Federal Reserve board of governors member Lisa Cook has said she will not step down despite President Trump calling for her to do so.
Cook said she had “learned from the media that [Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA)] Director William Pulte posted on social media that he was making a criminal referral based on a mortgage application from four years ago, before I joined the Federal Reserve,” according to a statement obtained by The Hill’s sister network NewsNation
“I have no intention of being bullied to step down from my position because of some questions raised in a tweet,” she added. “I do intend to take any questions about my financial history seriously as a member of the Federal Reserve and so I am gathering the accurate information to answer any legitimate questions and provide the facts.”
On Wednesday, Trump called for the resignation of Cook in the wake of allegations by FHFA’s chief that she committed mortgage fraud.
FHFA Director William Pulte said early Wednesday on the social platform X that Cook had designated two of her houses as her primary residence.
“Lisa D. Cook, committed mortgage fraud by designating her out-of-state condo as her primary residence, just two weeks after taking a loan on her Michigan home where she also declared it as her primary residence,” he said.
Trump pushed for Cook to step down shortly after Pulte’s post.
“Cook must resign, now!!!” the president said on his own Truth Social platform.
Pulte also said his agency made a criminal referral to the Justice Department on the allegations against Cook.
In recent months, Trump has also directed his ire toward Fed Chair Jerome Powell and pushed for his exit as well.
The Hill has reached out to the White House and FHFA for comment.
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch is encouraging Tory-controlled councils to consider launching legal challenges against the use of hotels to house asylum seekers in their areas.
Badenoch said Epping Forest District Council had achieved “a victory for local people”, after a High Court ruling blocked a hotel from housing asylum seekers.
In a letter to Conservative council leaders, Badenoch wrote “we back you to take similar action to protect your community… if your legal advice supports it”.
A Labour spokesperson said Badenoch’s letter was “desperate and hypocritical nonsense from the architects of the broken asylum system”.
The Labour spokesperson said under the Tories, “the number of asylum hotels in use rose as high as 400”.
“There are now half that and there are now 20,000 fewer asylum seekers in hotels than at their peak under the Tories,” the spokesperson added.
The court ruled that about 140 asylum seekers must be moved out of the hotel by 12 September, giving the government limited time to find alternative housing.
Councils across England are considering similar legal challenges as ministers to draw up contingency plans for housing asylum seekers set to be removed from the Bell Hotel.
Historically, hotels have only been used to house asylum seekers in short-term emergency situations when other accommodation was unavailable.
But hotel use rose sharply during the Covid-19 pandemic, hitting a peak of 56,042 in 2023 when the Conservatives were in government.
The Labour government has pledged to end the use of migrant hotels by 2029, by cutting small-boat crossings and speeding up decisions on asylum claims.
There were 32,345 asylum seekers being housed in hotels at the end of March, down 15% from the end of December, according to Home Office figures.
In recent years, other councils have taken legal action in an attempt to close asylum hotels in their areas but in previous cases judges have refused to intervene.
Conservative-run Epping Forest District Council successfully argued its case was different as the hotel had become a safety risk, as well as a breach of planning law by ceasing to be a normal hotel.
The judge ruled in favour of the council, which made the case there had been “evidenced harms” related to protests around the hotel, which had led to violence and arrests.
For other councils to follow suit they would have to show the High Court evidence of local harm.
On Wednesday, a number of councils, including some run by Labour, said they were assessing their legal options.
In her letter, Badenoch told Tory council leaders they may “wish to take formal advice from planning officers on the other planning enforcement options available to your council in relation to unauthorised development or change of use”.
The Conservative leader of Broxbourne Council, Corina Gander, said she was “expecting to go down the same path” as Epping Forest District Council when filing a legal challenge to an asylum hotel in her area.
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has said all 12 councils controlled by his party will “do everything in their power to follow Epping’s lead”.
The leader of Reform UK-led West Northamptonshire Council said he was “considering the implications of this judgment to understand any similarities and differences and actively looking at the options now available to us”.
Carol Dean, leader of Labour-controlled Tamworth Council, said her authority had previously decided against legal action but was now “carefully assessing” what the decision might mean for the area.
She said it was a “potentially important legal precedent”.
Wirral Council said it was also “considering the detail of the judgement and how it might impact on planning consent for the proposed use of the former hotel in Hoylake”.
Home Office Minister Dan Jarvis told the BBC the government was “looking at contingency options” for housing those being moved out of the Bell Hotel but gave no specific examples.
“There’s likely to be a range of different arrangements in different parts of the country,” Jarvis said.
In June, ministers said the government was looking at buying tower blocks and former student accommodation, external to house migrants.
Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) addressed the deepfake video that went viral last month of the senator’s likeness offering a “vulgar and absurd critique” of actress Sydney Sweeney’s “great jeans” ad campaign.
In a New York Times op-ed, the moderate Democrat called on Congress to pass legislation to protect Americans from the harms of deepfakes, saying the issue requires urgent action amid the proliferation of artificial intelligence (AI) technology.
“I learned that lesson in a visceral way over the last month when a fake video of me — opining on, of all things, the actress Sydney Sweeney’s jeans — went viral,” she wrote in the op-ed.
Klobuchar said after she co-led a hearing on data privacy last month, she noticed “a clip of me from that hearing circulating widely on X, to the tune of more than a million views,” which the senator then clicked on to watch.
“That’s when I heard my voice — but certainly not me — spewing a vulgar and absurd critique of an ad campaign for jeans featuring Sydney Sweeney,” she said, referring to the controversial American Eagle advertisement that touted the actress’s “great jeans.”
Klobuchar explained the AI deepfake featured her using derogatory phrases and “lamenting that Democrats were ‘too fat to wear jeans or too ugly to go outside.'”
“Though I could immediately tell that someone used footage from the hearing to make a deepfake, there was no getting around the fact that it looked and sounded very real,” she said.
Klobuchar said when the clip spread to other platforms, TikTok took it down, and Meta labeled the video as artificial intelligence. But she said the social platform X “refused to take it down or label it.”
“X’s response was that I should try to get a ‘Community Note’ to say it was a fake, something the company would not help add,” she added.
The Hill has reached out to X for comment.
Klobuchar noted that her experience “does not in any way represent the gravest threat posed by deepfakes” and pointed to other recent examples, including when someone used AI to pretend to be Secretary of State Marco Rubio and contacted various high-level government officials.
President Trump in May signed into law a bill that Klobuchar pushed for, cracking down on so-called deepfake revenge porn — or sexually explicit AI images and videos that are posted without the victim’s consent.
Klobuchar is calling now for Congress to pass her bipartisan No Fakes Act, which “would give people the right to demand that social media companies remove deepfakes of their voice and likeness, while making exceptions for speech protected by the First Amendment,” she said.
“In the United States, and within the bounds of our Constitution, we must put in place common-sense safeguards for artificial intelligence. They must at least include labeling requirements for content that is substantially generated by A.I.,” she wrote in the op-ed.
She warned that the country is “at just the tip of the iceberg,” noting, “The internet has an endless appetite for flashy, controversial content that stokes anger. The people who create these videos aren’t going to stop at Sydney Sweeney’s jeans.”
“We can love the technology and we can use the technology, but we can’t cede all the power over our own images and our privacy,” she wrote. “It is time for members of Congress to stand up for their constituents, stop currying favor with the tech companies and set the record straight. In a democracy, we do that by enacting laws. And it is long past time to pass one.”
Sunrun Inc. (NASDAQ:RUN) grew its share prices by 11.35 percent on Monday to finish at $15.50 apiece as investors welcomed new tax credit rules for solar and wind energy projects that were less restrictive than investors feared.
Instead of spending at least 5 percent of the project cost, updated guidelines issued by the US government last week said that companies must show that they have kicked off physical project construction before July 5, 2026, to qualify for tax credits.
“This test focuses on the nature of the work performed, not the amount or the cost,” said the guidance. “Provided that physical work performed is of a significant nature, there is no fixed minimum amount of work or monetary or percentage threshold required to satisfy the Physical Work Test.”
Previously, developers had to prove that they were able to spend 5 percent or more of the total cost to qualify for the credits.
The tax credits, which form part of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, will phase out clean energy tax credits for projects placed in service after 2027, but provide an exception for projects that commenced by July 5, 2026, a year after the bill was signed into law.
Albemarle (ALB) Jumps 7% on Expected Lithium Price Jump
Sunrun Inc. (NASDAQ:RUN), one of the key players in the solar industry, rallied alongside its counterparts following the news.
While we acknowledge the potential of RUN as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that some AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns and have limited downside risk. If you are looking for an extremely cheap AI stock that is also a major beneficiary of Trump tariffs and onshoring, see our free report on the best short-term AI stock.
Texas legislators have approved new congressional maps meant to give Republicans an edge in next year’s elections for the US House of Representatives.
After a two-week standoff, where Democrats fled the state to stall the vote and rally supporters against the redistricting plans, Republicans in the Texas House of Representatives passed the new voting lines in an 88 – 52 vote.
The maps will now go to the Texas Senate, where they are expected to be swiftly approved.
The new maps are intended give Republicans five seats that are currently held by Democrats and shore up the party’s US House majority. However, Democrat-led states are pushing to redraw their maps to offset those gains.
The “Make America Healthy Again” (MAHA) movement may be on a collision course with its Republican allies over pesticides and toxic chemicals, The Hill’s Rachel Frazin reports.
MAHA, a movement aimed at tackling the nation’s chronic disease epidemic through food, health and environmental reforms, has been deeply skeptical of Big Pharma, Big Agriculture, and Big Chemical.
MAHA groups have been strongly aligned with the Trump administration’s actions to date on vaccines and food.
But cracks are beginning to form.
MAHA-aligned groups and influencers are raising alarms about provisions in a House appropriations bill they say will shield pesticide and chemical manufacturers from accountability — and ultimately make Americans less healthy.
Meanwhile, a draft of the administration’s “MAHA Report” on children’s health reportedly omitsany calls to prevent pesticide exposure, also disappointing advocates.
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his disciples espouse stricter environmental protections, while also bucking mainstream science on vaccine safety. Conservatives have traditionally sided with big business, supporting fewer regulations on potentially toxic substances.
So far, business interests appear to be winning. The industry-friendly draft of a report from a commission run by Kennedy shows just how much the White House has been able to rein him in.
“It’s obvious that there are tensions within this newfound coalition between MAHA and MAGA, and there are some big issues there,” said Mary Holland, CEO of Children’s Health Defense, an anti-vaccine group founded by Kennedy.
While the pesticide issues have generated some sparks between MAHA and MAGA, the administration has taken a number of other actions to also reduce restrictions on the chemical industry more broadly.
Trump himself exempted from environmental standards more than 100 polluters, including chemical manufacturers, oil refineries, coal plants and medical device sterilizers.
The EPA, meanwhile, has put chemical industry alumni in leading roles and has said it wants to loosen restrictions on emissions of various cancer-linked chemicals.
“Those factions, if you will — more protective of corporate and more challenging to corporate — are both striving to get the president’s ear, and I don’t think they’ve come to a complete, sort of settlement agreement,” Holland said.
Welcome to The Hill’s Health Care newsletter, we’re Nathaniel Weixel, Joseph Choi and Alejandra O’Connell-Domenech — every week we follow the latest moves on how Washington impacts your health.
More than 750 current and former staff members of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) are calling on Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to stop “spreading inaccurate health information” and do more to protect public health professionals in the wake of a shooting at the headquarters of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) earlier this month. The letter, sent Wednesday to Kennedy and …
Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Tuesday explained why he’s often caught wearing jeans during workouts. “Well, I just started doing that a long time ago because I would go hiking in the morning and then I’d go straight to the gym, and I found it was convenient,” he said during an appearance on Fox News’s “Jesse Watters Primetime.” He added, “Now I’m …
Hours after the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) broke with Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and recommended COVID-19 vaccines for all young children, Kennedy blasted the association as beholden to corporate interests. The AAP on Tuesday recommended all infants and children 6 months through 23 months get vaccinated against COVID-19 to help protect against serious illness. Kennedy responded …
Emergency room visits have spiked across the Midwest this summer as millions of Americans grapple with tick bites, but a lesser-known tick-borne illness is causing particular alarm in some communities. Alpha-gal syndrome, transmitted by the lone star tick, creates severe allergies to meat and dairy products that can last for years. The condition essentially forces people to adopt vegan diets, with some patients experiencing …
TKO Group Holdings, Inc. (TKO) is a prominent sports and entertainment company headquartered in New York. Formed through the merger of Endeavor’s UFC parent company, Zuffa and World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), TKO began trading publicly on the NYSE in September 2023.
The company brings together powerhouse entertainment brands, including UFC, WWE, Professional Bull Riders (PBR), IMG, and On Location Experiences, producing thousands of live events across over 210 countries and reaching more than one billion households worldwide. TKO’s market capitalization is approximately $15.2 billion.
On a year-to-date (YTD) basis, TKO has delivered an impressive return of approximately 30.6%, significantly outperforming the S&P 500 Index’s ($SPX) 9.7% gain. Looking at the 52-week horizon, TKO stock has soared by nearly 58.9%, eclipsing the $SPX’s more modest 16.1% advance over the same period.
Narrowing the focus, TKO has also outperformed the Communication Services Select Sector SPDR ETF Fund’s (XLC) 14.5% rise YTD and 28.5% surge over the past year.
www.barchart.com
Among the catalysts fueling this rally, the standout is the blockbuster seven-year, $7.7 billion exclusive media deal between UFC (under TKO) and Paramount Skydance, which triggered positive sentiments this month. At the same time, strategic growth initiatives, including the acquisition of IMG, PBR, and On Location Experiences, along with the launch of Zuffa Boxing, have bolstered investor optimism.
For the current fiscal year, ending in December 2025, analysts expect TKO to report EPS growth of 56.2% year over year (YoY) to $3.03, on a diluted basis. The company’s earnings surprise history is mixed. It beat the consensus estimate in two of the last four quarters, while missing the forecast in the other two quarters.
Among the 20 analysts covering TKO stock, the consensus rating is a “Moderate Buy.” That’s based on 15 “Strong Buy,” four “Hold” and one “Strong Sell” ratings.
www.barchart.com
Over the past three months, the sentiment has shifted modestly toward the downside, with the overall analyst consensus easing from a “Strong Buy” to a more cautious “Moderate Buy.”
However, on Aug. 15, Citigroup Inc.’s (C) Jason Bazinet reaffirmed a “Buy” rating on TKO and raised the price target from $200 to $225, signaling strong confidence in the stock’s growth prospects.
The mean price target of $197.18 is not quite as ambitious, but it still represents a premium of 6.3% to TKO’s current price. The Street-high price target of $250 suggests an upside potential of 34.7%.
On the date of publication, Sristi Jayaswal did not have (either directly or indirectly) positions in any of the securities mentioned in this article. All information and data in this article is solely for informational purposes. This article was originally published on Barchart.com
The Israeli military says it has begun the “preliminary actions” of a planned ground offensive to capture and occupy all of Gaza City and already has a hold on its outskirts.
A military spokesman said troops were already operating in the Zeitoun and Jabalia areas to lay the groundwork for the offensive, which Defence Minister Israel Katz approved on Tuesday and which will be put to the security cabinet later this week.
About 60,000 reservists are being called up for the beginning of September to free up active-duty personnel for the operation.
Hamas has accused Israel of obstructing a ceasefire deal in favour of continuing a “brutal war against innocent civilians”, Reuters news agency reported.
Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza City are expected to be ordered to evacuate and head to shelters in southern Gaza as preparations for Israel’s takeover plan get under way.
Many of Israel’s allies have condemned its plan, with French President Emmanuel Macron warning on Wednesday that it “can only lead to disaster for both peoples and risks plunging the entire region into a cycle of permanent war”.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) meanwhile said further displacement and an intensification of hostilities “risk worsening an already catastrophic situation” for Gaza’s 2.1 million population.
Israel’s government announced its intention to conquer the entire Gaza Strip after indirect talks with Hamas on a ceasefire and hostage release deal broke down last month.
Speaking at a televised briefing on Wednesday, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesperson Brigadier General Effie Defrin said Hamas was “battered and bruised” after 22 months of war.
“We will deepen the damage to Hamas in Gaza City, a stronghold of governmental and military terror for the terrorist organisation,” he added. “We will deepen the damage to the terror infrastructure above and below the ground and sever the population’s dependence on Hamas.”
But Defrin said the IDF was “not waiting” to begin the operation.
“We have begun the preliminary actions, and already now, IDF troops are holding the outskirts of Gaza City.”
Two brigades were operating on the ground in the Zeitoun neighbourhood, where in recent days they had located an underground tunnel that contained weapons, and a third brigade was operating in the Jabalia area, he added.
In order to “minimise harm to civilians,” he said, Gaza City’s civilian population would be warned to evacuate for their safety.
A spokesman for Gaza’s Hamas-run Civil Defence agency, Mahmoud Bassal, told AFP news agency on Tuesday that the situation was “very dangerous and unbearable” in the city’s Zeitoun and Sabra neighbourhoods.
The agency reported that Israeli strikes and fire had killed 25 people across the territory on Wednesday. They included three children and their parents whose home in the Badr area of Shati refugee camp, west of Gaza City, was bombed, it said.
Defrin said the IDF was also doing everything possible to prevent harm to the 50 hostages still being held by Hamas in Gaza, 20 of whom are believed to be alive. Their families have expressed fears that those in Gaza City could be endangered by a ground offensive.
The ICRC warned of a catastrophic situation for both Palestinian civilians and the hostages if military activity in Gaza intensified.
“After months of relentless hostilities and repeated displacement, the people in Gaza are utterly exhausted. What they need is not more pressure, but relief. Not more fear, but a chance to breathe. They must have access to the essentials to live in dignity: food, medical and hygiene supplies, clean water, and safe shelter,” a statement said.
“Any further intensification of military operations will only deepen the suffering, tear more families apart, and threaten an irreversible humanitarian crisis. The lives of hostages may also be put at risk,” it added.
It called for an immediate ceasefire and the rapid and unimpeded passage of humanitarian assistance across Gaza.
Mediators Qatar and Egypt are trying to secure a ceasefire deal and have presented a new proposal for a 60-day truce and the release of around half of the hostages, which Hamas said it had accepted on Monday.
Israel has not yet submitted a formal response, but Israeli officials insisted on Tuesday that they would no longer accept a partial deal and demanded a comprehensive one that would see all the hostages released.
On Wednesday Hamas accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of disregarding the mediators’ ceasefire proposal and said he was the “real obstructionist of any agreement”, according to a statement cited by Reuters.
The Israeli military launched a campaign in Gaza in response to the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.
At least 62,122 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory’s health ministry. The ministry’s figures are quoted by the UN and others as the most reliable source of statistics available on casualties.
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) filed a lawsuit against the operators of LA Fitness on Wednesday, alleging the popular gym chain makes the process of canceling memberships too difficult for consumers.
“The FTC’s complaint describes a scenario that too many Americans have experienced – a gym membership that seems impossible to cancel,” Bureau of Consumer Protection Director Christopher Mufarrige said in a statement, noting “tens of thousands of LA Fitness customers reported difficulties.”
“The FTC will not hesitate to act on behalf of consumers when it believes companies are stifling consumers’ ability to choose which recurring charges they want to keep,” he continued.
LA Fitness did not immediately respond to request for comment.
The complaint was filed in federal court in the Central District of California against Fitness International, LLC and Fitness & Sports Clubs, LLC. The companies operate gyms including LA Fitness, Esporta Fitness, City Sports Club and Club Studio, covering more than 600 locations and over 3.7 million members.
The gym memberships cost anywhere from $30 to $299 per month and often involve annual fees. To cancel, LA Fitness requires consumers to go to the gym in person or send a cancelation notice by mail.
But the FTC says it’s not that simple. In the complaint, the FTC outlines the “opaque and complicated methods” that LA Fitness allegedly uses to “to make it extremely difficult for consumers to cancel their memberships.”
First, consumers must print out cancelation forms by logging into its website. If consumers forget their log-in credentials, LA Fitness requires them to provide a “key tag” number assigned to them at sign-up and to provide the first five digits of their credit card or bank account number to reset the account.
They do not tell consumers, according to the FTC, that members have the option of submitting a written cancelation notice, nor did they specify what that request should include. The gyms also told consumers that the mail-in cancelations should be sent by certified or registered mail, according to the FTC.
When consumers tried to cancel in person, the FTC said, they similarly faced obstacles.
Members could only cancel with one specific employee — even though several were authorized to oversee cancelations — and only during designated hours when most people were working—even though most locations were open for 19 hours a day, according to the FTC.
The FTC further alleges that LA Fitness has “trained staff to reject escalated requests and to deny cancellations requested by phone or email, reiterating that all cancellations must be done in person with one specific employee or by mail.”
“Consumers who try to cancel their memberships by stopping charges to their bank or credit card find they are rebilled, often under new account numbers,” the FTC said.
The FTC says these practices violate the FTC Act and the Restore Online Shoppers’ Confidence Act (ROSCA) and it is seeking money back for consumers allegedly harmed by the practices.
