Axios

The International Olympic Committee said Wednesday it is banning transgender women from competing in the female category, while also instituting DNA-based sex testing for all female athletes.

Why it matters: The move revives sex testing, which was previously dropped in part due to the emotional distress inflicted upon female athletes who discovered their biological makeup was actually more complicated than they were aware of.

HOUSTON — The stunning Middle East supply disruption could lower hurdles to building a long-planned Alaskan gas pipeline and export project that the White House covets.

Why it matters: "That's probably our single most important energy infrastructure project of this whole administration," Energy Secretary Chris Wright said at CERAWeek on Tuesday.

At a Senate hearing earlier this month, economist Martha Gimbel compared a wonky thing, the U.S. Treasury market, to something very relatable, a Hallmark rom-com.

Why it matters: She hit at the essence of what's confounding experts in government debt:

• Why haven't bond investors penalized the U.S. for its erratic policymaking and weakening institutions by meaningfully driving up the country's borrowing costs?

The big picture: Gimbel and other experts believe that the answer is that there's not yet a good alternative to the enormous market for Treasurys, so investors stick with the "cleanest dirty shirt."

• "People think that U.S. Treasurys are the only large safe asset, so people are still buying them," Ugo Panizza, an economist and director of the International Center for Monetary and Banking Studies, told Axios earlier this year.

The U.S. is "currently the boyfriend at the beginning of the Hallmark movie in the big city, where the girlfriend is still going out with him, even though she knows that it's wrong," Gimbel, executive director of the Yale Budget Lab, put it.

• "But at some point, it, she's going to go home to the small town and find the nice firefighter and realize that there's another option."
• "And we don't know when that will happen."

Between the lines: Metaphors are good for getting people's attention on issues that are hard to grasp.

• Gimbel even got a laugh out of the room — no small feat at a hearing before the Senate Subcommittee on Fiscal Responsibility and Economic Growth.

What to watch: If investors ever find a better option than Treasurys, that would be a huge problem given that we are borrowing a lot of money right now.

The latest: The energy shock driven by the Iran war has helped drive up the yields on U.S. debt.

• The MOVE Index, which tracks volatility in the Treasury market, is spiking above its 52-week average — as it has during other moments of economic shock.
• "Investors' concerns include an unsustainable American fiscal position, rising inflation risk and a growing uncertainty about war," RSM chief economist Joseph Brusuelas wrote in a note Wednesday.

How it works: There are reasons for investors to be wary of buying sovereign debt.

• Governments are hard to sue, and it's difficult to enforce your claims against them.
• "They can do things that private companies can't, like pass laws and inflate their currencies," Panizza and University of Virginia international law professor Mitu Gulati explained in a piece for Reuters last summer.

Zoom out: That's why the countries that attract the most investors are the trustworthy ones with strong institutions. They are rewarded with lower borrowing costs.

• 17th-century England is the textbook example. It was able to borrow more because it had effective institutions that checked the king's temptations, per a well-known paper from 1989.
• This helped the country become a superpower.

What they're saying: The U.S. is still considered exceptional among investors, says Layna Mosley, a professor of politics and international affairs who directs the Princeton Sovereign Finance Lab.

The bottom line: Investors still see the U.S. as the safest bet around, but if ever a new hometown hottie materializes — watch out.

The U.S. Army updated its enlistment regulation to include an existing policy set in 2023 as the country remains at war with Iran and as President Trump has been threatening military action worldwide.

Why it matters: The Army Regulation 601-210 guidelines increase the maximum age for enlistment while also giving Americans charged with marijuana crimes more chances for eligibility.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wanted to call on Iranians to flood the streets to protest their government last week, but President Trump told him it was just too risky, two U.S. officials and an Israeli source said.

• "Why the hell should we tell people to take to the streets when they'll just get mowed down," Trump said to Netanyahu during their call, according to a U.S. official briefed on the conversation.

Why it matters: The U.S. and Israel agree on most of the military objectives of the war, but the outlooks differ on the question of regime change in Iran and the amount of chaos and bloodshed that's acceptable to try to bring it about.

HOUSTON — The head of Ukraine's largest private energy company said Wednesday he has plenty of lessons to share with energy companies operating in the Middle East that are scrambling to harden themselves against attacks.

Why it matters: Maxim Timchenko, CEO of DTEK, said making detailed security plans must become the new reality for companies working in dangerous places.

Negotiations between the U.S. and Iran remain "productive," White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt claimed on Wednesday after Iranian state media reported that Tehran had rejected Trump's 15-point plan to end the war.

Why it matters: Leavitt rejected the idea thay talks were at a dead end — a scenario that raised fears of imminent escalation.

HOUSTON — The glare has never been brighter on Energy Secretary Chris Wright.

Why it matters: Onstage and behind closed doors, he's been seeking to reassure markets and companies spooked by a historic and unpredictable disruption — all while promoting the White House agenda at the CERAWeek conference here.

There's a lot of pressure on President Trump to pull back from the Iran war, and Wall Street has figured out a way to chart it.

How it works: Maximilian Uleer, a strategist at Deutsche Bank, came up with a "pressure index" that considers the one-month change in Trump's approval ratings, stock market performance and whether people and bond markets are expecting higher inflation. (Thanks to the Financial Times' Robert Armstrong for highlighting this index.)

Where it stands: The index is higher now than it was even during "Liberation Day," when the S&P 500 tumbled on the announcement of huge tariffs on basically every country in the world.

Between the lines: The difference? To paraphrase James Carville, it's the gas prices, stupid.

• The national average for a gallon of gasoline is now hovering just below $4. And there are scorecards of rising gas prices plastered on every big road in the country.
• There's also a notion on Wall Street that Trump is likely to pull back on a policy if the stock market falls about 5% from its highs, Jose Torres, a senior economist at Interactive Brokers, told Axios last week.

By the numbers: Since reaching an all-time high in January, the S&P 500 is now down more than 5%.

The big picture: Most Wall Street analysts are expecting that Trump will do what it takes to end the war and get the Strait of Hormuz reopened to bring gas prices back down before the midterm elections.

Zoom in: Dips in approval ratings have led to other capitulations from Trump over the past year, a separate note from the bank points out.

Reality check: Most presidents are sensitive to declines in the stock market and public opinion, especially around high gas prices.

It is "absolutely" possible that the U.S. and China reach an agreement on rules governing the future use of artificial intelligence, former Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks told Axios.

Why it matters: The technology is rapidly reshaping how people communicate, how companies do business and how militaries operate.