Washington, DC

1. GOP’s budget troubles
2. Mine threats
3. Fertilizer squeeze
4. Marijuana winner
5. Trump personnel moves

Meta is laying off ▼ up to 8,000 employees, 10% of its total, as it plows money into AI. Microsoft is offering 7% of its workers buyouts.

House conservatives stir trouble on DHS funding

Problems are piling up for House Republican leaders as they try to fund the Department of Homeland Security. Some House conservatives are threatening to vote against a Senate-passed budget resolution, which sets up the reconciliation process to fund ICE and border protection for three years. “I think it needs to be broader,” said Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas. Rep. Warren Davidson, R-Ohio, said “I’m not going to support a skinny budget.” That leaves leaders weighing their options. “We’re going to be talking through that with the speaker, but obviously we’re talking through with a lot of our other members, too,” House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., told reporters today. House Republicans are also preparing to take up a three-year reauthorization of foreign surveillance powers after a previous push fell apart.

— Nicholas Wu

Mines threaten to snarl trade through Hormuz for months

President Donald Trump is zeroing in on a problem in the Strait of Hormuz: mines. Today he ordered the US Navy to attack any Iranian ships laying mines in the strait, writing on Truth Social, “there is to be no hesitation.” He also encouraged US mine sweepers to “continue, but at a tripled up level!” Even if the conflict ends soon, the issue of mines is emerging as a potentially significant complication to restarting trade through the Gulf. Pentagon officials informed members of the House Armed Services Committee yesterday in a classified briefing that it will likely take six months to clear the mines they believe Iran has placed. Negotiations between the US and Iran haven’t resumed formally, but Trump was expected to greet ambassadors from Israel and Lebanon at the White House this evening, where they’ll hold a second round of talks.

Fertilizer set to jump

Fertilizer prices are poised to surge even higher, and could take “months and months” to normalize, the CEO of a top global producer told Semafor, squeezing American farmers during spring planting season. The price of nitrogen-based fertilizers has more than doubled as the closure of the Strait of Hormuz has choked off key ingredients, including one-third of global urea exports and one-fifth of ammonia. In an interview with Fox Business, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins was pressed on the administration’s plan to offset the spike, but avoided specifics, saying officials are holding “daily meetings” to monitor the situation. While Trump insists he is watching “fertilizer prices CLOSELY,” there is no immediate relief in sight. Even after the strait reopens, fertilizer companies will have to wait for natural gas production to increase to regain their feedstock supply, which will take months or years.

Trump hands a win to cannabis industry

Trump made good on his promise to reclassify marijuana today, and the change is a big victory for cannabis businesses. The Justice Department shifted the drug’s designation from a Schedule I drug (like heroin) to a Schedule III drug (like codeine), a change with tax code implications: Though still illegal under federal law, marijuana is no longer a “controlled substance,” so cannabis businesses can write off operating expenses like rent, utilities, employee compensation, and even advertising. Trump, himself a teetotaler, decided to make the change last year after an 18-month lobbying campaign led by donor Kim Rivers, the CEO of Florida-based marijuana company Trulieve, The Wall Street Journal reported. The reclassification is popular with other Trump supporters, too, like podcaster Joe Rogan, who joined Trump in the Oval Office last Saturday for his signing of an executive order boosting psychedelic research.

Commerce’s top lawyer departs

The Commerce Department’s top lawyer, Pierre Gentin, is leaving the agency and heading back to New York, where he was formerly a partner at consulting firm McKinsey and law firm Cahill Gordon. The department has outgrown its reputation as the federal government’s hall closet, overseeing CHIPS Act money under the Biden administration and serving as a scout and clearinghouse for deals under Trump’s Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. The department has attracted private-sector executives like Michael Grimes, Elon Musk’s longtime investment banker who left government service earlier this year to return to Morgan Stanley. “Pierre left a successful career to join the government more than 15 months ago,” a Commerce spokesman said. “He is returning to New York, his family, and the private sector, and we thank him for his extraordinary work at the department.”

— Liz Hoffman

Courts

• A judge barred the certification of a new congressional map that Virginia voters approved on Tuesday; the state’s attorney general said he will appeal.
• The Justice Department’s internal watchdog says it is conducting a review of the department’s compliance with a law mandating the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files.

Iran War

• Iran’s new supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, has been gravely wounded in the war, leaving a “battle-hardened collective” of top officers in the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps and their allies as the country’s key decision makers. — NYT
• The US has expended so many munitions in Iran that some US officials are warning that it imperils contingency plans to defend Taiwan from a Chinese invasion. — WSJ

World

• Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said that she will propose economist Roberto Lazzeri as the country’s next ambassador to the United States.
• The EU approved a $105 billion loan to Ukraine and new sanctions against Russia ahead of a summit in Cyprus.
• France’s national weather service is investigating mysterious temperature changes reported by a monitor station at Charles de Gaulle Airport, which led to big payoffs in prediction markets. — WSJ

Health

• President Trump announced a drug pricing deal today with Regeneron, which he said was “the biggest cut in drug prices in the history of our country.”
• The Make America Healthy Again movement is cooling on Trump and Republicans. — NYT

Technology

• OpenAI unveiled a new, more powerful AI model, GPT 5.5.

Economy

• Freddie Mac reported that the 30-year fixed mortgage rate in the US fell to a 6.23% average this week, down from 6.30% last week.

— Melania Trump at a White House event today.

Laura McGann, editor

With help from Elana Schor, senior Washington editor, and Morgan Chalfant, Washington briefing editor

Graph Massara and Lauren Morganbesser, copy editors

Contact our reporters:

Burgess Everett, Eleanor Mueller, Shelby Talcott, Nicholas Wu, David Weigel