On Thursday, one day after the Trump administration moved forward with...
On Thursday, one day after the Trump administration moved forward with its voluntary resignation program that 75,000 of the federal governments’ 2.3 million civilian workers signed up for, the administration began to lay off newer employees as part of its Elon Musk-led efforts to cut costs. The layoffs are expected to target most of the 200,000 probationary employees, who have usually been in their jobs for less than a year and do not have the same employment protections as longer standing government workers. Among those let go so far are: 1,000 Veterans Affairs staffers, 3,400 Forest Service employees, and 2,000 Energy Department workers, per the Wall Street Journal.
DOJ moves to drop charges against NYC mayor after seven prosecutors...
DOJ moves to drop charges against NYC mayor after seven prosecutors resign in protest. The resignations from the Manhattan prosecutors’ office came after the Justice Department ordered them to drop bribery charges against Mayor Eric Adams. And in the kind of scorched earth resignation letter that most of us can only dream of sending, the case’s lead prosecutor Hagan Scotten told the DOJ, “I expect you will eventually find someone who is enough of a fool, or enough of a coward, to file your motion. But it was never going to be me.” Amid the rift between career prosecutors and the DOJ, a prosecutor did eventually sign the motion to dismiss that was filed yesterday…but reportedly only to spare colleagues from being fired over their refusal.
OpenAI’s board unanimously rejected Elon Musk’s unsolicited $97.4 billion offer to buy the ChatGPT-maker, saying the “much-publicized ‘bid’ is in fact not a bid at all.”
A federal judge on Thursday ruled that the Trump administration must temporarily lift its freeze on funding for USAID and said it must show it’s in compliance within five days.
Mexico said it might sue Google for changing its maps to show the Gulf of America rather than the Gulf of Mexico.
Vice President JD Vance met with the leader of Germany’s far-right party yesterday, after giving a speech assailing European leaders.
Elizabeth Holmes told People Magazine that she’s still writing patents and hopes to continue her career in healthcare technology after her release from prison.
If you want to spend your weekend catching up on everything President Trump has done in the first 25 days of his second term, here are roundups of his biggest moves, lawsuits challenging many of those moves, regulatory changes, and cuts made by DOGE.
Brent oil prices eke out weekly gain as U.S. targets Iran exports and tariff fears fade
Global benchmark crude prices posted their first weekly gain in a month...
Global benchmark crude prices posted their first weekly gain in a month Friday, finding support as the U.S. looked to reduce Iranian crude exports and after President Donald Trump did not immediately impose reciprocal tariffs on U.S. trading partners.
Prices for both global and benchmark crude, however, ended the trading session lower as traders continued to fret over uncertainty surrounding tariffs and their impact on oil demand.
April Brent crude the global benchmark, fell by 28 cents, or 0.4%, at $74.74 a barrel on ICE Futures Europe, settling 0.1% higher for the week, according to Dow Jones Market Data.
West Texas Intermediate crude for March delivery fell 55 cents, or 0.8%, to settle at $70.74 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, ending down 0.4% for the week. That was its fourth weekly fall in a row.
March gasolineshed 1% to $2.09 a gallon, down 0.7% for the week, while March heating oiladded 0.5% to $2.46 a gallon, contributing to a weekly rise of 1.3%.
Natural gas for March delivery settled at $3.73 per million British thermal units, up 2.7% Friday, for a 12.6% rise on the week.
S&P 500 misses record close, books weekly gain after weak U.S. retail-sales data
The U.S. stock market closed mostly lower Friday as investors...
The U.S. stock market closed mostly lower Friday as investors weighed a retail sales report that was weaker than Wall Street expected, but major benchmarks saw weekly gains ahead of the three-day holiday weekend.
The S&P 500slipped0.44 point on Friday, or less than 0.1%, to end nearly flat at 6,114.63.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 165.35 points, or 0.4%, to close at 44,546.08.
The Nasdaq Compositerose 81.13 points,or 0.4%, to finish at 20,026.77.
Investors shrugged off tariff concerns and a hot inflation report this week, with the S&P 500 snapping back-to-back weekly losses. The S&P 500 ended Friday just 0.1% below its record closing peak notched in late January.
For the week, the S&P 500 climbed 1.5%, the Dow rose 0.5% and the technology-heavy Nasdaq gained 2.6%, according to Dow Jones Market Data. The stock market's fear gauge, the Cboe Volatility Index, subsided this week while the 10-year Treasury yield fell.
The 10-year Treasury rate ended Friday at 4.475%, its lowest yield since Feb. 6 based on 3 p.m. Eastern time levels, according to Dow Jones Market Data. U.S. stock and bond markets will be closed on Monday in honor of Presidents Day.
Dominion Energy raised its five-year spending plan through 2029 by 16% to about $50.1 billion to meet growing power demand driven by more electrification, economic growth and an expected surge in data center electricity needs, the company said.
“We’re seeing the need for incremental investment across distribution, transmission and generation to ensure reliability amid continuing growing demand in our service areas,” Dominion Energy CFO Steven Ridge said Feb. 12 on the company’s latest earnings call.
The utility is headquartered in the world’s most populous area for data centers—Virginia—and has connected about 450 data centers representing about 9 gigawatts (GW) of capacity in the state, according to Dominion Energy CEO Bob Blue.
