Visa (V.N) CFO said larger tax refunds, higher fuel costs and the timing of promotional shopping activity drove growth in U.S. payments volume.

Protesters stormed the Mellitah oil and gas complex in Libya, forcing suspension of operations. The shutdown disrupted a key natural-gas supply pipeline and may cause regional power outages. Mellitah is a major Libyan hub for oil and gas processing and transport, so the outage raises near-term energy-supply risks.

Employees at OpenAI and Anthropic are circulating a petition urging the US government to support a mechanism to deliberately regulate the pace of AI development to prevent it from advancing too quickly. The petition, shared among staff at several leading AI labs and seen by media, calls on the US to back an international initiative to govern the build-out of more advanced AI systems. It warns AI progress may outpace humans’ ability to understand or control it, poses "real risks", and cites advances in automating AI research. The petition states: "The US government should support international cooperation to develop the technical and governance tools necessary to target regulation of frontier automated AI development."