Summary: U.S. District Court Judge Paula Xinis rejects WMATA dismissal Rashawn Williams trapped six days in Glenmont station area of refuge Lawsuit names WMATA and WeAchieve for alleged negligence   A breakdown of basic safety procedures inside a Maryland Metro train station allowed a man with Down syndrome to wander into a dark emergency exit corridor and become trapped there for six days, alone with no food or water, according to a federal lawsuit filed by the man’s family that a judge has ruled can continue toward trial. Rashawn Williams, 33, survived the 2023 ordeal but has grown fearful of the dark, has trouble sleeping, and is prone to unprovoked outbursts, according to the suit against the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority. The authority’s recent effort to dismiss the suit, arguing among other claims that Williams had become a “trespasser,” was rejected in a 10-page memorandum issued on Aug. 4 by U.S. District Court Judge Paula Xinis. “A modicum of basic communication with Williams to ensure he left the station safely can hardly be considered ‘burdensome’ to WMATA,” Xinis wrote. Williams, who is described by his family’s attorneys as nonverbal and in need of 24-hour supervision, had made his way alone to the station the night of Oct. 20, 2023, after slipping away from his caregiver hours earlier. At the station, the lawsuit alleges, he walked to a kiosk “where he stood waiting for assistance.” He did not receive any, according to the lawsuit, because the employee there was on a personal call. “WMATA employees ignored Williams’ clear signs of distress,” Xinis wrote. Williams eventually wandered through a door that locked behind him into an “Area of Refuge”, or AOR, which was supposed to be checked daily. By then, police and his family were frantically searching large areas for him. On day 5, according to the lawsuit, Williams’ father, Jimmy Hall, began the painful process of expanding his search to dumpsters and wooded areas. The next day, a police officer searching the Glenmont station for Williams spotted the emergency exit, was led through it by a station manager, and suddenly found Williams. “Evidently, no Metro personnel inspected the AOR on the night Williams became trapped, or for six days thereafter,” the judge wrote, adding the italics for emphasis. “Williams had no light, water, food or toilet facilities. Montgomery County Police Department found Williams severely dehydrated and undernourished, ‘covered’ in his own urine and feces, with bugs nesting in his hair.” A WMATA spokesperson said the authority does not comment on ongoing litigation. “The federal court’s opinion should be a wake-up call to WMATA, which has apparently learned nothing from what happened to Rashawn,” one of the attorneys, Timothy Maloney, told The Washington Post on Aug. 6. “As long as WMATA denies responsibility for disabled patrons like Rashawn, more tragedies are likely in the future.” The lawsuit also names WeAchieve, the nonprofit agency responsible for monitoring Williams, as a defendant. WeAchieve did not file a motion to dismiss the lawsuit, but in an earlier filing, the agency generally denied allegations of negligence or intentional misconduct and blamed WMATA for any injuries allegedly sustained by Williams, according to court records. Officials at WeAchieve and their outside attorney did not respond to requests for comment. The lawsuit, which seeks unspecified damages, was filed by Williams’s father and stepmother, his legal guardians. Around 2022, Williams’ father said, a fire at the group home led to his son and others to be relocated to suites at a Residence Inn on the eastern edge of Montgomery County. While there on Oct. 20, 2023, at about 6:20 p.m., Williams indicated to his caregiver — who was supervising three other people with disabilities — that he needed to use the bathroom, according to the lawsuit. While the caregiver went to get a key, Williams walked away, rode an elevator to the lobby, passed the front desk, and walked to a bus stop, according to the lawsuit. He boarded a bus. Police were called at 6:41 p.m. Williams’s parents were notified by WeAchieve at 7:39 p.m., the lawsuit states, and they quickly joined the search. At some point that night, Williams got off the bus and rode at least one Metro train for several hours. Shortly after midnight, a train he was on pulled into the Glenmont station to stop its service for the night, according to the lawsuit. A WMATA employee found Williams, who did not understand the train was out of service, and told him to get off but offered no further help, according to the suit. Williams remained on the platform, visibly confused, and later approached the kiosk, according to station video cited by the lawsuit. He then made his way through the emergency exit door and into a second room near a stairway and ladder to the street, according to the suit. It was in that spot where the police officer found him. In her opinion, Xinis cited WMATA directives as described in the suit. “Per WMATA’s written policies, personnel must inspect the AOR daily,” she wrote, “and must not take personal calls at the expense of assisting passengers.” In asking for the complaint to be dismissed, WMATA attorneys argued that at some point at the station, Williams stopped being a Metro user, which affected their duties owed to him. “Plaintiffs further fail to establish that Rashawn Williams was anything other than a trespasser when he reentered the station after service ended, that WMATA assumed an open-ended duty of care through brief employee interactions, or that WMATA denied him access to a public benefit by way of his disability,” they wrote. Xinis did not agree. That Williams, she wrote in her opinion, “found himself in a room that WMATA calls an ‘area of refuge’ further suggests that passengers may very well have occasion to enter the room in an emergency. This is quite likely why Metro personnel are required to inspect the area every day.”

Summary: GAO audit covers june 2025 to august 2025 DOGE claimed $215 billion in savings, GAO verified $110 billion Nearly 2,000 contracts DOGE claimed terminated were not ended The U.S. DOGE Service, the cost-cutting group spearheaded by Elon Musk, consistently overstated its savings in online posts, taking credit for lease cancellations initiated before the group existed, according to a report from a government watchdog expected to be released on Aug. 6. DOGE also claimed contracts were terminated that had not been and loaded its database with savings that could not be verified, the report said. In an audit spanning from June 2025 through this month, the Government Accountability Office examined savings claimed by DOGE, the group that swept through federal agencies after President Donald Trump began his second term last year, dismantling the U.S. Agency for International Development and much of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The report, which came after a request by Democratic Sens. Gary Peters of Michigan and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, provides the most comprehensive government assessment of DOGE’s public accounting of its impact, bringing the organization’s figures further into doubt. Though Musk aimed to cut $2 trillion in federal spending, even by DOGE’s own estimates it fell well short. A sporadically updated website tallying its cuts in a “Wall of Receipts” stated that its initiatives had saved $215 billion. The GAO examined $110 billion of this claimed savings that derived from contracts, grants and leases. Among the issues identified by GAO: DOGE’s “Wall of Receipts” “includes leases identified for termination before was established,” according to the report. In total, 108 of 264 leases DOGE identified on its website “were already in process for termination” when it came into being, the GAO said. In addition, DOGE claimed to have terminated 13,476 contracts, but the GAO analysis showed nearly 2,000 of these contracts “were not terminated.” Of $61 billion in contracts savings DOGE reported, the GAO said more than half the funds — nearly $35 billion — were either not terminated or unable to be corroborated by the investigators, because DOGE’s data was not specific enough to identify it. Roughly $27.4 billion of the savings DOGE claimed from cancellations were from contracts that were not actually terminated, the GAO said. “In these cases, another action, such as reducing the contract value or deobligating some funds could have occurred,” it said. From the watchdog’s analysis of federal procurement data, “we found that DOGE did not accurately report actions taken on contracts,” the GAO said in the report. Musk and the White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment. “Elon Musk and the Trump administration claimed billions of dollars in savings it could not substantiate, took credit for work already underway, and refused to show its work, all while putting Americans’ sensitive data at risk and hollowing out critical agencies,” Sen. Peters said. The GAO investigation was conducted at the request of Senate Democrats who sought greater accountability of DOGE’s dealings. The findings were shared with administration officials and lawmakers ahead of its Aug. 6 release. Although DOGE promised massive savings, the accounting of its cuts on its website didn’t come close, fact-checkers and media outlets found. Updates to the website slowed to a trickle after Musk left and some of the “savings” were later removed. Federal workers told The Washington Post that DOGE added red tape and extra hurdles even as it touted regulation cuts on its website. The GAO said it sought to speak with DOGE officials and submitted written questions to the group. However, it said, “the U.S. DOGE Service did not respond to our inquiries.”

Summary: Sen. Ron Wyden calls for federal bank probe Bank of America failed to report $170 million payments JPMorgan allegedly delayed reporting over $1 billion transfers   U.S. Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden called for federal regulators to probe big banks over their handling of Jeffrey Epstein's accounts after what Wyden said was potential evidence surfaced that the banks failed to report suspicious transactions linked to the late convicted ​sex offender. In a report released on Aug. 4, Wyden alleged that Bank of America, Deutsche Bank and JPMorgan Chase may have violated federal anti-money-laundering laws by failing to report Epstein's suspicious transactions in a timely manner. Wyden's four-year investigation included a review of so-called suspicious activity reports, or SARs, which banks file to the Treasury Department, materials from lawsuits and court filings, and information the senator sought from Wall Street banks and the U.S. Treasury. Bank of America failed to properly screen and report $170 million in payments to Epstein, Wyden's report said, adding that the bank years later concluded in suspicious activity reports that the transactions had no verifiable business purpose. "We take our legal and regulatory obligations seriously and, as we have previously said, the bank did not facilitate wrongdoing,” a BofA spokesperson said. Deutsche Bank failed to report on time more than $250 million in suspicious wire transfers tied to Epstein, including payments to women in Russia and other parts of Eastern Europe, the report said. Deutsche Bank said in a statement that it takes its legal obligations seriously and regrets its historical connection with Epstein. Wyden's report also alleged that JPMorgan delayed reporting over $1 billion in suspicious Epstein-linked transfers to the Treasury, including payments to women in Russia and Belarus. A spokesperson for the bank said that was false. "We began flagging suspicious transactions for the government as early as 2002 and throughout our relationship ... even after we closed his accounts," she said. "We acted appropriately on what we knew, when we knew it, as the law requires." Epstein was a JPMorgan client from 1998 until the bank cut him off in 2013, years after he pleaded guilty to prostitution-related charges. Deutsche took him on as a client in 2013 after JPMorgan closed his accounts. "We have cooperated with regulatory and law enforcement agencies regarding their investigations and have been transparent in addressing deficiencies and investing in strengthening our control environment in parallel," a Deutsche Bank spokesperson said. Reuters couldn't verify the details of the report. An administration official said Treasury does not comment on investigations, including to confirm or deny whether one exists. Treasury has fully cooperated with valid requests for information from Congress, the official said. Epstein died in a Manhattan ​jail cell in August 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. His death was ruled a suicide by New ‌York City's ⁠medical examiner. Wyden is one of several lawmakers probing Epstein's relationships on Wall Street. (Reporting by Arasu Kannagi Basil in Bengaluru; additional reporting by Tatiana Bautzer and Tom Sims; editing by Michelle Price and David Gaffen)