Author: Elizabeth Blessing
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Breaking a cash deposit into amounts under $10,000 is its own federal crime
Federal law does not just require banks to report large cash transactions. It separately makes it a crime to deliberately break a cash transaction into smaller pieces specifically to dodge that report — even if the money itself came from a paycheck, a garage sale, or a lifetime of saving under the mattress. The rule…
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Regulators raised to $30 billion the deposits a bank can swap through a network that insures past $250,000
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation adopted a rule on August 27, 2026 that lets a bank move far more money through reciprocal deposit networks, arrangements that let one large balance carry full federal deposit insurance even though it runs well past the standard $250,000 coverage limit that applies to any single account at any single…
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An appeal has frozen Capital One’s $425 million savings payout, possibly past a year
A federal judge signed off on a $425 million settlement in April 2026 to resolve claims that Capital One let its older 360 Savings account fall far behind the interest rate it paid on the newer 360 Performance Savings account. Current and former accountholders were told a payout was coming automatically, with no claim form…
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A proposed rule would let 2 million federal workers file discrimination complaints directly
The federal government’s in-house discrimination watchdog wants to tear up the rulebook it has used for years to process complaints from its own workforce. On August 26, 2026, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission voted to issue a proposed rule rewriting how federal employees and job applicants report workplace discrimination, and the change would eventually…
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Pearson will pay $150,000 after blind employees could not read their own benefits records
Pearson Education has agreed to pay $150,000 to close out a federal disability-discrimination case built around a simple complaint: employees who are blind or have low vision said they could not get into the same online systems everyone else used to check benefits, leave balances and required training. The settlement, announced by the U.S. Equal…
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A senior living operator will pay $250,000 to women it left facing harassment from residents
A company that manages six senior living communities in Arizona has agreed to pay $250,000 to settle a federal lawsuit accusing it of leaving female employees to deal with repeated sexual harassment from residents on its own. The case, brought by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission against Christian Care Management, Inc. (CCMI), centers on…
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Trump signed the stopgap September 2, funding food stamps and agencies through December 11
President Donald Trump signed a short-term government funding bill into law on Wednesday, September 2, 2026, keeping federal agencies open and continuing food assistance benefits through December 11. The bill, H.R. 6500, the Continuing Appropriations and Extensions Act, 2027, had cleared the House by a lopsided 370-48 vote the day before it reached his desk.…
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Tyson and Hormel will pay pork buyers $117 million, and claims close October 29
Five of the country’s biggest pork processors have agreed to pay a combined $117 million to settle a long-running lawsuit accusing them of conspiring to inflate the price of bacon, chops, ribs and other raw pork sold in grocery stores nationwide. The deal covers people who bought pork for their own household, not restaurants or…
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Federal Medicaid and CHIP money for certain noncitizens stops October 1
Starting October 1, 2026, the federal government will stop matching state spending on full Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program coverage for many lawfully present immigrants who are not green-card holders, Cuban or Haitian entrants, or migrants covered under a Compact of Free Association. The change comes from a provision buried in the 2025 federal…
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Medicare pays insurers $13.4 billion in bonuses this year, and UnitedHealth takes $3.9 billion
Medicare will send $13.4 billion in quality bonus payments to Medicare Advantage insurers in 2026, according to an analysis published by KFF, the nonpartisan health policy research organization. That is up from $12.7 billion in 2025 and more than four times the $3.0 billion the program cost a decade earlier, in 2015. The bonuses arrive…
