Author: Janet Marlina

The Justice Department has asked a federal judge to dismiss the criminal case against former Trump adviser Steve Bannon, who was convicted and jailed for defying a congressional subpoena issued by the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol attack

Moody’s decision to join other major ratings agencies in downgrading the U.S.’s once-pristine credit rating could have a tangible impact on Americans’ wallets. The agency has dropped the U.S. sovereign credit rating—an assessment of the country’s ability to pay its debts—down one level from the highest possible Aaa to Aa1. The decrease marks the third time a major ratings agency has downgraded the U.S. in recent years, following S&P’s decision to do the same in 2011 and Fitch’s in 2023. The move on Friday caused little movement in the stock market, but experts say the rating dip could affect the…

As Russian tanks, missiles and drones rumbled through Red Square Friday for the annual Victory Day parade celebrating the surrender of Nazi Germany in World War II, President Vladimir Putin was joined by at least two dozen world leaders, marking a victory of his own as a leader the West has sought to isolate. After some subdued Victory Day celebrations in past years with few tanks and almost no visiting leaders, Russia for this year’s 80th anniversary has welcomed Chinese leader Xi Jinping, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and the leaders of Slovakia, Serbia, Egypt, Vietnam, Venezuela and…

Little warning signs are flashing across the economy. The big question is what to make of them. With consumers growing more pessimistic, households and global businesses alike are yanking back on new spending and investments. And a growing pile of data points seems to be showing an economyinching away from a recovery that followed the worst of the pandemic. But the challenge for economists, Wall Street analysts and businesses is figuring out what the gloomy indicators mean. Is the economy finding its footing amid President Donald Trump’s market-swinging trade war and government cuts? Or will these alarm bells turn out to have been the early signs of…

The billionaire leaders of social media giants have long been under pressure to quell the spread of mis- and disinformation. No system to date, from human fact-checkers to automation, has satisfied critics on the left or the right. One novel approach winning plaudits recently has been Community Notes. The crowdsourced method, first introduced by Twitter before Elon Musk acquired it and rebranded it as X, allows regular users to submit additional context to posts, offering up supporting evidence to set the record straight. For Musk, the system is the centerpiece of his “free speech” claims, a democracy that circumvents traditional gatekeepers of…

President Trump’s decision to move a step closer to imposing tariffs on imported medicines poses considerable political risk, because Americans could face higher prices and more shortages of critical drugs. The Trump administration filed a federal notice on Monday saying that it had begun an investigation into whether imports of medicines and pharmaceutical ingredients threaten America’s national security, an effort to lay the groundwork for possible tariffs on foreign-made drugs. Mr. Trump has repeatedly said he planned to impose such levies, to shift overseas production of medicines back to the United States. Experts said that tariffs were unlikely to achieve that goal: Moving manufacturing…

Britain has watched President Trump’s tariffs with a mix of shock, fascination and queasy recognition. The country, after all, embarked on a similar experiment in economic isolationism when it voted to leave the European Union in 2016. Nearly nine years after the Brexit referendum, it is still reckoning with the costs. The lessons of that experience are suddenly relevant again as Mr. Trump uses a similar playbook to erect walls around the United States. Critics once described Brexit as the greatest act of economic self-harm by a Western country in the post-World War II era. It may now be getting…

The sun was bursting through the sandstone arch of Window Rock in northeastern Arizona, and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., in bluejeans, was finally in his element: on a hike. It was the last day of his multistate Make American Healthy Again tour, designed to highlight various aspects of Mr. Kennedy’s plan to fight chronic disease, such as healthy school lunches and medical clinics that take a holistic approach to patient care. Now, the health secretary was strolling with the president of Navajo Nation, delegates of the nation’s council and the acting director of the Indian Health Service, discussing…

Charles T. Munger, who quit a well-established law career to be Warren E. Buffett’s partner and maxim-spouting alter-ego as they transformed a struggling New England textile company into the spectacularly successful investment firm Berkshire Hathaway, died on Tuesday in Santa Barbara, Calif. He was 99. His death, at a hospital, was announced by Berkshire Hathaway. He had a home in Los Angeles. Although overshadowed by Mr. Buffett, who relished the spotlight, Mr. Munger, a billionaire in his own right — Forbes listed his fortune as $2.6 billion this year — had far more influence at Berkshire than his title of vice chairman…