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Nearly 400 millionaires and billionaires from 24 countries are calling on global leaders to increase taxes on the super-rich, amid growing concern that the wealthiest in society are buying political influence.

An open letter, released to coincide with the World Economic Forum in Davos, calls on global leaders attending this week’s conference to close the widening gap between the super-rich and everyone else.

The letter, signed by luminaries including the actor and film-maker Mark Ruffalo, the musician Brian Eno and the film producer and philanthropist Abigail Disney, says extreme wealth is polluting politics, driving social exclusion and fuelling the climate emergency.

"A handful of global oligarchs with extreme wealth have bought up our democracies; taken over our governments; gagged the freedom of our media; placed a stranglehold on technology and innovation; deepened poverty and social exclusion; and accelerated the breakdown of our planet,” it reads. “What we treasure, rich and poor alike, is being eaten away by those intent on growing the gulf between their vast power and everyone else.

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Senate Republicans are rushing to defend Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell from a Department of Justice (DOJ) criminal investigation that Powell says is politically motivated and aimed at undercutting the Fed’s independence.

GOP lawmakers are challenging the Trump administration’s investigation of Powell a week after five Republican senators voted to advance a war powers resolution to bar Trump from taking military action against Venezuela without congressional authorization.

The loudest warning shot against the White House came from Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), a senior member of the Senate Banking Committee, who accused Trump’s advisers of deliberately trying to undercut the Fed’s independence and threatened to block the president’s nominees to the Fed until the investigation is “fully resolved.”

He said the criminal probe into Powell’s testimony before Congress last year over the $2.5 billion renovation of the Fed’s headquarters in Washington raises questions about the “independence and credibility of the Department of Justice.”

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Stocks fell in overnight trading Sunday after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell confirmed the Trump administration had opened a criminal investigation into the central bank.

Dow Jones Industrial Average futures were down 200 points shortly after 8:30 p.m. EST, falling 0.4 percent. S&P 500 futures were down 0.5 percent and Nasdaq futures were down 0.7 percent.

The slide came after Powell announced in a stunning statement that he and the Fed were under investigation by the Department of Justice (DOJ), which had issued subpoenas to bank officials Friday night and had threatened a criminal indictment.

Powell said the investigation focused on the Fed’s renovations to several buildings at its Washington, D.C., headquarters, and his testimony to the Senate Banking Committee in June about the matter.

The Fed chair, however, dismissed those concerns as “pretexts” to pressure the bank over its interest rate policy.

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There is a new deadline for U.S. importers to file for electronic refunds if the Supreme Court rules President Donald Trump’s IEEPA tariffs are illegal.

U.S. Customs published details of a new electronic refund process on Jan. 2, established as part of a March 25 Trump executive order on modernizing government payments and phasing out physical checks. 

A Supreme Court ruling on the legality of the Trump tariffs could come as early as this Friday. The mandatory deadline for importers to sign up in order to receive electronic refunds through the Automated Clearing House (ACH) network with Customs is Feb. 6.

The new digital Customs system is called ACE (Automated Commercial Environment), a secure electronic portal allowing businesses to file import/export data, manage trade information, and comply with regulations. ACE will manage the ACH refunds.

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The federal government has officially resumed garnishing wages and withholding benefits from student loan borrowers after years of legal limbo.

The Trump administration has made several moves to limit repayment options and enforce collections after an extended COVID-era pause. The federal Education Department announced a proposed legal agreement to squash the Saving on a Valuable Education, or SAVE, plan in December 2025, dealing a final blow to the Biden administration's efforts to forgive or reduce the $200 billion burden of repayment on 5 million federal borrowers.

More than 7 million SAVE borrowers have been in administrative forbearance, not requiring payments, since June 2024. Interest on their debt restarted in August 2025 and the administration announced plans to resume wage garnishment on borrowers behind on payments beginning Jan. 7, according to reports.

Here's what to know about who is at risk of having money taken from their paycheck.

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In the bowels of the US Federal Reserve this summer, two of the world’s most powerful men, sporting glistening white hard hats, stood before reporters looking like students forced to work together on a group project.

Allies of Donald Trump had spent weeks trying to manufacture a scandal around ongoing renovations of the central bank’s Washington headquarters and its costs. Now here was the US president, on a rare visit, examining the project for himself.

“It looks like it’s about $3.1bn. It went up a little bit – or a lot,” Trump said, as Jerome Powell, the typically calm Fed chair, vigorously shook his head. “So the $2.7bn is now $3.1bn–”

“I’m not aware of that, Mr President,” Powell quickly interjected, as Trump pulled out a paper from his suit pocket as evidence. “I haven’t heard that from anybody at the Fed.”

The remarkable public encounter in late July was described as a “tussle”, “spar” and “feud” by news outlets and came to symbolize an extraordinary battle for control of the world’s largest economy.

Never before has a president been so publicly, and relentlessly, critical of the country’s top monetary policymaker. For decades, successive administrations have allowed the Fed, as the institution tasked with steering the US economy, to function independently, without political interference. No longer.

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