Alan Rappeport

The stimulus package that President Biden signed into law in March was intended to stabilize state and city finances drained by the coronavirus crisis, providing $350 billion to alleviate the pandemic’s effect, with few restrictions on how the money could be used. Three months after its passage, cash is starting to flow — $194 billion so far, according to the Treasury Department — and officials are devoting funds to a range of efforts, including keeping public service workers on the payroll, helping the fishing industry, improving broadband access and aiding the homeless. In conservative-le

The Trump administration has suspended fraught international tax negotiations with European countries and warned that it will retaliate if they move forward with plans to impose new taxes on American technology companies like Amazon, Facebook and Google. The decision, conveyed in a letter from Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin to European finance ministers last week, comes as global talks have stalled over how to tax commerce that takes place online, particularly in countries where companies sell goods and services but have no physical presence.

Democratic congressional leaders emerged from a meeting at the White House and announced that President Donald Trump had agreed to pursue a $2 trillion infrastructure plan to upgrade the nation’s highways, railroads, bridges and broadband.

The White House moved to exert greater control over the federal regulatory process by imposing additional scrutiny over independent government agencies when they establish new policies, guidelines or rules that affect large swaths of the economy.

Here’s what three government agencies will weigh as they consider the T-Mobile/Sprint merger.

As the United States and China look to protect their national security needs and economic interests, the fight between the two financial superpowers is increasingly focused on a single area: technology. The fight over technology is redefining the rules of engagement in an era when national security and economic power are closely intertwined. China, under President Xi Jinping, has launched an ambitious plan to dominate mobile technology, supercomputers, artificial intelligence and other cutting-edge industries, putting huge resources behind an effort that it considers crucial to the country’

President-elect Donald Trump chose Reince Priebus, the chairman of the Republican National Committee and a loyal campaign adviser, to be his White House chief of staff, turning to a Washington insider whose friendship with the House speaker, Paul Ryan, could help secure early legislative victories. President-elect Trump named Stephen Bannon, a right-wing media provocateur, his senior counselor and chief West Wing strategist, signaling an embrace of the fringe ideology long advanced by Bannon and of a continuing disdain for the Republican establishment.

The dual appointments — with Bannon given top billing in the official announcement — instantly created rival centers of power in the Trump White House. Bannon’s selection demonstrated the power of grass-roots activists who backed Trump’s candidacy. Some of them have long traded in the conspiracy theories and sometimes racist messages of Breitbart News, the website that Bannon ran for much of the past decade.