___
US inflation eases grip on economy, falling for a 6th month
WASHINGTON (AP) — Rising U.S. consumer prices moderated again last month, bolstering hopes that inflation’s grip on the economy will continue to ease this year and possibly require less drastic action by the Federal Reserve to control it. Inflation declined to 6.5% in December compared with a year earlier. It was the sixth straight year-over-year slowdown. On a monthly basis, prices actually slipped 0.1% from November to December, the first such drop since May 2020. The softer readings add to growing signs that the worst inflation bout in four decades is steadily waning. Gas prices, which have tumbled, are likely to keep lowering overall inflation in the coming months.
___
California latest to sue drug companies over insulin prices
SACRAMENTO, California (AP) — California says it will sue the companies that make and promote much of the nation’s insulin. Democratic Attorney General Rob Bonta announced the lawsuit on Thursday. The lawsuit accuses insulin manufacturers Eli Lilli, Novo Nordisk and Sanofi of keeping prices too high. It also blames pharmacy benefit managers CVS Caremark, Express Scripts and OptumRx. California is one of many states that have sued these companies in recent years. California is also considering making its own generic version of insulin to try and drive down the price. People with certain types of diabetes need insulin to survive.
___
Bank to pay $31M redlining settlement, DOJ’s largest ever
NEW YORK (AP) — The Justice Department accused Los Angeles-based City National Bank on Thursday of discriminating against Black and Latino residents, requiring the bank to pay more than $31 million in what is the largest redlining settlement in DOJ history. City National is the latest bank in the last several years to be found systematically avoiding lending to racial and ethnic minorities. The Biden administration has set up its own task force to combat the practice. The Justice Department says that between 2017 and 2020, City National avoided marketing and underwriting mortgages in majority Black and Latino neighborhoods in Los Angeles County. Other banks that operated in these neighborhoods received six times the number of mortgage applications than City National did.
___
IRS announces Jan. 23 start date for tax filing season
WASHINGTON (AP) — The official start date of the 2023 tax filing season is Jan. 23, when the IRS will begin accepting and processing 2022 returns. The news comes after the National Taxpayer Advocate reported that the IRS watchdog is seeing “a light at the end of the tunnel” of the IRS’ customer service struggles, thanks to the hiring of thousands of new workers and tens of billions of dollars in new funding provided to the IRS in the Democrats’ climate and health law. Agency leadership says taxpayers should expect a smoother filing season this year.
___
Disney faces proxy fight as Peltz pushes to join board
Activist investor Nelson Peltz is fighting for a seat on the board of Walt Disney Co., claiming that the theme park and media company is struggling with self-inflicted problems. Peltz’s attempt to join Disney’s board comes just months after the company brought back longtime CEO Bob Iger to lead Disney again. Disney urged shareholders to vote against Peltz and named current board member Mark Parker as its chairman. Parker, who also serves as executive chairman at Nike Inc., succeeds Susan Arnold. The move that will shrink the board to 11 members.
___
Study: Exxon Mobil accurately predicted warming since 1970s
DENVER (AP) — A new study says Exxon Mobil’s scientists were remarkably accurate in their predictions about global warming. But at the same time, the company made public statements that contradicted its scientists’ conclusions. The study in the journal Science looked at research that Exxon funded. The research forecast the coming warming with precision equal to or better than government and academic scientists. This was during the same time that the oil giant publicly doubted that warming was real and dismissed climate models’ accuracy. Exxon says its understanding of climate change evolved over the years and that critics are misunderstanding its earlier research.
___
US air travel returns to normal after technology breakdown
U.S. air travel has returned mostly to normal, a day after a computer system that sends safety information to pilots broke down and grounded traffic from coast to coast. By early afternoon Thursday on the East Coast, only about 100 flights had been canceled and 1,700 delayed. Those figures are much lower than on Wednesday, when more than 1,300 flights were scrubbed and 11,000 delayed. The Federal Aviation Administration said a damaged database file appeared to have caused the outage in the safety-alert system. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg promised a thorough examination to avoid another major failure.
___
House votes to block China from buying oil from US reserves
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Republican-controlled House has voted to block oil from the country’s emergency stockpile from going to China. Republicans say the bill would help end what they call President Joe Biden’s “abuse of our strategic reserves.” Biden withdrew 180 million barrels from the reserve last year in a bid to halt rising gasoline prices after a ban on Russian oil imports following its invasion of Ukraine. Democrats say Republicans are trying to fix a problem of their own making. China is among numerous potential adversaries that buy U.S. oil after the GOP-led Congress lifted an export ban in 2015. Last year, millions of barrels of oil from the U.S. reserves wound up being exported to China.
___
Sweden locates rare earth deposits
KIRUNA, Sweden (AP) — A Swedish government-owned iron ore mining company says it has identified “significant deposits” of rare earth elements in Arctic Sweden that are essential for the manufacture of electric vehicles and wind turbines. LKAB’s CEO said Thursday that the quantity of rare earth metals exceeds 1 million tons and is the largest known deposit of its kind in Europe. Sweden’s energy and business minister said that the European Union’s “self-sufficiency and independence from Russia and China will begin in the mine.”
___
The S&P 500 rose 13.56 points, or 0.3%, to 3,983.17. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 216.96 points, or 0.6%, to 34,189.97. The Nasdaq rose 69.43 points, or 0.6%, to 11,001.10. The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies rose 32.01 points, or 1.7%, to 1,876.06.
