Money, Wealth & Power—A Daily Look at the Financial World
Emerald Fennell’s adaptation of “Wuthering Heights” stormed into theaters over Presidents Day weekend, collecting $34.8 million across its three-day North American opening and claiming the No. 1 spot at the box office. The result marks Fennell’s strongest debut as a director, outpacing her previous work and signaling that literary adaptations driven by a singular creative…
The Walt Disney Company is simultaneously suing one AI company for generating its characters without permission and signing a deal with another AI company to do exactly that, on Disney’s terms. This split strategy reveals a calculated approach to artificial intelligence that treats litigation and licensing as two sides of the same coin. The tension…
The Congressional Budget Office just released a fiscal forecast that should alarm anyone with a stake in the American economy. Federal deficits and debt are on track to worsen sharply over the next decade, driven by rising program spending and ballooning interest costs on existing borrowing. If current policy trajectories hold, the United States could…
California drivers are absorbing a roughly $0.40 per gallon increase in gasoline prices over just two weeks, a pace that far outstrips the national average and has turned routine fill-ups into a source of genuine frustration. The speed of this jump, confirmed by federal energy data, raises hard questions about whether the state’s refining capacity…
Costco, the warehouse retail giant and Global 500 company, has filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration challenging the legality of tariffs imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and demanding a full refund of duties paid. The case, brought in the U.S. Court of International Trade, rests on a straightforward but potentially explosive…
The Congressional Budget Office now projects annual federal deficits climbing toward $3.1 trillion by 2036, with cumulative shortfalls over the next decade reaching roughly $24.4 trillion. That trajectory would push U.S. debt held by the public well past any level recorded since World War II, raising hard questions about whether Washington can sustain its borrowing…
Wall Street’s biggest banks are racing to adopt artificial intelligence, and their CEOs rarely miss a chance to praise the technology’s potential. But a closer look at what these institutions actually tell regulators about their workforces reveals a striking gap between boardroom optimism and the cautious, sometimes vague language buried in official filings. That disconnect…
Mayor Zohran Mamdani promised New Yorkers a concrete path to lower costs through rent freezes, universal child care, and fare-free buses. Weeks into office, his administration has already acknowledged a budget crisis inherited from the Adams era, and the fiscal math behind those campaign pledges looks increasingly difficult to reconcile with the city’s actual balance…
Warner Bros. Discovery has pulled back from its pursuit of Paramount Global, a retreat shaped by activist investor pressure and growing concerns over regulatory risk. The withdrawal comes as WBD simultaneously faces a targeted campaign from Ancora, the activist fund pushing the company to rethink its broader deal strategy, including its streaming arrangement with Netflix….
The partial federal government shutdown that began on January 31, 2026, after Congress failed to reach a funding agreement, has settled into a stalemate with no resolution on the calendar. Lawmakers left Washington for a recess without passing the spending bills needed to reopen affected agencies, and the procedural machinery in the Senate has already…