According to investigators, the letter carrier was near 2326 N. Clay Street in Denver about 5:20 p.m. on Sept. 14 when approached by a suspect who had a gun. 

The carrier told authorities that the suspect brandished a firearm during the robbery and then ran away. 

The suspect has been described as a white male wearing a balaclava face covering, jeans and a dark hooded sweatshirt with a printed logo on the front. 

USPS is offering a reward of up to $150,000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the suspect. Anyone with information about the suspect is asked to contact the U.S. Postal Inspection Service at 1-877-876-2455 (say "Law Enforcement") Reference Case No. 4772630-ROBB. The USPS said all information will be kept strictly confidential.

The Fed raised the federal funds rate by 0.25 percentage points, bringing its target range to between 3.75% and 4% — its highest level since December 2025. The benchmark rate influences borrowing costs across the U.S. economy, including for credit cards, auto loans and personal loans. 

In a set of quarterly projections, the Fed also signaled that its rate-setting committee expects to further raise rates later this year. The vote to hike rates was unanimous, the Fed said in a statement on Wednesday.

No rate hikes in 2027

For now, however, the Fed's move doesn't appear to signal the start of an aggressive rate-hiking campaign. Fed Chairman Kevin Warsh said Wednesday that policymakers expect to hold rates steady throughout 2027.

"For more than five years, inflation has been running above target," Warsh said at a news conference after the rate announcement. "So our predominant focus is on the price stability side of our mandate. The plain fact is that inflation is too high, and has been for too long."

About half of FOMC members predicted that rates would hold steady next year.

"We don't think this is the beginning of another major tightening cycle, and markets have too much tightening priced in over the coming year," Michael Pearce, chief U.S. economist at Oxford Economics, said in a research note.

By contrast, the central bank raised rates 11 times starting in 2022 as it sought to quash surging inflation as the economy was rebounding from the pandemic.

Still, the latest hike marks an about-face from the Fed's stance at the start of the year, when inflation was cooling, and as many economists expected the central bank to lower interest rates throughout 2026. Instead, monetary policymakers are brandishing their most potent weapon to curb prices. The Consumer Price Index rose at an annual rate of 3.4% in August, far above the Fed's 2% annual target. 

President Trump has repeatedly called on the Fed to lower borrowing costs. But escalating conflict in the Middle East has disrupted crude oil production and supplies, pushing up fuel prices in the U.S. and driving up costs across the broader economy. 

When asked on Wednesday how the president might react to the rate increase, Warsh said, "I've got nothing for you on a discussion with the president."

Why stocks fell after Warsh comments

"Hiking was the right move, and it restores Fed credibility that the central bank will curb inflation no matter what the White House or anyone else says," Heather Long, chief economist at the Navy Federal Credit Union, said in an email. "The big news is that the vote was unanimous and the forecast only signals one more hike in 2026."

Higher interest rates can tamp down inflation because consumers pare spending and businesses reduce investment. That cools economic growth and tempers price increases as demand slows. 

Stocks tumbled after Warsh said the U.S. economy "appears to be strengthening" and reiterated his pledge to tame inflation. Some investors interpreted his remarks as a sign that the central bank believes the economy can withstand additional rate hikes if they are needed to finally get inflation under control.

"Stocks declined after Warsh finished. Why? Warsh was hawkish today," Long said. "How many more hikes beyond that remains an open question that likely will depend on the war in Iran and just how insatiable the data center building boom is."

The Dow Jones Industrial Average slid 631 points, or 1.2%, to close at 51,462, while the S&P 500 lost almost 0.4%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq ended the day largely flat.

Higher borrowing costs

Banks are likely to respond to the latest Fed hike by boosting their interest rates on credit cards and other lending products, although a single 0.25 percentage-point increase might not significantly raise borrowing costs, according to financial experts. 

Even so, the increase in borrowing costs comes as Americans are shouldering higher costs for gas, food and other essentials. 

"Consumer sentiment is now 13% below where it was this time last year," said Heather Boushey, professor of practice at the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy at the University of Pennsylvania, in an email. The Fed's rate hike this week "will make it harder for families to borrow, raising the cost of car loans, credit cards, mortgages and more."

The survey results show that most don't want data centers in the state, with 86% opposing data centers in their neighborhood, while 75% oppose them anywhere in Colorado.

A majority of those who were polled would like a ban on data center construction, and about a quarter want new zoning and land use policy when it pertains to data centers. Although 60% say they have used artificial intelligence like ChatGPT or Claude in the last year, 66% have an unfavorable outlook on AI and its future. Of the more than 900 with that opinion, many have a problem with the facilities rather than the technology. 

Magellan Strategies shared with CBS Colorado that data center water consumption is a top concern among those surveyed, especially while Colorado is experiencing drought conditions amid a wildfire season that has extended year-round. 

Some of those surveyed expressed concern that AI technology has impacted the way younger students learn or how adults tackle critical thinking. Other parts of the survey concentrated on concerns over the lack of regulations and data mining without consent. 

The complete results of the survey are posted online.

Yet technology experts warn that outsourcing key decisions to AI exposes consumers to risks, potentially leading to communications errors and costing people money, while also potentially handing hackers the keys to their data. This is particularly true when it comes to so-called agentic commerce, or relying on AI agents to make purchases for you. 

"It isn't mainstream yet and it's pretty risky right now, because there aren't enough guardrails in the system for people to feel comfortable with agents autonomously buying things for them," Matt Kropp, an AI expert with Boston Consulting Group, told CBS News. "It could potentially go buy a car, but I wouldn't say, 'Here's my credit card.'"  

Brave new world

Such concerns aren't keeping some of America's biggiest companies from charging ahead with AI commerce, which they see as a new way to engage customers and to drive more sales by letting AI do the legwork for shoppers.  

For example, American Express this week announced new services and protections for cardholders who make purchases using specified AI agents. That includes verifying the identity of an agent when it makes a purchase, according to the credit card issuer. The service "will protect eligible customers from charges related to AI agent error," Amex said in a statement. 

Amazon's agentic AI assistant, dubbed "Rufus," can track the price of products on the online retailer's platform, alert customers when the price hits a prescribed level and complete the purchase. 

Walmart, the biggest U.S. retailer, has deployed what it calls a "conversational" AI agent named Sparky that the company says can help consumers find products, provide customer reviews and help with ordering. 

Roughly a quarter of Americans between the ages of 18 and 39 say they have tried using AI to research products or to shop, according to November data from market research firm Statista. 

What could go wrong?

The accelerating adoption of AI is also leading to mishaps. 

Consider what happened to Sebastian Heyneman, the founder of a San Francisco-based tech startup. According to the New York Times, he instructed an AI agent to secure him a speaking opportunity at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. The bot succeeded in landing him a coveted slot at the annual gathering of powerbrokers — for $30,000, a fee he couldn't afford.

Heyneman used a bot by Tasklet, a company that lets businesses automate routine business tasks with AI agents. Andrew Lee, the founder of Tasklet, told CBS News that such problems can arise when a user prompt gives the AI conflicting instructions.

Lee also said agentic AI today is fully capable of shopping for people and doing "normal things consumers can do." But just because tech can do something doesn't mean it should be used in that fashion, he warned.

"The specific use case of shopping is not a good thing to use these systems for — yet," he told CBS News. "The agents are fundamentally hard to trust. Personally, I am not super comfortable with that yet. I like to control where my money goes myself, and as a business, we don't recommend that."

The reason: Bad actors can lure AI agents into turning over a consumer's personal information, Bretton Auerbach, founder of LocalMovers.com, told CBS News. LocalMovers.com is designed to safely interact with AI agents on behalf of customers, by vetting businesses, booking services, and guaranteeing secure payment to reduce customer risk.

"If you give an agent your credit card and say, 'Go to this website and buy me something online,' there are ways to trick the agent," he said. "It might mistake a legitimate website for a phishing website that says in big, bold, text, 'Paste your credit card number here.'"  

That's because the so-called large language models that power AI apps often yield information that is predictable and normative for the population as a whole, reducing life's complexity to a bland mulch of watered-down ideas.

"LLMs predict the most likely next word in a sentence or event in a sequence, and by definition, that's average," Columbia Business School professor Sandra Matz, author of the study, told CBS News. "It tells you what the most likely thing to appear is if you ask it for a movie recommendation or what color to paint your wall. It homogenizes decisions, and we all get the same output." 

To arrive at their findings, Matz and her study co-authors analyzed more than 110,000 real-world decisions made by 1,000 people and compared them to choices made by both generic and personalized AI agents. They also used data from a Facebook application called the myPersonality project, which conducted personality tests on users who shared their Facebook profiles for research purposes.

"AI hates risk"

For individuals, relying on AI to shape a decision — say, on where to go on vacation or what walking shoes to buy — steers people toward the most common choices and away from more distinctive, or even quirky, behaviors and preferences, according to Matz, a computational social scientist with a background in psychology and computer science.

In effect, AI narrows what users "explore across topics and psychological affinities," she wrote, adding that "LLMs play it safe within a user's preferences."

In other words, even if an AI agent knows its user occasionally makes an out-of-the-box or uncharacteristic decision about any given subject, like what to eat for dinner, "LLM agents nudge behavior toward more normative options and narrow the range of what individuals explore," Matz added.

"AI hates risk because we train it that way," Matz said. "It wants to keep you on the platform, so it shows you what you already like and not stuff on the outskirts of what you do."

AI apps don't have to operate this way, but it's how they're programmed to work, she added. 

To prevent AI agents from diminishing the richness and diversity of human experience, Matz encourages tech developers to build in an "exploration mode" option for users who want more unexpected, less conventional recommendations. 

That would help ensure "we prevent ourselves as individuals from becoming boring, and making sure culture doesn't collapse into a single set of preferences," Matz said.

"I think this is becoming a panic," he told CBS News senior business and technology correspondent Jo Ling Kent. "We're in an election season, and there is an incentive for political actors to try and amplify the fear. And I think this is a moment to really calm down a little bit and look at the issue rationally."

Sacks' comments come amid mounting concerns that advanced AI platforms could inflict catastrophic harm on people. On Sept. 8, former Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon warned that Anthropic and OpenAI are "gambling with our lives" by developing self-improving "superintelligence." 

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei told CBS News "Sunday Morning" that "there are real dangers" with AI, adding that the "industry lied to people about the fact that this technology had risks."

"If you can't control it, then don't do it"

In an exclusive interview with CBS News, Sacks placed the onus on Anthropic, OpenAI and other large language model developers to protect the public from AI, saying it is the companies' responsibility to ensure the tech is safe.

"First and foremost, it is on them to make their products safe," he said. "They should tell us how they should do that. If they can't do that, they should step aside for people who can do that." 

"What they should not be doing is making the public afraid that they're doing a bad job," added Sacks, who is co-chair of Mr. Trump's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. He stepped down from his role as the president's AI and cryptocurrency czar in May. 

AI companies also shouldn't require government intervention to safeguard the public from harm, Sacks said.

"Why are you acting like this is something that you can't control?" he said in reference to Amodei. "If you can't control it, then don't do it."

"Now, look at the end of the day, I think these risks can be managed, and I do not want to stop. I want to proceed safely," Sacks added.

As a venture capitalist, Sacks has invested in some of tech's biggest companies, including Airbnb, SpaceX and Facebook, according to his bio at Craft Ventures, the investment firm he co-founded.

Advantage China?

Amodei, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and other tech leaders have called on the industry to slow the development of AI amid fears that the rapidly advancing technology could inflict serious harm on humanity. 

Their calls followed growing concerns over superintelligence, a theoretical stage in AI's development in which it could outperform humans at every cognitive task, a milestone some researchers say could be reached in one to 10 years.

Not everyone is convinced that AI companies should pause, or even delay, the development of frontier models. That includes President Trump, who on Monday dismissed calls for stronger guardrails around AI development and claimed the industry is already sufficiently regulated. 

Sacks echoed that view, arguing that constraining AI development risks putting the U.S. at a competitive disadvantage with China, which has rapidly closed the gap with American AI players.

If "we just pause all development, they will race ahead. It's pretty clear they're not going to stop," Sacks said.

"There are plenty of signs that we are now in the late stages of a bubble in AI," John Higgins, chief economic adviser for financial markets at Capital Economics, said in a report on Monday. 

The investment advisory firm's "best guess" is that the AI bubble will begin to burst in 2027. Capital Economics also forecasts a correction, or when stocks fall at least 20% from their most recent high, in the S&P 500 stock index next year. 

"If you look at the rate at which leading AI firms' earnings are expected to grow, versus how fast the U.S. economy has been growing, by many measures they look really stretched — as in this is the dot-com bubble all over again," Capital Economics senior markets economist James Reilly told CBS News. "And while we believe AI will be transformative and produce profits, we don't think they'll be as high as analysts are expecting."

In 2026, global capital expenditures on AI-related projects are projected to hit $1 trillion, including $581 billion in the U.S., according to Goldman Sachs. That boom has fueled an epic run for stocks over the last two years, with investors hopping on the bandwagon in anticipation of robust future profits from companies leading the way in AI. 

The trouble with bubbles

Economists caution that it is difficult to identify investment bubbles, or periods of speculative excess, let alone predict when one will pop.

"We have to be very careful with the bubble terminology, specifically, because every type of technological revolution tends to have a great dose of investment in the first phase," EY-Parthenon chief economist Greg Daco told CBS News. "But at the same time, there are often excesses. There is often exuberance because a new technology is very attractive and promises to revolutionize the way we do things."

Kenneth R. French, an investment strategist at Dartmouth College's Tuck School of Business, said investors commonly pile into hot tech stocks long before a technology's full economic impact becomes clear. He is less convinced that the AI boom is at risk of losing steam anytime soon.

"People get optimistic, and it's conceivable that five years from now, we'll be looking back and saying people were pessimistic about AI, and that it was more important than we expected," he told CBS News. "It's already having a huge impact on earnings, so it could really be that we have underestimated AI's positive impact." 

"We don't have enough information to judge if these prices are right or wrong, too high or too low," French added.

More certain is that the public narrative around AI is shifting amid a slew of warnings from AI researchers and corporate leaders about the threat posed by the technology. Those concerns, along with calls from leading industry figures for a slowdown in AI development, could cast a pall over tech stocks.  

Yet concerns about the lack of guardrails around AI are distinct from uncertainty over the technology's potential to drive corporate profits, Daco noted. "That's slightly different than a bubble fear. It's more fear of not having the right guardrails to control tech and avoid excesses of the tech itself — not about investments and returns."

In a release dated Aug. 13, Moffat County Sheriff Chip McIntyre said that continuing the contract with Flock would not be the right decision for Moffat County.  

The current agreement with Flock Safety expires on Dec. 31. Because the sheriff's office is no longer utilizing the equipment, the agency asked Flock to remove its cameras, but nothing has happened yet. 

The sheriff said "... our patience has finally run out" and that, in order to protect the equipment from potential vandalism or damage, it has been removed and stored at the sheriff's office. 

The agency also posted on Facebook, "Flock Safety — come get your equipment. We have it safe and sound. No hard feelings. We're just done flocking around."

The Broncos traveled to Traylor Elementary School Wednesday morning as part of the team's new Broncos Attendance Network. More than 100 students, teachers, and staff lined up in the hallway and received an amazing parade. There were cheerleaders, the Stampede Band, and Miles the mascot. 

During the parade, the kids smiled the entire time and the cheers were loud. One fourth grader says this was a dream come true because she has always wanted to meet Miles.

"I was really excited because I had never met Miles before and it's fun to meet him," Ari, a 4th grader, said. "I was so happy because he was right there, and I didn't know what to expect because I was just mind blown."

Even the Broncos cheerleaders say events like this put a big smile on their faces.

"Getting to connect with the youth is something really special to us," said Broncos Cheerleader Stephanie. "We get to connect with the fans at games, and sometimes there are kids in the stands, but actually getting that one-on-one time with the kids is so special to us."

"As cheerleaders, we are always cheering for everyone else, so cheering alongside the kids today was such a blast," said Broncos Cheerleader Shariah.

As part of the Broncos Attendance Network, there were three schools on the itinerary for Wednesday. This is in addition to three schools they visited last week. 

When crews arrived, they were able to quickly get the blaze under control. Crews continued mop-up operations as the fire was burning near homes in the neighborhood. 

What caused the fire is being investigated. 

There were no reports of injuries. 

Officers were alerted to a Flock hit for a stolen vehicle at 17th and Dayton Street. That's when officers attempted a traffic stop, but the suspects kept going. 

Officers began a pursuit through Aurora and onto I-70. Investigators said the officers stopped the pursuit after the vehicle began traveling in the opposite lanes of traffic. 

Investigators said the Real Time Information Center took over and continued tracking the vehicle using drones as the vehicle traveled into a Denver neighborhood. 

The suspects then got out of the car and crashed a birthday party. Investigators said the driver took off, but the passenger joined the festivities and took cover inside the bounce house. The driver was found hiding under a truck at a nearby residence. Both were taken into custody. 

Investigators said officers discovered two handguns, one of which was stolen, and drug paraphernalia inside the vehicle that triggered the series of events. 

The suspects are facing several charges, including motor vehicle theft, vehicular eluding, criminal possession of an identification document and criminal trespass, theft, and possession of drug paraphernalia.

Aurora police posted that "You can flee, drive the wrong way, crash the party, or hide under a truck, but you can't hide from APD. We find our suspects, always."

OpenAI has previously backed state legislation to regulate AI, but this marks the first time the company has thrown its weight behind a federal mandate that would require a third-party group to assess AI developers' work. 

Lehane expressed support for the proposal, which is included in a bill now before lawmakers called the FRONTIER Act, during a roundtable with lawmakers in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, an OpenAI spokesperson told CBS News. 

Specifically, an independent organization would have to determine that an AI company's safety protocols are sufficiently rigorous to mitigate what the bill describes as "acceptable levels of catastrophic risk." 

Lehane's comments come as AI researchers and developers warn about the potential for advanced AI to inflict harm on people. 

Patrolling frontier models

The FRONTIER Act, sponsored by Reps. Jay Obernolte, a Republican from California, and Lori Trahan, a Democrat from Massachusetts, would also require AI developers to publish reports on their models and disclose safety incidents. 

Although OpenAI supports third-party audits of AI models, the company hasn't endorsed the bill in its entirety, the spokesperson noted. 

On Wednesday, Lehane said on CBS Mornings that OpenAI acknowledges the risks of letting ever more powerful AI models run loose.

"We have entered a new phase and a new chapter in terms of its capabilities. And we have a high degree of confidence that you're going to build the guardrails around it. That begins with us and the companies," he said. 

Lehane also said the U.S. is well-positioned to lead on AI safety and to develop global standards for using such platforms.

"We are really confident we can get our hands around this and do it in a way that's responsible, and do it in the right way for the country," he said.  

In a Sept. 9 blog post, Lehane called for regulatory action to control AI development. OpenAI is calling for Congress to enact mandatory national AI safety requirements and advocates that leading AI developers collaborate to develop industry standards. 

"The stakes are enormous. Advanced AI could accelerate the development of new medicines, strengthen critical infrastructure, expand economic opportunity, and help solve scientific problems that have resisted generations of human effort," Lehane wrote. "But the capabilities that make models more useful also come with risks, and they will not remain confined to a few frontier laboratories."

Joseph Miller, an AI safety researcher and founder of PauseAI UK, a group that supports slowing AI development, said that the public debate over how to control potential AI risks is long overdue. He also thinks leading AI developers are unlikely to take sufficiently strong measures to safeguard their technology absent government intervention. 

"We need government to lead on it, because they probably aren't going to do it without the government stepping in," Miller told CBS News. 

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."

Musk recalled her son as a genius child who "just wants to do good in the world, but that means you stand on a lot of toes." She said she believes he's been treated unfairly by members of the public.

"People are mean. And they're strangers, or they're not accomplished themselves, and then they can do insults," she said. "It makes me angry." 

She said she wants people to know, "He does whatever is best for America and what's best for the world," adding, "And then, if we don't listen, then let's go to Mars" — his longtime goal for SpaceX. 

Elon Musk drew frequent criticism during his brief tenure as the head of the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, which overhauled government organizations and slashed funding for many programs, including global aid services, during the first months of President Trump's second term. Shortly after leaving the White House, Elon Musk blasted Mr. Trump online and criticized his "One Big Beautiful Bill," leading to counterattacks from Mr. Trump and a rupture between the two men. Their relationship recently appears to have thawed.

Since leaving the federal government, Elon Musk has backed Republican candidates in the midterm elections and encouraged the construction of data centers. He also took his company SpaceX public, becoming the world's first trillionaire. He said in December 2025 that he likely wouldn't do DOGE over again, citing the negative public reaction. 

Maye Musk has said she knew from an early age that Elon was different. King noted he has said he's on the spectrum, and asked his mother if she agreed.

"Well, when I read 'the spectrum,' maybe on one of the points that he's a little awkward, yeah," she said.

In her new memoir "Timeless," Musk writes about challenging years when she left what she describes as an abusive marriage with three young children. She and the children, including Elon, moved from South Africa to Canada, where she started her own practice as a dietitian. 

"I didn't know it was possible," she said. "Until you just have enough, and you run away." 

Juggling parenting, her practice and her studies for her first master's degree was chaotic, she said. She and the children lived in a one-bedroom apartment and "slept on a lot of couches and floors," she said. Throughout it all, they never complained. 

"I said to them, 'Why did you put up with that?' And they said, 'Well, if we complained, would you listen?' And I said 'No,'" Musk recalled.

Decades later, Musk's grown children bought her an apartment in New York City. That stability allowed her to reinvent herself again. 

She had worked as a model as a teen and done some modeling work part-time while she was earning her second master's degree. But it was in her 70s that she really hit her prime. She became an iconic figure on runways and magazines, and became the oldest woman featured on the cover of "Sports Illustrated" in 2022. 

In her new memoir, Musk said she sees her age as a form of wisdom, not a barrier. 

"You just get wiser and, you know, you can say no," Musk said. "When you feel like you are right for something, you can put yourself forward." 

In a social media post, Obama wrote "we will miss her terribly." 

"As far as our family was concerned, she was pretty much perfect," Obama wrote. The post was reshared by his wife, former first lady Michelle Obama, and had been viewed on X over 2 million times within three hours of being shared. They also shared a Facebook post with several photos, including one with the pope, which had hundreds of thousands of reactions. 

The Obama family adopted Sunny as a puppy during his second term in 2013. On Wednesday, Obama wrote that the whole household, including their first dog, Bo, "immediately fell in love" with her, adding that for the next 13 years, "she would be by our side – always loyal, always sweet, always ready for adventure, still fiery and gorgeous till the very end of her days. " 

Obama also described the contrast between his two dogs' personalities. Bo could usually be won over with a treat, he wrote, whereas Sunny "was more interested in having us run around with her, roll on the floor with her, or have her belly rubbed for as long as we were willing." 

Sunny's best qualities. Both of the Obamas' dogs were famous for running around the White House lawn, and the former president Obama also described Sunny in his memorial post as "athletic and full of boundless energy." He also wrote about her quirks, such as how the Portuguese water dog had an ironic hatred for getting wet. "As far as our family was concerned, she was pretty much perfect," he wrote. 

Obama's daughters Sasha and Malia, who were 12 and 14 when Sunny joined the family, also were close with Sunny, Obama said. "She (Sunny) loved the girls, even if they were pestering her when she was napping," Obama wrote. Sunny was also a great addition to the White House staff, Obama said. "She loved our team, and would often follow them around, helping them on the job." 

Sunny's death comes more than five years after the Obamas lost Bo, who the family said died of cancer in 2021 at the age of 12. The Obamas adopted Bo in 2009, fulfilling a campaign promise to Malia and Sasha. Bo had been with the Obamas since shortly after Barack Obama's first inauguration in 2009. Sunny joined the family a few years later as a companion for Bo, and the pair were soon after dubbed "the first dogs" by the press.

The law was adopted in April 2023, shortly after the chief justice provided guidance on livestreaming Colorado state trial courts "with a focus on balancing the rights of the many participants and observers involved in criminal proceedings."

The law states a requirement for livestreaming all criminal proceedings and that certain criteria must be met before a livestream is limited or discontinued.    

Colorado Supreme Court Chief Justice Monica Marquez said the pause is necessary due to an increase in streams that have been illegally recorded and posted on social media sites. She said that the incidents have occurred in nearly every district and county court across Colorado, as well as many municipal courts.

The court said it has repeatedly requested that social media platforms remove the videos, and they are unwilling to do so. The platforms include YouTube, TikTok, Instagram and Facebook, among others. Marquez also said that "bad actors" are posing as legitimate court participants to "disrupt proceedings by displaying violent, pornographic, racist, and misogynistic video."   

In the order, Marquez said, in part, "Rather than the serious business of justice, viewers are treating this content as entertainment. Posters are editing and manipulating the recordings to distort their content. Viewers are leaving comments that denigrate the appearance and intelligence of court participants, challenge the innocence or truthfulness of defendants, victims, and witnesses, threaten court personnel, and expose vulnerable litigants to public ridicule – behavior that would never be tolerated in a physical courtroom. Judicial Department leadership has received numerous examples of posts disparaging defendants, mocking litigants experiencing mental health crises, and even publicizing the testimony of a sexual assault victim, blurring the victim's face but including the victim's full name."

She also stated that some are posting the video on monetized social media channels, "Put bluntly, our judicial proceedings are being exploited for personal financial gain..."

Marquez continued that currently, there is no less restrictive alternative while they explore a "proper balance between preserving public access to our courts and upholding the dignity and integrity of our justice system."

She said the pause has no impact on virtual proceedings in Colorado, meaning that litigants, witnesses and victims may continue to participate virtually by using online video conferencing platforms like Webex and others. It also does not impact certain media coverage as allowed by law. 

Marquez stated that the directive does not impact public access to physical courtrooms across Colorado. 

The Federal Reserve is expected to raise its benchmark interest rate on Wednesday for the first time in more than three years as the central bank battles stubborn inflation fueled by high energy prices. Some Wall Street forecasters also pencil in one or two additional rate hikes over the next several months.

Despite President Trump's repeated calls for lower interest rates, many economists predict that Fed officials will raise the federal funds rate by 0.25 percentage points at its Sept. 16 meeting. Inflation remains well above the central bank's 2% annual target, with the Consumer Price Index rising at an annual pace of 3.4% in August.

Interest rate hikes are the Fed's most potent tool for quashing inflation because businesses and consumers respond by pulling back on spending, cooling the economy and tempering price increases as demand slows. 

With little U.S. progress toward ending the Iran war, some economists predict that high energy prices may stick around for months, which could push the Fed to further tighten monetary policy as it seeks to curb inflation. 

"If everything stays the same and energy prices remain elevated and the economy remains pretty strong, there's good reason to expect maybe another hike or two beyond this week," Brandon Zureick, chief economist at wealth management firm Johnson Investment Counsel, told CBS News. "We're not expecting a repeat of 2022, when the Fed was really fighting inflation that was much, much higher." 

Inflation reached a 40-year peak of 9.1% in June 2022, spurring the Fed into a series of 11 rate hikes that raised its benchmark rate from near zero to a range of 5.25% to 5.5% by July 2023. That was the last time the central bank raised borrowing costs, and since then the Fed has either cut or held rates steady. 

When is the Fed meeting? 

The Federal Reserve will announce its decision at 2 p.m. ET on Sept. 16. The announcement will be followed by a press conference with Fed Chairman Kevin Warsh at 2:30 p.m.

The Federal Open Market Committee, the central bank's rate-setting panel, will also release its quarterly Summary of Economic Projections on Wednesday. The release includes FOMC officials' forecasts for inflation, GDP growth and other economic measures. 

What is the Fed likely to do on interest rates? 

CME FedWatch, which forecasts the likelihood of rate hikes based on 30-day Fed funds futures prices, puts the probability of a 0.25 percentage-point rate hike on Wednesday at roughly 90%. That would increase the federal funds rate — what banks charge each other for short-term loans — to a target range of 3.75% to 4%.

The bigger question is whether a rate increase this week could be the first of a series of hikes as the Fed tries to rein in inflation, as some economists expect, given inflationary pressures from the Iran war. Diesel prices hit a record high of $6.27 a gallon on Tuesday, while gasoline has jumped 18 cents a gallon over the last week, and reached $4.33 on Tuesday, according to AAA.

"The debate has shifted from 'if' to 'how much' tightening this cycle will require to restore price stability," Seema Shah, chief global strategist at Principal Asset Management, said in an email. "After five years of above-target inflation, ongoing trade disruptions, $100+ per barrel oil prices and rising inflationary pressures from the AI capex buildout, a one-and-done hiking approach is unlikely."

It's still possible the Iran war could conclude quickly, which would ease energy prices and bypass additional rate hikes, Zureick said. Because of that uncertainty, predicting the path of inflation — and the Fed's response — is difficult, he added.

What would a rate hike mean for borrowers?

Banks are likely to raise their interest rates on credit cards and other lending products, although a single 0.25 percentage-point increase might not significantly raise borrowing costs. 

"Cardholders should expect their credit card's APR to rise a quarter-point in the next couple of months following the Fed's move," Matt Schulz, the chief consumer finance analyst at LendingTree, told CBS News. "Unfortunately, the higher rate will apply to current balances as well as future purchases."

A rate increase this week would add only "a dollar or two" to the monthly bills of people carrying credit card balances, he said. But "if you're already struggling with card debt, any increase is unwelcome," Schulz said.

By contrast, a rate hike might hold down longer-term interest rates that consumers pay for things like mortgages. That's because mortgage rates tend to track the 10-year Treasury bill, whose yields have surged in recent weeks as investors question the Fed's commitment to lowering inflation. When inflation is elevated, investors typically demand higher yields in exchange for owning longer-duration bonds.

What would a Fed rate hike mean for savers? 

Although rising interest rates boost borrowing costs, they also mean juicier returns for savers.

"It means better returns on high-yield savings accounts and CDs," Schulz told CBS News. "Returns aren't at the record levels we saw a couple of years ago, but they're still strong by historical standards, and a rate hike means they're only going to get better in the near future."

What would a rate hike mean for investors? 

Fed rate movements can cause volatility in financial markets. For example, when the Fed began ratcheting up interest rates in 2022 as the economy was rebounding from the pandemic, the S&P 500 fell 18%.

At the time, however, investors were caught off guard by the Fed's aggressive response, while the market today has already priced in a series of hikes, Zureick said. 

"It would have to be something orders of magnitude more than what the market's expecting, which at this point we think is fairly unlikely," he said. 

Zureick advises investors to focus on diversification to ensure their portfolios can weather various challenges.

"Have a well-diversified portfolio that can withstand different environments, including international stocks, small and mid-cap stocks," he said. "As interest rates have risen, that's made bond portfolios more and more attractive as well."

And don't try to time the market, he added. "Steady is always good advice," he said. "Don't necessarily react to short-term news."

The vote ended in a 220 to 204 tally, marking a symbolic rebuke of the president over the largely unpopular war.

Tuesday's resolution drew more GOP support than the previous two efforts to limit Mr. Trump's war powers in June and July.

Three new Republicans voted yes: Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina and Reps. Mariannette Miller-Meeks and Zach Nunn of Iowa. The four who supported the prior resolutions were Reps. Tom Barrett of Michigan, Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, Warren Davidson of Ohio and Thomas Massie of Kentucky.

Nunn, who is in a competitive reelection bid, said in a post after the vote that he will "not support another open-ended war." 

"With the negotiating window closed, sustained combat operations now require congressional authorization," he said. 

Miller-Meeks, another vulnerable Republican, added Wednesday, "The President needs to present a plan to Congress and the American people for how this ends so we can focus on bringing our soldiers home and lowering prices." 

It's unclear whether the Senate plans to take up the measure in its last two scheduled weeks of session before the November elections. A war powers resolution that cleared the House in July has yet to see any movement in the Senate. Both chambers adopted another resolution in June, though the White House has argued against its validity. 

The resolution, introduced by Democratic Rep. Seth Moulton of Massachusetts, directs the president "to remove United States Armed Forces from hostilities with Iran." 

Aug. 28 marked six months since the war began, and the Trump administration has yet to lay out an exit strategy as it seeks tens of billions in additional funding for the conflict that Mr. Trump initially predicted would last four to five weeks. The Pentagon has said Operation Epic Fury — the military's term for the initial strikes against Iran — ended in May, but the U.S. and Iran have continued to exchange fire for months, and a ceasefire intended to bring the war to an end fell apart in July. Oil shipments from the region are still constrained, keeping global energy prices high.

Mr. Trump has defended his strategy in Iran, arguing the conflict has degraded the country's military and predicting last week "the war will end immediately after the election."

Republicans are trying to provide up to $73 billion in new funding for the war through the party-line reconciliation process. The House adopted a budget blueprint in July to initiate the process, but it stalled in the Senate over the inclusion of funding for Mr. Trump's voting regulations bill known as the SAVE America Act. 

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office released an analysis Tuesday that estimated the war with Iran could cost approximately $2 billion to $3 billion per month for as long as it continues. Between Feb. 28 and Aug. 1, the war is estimated to have directly cost the U.S. about $38 billion. 

"The administration has yet to demonstrate that seven months of war have produced a lasting strategic resolution to the threats posed by Iran," Rep. Gregory Meeks of New York, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said during floor debate Monday night. 

South Africa's foreign ministry said Wednesday that it had "noted with concern" the new U.S. visa restrictions, adding that the U.S. announcement aligned with "the mischaracterization of South Africa's domestic policies by fringe groups," according to the Reuters news agency.   

Rubio didn't identify any officials who would be targeted with the travel restrictions, though a lobby group for minority White people in South Africa has previously called for the U.S. to sanction officials of the African National Congress party, the party of South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and the largest in South Africa's Parliament.

It's the latest move by the Trump administration to sanction South Africa over its claims that white people, and especially the Afrikaner group, are being discriminated against by their Black-led government. Afrikaners are descended from mainly Dutch and French colonial settlers who first came to South Africa in the 17th century. They were at the heart of South Africa's previous apartheid system of racial segregation.

There are approximately 4.5 million White people in South Africa's population of 62 million, which also includes White people with British or other heritage.

The U.S. has cited a contentious South African law that allows the expropriation of unused private land without compensation in some circumstances, affirmative action policies that advance opportunities for Black people and others, and a small number of violent crimes against White farmers as evidence of a larger anti-White stance in South Africa.

The Trump administration has also strongly criticized South Africa's move to accuse U.S. ally Israel of genocide against Palestinians in Gaza in a highly emotive case in the United Nations' top court. Israel vehemently denies that allegation.

The U.S. has enforced a series of other sanctions against South Africa during Mr. Trump's second term for purported anti-White and anti-American policies. They include barring South African officials from meetings of the Group of 20 economic bloc this year in the U.S., and phasing out aid for South Africa's HIV treatment program.

The U.S. has also launched a refugee program for Afrikaners and other White people, claiming baselessly that they are victims of a humanitarian emergency in South Africa.

The State Department argued that Afrikaners faced "escalating hostility," including critical statements by politicians and a December raid by South African authorities on a U.S. refugee processing center. At the time, South African officials said they had arrested Kenyans who were working at the center illegally, but the U.S. condemned the raid.

The U.S. says the sanctions are because South Africa hasn't changed its policies.

"This visa restriction policy is only the first step in a series of escalatory measures that will show America's firm resolve in this matter," the official U.S. Ambassador to South Africa account posted on X on Wednesday, referring to Rubio's visa announcement.

Rubio said on social media that "As [Mr. Trump] has made clear, the South African people are being failed by a government that is destroying its economy through an obsessive pursuit of racial grievance against the Afrikaner minority."

The Utah Attorney General's Office said it does not comment on potential litigation.

Attorneys for Kirk's family alleged additional lapses by officials, including not conducting an adequate risk assessment before approving the event, failing to establish a secure perimeter and having no first responders immediately available, resulting in Kirk being taken to a nearby hospital in a private vehicle rather than an ambulance after he was shot.

"Situation that rendered Mr. Kirk helpless"

"Tragically, the UVU Parties took none of these safety measures - steps only they had the authority to take - resulting in a situation that rendered Mr. Kirk helpless before his assassin," Washburn wrote.

Long said after the shooting that six of his officers staffed the event and coordinated with Kirk's eight-person private security team. The school said it was expanding its police force following the shooting.

Utah resident Tyler Robinson turned himself in a day after Kirk's killing. Prosecutors say he told his romantic partner that he "had enough of his (Kirk's) hatred." The state of Utah argued Robinson targeted Kirk because of his political beliefs, and knowing that children were present and would witness the shooting.

Robinson is charged with aggravated murder, making him eligible for the death penalty if convicted. A judge on Sept. 1 ordered the case to proceed toward trial. A date has not yet been set.

Prosecutors during a preliminary hearing in July presented what they characterized as overwhelming evidence against Robinson. That includes surveillance video of Robinson on the campus, DNA tests linking him to a rifle found near the assassination site and a handwritten note he allegedly left for his romantic partner that read, "I had the opportunity to take out Charlie Kirk, and I took it."

Kirk's parents, Robert and Kathryn Kirk, and widow, Erika Kirk, attended the hearings.

State law allows heirs or personal representatives of people who die to file lawsuits seeking damages if the death was caused by a wrongful act or negligence. The notice from Kirk's family did not specify what damages they may seek.

Kirk and the organization he co-founded, Turning Point USA, galvanized the conservative youth vote to help President Trump win a second term. At a Presidential Medal of Freedom award ceremony on what would have been Kirk's 32nd birthday, Mr. Trump credited the political activist with helping him win a greater share of the under-30 vote in the most recent presidential race.

Kirk's widow, Erika Kirk, said during his memorial service that she forgives Robinson.

At a December CBS News town hall, Erika Kirk was asked if she had any words for the accused killer.

"Nothing. I have nothing to say to you. Nothing," she said.

She added that there's a difference between forgiving someone and still wanting justice. "We serve a just God, and I rest easy in knowing that. He's sovereign, but he's just. And so let the Lord handle that."

The images were sent to CBS News by active service members on condition of anonymity because of rigid media restrictions within the military. 

"This is major damage to our bases that hasn't been communicated to the American public," one deployed service member told CBS News. "We're standing there with our eyes closed getting punched in the face."

One photo, taken at Prince Sultan Air Force Base in Saudi Arabia, shows a direct hit on the back half of a Boeing E-3 Sentry four-engine aircraft, its tail severed from the charred fuselage that also supported a rotating radar that is essential for collecting midair intelligence. 

Other photos taken from the base show hollowed-out buildings and barracks whose shells ironically stand next to unaffected cement "T-wall" structures, which were once regarded as critical fortifications against grenade and mortar attacks but proved critically ineffective against an aerial assault.

Similarly grim pictures were captured at Camp Buehring in Kuwait, a major staging area for U.S. Army ground troops, armored vehicles and some aircraft; the post is located in a remote desert region far northwest of Kuwait City. 

The Defense Department's inspector general this week released a fresh report on the war in Iran that revealed "equipment losses" worth up to $3.7 billion — including nearly 60 aircraft. In a first-of-its-kind mandatory report to Congress, the inspector general added that U.S. Central Command reported Iranian strikes at U.S. bases in Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Oman and Jordan.

The Pentagon did not respond to a request for comment.

"These are not 'squirters' getting through," the service member added, referencing language used by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth after the deadly March 1 attack on Port of Shuaiba in Kuwait that killed six U.S. troops. "We're not defending these bases. We're just watching them get destroyed."

The two — along with a bipartisan group of members of Congress — appeared at the "Pro-Human Assembly" in Washington, D.C. They're calling for a "human-centric" approach to developing artificial intelligence technology, and are skeptical of the AI companies leading the industry.

On Saturday, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei called for a slowdown in the frontier AI labs, which was quickly echoed by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Elon Musk. Liberal and conservative members of Congress are also urging caution. 

"If AI surpasses human intelligence, as many scientists believe could happen, this technology will escape human control with potentially catastrophic consequence," Sanders said as he opened his remarks. "And perhaps the most important point that I want to leave with you this afternoon is that AI is advancing exponentially — exponentially every single day. In other words, what you are looking at right now is the least capable version of AI that we will ever have."

Bannon, taking the stage after Sanders, applauded the senator for his speech, saying they may disagree politically and on Mr. Trump, but they're "trying to rise above partisanship, and we have to."

Bannon blasted the tech CEOs who have spoken out to say they need more regulations. "That's a bald-faced lie," Bannon said, claiming tech CEOs want to "socialize" the risk, shut out competitors and reap the financial benefits for themselves. Bannon said the companies are trying to make a "liability shift to the American people." Bannon also said Americans, not the U.S. government, need to reap the benefits of the upside of AI, not the government. 

Concern about the ability to control AI's growth has been building. Earlier this month, AI researcher Jacob Coxon publicly resigned from Anthropic, which makes the AI app Claude, and said that artificial intelligence, while safe for people to use now, could one day threaten humanity as the technology grows more powerful. 

"If you have a super advanced intelligence, it could — it will be smart enough to kill us," Coxon told CBS News senior business and technology correspondent Jo Ling Kent. He accused Anthropic and rival developer and ChatGPT-maker OpenAI of "gambling with our lives" by racing to develop advanced AI models.

At the same time, though, Mr. Trump fired off seven Truth Social posts about AI throughout Monday, repeatedly calling fears over rapid AI development a "HOAX" and saying all AI needs is a strong president like him. 

GOP Rep. Chip Roy, a staunch conservative from Texas, told the conference that the crux of the issue goes well beyond "raw politics." Roy said he hears his constituents' concerns in Texas about data centers, citing their worries about competing with data centers for water and about the noise the centers generate. But the fear goes much deeper, he said. 

"They raise questions about their future. They raise questions about what it means for their children, their communities," he said at the conference, adding, "So, the question here is, how do you harness the power of human-created technology to put — as we are here to discuss — humans first?"

CBS News polling from May shows 65% of Americans think AI will decrease jobs, and 67% of Americans think the federal government probably or certainly will not make sure AI is used in appropriate ways. 

Roy said he's been "scolded" by some of his free-enterprise Republican friends for raising these questions. He also said he disagrees with Mr. Trump, who maintains that a strong president is all that's needed to safeguard AI. Roy also expressed skepticism about the motives of AI CEOs like Amodei. 

"Might they be self-interested?" Roy said. "Might they want to corner the market and have a monopoly environment?"

AI needs to be "humans first," Roy said. "We are not supposed to be tools for data collection and technology. That should be what drives everything that we're thinking about going forward."

Just before Roy spoke, Democratic Rep. Greg Casar, a progressive from Texas, took the stage and raised U.S. competitive interests remniscient of the Cold War. "We may be Americans or Soviets or Chinese, but we are still human," Casar said. "Now just as back then, we need a pro-human approach."

"No one can end the AI arms race. It's up to us to end the AI arms race," Casar said. 

Rep. Lori Trahan, a Democrat from Massachusetts addressed the gathering after Roy, and took note of the bipartisanship in the room and in Congress on the issue. Trahan introduced the FRONTIER Act with Republican Rep. Jay Obernolte of California, calling for independent evaluators of frontier AI models, among other things. 

"Humans are not means to artificial ends," Trahan said. "We are ends in ourselves."

Trahan told reporters that it makes it harder for her Republican colleagues when the leader of their party is speaking out against something that's gaining bipartisan momentum, but she still expects movement on legislation in the weeks ahead.

Sanders on Tuesday said Congress has "been asleep at the wheel, and we now have a president whose ignorance regarding this issue is truly embarrassing." 

House Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters on Capitol Hill Tuesday that he and AI company chiefs will meet with Mr. Trump at the White House "within the next week." 

But Bannon doesn't think Congress can fix it. 

"This has to be an executive action," he said, even as his former boss, Mr. Trump, has passionately spoken out against further regulation. 

"The rising cost of car ownership has been the big shocker of the inflation crisis," Heather Long, a chief economist at Navy Federal Credit Union, told CBS News.

An analysis by the credit union found that car ownership costs have risen 50% since 2020. The main reason isn't pricier fuel, but rather higher repair costs, which have surged 70% in the last five years, according to Long.

Repair costs average around $1,750 for a new car for the first five years of ownership, according to AAA data.

"Repair costs can be hundreds of dollars, if not thousands of dollars," Long said. "So in many ways, those are the hidden costs."

The other primary factors driving up the financial burden of having a car are rising auto insurance rates and higher routine maintenance costs, followed by the jump in gas prices, according to Navy Federal Credit Union.

The average cost of car insurance in 2026 is $2,124 per year for full coverage and $816 annually for minimum coverage, according to LendingTree.

People are holding on to their cars for longer, which often leads to higher service charges, Long said. The overall fleet age for passenger cars in the U.S. was 14.5 years in 2025, according to the Transportation Department.

Long said cars now have more electronic parts and sensors, which are more expensive to repair. A shortage of mechanics also allows them to charge more for their services.

"Good mechanics can really write their own price these days, and they're doing it," she said. 

Gasoline still represents a core cost for American motorists, who are now paying an average of $4.33 at the pump, according to AAA, up 45% since the Iran war started in late February. 

The cost to own and operate a new vehicle is $12,863 per year, or $1,071.92 per month, according to a separate analysis by AAA.

Adjusting for inflation, that means the typical household has gained little economic ground in six years marked by pandemic upheaval and surging consumer prices. In 2019, households had a median income of $85,320, a level that wasn't surpassed until 2025, the Census said on Tuesday. 

While the new data indicates that Americans' incomes have continued to climb, it also shows that the typical household in 2025 earned only about 2.5% more than in 2019. By comparison, median household income climbed 19% during the six years before the pandemic, from 2013 to 2019.

The Census report also showed that women's paychecks rose 3.2% last year, while men's declined slightly. The solid gain for women narrowed the gender wage gap, though it remains large, with women earning nearly 84 cents for every dollar earned by men, up from less than 81 cents in 2024.

Declining poverty rate

The Census figures also may reflect some tax changes implemented under the "One Big Beautiful Bill" act, or OBBBA, which President Trump signed into law in July 2025. High-income households and corporations were among those that received the biggest benefits from its tax cuts, according to tax experts. 

The top 10% of earners reported income growth of 1.7% last year to $261,300, while the poorest one-tenth reported a slight decline to just over $20,000, according to the Census Bureau. 

"It's notable that the median income for the top earners is increasing, while income for the lowest earners is stagnant," said Kristin Seefeldt, associate professor of social work and public policy at the University of Michigan, in an email. "The tax code has been revised to lower marginal tax rates for everybody, and we see the top earners benefiting from that."

Last year, the official U.S. poverty rate fell 0.5 percentage points to 10.2%. Some public policy experts cautioned that the impact from OBBBA's cuts to social safety net programs may not appear until the Census reports on 2026 income and poverty rates, which will be released in 2027. 

OBBBA instituted new restrictions to Medicaid and food stamps, with the latter program reporting a sharp decline in enrollment in 2026. 

"The poverty numbers look pretty good — especially child poverty — but these numbers do not reflect cuts in benefits that started to take effect at the start of 2026," said Amanda Nothaft, director of data and analysis at the University of Michigan's Poverty Solutions. 

In an open letter published Thursday, the leaders of OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Microsoft and dozens of other signatories said there is a "limited window" to strengthen cyber defenses and protect against potentially devastating AI-enabled cyberattacks. That window may last only months, it added.

The signatories also include security companies like CrowdStrike and banks including Citi and Capital One.

The same AI advances that could increase risks to public services and technology infrastructure can also help organizations identify and "fix weaknesses" that leave them vulnerable, the letter said.

"If we act decisively, we can use the defenders' window to make our digital world much more secure," the letter said.

A recent CrowdStrike report on cybersecurity found that AI-enabled attacks increased by 89% in 2025 compared to 2024.

How to defend against attacks

The companies said that the status quo for cybersecurity "won't be enough."

"Longstanding bugs, excessive permissions, misconfigurations, insecure and unpatched software, weak authentication and technical debt in legacy systems have left systems exposed," the letter said. 

Security teams need to be beefed up and invested in, while defenders against AI cyberattacks need to be equipped with the most sophisticated AI-enabled tech, it said. 

The letter also called on companies and experts to share their expertise. 

"Share threat intelligence and tested playbooks, and measure progress by how many organizations are protected, how quickly attacks are contained, and whether fixes work," it added.

Call to action

Every organization needs to prioritize cybersecurity, according to the letter. That might include replacing or upgrading older tech systems that are vulnerable to attack. 

Specialized cybersecurity firms have an obligation to test defenses against evolving cyber capabilities continually. Governments also have a key role to play in containing cyber threats through coordinated actions and by funding cyber defense strategies at the local, national, and international levels, it added.

Lastly, the letter said it is incumbent upon frontrunner AI companies — including those that signed the document — to fund training, provide "responsible" access to their models, and adequately secure them.