California officials announced that the state will revoke 17,000 commercial driver's licenses given to immigrants, stoking Gov. Gavin Newsom's ongoing fight with the Trump administration.
Why it matters: President Trump's restrictive immigration policies are projected to have a dramatic impact on the American economy over the next few years.
The U.S. has struck trade deals with a group of Latin American countries that will include tariff relief on some coffee and fruit exports, senior administration officials said Thursday.
Why it matters: Coffee has become for the Trump administration what eggs were to the Biden administration: The emblem of an affordability crisis that has weighed on public perception of President Trump's economic policies.
The IRS has announced its new 401(k) contribution limits for 2026.
The big picture: The agency said in a news release on Thursday that it has increased the amount individuals can contribute to their 401(k)s — $24,500 for next year, up from $23,500 in 2025, the largest increase in two years.
Democracy Forward, a progressive legal nonprofit that has frequently sued the Trump administration, is bringing on more than a dozen former federal officials as fellows, part of a program that seeks to look beyond the Trump era.
Why it matters: Fired federal workers are starting to get new roles, and many of them are taking on gigs opposing the Trump administration.
It's not unusual to see officials from federal agencies taking new jobs, to be sure.
What's different now is that these are long-time civil servants, some of whom have served for decades no matter who was in the White House.
It looks more and more like a coin flip as to whether the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates when policymakers meet next month, amid wide divides within the rate-setting committee.
Driving the news: Boston Fed president Susan Collins said Wednesday that she sees "several reasons to have a relatively high bar for additional easing in the near term."
That implies that she would oppose cutting rates at the Dec. 9-10 meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee, where she has a vote this year.
Disney shares plunged 8% in early trading Thursday after the company reported disappointing revenue and warned of a prolonged distribution fight with YouTube TV.
Why it matters: Disney+ and Hulu's continued growth was overshadowed by a streaming-era carriage disagreement and declines in the legacy TV business.
Google is turning its Gemini AI into a personal shopper, with new tools that can search, compare, call stores and even buy gifts for you.
Why it matters: It's the tech giant's biggest step yet toward "agentic commerce," one of the hottest frontiers in the effort to commercialize AI for general audiences.
Joby Aviation this month flew for the first time an autonomous vertical-takeoff-and-landing aircraft it and L3Harris Technologies are developing for defense applications.
Why it matters: It's a major milestone for the project — one that opens the door for additional internal testing this year as well as military demonstrations next year.
Uber is rolling out a new way to pay for someone else's trip — like aride home from the airport for a visiting parent, or a late-night drop-off for a babysitter.
Why it matters: The company's betting on demand as millions juggle holiday travel, pickups and drop-offs.
Wall Street is worried about valuations, a measure of how expensive an asset is. One solution could be extending the time horizon for company earnings projections to 36 months from the current 12 months.
Why it matters: It would be a way to change the numbers without anything fundamentally changing.
What they're saying: "Eventually Wall Street is going to justify the valuations (on hot tech stocks) by extending its duration on its valuation metrics," José Torres, senior economist at Interactive Brokers, tells Axios.
The S&P 500 is now trading at 23 times forward earnings, compared with a historical average of 18 times earnings. "Have a three-year horizon, and then all of a sudden, the valuations make sense," Torres says.
Reality check: Changing something like valuation timelines may actually make sense for the modern investor.
Strategists and portfolio managers regularly point to the fact that tech valuations are always overstretched, but these names tend to grow into their valuations over time.
Adjusting the forward earnings time horizon could allow for it to be more clearly reflected in one of the most used metrics for evaluating any given security.
Thought bubble: My mentor, who taught me how to cover markets, once told me "data doesn't lie unless you make it."
Changing the forward earnings timeline could be a way to massage the data into a more palatable story for investors, or it could offer a more realistic view on how Wall Street values stocks today anyway.
Wall Street's AI obsession is blinding investors to investment opportunities that exist outside of the technology, says a new report from Bank of America.
Why it matters: The AI trade has dominated the market and its gains. If that boom plateaus, certain non-AI stocks could lead the next leg of the rally.
Four months ago, President Trump blocked the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files. Wednesday's disclosure of thousands of Epstein emails showed why.
Why it matters: The emails contained no real smoking gun. But they shed new light on the relationship between the two men, with gossipy, unflattering descriptions of Trump by Epstein.
Here's what's new on Paramount+, Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, Apple TV+, Prime Video, Peacock and HBO Max.
What we're watching: New seasons of "Landman" and "The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives" and a documentary about Eddie Murphy — all part of this weekend's lineup.
President Trump signed a bill on Wednesday night to reopen the government and officially end the 43-day shutdown after the House earlier passed a bipartisan funding package.
Why it matters: Trump's signature on the bill ends the longest-ever federal government shutdown, which left thousands of federal workers without pay and disrupted services across the country for nearly seven weeks.
