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Iran’s economy was already crashing before the U.S. and Israel launched a war against the Islamic republic three weeks ago, and the relentless bombing since then has wreaked even more havoc.

In fact, high inflation triggered mass protests in December and January, prompting the regime to massacre tens of thousands of its own citizens. President Donald Trump warned Tehran against further violence and began a military build-up that led to the current conflict.

Inflation has worsened and apparently is so bad now the government issued its largest-ever currency denomination: the 10 million rial note (equivalent to about $7).

The new currency went into circulation last week, according to the Financial Times, and comes just a month after the prior record holder, the 5 million rial, came out.

As prices continue to spiral higher while the war boosts demand for cash, long lines formed to withdraw the fresh banknotes, and supplies quickly ran out.

Iran’s central bank said electronic payments are still the main methods for transactions, though the 10 million rial bill will “ensure public access to cash,” the FT reported.

But doubts about the viability of electronic payments have grown during the war as the U.S. and Israel target the regime’s levers of control.

In addition to bombing Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Basij paramilitary forces, a data center for Bank Sepah was also hit on March 11. Sepah is the country’s largest bank and is responsible for paying salaries to the military and IRGC.

“Iran is already in the middle of a severe cash liquidity crisis,” Miad Maleki, a senior advisor at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and a former Treasury Department official, said on X earlier this month. “As of Jan 2026, banks were running out of physical banknotes daily, with informal withdrawal caps of just $18–$30/day. Cash in circulation surged 49% YoY due to panic hoarding. The regime simply cannot pivot to cash payments, there isn’t enough physical currency in the system.”

Meanwhile, a currency collapse that began after last year’s U.S.-Israeli bombardment has fueled crippling inflation. The rial lost 60% of its value in the months after the 12-day war, and food inflation soared to 64% by October. It accelerated further to 105% by February, vaulting overall inflation to 47.5%.

The exchange rate fell as low as 1.66 million rials per $1 last month, though it strengthened to about 1.5 million rials as the U.S. temporarily lifted sanctions on Iranian oil.

Heightened demand for cash further stresses a financial system that was considered dubious even before the current war started three weeks ago.

The failure of Ayandeh Bank late last year forced the regime to fold it into a state-run lender, underscoring how fragile the sector was as bad loans piled up to politically connected cronies.

“This was largely theater. In reality, Iran’s entire banking system is insolvent, its balance sheets sustained by fiction rather than assets,” Siamak Namazi, who was a U.S. hostage in Iran from 2015 to 2023, wrote in a report for the Middle East Institute in January.

During his captivity, he learned from imprisoned former officials and business elites that politically connected borrowers bribed assessors to inflate the value of properties, which were used to obtain massive loans.

Instead of repaying the loans, borrowers just gave their properties to the bank, which sold them to other banks at a paper profit, according to Namazi. Those banks knew the properties were overvalued “garbage,” but played along in the scheme by dumping their own toxic assets in exchange and booking fictitious gains.

“The result is a closed-loop Ponzi scheme, sustained by mutual deception and regulatory complicity,” he added. “This practice has metastasized over the past 15 years and is far more extensive than this simplified description suggests. And this is only the banking system. Much of the rest of Iran’s economy is afflicted by similarly entrenched corruption and mismanagement.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

Panic buying is back in Japan. 

As the U.S.-Israeli-Iran conflict rattles oil markets, Japanese consumers are stockpiling toilet paper—a product with no connection to the disruptions whatsoever, but that has caused enough problems for the country that the Japanese government has urged citizens to stop buying ahead of time. Still, social media posts depicting empty toilet paper abound.

But why would people panic buy goods unrelated to or not affected by the conflict? Panic buying behaves much like a bank run. Nobody knows exactly where it starts—some single, bleating data point that says this store is going to run out of toilet paper, or this bank is going to run out of money. 

Back in the olden days that data point, a verifiable person, would run and holler at their neighbors; “Hey Johnny, take your money outta the bank! They’re about to run out!” and Johnny would go a-running. Now someone posts on social media that COVID-19, tariffs, or the war with Iran is going to nuke toilet paper stock, and strangers across the country start loading up their carts. 

Pandemic-era panic buying is making a comeback

This was the situation with the great panic of COVID-19. On March 12, 2020, toilet paper sales surged 734% compared to the same day the year before, making it the top-selling grocery item in the world that day. By the time the Great Toilet Paper panic of 2020 was over, 70% of the world’s grocery stores would have run out at some point—a record.

The shortage was so severe it caused a measurable shift in American bathroom habits: Bidet sales spiked and, for many households, stuck. But researchers who studied the episode afterward found no actual supply chain disruption for toilet paper. Production was steady and distribution was intact. Rather, the shortage was almost entirely a creation of panic and hype.

Now the panic buying is back—this time in Japan—and in some ways it makes even less sense. During COVID, supply chains across every sector were under strain, so the instinct to stockpile had, at least, a logical ambiance. Today, the disruptions are due to tightening in oil markets tied to the conflict in Iran, and little to do with consumer packaged goods. But Japan has its own deep history with toilet paper panic, and that history has its own logic.

Japan’s history with toilet paper panics

The original Japanese toilet paper crisis came in 1973, also triggered by turmoil in the Middle East over oil. It began when Yasuhiro Nakasone, then the minister of international trade and industry, called on the public to conserve paper products. The announcement was meant to signal some austerity. Instead, it sparked rumors that paper supplies were running out—and Japanese consumers, particularly women managing household budgets, began buying enormous quantities of toilet paper. Academics have described the panic as a response to the growing instability of the middle class, a fear their livelihoods were held up by smoke and mirrors.

Since then, Japan has raced for its toilet products every time a crisis rolls around. The devastating earthquake and tsunami of 2011 triggered the same kind of hoarding behavior, though apparently there were some actual disruptions in affected regions. Now, the cycle is repeating itself.

What makes toilet paper the perennial target? It’s bulky and distinctly finite—when it’s gone from the shelf, it’s conspicuous. And unlike food, which you consume and replace in a rhythm, toilet paper occupies a kind of psychological category all its own, a symbol of long-term stability and responsibility. 

“The importance of toilet paper…runs deep into the soul of modern culture,” anthropologist Grant Jun Otsuki wrote about the COVID shortage in 2021. “The mere thought of the disappearance of toilet paper from the world spurs some to act so quickly and decisively to secure their own supplies.”

So far, the panic doesn’t appear to have spread far beyond Japan—except, perhaps, to neighboring Australia, where Perth has reported some early signs of stockpiling. As if the hollering from across the water finally reached the next set of ears.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

Oil and natural gas futures prices—despite trading 60% higher since before the Iran war—remain well below the physical supply shortages facing Asia and spreading around the world that will take many months to replenish, the chairman and CEO of Chevron said March 23.

The large CERAWeek by S&P Global conference is attracting many of the world’s energy leaders from around the world in Houston this week and a top theme is the potential disconnect between energy markets and the greatest global energy supply shock ever with the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz, which typically funnels nearly 20% of the world’s crude oil and liquefied natural gas each day.

“There are very real physical manifestations of the closure of the Strait of Hormuz that are working their way around the world through the system that I don’t think are fully priced in,” said Chevron CEO Mike Wirth.

Asia already is facing major supply shortages that cannot be undone just by the releases of strategic, emergency supplies. That is why many Asian countries have implemented energy conservation mandates, work-from-home efforts, school closures, and more. Wirth also cited the huge supplies of fertilizer for agriculture and helium for semiconductors that flow through the strait offshore of Iran.

“The fundamentals are very tight out there,” Wirth said. “The markets are trading on scant information.”

“Physical supply changes don’t respond immediately,” he added. “Even when strait reopens at some point, it will take time.”

Oil prices dipped notably March 23 when President Donald Trump said he would delay any attacks on Iranian energy infrastructure by five days to allow for greater negotiations, pushing back his March 23 deadline for Iran to reopen the strait. Iran has in turn said it would attack more energy facilities in neighboring Gulf countries if the U.S. followed through on Trump’s threats, further escalating the war. And, later in the day, Iranian officials said no negotiations have taken place, accusing Trump of pushing “fake news” to lower prices.

Iran accused of ‘economic terrorism’

Iran’s counteroffensive strategy of attacking the oil and gas supplies of its neighbors is a form of unprovoked terrorism that will not be accepted, said Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, the United Arab Emirates minister of industry and advanced technology, and group CEO of ADNOC, the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company.

The UAE has cut its oil production by more than 50% this month, while Iraq and Kuwait have made even deeper reductions. Al Jaber canceled his scheduled appearance in Houston because of the war, but he provided a video message. Saudi Aramco CEO Amin Nasser also canceled his trip.

“Weaponizing the Strait of Hormuz is not an act of aggression against one nation. It’s economic terrorism against every nation,” Al Jaber said. “And no country should be allowed to hold Hormuz hostage. Not now, not ever.”

He accused Iran of “choking the throat” of the “global economy.”

Kicking off CERAWeek, U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright, a former oil and gas executive, said the Iran war is a “conflict that we simply couldn’t kick down the road one more administration.”

Wright called the war “short-term disruption now, but to end a multi-decadal problem.”

The International Energy Agency agreed this month to release 400 million barrels of oil from emergency storage, including 172 million barrels from the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

Wright said the U.S. began withdrawing oil from the SPR on March 20 and that the U.S. will release at least 1 million barrels each day from the SPR for the next few months. The total global release would equate to nearly 3 million barrels daily, he said.

Still, that does not offset more than 11 million barrels of oil that remains offline, even with Saudi Arabia and the UAE redirecting as many barrels as they can through the Red Sea and other outlets.

“Oil remains the most important energy source in the world,” Wright said. “No oil, no modern world.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

The federal workers union representing TSA officers has chided the Trump Administration’s decision to send Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) into airports, arguing the agents are not qualified to handle airport security.

“ICE agents are not trained or certified in aviation security,” Everett Kelley, president of the American Federation of Government Employees, said in a statement on Sunday. “TSA officers spend months learning to detect explosives, weapons, and threats specifically designed to evade detection at checkpoints—skills that require specialized instruction, hands-on practice, and ongoing recertification. 

“You cannot improvise that. Putting untrained personnel at security checkpoints does not fill a gap,” he added. “It creates one.”

Instead of solving the problem of the 50,000-plus TSA employees who “have worked without pay for over five weeks,” Kelley said, “Washington’s answer isn’t to pay them. It’s to send ICE agents to do their jobs.”

The American Federation of Government Employees is the only union representing TSA officers.

President Donald Trump on Sunday announced on social media plans to order federal immigration officers to oversee airport security on Monday amid an ongoing partial government shutdown. The shutdown, entering its 43rd day, ceased funding for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) as Democrats demanded reform policies after ICE officers fatally shot two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis in January.

Trump told reporters on Monday that ICE agents would also be able to conduct immigration checks and make arrests, though it was not the primary reason for their placement.

“They’re able to now arrest illegals as they come into the ​country. That’s ⁠very fertile territory. But that’s not why they’re there. They’re really there to help,” he said.

TSA receives its funding from DHS, meaning its more than 50,000 frontline officers are not getting paid but are required to work as they are deemed “essential employees.” More than 400 TSA employees have quit and thousands more have called out of work, according to DHS. 

Kelley asserted ICE agents should still not replace absent TSA employees, who “deserve to be paid, not replaced by untrained, armed agents who have shown how dangerous they can be,” he said.

After an initial training period, TSA transportation security officers are put through an additional two-to-three week training program, according to job postings.

One whistleblower previously raised concerns about training for ICE deportation agents being cut, saying in a Congressional testimony that instruction for incoming agents was slashed in an effort to increase recruitment to increase arrests. The Washington Post reported earlier this month that ICE removed about 240 hours of basic training from its program, equivalent to about 40% of instructional time, according to government records.

White House border czar Tom Homan said in an interview with CNN that immigration officers could cover exits typically monitored by TSA agents to allow them to better staff screening lines, as well as check identification for passengers entering screening lines. According to Homan, ICE agents will likely not oversee X-ray machines because of lack of training. “ICE agents are assigned at many airports across the country already,” Homan said. “They do a lot of investigation, criminal investigation on smuggling at airports.”

DHS acting assistant secretary Lauren Bis said in a statement to Fortune that the department would not disclose where ICE agents were deployed for security reasons. 

Ongoing travel disruptions

TSA officers’ call-out rates reached their highest level of the shutdown on Sunday, with 11.76% of workers, or more than 3,450 employees, not showing up to work, DHS data showed. That included about 40% of TSA officers from George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport, and Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, according to DHS data.

Delta CEO Ed Bastian lambasted the federal government over the shutdown, saying in an interview with CNBC last week that politicians should “do their job” to ensure TSA officers are paid during the shutdown. 

“It’s inexcusable that our security agents, our frontline agents, that are essential to what we do, are not being paid, and it’s ridiculous to see them being used as political chips,” he said.

Bastian joined a host of airline CEOs asking Congress—which is now heading into a two-week recess without a deal in sight—to resume DHS funding. In an open letter, the executives from Southwest Airlines, United Airlines, JetBlue Airways, among others, suggested air travel has become political collateral during shutdown, and that providing compensation for TSA employees was particularly prudent ahead of a busy spring travel season that would be punctuated by both the FIFA World Cup and the U.S.’s 250th anniversary.

Short-staffed airports have shut down checkpoints, leaving passengers to endure three-hour or even longer wait times in security lines. The shortages have also contributed to thousands of flight delays and cancellations.

These disturbances have only mounted pressure on airports and airlines also contending with threats of increased fuel prices and cancelled flights as a result of the war in Iran, as well as safety concerns. LaGuardia Airport in New York is closed following a deadly collision of an Air Canada jet into a fire truck on Sunday night, killing a pilot and copilot and injuring dozens of passengers. Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey temporarily shut down operations on Monday as a result of a burning smell in an elevator, forcing air traffic controllers to evacuate a tower.

Meanwhile, TSA agents working without pay are experiencing eviction notices, vehicle repossessions, and trouble buying groceries, union and federal officials warned. A 2024 Government Accountability Office report found TSA officers have struggled with some of the lowest morale levels in the federal government, with employees citing poor management, work-life balance, and pay as reasons for their frustrations. The starting salary for TSA agents is about $34,500, with the average annual pay between $46,000 and $55,000.

“I’ve heard from officers who cannot afford copayments for cancer treatments or office visits for their sick children,” Aaron Barker, a local TSA union leader based in Atlanta, told reporters earlier this week.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

Strategy, the world’s largest holder of Bitcoin, bought more than 1,000 of the original cryptocurrency last week, worth more than $76 million. The purchase follows one from the week prior worth $1.6 billion, which the company funded primarily through its “Stretch” perpetual preferred shares. 

One analyst says that the company will get back to buying more Bitcoin and do so through its sale of these “Stretch” perpetual preferred shares, known as STRC. 

“While the cadence and size of Strategy’s Bitcoin purchases will likely remain uneven on a week-to-week basis, reflecting market conditions and opportunistic timing, we fully expect the company to aggressively lean into its Bitcoin acquisition strategy as demand for its STRC perpetual preferred stock increases,” said Mark Palmer, senior equity research analyst at The Benchmark Company. 

Strategy, run by executive chairman Michael Saylor, is a digital asset treasury—a company whose sole purpose is to acquire and hold on to vast amounts of Bitcoin. It can make these purchases through sales of its “Stretch” perpetual preferred shares, a security that offers investors an 11% annual yield.

Its common shares, the sale of which can also fund the company’s purchase of Bitcoin, are often tied to the currency’s performance. Strategy’s shares have increased about 10% in the last month, and Bitcoin is up about 9% during that time to its current price of roughly $70,000, according to Binance. Cryptocurrencies have shown growth and resilience since the beginning of the war in Iran, while traditional stock indexes like the S&P 500 have struggled. 

Palmer, the analyst at The Benchmark Company, expects Strategy to continue to pivot back to its sales of “Stretch”, “We expect STRC to become established as Strategy’s primary vehicle for fueling its Bitcoin purchases going forward.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

As Gen Z college graduates struggle to jumpstart their careers, skepticism about the value of higher education is reaching new heights. 

But at one private university in suburban North Carolina, graduates are defying that trend. At High Point University, 99.2% of the class of 2024 were employed or pursuing further education within six months of graduation—14 points above the national average.

The secret, according to the school, isn’t exclusively leaning on traditional academic offerings to prepare students for the real world. Instead, High Point brands itself as the nation’s “premier life skills university.” 

“It’s clear that students and parents expect maximum return on investment from a college education,” a High Point University spokesperson told Fortune. “It’s also clear that employers need graduates who have not only technical skills but also life skills that outlast technical skills, which are constantly changing.”

In practice, that means required courses like Life Skills 101, which University President Nido Qubein teaches himself on confidence, communication, and personal branding. It also means bringing in top business minds, such as Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak, who serves as the school’s “innovator in residence,” to mentor students directly.

While similar programs elsewhere are often limited to students in their last year of school or even just business majors, High Point has made career readiness and soft skills the core of its entire curriculum.

The school also caught the country’s attention this year by making it to the NCAA College Basketball Tournament as a No. 12 seed and upsetting No. 5 Wisconsin. The High Point Panthers then lost to Arkansas on March 22.

What skills are Gen Z graduates missing—and how does HPU fix it?

Throughout students’ time at High Point, the school emphasizes teaching what they say “employers want in new hires,” including motivation, emotional intelligence, coachability, technical competence, temperament, and work ethic—traits that are increasingly rare to find among young professionals. 

According to a report from tech education company General Assembly, fewer than half of all workers, and just 12% of mid-level executives, are confident that entry-level workers are adequately prepared for the workforce.

It’s a concern echoed by many business leaders. Jon Gray, president and COO of asset firm Blackstone, told employees in 2025:

“Most of you went to elite universities. You did really well, you were in the top of your class. You are people who are successful by nature and hardworking,” Gray said in a video posted to his LinkedIn account. “But when I look around at the people who truly succeeded at Blackstone, it’s not the ‘good enough’ crowd, right? It’s the people who are like, hey, ‘I’m gonna make sure I get this absolutely right.’”

Even tech leaders have weighed in. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has questioned whether college is living up to its promise.

“It would be one thing if [college] was just kind of like a social experience, but you started off neutral. The fact that it’s not preparing you for the jobs that you need and you’re kind of starting off in this big [financial] hole then I think that’s not good,” Zuckerberg said on This Past Weekend podcast with Theo Von.

For High Point, these critiques have represented opportunity. The school’s pitch is simple: “HPU is about more than degrees; it’s about life skills. Our students learn practical wisdom and career skills that prepare them for success in any field.”

These lessons are reinforced through lectures and seminars on topics such as how to land a job, how to pitch yourself, and how to thrive in the workplace, giving students tangible tools to turn their education into real-world success.

Why Wall Street parents choose High Point University

Nestled in the Piedmont Triad of North Carolina, High Point faces the challenge of being down the road from other top universities in the Tar Heel state—something that only exacerbates the pressure to attract students—and stay afloat financially. Since March 2020, over 80 public or nonprofit colleges have announced closures or mergers, according to Best Colleges.

During Qubein’s now 20 years at the helm of the university, High Point’s student population has tripled. Last fall, High Point welcomed its largest class of first-year students as well as its largest total enrollment growth in history—topping at 6,550 students.

Part of High Point’s growth strategy has been to attract wealthier students and their families.

“Half of Wall Street sends their kids to this school,” Qubein told The Wall Street Journal in 2025.

Many elite universities—including Harvard and MIT—have also expanded financial aid for lower-income families, banking that wealthier students paying full price will help balance the books. High Point, for its part, offers an average student aid package of about $23,000. Its total annual cost of attendance is just over $71,000.

For that price, students can take advantage of free car inspections before holiday breaks, a campus steakhouse, six outdoor heated pools—each with its own hot tub—and even a mock airplane cabin, designed to help students practice networking for chance encounters at 30,000 feet.

Still, Qubein rejects the idea that these are luxuries—but rather what’s needed to get young people ready for the real world.

“As far as I’m concerned, we have no amenities,” Qubein added to the WSJ. “We are not in the business of pampering students. We are in the business of preparing our students.”

A version of this story originally published on Fortune.com on November 7, 2025.

More on education:

• Meet the billionaires bankrolling March Madness Sweet 16 schools—from the Dallas Cowboys owner to Carlyle Group’s founder
• Liberal arts degrees have long paid the worst salaries—but Microsoft chief scientist says in the age of AI, they will be ‘really important’ for Gen Z
• Former Goldman Sachs CEO got into Harvard University at just 16 from public housing in Brooklyn—and says higher education is still the best way of breaking into the middle class

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

Prediction market Kalshi loves a publicity stunt. In February, the company handed out free groceries to hundreds of New Yorkers. Now, it’s taking a page from Warren Buffett’s playbook and offering a $1 billion prize to any user who has the perfect March Madness bracket. 

In 2014, he offered $1 billion to any Berkshire Hathaway (or subsidiary) employee who picked the winner of all 63 games correctly. Nobody won, and the company has since modified its payouts multiple times because a perfect bracket is harder than you might think. 

Taking teams’ stats, history, and general basketball knowledge into account, the NCAA estimates that the chances of perfection are 1 in 120.2 billion. The longest verified streak came from an Ohio man who correctly guessed 49 consecutive games in 2019. 

Kalshi admits that it knows “the odds aren’t in your favor.” In the unlikely chance of a payout, the winner would receive $100 million each year for 10 years, according to the contest rules. SIG Parametrics, a member of the Susquehanna International Group of Companies, is financially backing the contest.

If no one has the perfect bracket, the person with the highest score, based on the company’s point system, will receive $1 million. If there’s a tie, the prize will be split equally among the winners. 

All U.S. citizens over 18 years old were eligible to enter the contest before the competition’s first game on March 19. But New York or Florida residents are not eligible, and Kalshi did not immediately respond to Fortune’s comment on why people in those states were excluded. 

Berkshire’s long-standing tradition

Kalshi is mimicking a longtime Berkshire Hathaway tradition that drew about 65,000 of its nearly 400,000 employees in 2024, according to The Wall Street Journal. 

Since 2014, Buffett has offered his employees millions for their brackets. And even though he stepped down as CEO in December, the competition will continue this year, according to Front Office Sports. 

Over the years, the rules and prizes have changed as the long odds weighed on participants, while Buffett was eager to give away money.

After kicking off the yearly competition with a $1 billion prize for a perfect bracket, Buffett switched to a $1 million reward from 2015 to 2024 to anyone who perfectly guessed the Sweet 16. 

But no employees met the target. A $100,000 consolation prize was given to the bracket that stayed perfect the longest. Buffett is known to personally congratulate the winners. 

“I’m getting older,” Buffett told WSJ in 2025. “I want to give away a million dollars to somebody while I’m still around as chairman.”

Last year, Buffett’s wish came true after he changed the rules again to offer $1 million to anyone who correctly guessed at least 30 of 32 first-round games. A FlightSafety International employee (a pilot training company subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway) won $1 million for correctly guessing 31 out of 32 first round games. 

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

The Supreme Court ‘s conservative majority on Monday sounded skeptical of state laws that allow the counting of late-arriving mail ballots, a persistent target of President Donald Trump.

The court heard arguments in a case from Mississippi that also could affect voters in 13 other states and the District of Columbia, which have grace periods for ballots cast by mail. An additional 15 states that have more forgiving deadlines for ballots from military and overseas voters also could be impacted.

A ruling is expected by late June, early enough to govern the counting of ballots in the 2026 midterm congressional elections.

The court challenge is part of Trump’s broader attack on most mail balloting, which he has said breeds fraud despite strong evidence to the contrary and years of experience in numerous states.

Several conservative justices gave voice to some of Trump’s complaints. Justice Samuel Alito wondered about the appearance of fraud in situations where “a big stash of ballots” that arrive late “radically flipped” an election.

Defending the state law, Mississippi Solicitor General Scott Stewart pointed out that the Trump administration and its allies in the case have yet to submit a single case of fraud due to late-arriving mail ballots.

The court’s liberal justices indicated they would uphold state laws with post-Election Day deadlines.

“The people who should decide this issue are not the courts, but Congress, the states and Congress,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor said.

Forcing states to change their practices just a few months before the election risks “confusion and disenfranchisement,” especially in places that have had relaxed deadlines for years, state and big-city election officials told the court in a written filing.

California, Texas, New York and Illinois are among the states with post-Election Day deadlines. Alaska, with its vast distances and often unpredictable weather, also counts late-arriving ballots.

Lawyers for the Republican and Libertarian parties, as well as Trump’s administration, are asking the justices to affirm an appellate ruling that struck down a Mississippi law allowing ballots to be counted if they arrive within five business days of the election and are postmarked by Election Day.

Justices worried over the slippery-slope problems that could arise no matter who wins the case.

Ballots could be received until the start of the next Congress, two months after the election, Justice Neil Gorsuch suggested.

On the other side, Justice Elena Kagan said the logic of the challenge to late-arriving ballots also would be used to rule out early voting and absentee ballots.

Limits on early-voting also seemed to bother Chief Justice John Roberts, who seemed the conservative member of the court most likely to side with Mississippi.

The court also grappled with whether state laws allowing for late-arriving ballots from military and overseas ballots could survive.

Last year, Trump signed an executive order on elections that aims to require votes to be “cast and received” by Election Day. The order has been blocked in pending court challenges.

At the same time, four Republican-dominated states — Ohio, Kansas, North Dakota and Utah — eliminated grace periods last year, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures and Voting Rights Lab.

The issue at the Supreme Court is whether federal law sets a single Election Day that requires ballots to be both cast by voters and received by state officials.

In striking down Mississippi’s grace period, Judge Andrew Oldham of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals wrote that the state law allowing the late-arriving ballots to be counted violated federal law.

Oldham and the other two judges who joined the unanimous ruling, James Ho and Stuart Kyle Duncan, all were appointed by Trump during his first term.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com