Welcome back, today is Friday, August twenty-first, and we begin with the IRS putting its first proposed rules for Trump Accounts on the table, per HR Dive. HR Dive reports that the Internal Revenue Service has proposed regulations for Trump Accounts, and for benefits and payroll teams that proposal is the first concrete look at how these accounts would be set up and administered. What changed is the level of detail, not the law. The rules sit at the proposal stage, and that reporting does not carry a final effective date, so nothing binds plan sponsors yet. In that same account, an IRS leader said the accounts will help eligible children, in that official's words, enjoy years of compound earnings for their future college, retirement and other needs. That reporting sets the proposal against retirement hopes it describes as dwindling for older workers, and that is the tension in the file for anyone designing a savings benefit: the new vehicle starts in childhood, while the readiness problem sits with employees already late in their careers. Industry reaction leans toward treating this as a benefits-design question rather than a family-savings story, with nondiscrimination testing, a per-employee contribution cap and a safe harbor for smaller employer contributions drawing most of the attention. Also today, the full Ninth Circuit has narrowed a defense unions have leaned on in turf fights. Bloomberg Law reports the en banc court amended its own precedent on the work-preservation defense Thursday, holding that unions cannot invoke that liability shield to answer allegations they violated National Labor Relations Board orders in jurisdictional disputes. The same ruling upheld an NLRB decision blocking the International Longshore and Warehouse Union from pursuing maintenance and repair work at the Port of Seattle. Per that reporting, a three-judge panel had vacated the board's decision last year, and the judge who authored that opinion urged the full court to revisit the precedent. It bites immediately for labor-relations teams inside the circuit: work-assignment conflicts that land at the board now arrive with one fewer argument available on the union side. Separately, a court has drawn a line on how far the Ending Forced Arbitration Act reaches. HR Dive reports a Salesforce worker must arbitrate a gender-based discrimination case, after the court determined that gender-based allegations which do not involve sexual harassment cannot invoke that Act. For employers relying on arbitration agreements, the boundary is the whole story, because it decides which gender-based claims can be pulled out of arbitration and into court. That account was published Wednesday. Now, a few more headlines moving the trade today. HR Executive maps state versus federal A.I. law for HR leaders, sorting states with direct regulation, states with narrower related laws, and states where legislation is still only pending. Employer cash-for-coverage plans now reach at least five hundred thousand covered lives, at a median allowance of four hundred fifty-nine dollars per covered life, the HRA Council reports via HR Executive. HR Dive reports Meta has been sued by a manager who alleges he was fired for refusing to sign an immigration letter he believed was materially inaccurate, an allegation drawn from the complaint and untested in court. And finally, S and P five hundred companies that kept their DEI policies in place performed about as well financially as those that pulled back, according to a study reported by HRD Canada.