SEC

The Home Secretary has vowed to do whatever it takes to secure the UK’s borders as she unveils a Farage-style crackdown on migrants.

The government will slap tough new conditions on migrants requiring them to prove they are valuable to society or face the boot, Shabana Mahmood MP said during a speech at Labour conference on Monday.

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The plans are Labour’s latest attempt to wrestle ownership of the immigration issue off Reform, which has led the debate and gained huge popularity.

In order to earn indefinite leave to remain (ILR), migrants will have to learn to speak a “high standard” of English, Mahmood said on Monday.

Most migrants can currently apply for ILR after five years of living in Britain – handing them the right to live here forever.

But that may soon double to ten years and be limited to those who pay National Insurance, Mahmood revealed in her first Labour Party conference speech.

Migrants will also be required to have a clean criminal record, not claimed benefits and prove a record of volunteering in local communities.

The Home Secretary promised to “do whatever it takes to secure our borders”.

She said: “Time spent in this country alone is not enough. You must earn the right to live in this country.”

Meanwhile, Mahmood slammed Mr Farage as “worse than racist… it’s immoral”.

Officials say the new “earn it” system will allow migrants to “earn down” the ten-year wait through positive contributions – or “earn up” if they fail to pull their weight.

But the crackdown does not apply retrospectively, meaning the so-called “Boriswave” of approximately 1.3million who arrived between 2021 and 2024 can still qualify for ILR after just five years.

It is understood Ms Mahmood is weighing a separate emergency fix just for them, though it may not be the same model.

One source close to the Home Secretary said: “For anybody who is in the country now, the new conditions don’t apply.

“But she is looking closely at what to do about the Boris wave, because she is concerned about what happens when that group passes beyond the five-year mark and automatically receives ILR.”

Lawyers have warned any retrospective move would spark fierce legal challenges.

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Ashley Stothard, Immigration Lawyer at Freeths, said on applying the ten-year rule retrospectively: “I think that change would be challenged by judicial review on the basis that it’s unfair.

“We saw a similar situation back in 2008 when the Government attempted to retrospectively change the criteria for the Highly Skilled Migrant Programme.

“That challenge was successful, and the new criteria were not applied to those already in the UK.

“The case upheld the principle that immigration policy should be fair and transparent. Migrants in the UK have a legitimate expectation that they can qualify for Indefinite Leave to Remain under the rules in place when they entered.”

Ms Mahmood yesterday warned Labour members they might not like her migrant crackdown.

She said: “In solving this crisis, you may not always like what I do. We will have to question some of the assumptions and legal constraints that have lasted for a generation and more.

“But unless we have control of our borders and until we can decide who comes in and who must leave, we will never be the open, tolerant and generous country that I know we all believe in.”

Nigel Farage’s anti-immigration Reform UK, which is leading in opinion polls, said last week it was considering scrapping “indefinite leave to remain”, and replacing it with a five-year renewable work visa.

Starmer accused Reform on Sunday of planning a “racist policy” of mass deportations, although he clarified he did not think Reform supporters were racist.

The report comes as the White House pushes to fire fed governor Lisa Cook for a similar reason.

United States Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent agreed to occupy two different houses at the same time as his “principal residence”, an agreement similar to the one US President Donald Trump has called mortgage fraud in his effort to fire Fed Governor Lisa Cook.

The story, first reported by the Bloomberg news service on Wednesday, cites Bessent’s mortgages with lender Bank of America and his pledge in 2007 to primarily occupy homes in New York and Massachusetts.

Mortgage experts told Bloomberg there was no sign of wrongdoing or proof of fraud in Bessent’s home-loan filings and said the issue highlights incongruities found in such documents.

Bank of America did not rely on Bessent’s pledges and never expected him to occupy both homes as his primary residences, Bloomberg reported, citing the mortgage documents.

Representatives for Bessent did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Republican president, who appointed Bessent to the Treasury post, and members of his administration have accused Cook, an appointee of Democratic former President Joe Biden, of committing mortgage fraud, a claim Cook denies.

The White House did not respond to Al Jazeera’s request for comment.

Comparable to Cook

Congress included provisions in the 1913 law that created the Fed to shield the central bank from political interference. Under that law, Fed governors may be removed by a president only “for cause”, though the law does not define the term nor establish procedures for removal. No president has ever removed a Fed governor, and the law has never been tested in court.

Trump has sought to remove Cook for cause, citing the alleged fraud. A US appeals court on Monday declined to allow Trump to fire her. The White House has said it will appeal the decision to the US Supreme Court.

Trump’s Department of Justice also has launched a criminal mortgage fraud probe into Cook, issuing grand jury subpoenas in Georgia and Michigan, the news agency Reuters previously reported.

A loan estimate for an Atlanta home bought by Cook showed that she had declared the property as a “vacation home”, according to a document reviewed by Reuters. The property tax authority in Ann Arbor, Michigan, also said Cook had not broken rules for tax breaks on a home there that had been declared her primary residence.

Bloomberg, in its report on Wednesday, pointed to similar but not identical pledges made by a lawyer on Bessent’s behalf on September 20, 2007, agreeing to make a Bedford Hills, New York, house his “principal residence” over the next year, as well as another house in Provincetown, Massachusetts.

“There are people who think that President Trump is putting undue pressure on the Fed. And there are people like President Trump and myself who think that if a Fed official committed mortgage fraud, that this should be examined, and that they shouldn’t be serving as one of the nation’s leading financial regulators,” Bessent told Fox Business Network in an August 27 interview.

Bessent is not the only one. Close relatives of Bill Pulte – who was appointed by Trump as director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency and is the official who has accused Cook of mortgage fraud – have declared the same status on two homes in two different states, public records show.

Mark and Julie Pulte, the father and stepmother have claimed so-called “homestead exemptions” for residences in wealthy neighbourhoods in both Michigan and Florida, Reuters reported earlier, citing public records.

The exemption is meant to give a discount to homeowners on taxes for properties they use as their primary residence.

Sept. 15 (UPI) — Secretary of State Marco Rubio reaffirmed the United States’ relationships with Israel and Arab states during a meeting Monday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem.

The meeting comes less than a week after Israel said it targeted Hamas leaders in an airstrike on Qatar’s capital, Doha. Hamas confirmed the attack killed five members but not any senior officials.

Speaking at a news conference the meeting with Netanyahu, Rubio said every country was allowed “to defend itself beyond its borders.”

Asked whether the United States was involved in the planning of the strikes on Doha, Netanyahu told reporters, “We did it on our own. Period.” He said the relationship between Israel and the United States was as “durable as the stones in the Western Wall.”

The two leaders visited the holy site in Jerusalem’s Old City, with Rubio placing a note into the cracks of the wall.

“Your presence here today sends a clear message that America stands with Israel,” Netanyahu told Rubio.

Rubio, meanwhile, also told reporters that the United States maintains a strong relationship with Qatar and other Arab allies, who were meeting in an emergency session in Doha on Monday.

Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim al-Thani called on international leaders to punish Israel for the strike and stop holding the country to “double standards,” according to BBC News.

An unnamed source familiar with the meeting told CBS News that leaders at the meeting were expected to sign a draft resolution condemning Israel’s “hostile acts, including genocide, ethnic cleansing, [and] starvation” in Gaza.

A State Department official told CBS News that after Monday’s meeting with Netanyahu in Jerusalem, Rubio plans to travel to Qatar before heading to Britain for President Donald Trump‘s state visit.

Binance Founder Changpeng Zhao thanked the SEC Chairman Paul Atkins and the Trump team for “pushing back against regulation by enforcement.”

The SEC and Binance have filed a joint motion to end a nearly two-year legal dispute, marking yet another backdown in the agency’s dealings with crypto firms.

SEC Chair Paul Atkins, a former crypto lobbyist, has taken a much softer stance than his predecessor, Gary Gensler. It sends a message that the United States is open for crypto business, enhancing the industry’s potential to innovate and build without the risk of legal retaliation.

This vibe shift has been a driving force behind the recent crypto price rally, and the latest SEC settlement indicates that the trend isn’t slowing down. With that in mind, investors have real opportunity to profit if they successfully identify the best crypto to buy. So here are our top picks.

BTC Bull Token

BTC Bull Token is a Bitcoin-themed meme coin that pays real Bitcoin rewards. It will monitor Bitcoin’s price and run airdrops at key milestones. The first will occur when Bitcoin reaches $150K, and the second will happen when it hits $200K.

JD Vance recently spoke at the Bitcoin 2025 conference and said he expects the number of Americans owning Bitcoin to double from 50 million to 100 million in the near future. BTC Bull Token is actively working toward increasing Bitcoin ownership, which is why it could be a smart buy.

The project is currently undergoing a presale, which has raised over $6 million to date, indicating substantial market interest.

The project also has a staking mechanism that currently provides a 62% APY. Moreover, $BTCBULL has a built-in burn mechanism that will destroy a portion of the token’s total supply at key Bitcoin milestones. The first will be at $125K, and then with $50K increases afterward.

With a meme coin allure and innovative community reward features and tokenomics, everything is in place for $BTCBULL to thrive this year.

BNB

Solaxy

Solaxy is building the world’s first Solana layer 2 blockchain. Solana is another cryptocurrency that the Gary Gensler’s SEC deemed a security; however, that definition has been dropped under Atkins.

In fact, Solana has been embraced by the Trump administration, having even been added into the US’s newfound crypto stockpile.

While this positions Solana for growth, shrewd investors may buy Solaxy instead. Its layer 2 blockchain tackles Solana’s congestion issue, which leads to longer wait times and increased rates of transaction failures in periods of peak network activity.

The project is undergoing a presale where it has raised a whopping $42 million so far.

In recent weeks, Solaxy has made several major announcements, including a native DEX, a token launchpad, and the end to its presale in 17 days. All of this is culminating into a sense of FOMO, which is causing the Solaxy presale raise to soar.

However, with a promising use case and growing momentum, there’s every chance that this translates into the $SOLX price rallying once it hits exchanges.

XRP

While not directly related to the recent Binance-SEC news, XRP also experienced its own version of this a few weeks ago when the SEC dropped its long-standing lawsuit against Ripple Labs.

The next bull market rally will be the first time since 2020 that XRP has been able to climb without an overhanging lawsuit – that could result in explosive gains.

It’s no secret that XRP is a fan favourite cryptocurrency; its goal of being a cross-border payment solution for banks and institutions is surprisingly popular with retail investors.

With the lawsuit out of the way, investors may now purchase XRP with more confidence. This could generate bigger liquidity flows and cause the price to surge.

To understand the popularity of XRP, look back at its performance in November. It soared 5X and added $120 billion to its market cap in one month after Donald Trump won the US presidential election.

SPX6900

May 27 (UPI) — Human genetics testing firm 23andMe announced Tuesday it will voluntarily delist from the Nasdaq and deregister with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission after filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection earlier this year.

23andMe, known for its at-home DNA testing kits and genetic profiles, said it will file a Form 25 Notification of Delisting with the SEC “on or about June 6,” according to a company statement. Once the Nasdaq delisting becomes effective, the company will file a Form 15 to deregister with the SEC.

“As Nasdaq has not yet made the filing, the company is doing so voluntarily to permit it to file a Form 15 to deregister with the SEC,” the company said Tuesday.

23andMe announced in March that it would seek Chapter 11 proceedings in order to facilitate a court-supervised sale of its assets, as the California-based genetics company struggled financially after announcing it would cut its workforce by 40%.

“After a thorough evaluation of strategic alternatives, we have determined that a court-supervised sale process is the best path forward to maximize the value of the business,” Mark Jensen, chair and member of the Special Committee of the Board of Directors, said in March.

Last week, Regeneron Pharmaceuticals acquired the right to purchase “substantially all” of 23andMe’s assets after winning a bankruptcy auction in a deal worth $256 million. At its peak, the company was valued at around $6 billion. The transaction still needs to be approved by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Missouri, as well as other regulators.

“23andMe is a pioneer in consumer genetics and research, and we are excited for the opportunity to support their important mission and grow their platform and business,” Regeneron senior vice president Aris Baras said in a statement on May 19.

“We assure 23andMe customers that we are committed to protecting the 23andMe dataset with our high standards of data privacy, security and ethical oversight and will advance its full potential to improve human health,” Baras added.

Two years ago, the company disclosed that hackers had stolen ancestry and personal data from 6.9 million 23andMe customers. The leak included DNA data, birthdates, locations and profile photos. It spread to millions of other users through the DNA Relatives feature that provided information on account holders and their relatives.

According to an SEC filing in October 2023, 23andMe predicted a loss of between $1 million and $2 million in “onetime expenses” related to the breach.

One problem that promoters of cryptocurrencies have faced since the asset class first emerged is that its reputation stinks.

Crypto trading has become identified by regulators and in the public mind as a haven for scams, theft and other forms of sharp practice. The FBI, in its most recent annual report on cryptocurrency, found that crypto-related fraud has exploded. Criminality is “pervasive” in the field, the agency warned.

The elusive use case for crypto assets seemed to have been narrowed down to facilitating criminal fraud, ransomware attacks, drug and human trafficking.

Then came Donald Trump. During the presidential campaign and after his election, crypto promoters thought they were entering the nirvana of officially recognized legitimacy.

Trump signaled that he would end government regulatory initiatives on crypto, “in order to promote United States leadership in digital assets and financial technology while protecting economic liberty,” to quote the executive order he issued Jan. 23, effectively wiping out federal regulations on the class.

Things aren’t working out as they hoped. Since Trump returned to the presidency, his and his family’s involvement in crypto-related deals has critics charging that crypto has become an entirely new path for official corruption and conflicts of interest in the White House.

“Trump’s cryptocurrency ventures are nothing more than a fig leaf for payoffs from foreign nationals & foreign gov’ts,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) tweeted on May 7. Blumenthal’s target was the offer of a sit-down private dinner with Trump scheduled for May 22 at his Virginia golf club, and personal tours of the White House for the biggest buyers of $TRUMP, a “memecoin” assiduously promoted by Trump and his family.

The price of the coin soared to about $74 on Jan. 19, the day before Trump’s inauguration. It immediately fell in value, though its price has been propped up by the offer of the dinner and tours; the most recent quotes place it at about $13. The top 220 holders of the Trump coin, who are entitled to the dinner, spent nearly $148 million for the privilege, according to an estimate by Reuters.

More than half of the biggest holders appear to be foreign entities, according to an analysis by Bloomberg. That implies that the purchases might be designed to circumvent federal laws barring foreigners from making political contributions in the U.S.

Democratic Sens. Adam Schiff of California and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts demanded that the federal Office of Government Ethics, an independent executive branch agency, open an inquiry into the “severe risk that President Trump and other officials may be engaging in ‘pay to play’ corruption by selling presidential access to individuals or entities, to include foreign nationals and corporate actors with vested interests in federal action, while personally enriching the President and his family.”

DWF, a crypto firm based in the United Arab Emirates, announced last month that it had bought $25 million in coins issued by the Trump-affiliated firm World Liberty Financial, in part to “enhance regulatory engagement with U.S. policymakers.” Freight Technologies, a Houston logistics company, announced April 30 that it had borrowed $20 million to buy Trump coins, calling the transaction “an effective way to advocate for fair, balanced, and free trade between Mexico and the US.”

The unease has spread to Republicans on Capitol Hill, who fear that the Trumps’ crypto deals will undermine their efforts to enact crypto-friendly regulations.

“This gives me pause,” Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.), a leader in the legislative movement to pass a pro-crypto law, told NBC News. “Even what may appear to be ‘cringey’ with regard to meme coins, it’s legal, and what we need to do is have a regulatory framework that makes this more clear, so we don’t have this Wild West scenario.”

Trump’s activities already have derailed, if temporarily, the so-called GENIUS Act, which would regulate a form of cryptocurrency known as “stablecoins,” which are supposedly pegged to the value of underlying currencies such as dollars. Schiff and eight other Senate Democrats who had supported the measure have bailed on it, making passage in its current form virtually impossible.

Democrats in both chambers have introduced the “End Crypto Corruption Act,” which would bar the president, vice president, members of Congress and high-level executive branch appointees from issuing, sponsoring or endorsing any “cryptocurrency, meme coin, token, non-fungible token, stablecoin, or other digital asset that is sold for remuneration.”

Even some crypto promoters are no happier than the politicians. “They’re plumbing new depths of idiocy with the memecoin launch,” Nic Carter, a crypto investor and Trump supporter, told Politico.

As a crypto category, memecoins are disdained even by many participants in the field. They generally have even less utiilty or authenticity than mainstream cryptocurrencies, often originate as joke investments, and ride waves of pure hype. The Trump coin has no discernible value apart from its identification with Trump himself.

I asked the White House for comment on the accusations of corruption and received this reply from spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt: “President Trump is compliant with all conflict-of-interest rules, and only acts in the best interests of the American public.”

The memecoin isn’t Trump’s only venture into crypto, though some of his arrangements seem designed to give him plausible deniability if legal or ethics questions are raised. World Liberty Financial, which markets a crypto token designated $WLFI and a stablecoin designated USD1, is 60% owned by Trump and members of his family, who are entitled to up to 75% of the proceeds of sales of $WLFI.

The firm’s website features an image of Trump striking a heroic pose and says the WLFI token is “inspired by Donald J. Trump.” In the small print it asserts, however, that “any references to or quotes or imagery attributed to or associated with Donald J. Trump or his family members should not be construed as an endorsement or representation or warranty.”

Crypto investors really stepped up to the plate with political donations during the 2024 election cycle. Fairshake, the super PAC representing the class, spent nearly $41 million in contributions. That included $13 million to defeat two congressional candidates in Democratic primaries, Rep. Katie Porter (D-Irvine) and Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-New York). Both were known to favor stricter regulation of the asset class, and both lost their races.

The biggest crypto firms spent lavishly in 2023 and 2024 to fatten Fairshake’s war chest, which collected more than $162 million in that time frame; Coinbase contributed $46.5 million, Ripple Labs, $45 million and Andreessen Horowitz, a major crypto investor, $44 million. Much of the total was funneled to two other crypto-related political action committees, according to federal election records.

After the election, many of the firms, like more traditional businesses, made contributions of $1 million or more to Trump’s inauguration fund.

One can hardly deny that the crypto camp has gotten its money’s worth from the Trump administration so far. The Securities and Exchange Commission has dropped or deferred more than a dozen enforcement cases against Ripple, Coinbase, Gemini, Kraken and other crypto promoters.

The largest victory arguably belongs to Coinbase, the biggest crypto trading platform in the U.S. The SEC in 2023 charged the firm with running an unlawful trading exchange and marketing unregistered securities. The case reflected the SEC’s position that what crypto firms are marketing are securities by a different name, and thus need to be registered as securities so buyers and sellers get the same legal protections as stock and bond investors.

A federal judge in New York cleared the enforcement action to move ahead in 2024, after finding that the SEC had made a plausible case that Coinbase was operating illegally. The SEC dropped the case in February. Coinbase had asserted that the SEC was wrong “on the facts and the law,” and that “the case should never have been filed in the first place.”

Earlier this month, the agency settled its case against Ripple, which it had charged in 2020 with having raised $1.3 billion through unregistered securities. As part of the settlement, the SEC agreed to return to Ripple $75 million of a $125-million penalty it held in escrow. The settlement elicited a crisp rebuke from Commissioner Caroline A. Crenshaw, a member of the commission’s Democratic minority.

Crenshaw noted that the deal was part and parcel of the SEC’s effective abandonment of crypto regulation. “This settlement, alongside the programmatic disassembly of the SEC’s crypto enforcement program, does a tremendous disservice to the investing public,” she wrote.

That won’t be the end of the deregulation drive. On April 7, Deputy Atty. Gen. Todd Blanche — who was Trump’s defense attorney in the New York criminal case that resulted in guilty verdicts on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records — ordered an end to Justice Department regulatory cases based on interpreting crypto assets as securities or commodities. That closed down the government’s principal regulatory initiative against crypto promoters.

Blanche directed the DOJ’s Market Integrity and Major Frauds Unit to “cease cryptocurrency enforcement,” and disbanded the National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team, “effective immediately.”

There doesn’t seem to be any sign that Trump’s involvement with crypto will slow down even as he disembowels the government’s regulatory capacity over crypto ventures.

World Liberty Financial recently announced that Abu Dhabi would use its stablecoin to invest $2 billion in Binance, a multinational crypto firm that pleaded guilty and paid a $4.3-billion penalty in 2023 on charges of financial crimes including money laundering. Binance’s chief executive, Changpeng Zhao, also pleaded guilty and spent four months in U.S. prison.

Last month, the SEC put its civil case against Binance on hold for at least 60 days.

On its investor advice webpage, the SEC used to post a warning on its website about crypto. “Trendy investments are especially ripe for fraudsters so be aware there is a real risk of fraud,” it said. “Cryptocurrencies may be today’s shiny, new opportunity but there are serious risks involved.”

That page has been taken down.