Finance
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The top foreign holders of U.S. debt may soon dump Treasury bonds and bring their money back home, potentially spiking borrowing costs
For decades, Japanese government bonds offered minuscule returns, forcing investors there to look abroad, especially at U.S. financial markets. Japanese investors now collectively own about $1 trillion in Treasuries and are the largest foreign holders of U.S. debt. But that could change soon as the Bank of Japan has been hiking rates while hotter inflation…
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BlackRock private credit fund’s valuations are probed by DOJ
Federal prosecutors are scrutinizing valuation practices at a BlackRock Inc. private credit fund, according to people with knowledge of the matter. The Manhattan US Attorney’s office in recent months has been seeking information about BlackRock TCP Capital Corp., a publicly traded business development company, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing a…
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Drone strike sparks fire at UAE nuclear power plant, the first time it’s been attacked since the Iran war started
A drone strike targeted the United Arab Emirates’ sole nuclear power plant on Sunday, sparking a fire on its perimeter. There were no reports of injuries or radiological release, but it highlighted the risk of renewed war as the Iran ceasefire remains tenuous. No one immediately claimed responsibility, and the UAE did not blame anyone.…
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Some states blast utilities for ‘blatant corporate greed’ as profits rise while consumers revolt against AI-fueled electric bills
The artificial intelligence boom is leading to fights in some states over growing utility profits, as governors, attorneys general and others protesting rising electricity bills say cash-strapped residents are stuck in a broken system. Officials and lawmakers in at least six states — including Arizona, Indiana, Maryland, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania — are…
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The AI boom hasn’t stopped U.S. companies from hiring cheap offshore labor, and overseas call center employment is still skyrocketing
In September 2025, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff said the company slashed 4,000 customer service roles, opting for the remaining 5,000 support workers to share their roles with AI agents. “I need less heads,” Benioff said at the time. But as more companies adopt agentic AI in hopes of replacing or making human workers more efficient,…
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‘The Butterfly Trust’: How Deutsche Bank maintained Jeffrey Epstein as a client until he was arrested
On a Friday morning in May 2019, months after Deutsche Bank claimed to have severed its relationship with Jeffrey Epstein and just weeks before he was arrested, one of the financier’s longtime bankers sat at his desk in Deutsche Bank’s midtown Manhattan headquarters, scrolling through the bank’s internal systems. The numbers on his screen didn’t…
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A 45,000-person labor strike at Samsung’s memory chip plants could throw a wrench into the AI boom
Samsung makes about a third of the world’s DRAM—the memory inside virtually every phone, laptop, server, and data center on the planet. Together with its Korean rival SK Hynix, it controls roughly two-thirds of the global DRAM market and an even larger share of high-bandwidth memory (HBM), the specialized chips that AI systems cannot run…
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Wall Street is keeping a close eye on Kevin Warsh at the Fed. These are the red (and green) flags they’re watching for
All eyes are on Kevin Warsh, and for good reason. Incoming Fed chairman takes over the central bank at a pivotal moment: AI is estimated to reshape the economy as we know it (for better or worse, depending on who you ask), geopolitical tensions are rising, and consumers are hollering for relief from the cost…
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New NRG Energy CEO leans into growth with ‘bring your own power’ for the AI boom and affordability with ‘virtual power plants’
Robert Gaudette took over as the new CEO of power and electricity giant NRG Energy at the end of April ready to ride the AI wave and build the “bespoke desires and needs” of hyperscalers nationwide. But NRG isn’t only in the business of rapidly building new power plants—primarily gas-fired facilities—to satiate the hunger of…
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U.S. allows Russia oil sales waiver to expire despite tight market
The Trump administration allowed a waiver that encouraged more Russian crude sales to lapse, even as the Iran war stokes concerns about global oil supplies and higher fuel costs. The expiration effectively ends for now a brief period where the administration eased sanctions on some Russian oil, enabling purchases that would otherwise be barred. The…