Washington commits more than $5 billion to aim artificial intelligence at scientific research
The federal government said it would put more than five billion dollars behind an effort to aim artificial intelligence at scientific research, the largest coordinated push of its kind in decades.[1] The Office of Science and Technology Policy announced the commitment on July 22 for what it calls the Genesis Mission, with the Department of Energy as lead agency and more than fifteen federal departments contributing money, data, and facilities.[1][2] A first cohort of 278 research projects, spread across all fifty states, opens the work.[2] The figure is a headline total assembled from many agencies rather than a single new appropriation, a distinction that matters for how much of it is fresh money.[1]
01 What the mission is
Genesis began as an executive order in November 2025 and organizes its work around five broad goals, among them longer and healthier lives, cheaper and steadier energy, and stronger domestic industry.[1] The connective tissue is a shared computing backbone, named the American Science and Security Platform, that is meant to give researchers a common route to the datasets, machine-learning tools, and supercomputers held across the Department of Energy's national laboratories.[2] Those laboratories run some of the most powerful machines in the country, and the mission's premise is that pointing them at protein design, materials, and grid modeling can compress the trial-and-error that ordinarily slows discovery.[2][4]
02 How much is actually new
The five-billion-dollar number bundles awards, funding opportunities, dataset access, and time on federal facilities, and the primary announcement does not itemize how much is newly appropriated against money already flowing.[1] The groundwork was laid in December 2025, when the Energy Department signed cooperative agreements with roughly two dozen technology companies to supply computing hardware and software for the effort.[3] What the mission buys, in practice, is coordination: a single federal front door to compute and data that individual laboratories and grantees previously assembled piecemeal.[2] Whether that coordination speeds real results, or mostly rebrands work already underway, is the test the 278 projects will answer.[4]
- The White House, Office of Science and Technology Policy — “Trump Administration Announces More Than $5 Billion for the Genesis Mission, a National Mission on AI for Science” (July 22, 2026): the $5B figure, 15-plus agencies, five goal areas, whole-of-government structure, executive-order origin.
- HPCwire — “White House Commits More Than $5B to Expand Genesis Mission” (July 22, 2026): the 278-project first cohort across 50 states, the American Science and Security Platform, national-laboratory compute.
- U.S. Department of Energy — “Energy Department Announces Collaboration Agreements with 24 Organizations to Advance the Genesis Mission” (Dec. 18, 2025): the December cooperative agreements with roughly two dozen technology companies; DOE lead role.
- The Next Platform — “DoE Fires The $5 Billion Starter Gun For Its AI-Targeted Genesis Mission” (July 23, 2026): the compute-and-national-lab mechanics and the coordination rationale.
The EEOC proposes to stop collecting the workforce demographic data it has gathered since 1966
A federal agency moved to stop collecting the workforce demographic data it has gathered from large employers since 1966.[1][2] On July 21 the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission voted two to one to propose rescinding the EEO-1 report, the annual tally of a company's staff by sex, race, and ethnicity, along with the broader recordkeeping rules that sit behind it.[1][3][5] The requirement has covered roughly 73,000 employers and about 50 million workers.[1] The vote opens a proposal, not a final rule, so the reporting obligation stands until a comment period closes.[3]
01 What the report does
The EEO-1 requires private employers with 100 or more workers, and many federal contractors with 50 or more, to sort their staff into ten job categories and report the racial, ethnic, and sex composition of each.[1] Civil-rights enforcers and researchers have used the aggregate picture to spot patterns that a single complaint cannot show, such as whole job tiers that stay closed to one group.[2][4] Acting Chair Andrea Lucas, who led the repeal, argued that the filing costs employers hundreds of millions of dollars and that requiring annual demographic counts can itself nudge companies toward decisions made by race or sex.[1] The commission's lone Democrat, Kalpana Kotagal, dissented, warning that the change removes a basic tool for detecting discrimination.[2]
02 What changes, and what does not
Because this is a proposed rule, it now enters a public comment period, reported at 30 days, before the commission can act on it.[1][3] If it is finalized, the federal government would stop collecting standardized workforce demographics for the first time in six decades, cutting off a data series that outside analysts have long leaned on.[3] Employers would not be freed of every obligation, since Title VII still requires them to keep certain records and to answer the commission during an investigation.[4] The practical loss falls on the public side of the ledger, where the standardized national view of who works where would go dark.[3]
- Fortune — “Federal civil rights agency EEOC votes to scrap 60-year-old workforce diversity reporting rule” (July 21, 2026): the 2–1 vote, EEO-1 mechanics, ~73,000 employers and ~50 million workers, Lucas and Kotagal positions, 30-day comment period.
- Associated Press, via The Boston Globe — “US civil rights agency moves to end demographic data collection after 60 years” (July 21, 2026): the roughly six-decade history, the vote, and commissioner statements.
- Littler Mendelson — “EEOC Proposes to Rescind All EEO Reporting and Recordkeeping Requirements” (July 2026): scope of the proposal and its procedural posture as a notice of proposed rulemaking.
- JURIST — “EEOC moves to end workplace demographic reporting mandate” (July 2026): the enforcement stakes and the residual Title VII recordkeeping obligations.
- U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission — Newsroom (agency notice of the July 21, 2026 Commission action on EEO reporting and recordkeeping).
A Manhattan judge lets New York's Zelle fraud case go forward as the operator vows to appeal
A New York judge cleared the state's fraud case against the company behind Zelle to move toward trial, rejecting the operator's bid to have it thrown out.[2] A Manhattan trial judge, ruling on July 22, denied Early Warning Services' motion to dismiss the lawsuit brought by Attorney General Letitia James, finding that the complaint had adequately laid out how the payment network's design and rollout put growth ahead of user safety.[2][3] The suit, filed in August 2025, accuses the bank-owned operator of building a service that fraudsters could exploit and then leaving it that way for years.[1] Early Warning Services says the ruling is wrong and has said it will appeal.[4]
01 The allegations
Zelle moves money between bank accounts almost instantly, and Early Warning Services, the venture that runs it, is owned by a group of the country's largest banks.[1] The state's complaint argues that the operator understood from Zelle's 2017 launch that the network was unusually open to impersonation scams and account takeovers, that it designed safeguards as early as 2019, and that it did not put key protections in place until 2023, after federal scrutiny.[1] Over that stretch, the state says, the company kept earning fees on transactions it had reason to know were fraudulent while marketing the service as safe.[1] The complaint puts consumer losses above one billion dollars; coverage of the ruling described the harm as concentrated in the years from 2019 to 2022.[1][2]
02 Why the ruling carries
A separate federal case brought by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau had cited roughly 870 million dollars in losses at the three largest bank owners before the bureau dropped the matter in March 2025.[2][5] With that federal action gone, the New York suit becomes the main live test of whether the company can be held to account, and the judge's refusal to dismiss lets the state try to prove its case.[3][4] Early Warning Services counters that reported fraud on Zelle is exceptionally low and calls the suit politically driven.[4] The wider question the case raises is whether the operator of a payment rail can be liable for design choices that make fraud easier, a point that reaches well past this one network.[4]
- Office of the New York State Attorney General — “Attorney General James Sues Company Behind Zelle for Enabling Widespread Fraud” (Aug. 13, 2025): the filing, the allegations, the $1B-plus loss figure, and the relief sought.
- Reuters, via WKZO — “Zelle must face New York attorney general’s lawsuit over ‘rampant’ fraud, judge rules” (July 22, 2026): the July 22 denial of the motion to dismiss, the judge’s reasoning, the 2019–2022 loss framing, and the CFPB history.
- Law360 — “New York AG’s Zelle Fraud Suit May Proceed, Judge Rules” (July 2026): the ruling that the case may proceed toward trial.
- Insurance Journal — “Judge Says Zelle Must Face New York AG’s Suit Over ‘Rampant’ Fraud; Zelle to Appeal” (July 24, 2026): the company’s response and its intent to appeal.
- Payments Dive — “NY sues Early Warning over Zelle fraud” (2025): the ~$870 million CFPB figure and the March 2025 dismissal of the federal case.
New York approves a 22% cut to the cost behind workers'-comp premiums, effective in October
New York regulators approved a sharp cut to the cost that sets workers'-compensation insurance prices, a reduction that takes effect on October 1.[1][3] The state's Department of Financial Services signed off on a 21.9 percent average drop in what insurers call loss costs, the tenth straight annual decrease.[1][5] The state packaged the move as more than 1.7 billion dollars in savings, though that headline bundles the projected effect of the rate cut with dividends already paid out to employers over the past year.[1] How much any single business saves will depend on its insurer, because the approved figure is a building block for premiums, not the premium itself.[4]
01 How the number is set
Loss costs are the expected price of paying claims, and in New York they are proposed by the Compensation Insurance Rating Board, a licensed body, then reviewed and approved by the Department of Financial Services before they can take effect.[5] Each insurer then applies its own multiplier for overhead and profit, which is why a 21.9 percent cut in loss costs does not translate cleanly into 21.9 percent off any given employer's bill.[4] The board tied this year's decline to a lasting drop in lost-time claims since 2020 and to safety and administrative changes that have lowered what the system pays out.[4] The prior filing cut loss costs 13.2 percent for 2025, and approved decreases have averaged about 10.3 percent a year over six years.[1][5]
02 What the savings figure means
The 1.7-billion-dollar headline combines more than one billion in projected premium savings from the new cut with roughly 700 million the State Insurance Fund returned to policyholders over the past year, including 698 million in dividends to more than 100,000 employers in safety groups.[1] The state put the average saving at 1,779 dollars per policyholder.[1] Governor Kathy Hochul framed the reduction as help for employers to operate and grow while keeping worker benefits intact.[2] The fuller picture is that even after a decade of cuts, a 2024 study ranked New York the third most expensive state for workers'-compensation costs, behind Hawaii and New Jersey, so the trend is a high-cost state getting cheaper rather than a cheap one.[3]
- New York State Department of Financial Services — “Governor Hochul Announces Over $1.7 Billion in Workers’ Compensation Insurance Savings for Employers and Policyholders Statewide” (July 15, 2026): the 21.9% approval effective Oct. 1, the $1.7B breakdown, the $698M State Insurance Fund dividends, the $1,779 average, and the ten-year trend.
- Office of Governor Kathy Hochul — “Governor Hochul Announces Over $1.7 Billion in Workers’ Compensation Insurance Savings…” (July 15, 2026): the governor’s statement and the savings figures.
- Insurance Journal — “New York Approves 22% Workers’ Compensation Cost Reduction” (July 17, 2026): the DFS approval, the effective date, the trend components, and New York’s standing as the third highest-cost state.
- daisyBill — “NY Comp Premiums to Drop 22% as CA Employers Face Increase” (2026): the loss-cost-versus-premium distinction and the claim-frequency and reform drivers.
- Big I New York (Independent Insurance Agents & Brokers of New York) — “Workers’ Compensation Rating Board Requests 22% Loss Cost Decrease” (July 2026): the NYCIRB filing, the DFS-approval process, the tenth consecutive decrease, and the prior 13.2% cut.