The Trump administration on Tuesday added 25 countries to the State Department's list of nation's whose citizens may be required to post bonds of up to $15,000 to apply for U.S. entry.
The big picture: The additions bring the total to 38 countries, mostly in Africa, with in South America and Asia, whose travelers could face sharply higher costs to obtain U.S. visas, as part of the administration's broader strategy to curtail both legal and illegal immigration.
It takes a village to keep the AI economy running. From chips powering the models to the energy powering the data centers, there's a seemingly endless list of tangential players for savvy investors to back.
Why it matters: The fortunes of some service providers can shift quickly in this rapidly changing industry, as memory chips and cooling systems recently illustrate.
🔥 What's hot: Memory chip makers can't make the things fast enough.
Demand is soaring specifically for a type of memory chip known as DRAM, which has the vital, if uncelebrated, job of storing data that the GPUs from Nvidia and AMD can quickly access to run AI models.
Travelers who don't have the required Real ID will have to pay up to board their flights starting next month.
The big picture: New penalties for those who still don't have Real IDs kick in beginning Feb. 1. Flying without one will set you back an extra $45 — more than double what the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) originally estimated.
That $45 will clear travelers for a 10-day period, after which they would have to pay the fee again.
Democratic leaders and officials are calling out the Trump administration for threatening to freeze billions of dollars in funding for child care and assistance for the poor.
Why it matters: The livelihoods of millions of families and the health of an already fragile child care system are at stake, officials and advocates say, while the Trump administration says it is merely shoring up the integrity of the system.
The administration is moving to create new rules and restrictions around federal child care funding, claiming that there's widespread fraud.
Hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans are being encouraged to go home or face deportation following the U.S. operation to capture Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
Why it matters: Venezuelan immigrants had temporary U.S. legal protections until last year, in part due to poor economic conditions and human rights abuses under the Maduro government.
New research shows how little we understand about how tariffs are rippling through the economy — and sheds light on how they may affect the landscape in 2026.
Why it matters: The tariffs caused historic uncertainty for businesses in 2025, but with more muted overall economic effects than many forecasters predicted.
Investors never let a crisis go to waste, one chief investment officer wrote following the seizure of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
Why it matters: Wall Street has already drafted a list of winners and losers, diving into energy stocks and oil before the companies themselves have said whether they are interested. That could lead to disappointment.
President Trump has offered a variety of reasons for his intense, pugilistic ambitions in Venezuela, Greenland and other hemispheric players.
But one tie binds them all: They hold many of the critical minerals essential to AI and defense technology — and therefore future global dominance.
Why it matters: Within two days of snatching Venezuela's leader, Trump administration officials and financial analysts began discussing that nation's vast array of mineral riches.
