Financial Mindset

The Central Intelligence Agency offered help to potential informants in Iran on Tuesday, providing Farsi-language instructions on ways to safely contact the U.S. spy agency as President Donald Trump mulls  possible military strikes . The  post  is the latest in a series of recruitment pitches  in Farsi, Korean, Russian and Mandarin  that offered secure ways to contact the CIA. The Farsi-language message posted Tuesday to X , Instagram and YouTube , however, comes at an especially uneasy time in U.S.-Iran relations and as the Iranian theocracy faces new protests at home. The U.S. has  assembled its largest military force  in the Mideast in decades as tensions with Iran have risen. Trump threatened military action in January in response to the government’s fierce crackdown on national protests before shifting his focus to Iran’s disputed nuclear program and  warning it to make a deal . Another  round of nuclear talks  is planned for lat...

Prediction markets are exploding in popularity as people rush to bet on real world events, from sports to elections to celebrity behavior. The platforms, however, have also tempted individuals to make a quick buck from insider information. The latest example came on Wednesday when Kalshi announced it had closed investigations into two cases of insider trading, including one that targeted a MrBeast employee named Artem Kaptur who made over $5,000 on bets related to YouTube streaming milestones. The second investigation targeted a long-shot candidate for California governor in violation of Kalshi’s rules for politicians. In a salty tweet sharing news of the investigations, Kalshi co-founder Luana Lopes Lara, using a variation of a popular crude expression, wrote “F***ed around, found out.” Kalshi also suspended Kaptur for two years and imposed a penalty of $20,397.58 , using a power granted by the Commodity and Futures Trading Commission for exchanges to impose fines on customers....

“Today” show host  Savannah Guthrie  said her family is now offering a $1 million reward for information leading to the recovery of her mother, Nancy Guthrie, who went missing from her Arizona home more than three weeks ago. Savannah Guthrie said Tuesday that her family is still holding out for a miracle and hopes her mother will be found alive, but she also acknowledged that they realize it might be too late. “She may already be gone,” Savannah Guthrie said in an Instagram post. “She may already have gone home to the Lord that she loves and is dancing in heaven.” Nancy Guthrie , 84, was last seen at her home just outside Tucson, Arizona, on Jan. 31 and was reported missing the next day. Authorities believe she was  kidnapped , and the FBI  released surveillance videos  of a masked man who was outside Guthrie’s front door on the night she vanished. Drops of her blood were found on the front porch, but authorities haven’t publicly revealed much evidence. Sin...

Criminal investigators hoping to develop suspects in difficult cases have been asking Google to reveal who searched for specific information online, seeking “reverse keyword” warrants that critics warn threaten the privacy of innocent people. Unlike traditional search warrants that target a known suspect or location, keyword warrants work backward by identifying internet addresses where searches were made in a certain window of time for particular terms, such as a street address where a crime occurred or a phrase like “pipe bomb.” Police have used the method to investigate a series of  bombings in Texas , the  assassination  of  a Brazilian politician  and a fatal  arson in Colorado . It’s not a wild guess by investigators to conclude that people are using Google searches in all manner of crimes, as the company’s search engine has become the main gateway to the internet and users’ daily lives increasingly leave online traces. The potential value to inve...

The Supreme Court  said Monday that it will hear from oil and gas companies trying to block lawsuits seeking to hold the industry liable for billions of dollars in damage linked to climate change. The conservative-majority court agreed to take up a case from Boulder, Colorado,  one of multiple lawsuits  alleging the companies deceived the public about how fossil fuels contribute to  climate change . Governments around the country have sought damages totaling billions of dollars, arguing it’s necessary to help pay for rebuilding after wildfires, rising sea levels and severe storms worsened by climate change. The lawsuits come amid  a wave of legal actions  in California, Hawaii and New Jersey  and worldwide  seeking to leverage action through the courts. The case out of Boulder County will likely have implications for those other lawsuits. Suncor Energy and ExxonMobil appealed to the Supreme Court after Colorado’s highest court let the Boulde...

Four years after Vladimir Putin ordered an invasion of Ukraine, Russia’s economy has entered a “death zone,” said Alexandra Prokopenko, a fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center. In a recent Economist op-ed , the former Russian central bank adviser drew on a term from mountain climbing when high altitude forces the body to consume itself faster than it can repair itself. “Russia’s economy is stuck in what might be described as negative equilibrium: holding itself together while steadily destroying its own future capacity,” she wrote. The economy isn’t headed for an imminent crash, but GDP has stagnated, oil revenue has been halved amid Western sanctions, and the government’s budget deficit is rapidly draining reserves. At the same time, two economic systems have emerged. One is comprised of the military and related industries that receive priority from the Kremlin. And then there’s everything else that’s been “left in the cold,” Prokopenko explained. “The most dangerous feat...

The Supreme Court made clear on Friday that President Donald Trump lacks the legal authority to use his emergency powers to force U.S. companies to pay tariffs. In its 6-3 decision , the court delivered a massive setback to the White House but, in a surprise to legal observers, it failed to address the question that is top of mind for many firms: Will they be able to recoup the money, estimated at around $133 billion, they have already paid under a policy that has now been ruled illegal? According to trade lawyers, the Supreme Court majority’s silence on the refund process—which dissenting Justice Brett Kavanaugh predicted is likely to be “a mess”—means companies must now wait months to learn whether they will get their money back. In the court’s long-awaited decision, Chief Justice John Roberts ruled that Trump could not impose emergency levies—like the ones that imposed 25% duties on Canada and Mexico—since the tariffs amounted to a sort of tax that only Congress had the power to im...