Elon Musk and Republican senators are eyeing a package to claw back tens or hundreds of billions of dollars in federal spending after meeting in a closed-door lunch on Wednesday.
Why it matters: Musk has been leading the charge on spending cuts from the White House. Some lawmakers want to make his actions more permanent by making them law.
The White House on Wednesday doubled down on taking credit for the BlackRock deal to place Panama Canal ports under U.S. control.
The big picture: Panama President José Raúl Mulino on Wednesday accused President Trump of lying about his claim a day earlier that the U.S. is "reclaiming" the Panama Canal.
The Trump administration is easing the newly imposed tariffs on North American allies, with an auto sector carve-out that exempts the industry from import taxes for one month.
Why it matters: It offers temporary relief to a business that heavily relies on free trade with Canada and Mexico.
The market's nerves were on full display Wednesday, as stocks whipsawed with every change in the narrative on the Trump administration's tariffs on Mexico and Canada.
Why it matters: Businesses, investors and consumers are all yearning for some clarity — instead they're being forced to endure a daily, if not hourly, drip of shifting information and conflicting priorities.
DataBank launched 20 years ago to build and operate data centers, when artificial intelligence was still widely regarded as science fiction. It's now riding the AI wave to more than 65 facilities and billions of dollars in private equity investment.
The Trump administration has halted or moved to dismiss investigations and lawsuits involving 89 different corporations, including banks, technology and pharmaceutical companies, according to a new report from the progressive group Public Citizen.
Why it matters: The White House has moved with unusual speed to drop actionsthatinvolved consumer, worker and environmental protections.
The Trump administration is making major cuts to NOAA, including ending leases for major facilities, but Houston's forecasting center is so far unscathed.
Why it matters: One of the buildings is the nerve center for generating critical national weather forecasts.
There are few words as belovedin the defense-tech zeitgeist as "scale" and "mass." And it makes sense: War is a numbers game.
But today's defense industrial base is hurting, and not just by a single metric.
Why it matters: It's go big or go home for production lines, as a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan haunts Beltway thinkers and a protracted war in Ukraine proves just how quickly stockpiles evaporate.
In this city of little political agreement, there's consensus on one big thing: President Trump is picking more fights, with more action than mere words, with more lasting consequences than anyone expected.
Why it matters: Turns out, Trump wasn't bluffing about imposing 25% tariffs, about pardoning Jan. 6 criminals, or punishing Europe, or rewarding Russia, or growing executive power, or gutting the FBI, or filling his Cabinet with loyalists, or penalizing the media, or taking a wrecking ball to government.
Epirus plans to expand production of its directed-energy weapons and jump into overseas and commercial markets on the heels of a $250 million funding round.
Why it matters: Powerful lasers and microwaves are exploding in popularity as militaries scramble to more effectively — cheaply, quickly, sustainably — counter drones.
President Trump used a joint address to Congress to double down on his commitment to being Tariff-Man-in-Chief — even as he acknowledged these taxes on imports would create a "little disturbance."
Why it matters: Trump's speech was long on promises — tariffs, reviving industry, expanding mining, egg prices — but short on detailed solutions for rising consumer costs and falling financial markets.
President Trump on Tuesday called for an end to people hundreds of years old collecting Social Security benefits — a claim his own administration has debunked.
Why it matters: Trump and his cost-cutters, like Elon Musk's DOGE, frequently make the claim in an attempt to justify the prospect of huge cuts to the Social Security Administration, if not the actual program itself.
President Trump praised Elon Musk for his work on DOGE, which he said the billionaire "headed," during Tuesday evening's address to a joint session of Congress.
Driving the news: Musk was met with two standing ovations and protest signs during Trump's speech as he sat as a White House guest of first lady Melania Trump.
The Senate on Tuesday voted on two measures to overturn crypto-related regulations inked late in the Biden administration.
Why it matters: Both regulations, the IRS' DeFi broker rule and a digital-payments rule from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, are viewed by the crypto industry as overly burdening and add crimps to financial innovation.
