US President Donald Trump’s invocation of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to deport what his administration alleged to be Venezuelan members of a violent gang has set aflame smoldering concerns among Democrats, constitutional scholars and others that the final guardrails on executive power are being breached. The law has been used only three times in US history and only when the nation was at war.

Noah Feldman writes in Bloomberg Opinion that the gang is not a government nor is it threatening the US with invasion or incursion, other statutory prerequisites. Faced with prompt judicial pushback, Feldman says a “suspicious” timeline indicates Trump may have ignored a federal court order to turn planes carrying the deportees around. If so, it would be among the more overt of a growing list of cases in which the administration has been accused of flouting judicial authority in violation of the checks and balances central to American democracy. Rather than back down from such a grave charge, the administration (though denying it violated the court order) intensified its attacks on federal judges.

Many of the administration’s landmark challenges to established precedent, federal laws and the US Constitution over the past two months are likely to reach the Supreme Court, including this one. And as clear a constitutional crisis as Trump’s actions over the weekend might seem to some observers, Feldman writes America isn’t quite there yet. Moreover, he says that when it comes to the administration’s arguments defending its use of the Alien Enemies Act, Trump “might get away with it.” —David E. Rovella

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Trump’s trade war has abruptly set the world onto a path of slower growth and higher inflation that could worsen, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development said. The association of 38 rich countries cut its outlook for most members and predicted the pace of global expansion to slow to 3.1% this year and 3% in 2026. Nations currently in the eye of the trade storm may see even sharper decelerations, with Canada’s growth rate tumbling to less than half the OECD’s December prediction, Mexico entering a recession and the annual expansion in the US wilting to 1.6% next year—the weakest since the aftermath of the Great Recession (aside from the pandemic recession in 2020). But that hasn’t stopped Trump from lobbing more threats and reaffirming old ones.

Steve Schwarzman and Jon Gray have long been the public faces of Blackstone’s billionaire elite, but more of the buyout giant’s top brass are fitting that description these days. Joseph Baratta and Michael Chae now have fortunes of more than $1 billion each through the world’s largest alternative-asset manager, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, expanding a small group of executives at Wall Street firms joining their founders among the mega-wealthy.

The Oracle of Omaha has expanding his footprint in Tokyo. Berkshire Hathaway increased its stakes in Japan’s biggest trading houses, a move that’s expected to offer support to the wider Tokyo stock market. Warren Buffett telegraphed the move in his annual letter to shareholders, with Berkshire raising its stakes in Mitsubishi, Marubeni, Mitsui, Itochu and Sumitomo. The average holding across the five stocks increased by just over one percentage point to about 9.3%. While the increase wasn’t surprising, it may “provide a sense of security about buying Japanese stocks at a time when the Nikkei is seeing some weakness,” said Jumpei Tanaka, head of investment strategy at Pictet Asset Management Japan. “The environment surrounding Japanese equities is not as good as it used to be.”

US stocks climbed for a second day in a row following last week’s 10% correction, as industrial and energy shares rallied on economic data that—while missing forecasts—didn’t miss them so much as to add to recession predictions. More than 90% of the companies in the S&P 500 rose on Monday, overshadowing a slide in most megacaps. Still, the latest economic data did little to alter traders’ bets on the Federal Reserve outlook, and the S&P is still sitting where it was in October. Here’s your markets wrap.

BYD unveiled a new system for electric cars the Chinese automaker says will allow them to charge almost as fast as it takes a regular car to refuel. BYD’s new battery and charging system was capable of providing 292 miles of range in 5 minutes in tests on one of its new sedans, according to founder Wang Chuanfu. The manufacturer will start selling vehicles with the new technology next month, a potential tectonic shift for the electric car industry. Being able to charge a car in the time it takes a combustion engine vehicle to pull in and out of a gas station could convince drivers who aren’t willing to make lengthy stops to go electric. The speeds also would be comfortably ahead of Tesla’s Superchargers.

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