January’s narrower U.S. budget deficit is best read as a revenue story, especially tariffs, rather than as evidence that Washington has structurally “fixed” its fiscal trajectory. The Treasury reported a $95 billion deficit for January, down 26% from a year earlier, because receipts rose much faster than spending.

Adjusted for calendar quirks that can shift benefit payments between months, Treasury said the deficit would have been only $30 billion, a much larger year-on-year improvement. On a fiscal-year-to-date basis through the first four months (starting October 1), the deficit fell to $697 billion, with revenues up strongly and outlays rising only modestly.

In a landmark decision that underscores the Trump administration’s drive to reshape U.S. energy and mineral policy, the Department of the Interior on Friday approved the development of Anfield Energy’s Velvet-Wood uranium and vanadium mine in Utah—after a compressed 14-day environmental review, a dramatic departure from the years-long process such projects typically face.

The Velvet-Wood project, located in San Juan County, Utah, becomes the first mining operation greenlit under new emergency permitting rules, introduced following President Donald Trump’s declaration of a national energy emergency on his first day in office in January. That executive action directed federal agencies to accelerate approvals for energy and mining infrastructure, citing the need to boost domestic resource production, reduce foreign dependency, and reinforce U.S. national security.

China’s plan to list domestic, yuan-denominated LNG futures on the Shanghai Futures Exchange is best understood as an attempt to shift the “control layer” of LNG pricing and risk management closer to home. For years, Chinese buyers have been the largest single source of incremental LNG demand, yet the core hedging benchmarks that shape contract formulas and price expectations sit outside China, anchored in Western or offshore hubs such as Europe’s TTF, U.S. Henry Hub, and Asia’s JKM.

A yuan contract on a major mainland exchange would give Chinese importers a way to manage price swings without defaulting to dollar-based instruments, and it is designed explicitly to create a reason for foreign counterparties with China exposure to trade on Chinese rails as well.