Leader of powerful Panamanian union scales embassy wall, requests asylum from Bolivia
Hours later, Panamanian prosecutors announced that arrest orders had been issued in relation to a three-year investigation into the national construction workers union that he led. Prosecutors did not name the targets of the investigation.
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Newsweek
4 minutes ago
- Newsweek
Social Security COLA for 2026 and Beyond: What Seniors Want
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. American seniors are frustrated with how Social Security adjusts for inflation, and they want change. A new report from The Senior Citizens League (TSCL) shows a clear demand among retirees to improve the way the annual cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) is calculated. According to the group's latest survey of 1,92 individuals over the age of 62, 34 percent of respondents identified updating the COLA formula as their top policy priority for enhancing Social Security benefits. And when presented with specific policy options to raise future COLAs, seniors overwhelmingly supported a shift to a more targeted inflation measure. Currently, the Social Security Administration (SSA) calculates COLA based on the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (CPI-W). This index tracks inflation using the spending habits of younger, urban workers, not retirees. Since 1975, COLAs have been applied annually based on CPI-W data gathered during the third quarter of the year (July through September), with the goal of ensuring benefits rise in line with everyday costs, such as housing, food, and medical care. This year, benefits rose by 2.5 percent. The TSCL, based on current CPI-W readings, expects the 2026 COLA to increase slightly to 2.6 percent. However, regardless of the boost, for many retirees, that formula no longer works. According to the TSCL survey, 68 percent of seniors support replacing the current CPI-W model with the CPI-E, or Consumer Price Index for the Elderly. Developed by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the CPI-E is an index that tracks the spending habits of Americans aged 62 and older, focusing on the types of goods and services seniors typically use, such as health care, housing, and prescription drugs. "CPI-E is designed to better reflect the spending habits of people aged 62 and older," Colin Ruggiero, co-founder at told Newsweek. "It gives more weight to health care and housing costs which are two of the fastest-growing expenses for seniors. Switching to CPI-E would make COLAs more relevant and responsive to the real financial pressures seniors face." Chris Motola, a financial analyst at told Newsweek: "The main advantage of CPI-E would be to more heavily weight health care and housing costs in COLA calculations, both of which tend to disproportionately eat into seniors' budgets." Another popular idea is making up for what's already been lost. The TSCL survey found that 57 percent of respondents support a one-time "catch-up" COLA payment to compensate for years when benefits failed to keep pace with actual living costs. Composite image created by Newsweek. Composite image created by Newsweek. Photo-illustration by Newsweek/Getty/Canva "A catch-up COLA would be a recognition that past adjustments haven't kept pace with reality," Ruggiero said. "While it's feasible, it would require congressional approval and carry a hefty budgetary cost. Politically, it could gain traction as a way to restore fairness, especially if framed as a correction rather than a new ongoing expense." Still, the limits of these proposals are clear. While COLA reforms could help stabilize seniors' purchasing power, experts caution that they won't fix everything. "Adjusting the COLA is a great start, but it's not the cure-all," said Ruggiero. "We also need broader reforms to strengthen the entire retirement system, including benefit adequacy, solvency, and support for low-income seniors." Motola agreed: "It would go a long way, but again, a major problem is that Social Security isn't really meant to carry the burden alone. We've made it very difficult for people to save money for retirement, and the loss of pensions has placed enormous stress on the system."
USA Today
10 hours ago
- USA Today
'Doomsday mom' Lori Vallow Daybell now faces two more life sentences
Lori Vallow Daybell was sentenced to two consecutive life sentences in Arizona for conspiring to kill her estranged husband and attempting to murder her niece's ex-husband. Lori Vallow Daybell, the Idaho woman serving life in prison for the murders of her two youngest children and a romantic rival, was sentenced to two consecutive life sentences in Arizona for conspiring to kill her estranged husband and attempting to murder her niece's ex-husband. Vallow Daybell, often referred to as "Doomsday mom" because of the apocalyptic beliefs that fueled her string of grisly murders, was convicted earlier this year for the murder of her former husband, Charles Vallow, and the attempted murder of Brandon Boudreaux in 2019. "The amount of contemplation, calculation, planning and manipulation that went into these crimes is unparalleled in my career," Judge Justin Beresky said before sentencing Vallow Daybell on July 25. "It will take an act of god for you to go free." Vallow Daybell is already serving multiple life sentences in Idaho for the 2019 murders of her children, Joshua 'J.J.' Vallow and Tylee Ryan, along with the killing of her current husband's former wife, Tammy Daybell. Her two life sentences in Arizona will run consecutively. Family members of Vallow Daybell's victims testified for more than an hour at the July 25 sentencing hearing about harm she caused. Her only surviving child, Colby Ryan, described the moments when he found out his father had been shot and killed and then later, when he learned his 7-year-old and 16-year-old siblings had been murdered. "I had to do something I've never done, and that was fight to stay alive after the pain," Ryan said. Boudreaux, the victim of attempted murder, told the judge he "choose to forgive" Vallow Daybell, but would "never feel safe if she has freedom." Prosecutors alleged Vallow Daybell and her husband, Chad Daybell, believed an apocalypse was imminent and people around them were evil zombies. They accused Vallow Daybell of manipulating her brother, Alex Cox, and husband, Chad Daybell, into carrying out the crimes to cash in on her husband's life insurance policy and Social Security survivor benefits from her children. Victims Charles Vallow and Brandon Boudreaux Vallow Daybell met her current husband, Chad Daybell, in 2018 at a religious conference in Utah. The pair bonded over their shared religious beliefs, including that an apocalyptic doomsday would soon arrive. Shortly after, in 2019, Charles Vallow filed for divorce, claiming that his wife had threatened to kill him and believed she was a godlike figure preparing for the second coming of Christ. Vallow was shot at Vallow Daybell's rental home in Chandler, Arizona, in July 2019. Months later, her niece's ex-husband, Brandon Boudreaux, was shot at while driving in Gilbert, Arizona. The shooting was later tied to Vallow Daybell's brother who had begun to share her apocalyptic beliefs. Boudreaux survived the shooting. The murders of Joshua Vallow, Tylee Ryan and Tammy Daybell Vallow Daybell moved in September 2019 with her children to the small Idaho town where Chad Daybell lived with his then-wife, Tammy Daybell. Weeks after the move, Tammy Daybell was found dead. Relatives of Vallow Daybell soon after told police they had not seen her children in awhile. Vallow Daybell was arrested on child abandonment counts in Hawaii in February 2020. She was extradited to Idaho, and in early June of that year, authorities found the bodies of her children buried on Chad Daybell's property. (This story has been updated to add new information and because an earlier version included an inaccuracy.)
New York Times
11 hours ago
- New York Times
Judge Demands Answers About Deal to Return MS-13 Gang Leaders to El Salvador
A federal judge on Friday ordered the Justice Department to tell her more about a deal struck between the Trump administration and President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador to imprison immigrants deported from the United States in a Salvadoran maximum-security facility in exchange for the return of top leaders of the MS-13 gang who are in U.S. custody. The order by the judge, Joan M. Azrack, came as she was considering a request by federal prosecutors on Long Island to dismiss sprawling narco-terrorism charges against Vladimir Arévalo Chávez, who is alleged to be one of those leaders, in preparation for sending him back to El Salvador. It remains unclear how the Justice Department will respond to Judge Azrack's demand for information, but her order could help pierce the veil of secrecy around the arrangement between Mr. Bukele and the Trump administration. That deal is at the heart of one of the White House's most controversial deportation efforts, which involved the expulsion in March of more than 200 Venezuelans to a prison built for terrorists in El Salvador. The Trump administration deported some of them by invoking a rarely used wartime law called the Alien Enemies Act. In exchange for taking the deportees, the Bukele government received millions of dollars from the United States, as well as the Trump administration's pledge to return top MS-13 leaders who are facing charges in federal court. An investigation by The New York Times found that the returning of the gang leaders to El Salvador was threatening a long-running federal investigation into the upper echelons of MS-13. Prosecutors had amassed substantial evidence of ties between the gang and the Bukele administration — and had been scrutinizing Mr. Bukele himself, The Times found. Judge Azrack recently said that U.S. government had detailed in court filings allegations of 'extraordinary and corrupt arrangements between MS-13 and the Salvadoran government.' Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
