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WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Wednesday allowed Lisa Cook to remain as a Federal Reserve governor for now, declining to act on the Trump administration’s effort to immediately remove her from the central bank.
In a brief unsigned order, the high court said it would hear arguments in January over Republican President Donald Trump’s effort to force Cook off the Fed board.
The court will consider whether to block a lower-court ruling in Cook’s favor while her challenge to her firing by Trump continues.
The high-court order was a rare instance of Trump not quickly getting everything he wants from the justices in an emergency appeal.
Cook will be able to take part in the remaining two Fed meetings in 2025, including the next meeting of its interest rate-setting committee in late October.
Separately, the justices are hearing arguments in December in a separate but related legal fight over Trump’s actions to fire members of the boards that oversee other independent federal agencies. The case concerns whether Trump can fire those officials at will.
But a second issue in the case could bear directly on Cook’s fate: whether federal judges have the authority to prevent the firings or instead may only order back pay for officials who were wrongly dismissed.
Trump had sought to oust Cook before the September meeting of the Fed’s interest rate-setting committee. But a judge ruled that the firing was illegal, and a divided appeals court rejected the Trumps administration’s emergency appeal.
A day after the meeting concluded with a one-quarter of a percentage point reduction in a key interest rate, the administration turned to the Supreme Court in a new emergency appeal.
The White House campaign to unseat Cook marks an unprecedented bid to reshape the Fed board, which was designed to be largely independent from day-to-day politics. No president has fired a sitting Fed governor in the Fed’s 112-year history.
“President Trump lawfully removed Lisa Cook for cause from the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. We look forward to ultimate victory after presenting our oral arguments before the Supreme Court in January,” White House spokesman Kush Desai said.
The court already has suggested that it will view the Fed differently from other independent agencies and Wednesday’s order is another demonstration of that distinction, said Lev Menand, a professor at Columbia Law School and author of a book on the Fed.
The justices have allowed other firings to take effect while legal challenges proceed, including in the case that will be argued in December involving Rebecca Slaughter, whom Trump fired from the Federal Trade Commission.
“The court seems to be steering a different course here,” Menand said. “It has the effect of freezing the status quo that is in favor of Fed independence.”
Cook, who was appointed to the Fed board by Democratic President Joe Biden, has said she will not leave her job and won’t be “bullied” by Trump. Her lawyers said in a statement Wednesday that the court’s decision “rightly allows Governor Cook to continue in her role on the Federal Reserve Board, and we look forward to further proceedings consistent with the Court’s order.”
Separately, Senate Republicans recently confirmed Stephen Miran, Trump’s nominee to an open spot on the Fed’s board. Both Cook and Miran took part in last month’s meeting. Miran was the sole dissenting vote, preferring a larger cut.
Trump has accused Cook of mortgage fraud because she appeared to claim two properties, in Michigan and Georgia, as “primary residences” in June and July 2021, before she joined the Fed board. Such claims can lead to a lower mortgage rate and smaller down payment than if one of them was declared as a rental property or second home.
“Put simply, the President may reasonably determine that interest rates paid by the American people should not be set by a Governor who appears to have lied about facts material to the interest rates she secured for herself — and refuses to explain the apparent misrepresentations,” Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote in his Supreme Court filing.
Cook has denied any wrongdoing and has not been charged with a crime. According to documents obtained by The Associated Press, Cook specified that her Atlanta condo would be a “vacation home,” according to a loan estimate she obtained in May 2021. In a form seeking a security clearance, she described it as a “2nd home.” Both documents appear to undercut the administration’s claims of fraud.
U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb ruled that the administration had not satisfied a legal requirement that Fed governors can only be fired “for cause,” which she said was limited to misconduct while in office. Cook joined the Fed’s board in 2022.
Cobb also held that Trump’s firing would have deprived Cook of her due process, or legal right, to contest the firing.
By a 2-1 vote, a panel of the federal appeals court in Washington rejected the administration’s request to let Cook’s firing proceed.
Trump’s lawyers have argued that even if the conduct occurred before her time as governor, her alleged action “indisputably calls into question Cook’s trustworthiness and whether she can be a responsible steward of the interest rates and economy.”
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AP Economics Writer Christopher Rugaber contributed to this report.
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Follow the AP’s coverage of the Federal Reserve System at https://apnews.com/hub/federal-reserve-system.
NEW YORK (AP) — Wall Street still doesn’t seem to care much about the latest shutdown of the U.S. government, and U.S. stocks are rising toward more records on Wednesday, but yields are sinking in the bond market following the latest discouraging signals on the economy.
The S&P 500 rose 0.4% and was on track to top its all-time high set last week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was adding 105 points, or 0.2%, to its own record set the day before, while the Nasdaq composite was 0.5% higher, with an hour remaining in trading.
The action was stronger in the bond market, where Treasury yields dropped after a report suggested hiring may have been much weaker across the country last month than economists expected.
Employers outside the government actually cut 32,000 more jobs than they added, according to the survey by ADP Research, with the Midwest taking particularly hard hits. What’s worse, the survey also revised down its numbers for employment in August, down to a loss of 3,000 jobs from a previously reported gain of 54,000.
Usually, traders on Wall Street wait for a more comprehensive jobs report that comes from the U.S. government each month to suss out how the job market is doing. The U.S. government gets its data from a larger sample of employers than the ADP survey, which does not have a perfect track record predicting what the more comprehensive report will say each month.
But the next Labor Department report, scheduled for Friday, is likely to be delayed because of the shutdown of the U.S. government that began just after midnight.
“Whether this is an accurate statistic or not, people in the markets believe that it signals something,” according to Carl Weinberg, chief economist at High Frequency Economics. “The signal from today’s headline will not be a good one.”
The hope on Wall Street has been that the job market will continue to slow by a very precise amount: enough to convince the Federal Reserve to keep cutting interest rates, but not by so much that it brings a recession.
That’s a delicate balance to achieve, and every economic report from the U.S. government that gets delayed only increases the uncertainty about whether it’s possible. Stocks have already run to records on expectations for coming cuts to rates, so a lack of them could send the market lower.
To be sure, the stock market and economy have typically powered through past shutdowns, particularly if they are short in duration. But this shutdown could be different in a couple ways, including the threat that the White House may use it to push for large-scale firings of federal workers.
On Wall Street, Nike rose 5.9% after blowing past analysts’ expectations for profit in the latest quarter. The athletic giant reported strong growth for apparel sold in North America.
Lithium America’s stock that trades in the United States jumped 23.9% after the Canadian company said the U.S. government agreed to let it draw from a previously announced $2.26 billion loan. As part of the agreement, the U.S. Department of Energy will take an ownership stake in the Vancouver-based company.
Lithium Americas is developing a lithium project in Nevada with General Motors, and it follows Intel and other companies where the U.S. government has recently taken an ownership stake.
On the losing side of the market was Peloton Interactive, which dropped 6.7%. It got a cold reception to its unveiling of an AI and computer vision system, along with other equipment designed for cross training.
Corteva sank 9% after announcing a plan to split into two companies, each with its own stock. One will hold onto the company’s seed business, while the other will focus on crop protection.
Cal-Maine Foods fell 1.7% after the egg company’s profit and revenue for the latest quarter fell short of analysts’ expectations.
In stock markets abroad, indexes rose in Europe following a mixed finish in Asia.
In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury sank to 4.10% from 4.16% late Tuesday. It dropped as low as 4.09% earlier in the day.
Yields fell as the weaker-than-expected payroll report from ADP firmed expectations for coming cuts to rates by the Fed. So did another report showing that U.S. manufacturing was weaker last month than economists expected.
Several manufacturers told the Institute for Supply Management’s surveyors that they’re still feeling pain because of tariffs.
“Steel tariffs are killing us,” one manufacturer said.
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AP Business Writers Matt Ott and Elaine Kurtenbach contributed.
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Police in Northern California were understandably perplexed when they pulled over a Waymo taxi after it made an illegal U-turn, only to find no driver behind the wheel and therefore, no one to ticket.
The San Bruno Police Department wrote in now viral weekend social media posts that officers were conducting a DUI operation early Saturday morning when a self-driving Waymo made the illegal turn in front of them.
Officers stopped the vehicle, but declined to write a ticket as their “citation books don’t have a box for ‘robot’.”
“That’s right … no driver, no hands, no clue,” read the post, which was accompanied by photos of an officer peering into the car.
Officers contacted Waymo to report what they called a “glitch,” and in the post, they said they hope reprogramming will deter more illegal moves.
The department’s Facebook post has generated more than 500 comments, with many people outraged that police didn’t ticket the company. People also wanted to know how police got the car to pull over.
But San Bruno Sgt. Scott Smithmatungol said they can only ticket a human driver or operator for a moving violation, unlike parking tickets that can be left with the vehicle.
A new state law that kicks in next year will allow police to report moving violations to the Department of Motor Vehicles, which is figuring out the specifics, including potential penalties, the Los Angeles Times reports.
Waymo spokesperson Julia Ilina told the LA Times that the company’s autonomous driving system is closely monitored by regulators. “We are looking into this situation and are committed to improving road safety through our ongoing learnings and experience,” Ilina said.
Waymos currently operate in Phoenix, Los Angeles and San Francisco and in areas south of the city, including the suburb of San Bruno.
“It blew up a lot bigger than we thought,” Smithmatungol said of the viral post to The Associated Press on Tuesday. “We’re not a large agency like San Francisco.”
San Bruno has about 40,000 residents and a sworn police force of 50 officers, he said.
Waymo is owned by Google’s parent company, Alphabet.
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