Money, Wealth & Power—A Daily Look at the Financial World
President Donald Trump is escalating his warnings as the Supreme Court of the United States weighs whether to uphold his sweeping tariffs on imported goods. He has boiled the stakes down to a blunt verdict, telling supporters that if the justices strike his authority, “we’re screwed,” and predicting a “complete mess” for the economy and…
The criminal investigation into Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell has opened a rare public rift inside Donald Trump’s economic team, with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent privately warning the president that the Justice Department’s move would create a political and market “mess.” The clash exposes how a probe aimed at the central bank’s leader is colliding…
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell has confirmed that he is the target of a criminal investigation by President Don Trump’s Justice Department, a stunning escalation in an already fraught relationship between the White House and the central bank. Powell has framed the probe as an attack on the Fed’s independence and insisted he will not…
California is trying to convince its richest residents to stay put long enough to pay a new levy on their fortunes at the same time its own agencies are being called out for wasting millions of dollars. The tension between a state that wants to tax extreme wealth and a bureaucracy that has struggled to…
The Trump administration’s decision to halt federal childcare payments to Minnesota has turned a technical fraud probe into a political and human flashpoint. What began as a conservative allegation of up to $100m in improper billing has now left parents, providers, and state officials scrambling to understand how long they can keep caring for children…
Sam Bankman-Fried went to prison as the face of a multibillion-dollar crypto collapse and emerged with a strangely narrow fixation: teaching other inmates how to talk to judges and prosecutors. Instead of retreating into the background, he has turned his days into a nonstop clinic on motions, plea deals, and sentencing guidelines. His new identity…
The United States has quietly closed a tax case that officials describe as the largest ever brought against a single person, with the estate of billionaire tech executive Robert Brockman agreeing to pay $750 million to the federal government. The settlement ends a sprawling fraud saga that stretched across offshore havens, complex trusts and a…
The next time the IRS tells you it “fixed” your return, you will not be stuck decoding a cryptic notice on your own. A new bipartisan statute, widely known as The Math Act, reshapes how the agency explains its math-error adjustments and gives taxpayers clearer footing to push back when the IRS says they got…
The fight over a small smartphone tool has escalated into a constitutional showdown, with the creator of the ICEBlock app hauling the federal government into court and accusing it of weaponizing its power against protected speech. At the center is a simple but politically explosive idea: that ordinary people should be able to share information…
The U.S. Department of Transportation has wiped away the final $11 million slice of a record penalty tied to Southwest Airlines’ 2022 holiday meltdown, turning what was billed as a tough enforcement action into something closer to a performance bonus. The move raises a sharper question than any press release: when regulators erase a cash…