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USA Today
6 minutes ago
- USA Today
National map battle
Good morning!🙋🏼♀️ I'm Nicole Fallert. "Can't even outdress my Labubu." Texas Republicans approve Trump-backed congressional map A new Texas state congressional map heads to the state Senate after the House passed the measure intended to flip five Democratic-held U.S. House seats up for grabs in the 2026 elections. Why this matters: This is a rare mid-decade redistricting to help President Donald Trump improve the GOP's odds of holding a narrow U.S. House of Representatives majority. Dozens of Democratic lawmakers temporarily delayed the bill's passage by staging a two-week walkout. What's causing a deadly outbreak in NYC? Civil rights attorney Ben Crump has filed lawsuits against two construction companies over what he called a "completely preventable" outbreak of Legionnaires' disease that has killed five people and sickened more than 100 others in New York City. An outbreak of the disease, which began July 25, has been clustered across five ZIP codes in Central Harlem. The city health department said the outbreak is linked to cooling towers, heat exchangers that use fans and water to cool down buildings. Construction companies and the city are accused of negligence when the towers filled with storm waters that bred bacteria. More news to know now What's the weather today? Check your local forecast here. Outer Banks brace for Hurricane Erin Hurricane Erin's higher tides and big waves are battering much of the East Coast. Beachfront property owners are bracing Thursday for the worst amid predictions of a storm surge of up to 4 feet and significant coastal erosion. Powerful waves of 15 to 20 feet are expected to slam beaches, especially in North Carolina, for 48 hours or more as the hurricane crawls northward offshore through at least Thursday. Late yesterday, the National Weather Service said about 7.7 million people were under coastal flood warnings and nearly 32 million were under coastal flood advisories along the East Coast. Erin is expected to stay hundreds of miles offshore, but impacts are forecast to worsen as it makes its closest approach to the U.S. mainland. Painting the southern border wall black The Trump administration is painting the U.S.-Mexico border fence black to make the steel so hot migrants won't climb it. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem unveiled the plans Wednesday in Santa Teresa, New Mexico, while workers ran paint rollers up the steel bollards behind her. When asked about the possibility that critics might call the heat-inducing paint job cruel, Noem said: "Don't touch it." As USA TODAY has previously reported, hundreds of miles of 30-foot barrier at the border already pose a deadly threat to migrants who attempt to scale the fence. El Paso Times, part of the USA TODAY Network, captured these photos of the steel border wall painted black. Today's talkers 🏈 Path to Playoff: Sign up here for USA TODAY's new college football newsletter. Sara Errani and Andrea Vavassori are doubles trouble The U.S. Open mixed doubles competition, largely an afterthought in the past, debuted a revamped format this week and energized crowds at Arthur Ashe Stadium in New York. In part, that's thanks to a star-studded, 16-team field that included names like Novak Djokovic, Emma Raducanu and Carlos Alcaraz. Not to mention some riveting tennis: In the final Wednesday night, defending champions Sara Errani and Andrea Vavassori outlasted Iga Swiatek and Casper Ruud 6-3, 5-7, 10-6. The Italian duo proved mixed doubles players can hold their ground against the world's best singles players. See photos of the biggest stars in the reimagined mixed doubles competition. Photo of the day: Goal for Gotham! Defending champion Gotham FC kicked off the 2025-26 Concacaf W Champions Cup with a 2-1 victory against Monterrey on Wednesday. The winner of the competition will qualify for both the 2027 FIFA Women's Champions Cup and the inaugural FIFA Women's Club World Cup in 2028. Follow with Studio IX, USA TODAY's women's sports hub. Nicole Fallert is a newsletter writer at USA TODAY, sign up for the email here. Want to send Nicole a note? Shoot her an email at NFallert@
USA Today
2 hours ago
- USA Today
Relying on AI for money advice? What financial experts think of chatbots' responses
From grocery lists to help creating a website to promote her work as a realtor, Jennifer Allen says she uses ChatGPT for everything. When unexpected hospital bills and time away from work after giving birth led her to rely on credit cards, she knew her debt was growing. But she was scared to tally the total amount and rarely looked at her bank accounts. Until one day, she wondered if ChatGPT, or 'Chat,' as she calls it, could help. She fed the chatbot required information and it told her she had amassed $23,000 in debt. Surprised by the number, she wondered how she could pay it off. Allen said she didn't even think about consulting a financial planner. She did, however, ask ChatGPT. 'Even if a financial planner told me something, I would still go to Chat to run it by them,' Allen told USA TODAY. She prompted the chatbot to give her one thing she could do every day to help pay down her debt, and documented the process on TikTok. By the end of two 30-day challenges, she'd come up with $13,078 by following the bot's advice and earned additional money from the TikTok Creator Rewards Program. She said she now has a little less than $5,000 in debt remaining. While not everyone follows ChatGPT's advice every day, the chatbot has experienced rapid growth. It's reaching about 700 million users weekly – four times more than last year, according to OpenAI's Nick Turley. ChatGPT isn't the only artificial intelligence model people are relying on for information. A Morning Consult survey found more than half of U.S. adults said they refer to AI-generated summaires when searching online and 1 in 10 said they don't consult other sources. A Southeastern Oklahoma State University questionnaire found that 1 in 3 Americans have used an AI tool to make a career decision. Some think the technology will transform the financial planning space. Others warn against relying on it for money advice. And while some humans may be self-interested when saying they do a better job than AI, even companies behind popular chatbots advise caution. Large language models, like Gemini, can "hallucinate" and present inaccurate information as factual, according to Google. USA TODAY asked five popular chatbots common personal finance questions. Here's what they said and what financial experts thought of their responses: AI's advice on retirement savings USA TODAY asked ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot, Gemini, and Grok three personal finance questions in the same order – starting with one of the most common: How much money do I need to retire? Their answers were similar but not identical. In seconds, the chatbots generated somewhat lengthy responses, usually formatted in bullet points, giving examples and general advice with caveats. Grok was the only model to give a specific number in its final answer – about $1 million. But it, alongside ChatGPT and Copilot, also asked the user to provide more information. Gemini recommended using a retirement calculator and Claude suggested meeting with a financial planner. All pointed to the 4% rule — a withdrawal strategy that says retirees can safely withdraw 4% of their savings during the year they retire and then adjust for inflation each subsequent year. However, the rule is more than 30 years old and its creator said it was outdated in 2022. 'There is not one number for everybody. If the chatbot tries to answer this question without asking for information, that's useless,' said Annamaria Lusardi, who heads Stanford's Initiative for Financial Decision-Making. 'The 4% rule of thumb is completely outdated... If you follow it, you have a very high probability of running out.' More: The right financial adviser can help you navigate a shaky economy. We rank the top firms. AI's advice on credit scores The chatbots' responses to the question 'How do I improve my credit score?' were nearly identical. They suggested stategies like paying bills on time, keeping credit utilization low, and maintaining a healthy mix of credit. 'This is a much easier question for ChatGPT to answer correctly because there is all of this information, for example, on the FICO score website,' Lusardi said. 'If you compare these two questions, this is really a type of situation where you can have rules for everyone.' Greg Clement is the CEO and Founder of Freedomology, a technology and coaching company that launched its own chatbot dedicated to helping people with their finances, health, and relationships. He worked as a financial planner for eight years and thinks popular AI models can be useful when people have financial questions but that their answers are still 'very vague and generic.' 'It's almost as if you're talking to 100 financial planners and you ask the same question to 100 people and you try to consolidate all of their answers into one summary,' Clement said. Between AI's documented bias and inabilty to understand things on a human level, Tori Dunlap, a money expert who founded Her First 100k, is skeptical of people relying on the technology. 'It's there as your digital robotic personal assistant. It's not meant to challenge you or push back, or help you think differently. That's something a coach or expert can you help you do,' Dunlap said. 'I would also say though, if you're going to go from no financial advice to ChatGPT, I will take ChatGPT every time.' What happens when you give AI specific numbers? Using the median household income and down payment in Illinois, USA TODAY asked the chatbots what home price a couple could afford in that state. Before giving a number, most asked the user to consider factors including their debt-to-income ratio, private mortgage insurance, and property taxes. But without asking for more information, each gave a different range. ChatGPT and Gemini were the most optimistic, suggesting $300,000 to $320,000 and $275,00 to $325,000, respectively. Claude said $245,000 to $270,000 and Copilot said $225,000 to $250,000. Grok gave the lowest range from $200,000 to $240,000. 'Personal finance is about our life. I don't know that I would leave it to just artificial intelligence without a careful check and being aware that different ones will give me different results,' Lusardi said. 'Some of these suggestions can be very simple and potentially not very useful.' Dunlap said the chatbots' variety of answers is the result of them not having enough information. If someone asked her this question, she said she'd follow up by asking about their credit score, their ideal mortgage payment, and interest rates. 'But before we even do that, my question is: Do you actually want to be a homeowner or do you just feel like you need to in order to be successful?' she said. 'By definition, you're talking to a robot. You're not talking to somebody who understands real complex human emotion.' After all, if someone asks AI this question, they're talking to a chatbot who has never experienced homeownership. 'If a young couple in the Freedomology community would ask the same question, they'd probably get answers from people that have owned a house for 10 or 20 years,' Clement said. 'How do you replace that? I don't think you can.' What do AI companies recommend? In USA TODAY's chats with the AI models, several included disclaimers that they were not financial advisers, and AI companies have some safeguards in place to fact check their responses. Google's double-check feature highlights any information that is contradicted online. The company's help center notes that people should not rely on Gemini for financial advice. A spokesperson for Anthropic, the company behind Claude, said they are encouraged to see people using the model as a financial literacy tool to demystify topics like compound interest and credit scores. However, they said while Claude can help people become more informed, it should not replace licensed professionals for personalized financial decisions. They recommend using Claude to learn and prepare smarter questions, but to rely on certified professionals who can give personalized advice when it comes to actual investment decisions and retirement strategies. 'The most successful approach we see is people using Claude to level up their financial literacy, then taking that knowledge into real-world decisions,' the Anthropic spokesperson said in a statement to USA TODAY. 'They understand the terminology, recognize better opportunities, and feel more confident, whether they're negotiating a car loan, choosing between job offers, or preparing for retirement planning meetings. That's where AI genuinely helps — making financial knowledge accessible to everyone.' In another statement to USA TODAY, a spokesperson for Microsoft said Copilot's Deep Research mode can help people make well-informed choices in areas that require careful evaluation, including financial decisions. 'As we look ahead, we're focused on making Copilot an even better AI companion; one that's more personal and feels natural being used in everyday life,' the spokesperson said. 'AI can still make mistakes, so we always recommend people check sources and reach out to a financial adviser if needed.' While Allen said she doesn't take everything AI says at face value, she credits it as a reason she went from not knowing how much debt she had, to paying a majority of it off. 'That's what changed about this whole process,' Allen said. 'I'm not afraid. I have ChatGPT on my side.' OpenAI and xAI did not respond to USA TODAY's requests for comment. Reach Rachel Barber at rbarber@ and follow her on X @rachelbarber_
USA Today
2 hours ago
- USA Today
Tensions flare over gender pronouns as trans rights and religious freedom collide
Jocelyn Boden, 47, managed a Bath & Body Works store in West Valley City, Utah for 3½ years. In March, she hired a transgender man as a retail associate and, during their first shift together, Boden said she twice referred to the employee as 'she' in keeping with her faith as a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which teaches that gender is an immutable characteristic of a person's 'eternal identity.' After two associates corrected her, Boden informed her manager she would use the employee's chosen name but would not 'degrade my religious and moral beliefs by lying and calling this biological girl a he,' she told USA TODAY. Boden was fired. Her termination notice cited "unwanted conduct directed at an individual based on their sex, which includes sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression or transgender status." She says her termination was religious discrimination. Boden is at the forefront of a growing conflict between religious freedoms and transgender and nonbinary rights in the workplace. While some say correct pronoun usage to affirm someone's identity is a matter of basic respect, others view expectations they will use someone's chosen gender pronouns as an infringement of the First Amendment's protection of religious freedom. The standoff has only intensified as the political and legal landscape shifts. When an employee objects on religious grounds to using a colleague's pronouns that are not consistent with their sex assigned at birth, 'you have a clash of rights,' said Jonathan Segal, a partner with the Duane Morris law firm who advises companies on how to comply with discrimination laws. 'The question,' he said, 'is which one gives?' When employees refuse to use chosen pronouns According to a discrimination complaint Boden filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, her supervisor 'made no attempt to discuss my religious beliefs with me or to offer an accommodation.' Bath & Body Works has its employees wear 'I belong' pins on their aprons, but 'Bath & Body Works is obviously not tolerant of everyone,' Boden told USA TODAY. Bath & Body Works 'strives to foster a workplace where all associates are respected and valued' and does not discriminate 'in the treatment or management of our associates on the basis of any protected status,' the company said in a statement. 'While respecting the confidentiality of employment matters, we are confident that additional specifics will emerge in due course that will shed further light on this case.' In 2020, federal workplace protections were extended to LGBTQ+ employees for the first time when the Supreme Court sided with three employees who were fired because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. The ruling in Bostock v. Clayton County prompted a wave of claims from religious workers who were terminated for refusing to use coworkers' identified pronouns. Those claims got a boost from another Supreme Court decision broadening protections for religious workers and expanding the requirements employers must meet to accommodate their beliefs. In that case, an evangelical Christian and former postal worker, Gerald Groff, alleged he was discriminated against because he refused to deliver mail on Sundays. 'An employer must show that the burden of granting an accommodation would result in substantial increased costs in relation to the conduct of its particular business' to deny a request for religious accommodation, Justice Samuel Alito wrote for the court. In light of that ruling, a federal appeals court this month revived an Indiana music teacher's religious discrimination claim against his former employer, Brownsburg High School, over a requirement to use transgender students' first names and pronouns. Kluge taught at the school for four years. In 2017, the school district began requiring that teachers use transgender students' first names and pronouns. He requested and was granted a religious accommodation to refer to his students by their last names but, after complaints from a few students and teachers, the school district revoked the accommodation and Kluge left his teaching position. The school district declined to comment on pending litigation. Legal experts say the courts are still sorting out what constitutes undue hardship. Last year, a federal court ruled that a Washington state counseling and treatment center did not have to face discrimination claims from a Christian former employee because an accommodation exempting her from its pronoun-use policy would have exposed the organization to legal liability. 'The facts and circumstances of each case matter when it comes to determining whether a reasonable accommodation meets the Groff undue hardship standard,' Segal said. Steven Ressler, who was fired after five years from his job with IKEA in Indiana, says he informed his managers that using they/them pronouns conflicted with his Christian beliefs and requested a religious accommodation to refer to his colleague by their first name instead. One day later, Ressler says he was fired. "I received a written corrective action form citing my alleged misgendering as the reason for my termination," Ressler said in the complaint he filed with the EEOC and the Indiana Civil Rights Commission. "IKEA is an international corporation with numerous stores and thousands of employees and Mr. Ressler simply referred to his co-workers in a respectful manner consistent with his beliefs," his attorney Joshua Hershberger said. In a written statement, IKEA said it was committed 'to providing an inclusive workplace where all co-workers are treated with dignity and respect.' 'As a general principle, we do not comment on legal matters. However, in this instance, we feel it is important to clarify that our decision to terminate the co-worker was because he repeatedly violated the IKEA Code of Conduct and related policies regarding respectful and inclusive treatment of all co-workers,' the company said. 'Why trans people feel unsafe at work' LGBTQ+ advocates say the use of pronouns that align with a person's gender identity is an important signal of acceptance in the workplace for transgender and nonbinary employees who face high rates of on-the-job harassment and discrimination. Researchers at the UCLA School of Law Williams Institute estimate that 2.1 million Americans are trans adults − whose gender identity differs from the sex they were assigned at birth − a third of whom are trans nonbinary people. In 2021, researchers estimated 1.2 million LGBTQ adults identify as nonbinary, meaning their gender identity and expression fall outside the binary categories of "man" and "woman." From a cosmetics store in California to a restaurant in Michigan to a hotel in New York, trans and nonbinary employees across the country have filed lawsuits alleging hostile work environments including the repeated use of incorrect pronouns. Recently, Marz Marcello, 33 and a veteran of the podcast industry, sent a pitch to a podcast offering an expert as a guest. The person responded: 'Because you have they/them in your email signature, I will not be engaging any further. YOU ARE EITHER A MAN OR A WOMAN.' "This is real. This happens. Quietly. In inboxes. In 'friendly' or 'cool' industries," Marcello, who has openly identified as nonbinary for 15 years, wrote on LinkedIn. "Let's be clear: This is discrimination. This is unprofessional. This is why trans people feel unsafe at work." After they shared the email on LinkedIn, Marcello and their partner received death threats. "It does feel unsafe to just be visible," they told USA TODAY. 'But I am proud of who I am and I won't hide it." A Williams Institute survey last year found that 82% of trans employees have reported experiencing discrimination and harassment in the workplace at some point in their lives. Nearly 6 in 10 nonbinary employees reported experiences of discrimination and harassment. Brad Sears, founding executive director at the Williams Institute, said transgender and nonbinary people are especially vulnerable and marginalized groups in the workplace. In surveys, they share stories of coworkers and customers intentionally and persistently referring to them by the wrong pronouns. One Black nonbinary employee from Virginia said their boss regularly called them by their deadname – the name they used before transitioning. "We often think of discrimination as a discrete event that happens on a certain day," Sears said. "For those who are misgendered in the workplace, the experience can become an almost daily challenge." Is 'misgendering' unlawful? Since the Trump administration crackdown on diversity, equity and inclusion policies, some employers – especially government contractors – have retreated from trans-inclusive policies while others have become more cautious. Donald Trump leaned into anti-trans rhetoric on the campaign trail. Campaign ads attacking Democrats frequently focused on trans issues including one spot with the tagline: 'Kamala's For They/Them. President Trump is for you.' In one of his first acts in office, Trump issued an executive order recognizing only two sexes, male and female, and directed his administration to eradicate 'gender ideology extremism' in the federal government and elsewhere. Aligning herself with the president's agenda, acting EEOC chair Andrea Lucas has moved to roll back protections for transgender workers and strengthen religious rights in the workplace, dropping lawsuits on behalf of transgender workers, removing the nonbinary gender option from discrimination claim forms and rejecting previous guidance her agency issued that the repeated and intentional use of incorrect pronouns could contribute to a hostile work environment. 'Sex is binary (male and female) and immutable,' Lucas said in a January press release. 'It is not harassment to acknowledge these truths – or to use language like pronouns that flow from these realities, even repeatedly.' The 2020 Bostock ruling that federal civil rights law prohibits discrimination against workers on the basis of their gender identity did not address "bathrooms, locker rooms, or anything else of the kind." 'Whether other policies and practices might or might not qualify as unlawful discrimination," Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote, "are questions for future cases.' In 2024, the Biden administration weighed in with EEOC guidance that unlawful workplace harassment includes the 'repeated and intentional use of a name or pronoun inconsistent with the individual's known gender identity.' Some courts agreed, but in May a federal judge in Texas said the EEOC exceeded its statutory authority in "expanding the scope of 'sex' beyond the biological binary" and "defining discriminatory harassment to include failure to accommodate a transgender employee's bathroom, pronoun, and dress preferences" and gutted the guidance. 'Anti-trans discrimination is still against the law,' said David Glasgow, executive director of the Meltzer Center for Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging at the NYU School of Law. 'The tricky question is what exactly constitutes anti-trans discrimination.' The Jackson Lewis law firm recently told clients it's unclear whether employers 'can or should limit access to bathrooms and locker rooms based on biological sex and whether they must accommodate an employee's personal pronouns.' But, even without the EEOC guidance, 'courts may still conclude name-calling or repeated intentional misgendering could constitute unlawful harassment' under federal discrimination laws, the law firm wrote. 'As always, and as with most matters, employers can and should continue to require employees to treat everyone – regardless of their sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, religious belief or any other classification – with respect,' it advised.
