Money, Wealth & Power—A Daily Look at the Financial World
The Seattle City Council declared a public health emergency on October 28, 2025, responding to a wave of grocery store closures that threaten to cut off food access for entire neighborhoods. The move, which includes emergency legislation banning restrictive covenants that prevent new grocery stores from opening, represents one of the most aggressive local government…
When Cambodian police put handcuffs on businessman Chen Zhi, U.S. prosecutors had already accused him of helping to steal billions of dollars from victims worldwide through so‑called pig butchering cryptocurrency scams. A federal indictment describes Chen, also known as Vincent, as the chairman of Prince Group and alleges he oversaw sprawling scam compounds that combined…
Americans are being steered to bitcoin ATMs by scammers posing as bank staff, government agents, or tech support, then drained of their savings in minutes. Federal data and state consumer alerts show that reported losses tied to these machines are already in the hundreds of millions of dollars over the last few years, and regulators…
When Florida real estate CEO Maria Lopez picked up the phone earlier this year, she says she heard terror in the voice of a stranger. The caller, an out-of-state retiree, believed he had wired his savings to Lopez’s company for a vacation condo that never existed. Lopez insists her firm had never heard of him….
Palantir Technologies turned 2025 into a breakout year, reporting $3.12 billion in total revenue and tying much of that growth to government work that includes immigration enforcement and deportations. The company’s financial story is now inseparable from its long-running contracts with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, where its software helps knit together data for arrests…
In Minneapolis and Saint Paul, small business owners say the latest ICE enforcement surge is emptying dining rooms, thinning work crews, and spreading fear far beyond the people agents actually arrest. Their concerns have now collided with a major legal move, as Minnesota’s top lawyer and the Twin Cities’ two largest cities try to slow…
A Clearwater finance executive is at the center of a major white-collar case after investigators accused the chief financial officer of laundering company money and stealing large sums from his own employer. Police and court records, as described in local reporting, say the executive, identified as Jeff Crane, used his position to move corporate funds…
A Missouri businessman who tried to walk away from millions in obligations instead walked straight into a financial dead end. By hiding assets while seeking bankruptcy protection, he lost the very shield that was supposed to give him a fresh start, leaving roughly $8.4 million in debt still hanging over him. His case shows how…
Amazon and Meta are quietly rewriting the rules of how people and products are judged on their platforms. Inside their offices, performance reviews are getting sharper edges, with bigger payouts for a small slice of stars and tougher scrutiny for everyone else. On their marketplaces, review systems are being recalibrated in ways that could strip…
A Massachusetts tax preparation business that once marketed itself as a lifeline for working families is now at the center of a sweeping federal fraud case, accused of siphoning off millions of dollars meant to keep small businesses afloat during the COVID-19 crisis. Prosecutors say the company and its associates treated emergency relief programs as…