“New York City’s congestion pricing program can continue after a federal judge ruled that the Trump administration’s attempts to terminate it were unlawful — a financial win for the nation’s largest mass transit provider. US District Judge Lewis Liman found Tuesday that US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy’s move to end the program was ‘arbitrary and capricious.’ Liman, however, declined to issue an order blocking possible future attempts to stymie the program. The ruling means the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which sued in February 2025 to prevent Duffy from terminating the deal, can keep operating the program indefinitely, though the legal fight may continue.” (03/03/26)
“Ireland officially nominated former EU agriculture and trade commissioner Phil Hogan to the top job at the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the government said today. Hogan’s name emerged last week as a potential contender for the role of FAO director, with Ireland’s Department of Agriculture signaling him as their preferred candidate. The Irish politician played a significant role pushing forward the Mercosur agreement during his time as the EU’s farm chief under under Jean-Claude Juncker, before briefly serving as trade commissioner in Ursula von der Leyen’s first Commission.” (03/03/26)
“OpenAI CEO Sam Altman unveiled a reworked agreement with the Pentagon Monday night governing the Defense Department’s use of its AI services, which he says provides stronger guarantees that the military won’t use OpenAI’s systems for domestic surveillance. The new agreement states that ‘the AI system shall not be intentionally used for domestic surveillance of U.S. persons and nationals,’ according to a post on OpenAI’s website. OpenAI had faced some backlash as news of an initial agreement between the leading AI company and the Pentagon emerged on Friday. Many observers claimed the original language shared on OpenAI’s website provided ample loopholes for the government to surveil Americans. The move comes after weeks of intense debates between rival AI company Anthropic and the Pentagon over how the military can use advanced AI systems.” (03/03/26)
“Google is moving its Chrome browser to a two-week release cycle, instead of the current four, or the six-week cycle that existed for the decade before that. The change starts in September. ‘Building on our history of adapting our release process to match the demands of a modern web, Chrome is moving to a two-week release cycle,’ the company said in a blog post. The goal is to give users and developers faster access to performance improvements, fixes, and new capabilities. The smaller scope of the releases should also simplify debugging. The change applies to desktop, Android, and iOS, and begins with the stable release of Chrome 153 on September 8th. Beta releases will also move up to a two-week cycle.” (03/03/26)
“U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem is standing by her remarks calling the acts of two American citizens [murdered] by federal immigration officers in Minneapolis ‘domestic terrorism.’ Noem, who is overseeing U.S. President Donald Trump’s immigration [terrorist campaign], was pressed about her statements by Democrats and some Republicans during a Senate judiciary committee hearing on Tuesday.” (03/03/26)
“President Donald Trump on Tuesday threatened to halt trade with Spain and said he had instructed Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to ‘cut off all dealings’ with the country, amid a dispute over the use of jointly-operated military bases on Spanish soil. ‘We’re going to cut off all trade with Spain,’ Trump said during a sit-down with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz in the Oval Office. ‘We don’t want anything to do with Spain.’ Spain is a member of the European Union, a 27-country bloc that operates a common trade policy, so any attempt to single out Madrid would create friction with other member states, like Germany, France and Italy.” (03/03/26)
“Amazon said drones struck three of its Middle East data centers, causing outages related to the ‘ongoing conflict in the Middle East.’ Drones directly struck two Amazon Web Services facilities in the United Arab Emirates, and a drone strike near an Amazon data center in Bahrain also damaged that facility, the company said in a post on Monday on AWS’s health dashboard. … The company encouraged its customers in the Middle East to back up data and consider migrating workloads to servers in other regions.” (03/03/26)
“Former Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein has warned that the growing private credit market could lead to a financial crisis similar to the one in 2008, potentially affecting retail investors and the broader economy. In an interview on Bloomberg’s ‘Big Take’ podcast, the renowned moneyman said the $1.8 trillion private credit sector involves risks from hidden leverage, lack of liquidity and opaque assets. He compared the situation to the subprime mortgage crisis, noting that these investments are increasingly being offered to individual investors through retirement accounts. Blankein warned that he sees a possible financial crisis brewing in the private credit market. ‘We’re getting close to the end of the late stages of cycles on this, and we’re due for a kind of a reckoning,’ he said. He expressed concern that firms are promoting these products to retail clients just as risks are rising.” (03/03/26)
“U.S. District Court Judge Jeffrey Bryan warned U.S. Attorney Daniel Rosen he has ‘not ruled out the consequence of imprisonment’ over ICE court order violations during a hearing on Tuesday. Bryan demanded US. Attorney Daniel Rosen appear at the sprawling contempt hearing to explain why the government violated court orders in 28 cases connected to Operation Metro Surge. Violations included the lost or the delayed return of personal belongings of immigrants the court had released from ICE custody, including jewelry, drivers’ licenses and cell phones.” (03/03/26)
“The United States has imposed sanctions on Rwanda’s military and four of its top officials for ‘direct operational support’ of the M23 rebel group that has seized large swaths of territory in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Rwanda has long rejected allegations from DRC, the United Nations and Western powers that it backs M23 and its affiliated Congo River Alliance (AFC), which captured key cities in the mineral-rich east, including the capitals of North and South Kivu provinces last year. The US Department of the Treasury said on Monday that the rebels’ gains would not have been possible without Rwandan backing.” (03/03/26)
