Financial Mindset

A federal judge must reconsider the possible national security implications of halting construction of President Donald Trump’s $400 million  White House ballroom , an  appeals court  ruled on Saturday. A three-judge panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit said it did not have enough information to decide how much of the project can be suspended without jeopardizing the safety of the president, his family or the White House staff. The case was returned to the trial judge who,  in a March 31 ruling,  barred work from proceeding without congressional approval, but suspended enforcement of that order for 14 days. The appeals court extended that for three days, to April 17, to allow the Trump administration to seek Supreme Court review. The panel instructed U.S. District Judge Richard Leon to clarify whether — and how — his injunction interferes with the administration’s plans for safety and security. Government lawyers had argu...

The Trump administration approved major disaster declaration requests for at least seven states this week, according to information released Saturday by the  Federal Emergency Management Agency , allowing affected communities to access federal support. About 15 requests for assistance from others states and tribes for extreme weather events this year and last seem to be pending, along with three appeals of previous denials. Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, South Carolina, South Dakota and Washington were granted major disaster declarations, which can unlock federal support and funding for recovery needs such as public infrastructure repairs and aid for survivors. The announcement, in a FEMA daily briefing document, comes weeks into Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin’s tenure overseeing the disaster relief agency and is the latest signal that the former Republican senator from Oklahoma could ease some of the  turmoil from the leadership  of his predecessor, Kris...

Anthropic’s new AI model, Mythos, is causing a stir among cybersecurity experts and policymakers. The company says its new model is so skilled at finding and exploiting software vulnerabilities that it’s too dangerous to release. Instead, it is limiting access to a small group of major technology companies whose software is the foundation for many other digital services, hoping to give defenders time to strengthen their systems. Anthropic is not the only AI lab producing models with these kinds of capabilities, or considering similar release strategies to try to ensure cyber defenders have access to these systems before hackers do. OpenAI is reportedly preparing a new model—internally known as “Spud”—that could match Mythos in cybersecurity capabilities. According to a report from Axios, the company is also working on an advanced cybersecurity-focused system that it plans to release in a phased rollout to a small group of partners, again to try to give defenders a head start. Some ...

The missiles may eventually stop for good. Oil tankers will once again pass through the Strait of Hormuz. But even if the tenuous two-week ceasefire gives way to a lasting end to hostilities, the world economy that emerges from the Iran War will bear little resemblance to the one that entered it. That is the conclusion of investors, economists, and strategists around the world. The common thread isn’t fear of a specific catastrophe. It’s something more unsettling: the sense that a series of permanent structural shifts—in supply chains, in geopolitical alliances, in the balance of economic power—have been accelerated by a war that nobody in power fully planned for. “It’s going to look fundamentally different for a while, no matter what,” said Steve Hanke , professor of applied economics at Johns Hopkins University. He summed up the new world order to be defined by the winners and losers of this unfolding disaster in three statements: “Good for Russia, good for China, bad for America.”...

A ceasefire deal to pause  the war in Iran  appeared to hang by a thread Wednesday after the Islamic Republic closed the  Strait of Hormuz  again in response to Israeli attacks in Lebanon. The White House demanded that the channel be reopened and sought to keep peace talks on track. The U.S. and Iran both claimed victory after  reaching the agreement , and world leaders expressed relief, even as more drones and missiles hit Iran and Gulf Arab countries. At the same time, Israel  intensified its attacks  on the Hezbollah militant group in Lebanon, hitting commercial and residential areas in  Beirut . At least 182 people were killed Wednesday in the deadliest day of fighting there. The fresh violence threatened to scuttle what U.S. Vice President JD Vance called a “fragile” deal. Parliament speaker accuses US of breaking Iran’s conditions The Iranian parliament speaker said planned talks were “unreasonable” because Washington broke three of Tehr...

The problem with an increasing debt burden is that it costs more to maintain it: This is precisely the issue with which the U.S. Treasury is wrangling at present. As total U.S. national debt ticks over $39 trillion, the interest payments on that value are eye-watering: $529 billion for the first six months of the current fiscal year. A new budget update from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released yesterday highlights that the government—according to preliminary estimates—paid out the near-$530 billion between October 2025, when the fiscal year starts, and March 2026. This equates to more than $88 billion in interest payments a month, or more than $22 billion a month. That means the service payments on public debt are roughly equal to spending for the same period on both the Department of Defense’s military budget and the Department of Education. These two outlays contribute costs of $461 billion and $70 billion respectively. The net interest payments on public debt are als...

In today’s CEO Daily: Fortune’s Phil Wahba interviews Levi’s CEO Michelle Gass. The big leadership story: Energy experts fret over the outcome of the Iran ceasefire. The markets: Down globally as Iran accuses the U.S. of violating the two-week truce. Plus: All the news and watercooler chat from Fortune . Good morning.  Yesterday, I chatted with Levi Strauss CEO Michelle Gass to ask her why she thinks her strategy is working so well, a question on many minds given that similar success eluded her when she was CEO at Kohl’s. Her conclusion: the Levi’s gig plays to all the strengths she’s developed over her long career, and the denim clothier was at the right place for her to take the reins. We spoke the day after Levi’s reported a stellar first quarter in which net revenue rose 14%—and those results may have quieted Gass’s critics for good. When Gass was first announced as Levi’s president in 2022—spending a year under the tutelage of CEO predecessor Chip Bergh before tak...