforts to Reshape the Past” in the Rayburn House Office Building on July 21, 2026, in Washington, D.C.(Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

100 DAY SPRINT TO THE MIDTERMS KICKS OFF AS REPUBLICANS AND DEMOCRATS CLASH FOR CONTROL ACROSS THE COUNTRY

Some turned the graph into a referendum on the results of Republican leadership, and urged conservatives to vote during the 2026 midterm elections despite concerns about cost-of-living, the Iran war, and other issues for which Trump has been knocked by members of his own party.

“I voted for this—and will again,” said user David Harrison.

“The next time you get the urge to ‘punish the GOP.’ Remember that Democrats will reverse this overnight,” said Turning Point Action’s Ben Larrabee.

“People screaming that Trump and the GOP aren’t doing anything about this problem [are] hardest hit, like squarely between the eyes,” online personality James Lindsay said of the graph.

JONATHAN TURLEY: SUPREME COURT HANDS TRUMP A BORDER VICTORY LIBERALS CAN’T SPIN

“Vote like Western Civilization depends on it, because it does,” said Turning Point USA spokesman Andrew Kolvet.

Not everyone was thrilled with the decline in legal immigration from this demographic, though, including David J. Bier, who is the director of immigration studies at Cato and who took credit for the research behind the graph.

WASHINGTON, DC – JUNE 26: Activists protest on the anniversary of the Supreme Court’s ruling upholding the Trump administration’s restriction of travel to the U.S. from predominantly Muslin countries, on Capitol Hill June 26, 2019 in Washington, DC. The Court in a 5-4 ruling upheld a third version of the ban, which has also been applied to countries not predominantly Muslim. (Photo by Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)(Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)

“Thanks for citing my work. You are violating the law and harming Americans while making the country less safe, less free, and less prosperous,” he said in reply.

Despite Bier’s claim, no court has decided that Trump’s move to reduce immigration from Muslim-majority countries is “illegal,” though there have been challenges in district courts.

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During his first term in office, Trump faced a challenge to his proposed travel restrictions from Muslim-majority countries. The policy was enjoined by the federal district court for the District of Hawaii, and upheld by two federal appellate courts. However, the Supreme Court ultimately decided in Hawaii vs. Trump that Trump’s policy was legal.

Peter D’Abrosca is a politics reporter at Fox News Digital.

I tested America.gov, the government’s AI chatbot, on health questions

2026-09-30T13:33:00-0400 / CBS News

By

September 30, 2026 / 1:33 PM EDT / CBS News

On Tuesday at the Make America Healthy Again summit, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said that artificial intelligence can give patients “a second opinion that is much better informed than any doctor in the country.” He said it has the power to “free us from medical tyranny.” He also said public officials who tell Americans to defer to experts will “never ever again” be able to dominate them: “If somebody tells you that a vaccine will prevent transmission and infection, or you need to take it to protect your grandmother, A.I. may say it actually doesn’t do that.”

The same day, the White House launched America.gov. It promises “simple answers only from official government sources.” Its health answers cite agencies Kennedy runs: the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration, the National Institutes of Health, and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.

So I asked America.gov for a second opinion. I sent it 37 questions. The answers were often complicated, because the official sources no longer agree with each other.

What is America.gov?

An executive order signed Sept. 29 makes the site “a single digital point of entry” for federal services. The White House’s National Design Studio built it, the General Services Administration runs it, and it’s powered by Gemini and xAI’s Grok, drawing on about 29,000 government websites. But when I asked which AI it runs on, it said, “I do not share details about the underlying software.”

What does it say about vaccines and autism?

I started with autism and vaccines. In November 2025, Kennedy ordered a change to a CDC page. The page now says, “The claim ‘vaccines do not cause autism’ is not an evidence-based claim.” Yet other CDC pages still say studies find no link.

The chatbot didn’t pick a side. Since both pages are official, it opened with “CDC pages currently do not all say the same thing.” It quoted both versions and pointed to health officials in New York and Colorado, who call the new wording inconsistent with the research. Then it said, “I cannot verify a single federal conclusion that covers every vaccine.”

How does it decide which page wins?

I asked. It said it prefers “the agency that runs the program for a final determination.” After that, it prefers “the most recent official source.” The rule sounds sensible, because agencies usually update a page when the science or the policy changes. It fails when a court has paused the newest page, as happened with the hepatitis B shot.

Last December, CDC dropped its hepatitis B shot recommendation for every newborn. But in March, a federal judge paused that change and restored the recommendation for every newborn. The government has appealed.

I asked about the newborn hepatitis B shot in three different ways. Because the December page is the newest, the chatbot went with that, but that’s wrong. It is still recommended that a newborn get a hepatitis B shot.

The chatbot never mentioned the court order

In June 2025, Kennedy fired all 17 members of the CDC’s vaccine advisory committee, calling the panel “little more than a rubber stamp for any vaccine.” He named his own replacements. That December, his appointees voted 8 to 3 to end the recommendation of a hepatitis B shot at birth for every newborn.

On March 16, Judge Brian E. Murphy of the federal court in Massachusetts paused that vote. He found that Kennedy’s new committee likely broke a federal law requiring balanced advisory panels. So his order also paused appointments for the new members and a January overhaul of the childhood schedule.

The American Academy of Pediatrics and other groups had sued. His order also paused the new committee members’ appointments and a January overhaul of the childhood schedule. The earlier schedule, including the birth dose, went back into effect.

I asked America.gov about the newborn shot in three different ways. Each time, the chatbot told me to prefer the December 2025 CDC and HHS fact sheets, never mentioning the court order.

The chatbot said CDC had announced a new “three-category” schedule in January. The court has also paused the January schedule.

What else did it get wrong?

On insulin, it said, “most Part D plans cap insulin at $35 for a month’s supply (participating plans; check your formulary).” “Participating plans” describes a voluntary Medicare pilot that started in 2021. About 38% of Part D plans joined it, according to KFF. In the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, Congress extended the $35 cap to every Part D plan. The chatbot described the pilot and left out the law that replaced it.

Accurate answers on raw milk, smoking, more

When I typed chest pain and a numb left arm, its first words were “Call 9-1-1 now.” For a toddler who swallowed blood pressure pills, it put Poison Control’s number first. It walked me through Medicare Part D enrollment windows and Medicaid appeals. Its Spanish answers matched its English ones. It said raw milk isn’t healthier than pasteurized milk and that smoking causes lung cancer.

The White House responds

CBS News asked the White House and HHS for comment on the chatbot’s answers. A White House official responded, “America.gov will continue to be updated to provide Americans the most accurate and reliable federal information and resources.”

Should people use America.gov?

Use it to find forms and deadlines. Take your health questions to your healthcare provider.

This article was originally published inDr. Céline Gounder’s “Underlying Conditions” newsletter on Substack.Read more and subscribe here.