Washington Financial News

Andrea Salinas has won the Democratic primary election for the newly created Oregon 6th District seat in the United States House of Representatives. Practically since it started, the election race was the object of intensive media attention, which most often centered around Salinas’ opponent Carrick Flynn, whose campaign was generously funded by the Protect Our Future political action committee (PAC) backed by billionaire FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried. The PAC paid for a flood of advertising supporting Flynn. 

WASHINGTON—Former Treasury Department official Michael Barr is expected to pursue tougher oversight of the financial system and reverse some Trump-era policies if he wins confirmation as the Federal Reserve’s top bank regulator.

Americans are more stressed about money than they've ever been, according to the American Psychological Association's latest Stress In America Survey.

Cryptocurrency assets are highly speculative and investors in them need more protections or they could lose trust in the markets, Gary Gensler, chair of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, said on Monday. Generally, people who buy cryptocurrencies do not get the disclosures they get when they make other asset purchases around things like whether the trading platform they are using is actually trading against them, or whether they actually own the assets they store in digital wallets, Gensler said. «We have this basic bargain: You the investing public can make your choices about the risk you take, but there is supposed to be full and fair disclosure, and people are not supposed to lie to you,» he said at the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority's annual conference in Washington.

WASHINGTON—Disagreements over legislation designed to boost U.S. competitiveness against China are clouding its prospects in Congress, as lawmakers enter a period of make-or-break negotiations.

WASHINGTON—The Biden administration on Monday plans to announce steps aimed at addressing the U.S. shortage of entry-level homes, including expanding federally backed financing for affordable housing and directing grants toward localities that encourage construction.

WASHINGTON—As war and the pandemic expose the fragility of supply chains, the U.S. and its allies are pursuing a new kind of global trade, one that confines commerce to a circle of trusted nations. Fans call the shift “friend-shoring.”

WASHINGTON—House Democrats plan to fast-track a vote on relaxing regulations regarding baby formula in an effort to boost availability, while President Biden called flexibility on such rules and boosting imports top priorities amid parents’ growing concerns about shortages.

WASHINGTON—Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen wants to clinch the European Union’s approval of a global minimum tax on the profits of large corporations, hoping to smooth out Poland’s objections to approving the plan in meetings next week.

Commissioner Hester Peirce — also known as the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SECs) “crypto mom” — has backed a regulatory framework for stablecoins that allows "room for there to be failure."

Finland and Sweden could soon ask to join NATO after Russia's invasion of Ukraine sparked a surge of support for joining the security alliance. 

WASHINGTON — Federal regulators are investigating Elon Musk’s late disclosure last month of his sizable stake in Twitter, according to people familiar with the matter, a lag that allowed him to buy more stock without alerting other shareholders to his ownership.

WASHINGTON—Federal revenue almost doubled in April compared with a year earlier, reaching a record and driving a monthly government surplus of $308 billion, which Treasury officials said also set a record for the largest monthly surplus.

WASHINGTON—A decline this week in the price of a major cryptocurrency that was purportedly pegged to the dollar prompted Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on Tuesday to reiterate calls for Congress to authorize regulation of so-called stablecoins.

WASHINGTON — The Senate confirmed economist Lisa Cook on Tuesday night to serve on the Federal Reserve's Board of Governors, making her the first Black woman to sit on the panel in its 108-year history.

Ukrainian forces made strategic gains on Tuesday, pushing Russian forces back in some parts of the country. Meanwhile, the US House of Representatives has voted overwhelmingly to send a new $40 billion Ukraine aid package.

Finland and Sweden are expected to reveal in the coming days whether they will ask to join the NATO military alliance.

With no major announcements from Russian President Vladimir Putin during yesterday's Victory Day parade in Moscow, the war in Ukraine looks set to continue on in its current state, at least for the time being.

WASHINGTON—Top U.S. regulators proposed overhauling how banks lend hundreds of billions of dollars annually in lower-income communities, the first major revamp to the standards in more than two decades as lenders increasingly offer financial services online.

WASHINGTON — The Federal Reserve on Wednesday raised its benchmark interest rate by half a percentage point as the most aggressive step yet in its battle against generational highs in inflation.

WASHINGTON — The Securities and Exchange Commission will boost the size of its special unit devoted to investigating cryptocurrency frauds and other misconduct, a move that follows the agency's aggressive push to get the unregulated industry to come under federal supervision.