Federal health officials are continuing to investigate a multi-state outbreak of drug-resistant infections linked to eye drops.
Driving the news: At least 3 people have died and 68 people from 16 states were diagnosed with a rare strain of Pseudomonas aeruginosa in connection with the outbreak, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Latinos and Black American adults are at a much higher risk of experiencing food insecurity than their white counterparts, according a new study by the Urban Institute.
The big picture: Sky-high food price inflation has added financial hardship for families across the country, especially Latinos.That hardship is likely to be exacerbated now that pandemic-era enhanced benefits have ended.
On Wednesday afternoon, the Federal Reserve didn't just raise interest rates for the ninth straight time in the face of a banking crisis. It also affirmed that its plans for the year remain more or less intact, and that nearly all of its leaders expect at least one more rate increase to come.
But investors are not buying it — not even a little bit.
In recent days, the message from some of the world's most powerful central banks has been fairly consistent: They're pressing ahead with interest rate increases, despite recent banking turmoil.
They all remain laser-focused on cooling inflation, which remains uncomfortably hot.
Driving the news: Following the Fed, the Bank of England raised rates by a quarter-percentage point, following a surprisingly hot inflation reading.
That move doused hopes that the central bank would halt its hiking campaign, which has been underway longer than any other major central bank.
BoE officials expect inflation to "fall significantly" in the coming months, thanks to a government cap on household energy bills and a drop in wholesale oil prices.
But the central bank's governor, Andrew Bailey, noted that price pressures are increasingly driven by more homegrown factors, including a tight labor market.
What they're saying: "I'm confident that in this country we are in a much stronger position," Bailey, who previously ran the nation's financial sector watchdog, told media outlets.
"Their capital is stronger, their funding is stronger, and so far I think we've seen the signs that they've come through that robustly."
Between the lines: The BoE hinted that it would be too soon to know how fallout from developments in the banking sector, including the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, might affect bank lending activity in the country.
Officials said they would "monitor closely any effects on the credit conditions faced by households and businesses," including what impact that might have on the economy and inflation.
Character.ai, a personalized AI chatbot developer, raised $150 million led by Andreessen Horowitz at a $1 billion post-money valuation.
Why it matters: The company seeks to provide "everyone on Earth with their own AI," from everything from entertainment to information to emotional connection. Sure that sounds like science fiction, but so did the idea of everyone having a supercomputer in their pocket.
Silicon Valley Bank remains for sale, in whole or in pieces, with bids reportedly due tomorrow. But some of SVB's top bankers are already gone.
Driving the news: Stifel this morning announced that it's hired Jake Moseley, Matt Trotter and Ted Wilson as managing directors in its venture lending business.
The Bank of England raised rates by a quarter-percentage point on Thursday, the latest central bank to press on in an effort to tackle inflation despite signs of stress in the global banking system.
Why it matters: The move came after a surprisingly sharp jump in price gains in the U.K., where inflation in the year through February reached 10.4%.
FTX reached a deal to recover over $400 million from hedge fund Modulo, which in 2022 received $475 million in seed money from Alameda Research, at the direction of disgraced founder Sam Bankman-Fried
Announcing the move in a bankruptcy court filing, the crypto exchange said Modulo will return about $460 million worth of "shareholder value," including $404 million in cash, without litigation.
Why it matters: This is the first of Bankman-Fried's investments via sister trading firm Alameda to get clawed back — and maybe not the last.
Pay rose at historically fast rates for low-wage workers in the U.S. between 2019 and 2022, even after adjusting for inflation, according to an analysis from the Economic Policy Institute released Thursday morning.
What happened: The tight labor market and disruptions from the pandemic gave folks at the lowest end of the pay scale unprecedented amounts of leverage over employers.
Depositors should feel secure keeping cash at banks after the government backstopped all deposits — even those exceeding limits on FDIC insurance — at two banks that recently collapsed, Fed chair Jerome Powell said Wednesday.
Summer will test just how well airlines have recovered from the chaos of this past holiday season.
The big picture: Summer travel and the holidays are airlines’ biggest stress tests. The holidays were a nightmare, as Southwest Airlines entered full meltdown, and a host of other challenges could complicate summer travel, too.
Catch up quick: The Seattle funeral home specializes in a novel form of post-life care in which human remains are turned into soil, which can then be used in a garden or forest — with permission, where necessary.
Just 69.1% of domestic U.S. flights departed on time in December 2022, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation.
That's down from 75.2% year over year, and from 78.6% in December 2019 (before the COVID-19 pandemic), per recently released data from the department's Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS).
Justin Sun, creator of the Tron blockchain, is one of the best known and least credible major characters in the cryptocurrency industry. And now he has a new facet to his notoriety: allegations of market manipulation by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
Why it matters: Everyone has known for some time that a lot of crypto trading is fake, driven by large players looking to drive up the value of their holdings. By taking on one of the most prominent faces in the industry, D.C. has shown it's paying attention.
