Good morning. Have you replied to the DOGE email? You have another chance. Donald Trump’s political and trade disputes get bigger. And don’t expect your breakfast eggs to get any cheaper any time soon. Listen to the day’s top stories.
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Elon Musk offered a second chance forUS federal workers to respond to an email detailing what they did last week, or face termination. But the federal agency that sent that email said it’s not actually up to Musk what happens to those who ignore the message. The Department of Education’s Federal Student Aid office is bracing for more job cuts whatever happens and the Labor Department is said to have terminated employees across at least six departments in recent weeks. Meanwhile the man who dodged DOGE, Vivek Ramaswamy, is after a new role himself. He’s running for Ohio governor.
Escalating trade scuffles are also on the agenda. The US is sketching out even tougher versions of the US’s chip restrictions against China and pressuring the Netherlands and Japan to escalate curbs too, people familiar said. Trump appears to be picking up where Joe Biden left off in his attempts to prevent China from further developing a domestic semiconductor industry that could boost its AI and military capabilities. But it may be having limited success—the FT reported today that Chinese telecom giant Huawei has improved its AI chip production. And who can forget the shock success of DeepSeek?
Across the border, the contenders for leadership of Canada’s Liberal Party sparred in a French-language debate last night in Montreal. The main topic: how to handle Trump, of course. He confirmed his plan to impose 25% tariffs on most Canadian goods imported by the US from March 4 and, even more controversially, has threatened to coerce the country into becoming the 51st state, making US relations the key concern for whoever becomes Canada’s next prime minister.
Novogen Brown chickens at an egg farm in Briones, California. Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg
How do you like your eggs in the morning? Probably cheaper than $7.34 per dozen wholesale, for a start. But that may be a ways off as avian influenza is set to kill millions of birds.
America’s flock of egg-laying hens and egg production both dropped last month to the lowest since 2016, when there was a previous major outbreak of bird flu, according to US Department of Agriculture data.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. headquarters in Washington, DC. Photographer: Al Drago/Bloomberg
Don’t mess with deposit insurance, Paul J. Davies writes. The White House’s plan to consolidate regulators raises concerns about maintaining trust in the banking system. It’s essential to approach reforms carefully, or risk destabilizing thousands of smaller US banks.
