President Donald Trump is considering renewing his push to fire Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook over mortgage fraud allegations amid an ongoing legal debate over the president’s ability to remove members of the independent central bank, FOX Business has learned.

The White House is seeking a response from Cook within the next three weeks about the allegations that the administration leveled against her last year. 

White House Personnel Office Director Dan Scavino indicated in a letter to Cook this week that the president is considering moving forward with firing her. It asked for a response to the allegations that prompted the president to announce her termination in August 2025 – which sparked an ongoing legal battle over his ability to remove Cook from her role at the Federal Reserve.

The White House’s letter told Cook that she was “hereby provided notice that the President is considering removing you from your position” as a member of the Fed’s Board of Governors.

The letter explained that there is “sufficient reason to believe that you made false statements on one or more mortgage agreements,” and requested a written response “with your explanation for your false statements and accompanying evidence within 21 days.”

SUPREME COURT RULES ON TRUMP’S ATTEMPT TO FIRE FED GOVERNOR LISA COOK

Earlier this summer, the Supreme Court issued a 5-4 ruling that allowed Cook to remain in her role while the case challenging her dismissal plays out.

Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the majority opinion, which indicated the Court can’t accept the administration’s argument that it has the ability to “remove a member of the Federal Reserve at any time, for any reason, without any notice before, and without any judicial check after. That would turn for-cause protection into little more than at-will employment.”

“To be clear, the ultimate question of whether the President can remove Cook for cause will depend in part on the underlying facts. In this opinion, we have not addressed the facts, as they have yet to be found or analyzed under the relevant legal standards. Rather, we have simply addressed the parties’ arguments about the appropriate legal standards under which the facts must be evaluated,” Roberts’ majority opinion concluded.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

When silversmith Alex Healy was planning her return to work after maternity leave, the first date she hoped to add to her diary was Liverpool’s Christmas market, an event where she had sold jewellery since 2021.

However, due to a change in operator and a rise in costs, Alex said this would be the first winter she would not be renting a stall and she and other traders were being “priced out”.

A new company, Underbelly, has taken over this year, and Alex said the cost of running a stall had doubled.

Liverpool City Council, which awarded the tender to Underbelly to run the event at St George’s Hall, said the markets offered a “cost-effective way for traders to showcase and sell their products”. It added the new operator would manage their own trader arrangements independently. Underbelly has been asked for comment.

Alex, 37, said selling her jewellery at the Christmas market on St George’s Plateau for the past five years had been a “really great place to be”. She said the friendship between traders had created “a community, family feel”.

Alex said she paid £6,780 including VAT and electricity to rent a chalet for the six-week market last year. She said the total cost of renting a chalet this year had risen to just under £14,000 before additional charges.

She said that, under the terms of a new contract, traders would be expected to pay additional charges for water and grey waste, chiller and storage space, and energy supply.

Trump’s Inauguration Day: What to expect

Donald Trump’s second term as US President will begin with his inauguration on Monday. He plans to sign numerous executive orders and hold a campaign-style rally. Several foreign leaders are invited, and outgoing President Joe Biden will attend. The events are largely funded by Trump’s inauguration committee.

Tommy Detamore, a country and Americana record producer and pedal steel guitarist whose work shaped hundreds of albums across more than four decades, died Wednesday at age 70, his wife announced this week.

Sandra Detamore confirmed her husband’s death in an emotional Facebook post, writing that he had passed away on Aug. 5. “It is with a broken heart, I share that my husband of 41 years, Tommy Detamore went home to be with the Lord yesterday,” she wrote. “Tommy was and will always be remembered as a respected musician, producer, collaborator, mentor, and creative force in Country Music. Not to mention the love of my life. His work has and will always leave a lasting mark in the country music community.”

A cause of death has not been made public, though his family described his passing as sudden.

From Virginia Bandstands to the Grand Ole Opry

Detamore was born in Charlottesville, Virginia, on Sept. 8, 1955. He played guitar in local bands throughout high school and college before taking up pedal steel guitar in 1976, studying under steel guitar legend Buddy Charleton. His career took a significant turn in 1981 when he moved to Texas to play steel guitar alongside Darrell McCall. The following year, he joined Moe Bandy’s band, touring extensively across the United States and Europe for seven years and making numerous television and radio appearances, including performances on “The Grand Ole Opry,” “Hee Haw” and “Nashville Now.”

That touring stretch also led to work with other established country artists, including Johnny Bush, Ronnie Milsap and Clay Baker, further building Detamore’s reputation as a sought-after steel guitarist within the traditional country music scene.

Building a Legacy Behind the Studio Glass

In 1991, Detamore opened Cherry Ridge Studio in Floresville, Texas, which became a destination for country and Americana artists from Texas and well beyond. In the later portion of his career, he became best known not as a performer but as an engineer and producer, working behind the scenes to shape the sound of records for artists including Ray Price, Ronnie Milsap, Johnny Bush, Jim Lauderdale, Doug Sahm, the Texas Tornados, Robert Earl Keen, Sunny Sweeney, Dallas Wayne, Raul Malo, Kyle Park and Tony Booth, among many others.

His work extended into the present day. As recently as 2025, Detamore served as master engineer on Ty Myers’ breakout album “The Select,” part of a career that spanned generations of Texas-rooted country and Americana artists. Colleagues described him as a producer who understood that the song always came first, someone who built his reputation the old-fashioned way, working in studios, on bandstands and largely in the background of other people’s success rather than chasing the spotlight himself.

Grammy Recognition and Industry Honors

Detamore’s technical work earned formal industry recognition on multiple occasions. In 2001, he engineered and performed on Bill Kirchen’s “Poultry in Motion,” which earned a Grammy nomination for Best Country Instrumental Performance. In 2008, the Academy of Western Artists honored him with the Will Rogers Award for Record Producer of the Year. From 2009 to 2012, he was also a featured performer in the classic country revue “San Antonio Rose Live” at San Antonio’s historic Aztec Theatre, a role that kept him connected to live performance even as his career increasingly centered on studio production.

Remembered by the Artists He Helped

News of Detamore’s death prompted an outpouring of tributes from within the country music community, particularly from artists in Texas who had worked closely with him over the years. Singer Sunny Sweeney, who collaborated with Detamore on her own recordings, wrote following the news, “With the most giant broken heart, I want to wish my great friend and mentor, Tommy Detamore, smooth sailing up to heaven. I just spoke with him three days ago.”

Those who knew Detamore described a musician whose contributions, while rarely front and center, were foundational to the sound of the records he touched, someone whose expressive steel playing and careful ear as a producer helped frame the voices of the artists he worked with rather than compete with them.

A Career Built on Craft Over Fame

Detamore’s career reflected a particular kind of country music success story, one built less on chart-topping fame under his own name and more on decades of consistent, trusted craftsmanship that other artists relied upon. His reach extended from old-guard legends like Ray Price and Johnny Bush to younger, contemporary artists carrying the Texas country and Americana torch forward, a span that friends and collaborators have pointed to as evidence of just how enduring and adaptable his musical instincts remained across more than four decades in the industry.

In her tribute, Sandra Detamore closed with a personal note of faith and gratitude, writing, “Thank you Lord Jesus for allowing me to love and be loved by Tommy. I know where he is and I thank you and one day I too will be with him again in our mansion in the sky.”

Survived by Family and a Wide Musical Community

Detamore is survived by his wife, Sandra. Across a career built largely behind the scenes, his influence as a producer and steel guitarist left a lasting imprint on the sound of contemporary country and Americana music, one that colleagues say will continue to be felt through the many recordings that carry his fingerprints, even for listeners who may never have known his name.

Funeral and memorial service arrangements had not been publicly announced as of Thursday. Given Detamore’s decades-long presence within the Texas country and Americana music scene, tributes from fellow musicians and industry figures are expected to continue in the coming days as word of his death spreads further through the community he helped shape from behind the recording console at Cherry Ridge Studio.

SMEs can slash order fulfillment times by up to 30% simply by transitioning from static, horizontal storage to high-density vertical layouts that prioritize SKU velocity. Speed in the modern warehouse is not just about how fast a picker can run; it is about how little they have to move.

When a small business outgrows its garage-style origins, the friction of unorganized floor space becomes a silent tax on every shipment. High-performance storage design removes this friction by creating a literal roadmap for faster throughput.

There are thousands of picking errors made every day in unoptimized warehouses across the country. For a small business, a single mispicked item is a triple loss: the cost of the return, the cost of the replacement, and the long-term damage to customer trust. By implementing a storage system that dictates a logical flow, you turn a chaotic room into a high-speed engine.

High Density Shelving and the Science of Space

Modern fulfillment speed relies on the strategic use of verticality, in combination with appropriate software solutions. Most SMEs waste the top 40% of their warehouse volume because they view storage as a flat surface rather than a three-dimensional asset. Implementing modular steel shelving allows for a significant increase in outbound throughput, reaching levels previously only achievable by enterprise giants. This isn’t just about fitting more stuff; it is about bringing that stuff closer to the packing station.

When you use industrial-grade steel shelving from providers like Ecseco the structural integrity allows for narrower aisles and higher stacks. This density reduces the physical distance a picker travels per shift. If a worker walks five miles a day in a sprawling warehouse, reducing that to three miles through better layout design is a massive productivity win.

The logic is simple: less walking means more picking. By concentrating high-velocity items near the shipping docks and using steel storage units that can be configured for specific item sizes, you eliminate the “search time” that kills fulfillment metrics.

Shortening Picking Routes With Logic and Steel

The layout of your shelving dictates the efficiency of your staff. A common mistake among growing SMEs is the “snake” layout, where pickers must travel through every aisle regardless of what they are looking for. Strategic warehouse design uses a “comb” or “U-flow” pattern to ensure that pickers enter only the aisles they need.

Better storage design encourages a more disciplined approach to stock management.

• High velocity products are placed at waist height to speed up the physical grab
• Heavy items sit on lower shelves to prevent injury and slow lifting movements
• Small components are stored in louver panels and bins to prevent bin diving

This level of efficiency creates a buffer against labor shortages and seasonal spikes. Instead of hiring more hands to handle a rush, your existing team simply moves through a more efficient space.

It is also worth noting that steel shelving offers a fire safety and durability advantage that wooden or plastic alternatives cannot match. In a high-speed environment, shelves take hits from trolleys and pallets. Steel survives these impacts, ensuring your storage infrastructure remains a constant rather than a maintenance headache.

Digital Integration and Future Proofing Storage

As we move through 2026, the line between physical storage and digital tracking has blurred entirely. SMEs are now using IoT-enabled storage and RFID tags on their steel shelving to monitor inventory levels in real time. This enables dynamic slotting, in which the warehouse layout physically adapts to current sales trends.

If a specific product starts trending on social media, a flexible steel shelving system can be reconfigured in an afternoon to move that stock to the front of the line. This agility is the competitive edge SMEs have over larger, more rigid corporations. You aren’t just storing boxes; you are managing a fluid stream of assets that need to move as fast as your customers expect.

Investing in high-quality shelving is a one-time capital expense that pays dividends every time a package leaves your dock. It turns your warehouse from a storage locker into a fulfillment machine that can scale with your ambitions.

Optimizing Your Floor Plan For Long-Term Growth

Refining your warehouse design is a journey of constant iteration. As your product mix changes, your storage must adapt to prevent bottlenecks at the packing bench. For more insights on how to maintain a lean operation, check out our other posts.

In September, a new law from the Department for Education will be introduced on branded school items in England.

It means parents and guardians will not have to buy more than three branded items, plus a tie for children in secondary school.

The government decided to create the law after it was estimated a quarter of secondary schools still had four or more items on its list last year.

Bex said it was “relief” there was at least a limit on the branded items, but it depended on what items the school or establishment chose.

“I think in the long run, if the cost of living keeps going up, we are going to need to push for there to be less and less uniforms with logos, but it will definitely help,” Bex said.

Mum-of-two Faye said the price of uniform depended on the school and what their rules were around branded items, but some school uniforms could set a family back about £60 per child.