
Russ Vought orders Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to stop work
CBSN
The Trump administration late Saturday ordered the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, an independent government agency designed to protect consumers from corporate fraud and scams, to halt much of its work, amid an ongoing overhaul of the federal bureaucracy.
In an email to CFPB staff Saturday, Russ Vought — the newly confirmed director of the Office of Management and Budget and acting head of the CFPB — directed employees not to issue any proposed or formal rules, stop pending investigations and not open new investigations, halt all stakeholder engagements and abstain from issuing public communications, among other things. Vought wrote in the email, obtained by CBS News, that he was making the directive "as a faithful steward of the Bureau's resources" and committed to implementing Mr. Trump's policies.
The development came after Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, gained access to the CFPB and began a thorough review. Two sources directly familiar with the review told CBS News that DOGE representatives gained access to the internal systems, including personnel rolls and financial records of the agency in recent days. According to the federal union representing some of CFPB's employees, Musk deputies were added to the agency's email directory and "spotted in the CFPB building" last week.

The threat of tornadoes moved east into the Mississippi Valley and Deep South on Saturday, a day after a massive storm system moving across the country unleashed winds that damaged buildings, whipped up dust storms that caused deadly crashes and fanned more than 100 wildfires in several central states. Fatalities were reported in Missouri and Texas.

A Canadian woman who had appeared in an "American Pie" movie was detained for several days by U.S. immigration officials while attempting to cross the border from Mexico to the U.S. to renew her work visa, according to her mother. The woman's father expects his daughter to be able to return to Canada as early as Friday.

When the Environmental Protection Agency was formed in 1970, its mission was to protect the environment and human health. Since then, scientists, health experts and advocates have worked to implement regulations aimed at protecting and cleaning the air we breathe and the water we drink. Many of these regulations, which were aimed at cleaning up the air, also helped reduce carbon emissions, which can contribute to climate change – so it was a win for our bodies and the planet.