The Lancet: 3-in-4 U.S. Adults Overweight Or Obese

Retail sales up solidly in October

( ) -q-24- UNDATED (Correspondent Jeremy House) “October-to-December quarter.”

U.S. retail sales rose last month.

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TAG: Correspondent Jeremy House reporting. Since peaking at 9.1% more than two years ago, inflation has sunk to near-optimal levels. And Americans’ take-home pay, on average, has surpassed inflation for about 18 months.

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VERBATIM: Retail purchases increased by 0.4% from September to October, a solid increase, although less than the previous month’s robust 0.8% gain. Auto dealers, restaurants and electronics stores all reported higher sales. Last month’s rise in retail purchases suggests that the economy is growing briskly again in the current October-to-December quarter.

Japan’s economy grows for a second straight quarter

( ) -q-21- UNDATED (Correspondent Jeremy House) “GDP, grew 3.6-percent.”

Japan’s economy eked out an annual rate of 0.9% growth in the July-to-September quarter as consumer spending held up.

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TAG: Correspondent Jeremy House reporting. Seasonally adjusted gross domestic product, or GDP, measures the value of a nation’s products and services. The annual rate shows how much the economy would have grown or contracted, if the quarterly rate continued for a year.

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VERBATIM: Government data shows that the world’s fourth-largest economy grew 0.2% in the fiscal second quarter, marking the second straight quarter of expansion. Domestic demand grew at an annualized rate of 2.5%. Private consumption, which makes up more than half of Japan’s GDP, grew 3.6%.

Smithfield agrees to pay $2 million to resolve child labor allegations

( ) -q-29- UNDATED (Correspondent Jeremy House) “under the settlement.”

One of the nation’s largest meat processors has agreed to pay $2 million to resolve allegations of child labor violations at a plant in Minnesota.

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TAG: Correspondent Jeremy House reporting.

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VERBATIM: The state’s labor department says its investigation found that Smithfield Packaged Meats employed at least 11 children ages 14 to 17 at its plant in St. James from April 2021 through April 2023. It says they performed potentially dangerous work. Virginia-based Smithfield denies knowingly hiring anyone under age 18 to work at the St. James plant. The company says it did not admit liability under the settlement.

DHS releases framework for using AI in critical infrastructure

( ) -q-25- UNDATED (Correspondent Jeremy House) “protect users’ privacy.”

The Biden administration has released guidelines for using artificial intelligence in the power grid, water system, air travel network and other pieces of critical infrastructure.

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TAG: Correspondent Jeremy House reporting. The cloud-computing infrastructure would need to vet hardware and software suppliers and protect the physical security of data centers.

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VERBATIM: Private industry would have to adopt and implement the guidelines announced by the Homeland Security Department. The guidelines were developed in consultation with the department’s advisory Artificial Intelligence Safety and Security Board. The framework recommends that AI developers evaluate potentially dangerous capabilities in their products, ensure their products align with “human-centric values” and protect users’ privacy.

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US wholesale inflation picks up slightly in sign that some price pressures remain elevated

(   ) -q-27- UNDATED (Correspondent Jeremy House) “1.9-percent in September.”

Wholesale prices in the United States rose last month.

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TAG: Correspondent Jeremy House reporting. An increase in services prices drove the October increase. Since peaking in mid-2022, inflation has fallen more or less steadily. But average prices are still nearly 20% higher than they were three years ago

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VERBATIM: The increase suggests that the American economy has yet to completely vanquish inflationary pressure. The producer price index — which tracks inflation before it hits consumers — rose 0.2% from September to October. That’s up from a 0.1% gain the month before. Compared with a year earlier, wholesale prices were up 2.4%, accelerating from a year-over-year gain of 1.9% in September.

The number of American filing for jobless claims falls to lowest level in 6 months

( ) -q-23- UNDATED (Correspondent Jeremy House) “with analysts’ expectations.”

The number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits fell to their lowest level in six months last week as layoffs remain at relatively healthy levels.

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TAG: Correspondent Jeremy House reporting.

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VERBATIM: The Labor Department reports jobless claim applications fell by 4,000 to 217,000 for the week of November 9. That’s less than the 225,000 analysts forecast. Continuing claims, the total number of Americans collecting jobless benefits, fell to 1.87 million for the week of November 2, in line with analysts’ expectations.

Australia will require social media platforms to act to prevent online harm to users

( ) -q-27- UNDATED (Correspondent Jeremy House) “be safer environments.”

Australia plans to require social media platforms to act to prevent online harms to users such as bullying, predatory behavior and algorithms pushing destructive content.

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TAG: Correspondent Jeremy House reporting.

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VERBATIM: Australia’s Communications Minister says the digital “duty of care” requirement will place the onus on digital platforms to proactively keep Australians safe and better prevent online harm. Next week, the government will introduce legislation that would ban children younger than 16 from platforms including X, Instagram, Facebook and TikTok. Critics say banning young users reduces incentives for social media platforms to be safer environments.

Supreme Court seems likely to allow class action to proceed against tech company Nvidia

( ) -v-38- UNDATED (Correspondent Jeremy House) “std.”

The Supreme Court seems likely to keep alive a class-action lawsuit accusing Nvidia of misleading investors about its dependence on selling computer chips for the mining of volatile cryptocurrency. Correspondent Jeremy House reports.

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VERBATIM: The justices heard arguments in the tech company’s appeal of a lower-court ruling allowing a 2018 suit led by a Swedish investment management firm to continue. It’s one of two high court cases involving class-action lawsuits against tech companies. Last week, the justices wrestled with whether to shut down a multibillion-dollar class action investors’ lawsuit against Facebook parent Meta stemming from the privacy scandal involving the Cambridge Analytica political consulting firm. Nvidia is among the most valuable companies in the S&P 500, worth over $3 trillion…JH, Washington.

Just Eat Takeaway sells Grubhub for $650 million, just 3 years after buying the app for $7.3 billion

( ) -q-22- UNDATED (Correspondent Jeremy House) “Grubhub’s last sale.”

European food delivery giant Just Eat Takeaway.com is selling Grubhub for $650 million, a fraction of the billions it spent to buy the U.S. platform just three years ago.

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TAG: Correspondent Jeremy House reporting. Back in 2020, during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic and a surge in demand for takeout meals, Just Eat agreed to buy Grubhub for $7.3 billion — in a transaction that was later finalized in 2021.

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VERBATIM: Wonder Group, a New York-based food ordering company that touts “fast fine” dining, is set to be Grubhub’s new owner. Under terms of the deal, Wonder will acquire Grubhub from Just Eat Takeaway.com for $150 million in cash and $500 million in senior notes. That’s far less than than the pricetag on Grubhub’s last sale.

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US inflation rose slightly last month after 2 years of steady cooling but remained low

( ) -q-23- UNDATED (Correspondent Jeremy House) “in seven months.”

Inflation in the United States ticked up in October.

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TAG: Correspondent Jeremy House reporting. From September to October, prices edged up 0.2%. An uptick in prices, if sustained, could stir concerns in financial markets that progress in taming inflation may be slowing. It might also make the Federal Reserve less inclined to cut its key interest rate in the coming months. Still, most economists think inflation will eventually resume its slowdown.

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VERBATIM: Consumer prices rose 2.6% from a year earlier, up from 2.4% in September. The increase was driven by costlier rents, used cars, and air fares, a sign that price increases might be leveling off after having slowed in September to their lowest pace since 2021. It was the first increase in annual inflation in seven months.

Argentina’s monthly inflation drops to 2.7%, the lowest level in 3 years

( ) -q-15- UNDATED (Correspondent Jeremy House) “inflation was 3.5-percent.”

Argentina’s inflation slowed to 2.7% in October.

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TAG: Correspondent Jeremy House reporting.

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VERBATIM: It was the lowest level in three years in a win for the libertarian government of President Javier Milei. He came to power almost a year ago promising to pull Argentina out of a dire economic crisis. In September, inflation was 3.5%.

Chinese hackers target Tibetan websites in malware attack, cybersecurity group says

( ) -q-25- UNDATED (Correspondent Jeremy House) “target of cyberattacks.”

A hacking group that is believed to be Chinese state-sponsored has compromised two websites with ties to the Tibetan community.

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TAG: Correspondent Jeremy House reporting.

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VERBATIM: It’s an attack meant to install malware on users’ computers. The cybersecurity firm Insikt Group, the hack of the two websites appears geared toward obtaining access to the computers of people visiting to obtain information on them and their activities. Chinese authorities have consistently denied any form of state-sponsored hacking, saying China itself is a major target of cyberattacks.

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Southwest offers buyouts to airport workers, blames Boeing for job cuts

( ) -q-22- UNDATED (Correspondent Jeremy House) “ground-operations employees.”

Southwest Airlines is offering buyouts to ground workers at many of its airports, and it’s blaming Boeing for the reductions.

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TAG: Correspondent Jeremy House reporting. Southwest started the year with about 75,000 employees, and hopes to cut that by 2,000 by year end.

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VERBATIM: Southwest says it will offer buyouts and extended leaves of absence to avoid what it calls “overstaffing in certain locations.” Southwest is getting fewer new planes than it expected from Boeing because of the manufacturer’s own problems. Southwest wants to reduce the number of baggage handlers, customer-service agents and other ground-operations employees.

Japan’s SoftBank returns to profit

( ) -q-24- UNDATED (Correspondent Jeremy House) “and AI applications.”

Japanese technology conglomerate SoftBank Group swung back to profitability in the July-to-September quarter, boosted by its Vision Fund investments.

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TAG: Correspondent Jeremy House reporting. The quarterly performance was also helped by the absence of losses related to SoftBank’s investment in office-space sharing venture WeWork, which hit the previous year.

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VERBATIM: The Tokyo-based company reported fiscal second-quarter profit of nearly 7.7 billion dollars. SoftBank credited income as coming from royalties and licensing related to its holdings in Arm, a computer chip-designing company. Its business spans smartphones, data centers, networking equipment, automotive, consumer electronic devices, and AI applications.

Home Depot’s Q3 results top Wall Street as consumer spending picks up

( ) -q-22- UNDATED (Correspondent Jeremy House) “by FactSet predicted.”

Home Depot continued to deal with a pullback in spending from customers in its fiscal third quarter.

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TAG: Correspondent Jeremy House reporting.

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VERBATIM: The pullback was less severe than in the past, and its performance beat Wall Street’s expectations. The home improvement retailer also boosted its full-year revenue outlook. Revenue for the Atlanta-based company improved 6.6% to $40.22 billion. That topped the $39.31 billion that analysts surveyed by FactSet predicted.