Top Stories — Monday, September 8, 2025
What is trending in the USA today? Here is Breaking News:
- In a First, Korean Women Target U.S. Military in Suit Over Prostitution — nyt News
- Bank of America reports small business hiring down 6.7% year-over-year amid tariff surge — Fox Business
- From 'legislative terrorists' to center of Trump's DC revolution: Where key conservative caucus is now — Fox News
In a First, Korean Women Target U.S. Military in Suit Over Prostitution
Source: nyt News • Published: 9/8/2025, 5:39:39 PM
In a first, dozens of South Korean women who worked as prostitutes have filed a lawsuit accusing the United States military of illegally promoting the sex trade for decades and locking them up to forcibly treat them for sexually transmitted diseases.
In the lawsuit, announced in a news conference on Monday, the women demanded that the U.S. military apologize and pay damages for playing a hand in managing a vast network of prostitution around its bases in South Korea. Korean women who worked in bars and brothels frequented by American troops have reported rampant human rights violations.
In 2022, the women won a court ruling against their own government. South Korea's Supreme Court ordered the government to compensate dozens of women for the trauma they endured as "comfort women for the U.S. military," as they were once known. The court found the government guilty of encouraging prostitution for American G.I.s to help bring in badly needed U.S. dollars for the economy and maintain ties with the United States, on which it relied for security. It also said the government forced many women to receive treatment for sexually transmitted diseases in a "systematic and violent" way.
The latest lawsuit, which was filed at a Seoul court on Friday, was the first attempt by the women to hold the U.S. military accountable. The women and their lawyers said that the U.S. military was "the real culprit" in what was a state-sponsored sex trade, even allowing comfort women inside its bases and near its field training grounds.
On Monday, one 66-year-old woman said that she was 16 when she was sold to a pimp who catered to American G.I.s. She said that the U.S. military was aware that minors like her were brought into the trade through sex trafficking but did nothing to stop it.
She spoke at the news conference on the condition of anonymity, citing her fear of public shaming.
In South Korea, women like her have not won the kind of public sympathy extended to women forced into sexual slavery for Japanese soldiers during World War II. Instead, they said they have had to live in shame and silence for decades. Korean society despised them, they said, treating them like a shameful underside of its alliance with the United States that it wanted to obscure.
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Read the full story at nyt News.
Bank of America reports small business hiring down 6.7% year-over-year amid tariff surge
Source: Fox Business • Published: 9/8/2025, 5:30:54 PM
The Bank of America Institute reported that the firm's data signaled a slowdown in hiring by small businesses as tariff payments by firms that import goods have surged.
The report found that small businesses' payments to hiring firms fell for the third straight month in July, according to Bank of America's proprietary small business data. The firm's data showed that hiring was down 6.7% year-over-year on a three-month moving average, with July marking the third straight month of declines.
Taylor Bowley, an economist with the Bank of America Institute, told FOX Business in an interview that comes as a reversal from the start of the year and coincides with small business clients that make direct payments to customs seeing those expenses rise by nearly 170% from the start of this year amid the Trump administration's higher tariffs.
"We're starting to see construction and manufacturing hiring payments ramp up, whereas other sectors like retail and services have fallen off," Bowley said.
Small businesses have slowed their hiring amid rising tariff costs, Bank of America data showed. (James Carbone/Newsday RM via Getty Images / Getty Images)
Bowley noted that small business profitability growth has remained positive, it has started to decelerate and added that while consumer spending growth has increased, it's unclear at this time whether it's because consumers are buying more or if they're facing higher prices due to tariff price hikes on those goods.
She also said that the National Federation of Independent Businesses (NFIB) reported in a recent survey that the share of small business owners reporting poor sales as their top business problem reached the highest level since February 2021.
Bank of America's data showed that small businesses which make customs payments have seen those costs rise 170% this year due to higher tariffs. (Reuters/Stephanie Keith / Reuters Photos)
Bowley said that tariffs and the uncertainty facing businesses as they weigh their hiring decisions are leading to increased hiring in some sectors, though the higher costs from tariffs hit small businesses which are less able to shift their supply chains or handle the financial burden.
"We're also seeing a bit of a restriction in terms of the supply of workers which is leading to labor shortages," Bowley said, noting that trend is playing out in Bank of America's small business payroll payments growth.
"You're seeing sectors like construction, restaurants, lodging – payroll payment growth has increased since the start of the year, but this runs counter to what we're seeing in overall wage growth, where it's actually come down a little bit."
Tariffs are taxes on imported goods that are paid by the importer, who typically pass some or all of the higher cost on to consumers through higher prices. (Photographer: Sam Wolfe/Bloomberg via Getty Images / Getty Images)
Bowley noted instances of larger publicly-traded companies that have said tariffs are leading to price hikes on certain products in quarterly earnings calls, adding that small businesses have less leeway to change their sourcing or absorb tariffs in their profit margins.
"When we think about small businesses that can't, for instance, switch a supply chain as easily as it might be for larger corporations, it's unsurprising to me that we're starting to see profitability come down, because small businesses are just going to face more pressure on that front because they operate on thinner profit margins," she said.
Read the full story at Fox Business.
From 'legislative terrorists' to center of Trump's DC revolution: Where key conservative caucus is now
Source: Fox News • Published: 9/8/2025, 5:30:41 PM
A small group of Republican lawmakers who did not feel their leaders were pushing a conservative enough agenda first began meeting in secret a decade ago, huddling in small rooms both inside and outside the U.S. Capitol, while closely guarding their membership for fear of punishment by top House GOP leaders.
Fast-forward to Thursday morning, and the House Freedom Caucus (HFC) was welcoming its members, top GOP donors, Trump administration officials and even Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., to an ornate room inside Washington, D.C.'s Willard Hotel to mark its decade anniversary and its first annual policy summit.
"It's a big celebration and an anniversary for them, and I want to be a part of it," Johnson told Fox News Digital just before addressing the group. "Some of my closest friends are in this room."
The caucus that former House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, once called "legislative terrorists" are now at the center of key Republican policy fights in Washington. And while they're still a source of frustration for many GOP lawmakers – who find the group to be disruptive to Republicans' agenda – HFC is hiding no more and has the ear of some of the most powerful people in D.C.
The House Freedom Caucus has been at the center of several of Congress' legislative fights this year. (Getty Images)
"This was never our goal, you know, but we wanted to have an impact," Rep. Marlin Stutzman, R-Ind., a founding member of HFC who left Congress and returned in 2025, told Fox News Digital of the event at the Willard. "There's always a lot of agreement in the conference, like, 'Oh yeah, we would like to get there,' but…sometimes you kind of need the difficult people to help move it a little bit further to the right than what you thought you might be able to."
And rather than being a thorn in the side of Republican leaders, HFC is trying to work hand-in-hand with President Donald Trump to push for conservative policies.
They are not going against the grain any longer, House Freedom Caucus Chair Andy Harris, R-Md., told Fox News Digital.
"We're driving the grain," he said. "We work with the president to advance his agenda in the most conservative way possible, and we've been successful."
Border czar Tom Homan, who also addressed the event along with Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Russell Vought, told Fox News Digital that HFC was key to advancing Trump's border agenda.
"They're on the right side," Homan said. "They want to secure the border because they know a secure border, a strong border, gives us strong national security…they want us to enforce the laws."
In late 2023, a group of HFC members were key to successfully pushing out a House speaker mid-congressional term for the first time in U.S. history.
House Freedom Caucus Chair Andy Harris opens the group's policy summit in Washington on Thursday, Sept. 4, 2025. (Fox News Digital)
They've also played significant roles in pushing Republican spending bills and the recent One Big, Beautiful Bill Act to the right – at least in the House.
Even in the middle of their two-day event on Thursday, some HFC members threatened to sink a GOP-led spending bill as a warning shot to House leaders to keep on a conservative path.
The approach has been seen as divisive for years, and this year is no different.
"They act as if they are the only principled conservatives in the conference. It's almost as if they would rather be in the minority," one House Republican, granted anonymity to speak freely, told Fox News Digital. "They love the attention they get when they hold out, only to fold in the end. It's why no one respects them."
Another GOP lawmaker said, in the context of current talks to avert a government shutdown, "The Freedom Caucus is not what it was two years ago or even four years ago. I don't know what you call them, but Andy Harris speaks for himself."
"What is the goal of the Freedom Caucus? Is it to win? Is it to fold?" they asked. "I mean, have they lost their teeth? From an outside perspective, no, I still think they get heard."
Current HFC members brushed off the criticism.
"We're willing to negotiate with Donald Trump and the Senate to beat Democrats with the most conservative bill possible, so please keep assuming that we're dead, and please keep writing that obituary, because we're winning," HFC Policy Chair Chip Roy, R-Texas, told Fox News Digital.
Harris said of the critics, "If winning is folding, then I'll fold every time."
Indeed, the group does have the ear of the White House.
Former HFC Chair Scott Perry, R-Pa., who gave opening remarks during a portion of the summit exclusively viewed by Fox News Digital, revealed that White House aides attended the group's recent meeting with conservative senators.
"Last night, with representatives from the White House, we were asked, 'What is the plan?' I'm not exaggerating, this is your Freedom Caucus, the 'legislative terrorists' in the room where it happened," Perry told the audience.
Rep. Chip Roy is expected to be one of the group's highest-profile departures at the end of the 119th Congress. (Getty Images)
But the group is expected to see some high-profile departures in the next congressional term: Roy is running for Texas Attorney General, and Reps. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., and Byron Donalds, R-Fla., are both running for governor, among others.
Roy told Fox News Digital of the turnover, "We've had a conversation. We have things we want to do to help kind of make sure and ensure the longevity. Right now, we've got to make sure the good people are running. We have to make sure we continue to grow the ranks of the Freedom Caucus."
And newer members have signaled they're ready to fill the ranks of those left behind.
"Now that I've been here, and it's my third year, and I get comfortable with this, it gives me a lot more confidence to know what is the right path or what's the wrong path," said Rep. Eric Burlison, R-Mo., whose profile in HFC has risen in his short time in Congress. "And I think there's other members like me that are – as these guys step away, there's plenty of really talented members to step in their shoes."
Elizabeth Elkind is a politics reporter for Fox News Digital leading coverage of the House of Representatives. Previous digital bylines seen at Daily Mail and CBS News.
Follow on Twitter at @liz_elkind and send tips to elizabeth.elkind@fox.com
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