Economy

The Pentagon announced a $22.9 billion contract with Raytheon for Tomahawk cruise missiles. The award follows heavy expenditure of the weapons during the Iran conflict. It is one of the largest munitions contracts of the year.

Canada is racing to reach a deal with the Trump administration before a fresh wave of U.S. tariffs on its exports takes effect Wednesday. The duties could reach 50 percent on some goods. Negotiators have been meeting through the weekend.

An Ohio man pleaded guilty to laundering $3.4 million in proceeds from a health care fraud scheme. Prosecutors said the money moved through shell accounts. He faces sentencing later this year.

A new poll finds most Americans believe they are worse off financially than when President Trump won a second term nearly two years ago. The findings suggest a difficult environment for Republicans heading into the 2026 midterms. Cost of living remains the dominant concern.

Average U.S. gasoline prices this month are the highest ever recorded for August as peace talks with Iran stall and the Strait of Hormuz remains blocked. Energy costs have stayed elevated since the war began. Analysts warn prices could climb further if the deadlock continues.

A Yale study estimates that universal health coverage in the United States could save roughly $1 trillion and prevent about 114,000 deaths annually. The model attributes savings largely to administrative simplification and earlier care. Critics question the assumptions behind the projections.

The size of the U.S. national beef herd has stabilized after years of contraction, according to new figures. Ranchers have begun retaining heifers as prices held high. Analysts say consumer beef prices may ease only gradually.

A Russian state economist was dismissed after publicly warning about the trajectory of Moscow's economy under sustained war spending and sanctions. The removal underscores the narrowing space for candid analysis inside state institutions. Officials have not commented on the dismissal.

A company is pursuing what it calls a moonshot replacement for wood pulp in paper products using a hardy desert plant. The crop grows on land unsuitable for timber and needs little water. Scaling production remains the main obstacle.

A regulatory filing revealed that Nvidia holds a $21 billion stake in SpaceX. The disclosure follows Elon Musk's announcement of an exclusive arrangement for Nvidia to outfit SpaceX data centers. The size of the position makes Nvidia one of the company's largest outside holders.

Germany's Bundeskartellamt concluded that Apple's App Tracking Transparency framework applied looser standards to Apple's own apps than to rivals. The regulator says the asymmetry gave Apple a competitive advantage in advertising. Apple has disputed the characterization.

One superfan's $15,000 spending on Beyonce tickets illustrates how far live-event pricing has climbed. Dynamic pricing and resale markets have pushed premium seats out of reach for most fans. Economists say the concert market has decoupled from ordinary entertainment budgets.

An analysis argues that litigation risk, not conviction, is what keeps diversity programs embedded at large companies even after public retreats. Legal departments treat the structures as insurance against discrimination claims. Critics say the incentive keeps the policies in place indefinitely.

A McDonald's franchise says a scheduling app largely eliminated costly missed shifts by letting workers swap hours themselves. Managers spend less time filling gaps. Labor advocates caution that flexible scheduling can also shift risk onto workers.

Many parents face a tradeoff between funding their own retirement and transferring wealth to adult children who need it now. Advisers say giving early can help more but carries real risk. The math depends heavily on longevity and care costs.

Regulators granted conditional approval for a cryptocurrency firm tied to the Trump family to operate as a national bank. Ethics watchdogs called the decision an unprecedented blurring of the line between a sitting president's business and the institutions he oversees.

A plant-by-plant review of new U.S. generating capacity this year shows solar and storage accounting for the overwhelming majority of additions. Gas and wind trail far behind on both count and megawatts.

Prediction markets now let users wager on how many acres a wildfire will burn, and the contracts are drawing real money. Critics warn the incentives around disaster forecasting are about to get strange.

A state judge ordered the prediction market Kalshi to halt sports and event wagering in the state, rejecting its argument that federal regulation preempts local gambling law. The company faces a widening set of suits over its political and sports contracts.

Betting on what public figures will say has become a fast-growing category of prediction market, and federal officials have now opened a probe into whether those 'mention markets' are a magnet for manipulators. Election officials separately warn that betting markets on races could erode public trust.

A new White House report names more than 40 countries as elevated transshipment risks, accusing China of routing billions of dollars in goods through third nations with lower tariff rates to avoid the duties imposed since 2018. The administration puts the cost to the United States at as much as $26 billion in lost revenue.

The administration is canceling a Biden-era program designed to accelerate power line construction in parts of Pennsylvania and other states, unwinding one of the previous administration's grid modernization efforts.

The top Democrat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee is pressing major U.S. airlines on whether they use artificial intelligence to set ticket prices based on travelers' personal information.

An argument that land is the asset AI cannot inflate away: we cannot create more of it with artificial intelligence, and we cannot replace it either.

Cities that clamped down on short-term rentals saw measurable declines in rents relative to comparable cities, according to a new study. The effect is concentrated in neighborhoods where listings were densest. Hotel prices rose modestly in the same markets.

Consumer price growth cooled in July as fuel and food costs came down, offering the first clear relief after months of stubborn readings. Economists cautioned that the improvement is uneven and that housing and services costs are still climbing. The report lands as affordability dominates the midterm campaign.

Planning documents put the cost of the administration's White House building program at $900 million or more, far above earlier figures. Officials say private donations will cover part of the bill. Preservation groups question both the price and the permanence of the changes.

Federal regulators told prediction market Kalshi to keep taking New York customers despite a state order to stop, setting up a direct preemption fight. New York says event contracts on games are simply sports betting. The outcome will decide whether states can police the market at all.

Zhu Rongji, the blunt-spoken premier who forced through the restructuring that turned China into an export powerhouse, has died at 97. He shuttered failing state firms, tamed inflation and steered Beijing into the World Trade Organization. His technocratic style has few echoes in today's leadership.

A new generation of small modular nuclear reactors is expected to come online within a few years, and the desert outside Atomic City, Idaho, is where they are being tested. The site carries the legacy of America's first nuclear experiments, and public opinion on what comes next remains sharply divided.

The Senate departed for August recess without voting on a cryptocurrency regulation bill, sharply reducing its odds of passing before the midterms. Industry backers remain publicly hopeful, but the calendar leaves little room once lawmakers return.

The Pentagon has asked defense contractors for plans to speed up weapons production as the Iran campaign burns through American munitions stockpiles at a rate that has drawn attention in Moscow and Beijing. Reporting also describes a clash between Trump and Defense Secretary Hegseth at Camp David over missile depletion.

Researchers at the IMDEA Materials Institute have built a fuel cell catalyst that matches existing performance while using 75 percent less platinum. Platinum cost has been one of the main barriers to wider hydrogen adoption.

Iran said it is holding no direct negotiations with the United States and will not restart diplomatic talks until Washington meets a set of conditions, including an end to what Tehran calls violations of the Islamabad Memorandum. Oil prices climbed and equities slipped as markets absorbed the stalemate, while Trump described the current posture as trading talk of annihilation for economic pressure: 'We are low-keying it.'

Bill Maher pointed to the federal government taking an equity stake in Intel as evidence that President Trump has moved to the left of the Democratic Party on economics. “This is socialism,” he said.

Greg Abel, who succeeded Warren Buffett at the top of Berkshire Hathaway, has begun deploying a meaningful slice of the conglomerate’s record cash reserves. The moves offer the first real read on how Abel intends to allocate capital.

The Social Security Administration’s first August disbursement lands within the week, following the agency’s birthdate-based schedule. Recipients on Supplemental Security Income follow a separate calendar.

Surging demand from data centers and exports has pushed natural gas prices up, feeding higher electricity bills in exactly the states the administration needs politically. The “drill, baby, drill” promise is colliding with the math of a constrained market.

The largest private detention operators posted a combined $1.4 billion in quarterly revenue as federal immigration detention populations surged. Executives told investors that expanded enforcement contracts should keep beds full into next year.

Senators approved a short-term funding measure that keeps the government open through the midterm elections, defusing a standoff that had threatened a shutdown. The deal spares both parties a bruising fiscal fight in the middle of campaign season.

Senate leaders and conservative holdouts agreed to set aside a party-line budget fight and the SAVE America Act until after the August recess, averting a standoff that threatened to consume the chamber’s remaining floor time. The truce buys weeks, not resolution: the underlying disagreement over spending levels is unchanged.

The reality star and former Los Angeles mayoral candidate said on X that he is working with the president on a 25 percent federal film tax credit, an idea Hollywood unions have wanted for years and never had a champion for in this administration. Studios have said little; the proposal would put Washington directly into a subsidy war states have waged among themselves.

Two months after the Supreme Court let Lisa Cook keep her seat while she fights removal, the White House has restarted the process, with a letter from presidential aide Dan Scavino reviving mortgage-fraud allegations against the Federal Reserve governor. The renewed push tests whether a president can remove a Fed official at will — a question central to the central bank’s independence.

Ahead of Pope Leo’s visit, Argentines describe hoping for something between consolation and intervention, in a country where inflation and austerity have worn down even those who benefited from the reforms. The visit is the first by a pope to Argentina since Francis, an Argentine, declined for twelve years to return home.

“Making mining great again,” Trump told executives from the world’s largest mining firms at the State Department, unveiling $180 million in grants aimed at critical-mineral extraction and mining education. The push is meant to loosen China’s grip on rare earths and processing, a dependency both parties now describe as a strategic vulnerability.

The Government Accountability Office found that 96 percent of the grant savings DOGE advertised on its “Wall of Receipts” cannot be verified, gutting the central public claim of the cost-cutting effort. The report describes canceled awards double-counted, contracts valued at ceilings never spent, and figures that changed without explanation.

U.S. employers shed 23,000 jobs in July and revisions cut the prior two months’ gains, the Labor Department reported, a sharply weaker picture than forecasters expected. The unemployment rate nonetheless ticked down, and stocks hit a record high the same day — a split screen that has become the defining feature of an economy Trump praises and the data keep complicating.

An essay argues that the deepest damage from automation may be psychological: a professional class that no longer believes effort compounds into a career. The consequences show up as disengagement long before they show up as unemployment.

The Supreme Court's next term begins in October with arguments over costly climate change lawsuits against energy companies, alongside major immigration cases. The climate docket could decide whether states can keep suing oil producers for damages at all.

New York Times reporter Eric Lipton walks through his Pulitzer-winning reporting on the president's business interests and the roughly $2.2 billion the family is estimated to have earned during the first year of the second term. The question underneath it is whether the presidency itself has become the revenue stream.