Social Security Administration delays and curtails new anti-fraud policy
CNN
The Social Security Administration announced Wednesday that it is pushing back the rollout of a controversial anti-fraud measure by two weeks and reducing the number of applicants it will effect.
The Social Security Administration announced Wednesday that it is pushing back the rollout of a controversial anti-fraud measure by two weeks and reducing the number of applicants it will effect. It’s the latest backtrack at the agency, which is in turmoil amid a massive reorganization spurred by the Department of Government Efficiency, and comes as the Elon Musk-led initiative is hunting for fraud at Social Security. More than 73 million Americans receive Social Security benefits. The planned policy, which was set to take effect Monday, would have required all those filing benefit applications who cannot verify their identities through their online “my Social Security” account to visit a field office to complete the claim in person.Currently, they can also apply over the phone. But now the new identity verification policy will only apply to those filing for retirement, survivors or family benefits and will take effect on April 14. People applying for disability benefits, Supplemental Security Income and Medicare will continue to have the option of filing their claims over the phone. Also, the agency will not require filers in “extreme dire-need situations,” such as terminal illnesses, to adhere to the new policy and will instead develop an alternate process for them, it said.
President Donald Trump said the United States had taken out a “big facility” last week as part of a pressure campaign against Venezuela but did not provide further details on the reported US action.
CNN’s 5 Things AM brings you the news you need to know every morning.
In the year 1998 – when Bill Clinton was president, most households still had landline phones, and CNN’s website looked like this – Gallup and USA Today called up 1,055 Americans on those landlines and asked them for their best predictions about a year in the distant future: 2025.
Repeatedly this year, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has flown to the United States to praise President Donald Trump as Israel’s greatest champion — and to quietly press him on taking more aggressive action against Israel’s enemies.
Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito has a remarkable record of transforming his old dissenting opinions into the new majority view and setting the direction of the law in America.
(CNN) — One person was killed and another was left critically injured after two helicopters crashed in southern New Jersey on Sunday, officials said.
Pipe bomb suspect told FBI he targeted US political parties because they were ‘in charge,’ memo says
The man accused of placing two pipe bombs in Washington, DC, on the eve of the January 6, 2021, riot at the US Capitol told investigators after his arrest that he believed someone needed to “speak up” for people who believed the 2020 election was stolen and that he wanted to target the country’s political parties because they were “in charge,” prosecutors said Sunday.
The train’s main line only came into service in 2023, under a new program aiming to create an alternative to the Panama Canal.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky traded freezing, missile-tormented Kyiv on Sunday for the frescoed dining room at Mar-a-Lago, where he hoped to gain President Donald Trump’s sign-off on a revised 20-point peace plan to end the war in his country.
More than 30 million people are under winter weather alerts across the Midwest and Northeast early this week with another storm threatening to upend travelers’ plans on what is expected to be one of the busiest travel days this holiday season.
The night was warm and muggy over New Castle Air Force Base in Delaware, the kind of heat that clung to the metal skins of the alert fighter jets lined along the runway.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky arrives here Sunday as his frozen capital of Kyiv comes under assault by Russian missiles and drones, a deadly reminder from the war’s aggressor that its attacks would continue even amid accelerated peace talks.
A Cuban immigrant who had built a new life working at a Kentucky scrapyard died on Christmas Day from severe burns suffered in last month’s UPS cargo plane crash, raising the death toll to 15, officials said.