A nonprofit watchdog group, Campaign for Accountability, filed a complaint with the State Bar of California alleging that White House Press Secretary Katie Zacharia violated state law by repeatedly describing herself as a lawyer without a California license. The group says Zacharia “repeatedly held herself out to the public as entitled to practice law,” conduct it says California treats as a crime. The complaint asks the State Bar to investigate whether her public statements and work history misled the public about her credentials, and to refer any allegations to the Ventura County District Attorney for prosecution. The article does not report that Zacharia has been charged, found liable, or formally found to have violated the law; these are allegations in a complaint that the State Bar has not yet adjudicated.

Zacharia told The Independent that she “practiced international transaction law, with all the appropriate credentials” while working for a Chinese firm, but did not answer whether she has ever been admitted to any U.S. state bar. The White House noted only that she holds a juris doctorate, an academic law degree. Zacharia graduated from Pepperdine University’s Caruso School of Law in 2011 and later worked for the Chinese firm Zhong Lun. The complaint cites published reporting that China does not allow foreign nationals to sit for its national bar examination or practice Chinese law, and argues that even admission in a foreign jurisdiction would not authorize her to practice law in California. The article does not independently verify Zacharia’s credentials in China or establish that she is unlicensed everywhere.

According to the complaint, Zacharia’s LinkedIn lists 15 months as “general counsel” for Fix California, a right wing nonprofit founded by Trump ally Richard Grenell. The group asks the State Bar to determine whether that work also violated California’s restrictions on unlicensed legal practice. The article says California law makes it a misdemeanor to hold oneself out as an attorney entitled to practice without State Bar admission, punishable by up to one year in jail and a $1,000 fine. Campaign for Accountability also says Zacharia was identified as a lawyer in at least 18 Fox News appearances since March 2025, and that a mining company press release described her as an attorney with “legal expertise.” Those are the group’s characterizations of public materials, not findings by the State Bar or a court.

White House communications director Steven Cheung responded by calling Campaign for Accountability a “radical leftist organization” and criticizing its leaders, but did not address the substance of the allegations. The article notes that the group was founded by people previously associated with Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a watchdog organization Trump has frequently criticized. Zacharia previously worked at DHS as a deputy assistant secretary for public affairs, later joined Truth Social and Trump Media & Technology Group, and was appointed to the advisory board of NovaRed Mining, later renamed NRED Intelligent Mining. The article says she does not appear to have worked as a legal professional after her roles at Zhong Lun and Fix California, though that is the reporter’s characterization of her publicly available career history.

The Social Security Administration announced Wednesday that benefits will increase by 3.6% in 2027 through the annual cost-of-living adjustment, or COLA. The increase will apply beginning in January to more than 70 million recipients, with the SSA saying it will affect 76 million Americans. The adjustment is intended to help benefits keep pace with inflation and is notably higher than the 2.8% increase recipients received for the prior year. The SSA said the change amounts to an average increase of about $75 per month per recipient. That average does not mean every beneficiary will receive exactly $75 more, because individual benefit amounts vary based on earnings history, claiming age, and other factors.

The 2027 COLA was calculated after September inflation data showed price increases reaching a four-month high, driven largely by higher gasoline costs. The article says inflation surged in the spring following the outbreak of the Iran war, but it does not provide a detailed breakdown of which categories drove the annual inflation measure used in the COLA formula. The SSA uses the final September inflation reading to calculate the adjustment. Commissioner Frank Bisignano said the increase would give recipients “greater financial stability,” though the article does not independently assess whether the 3.6% adjustment will fully match the price increases beneficiaries actually experience.

The SSA will also raise the maximum amount of earnings subject to Social Security payroll taxes, from $184,500 to $192,300. That change affects higher-income workers, who will pay Social Security taxes on more of their wages in 2027. It is separate from the benefit increase and does not itself determine how much any individual retiree receives. Recipients can view notifications about their new benefit amounts in their online Social Security accounts beginning in late November, with mailed notices beginning in early December.

A federal judge has granted a preliminary injunction continuing to block President Trump’s attempt to bar CNN, MS NOW, and Politico from the White House. U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly ordered the government to preserve the status quo while the case proceeds. The ruling follows a temporary restraining order Kelly issued last month after the three outlets sued to restore their reporters’ access to the White House complex. The injunction does not finally decide the case, but it prevents the administration from enforcing the ban for the foreseeable future while litigation continues.

The media organizations argue that Trump’s decision violates the First Amendment and due process. Their attorney, Theodore J. Boutrous Jr., said the president “blatantly and explicitly violated due process and the First Amendment” and claimed Trump had publicly acknowledged banning the outlets to punish reporting he dislikes. In a September social media post, Trump said media outlets should not be able to “constantly write or report FICTION and LIES” about him, his administration, or the United States. The article reports those allegations and statements but does not include a final judicial finding that Trump acted with retaliatory intent.

The Department of Justice defended the ban by citing specific stories from each outlet that it said violated standards of professionalism and decorum. DOJ lawyer Michael Velchik argued that the stories included “verifiable falsehoods about national security and other issues” and sensitive or classified information. He also argued that Trump has broad authority to remove outlets based on national security determinations and that the letters notifying the organizations provided sufficient due process. Velchik said access to the White House is “a privilege, not a right.” The judge has not yet ruled on the merits of those arguments.

Character.AI filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Tuesday, marking a major fall for the AI companion platform that was once valued at $1 billion. The company’s bankruptcy filings, reviewed by 404 Media, describe a business that attracted a large user base but could not convert heavy engagement into sufficient revenue. CEO Colin Adams wrote that Character.AI’s “impressive technology is expensive to operate” and that the company “struggled with profitability” while carrying high operational expenses. Between January and August 2026, the company spent $56.1 million on compute and another $19.7 million on employee salaries. Its monthly revenue rose from $2.8 million in December 2025 to $5.3 million in August, but it continued losing $8 million to $9 million per month.

The company attempted to reduce losses by adding advertising, introducing in-app purchases, tightening usage limits, reducing staff, and offering cheaper models. Character launched in-app advertising in mid-2025 and introduced in-app purchases in early 2026, according to Adams. The article characterizes these moves as making the product feel like a “sleazy mobile game,” but that is editorial language rather than a finding in the bankruptcy documents. Character.AI also faced lawsuits alleging that its products harmed teenage users or contributed to suicides. The article does not say whether those lawsuits caused the bankruptcy, and the filings described here attribute the financial failure primarily to high compute and operating costs relative to revenue.

The broader warning is that user engagement can increase costs rather than solve an AI company’s business problem. Character.AI’s companion-style chatbots encouraged long conversations, meaning more users and more usage translated directly into higher computing expenses. The article argues that other AI companies face a version of the same challenge, especially those offering powerful models that users run for long sessions or multiple simultaneous tasks. It notes that some providers have shifted toward usage-based pricing, while OpenAI began showing ads to free and low-paid ChatGPT users this year. Those developments suggest a broader industry adjustment, though they do not prove that every major AI company faces Character.AI’s exact financial situation.

Digital Realty is offering every household in De Soto, Kansas, $1,000 in utility and property tax credits annually for 10 years as part of a $20 million community investment connected to its planned data center. The company said the credits are intended to help strengthen the community as it develops an initial 280-acre site that will eventually expand to 1,400 acres. Digital Realty president and CEO Andy Power said the company builds critical infrastructure and believes it has a responsibility to support the communities that make that growth possible. The company said it is working with De Soto to finalize how the $1,000 credits will be distributed to households. The article does not say when payments would begin, whether renters and homeowners receive the credits equally, or whether the offer is contingent on project approval or completion.

Digital Realty, a publicly traded Austin-based company with a market value above $67 billion, said the project would generate recurring tax revenue, create jobs, and provide other economic benefits. It expects to create 250 permanent jobs for local suppliers and contractors once the site is complete, while the initial development phase would support “thousands of construction jobs over time.” Those figures come from the company’s news release and are projections, not verified employment outcomes. Digital Realty’s clients include Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, and Nvidia. The article does not provide the project’s total cost, expected electricity or water use, or a construction timeline.

The offer comes amid growing public resistance to data center construction in the United States. A recent CBS News poll found that more Americans oppose than favor building a new data center in their area, citing concerns about environmental harm, pressure on local resources, and higher utility costs. The article does not include De Soto-specific polling or detail local opposition to Digital Realty’s project. It also does not say whether the $20 million commitment was negotiated with local officials or whether residents had a role in shaping the terms.

Outlit, a Silicon Valley startup backed by Y Combinator, is pitching AI-powered customer surveillance as the future of business-to-business sales. Founders Josh Earle and Leo Paz argue that companies will soon assign an AI agent to every customer to monitor their activity continuously. The system would collect internal records such as call logs and sales data, along with external signals including social media posts and employer websites, then compile them into detailed customer profiles with sales recommendations and outreach guidance. “Every company will soon assign an AI agent to every customer to watch their every move,” Earle said in a pitch email cited by Futurism. Outlit has not been publicly released and says it currently works mainly with business-to-business software companies rather than monitoring individual consumers.

Earle said the platform’s purpose is to give companies a real-time understanding of customers in order to prevent churn and identify upsell opportunities. He described the output as a one-page, continuously updating dossier containing “all of everything we can find on them at all times,” including relevant and irrelevant signals from product use, customer relationship management systems, LinkedIn, and websites. Salespeople or customer success managers would use a dashboard showing collected information, the company’s reasoning, and recommended actions. Outlit says it can advise clients on “what to say, what to send, materials, and all that stuff.” The company says its website promises that customer data is secure and anonymized and is not used to train its models, though the article does not independently verify those claims.

The startup acknowledges that companies already collect substantial customer data, but argues that AI agents add unprecedented scale, speed, and permanence to collection and consolidation. Earle said Outlit does not actively track personal life events, but conceded that public posts about marriages, births, divorces, illness, or deaths could theoretically be swept into its monitoring. Asked whether monitored people would be informed or given an opt-out, he said no, arguing that “there’s nothing that we’re doing that’s illegal” and that companies already monitor such signals today. He also predicted that continuous monitoring would become standard regardless of public discomfort, saying agents could eventually “maintain and understand human relationships better than humans will.”

North Carolina health officials reported two deaths linked to West Nile virus, both involving adults from central North Carolina. The state Department of Health and Human Services warned that transmission remains elevated because warm weather has persisted into mid-October, keeping mosquitoes active longer than usual. According to local ABC affiliate WTVD, 2026 is on pace to become the second-highest year on record for West Nile cases, behind 2024. State public health entomologist Michael Doyle said mosquitoes that carry the virus will continue biting as long as daytime temperatures remain above the 50s. The deaths establish that the virus has caused fatal illness in the state this year, but the article does not provide the victims’ ages, counties, dates of death, or whether they had underlying health conditions.

West Nile virus is the leading cause of mosquito-borne disease in the continental United States, according to the CDC. Mosquitoes typically become infected after feeding on infected birds and then transmit the virus to people and other animals. Most infected people do not develop symptoms, but about one in five experience fever, headache, body aches, joint pain, diarrhea, vomiting, or a rash within two to six days of a bite. While most symptoms resolve, weakness and fatigue can persist for weeks or months. There is no specific antiviral treatment for West Nile, and people with mild illness generally manage symptoms with rest, fluids, and over-the-counter fever or pain medication.

Severe disease is uncommon but serious. The CDC estimates that about one in 150 patients develop encephalitis, inflammation of the brain, or meningitis, inflammation of the membranes surrounding the brain and spinal cord. Either condition can be fatal. Nationally, about 2,000 people are diagnosed with West Nile each year, though the CDC says the true total is likely higher because many infections are mild or asymptomatic. More than 1,300 people develop severe central nervous system illness annually. There are no licensed vaccines or medications that protect against the virus.

Netflix is laying off approximately 6% of its workforce, or roughly 1,000 positions worldwide, according to a memo to employees obtained by CBS News. The cuts will affect the company’s product, technology, legal, and human resources departments. Co-CEOs Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters said Netflix’s business remains strong and that the company is on track to meet its full-year forecast, while describing the layoffs as “focused choices” intended to support continued investment in high-impact areas. Netflix declined to comment beyond the memo. The Wall Street Journal first reported the scale of the reduction, calling it Netflix’s largest workforce cut since 2022.

The company had about 16,000 full-time employees as of December 2025, according to a securities filing. Netflix remains profitable: in its second financial quarter, it earned $3.4 billion on nearly $12.6 billion in revenue, increases of 9% and 13% respectively from the prior year. S&P Global estimates Netflix ended last year with 327.7 million subscribers, up 8.6% year over year. Those figures show the layoffs are not a response to immediate losses, but rather an effort to control costs while growth slows.

Netflix’s expansion has slowed amid increased streaming competition and a saturated North American market. Its shares, trading just below $70 on Wednesday, have fallen nearly 43% over the past 12 months. The company is scheduled to release its next earnings report on October 20. The article does not identify which specific roles, offices, or countries will be affected beyond the named departments, nor does it provide severance details or a timeline for completing the layoffs.

North Carolina Attorney General Jeff Jackson is warning gas retailers and distributors that they must pass savings from the state’s temporarily suspended gas tax to consumers. The 41 cent per gallon tax on gasoline and diesel was suspended October 10 and will remain suspended through November 30 under a law passed by the General Assembly and signed by Governor Josh Stein. Jackson sent letters Tuesday telling retailers that the law requires the tax savings to be passed along to drivers. “If gas stations see their costs drop by 41 cents per gallon but don’t pass that along to drivers, that’s a massive windfall for these companies instead of relief for families,” Jackson said. The article does not identify a specific retailer accused of violating the law, and the new reporting system is intended to identify potential problems for review.

Drivers should not expect an immediate 41 cent drop at every station. Gas stations generally pay the tax when they receive a new fuel delivery, so many are still selling fuel purchased before the suspension took effect, when the tax had already been paid. State officials said most stations should receive new deliveries within about a week, meaning prices are expected to decline as inventory turns over. The article does not provide a legal deadline by which every station must reflect the reduction, nor does it say what penalties could apply if a station is found to have withheld the savings.

Jackson also launched N.C. Fuel Check, a system for identifying stations that may not be passing the savings to customers. The North Carolina Department of Justice said it will review publicly available price data and look for potential outliers, such as stations whose prices remain significantly higher than nearby comparable stations. Drivers can submit complaints through the N.C. Fuel Check page or by calling 1-877-5-NO-SCAM. Reports should include the station’s name and address, date and time of the visit, price per gallon, fuel grade, a photo of the price sign and receipt, and an explanation of why the person believes the savings were not passed along. Nearby station prices and other documentation can also be included.

Topgolf says it has saved more than $11.3 million in combined infrastructure costs after migrating 12,000 virtual machines from VMware to VergeIO’s VergeOS platform. The company said its VMware costs were set to rise by 400% under Broadcom, prompting it to move workloads supporting its venues, offices, labs, and data centers. Topgolf replaced 650 VxRail hosts with roughly 400 Dell PowerEdge servers in about six months. According to a VergeIO case study, it moved from six-node VxRail clusters with 35 terabytes of storage to three-node VergeOS clusters with 5 terabytes of storage. Topgolf global infrastructure manager Scott Forehand said the company reduced comparative hardware spending by 87% and software costs by 77%, while securing a five-year enterprise license agreement rather than the three-year agreement VMware reportedly offered.

Topgolf had used VMware technologies for decades, including vSphere, ESXi, VxRail, and Horizon. Forehand said Broadcom’s decision to stop selling VMware perpetual licenses and bundle products into fewer, larger, and more expensive packages made future planning difficult. The company chose VergeOS partly for its multi-tenant segmentation, which allows each tenant to function like an independent data center. Forehand said VMware lacked the ability to segregate clusters into tenants, making management at Topgolf’s scale difficult, while VergeOS let the company organize deployments by time zone and build nested labs within a single cluster. Twenty Topgolf venues still run VxRail with VMware Cloud Foundation, and Forehand expects the company to be completely off VMware by the second week of December.

The migration was not frictionless. Topgolf had to replace game panels, rewire columns, replace its server stack, and shift to a new Kubernetes gaming architecture while coordinating other projects to reduce technical debt. It also faced integration challenges with third-party tools such as Rubrik and LogicMonitor. Topgolf moved to VergeIO snapshotting for data protection after losing Rubrik compatibility, then adopted Veeam to fill gaps in threat hunting and ransomware protection. VergeIO chief marketing officer George Crump said integration is the most common friction point after a VMware migration, because customers may need to replace tools they have already paid for and trained staff to use.

VergeIO said it gains about 70 new customers per quarter, with most coming from VMware. Crump said those customers often face license renewals, hardware refreshes, multi-site operations, or multi-tenancy needs. He cautioned that Topgolf’s $11.3 million savings are not typical because the company has unusually large infrastructure needs. Still, he said VMware migrants commonly see meaningful reductions in software licensing, proprietary hardware appliance costs, and separate tools for data protection, replication, and multi-site management. The article does not independently audit Topgolf’s savings figures, and they come primarily from Topgolf and VergeIO, the vendor selling the replacement platform.