It was supposed to be a year of rate cuts. But amid the Iran war, traders are bracing for the first interest rate increase in over two-and-a half years.

The probability of an interest rate hike this year reached as high as 53% Friday—the first time odds surpassed 50%. The Fed hasn’t raised rates since July 2023, though the central bank indicated after its meeting last week that it still expects an interest rate reduction this year and another in 2027.

Still, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago President Austan Goolsbee told CNBC he could “see circumstances” for an interest rate hike if inflation was “getting out of control.”

This is a published version of the Forbes Daily newsletter, you can sign-up to get Forbes Daily in your inbox here.

President Donald Trump issued an emergency executive order Friday to pay TSA agents as travelers at airports across the country experienced hours-long wait times. But workers missed a second full paycheck Friday, and “callouts might not stop until we get some money in our pockets,” one TSA officer told Forbes anonymously.

MORE: The partial government shutdown could last several more weeks as the House of Representatives rejected a Senate plan to fund DHS. Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said Friday the House would pursue a short-term package to fund the agency, but the Senate—which left Washington for a two-week recess—would need to approve any new legislation.

Major stock indexes slumped for a fifth straight week as oil prices continued their ascent. It’s the S&P 500’s longest losing streak since May 2022, with the index down 7.2% so far this month, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average and Nasdaq entered correction territory.

MORE: Americans are growing increasingly pessimistic on the state of the economy as the Iran war causes surging gas prices and market volatility, the widely-tracked consumer sentiment survey from the University of Michigan showed. The reading reached its lowest point since December, and survey director Joanne Hsu said Americans with middle or higher incomes, and stock wealth, expressed “particularly large drops in sentiment.”

WEALTH + ENTREPRENEURSHIP

The Social Security system is expected to go essentially bankrupt in about seven years, in other words, there isn’t enough coming in from people still working to cover the benefits of retirees. Some of the solutions include raising the retirement age, increasing taxes, shrinking benefits—or a radical option, like eliminating earned benefits, and giving every beneficiary the same flat payout.

President Donald Trump told reporters on Sunday that regime change in Iran has already happened and described the country’s current leaders as “very reasonable,” shortly after floating the idea of seizing the Iranian export hub Kharg Island and taking its oil. He also took credit for Iran’s decision to allow 20 more ships to pass through the Strait of Hormuz.

TurboTax maker Intuit secured a victory in its long-running fight with the Federal Trade Commission, as a federal appeals court vacated the FTC’s decision, ruling the case must be heard in federal court. The ruling could signal new limits on the agency’s ability for in-house enforcement, as tax prep companies have come under scrutiny for how they advertise “free” filing options.

This Crypto Billionaire Wants To Use The Human Brain As A Blueprint For AI

In a two-story brick office building in Emeryville, located in the Bay Area, neuroscientists are planning to fit mice with diminutive brain-computer interfaces to record patterns of neural activity while they perform basic tasks, like navigating a maze. They hope to build a library of mouse brain states that reliably map to specific perceptions and actions.

Next comes translation, turning those findings into code, and eventually, into a new kind of AI system built on the brain’s governing principles. They plan to run the experiments on mice, monkeys and even humans.

If it works, it could become a flywheel: Brain experiments inform new AI architectures, which in turn suggest new hypotheses to test. Hovering over all of it is a science fiction-sounding ambition—using brain computer interfaces not just to read minds, but to write them. Researchers talk about “uploading” knowledge into the brain, inserting the image of an apple into someone’s thoughts, or directions to navigate a never-before-seen maze.

Silicon Valley billionaire Jed McCaleb, who founded cryptocurrency projects Ripple and Stellar, is bankrolling the idea. He’s committing $1 billion of his cryptocurrency fortune–worth about $3.9 billion by Forbes’ estimate–into building AI systems that achieve artificial general intelligence, or the threshold at which AI systems can perform tasks as well as humans.

“Most effort and research… is going in one particular area—transformers,” McCaleb said. “[AI] would benefit by looking closer at the human brain.”

WHY IT MATTERS “By pursuing AGI as a nonprofit and emphasizing open research, Astera Institute is testing whether the technology can be developed outside the commercial playbook,” says Forbes senior writer Anna Tong.

MORE Cursor Goes To War For AI Coding Dominance

A Texas family received prison sentences over efforts to turn fake trusts into legitimate tax refunds. Prosecutors say the multimillion-dollar fraud scheme continued despite multiple warnings from the IRS:

At least 2016: How far back the scheme dates

More than $8.5 million: The amount the family members claimed in in tax refunds

$1.8 million: About how much the defendants were ordered to pay in restitution

Rather than searching for a new role, a growing number of workers are “survival stacking”—juggling multiple jobs to build a financial safety net. New research shows more than one-third of U.S. workers have a side hustle or multiple jobs, as mounting corporate layoffs have shown that job stability in many sectors is far from guaranteed. It also reflects a shift toward portfolio-driven careers, where experience can come from more than a single 9-5.

The maker of a popular video game console is hiking prices due to “continued pressures in the global economic landscape.” Which console is it?

Thanks for reading! This edition of Forbes Daily was edited by Sarah Whitmire and Caroline Howard.

© Forbes