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Fed faults Silicon Valley Bank execs, itself in bank failure
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Federal Reserve blamed last month’s collapse of Silicon Valley Bank on poor management, watered-down regulations and lax oversight by its own staffers, and said the industry needs stricter policing on multiple fronts to prevent future bank failures. The Fed was highly critical of its own role in the bank’s failure in a report released Friday, saying banking supervisors were slow to recognize blossoming problems at Silicon Valley Bank as it quickly grew in size in the years leading up to its collapse. The report also points out underlying cultural issues at the Fed, where supervisors were unwilling to be hard on bank management when they saw growing problems.
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Inflation pressures remain persistent as consumers pull back
WASHINGTON (AP) — Key measures of prices and wages remained high in March, keeping the Federal Reserve on track to raise interest rates next week for the 10th time since March of last year in its drive to defeat high inflation. An index that is closely followed by the Fed, which excludes volatile food and energy costs to capture “core” inflation, rose 0.3% from February to March and 4.6% from a year earlier. That is still far above the Fed’s 2% target rate. Some Fed officials are concerned that core inflation hasn’t declined much since reaching 4.7% in July.
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House votes to restore solar panel tariffs paused by Biden
The House voted Friday to reinstate tariffs on solar panel imports from several Southeast Asian countries. President Joe Biden paused them in a bid to boost solar panel installations in the U.S., a key part of his climate agenda. The 221-202 House vote sends the measure to the Senate, where lawmakers from both parties have expressed similar concerns about what many call unfair competition from China. The House vote would overturn Biden’s action last year pausing for two years threatened tariffs that had led to delays or cancellations of hundreds of solar projects across the United States. The U.S. industry argues that imported panels are needed so solar installations can meet increased demand for renewable energy.
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Audit: Marijuana-rich Oregon must prep for US legalization
Oregon should prepare for the U.S. government eventually legalizing marijuana and position the state as a national leader in the industry. That’s what state auditors pushed for in a new report. Oregon has huge stockpiles of the drug. If marijuana is ever legalized nationally, Oregon would be competing with other pot-producing states for the export market, particularly California. A total of 21 states have legalized recreational use of marijuana, but activists see little chance of the current Congress moving toward national legalization. Still, there’s hope the Biden administration will allow pot commerce among states that have legalized it.
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DeSantis’ overseas trip overshadowed by fight with Disney
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is on his first international trade mission in four years and he can’t get away from questions about his feud with Disney World. While DeSantis projects the image of a fighter, the spat with Disney over an anti-LGBTQ law and the theme park’s right to self-govern is starting to distract from other messages, and could throughout an expected presidential campaign now that Disney is dragging DeSantis to court. DeSantis got a big bump in attention and support from his base when the feud first started, but as it’s dragged on more Republicans are beginning to question his wisdom.
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OpenAI: ChatGPT back in Italy after meeting watchdog demands
ChatGPT’s maker says the artificial intelligence chatbot is available again in Italy after the company met the demands of regulators who temporarily blocked it over privacy concerns. OpenAI said Friday that it fulfilled a raft of conditions that the Italian data protection authority wanted satisfied by an April 30 deadline to have the ban on the AI software lifted. San Francisco-based OpenAI says “ChatGPT is available again to our users in Italy.” The watchdog says it welcomes the measures and urged the company to comply with other demands for an age-verification system and a publicity campaign informing Italians about their right to opt out of data processing.
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Europe’s economy barely grows as inflation pinches consumers
FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — The European economy has scraped out meager growth in the first three months of the year. That’s barely momentum as stubborn inflation is hiking the price of groceries and eroding people’s willingness to spend paychecks that are failing to keep pace. Friday’s less-than-stellar increase of 0.1% from the previous quarter follows disappointing growth estimates from the U.S., which kept alive fears of a looming recession in the world’s largest economy. The 20 countries that use the euro currency picked up speed from January through March after zero growth in the last three months of 2022. Industrial activity has picked up, but inflation is holding back consumer spending.
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New report blames airlines for most flight cancellations
Congressional investigators say airlines themselves are responsible for a rising percentage of canceled flights — more often than before the pandemic, when bad weather was the most common problem. The Government Accountability Office said Friday that most of the increase in flight cancellations during the travel recovery has been due to things airlines can control. That includes cancellations for maintenance issues, or because there wasn’t a crew available. Much of the increase in airline-caused cancellations has happened at low-fare airlines, but the biggest carriers are also causing a higher percentage of their own cancellations, according to government data.
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Zimbabwe plans to launch digital currency backed by gold
HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) — Zimbabwe has announced the launch of a gold-backed digital currency in a bid to stabilize its faltering dollar. Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe Gov. John Mangudya said Friday that the gold tokens will start circulating on May 8. He said they will be “fully backed” by the country’s gold reserves. Trust in the Zimbabwe dollar is desperately low after people saw their savings wiped out by hyperinflation in 2008. Many now prefer to seek scarce U.S. dollars on the illegal market to keep at home as savings or for daily transactions. The Bahamas, Jamaica and Nigeria have already launched digital currencies, with several other countries, including China, running trial projects.
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Tech-rooted groups seek to shake up San Francisco politics
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Tech entrepreneurs who flocked into San Francisco two decades ago bringing jobs and wealth, and also soaring housing prices and gentrification, are becoming a rising political force in a city they say is woefully off track. They are forming advocacy groups to pressure officials on rising housing costs, public drug dealing and other woes. The groups differ in priorities but all say a small group of progressive power brokers has stymied solutions to some of the city’s most pressing issues. A progressive supervisor who has become a favored target of the new political influencers from the tech world takes a dim view of them, saying they aren’t true champions for regular San Franciscans.
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The S&P 500 rose 34.13 points, or 0.8%, to 4,169.48. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 272 points, or 0.8%, to 34,098.16. The Nasdaq composite rose 84.35 points, or 0.7% to 12,226.58. The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies rose 17.76 points, or 1%, to 1,768.99.
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