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The bill is now on its way to President Donald Trump for his signature. The White House did not respond to CNBC.com's request for comment on whether and when he might sign.

Claiming Social Security benefits at age 62 — when qualifying retirees first become eligible — may permanently reduce benefits by up to 30% compared with claiming at full retirement age. By waiting until age 67, individuals born in 1960 or later may receive 100% of the benefits they've earned. And for each year delayed past that "full" retirement age, up to age 70, prospective beneficiaries receive an 8% benefit boost.

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The Claiming Age Clarity Act calls for modernizing the terminology around those claiming ages to help retirees better understand the trade-offs of their decisions. It does not change the claiming ages themselves or how benefits are paid.

"This straightforward legislation aims to simplify bureaucratic jargon which may mislead Americans into making poor financial decisions," Rep. Lloyd Smucker, R-Pa., said in a statement when he introduced the bill with Rep. Don Beyer, D-Va., in 2025.

New terms use 'minimum,' 'standard' and 'maximum'

Under the terms of the bill, age 62 would be described as "minimum benefit age" rather than the term the Social Security Administration currently uses, "early eligibility age."

For age 66 to 67, when an individual receives 100% of their earned benefits depending on their birth year, the agency would use "standard benefit age" rather than the current "full retirement age."

And for age 70, the Social Security Administration would describe it as "maximum benefit age" rather than the current "delayed retirement age."

Social Security's funding challenges still loom

The Senate passing the bill is "great news for Americans making decisions about their Social Security benefits," Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., who proposed the Senate version of the bill in 2025, said on X. Now, Congress must "tackle the bigger challenge facing Social Security" regarding the insolvency dates the program's trust funds face, Cassidy said.

Social Security's funding woes are one of the reasons people often cite for claiming benefits early. Yet experts generally say it's often still in retirees' best interest to delay claiming for as long as possible up to age 70.

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"Changing the name is a good step, an important step, but there's more work to be done," said Shai Akabas, vice president of economic policy at the Bipartisan Policy Center. The Washington, D.C.-based think tank's lobbying affiliate, BPC Action, backed the bill.

The idea for the language changes started about 10 years ago, according to Akabas. Other efforts to strengthen communication around Social Security retirement claiming benefits are being considered, including increasing the frequency of mailed benefit statements, he said.

The Congressional Budget Office has not scored the Claiming Age Clarity Act for its costs. In the long term, the change should not significantly affect the program's finances, Akabas said. In the short term, it may actually save the program money, since it may prompt people to claim benefits later than they otherwise would, he said.

Ultimately, broader Social Security reform addressing the program's funding issues will require bipartisan compromise. The passage of the Claiming Age Clarity Act, while a smaller change, signals an opening for lawmakers on both sides of the aisle to continue talking about the program, Akabas said.

AARP also endorsed the Claiming Age Clarity Act. Research from the nonprofit organization, which represents Americans ages 50 and over, has found that while people know postponing Social Security increases their retirement benefits, they may not be sure about the exact age to maximize their benefits. %!s()

While the campaign impressed critics, the jury is still very much out

Image: The Coalition/Xbox Game Studios via Polygon

After a few brutal months of bad news, Xbox players finally have a little something to look forward to. The reviews are in for Gears of War: E-Day, the new prequel to Xbox's iconic third-person shooter series, and critics are impressed with developer The Coalition's latest. The jury is still out on the full game, though, as critics were only able to evaluate the shooter's single-player campaign ahead of launch. Its popular horde and multiplayer modes were not available for review.

As of this writing, Gears of War: E-Day has an aggregate score of 88 on Metacritic and 87 on Opencritic. That's a bit of a feat considering that some of the year's most anticipated games, including Control Resonant and The Blood of Dawnwalker, came in with less universal praise than anticipated. (Both are currently hovering at an 83 on Metacritic.) But considering that many reviewers are waiting for E-Day's multiplayer component to go live, we'll likely have to wait a week or two to see where its final score really lands. And that's likely to be lower than where it is right now, based on some down-to-Earth unscored reviews.

Gears of War: E-Day review scores are high, but multiplayer still needs rating

What we do know for sure is that the campaign is a hit with some critics. In IGN's work in progress review, which has a non-final 9/10 score attached to it, Ryan McCaffrey praised the shooter for bringing some unexpected emotional weight to the series. McCaffrey called out the game's new backstory for long-time heroes Marcus and Dom as a highlight. "Gears of War: E-Day does an excellent job of conveying both the uncertainty and the horror of what’s happening to these characters, even when we as players know exactly what’s going on," McCaffrey wrote.

ScreenRant's Chris Carter had similar praise in his 9/10 review. In addition to giving high marks for the shooting and story, Carter notes that Kalona, the city where the story is set, is part of what makes the prequel work. "The city of Kalona feels like a believable future location, and while things are in dire straits fighting off the powerful horde, the city itself is still standing, and it offers a ton of personality throughout the course of the campaign," Carter wrote.

While that may all sound promising, you may want to keep your long-term expectations in check. Several major outlets have yet to give E-Day a proper score. Based on some in-progress reviews, there's reason to think any Game of the Year ambitions will drop. PC Gamer's Abbie Stone called the campaign a "slog" despite the fact that the shooter plays as well as ever. Stone called out the campaign's repetitive gauntlet of shootouts that feel like a regression from Gears 5.

"Is the shooting strong enough to sustain this? Yeah, just, though it does get exhausting," Stone wrote. "It's an action movie with everything ripped out that isn't bullets going into bastards. The 20+ hour campaign is also waaaaay too long considering how one-note it is (well, aside from two crap shooting-from-a-turret-inside-a-helicopter bits, but I was planning on being nice and not bringing those up)."

Image: The Coalition/Xbox Game Studios via Polygon

Richard Wakeling at GameSpot was just as mixed in his in-progress review, which has a non-final 7/10 score. Wakeling noted that the tedious shooter feels too stuck in the past, missing an opportunity to do something bold with its prequel setup. On top of that, he believes that the story tries too hard to welcome in newcomers by rehashing well-trodden narrative moments.

"Introducing or refamiliarizing players with certain aspects of the Gear’s universe isn’t a knock on the game in and of itself, but the heavy emphasis on treating these known quantities as novel is indicative of a wider issue," Wakeling wrote. "E-Day seems uninterested in surprising longtime fans or appealing to the series’ own history."

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There are more so-so reviews out there that aren't weighing on aggregate scores currently, including mixed thoughts from Kotaku's Ethan Gach. Polygon's Ford James is part of that chorus, as he notes that the campaign is "intense, and after a while, exhausting." He particularly drew issue with the game's open-world segments, which he felt threw the game's pacing off.

All this is to say, don't get too excited just yet based on misleading aggregate scores. The dust hasn't settled on Gears of War: E-Day yet, and it won't until critics can get their hands on the multiplayer. Expect the reaction to settle somewhere closer to Gears 5 rather than the original three Gears of War games. %!s()

Other original stories are in the works at Rommi from authors Emma Grey (“The Last Love Note”) and Debbie Rigaud (“Simone Breaks All the Rules”). In addition to these original projects, Rommi is also adapting best-selling romance books, including “The Mixtape” by Brittainy Cherry and “This Spells Love” by Kate Robb.

Gordon, who will serve as CEO, and Malina, who is set as head of content, have also partnered with Morgann Book and Thomas Johnston of book-based media and production company Bookish Media to co-produce and collaborate on the company’s growing slate.

“As we witnessed the rapid global success of romance-themed verticals, we saw an opportunity to provide the romance reading community, who already blend reading, viewing, and posting on social media, with vertical movies that speak directly to them,” Gordon said. “We’re treating audiences to streamer-worthy rom-coms built for an accessible format they already love. We are using our years of experience in film and TV to offer truly satisfying entertainment for this passionate community.”

“It’s been great to see romance audiences finally getting the content they deserve with the recent explosion of projects such as Heated Rivalry, Off-Campus, and People We Meet on Vacation,” Malina said. However, there’s still an appetite for a steady flow of well-produced content to complement what traditional media is providing. Rommi will fill the gap between streaming and theatrical releases and give viewers a romantic escape wherever they want to watch.”

Gordon, who oversees the company’s overall strategy and business operations, is a New York City-based film and television producer and co-founder of Fugitive Films. Her credits include Emmy-winning PBS series “Half the Sky,” “A Path Appears,” the comedy “Humor Me” starring Jermaine Clement and Elliott Gould, the box office hit “Swimfan,” and the Oscar-nominated crime drama “In the Bedroom.” Gordon is on the board of Reel Works and is an adjunct professor at NYU Tisch.

“Centering the author’s voice and presence is integral to Rommi’s mission and brand,” Gordon said. “We are especially excited about our partnership with Bookish Media because they understand and exist within the romance fandom and have an unerring sense of what readers will find exciting.”

Malina leads Rommi’s content development and creative strategy, working with authors, creators, and filmmakers to bring romance stories to the screen. As longtime head of scripted programming at MTV/VH1, she oversaw the female-focused hits “Single Ladies” and “Hit the Floor” on VH1 and iconic movies for MTV, including 2Get+her and Hip-Hopera: Carmen, starring Beyoncé Knowles in her acting debut, among others. As an independent producer, her recent credits include Netflix’s “Resort To Love” and ABC/Hulu’s “Promised Land.”

“I started my career working on feature films with huge budgets and then moved to MTV where I needed to figure out how to grab viewers quickly by prioritizing creativity and speaking to their interests in an authentic way,” Malina said. “Launching Rommi is a similarly exciting leap because it explores a new storytelling format with no set rules and is meeting audiences where they most often are today.”

Pictured above: Maggie Malina (left) and Jamie Gordon (right) %!s()

But for the Trump administration, there’s one easy explanation: increased immigration enforcement. As the midterm elections approach, the White House has been doubling down on this message, saying its crackdown against immigrants is why US crime rates are now falling.

“We have the most secure border in the world, nobody comes in, unless they’re invited. Unless they have permission,” Trump said during a speech to the UN general assembly last week. “As a result, last year we achieved the largest drop in violent crime ever recorded.”

JD Vance, the vice-president, made a similar claim at a rally in Iowa the week prior. “When you get the violent criminals out of your country you see the largest drop in violent crime in the history of the United States of America,” he said. “Murder rates, because we got the bad guys out.”

But experts say this simply isn’t true.

There’s no data that proves mass deportations or enhanced immigration enforcement leads to lower crime rates, and the research that does exist shows there is no relationship between immigrants – documented or not – and homicide rates in the US, experts say.

“It’s a specious claim if you’ve never attempted to verify anything with actual facts and are willing to believe what the administration will tell you,” said Pratheepan Gulasekaram, a law professor at the University of Colorado, Boulder. “If you live in a fact-free world this is the type of nonsensical data you’re willing to imbibe.”

In addition, the plummeting homicide rate the US is experiencing now didn’t start during Trump’s second term. It started in 2023, when Biden was president, researchers say.

Even though there’s no evidence to back up the Trump administration’s claims, Gulasekaram said xenophobia is one reason why they resonate with many Americans. “There’s an intuitive appeal to that claim if you start with the premise that foreigners are so different from us and are the source of economic and social ills,” he said. “That feeds into that underlying sentiment and it becomes extremely sticky.”

Other conservatives are echoing the White House’s unsubstantiated claims by making the same link between immigrants and crime. In a May Instagram video, Erich Pratt, vice-president of Gun Owners of America argued that Americans are “enjoying unprecedented safety”, because of the Trump administration’s aggressive approach to immigration enforcement.

“It didn’t come from new gun restrictions,” he said in an email to the Guardian of the plummeting homicide rates across the US. “It came from a shift in priorities. President Trump implemented measures aimed at deporting violent gang members, ending catch-and-release policies for illegal aliens, and getting repeat offenders off the streets.”

A Guardian analysis published in February showed that more than 75% of people who entered deportation proceedings for the first time had no criminal convictions. Only 34 of more than 18,400 people arrested by ICE between 2025 and June this year were convicted of killing someone, according to DHS data. The most common convictions were for illegal re-entry, driving under the influence and a category marked as “other”.

It’s unclear how many undocumented migrants are currently in prison for murder convictions or have been convicted for killing someone since Trump took office. State prisons track demographic information such as age, race and type of conviction but, with the exception of Texas, immigration status is not one of them.

And by the federal government’s own acknowledgment, there is no comprehensive or centralized data on the citizenship status of people incarcerated in local jails and state prisons, the government accountability office said in a 28 September report.

Still, Trump has spent a decade claiming, without evidence, that undocumented migrants pose a safety threat to US citizens. In his 2016 presidential run, he repeatedly talked about the killing of Kate Steinle, a 32-year-old woman who had been killed in San Francisco the year before. The man accused of killing her was undocumented, but he was eventually acquitted. And during his 2024 run, he often spoke of Laken Riley, a nursing student who was killed while she was jogging. Her killer was an undocumented immigrant, and was sentenced to life in prison.

Researchers say that stories like these have long been used to push for tougher immigration policies and more deportations.

“The argument in their tragic cases is that they should have never been at risk because this person should have never been able to commit these crimes,” said Michael Light, a sociology professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “But that’s more of a political disagreement than an empirical one.”

Leaning on these kinds of anecdotes to determine immigration policy, and then claiming that they have led to public safety can cause misunderstandings of why homicides and other crimes have decreased, Light said.

“There’s no question that they’ve increased enforcement and we’ve seen a historic decrease in homicides,” he said. “But the idea that immigration policy is the only thing that’s changed is problematic. And if we misdiagnose what’s actually driving the homicide decline, that’s going to lead to bad public policy.”

This week, the Department of Justice announced a new $25m grant program to support people whose loved ones were killed or injured by undocumented migrants and fund law enforcement efforts to prevent future deaths.

The Guardian approached the DHS and the White House to request any data or research that can prove a causal relationship between immigration enforcement and the declining homicide rate. Both agencies reiterated their claims that deportations are the reason homicides are down, but did not supply any evidence. %!s()

The world's largest thoroughbred auction broke records this year despite concerns that the Gulf conflict would deter deep-pocketed racehorse buyers from the Middle East.

The Keeneland September Yearling Sale in Kentucky grossed $536.7 million this year, surpassing last year's record by about $5 million. At the two-week auction, which ended Sept. 26, 70 yearlings sold for at least $1 million, up from 56 last year, which broke a 19-year record. The average yearling price increased nearly 7% to $187,933.

The top lot, a dark bay colt with white socks, was bought for $3.7 million, by a group of investors including paper mogul Peter Brant. The colt was sired by champion stallion Into Mischief, who has produced three Kentucky Derby winners.

Horse breeder and accountant Len Green said tax breaks from the "one big beautiful bill" was an important driver of the strong auction results in recent years. At last year's September Sale, which took place two months after OBBBA was signed into law, sales jumped 24% from the year prior.

"If you happen to be successful and you wanted to have something that gives you a tax deduction and gives you publicity, taking pictures and being in newspapers, et cetera, that kind of thing, the horse business is a pretty damn good investment to make," Green said.

OBBBA permanently reinstated 100% bonus depreciation, a tax incentive that allows businesses to write off qualified business property. While bonus depreciation is more commonly associated with commercial real estate and private jets, businesses can write off 100% of a racehorse purchase in the first year of ownership. Racehorse owners can get more bang for their buck by writing off related assets like riding equipment and barns or forming an LLC, Green added.

He added that while the stock market and private-equity exits have created massive wealth, owning a sports team is still out of reach for many entrepreneurs. The racehorse industry has a much lower price of admission, he said.

Shannon Arvin, president and CEO of Keeneland, pointed to other factors, including higher purses in many racing jurisdictions.

Buyers from the Middle East, including members of the ruling families of Dubai and Qatar, have become a prominent presence at the top-end of the thoroughbred market.

Before the auction, Arvin thought it was possible that the Gulf conflict would deter Middle East buyers. However, it did not appear to impact attendance, she said.

"We always kind of hold our breath until they get here," she said. "But there wasn't anybody that we're aware of that didn't come because of the conflict."

Arvin said about a quarter of yearlings were purchased by international buyers, including from Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Libya. Keeneland does not break out specific numbers by country.

The biggest buyer at the auction was a newly formed partnership of four racing partnerships and owners, spending $16.2 million on 20 horses combined. While partnerships have become more popular, they haven't reduced sales in the way that was once feared, Arvin said.

"What we've actually seen is that these partnerships, because people are joined up, they tend to spend more," she said. "It lets them diversify their investment and have more opportunities for success. And what I found in talking to a lot of those buyers that decide to buy in partnership is that they love the camaraderie of buying with others, of buying with their friends." %!s()