Scientists challenge US NIH grant screening as unconstitutional

2026-09-16T22:49:09.189Z / Reuters

U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. speaks during an event on screen time harm in children at the Department of Health and Human Services in Washington, D.C., U.S., September 1, 2026. REUTERS/Evan Vucci/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab

WASHINGTON, Sept 16 (Reuters) – A group of scientists filed a class-action lawsuit on Wednesday against the U.S. National Institutes of Health, alleging the agency is unconstitutionally screening research ​grants to suppress viewpoints the Trump administration disfavors on topics like diversity, ‌gender identity and climate change.

The suit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, names NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and DOGE as defendants. ​It is backed by the American Civil Liberties Union, the Center for ​Science in the Public Interest and other groups.

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The plaintiffs say NIH, ⁠the world’s largest public funder of biomedical research, uses a list of 235 keywords, including “gender,” “Latinx” ​and “climate change” to flag grants for termination, denial or forced renegotiation. Researchers who refuse ​to scrub flagged terms risk losing funding, the complaint says.

The NIH and the Department of Health and Human Services did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The suit is the latest challenge to ​the research funding cuts, which the administration says are necessary to ensure the ​government funds only solid science and to reverse years of misguided priorities.

The suit says that the screening applies ‌to ⁠grants that have already cleared scientific peer review, representing an added layer of ideological review that departs from NIH’s longstanding practice and congressional mandates barring politicization.

“Scientists should not have to scrub their research to receive federal funding,” Arghavan Salles, a surgeon and clinical associate ​professor at Stanford University, said ​in a statement. ⁠She said her grant on sexual harassment in biomedical research was terminated as “DEI-related,” referring to diversity, equity and inclusion.

The complaint alleges First ​Amendment violations and breaches of statutes governing grant terminations. It asks ​the court ⁠to vacate the policies and restore terminated grants.

In June 2025, a federal court ruled NIH’s DEI-related grant terminations were unlawful, but in August 2025 the Supreme Court allowed the ⁠agency ​to proceed with cutting $783 million in such grants.

A federal ​appeals court ruled in May 2026 that such terminations likely violated the First Amendment. The administration has ​asked the Supreme Court to review that decision.

Reporting by Ahmed Aboulenein; Editing by Jonathan Spicer

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House passes bill to shield Americans from data center energy costs

Updated on: September 16, 2026 / 7:13 PM EDT / CBS News
By Caitlin Yilek Politics Reporter
Caitlin Yilek is a politics reporter at CBSNews.com, based in Washington, D.C. She previously worked for the Washington Examiner and The Hill, and was a member of the 2022 Paul Miller Washington Reporting Fellowship with the National Press Foundation.

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Washington — The House on Wednesday overwhelmingly passed legislation aimed at protecting Americans from shouldering the potential costs of data centers on their electricity bills.

The bipartisan Ratepayer Protection Act cleared the House in a 417 to 3 vote. House GOP leaders fast-tracked the bill, which required two-thirds majority support for passage. It now heads to the Senate.

Its passage comes as lawmakers are under pressure to address soaring energy costs that have been partly attributed to the data center boom driven by the AI race.

The bill was introduced by GOP Rep. Gabe Evans of Colorado, who is running in a competitive race. Several Republicans facing tough reelection bids signed on as cosponsors in recent weeks, as affordability and AI issues are central themes in the 2026 campaign.

Evans’ measure seeks to force tech companies to pay for the costs of the new energy infrastructure that serves the data centers, instead of passing costs on to consumers. It would encourage the state agencies that regulate utility companies to establish standards ensuring any “large-load customers” — including large-scale data centers — are billed for the cost of new electricity generation.

“AI companies have a serious responsibility to earn the trust of the communities they invest in and to be good neighbors. The Ratepayer Protection Act guarantees hardworking American families won’t foot the bill for the buildout of AI infrastructure — or see their energy costs rise to pay for it,” House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, said in a statement Wednesday night.

As the data center industry grows at a faster clip than the U.S.’ capacity to generate electricity, fears have mounted about the pressure it could put on the power grid. The International Energy Agency estimated last year that electricity consumption by U.S. data centers could more than double from 2024 levels by the end of the decade. Other estimates have found the facilities could gobble up more than 10% of U.S. power demand by 2030.

Those worries have prompted backlash against data center development at the state and local level and political headaches for both parties nationally — adding to broader political uncertainty about the AI boom.

President Trump, who has largely backed the AI industry, has urged data center developers and tech firms to sign a pledge to build or purchase their own power supply. The White House says hundreds of utility companies have signed on to the pledge, along with dozens of data center operators and major AI companies.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, a New York Democrat, on Monday called the legislation “a step forward” but said “more clearly needs to be done.”

GOP Rep. Brett Guthrie of Kentucky, the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said Tuesday that the legislation “takes action on behalf of our constituents so we may keep costs low while ensuring the U.S. leads in the next-generation economy.”

“As this industry continues to develop, I want to be absolutely clear that we need it to develop here at home and not in China,” Guthrie said during floor debate.

Democratic Rep. Frank Pallone of New Jersey, the committee’s ranking member, called the legislation “imperfect” and argued it “only addresses one small part of the puzzle.”

“Americans across the country are furious about the unchecked development of data centers and artificial intelligence. Furious about what it means for their communities, for their jobs, or even for their lives. And I want to promise that this bill is not the end of our focus on these issues. It’s only the beginning,” Pallone said on the floor.

Judge refers Philadelphia’s progressive district attorney to DOJ for prosecution

2026-09-16T21:53:40.549Z / https://www.cnn.com/2026/09/16/politics/larry-krasner-philadelphia-da-doj-prosecution

A federal judge referred Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner and one of his top prosecutors to the Justice Department for potential obstruction of justice, perjury and false statements tied to the recent review of a 2009 murder conviction.

Late Tuesday, Judge Paul Diamond, a George W. Bush appointee, said after a review of evidence and testimony that he “reluctantly concluded that Philadelphia’s highest law enforcement official and one of his top assistants may have violated the law.”

In a highly unusual internal struggle, four top prosecutors in the office alleged that Krasner and the chief of the conviction integrity unit, Matthew Stiegler, were conflicted because they were trying to protect their own reputation rather than candidly explain to the judge why they were withdrawing a motion in support of reviewing the conviction.

“The credible evidence is tantamount to a prima facie showing of conduct that may constitute false statements, false declarations made under oath, perjury, obstruction of justice, and conspiracy,” the judge wrote in a 40-page opinion referring the conduct to the US attorney’s office in Philadelphia. He also disqualified Krasner and Stiegler from the underlying case.

Krasner, a former civil rights attorney, has built a reputation as one of the nation’s most progressive district attorneys.

“I respectfully and vigorously disagree with the court’s findings of fact and conclusions of law,” he said in a statement. “I look forward to appealing to the higher court as soon as the law allows. This remains a pending matter, which limits for now my and my office’s ability to respond in the media.”

Stiegler could not be reached. A representative for the US attorney’s office declined to comment.

Diamond highlighted several of Krasner’s alleged actions, including accusations that he ordered senior prosecutors to place blame for errors on a junior prosecutor, failed to reveal the breadth of the errors to the judge, and then stated there would be “consequences” for the senior prosecutors who wanted to alert the court to the conflict issues.

The actions stem from a review of the second-degree murder conviction of Dennis Johnson, who in 2010 was sentenced to life in prison. Fifteen years later, key witnesses recanted, and Johnson sought to have his conviction overturned arguing ineffective counsel.

The DA’s office agreed after Stiegler spoke directly with the defense team and put a junior prosecutor in charge of the case to carry out his instructions to concede, the judge found.

In preparation for a hearing, four supervisors reviewed the files and one of them said that Johnson’s argument was “not a winning claim” and a legal filing submitted by the junior prosecutor to the court contained “very significant errors,” according to the order.

The junior prosecutor who drafted the concession brief at the direction of Stiegler was asked to withdraw the filing and take responsibility with the judge, according to the order. The junior prosecutor instead resigned and, according to the order, wrote in her resignation letter to Krasner that Stiegler had “used me to further his personal agenda of conceding” in cases where the lawfulness of someone’s detention is in dispute, “regardless of the merits.”

After the resignation, Stiegler lobbied the four senior prosecutors to place blame for the questionable filing on the junior prosecutor, the judge found.

The four senior prosecutors met with Krasner.

According to the judge’s order, Kranser told the prosecutors, “[S]omeone gave me a really good idea. Actually, it was Matt, Mr. Stiegler, that gave me this really good idea. I think that we should go through [the junior prosecutor’s] cases, find mistakes that she made in other cases, say that this was a pattern by her, and then file something with the Court saying that.”

The judge found that the prosecutors objected and suggested Krasner refer the case to the Pennsylvania attorney general’s office because of a conflict.

Krasner called the attorney general’s office “evil” and stated they needed to have someone in the room to “protect the office,” according to the order. In another meeting where the issue of referring the case came up, supervisors told the judge that Krasner called everyone in the AG’s office “Nazis.”

Krasner refused to send the case to the attorney general’s office, and wanted someone in his office to prepare a memorandum urging the judge to not hold a hearing into the office’s decision to withdraw the concession motion.

Three of the senior prosecutors wrote a memo to Krasner stating, “[W]e believe DA Krasner is conflicted because he has conferred with ADA Stiegler about this case.”

According to the judge’s order, one of the prosecutors said that Krasner “said he doesn’t really care about the merits, he would want the person handling the case to not do a full investigation, and he seemed to be caring more about the reputation of the office than about competently handling this case.”

Krasner replied using his chief of staff’s email address. In the email, according to the order, Krasner acknowledged that he wanted to “protect the office,” but the phrase was taken out of context.

The senior prosecutors presented Krasner with a draft letter referring the case to the attorney general’s office. Krasner was “apoplectic,” one of the supervisors told the judge. After they told him they would have to notify the judge if the case was not referred, Krasner told them there would be “consequences” if they carried that out, according to the judge.

Ultimately, the prosecutors filed to withdraw their earlier motion, which prompted the judge’s inquiry. Diamond said Krasner declined to testify or submit an affidavit.

“Mr. Krasner does not wish to give this Court a truthful account of how the Concession came to be even though his duty to the Court requires him to do so,” the judge wrote.

“He thus sought to direct the very lawyers obligated by law to correct the Concession’s errors to do just the opposite,” Diamond wrote, adding, “Even worse, when told that the Four believed they had to alert me, Mr. Krasner responded that ‘there would be consequences for [one of the prosecutors] if she alerted the Court to the conflict issue,’ and that there would be consequences ‘if anyone did.’”

Coast Guard and FBI boarded 2 energy tankers due to cyberattacks. How big is the risk?

2026-09-16T19:45:59-0400 / CBS News

U.S. Coast Guard personnel and FBI agents boarded two Texas-bound energy tankers last month after cyberattacks struck the vessels while they were traveling toward the United States, according to U.S. officials.

One of the vessels was the VL Prosperity, a 1,093-foot Liberian-flagged crude oil tanker headed to Galveston, Texas. Iranian state media identified the ship shortly after the incident and claimed hackers had gained access to its propulsion, navigation and cargo systems, knocking out communications for 30 hours.

The Coast Guard has not publicly pinned the attacks on Iran. But Rear Adm. Amy Grable, commander of U.S. Coast Guard Cyber Command, told CBS News in a network exclusive interview that investigators did find evidence of a malicious cyber actor.

“They started out by doing an assessment of the information technology and the other systems on board the vessel, and they did find malicious cyber activity,” Grable said.

The U.S. is investigating whether the two cyberattacks are connected and whether Iran or another foreign adversary was behind the attacks.

What happened?

The VL Prosperity is what’s known as a supertanker — more than three football fields long and capable of carrying roughly 2.3 million barrels of oil.

Public vessel data shows the ship departed Egypt’s Sidi Kerir oil terminal on Aug. 1 headed for Galveston. U.S. officials say it slowed near the Strait of Gibraltar around the time of the cyberattack before continuing across the Atlantic and toward the U.S.

Iran’s Mehr News Agency reported on Aug. 20 that the VL Prosperity had been attacked on Aug. 7 while transiting through the Strait of Gibraltar. Citing an unnamed crew member, Mehr alleged hackers breached the engine room, reducing engine cooling flow, increasing engine speed and interfering with fuel systems.

Rob Lee, CEO of Dragos, an industrial cybersecurity firm specializing in operational technology, said the Iranian report’s details were technically plausible, but warned that authorities have not yet revealed who was behind the incident.

“The details that they published, from what we understand of these types of vehicles and ships and similar, is spot on,” Lee said. “Everything they’re saying is very realistic.”

The next day, Aug. 21, Coast Guard cyber personnel, law enforcement officers, a vessel inspector and FBI Cyber Action Team operators boarded the ship for four days.

Grable said Coast Guard teams had been alerted by interagency partners and went offshore with the FBI to climb aboard — one of roughly 40 to 50 missions the Coast Guard’s Cyber Protection Team has undergone in the past year.

She said investigators were hunting for malware and combing through information technology systems to root out malicious activity.

“The real thing we’re concerned about is those IT systems being connected to other systems on the ship that control propulsion, navigation and other systems that are critical to the safety of that vessel,” Grable added.

Typically, investigators collect data that is later analyzed, and Grable told CBS News that the Coast Guard plans to provide the vessel owner with recommendations for patching vulnerabilities. She stressed that response teams did not find any evidence indicating the ship had become unsafe to navigate when they boarded it.

How difficult is it to attack a ship?

The concern surrounding large cargo vessels and maritime critical infrastructure transcends stolen files or disrupted communications.

More and more, modern commercial vessels run on internet-connected systems, relying on them for navigation, propulsion, steering, ballast and additional critical machinery. A cyberattack that penetrates those operational systems could potentially be weaponized or manipulated.

“When these vessels are highly connected, they’re susceptible to cyber threats,” Grable said, warning that an attack could lead to “a vessel blocking a waterway or a pollution incident or any other number of safety and security hazards to our ports and waterways.”

The danger that a large vessel could be compromised near an American port is something that authorities fear.

“Of course we’re worried about a collision, an explosion, anything that blocks the channel for other vessels to safely enter and exit the port, pollution incidents — we’re kind of worried about the whole gamut,” Grable said.

The potential economic impact is also colossal. Grable said $5.4 trillion in commerce flows through U.S. ports annually — which could mean high economic stakes for even a relatively small disruption.

“Any small delay, because of a cyber breach, like, for example, if a port has to shift to manual operations, it causes a big delay with tankers and cargo vessels coming in and out of the port,” she said.

Perhaps most concerning, Grable said the technical barrier may not be as high as the public assumes.

How sophisticated would an attacker have to be to move beyond breaking into a computer network to manipulating machinery aboard a modern tanker?

“Not necessarily that sophisticated,” Grable told CBS News. “There is malicious source code that people can get their hands on.”

Grable said that code is available right now, and added that “artificial intelligence is accelerating the rate at which we need to take action.”

She urged operators to zero in on network segmentation, phishing attacks and basic cyber hygiene. “Just taking basic precautions would prevent most of these occurrences.”

Just one firewall away

On many ships, the barrier between a satellite internet connection and critical onboard systems can be as fragile as a single firewall.

Behind that firewall, Lee said, can be a shared network containing “navigation, propulsion, ballast, steering, ship command — everything on one shared network.”

Lee explained that artificial intelligence could make that problem worse because it can assist attackers in picking out weakly protected systems, speeding up attempts to breach internet-facing systems on energy carriers.

“The very thing that we think is our one protection — not that you should have one protection — is the very thing that AI is actually really good at,” Lee said.

Still, experts concede that while older vessels may not have the same digitally connected control systems, even on modern ships, reaching critical machinery still requires some knowledge of the onboard environment.

Is ‘remote hijacking’ a real threat?

Asked whether cyber access to a ship could amount to a form of remote hijacking, Grable called it a fair description of the broader risk.

“That’s a good way to characterize it, and yes, it is a concern,” she said.

Lee agreed that the scenario is realistic if an attacker gains a foothold.

“I do think there’s a realistic concern,” Lee said, describing the possibility of remotely messing with a maritime asset, even running it aground.

But former Coast Guard cyber official Quinton DuBose seemed skeptical of the notion that hackers could simply take over an entire supertanker like a remote-controlled vehicle.

“I’d be kind of cautious about saying that somebody can just take control of the ship,” DuBose said. “Ships are incredibly complicated systems.”

The more realistic threat, he said, may be an attacker disrupting one or more critical subsystems enough to make the vessel unsafe.

“Rather than looking at it as, ‘okay, I’m going to take full control of this thing,’ it’s, ‘what systems can I disrupt to the point where it affects the safe handling and makes the ship less safe to operate,’” DuBose said.

Iranian state media claims under scrutiny

The U.S. has not publicly stated who is behind either cyberattack. But Iranian state media began pushing out content around the VL Prosperity incident before U.S. authorities even publicly acknowledged the boarding.

Four days after Mehr’s initial report, Iran’s Tasnim News Agency published an article with the headline, “No American Vessel Is Safe Anymore: Will Cannons Give Way to Codes?”

DuBose stressed that the Iranian narrative remains unverified, cautioning that Iranian-linked actors are often quick to oversell their cyber influence.

Attribution in cyberspace can take weeks or months, DuBose added.

According to Grable, investigators typically compare the attacker’s tactics, techniques and procedures — effectively their digital fingerprints — against known threat actors.

“We look at things called TTPs, which are tactics, techniques and protocols that certain adversaries use — kind of like their trademark fingerprints on how they gain access to systems and what they do and what their payloads are,” she said.

A warning to the maritime industry

For Coast Guard Cyber Command, the growing concern is that increasingly connected vessels create more porous entry points for attackers, as ships adopt satellite communications and connect IT networks with their onboard control systems.

“Because they’re facing the internet, that is a vector for attackers to gain access and deploy malicious activity on the vessels,” she said.

DuBose said the industry should take the threat seriously, while resisting the notion that all vessels are suddenly vulnerable to remote takeover.

He added that maritime infrastructure is so critical that the federal government “has increasingly imposed baseline cyber requirements across the sector.”

Grable’s warning to vessel owners and operators was blunt: “We need everybody to pay attention to this.”

SEE IT: El-Sayed can’t shake one question before meeting with Dem power brokers

September 16, 2026 1:13pm EDT / Fox News

The Michigan Senate candidate dodged Fox News Digital’s question about campaigning with Hasan Piker

By Hannah Brennan, Alex Miller, Robert Schmad Fox News

Published September 16, 2026 1:13pm EDT

SEE IT: El-Sayed won’t say whether Hasan Piker will campaign with him

Michigan Senate Democratic nominee Abdul El-Sayed dodged Fox News Digital’s question about whether Hasan Piker will campaign with him as he entered a meeting with Democratic senators at the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee headquarters.

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Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed broke bread with the Democratic establishment in Washington, D.C., but there’s one thing he can’t escape: his connection to a controversial figure who helped elevate his campaign.

And his connection to the controversial Twitch streamer and political commentator Hasan Piker is something he didn’t want to talk about.

When asked by Fox News Digital if he would continue to campaign with Piker, who has been almost universally condemned by Democrats in Washington and on the campaign trail, El-Sayed dodged.

ABDUL EL-SAYED PROTESTED AGAINST ‘EX-TERRORISTS’ WHO CONVERTED TO CHRISTIANITY, UNEARTHED REPORT REVEALS

Twitch streamer Hasan Piker appeared on the campaign trail with Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed.(Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP Photo)

Piker’s shadow has dwarfed El-Sayed’s insurgent progressive campaign recently, particularly for his past comments in which he said, “America deserved 9/11,” and for a recent stream in which he argued that being against Israel isn’t antisemitic.

“If Jews in America keep putting this idea out there that they are singularly invested in Israel, eventually someone is going to come around and take action, not against the state of Israel mind you, but against American Jews,” he said.

EL-SAYED DISTANCES HIMSELF FROM HASAN PIKER AFTER DISTURBING REMARKS ABOUT JEWISH AMERICANS

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That remark earned him swift condemnation from Democrats far and wide, including El-Sayed, who put some distance between the two in a statement.

He said that “all Americans deserve the right to advocate for what they believe without fear of violence,” and acknowledged that “antisemitism is a scourge, and we need to address it in all its forms,” and added that “nobody speaks for this campaign besides me and my campaign spokespeople.”

ABDUL EL-SAYED PLAYS DOWN HASAN PIKER TIES AFTER STREAMER’S VIRAL ANTISEMITISM FIRESTORM

Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., acknowledged that primaries get “really hot.”(Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc. via Getty Images)

“And while politicians and pundits try to make this race about a Twitch streamer, we’re going to be talking about gas, groceries, good schools and healthcare,” he said.

El-Sayed’s meeting with top Democratic brass at the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee is a notable moment in his campaign against former Rep. Mike Rogers, particularly because he spent so much time running against the Democratic establishment in his bloody primary fight with Rep. Haley Stevens, D-Mich.

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Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., acknowledged that primaries get “really hot. The Michigan primary got hot.”

“But this is what you do after a primary, is you gotta unite the party, and then you do the work to reach out and cross over to independent voters and Republican voters,” Murphy told Fox News Digital.

Hannah is a Production Assistant for the Politics team at Fox News Digital.

Fraud expert exposes how hidden networks drove Minnesota fraud, other major scams: ‘Criminal enterprise’

September 16, 2026 2:18pm EDT / Fox News

Fraud expert says schemes exploiting taxpayer-funded healthcare programs can fuel human trafficking, cybercrime

By Kiera McDonald , Andrew Mark Miller Fox News

Haywood Talcove, CEO of LexisNexis Risk Solutions Government, told Fox News Digital how fake LLCs, stolen identities and weak oversight helped fuel massive fraud schemes in Minnesota and across the country.

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Criminals can turn stolen identities bought on the dark web into seemingly legitimate businesses — then use those companies to bill taxpayers for healthcare and other services that were never provided, according to a fraud expert who detailed the scheme to Fox News Digital.

The companies can hide in plain sight: Criminals create LLCs using information that may receive little scrutiny, pair them with stolen identities and submit fraudulent claims for everything from wheelchairs and diabetes treatments to childcare and autism services, according to Haywood Talcove, CEO of LexisNexis Risk Solutions Government.

But Talcove said the financial losses are only the beginning, warning the schemes can fuel “criminal enterprises.”

“They are using our money against us, whether it’s in social media campaigns, whether it is for human trafficking, drugs, disrupting our economy,” Talcove told Fox News Digital.

STOLEN IDS SOLD FOR ‘HAPPY MEAL’ PRICES FUEL BILLIONS IN US BENEFIT FRAUD

Haywood Talcove, CEO of LexisNexis Risk Solutions, spoke with Fox News Digital about how criminals use fake LLCs and stolen identities to commit fraud.(Elizabeth Flores/Star Tribune via Getty Images ; Fox News Digital)

“When you think about fraud, don’t think about, ‘It’s great that we stopped a fraud ring that stole $5 million.’ Think about that as a criminal enterprise that goes beyond just stealing out of a benefit program.”

Despite fraud schemes surfacing nationwide, Talcove said Minnesota was “particularly egregious” because the state had little incentive to stop the fraud.

“Minnesota was particularly egregious once they started looking because it was really easy to find,” he said.

Talcove said one factor allowing the schemes to flourish in Minnesota and across the country is weak verification during the LLC registration process and reliance on “self-reported information.”

“In the case of Minnesota, you went and got your LLC, you opened up a childcare facility, and then the next thing you knew you were billing CMS [Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services] for childcare or autism care, and nobody checked.”

The Trump administration launched an anti-fraud crackdown this year after Minnesota’s Feeding Our Future scandal, creating a task force led by Vice President JD Vance. The scheme allegedly stole $250 million from a federally funded child nutrition program during the pandemic, and many of those charged have since been convicted or sentenced to prison.

Without third-party audits, Talcove said many criminals slip through the cracks, racking up millions before they’re caught.

“One of the fundamental problems with these programs that are literally spending trillions of taxpayer dollars, they have nobody doing investigations or such a small, tiny amount of people that it’s not even possible to investigate,” he said.

FRAUD EXPERT WARNS AI IS HELPING CRIMINALS OUTPACE THE GOVERNMENT: ‘DON’T HAVE THE RIGHT TOOLS’

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz testifies during a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on March 4, 2026.(Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

But Talcove said when these schemes are investigated, they expose much more than fraud.

“They’re not just involved in stealing Medicare, Medicaid, or food stamps, or unemployment insurance,” he said. “They have other interests.”

Talcove alleged some criminals use stolen funds to finance sex trafficking by bringing women from other countries and “renting them out” across the U.S., all while profiting from their “ill-gotten gains.”

“What they have to look for is beyond the fraud that they found to see if they’re involved in drugs, human trafficking, threats to our democracy, weapons,” he said.

Calling the fraud a “national security issue,” Talcove said some investigations have uncovered criminal groups involved in benefit fraud, including foreign cybercrime organizations such as APT41, a Chinese-linked hacking group.

“When you start looking at the criminal groups that are involved, APT41 and some of their peers and associates, as well as some of the other groups from North Korea and other countries, it is, right now, a national security issue,” he said.

FBI LAUNCHES ‘MOST WANTED FRAUDSTERS’ LIST AS DOJ CHARGES OHIO DEFENDANTS IN $30M MEDICAID SCHEME FOR KIDS

Federal agents enter an office building as a search warrant is executed at Ultimate Home Health Services over potential Medicaid fraud, on Dec. 18, 2025, in Bloomington, Minnesota.(Christopher Juhn/Anadolu via Getty Images)

However, not all the money is sent to “overseas criminal organizations,” according to Talcove.

“Now, some of it, granted, is being used for luxury goods, homes, cars, vacations, but a lot of it is just going right back to the transnational location that it came from,” he said.

Talcove warned that unless investigators dig deeper, fraudsters will continue to exploit the system.

“They tend to get away with it because the investigation stops once you find the fraud,” he said.

Turning to the government’s role, Talcove said Democrats and Republicans must work together to tackle the nation’s growing debt, starting with stronger efforts to combat fraud.

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“My hope is the fiscal situation that we’re currently in, driven by what’s going on with the bond market, is going to force elected leaders at the state and federal level to start paying attention,” he said.

Kiera McDonald is a Production Assistant for Fox News Digital.

GOP lawmakers blindsided by new revelations about Trump Butler shooter: ‘Awfully strange’

2026-09-16T13:34:11-04:00 / Fox News

Newly surfaced documents reveal details Republican lawmakers say they never received

By Alex Miller , Elizabeth Elkind , Dan Scully Fox News

Published September 16, 2026 1:34pm EDT

‘How did this guy ever get onto that roof?’: New Crooks FBI docs revive questions over Trump assassination attempt

Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., said newly uncovered FBI documents on President Donald Trump’s would-be assassin, Thomas Crooks, further proved that every detail of the Butler, Pa., shooting should be released and accounted for.

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Republican lawmakers were apparently blindsided this week by new documents about Thomas Matthew Crooks, the 20-year-old who attempted to assassinate President Donald Trump and was subsequently shot dead.

Crooks opened fire on Trump during a campaign rally in Butler, Pa., in July 2024. A bullet grazed the then-candidate’s ear, while a rally attendee was killed as he attempted to shield his family.

“During our piece that we were working on, none of the federal agencies were working with us at all. They were going to work on their own, and they told us, ‘We’re going to do ours, and then we’ll get back to you.’ So this is two years later. Nobody’s gotten back to us,” Rep. Mike Kelly, R-Pa., who chaired a bipartisan House task force aimed at investigating the shooting, told Fox News.

“That’s under the former administration. So everything that’s under the executive branch at that time, under the Biden administration, we had no access to information at that time,” he said.

Kelly also said the House task force’s Dec. 10, 2024, report was written largely with input from local authorities and little from the federal level.

COLE ALLEN CLUES PILE UP AS THOMAS CROOKS’ SECRETS DIED WITH HIM — EXPERTS CITE EVIDENCE GAPS IN TRUMP ATTACKS

Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump is rushed offstage by U.S. Secret Service agents after being grazed by a bullet during a rally on July 13, 2024, in Butler, Pa.(Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

“It’s awfully strange that all the questions we asked, ‘We’ll have to get back to you on that.’ And we have very limited time, as you know, to actually get to what we wanted to. So when we finished our report, it was basically based on everything that we could gather from local law enforcement, hardly anything from the feds at that time,” Kelly said.

Fox News Digital reviewed the documents in question and found that Crooks’ father, Matthew Crooks, had searched for ways to prevent his son from accessing firearms in May 2024, roughly two months before he clambered up a rooftop in his attempt to assassinate Trump.

A source familiar with the task force’s work told Fox News Digital that the May 2024 search by Matthew Crooks was not known to House lawmakers during their investigation.

TWO YEARS AFTER BUTLER, THREATS AGAINST TRUMP KEEP ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT IN SHARP FOCUS

“The Task Force report corroborates that Matthew Crooks handed Thomas Crooks the rifle used in the assassination attempt on July 13, 2024,” the source said.

Kelly’s spokesman told Fox News Digital that his office was not aware of federal authorities interviewing Crooks’ family.

Thomas Matthew Crooks was a 20-year-old from Bethel Park, Pa., who attempted to assassinate former President Donald Trump during a 2024 campaign rally before being shot and killed by Secret Service agents.(Obtained by Fox News Digital)

3 SECRET SERVICE OFFICIALS UNDER INTERNAL INVESTIGATION FOR POTENTIAL MISCONDUCT

The records were obtained by Senate Judiciary Chair Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, as part of his ongoing inquiry into the Butler assassination attempt. So far, the records turned over to the Senate show Thomas’ actions were a surprise to his family, and his motive is still a mystery.

Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee told Fox News Digital that they had yet to see the FBI documents, but argued that it was reason enough that the full details of that day in July 2024 needed to be brought to light.

Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., a member of the panel, told Fox News Digital that the documents dump is “something that should have happened,” but there was still “so much that we don’t know about what happened.”

“I think we have got to, I’ve been saying forever now, we have got to have a full accounting of everything that happened on that day, all of the failures, law enforcement failures that occurred,” Hawley said.

I WAS AT BUTLER TWO YEARS AGO WHEN AMERICA SAW WHAT COURAGE LOOKS LIKE

When asked about Crooks’ father trying to stop him from getting access to guns, Hawley said, “This gets back to if this guy was out there, if he was, if he was displaying erratic behavior, was that reported?”

Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., is seen during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in the Hart Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 16, 2025.(Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

He recalled being on the ground days after the attempt. Hawley described how easily he could’ve gotten onto the rooftop from where Crooks fired off rounds toward the stage and charged that there was “no coordination” among the several local and federal law enforcement agencies present that day.

“I mean, this is just wild. And I still don’t think we’ve gotten a full accounting,” Hawley said. “Pretty much everything we know about this is from whistleblowers. You know, we need a full accounting of what really happened on that day.”

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“Listen, otherwise, we run the risk of things like this happening again. And we run the risk of it turning into a, you know, JFK situation where, all of these years later, we still don’t really know what happened,” he continued. “We owe it to the American people to figure out what exactly happened and what we need to fix. Clearly, there were massive failures.”

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

Do AI companies have to disclose dangerous incidents?

2026-09-16T19:04:54.496Z / Reuters

Security officers keep watch in front of an AI (Artificial Intelligence) sign at the annual Huawei Connect event in Shanghai, China September 18, 2019. REUTERS/Aly Song Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab

Sept 16 (Reuters) – As artificial intelligence grows more powerful, researchers have documented cases in which AI models have attempted to deceive users, evade restrictions on their use or access other computer systems. Are companies required under U.S. law to tell the public or regulators when such events occur?

IS THERE ​A U.S. LAW GOVERNING DISCLOSURE OF AI ACTIVITY?

No single federal law is aimed specifically at companies like Anthropic or OpenAI, which are developing ‌highly capable AI systems, and there is no broad U.S. legal requirement for AI developers to publicly disclose dangerous model behavior, alarming new capabilities, deceptive conduct or other activities if they have not already resulted in concrete harms.

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Federal legislation has been introduced that would require AI companies to report dangerous behavior such as attempts to evade human oversight — what the bill’s sponsor called a “catch-it-early ​and sound-the-alarm bill.” But there is currently no incident-reporting system that generally requires companies to disclose dangerous AI behavior when it is discovered.

Lawmakers have ​been debating stronger controls since July, when OpenAI said rogue AI agents had bypassed internal controls, reached the open internet and compromised ⁠the infrastructure of AI startup Hugging Face. Outside researchers have since identified additional incidents alleged to involve OpenAI-linked agents, and Anthropic has reported that some of its ​Claude models hacked into the systems of three companies during cybersecurity tests.

WHEN WOULD AN AI INCIDENT TRIGGER MANDATORY DISCLOSURE?

Legal frameworks that already apply generally to U.S. companies would ​govern some types of AI-related incidents.

Under U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission rules, public companies must disclose cybersecurity incidents within four business days if they determine the incident is material to investors. The disclosure must cover the nature, scope and timing of the incident and the likely impact on the company, its financial condition and its results of operations.

Some U.S. states have begun seeking ​to regulate AI firms. A new law in California requires AI companies with more than $500 million in revenue to disclose how they assess risks that their technology ​could escape human control or aid the development of bioweapons, and to disclose those assessments to the public. It allows for fines of up to $1 million per violation.

WHAT IF PRIVATE DATA ‌IS EXPOSED?

All ⁠50 U.S. states have laws that require companies to notify individuals, and in some cases regulators, of data security breaches that expose certain types of personal information. The requirements differ by state, and there is no comprehensive federal data breach notification requirement.

There are federal statutes that require certain companies in industries such as healthcare and finance to tell individuals or regulators when personal information is compromised. The reporting requirements would apply to AI companies themselves or to any company that experiences a breach.

WHAT ​OTHER REGULATORS COULD TAKE ACTION?

The U.S. Federal ​Trade Commission, which enforces consumer protection ⁠laws, has authority to pursue companies for unfair or deceptive practices. That could apply if a company is suspected of misrepresenting the safety of its AI systems by concealing known security weaknesses or other dangers, or making claims about safeguards that ​prove inaccurate.

If an alleged crime was committed by an autonomous AI system, the U.S. Justice Department could employ traditional ​fraud, securities and cyber-enforcement ⁠statutes and argue that the AI company that created the system recklessly or knowingly allowed the misconduct to occur.

WHAT GAPS ARE THERE IN EXISTING DISCLOSURE RULES?

A company that discovers alarming AI behavior in testing may have no clear obligation to publicly disclose it if there is no data breach, investor impact, consumer harm or sector-specific reporting trigger.

U.S. Senate ⁠lawmakers are considering ​legislation that would require AI companies to show they have taken reasonable steps to prevent their ​systems from causing harm. One proposal would empower the secretary of the U.S. Commerce Department to seek evidence that AI companies are taking precautions to prevent harm under a “duty of care” standard.

Reporting by Mike Scarcella in Washington and Sara Merken in New York; Editing by David Bario and Matthew Lewis

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AI makes it “easier than ever” for adversaries to target U.S. military, experts say

September 16, 2026 / 1:21 PM EDT / CBS News

By Lauren Fichten Digital Reporter
Lauren Fichten is a journalist at CBS News covering artificial intelligence, digital safety and online extremism. She joined CBS News after graduating from UNC-Chapel Hill and was previously an associate producer at the CBS News National Desk.

Read Full Bio

Amid the United States’ war with Iran, an Iran-linked adversary used American-developed artificial intelligence to try to target U.S. naval forces, according to a report released by Anthropic last week.

The group, which Anthropic did not identify but labeled a “threat actor,” used Claude AI to compile open-source information to identify U.S. naval positions and develop targeting recommendations, according to the company. The account was banned and Anthropic shared the information with the U.S. government to disrupt the threat, it said.

Scenarios like this could become increasingly common, experts said, as America’s adversaries turn to AI to boost military operations.

Anthropic’s findings are consistent with how Iran has been using technology to support its strategic objectives, including in its conflict with the U.S. and Israel, experts said. But, the report sheds light on how increasingly capable AI models can expedite the once-tedious task of aggregating and analyzing large volumes of publicly available data.

“They’re using it to enhance the way they already operate and the tactics or the techniques that they’re already used to doing,” said Nikita Shah, a senior fellow with the Intelligence, National Security, and Technology program at the bipartisan nonprofit think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies.

“It just makes it much more effective, much more efficient, much faster as to how the models can help them carry out those different attack methods,” she said.

In the case highlighted in Anthropic’s report, publicly available information including satellite imagery, ship and aircraft tracking data, and captions on public military photographs was used to provide a more comprehensive picture of U.S. naval movements. AI also can help refine the targeting of missiles and drones, increase visibility of the battlefield and be used for monitoring, Shah said.

“The new threat is just that it is now easier than ever before for adversaries to be able to understand what the U.S. military is doing,” said Sam Bresnick, a research fellow at Georgetown’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology. “It is getting much harder for the U.S. military to cloak or to obscure its activities.”

Access to Claude is blocked in Iran, but adversaries can easily create accounts using VPNs and foreign phone numbers.

Before Anthropic’s report, a July report released by threat intelligence provider Recorded Future found that AI likely accelerated Iran’s existing cyber and military capabilities. Given Russia’s support of Iran’s military, the report said, there is an increased likelihood that “AI-enabled tactics and capabilities, refined in Ukraine, contributed to Iranian drone attacks against Israel and Persian Gulf states.”

In addition to informing its kinetic warfare efforts, Iran has leveraged AI for “soft war” — which does not involve force, but instead, tactics such as shaping the information landscape and cyberwarfare.

On social media, Iranian embassies around the world regularly post AI-generated videos critical of the U.S. and Israel. Anthropic also found three Iranian state-aligned accounts using Claude for public influence campaigns, where “Iranian institutions produce propaganda as both a religious and strategic duty,” according to the report. In one campaign involving Iran’s war with the U.S. and Israel, actors falsely attributed claims to research institutions like think tanks Brookings and RAND to create a sense of credibility.

The accounts used Claude to manage and operate digital operations, for language translations and to make posts seem attributable to independent news sources. Their content was dispersed across social media platforms like X, TikTok and Instagram.

This sort of use of AI is not unique to Iran, nor to the way adversaries have been leveraging cyber capabilities for military purposes and to gain greater situational awareness, Shah and others said.

“Adversaries in general are using AI capabilities,” she said. “They tend to be using it to uplift what they’re already doing, or to enhance or refine what they’re already doing.”

It’s also not the first time American-made technology has been used against U.S. interests. In the Russia-Ukraine conflict, for example, Russia is deploying drones guided by U.S.-made technology for attacks on Ukraine.

The U.S., Bresnick said, has so far maintained an advantage over its adversaries in terms of situational awareness. But increasingly advanced AI models are allowing other countries to catch up — something the Pentagon is already working to combat, he added.

“Because they are aware now that less sophisticated actors can understand what they’re doing, we’re about to see a great deal of countermeasures to try to reestablish a level of potential surprise and ability to operate with more secrecy,” he said.

One of the suggested countermeasures, according to a proposal reviewed by CBS News, includes creating AI “personas” that can mimic realistic life patterns and obscure “digital exhaust” to throw off adversarial tracking and surveillance efforts.

When asked for comment, a Pentagon official said they do not discuss matters of intelligence.

As AI has advanced, the national security community has been anticipating adversaries using the technology to refine, scale and amplify operations, Shah said. Anthropic’s report, she said, points to a wider issue where tech companies are entering the unfamiliar territory of the adversarial threat landscape.

“I kind of read it and I think well, what did these companies, what did the national security community think would happen when you make these models as accessible as they are?” she said. “Of course the bad guys are going to want to exploit them in different ways.”

Prominent Dem’s fatal error prompts Republican to predict ‘red tidal wave’ in blue stronghold

Flores calls Talarico’s reversal on gender surgery and ‘God is non-binary’ comments proof Democrats lack a record to run on

September 16, 2026 12:42pm EDT / Fox News

By Peter Pinedo

Republican congressional candidate Eric Flores, running in South Texas, is predicting a “red tidal wave” with James Talarico at the top of the ticket.

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Despite widespread predictions of major Democratic electoral victories this November, South Texas GOP candidate Eric Flores is predicting a “red tidal wave” in the Lone Star State, with controversial Democratic Senate nominee James Talarico as the most prominent Democrat at the top of the ticket.

Flores, a U.S. Army veteran running in Texas’ 34th Congressional District, called out Talarico for his recent “flip-flop” on some of his most controversial stances, including calling God “nonbinary” and saying there are six sexes. He argued that Talarico’s decision to walk back those statements is proof that he and other Democrats in the state “don’t have a record to run on.”

In an interview with Fox News last week, Talarico said he supports banning gender surgery for minors and opposed transgender-identifying men competing in women’s sports. He also addressed his controversial “God is non-binary” comment, saying, “I was being provocative with that statement. I get that,” and “what I was trying to say is that you can’t use human categories to define God, and that’s not controversial theologically. In fact, the late Charlie Kirk, the late Pope Benedict, all said the same thing.”

In response, Flores shot back, “Those aren’t provocative statements; those were statements that were made with intention, and that’s showing who he truly is.”

TALARICO SAYS HE ‘MISSED THE MARK’ AS HE BACKTRACKS ON CONTROVERSIAL WOKE STATEMENTS

Republican congressional candidate Eric Flores, left, is predicting a “red tidal wave” in Texas, with Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico, right, as the state’s most prominent Democrat on the ballot.(Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images; Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

Flores is running in a competitive race for a heavily Hispanic district that has long been a Democratic stronghold. The seat is currently held by Rep. Vicente Gonzalez, D-Texas. Despite long being considered a solidly blue district, President Donald Trump won it in 2024. Republicans have also narrowed Democrats’ advantage in the district over the past several election cycles. Flores argued that, with Talarico as the most prominent Democrat running statewide in Texas, this will be the year the GOP finally seals the deal.

“They’re saying that there’s a blue wave. Well, I got news for folks, there’s a red tidal wave coming because we’re going to be getting rid of the wrong type of Democrats like my opponent,” he said.

He credits the GOP’s rising chances in the district to eroding trust in Democrats in South Texas. He said, “the voters are finally asking the questions that South Texas deserves to hear.”

“Everything that I hear throughout Texas 34 is simple, and they are thinking about their pocketbook; they’re thinking about inflation and the cost of living,” he explained.

Flores’ pitch to try to break through the Democrats’ longtime hold on South Texas is “that this isn’t a contract election, it’s a contrast election.”

“What does that mean? That it’s common sense, which is the Republican Party, against communism and fake and the wrong type of Democrats like my opponent who are voting 80 to 85% of the time with AOC,” he said.

THE HISPANIC VOTE IS UP FOR GRABS IN 2026. CANDIDATES WHO IGNORE IT WILL LOSE

Rep. Vicente Gonzalez, D-Texas, second from left, stands alongside then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., third from left, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., second from right, and other Democrats during a news conference at the U.S. Capitol on June 16, 2021, in Washington, D.C.(Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

In response, Gonzalez told Fox News Digital that “Eric Flores is a rubber-stamp intellectual lightweight that can’t think for himself. He will continue to support the Iran war and policies that raise the cost of living for hardworking South Texans. All while shamelessly taking his ‘Trump Endorsement’ language off all his political ads and sending fundraising messages asking for donors to help him pay back his personal primary campaign debt instead of trying to win his race.”

“That should certainly feel like an air of confidence to the party,” Gonzalez continued, adding, “Trust me, he’s not fooling Democrats or Republicans for that matter. And it won’t be long before he’s back representing child molesters in South Texas.”

Fox News Digital is not aware of any evidence that Flores represented child molesters in his capacity as either a private practice attorney or assistant U.S. attorney.

Fox News Digital also reached out to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., for comment.

Regarding Talarico’s Fox interview, Flores said, “They’re asking him, do you really think that there are six genders? Do you really support these gender surgeries against minors? That’s the same thing with Talarico and my opponent, when they get questioned, all they can do is flip-flop because they actually don’t have a record to run on other than this far-left woke DEI agenda.”

A spokesperson for Talarico’s campaign directed Fox News Digital back to comments he made during his interview last week. Fox News spoke with Talarico at a food drive campaign event in Dallas on Tuesday. Talarico’s event took place as the first-ever GOP midterm convention kicked off just miles away in downtown Dallas.

Asked whether he would vote as a U.S. senator in favor of a national ban on gender surgery for minors, Talarico answered, “Absolutely.”

He said, “I’ve been consistent on this issue,” explaining his opposition to a Texas bill to ban transgender surgeries on minors by saying the measure “was overly broad.”

“If you go back and check, I voted for a major amendment to limit the bill to banning surgeries for minors,” he said. “As a lawmaker, my job is to try to sift through everything the bill does. And sometimes there’s stuff in it that’s really harmful, and I have no choice but to oppose the bill as a whole.”

In 2023, as a member of the Texas House of Representatives, Talarico voted against Senate Bill 14, which prohibited certain gender surgeries, puberty blockers and certain hormone treatments for minors. Democrats proposed 18 amendments to the bill, all of which Talarico supported and all of which ultimately failed.

EXCLUSIVE VIDEO: DEMS FACE MAJOR DEFEAT AFTER PARTY ‘MISSED THE CUE’ IN TOP TARGETED DISTRICT: CANDIDATE

Republican Eric Flores, a U.S. Army veteran and former federal prosecutor, launched his campaign for Congress in Texas’ 34th Congressional District.(Eric Flores campaign)

“It’s why I try to use amendments, to narrow the focus of the bill so that it does exactly what we intend it to do,” he continued. “It’s what I tried to do with that piece of legislation, and unfortunately, the amendment I supported was unsuccessful.”

Talarico also told Fox News, “I supported amendments that would have given the power to make these decisions to local communities,” adding, “like conservatives used to believe, I believe in local control.”

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In the same interview, Talarico acknowledged that men in women’s sports is a significant issue in Texas. He said, “I oppose trans athletes playing in girls’ sports if it endangers safety or fairness.”

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“Every sport has to be safe and fair. As a former public school teacher, I care a lot about our student athletes. I care a lot about our students. And so, I will oppose trans athletes playing in girls’ sports if it risks safety or fairness,” he said.

Comparing himself to his Republican opponent, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, Talarico said, “I am proud of my legislative track record delivering for Texans. I brought Democrats and Republicans together to pass 60 bipartisan bills that lower people’s costs and get the economy back on track. I’ll put my record up against Ken Paxton’s every day of the week and twice on Sunday.”

Peter Pinedo is a politics writer for Fox News Digital.