Major U.S. banks turned away customers over political and religious views, report says

The Comptroller of the Currency says the nation's nine largest banks denied financial services to customers based on their political, religious, or social beliefs, according to a regulatory review released Wednesday.

The OCC reviewed nearly 100,000 complaints and received approximately 50,000 documents from JPMorgan Chase Bank, Bank of America, Citibank, Wells Fargo Bank, U.S. Bank, Capital One, PNC Bank, TD Bank, and BMO Bank regarding their policies, procedures, practices, and individual customer decisions.

The federal banking watchdog determined that the banks' sweeping internal guidelines lacked objective, risk-based criteria, effectively shutting out legitimate customers and businesses based on ideological leanings rather than financial risk.

The OCC said its findings reveal a systematic effort within the banking sector to restrict access for politically sensitive industries through both public and nonpublic policies.

Federal regulators found that lenders restricted certain sectors' access to financial services, including oil and gas exploration; coal mining; firearms or ammunition manufacturing or distribution; construction or operation of detention facilities; and the manufacturing, distribution or online retail of tobacco or e-cigarettes.

The Trump administration has voiced growing concerns over "de-banking" and the use of the financial system to achieve social and political objectives.

"Today's report provides irrefutable evidence that the nation's largest banks have denied, debanked, and discriminated against customers and lawful businesses," said Comptroller of the Currency Jonathan Gould. "Americans should have access to financial services regardless of their beliefs, affiliations, or political views. "

All nine banks report having reassessed the role of reputation risk in decisions to accept or terminate new customers, according to the OCC's report. Several banks said they had minimized reliance on reputation risk, and bank employees now must consider it in the context of other financial or business consequences, including credit risk, money laundering and terrorist financing risk.

The Bank Policy Institute, a lobbying group that represents the banks, said in a statement in reaction to the report, "We support efforts to establish clear and consistent standards that promote access while maintaining sound risk management, including the administration's recent efforts to prioritize supervisory attention on material financial risk and rather than reputational risk."

The group also noted it would continue to work with the administration and Congress on proposals that ensure that political or religious beliefs do not unfairly affect customers' access to banking services.

JPMorgan Chase said in a statement, "We take this seriously, learned from it, and improved the way we do business. We agree with the Administration on a broader point: years of operating in a regulatory environment that often second-guessed decisions contributed to a culture of caution across the banking industry. That system needs fixing."

The bank says its policies prohibit discrimination against customers based on political or religious views.

A spokesperson for Wells Fargo and Citigroup declined to comment on the OCC's report, while PNC said it was reviewing the findings.

Bank of America, U.S. Bank and Capital One had not responded for comment as of this writing.

The review was directed by President Trump's executive order, "Guaranteeing Fair Access to Banking for All Americans," to determine whether these banks' policies or practices required or influenced banks to deny or limit access to financial services to Americans because of their political or religious beliefs or lawful business activities.

The OCC is considering further actions and writing new rules to prevent banks from discriminating against customers or prospective customers based on their political or religious beliefs. The OCC is also coordinating its debanking review with the reviews of other federal and state partners.

"Notwithstanding certain efforts by the largest banks to rein in these practices, I am not confident that they will be enough," said Gould.

Jennifer Schonberger is a veteran financial journalist covering markets, the economy, and investing. At Yahoo Finance, she covers the Federal Reserve, Congress, the White House, the Treasury, the SEC, the economy, cryptocurrencies, and the intersection of Washington policy with finance. Follow her on X @Jenniferisms and on Instagram.

David Hollerith is a senior reporter at Yahoo Finance covering the cryptocurrency and stock markets. Follow him on X at @DsHollers.

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This article originally appeared on Yahoo Finance at https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/article/federal-watchdog-says-9-large-us-banks-denied-service-to-customers-over-political-or-religious-views-160634194.html
Wed, 14 Oct 2026 16:06:34 +0000

Can Trump strip Ilhan Omar of her U.S. citizenship? It's not that simple.

In a highly unusual step, federal agents this week aggressively intensified their investigations into Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, weeks before she stands for reelection in her home district. 

The Department of Justice on Tuesday subpoenaed relatives of Omar?s family members, including her sister Sahra Noor, according to The New York Times. The grand jury subpoenas were issued shortly after a raid of the lawmaker?s residence in Washington, D.C. on Monday. 

The judicial search warrant, which is under seal, was executed by Homeland Security Investigations, the investigative branch of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Although the Department of Justice did not provide any more details of the investigation, multiple outlets, citing anonymous sources, reported that the search stemmed from Omar?s immigration paperwork, which was filled out by her late father when she was a child. 

Prior to the investigation, multiple Trump Administration officials have accused Omar of immigration fraud without presenting any evidence. In a podcast interview in March, Vice President JD Vance said the White House was exploring ?legal remedies? to her alleged immigration fraud. Last month, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said the investigation into Omar was ?ongoing? and dismissed efforts to frame the case as political retribution.

?If we actually move a case forward, it?s not a political case. It's actually a case because they did things wrong,? Mullin said during the interview with right-wing podcaster Benny Johnson. 

Omar, who has long denied the allegations, condemned the raid on her home as ?political intimidation? and said she will ?not be silenced.? 

President Trump, along with many MAGA Republicans, has repeatedly floated the idea of revoking Omar?s citizenship, a process also known as denaturalization, and deporting her. 

But legal and immigration experts tell TIME that denaturalizing a U.S. citizen is a rare and difficult process, one that requires federal authorities to clear a high bar in front of a federal judge. Here?s what to know about how the process works. 

How does denaturalization work?

Stripping someone of their citizenship is a more arduous legal process than most other immigration efforts that involve the courts. Deportation proceedings, for instance, are initiated by ICE agents under the Department of Homeland Security and are then approved by immigration judges who are hired and work within the Department of Justice. The denaturalization process, on the other hand, must be approved by an independent federal judge, who evaluates the request by a higher standard.  

All denaturalization efforts begin at DOJ. In order to revoke a naturalized person?s citizenship, a DOJ lawyer must decide whether to file a civil or a criminal petition in court. Yuripzy Morgan, an attorney and host of Free Range National podcase, said a civil complaint does not have a statute of limitation, whereas a criminal complaint has a statute of limitation of 10 years and must clear a much higher legal bar. 

?For civil denaturalization, the government has to show that there is clear, convincing, and unequivocal evidence that the person in question obtained their naturalization either illegally, or they willfully misrepresented a material fact, ? Morgan says. She stressed that simply having an error in an immigration document doesn't mean that a judge is going to approve stripping a person of their citizenship. 

For a criminal denaturalization conviction, the federal government must show ?proof beyond a reasonable doubt? that the individual knowingly obtained citizenship through fraud, which is the highest legal standard of proof required to secure a criminal conviction. In 2017, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled in Maslenjak v. United States that only an illegal act that played a role in a person?s citizenship application could lead to criminal denaturalization, further narrowing down the scope of such efforts. 

Omar?s father filled out and submitted her citizenship application on her behalf when she was 17. It is unclear what evidence, if any, the federal government has to show that anything in the application was fraudulent, or that Omar or her father intentionally misrepresented anything in that application. 

Andrew Arthur, a former immigration judge and a resident fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies, pointed out that even after someone gets denaturalized, a deportation is not guaranteed. The person would still be able to retain their previous legal immigration status until a final order of removal is issued to the person by ICE.

?If they had a green card before they naturalized, even after they get denaturalized, they are going to have a green card,? Arthur says. 

How did Rep. Omar get naturalized as a U.S. citizen?

According to Omar?s House biography, Omar and her family fled her home country Somalia when she was eight. The family eventually sought asylum in the United States in 1995. She told The New York Times that she became a U.S. citizen in 2000 when she was 17. 

At the time Omar went through the process, federal law allowed immigrants under the age of 18 to get naturalized as U.S. citizens if both of their parents had become U.S. citizens. The law was eventually replaced by a new law in 2001, which only requires one parent to become a citizen for the children to be naturalized. 

At the center of this investigation is whether Omar?s father, Nur Omar Mohamed, lied about her age in immigration documents so she could be eligible to derive citizenship through him, according to The Washington Post, which cited two unnamed sources. 

According to Arthur, the former immigration judge, if Omar was 18 at the time of the naturalization application, she may have been able to apply for her citizenship on her own after having a valid green card for five years. 

The allegations regarding Omar?s citizenship gained attention among conservative activists and commentators starting in 2019, when Omar became a member of Congress. Shortly after her election, Omar?s staff sought to change her official birth year in public records from 1981 to 1982, according to multiple outlets.

How often does the U.S. government strip people of their citizenship?

Despite the renewed push from the second Trump administration, denaturalization remains an exceedingly rare legal process. According to the Migration Policy Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank, an average of 11 denaturalization cases were filed per year between 1990 and 2017. 

Denaturalization efforts have increased in Trump?s second term. The DOJ has announced efforts to strip at least 108 people of their citizenship in 2026. That is still considerably smaller than the hundreds of thousands of people whom the U.S. government grants citizenship to through naturalization every year.

This article originally appeared on Time at https://time.com/article/2026/10/14/ilhan-omar-citizenship-investigation-denaturalization-DOJ/
Wed, 14 Oct 2026 16:57:47 +0000

Zelensky says Trump is abandoning a key partner while easing pressure on Russia

Volodymyr Zelensky said that he felt betrayed by Donald Trump, and warned the US president was not acting on the ?right side of history?.

?It is a pity that we are losing a strong partner,? the Ukrainian leader said on Wednesday amid an escalating public clash with his American counterpart.

Relations between Kyiv and the White House have sharply deteriorated after Mr Trump agreed on Friday to waive sanctions on Russia to import diesel.

The US president has been pressuring Ukraine to halt its strikes on Russian oil refineries, blaming Kyiv ? not the Iran war ? for rising energy prices. On Saturday he said Ukraine needed ?a new president?.

In an interview with Piers Morgan Uncensored on Wednesday, Mr Zelensky said he would not resign under US pressure.

Asked whether he felt ?betrayed? by recent events, he said: ?Really, yes, between us. But it?s a little bit more complicated than just my emotions or my feelings.

?Our country has to survive, and we count on our real partners, strategic partners, the United States and President Trump. They wanted us not to attack. My opinion was, it is not fair.?

He suggested Mr Trump?s diesel deal with Vladimir Putin was an ?attempt to push Ukraine to capitulation? and give up the Donbas region, a concession which the Russian leader has said he wants before he will consider ending his invasion.  

?People will die?

The US has also threatened to suspend intelligence-sharing to force Ukraine to stop its refinery attacks.

Mr Zelensky claimed on Tuesday that Kyiv had stopped receiving warnings from allies about missile attacks. He also accused Elon Musk, the tech billionaire, of imposing limits on his Starlink technology, which is critical as a communication device for Ukrainian forces on the front line.

?I am sure they knew what they did, absolutely. Because it was 1am at night, Starlink was blocked by SpaceX and the United States,? Mr Zelensky said.

Addressing Mr Musk directly, he added: ?This decision will bring a lot of human losses. Of course, people will die.?

Writing on X, Mr Musk blamed the US government for the restrictions. An official speaking to Axios denied having anything to do with the alleged Starlink restrictions.

Mykhailo Fedorov, the Ukrainian defence minister, has since confirmed Starlink access has been restored and thanked Mr Musk.

Starlink connectivity at speeds of up to 160 km/h is being restored.Removing Starshield's speed limit entirely is now critical for Ukraine's defense. Thank you, @elonmusk. We hope for your continued support.

? Mykhailo Fedorov (@FedorovMykhailo) October 14, 2026

Nato, EU and Ukrainian officials told The Telegraph that they had seen no signs that US intelligence-sharing had stopped.

The US has not commented on the matter and Kyiv is still waiting to hear from the Trump administration, a Ukrainian official familiar with discussions told The Telegraph.

Kyiv maintains it has not hit any oil refineries since Mr Trump announced an energy ceasefire on Sunday.

During Wednesday?s visit to the UK, Mr Zelensky also pressed Andy Burnham to use the proceeds of Roman Abramovich?s sale of Chelsea Football Club to support Ukraine.

Ahead of their Downing Street meeting, sources said the Ukrainian president would argue that the £2.5bn funds were needed to offset the damage done by Mr Trump?s diesel deal with Putin.

Mr Zelensky also pushed Mr Burnham to confiscate frozen Russian assets held in Britain to ratchet up the economic pressure on Moscow.

The EU failed last year to reach a decision on the seizure of some ?210bn (£183bn) in Russian state bank assets being held on the Continent, mainly in Belgium.

Sir Keir Starmer, the then prime minister, used the failure to back down on a promise to do the same.

Britain has been locked in a dispute with Mr Abramovich, who has close ties to Putin, about the use of the proceeds of the Chelsea sale.

The Russian oligarch was sanctioned by the Government following the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Ministers eventually allowed the billionaire to sell the football club based on the condition that the money would go to ?victims of the war in Ukraine?.

Mr Abramovich has since set up the Foundation for the Victims of Conflict to oversee the dispersal of the funds.

But his organisation has disagreed with the Government about whether the money can be spent on humanitarian causes across a range of countries.

After months without an update, Ukrainian officials put the issue on Mr Zelensky?s agenda to raise with Mr Burnham during their meeting.

Before the talks, the Prime Minister told the House of Commons that he would seek to mend relations between Kyiv and Washington.

Speaking in the Commons, Mr Burnham told MPs: ?What I have to do in my role is try and repair bridges so that the support comes back.

?Therefore I should, at this moment in time, be careful in terms of laying the ground to bring people back together. That is the role I intend to play.?

Mr Zelensky also met the King at Buckingham Palace on Wednesday afternoon.

In a social media post, the Ukrainian president said: ?I thank the King, the Prime Minister, and all of Britain for their support!?

After his meetings in London, he will travel to hold talks with European leaders at a summit in Brussels.

This article originally appeared on The Telegraph at https://uk.news.yahoo.com/zelensky-feel-betrayed-trump-173810626.html
Wed, 14 Oct 2026 17:38:10 +0000

Justice Department threatens California over alleged noncitizen voters, letter shows

By Jacob Bogage and Andrew Goudsward

WASHINGTON, Oct 14 (Reuters) - The US Justice Department on Tuesday gave California officials 48 hours to review a list of alleged noncitizen voters or face legal action, according to two letters reviewed by Reuters, part of an unprecedented effort to find evidence ?of voter fraud ahead of next month's elections.

The letters, written by acting Deputy Attorney General R. Trent McCotter and addressed to California Secretary of State ?Shirley Weber and Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder Dean Logan, say the Justice Department provided officials in Los Angeles County with a "password-protected thumb drive" with the names of people the federal government "believes are likely noncitizens" ?and were sent mail-in ballots from California.

The letters demand that the state and county segregate returned mail-in ballots from voters on the Justice Department's list and not tabulate their votes "until citizenship has been determined." In cases where ballots have not been sent out yet, it orders California officials to withhold them from those on the list until their citizenship is confirmed.

The federal government "will have no choice but to seek emergency relief," according to the letters, if state and county officials do not follow its instructions.

"Allowing noncitizens to vote cancels citizen votes," ?McCotter wrote.

The letters mark an escalation of the Trump administration's ?attempts to pressure states over alleged voting by non-US citizens and signal the Justice Department may be prepared to challenge ballots in the weeks leading up to the November 3 election, when Republicans will be defending their narrow majorities in Congress.

Justice Department spokeswoman Kiersten ?Pels confirmed the existence of the letters in a statement to Reuters, adding: "The department will take all necessary legal action to protect election integrity and ensure compliance with federal law."

Representatives from the White House and the California secretary of state's office did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Logan also did not immediately respond.

FRAUD CLAIMS

The Justice Department under President Donald Trump ?has ?repeatedly claimed that voting by non-US citizens is widespread, despite multiple studies showing it is rare.

Though ?states may have added more than 30,000 noncitizens to their voter ?rolls since 2000 due to software glitches and clerical errors, Reuters found in September, it was unclear how many had cast a ballot. Experts said the numbers were too small relative to the country's 170 million registered voters to affect elections.

In July, the Justice Department sent letters to chief election officials in all 50 states warning they could face criminal prosecution if they knowingly allowed noncitizens to remain on their voter rolls or cast ballots.

The department's Civil Rights Division has demanded nonpublic voter data, including voters' Social Security numbers or dates of birth, from nearly all states as part of its hunt for noncitizens on state rolls. It has sued 30 Democratic- and Republican-led states that ?refused to hand over their rolls, but has lost 26 of those cases without winning one.

Reuters reported ?last month that the Department of Homeland Security was using a commercial data broker to find sensitive ?voter information not included in publicly available rolls, which officials and experts ?warned could lead to citizens being falsely flagged as illegal voters and potentially detained.

Federal prosecutors have also ramped up prosecutions of noncitizens ?for allegedly voting in past elections or submitting fraudulent registrations, touting 16 ?new criminal cases on Monday.

Officials in Democratic-led ?California have tussled for months with the Trump administration over its attempts to intervene in election procedures over allegations of voter fraud.

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin informed California officials on July 16 that the federal government believed the state had noncitizens on its voting rolls, according to the letter.

California could prove pivotal in ?deciding control of the US House of Representatives, especially after ?the state's voters approved a new congressional map that heavily favors Democrats as part of a nationwide redistricting sprint that began in Republican-led states.

Voters in ?Los Angeles will also weigh in on a ballot measure that would allow certain noncitizen legal residents to cast ballots in municipal elections.

(Reporting by Jacob Bogage ?and Andrew Goudsward in Washington; Editing by Jesse Mesner-Hage, Jamie Freed and Daniel Wallis)

This article originally appeared on Reuters at https://www.yahoo.com/news/politics/articles/exclusive-us-justice-department-threatens-034849746.html
Wed, 14 Oct 2026 19:24:41 +0000

Supreme Court sides with GOP in fight over discounted ads ahead of midterms

By John Kruzel

WASHINGTON, Oct 14 (Reuters) - The US Supreme Court again sided with Republicans on Wednesday in the latest clash over a new Federal Communications Commission policy that gives party committees access to discounted TV and radio advertising rates long available to political candidates.

The court agreed to ?let the FCC, which is chaired by Trump ally Brendan Carr, avoid a judicially imposed deadline that would have forced the agency to rule ?on a Democratic challenge to the policy before the November 3 midterm elections. The FCC joined two Republican committees in filing a request to the Supreme Court to lift the lower court's deadline.

The court ?has a 6-3 conservative majority. Liberal Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson indicated they would have denied the request.

The FCC, which currently has a 2-1 Republican majority, modified its so-called "lowest unit charge" rule in March in a move seen as a boost to President Donald Trump's fellow Republicans. The president's party is seeking to retain control of Congress in the November 3 midterms.

"We are pleased the Supreme Court has granted the FCC's stay request. The court's decision is right on the law and avoids the specter of upending ?the rules for political ads right in the middle of ?an ongoing election," an FCC spokesperson said.

Chief Justice John Roberts had previously lifted the October 9 deadline that was given to the FCC by the Richmond-based 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals. The 4th Circuit has accused the FCC of repeated "delay tactics" in ?the case, and emphasized the need for an urgent ruling in the Democratic challenge given the looming election.

The Supreme Court's latest action marks the second time in recent weeks that it has addressed the FCC's policy, as major Republican committees head toward the midterms with a cash advantage over their Democratic counterparts.

In September, the court granted a request by the national Republican ?committees ?that support the party's candidates in Senate and House of Representatives races to revive the policy ?after the 4th Circuit blocked it. The justices in an ?8-1 ruling said that the Democratic candidates must wait for the FCC to rule before filing a challenge in court.

The FCC policy at issue requires broadcasters to charge discounted rates for airing certain political advertisements within 60 days of a general election, a window that opened this year on September 4.

A group of Democratic candidates including Senator Jon Ossoff of Georgia in April challenged the policy through in-house proceedings at the FCC. When the agency took no action, the Democrats successfully challenged the policy in the 4th Circuit, a ruling that was later halted by the Supreme Court.

The 4th Circuit on October 7 ordered the FCC to issue a prompt ruling on the ?Democratic in-house challenge, more than five months after it was filed. In its 2-1 ruling, the ?4th Circuit said its "willingness to tolerate the FCC's delay tactics is at an end."

'TRENCH WARFARE'

The Republican committees ?in their Supreme Court filing accused the 4th Circuit of having "short-circuited" the ?FCC's review process.

The Democratic candidates, for their part, accused the FCC in court papers of engaging in "blatant procedural trench warfare to stave ?off judicial review of an unlawful agency directive until it is ?too late to matter."

The FCC policy gained ?greater significance after the Supreme Court in June struck down federal restrictions on spending coordinated between parties and their candidates, siding with Republican challengers including Vice President JD Vance. Since the June ruling, Republican committees have blown past the former limits ahead of the midterms.

The two Republican committees have exceeded the ?former national caps by more than $48 million, according to Federal ?Election Commission spending disclosures for July and August. Their Democratic counterparts also eclipsed the former limits, but by much less ? just under $4 million.

The three ?main national Republican committees ended August with about $233 million in cash. Their Democratic counterparts held roughly $130 million but also carried nearly $18 million in ?debt, according to Federal Election Commission filings.

(Reporting by John Kruzel; Editing by Will Dunham)

This article originally appeared on Reuters at https://www.yahoo.com/news/politics/articles/us-supreme-court-again-backs-204225313.html
Wed, 14 Oct 2026 21:23:12 +0000

A mysterious death in Russia renews fears about ancient viruses trapped in Siberia

The unexplained death this month of a Russian lab technician at a Siberian facility for the study of dangerous pathogens raised global anxieties over the potential for an outbreak of pneumonic plague.

But while the cause of concern - bound up in a lack of transparency from Moscow - was new, Russia?s frozen hinterlands have long been the source of a separate fear that they could harbor disease risks for which the world is not prepared.

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Russian authorities imposed containment measures after the 28-year-old?s death from what they said was pneumonia of ?unknown origins,? prompting the United States to ask for more information. A World Health Organization report released Saturday said that Russian authorities found no signs of an outbreak of plague or some other infectious disease, but did not provide sufficient details to identify the origin of the woman?s illness or say whether exposure at work played a role in it.

Siberia?s vast wilderness harbors natural reservoirs of pathogens, from fleas that spread plague found in marmots and squirrels to ticks bearing encephalitis to the ancient pathogens frozen in the layer of permafrost.

The Russian institute where the lab technician worked was set up in the 1930s as a plague prevention station to curb outbreaks of the deadly bacterial disease that periodically affected local populations as well as people in neighboring Mongolia and China?s Manchuria region. The disease, for which early antibiotic treatments were pioneered that decade, could be spread through contact with marmots, which were hunted for meat and sometimes eaten undercooked or even raw, like in a 2019 case of a Mongolian couple.

The settlement of Siberia, which had a 19th-century gold rush and served as a place of exile for criminals under the Russian Empire, connected the remote region to the western parts of the empire and raised the risk of plague spreading farther west, much as epidemic diseases from European Russia, such as cholera and typhus, easily reached Siberia through migrating workers and because of the near-total absence of medical care.

A study published this year suggested that the bands of hunter-gatherers who inhabited the Lake Baikal region were the victims of the earliest known plague outbreak, about 5,500 years ago. To this day, plague remains endemic in parts of Siberia and the Russian Far East, where the bacterium persists naturally among wild rodents.

Human cases in Russia are rare, however. The country?s last recorded human infection was in 2016, when a 10-year-old boy in the Altai region contracted plague after contact with a marmot.

The threat of dangerous disease comes not only from wildlife but also from the millennia-old microbes and viruses stored in the permafrost that underlies the vast majority of the region.

About a decade ago, a group of researchers isolated ?zombie viruses? from Siberian permafrost, raising fears that a new global medical emergency could be triggered by a disease from the distant past.

The permafrost, a dark, cold, oxygenless mass, is a perfect storage container for biological material, and scientists believe that at its deepest levels it may contain viruses up to a million years old, far older than Homo sapiens, the modern human species.

In 2023, the researchers - led by Jean-Michel Claverie of Aix-Marseille University in France - published a landmark study in the journal Viruses documenting the revival of ancient viruses from the Siberian permafrost.

The report warned that accelerating permafrost thaw caused by climate change poses a potential public health threat by releasing dormant pathogens. Claverie?s team isolated 13 ancient viruses taken from locations across Siberia, belonging to five new viral groups. The oldest, a Pandoravirus yedoma, had been frozen solid beneath an underground lake for 48,500 years, while other, younger strains (around 27,000 years old) were extracted from the remains of a woolly mammoth?s stomach and from mammoth wool.

Other researchers have noted that although the revived viruses were able to infect amoebas in lab conditions, it is unclear whether such viruses could infect animals or humans, or find a host outside a controlled laboratory.

Claverie and his team cautioned at the time that unknowns remain buried in the permafrost, and a warming climate, which would also open previously untouched lands to deeper development, could expose people to pathogens that affect humans.

In 2016, climate change played a role in unleashing anthrax in the remote Yamalo-Nenets region of Siberia, experts said at the time. Unusually high temperatures that summer, soaring to 95 degrees Fahrenheit, melted permafrost, and according to one hypothesis, exposed an infected reindeer carcass. The pathogen spread to living reindeer and eventually to a community of nomadic herders, where a 12-year-old boy died.

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This article originally appeared on Washington Post at https://washingtonpost.com/world/2026/10/14/dangerous-pathogens-have-lurked-millennia-russias-frozen-lands/
Wed, 14 Oct 2026 19:54:21 +0000

Social Security benefits are getting their biggest boost since 2023. But there's a catch.

Social Security and SSI benefits will increase by 3.6% in 2027 for more than 72 million people, the Social Security Administration (SSA) announced today.

The cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) is the biggest since 2023 and means, on average, retirement benefits will rise by $75 a month, SSA said.

The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB) says that works out to roughly $900 a year, and estimates the highest earners will see an increase of more than $2,200 a year.

SSA calculates the COLA based on the average year-over-year change in the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (a form of measuring inflation) for July, August and September. 

SSI recipients will see the first higher payment on Dec. 31, 2026. Some people receive both SSI and Social Security. Most Social Security recipients will be paid the higher amount starting Jan. 1, 2027.

The COLA will also affect Medicare Part B beneficiaries, whose premiums are deducted from their Social Security payments. The 2027 standard premium is projected to rise to $209.50 from $202.90, an increase of $6.60 a month, which would leave the average retired worker about $68 a month better off after COLA.

'Next year's COLA can't come soon enough'

SSA Commissioner Frank J. Bisignano said the adjustment will give beneficiaries "greater financial stability," and reflects a year of elevated inflation, particularly in gasoline and energy prices. 

But Nancy Altman, president of the advocacy group Social Security Works, said the increase "doesn't fully account for the costs that Social Security beneficiaries face."

Altman said that's because the CPI-W, the inflation index used to calculate Social Security increases, tracks the costs of working people, not retirees, who she said spend a higher share of their income on health care and housing.

"Next year's COLA can't come soon enough for many Social Security beneficiaries," she told Yahoo.

The Senior Citizens League (TSCL), a nonpartisan seniors' group, was also critical of the payment increase. Executive director Shannon Benton said in a statement that the COLA "falls short of expectations" and that benefits lag behind price spikes because seniors don't see the adjustment until January.

It's a concern also shared by beneficiaries. AARP analysis released this week found that 76% of adults 50 and older said a COLA of around 3.5%, slightly lower than the announced figure, would not be enough to help them keep up with rising prices. 

Kathleen Romig, director of Social Security and disability policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, said the annual COLA increase is "especially important in times of high inflation."

"This year's COLA is bigger than in many recent years because of rising prices," she told Yahoo. "Another 3.6% ? will help beneficiaries keep up with rising costs at the pump and in the grocery store."

Some policy groups say the COLA calculation should be updated to use a measure that better reflects retirees' spending habits.

The Senior Citizens League wants COLA for retirees to be calculated based on a metric called the Consumer Price Index for the Elderly (CPI-E).

Introduced by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) in 1987, it uses the same underlying price collection system as the main CPI, but instead calculates the market basket to reflect how older Americans actually spend their money, taking a snapshot of retirees' spending priorities as well as how much they spend out of pocket.

How do I check if I'm eligible for the increase?

You don't need to do anything. The increase is automatic for everyone receiving Social Security or SSI.

SSA said enrollees can see their 2027 Medicare Part B premium in their "my Social Security Message Center" starting in late November. Medicare changes will be posted at medicare.gov.

Beneficiaries will receive a simplified, one-page COLA notice with their new benefit amount, exact dates and any deductions.

• Online: People with a personal my Social Security account can view the notice starting in late November, up to three weeks before a mailed notice. People without an account need to create one and enroll in paperless notices by Nov. 18 to see it online. Account holders can also sign up for text or email alerts.

• By mail: Anyone not enrolled in paperless notices will get theirs in December.

For more information, see SSA's COLA page.

Key dates

Nov. 18: Deadline to create a my Social Security account and enroll in paperless notices to see the notice online.

Late November: Online COLA notices will become available to paperless account holders, and Medicare enrollees can see their 2027 Part B premium in their Message Center. The premium is typically deducted directly from monthly Social Security payments.

December: Mailed COLA notices go out.

Dec. 31, 2026 to January 2027: Beneficiaries begin receiving payments with the increase added.

• SSI payments normally arrive on the first of the month, but the January payment will arrive on Dec. 31, 2026, because Jan. 1 is a federal holiday.

• Social Security payments generally go out on the second, third or fourth Wednesday of the month, based on the beneficiary's birthday.

• People who began receiving Social Security before May 1997, or who receive both Social Security and SSI, generally get their Social Security payment on the third of the month.

This article originally appeared on Yahoo News at https://www.yahoo.com/news/us/article/social-securitys-cola-is-the-biggest-since-2023-americans-will-get-an-extra-75-a-month-on-average-142530711.html
Wed, 14 Oct 2026 14:25:30 +0000