The U.K. government scrapped tax-free shopping for overseas visitors at the end of 2020, arguing that the country could no longer afford to offer a perk its Treasury estimated cost the public purse GBP2 billion a year, worth $2.4 billion at current exchange rates. London is now the only major European shopping destination where tourists can’t get back the 20% value-added tax they pay on luxury purchases.
Israeli President Appeals for Changes to Netanyahu’s Judicial Overhaul
TEL AVIV-Israeli President Isaac Herzog on Sunday asked Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to delay making changes to the judicial system and appealed for a compromise with opponents who say the plans threaten the country’s democracy.
Mr. Netanyahu’s recently sworn-in government is advancing plans that would give the ruling coalition control over appointing judges and allow a simple majority of lawmakers to override decisions by the country’s Supreme Court. The plan would also limit which cases the court can hear.
Russian Ship at International Space Station Leaked Coolant, NASA Says
A Russian supply ship docked at the International Space Station has a coolant leak, but the incident poses no danger to the station’s crew, NASA officials said Saturday.
Engineers at the Russian Mission Control Center outside Moscow recorded a depressurization in the coolant loop of the unpiloted Roscosmos Progress 82, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration said.
Aid Arrives in Turkey After Earthquakes but Anger Grows
GAZIANTEP, Turkey-Aid is now rushing into Turkey since twin earthquakes devastated vast swaths of the country, but anger is growing in destroyed towns over a sputtering government response and allegedly shoddy construction that has led to dozens of arrests of contractors.
The death toll across Turkey and Syria has reached over 33,000, with 29,600 dead in Turkey and another 3,500 dead in Syria.
Russia’s Wagner Group Claims Gains Near Bakhmut in Eastern Ukraine
KYIV, Ukraine-Russian paramilitary forces said they had captured a settlement on the outskirts of Bakhmut, the eastern Ukrainian city that Moscow has been pushing to encircle in some of the most intense fighting seen since the beginning of the war a year ago.
Yevgeny Prigozhin, the founder of the Wagner paramilitary group, said Sunday that his forces had secured Krasna Hora, a settlement of about 600 people before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last February, which sits on the northern edge of Bakhmut in the Donetsk region.
GLOBAL NEWS
Inflation Is Falling, and Where It Lands Depends on These Three Things
The end of distressingly high inflation is coming into view. Consumer prices gained 6.5% in December, down from June’s 9.1% annual rate, the highest since 1981. There is good reason to think inflation will keep falling, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said earlier this month.
“The process of getting inflation down has begun,” Mr. Powell said at the Economic Club of Washington, D.C.
Junk-Loan Market Shrugs Off Economic Worries
Business is slowing and interest rates have jumped for junk-rated U.S. companies. Investors who trade their loans, along with corporate chiefs, remain undaunted.
Optimism has burgeoned that highly indebted businesses from consumer manufacturers to software firms will get through the coming quarters relatively unscathed. Loan prices have rallied, defaults remain low and executives say that higher borrowing expenses and weakening demand aren’t significantly altering their plans.
New SEC Rules Target Corporate Insider Trading
For the last two decades, officers and directors at U.S. public companies seeking to trade illicitly on inside information had an almost infallible get-out-of-jail-free card.
All they had to do was use prearranged trading plans when they bought and sold their companies’ shares. The odds the government would target them for enforcement actions were slim. It was an unintended consequence of a 2002 regulation called Rule 10b5-1 that academic research shows was abused by some executives.
Investors Are Exiting U.S. Stock Funds During 2023 Rally
U.S. stocks have bounced back to start the year, but investors are fleeing funds tracking them.
Investors have pulled a net $31 billion from U.S. equity mutual funds and exchange-traded funds in the past six weeks, according to Refinitiv Lipper data through Wednesday. That marks the longest streak of weekly net outflows since last summer and the most money pulled in aggregate from domestic equity funds to start a year since 2016.
Metals Rally Fueled by China’s Reopening, Tight Supplies
The prices of metals used to make objects such as aircraft and electrical wire have rebounded toward last year’s highs, lifted by China’s pandemic reopening and low global supplies.
A basket of industrial metals that trades in London just notched its best January in more than a decade. U.S. copper futures posted their best first month of the year since 2003. Aluminum prices in London have climbed 10% so far this year. Zinc has added 2.4% and tin has gained 11%.
Blackstone’s Big New Idea Leaves It Bruised
Blackstone Inc. became one of the world’s most powerful financial firms by investing on behalf of large institutional investors. To boost growth, it decided to offer its products to individuals. Its new fund was a huge success, becoming the biggest Blackstone had ever raised.
Then it became a crisis.
The Fight to Define Green Hydrogen, With Billions of Dollars at Stake
Some of the world’s biggest companies are fighting over what qualifies as green energy. At stake are tax credits worth billions of dollars under the new U.S. climate law for one of the most-hyped clean-energy technologies.
Industry leaders such as BP PLC and NextEra Energy Inc. are arguing against renewable-energy companies including Vestas Wind Systems A/S and Intersect Power LLC over tax credits for hydrogen, a fuel that when made from renewable energy could reduce carbon emissions from transportation and other industrial sectors by replacing oil and gas.
Hard or Soft Landing? Some Economists See Neither if Growth Accelerates
Economists rang in the year debating whether the Federal Reserve’s aggressive interest-rate increases would steer the highflying U.S. economy into a hard or soft landing-forcing inflation down through either a painful recession or a gentler slowdown in growth.
Surprising strength in hiring and consumer spending last month, together with signs that demand for autos and housing might be stabilizing after a decline, now have some economists pointing to a third scenario that seemed improbable just a few weeks ago: an economic growth upturn.
Cyclone Threatens More Torrential Rain in Flood-Hit New Zealand
Hundreds of flights were canceled and schools closed as a cyclone bore down on Auckland on Monday, just two weeks after New Zealand’s largest city experienced several flooding caused by torrential rain.
Thousands of properties lost power and many train services were halted as meteorologists forecast up to 8 inches of rain for the city from Monday through Tuesday’s early hours. Authorities warned of potential landslips, with ground across the region still waterlogged after the wettest January since records began.
U.S. Military Shoots Down Fourth High-Altitude Object Over North America
The U.S. shot down a fourth flying object Sunday afternoon at 20,000 feet above Lake Huron, the Pentagon said, underscoring heightened concerns over North American airspace after a suspected Chinese spy balloon was found traversing the U.S.
An F-16 jet fighter shot down the object on orders of President Biden at 2:42 p.m., the Pentagon said, using the same kind of missile used in the previous three shootdowns, an AIM-9X Sidewinder.
Biden Appears Set to Run in 2024, but Many Democratic Voters Have Doubts
WASHINGTON-As President Biden prepares for an expected re-election bid, Democratic leaders are increasingly enthusiastic about his candidacy. Many of his party’s voters aren’t on board.
Concerns about Mr. Biden’s age and abilities are front of mind for some Democrats, even those who think the 80-year-old president has done well during his first two years in office, according to recent polling and Wall Street Journal interviews with more than two dozen people around the country who voted for Mr. Biden in 2020.
Trump Lawyers Appeared Before Grand Jury as Part of Classified-Documents Probe
Two lawyers for Donald Trump appeared before a grand jury last month as part of the special counsel investigation into the handling of classified documents and other records discovered at the former president’s South Florida residence and private club, according to people familiar with the matter.
Christina Bobb and Evan Corcoran, lawyers who have represented Mr. Trump in dealings with the Justice Department over the classified documents, made their appearances in the early weeks of January as the special counsel, Jack Smith, ramped up his investigation, the people said.
Write to [email protected]
Write to us at [email protected]
We offer an enhanced version of this briefing that is optimized for viewing on mobile devices and sent directly to your email inbox. If you would like to sign up, please go to https://newsplus.wsj.com/subscriptions.
This article is a text version of a Wall Street Journal newsletter published earlier today.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
February 13, 2023 06:12 ET (11:12 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2023 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
