Good morning.
Tuesday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 38. Sunrise is 7:17 AM and sunset 4:21 PM for 9h 03m 40s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 75.8% of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Public Works Committee meets at 6 PM.
On this day in 1962, NASA launches Relay 1, the first active repeater communications satellite in orbit.
The New York Times reports this morning that new economic data show that Price Increases Cooled Notably in November as Inflation Begins to Ease:
Inflation slowed more than expected in November, an encouraging sign for Federal Reserve officials as they gather in Washington this week to discuss the next steps in their policy campaign against rapid price increases.
Fed policymakers are set to release their latest rate decision at 2 p.m. on Wednesday, at the conclusion of their two-day meeting. They are widely expected to raise interest rates by half a percentage point, slowing down after months of rapid three-quarter point moves. They will also release fresh economic projections, which could show them raising interest rates to a slightly higher level in 2023 than they had previously anticipated.
Tuesday’s inflation figures are likely to factor into their discussion about the future policy path. The Consumer Price Index measure climbed 7.1 percent in November compared to a year earlier, less than the 7.3 percent that economists had expected and a slowdown from 7.7 percent in the previous reading. Between October and November, prices also picked up more slowly than forecast.
After stripping out food and fuel prices, which move around a lot, the index climbed by 6 percent. That was less than the 6.1 percent Bloomberg projection.
Overall inflation has been decelerating on year-over-year basis since hitting a peak in June, a sign that price increases may be turning a corner after months of unexpected strength.
Still too high, but moving in the right direction.
The Sanctuary Helping to Rescue Thailand’s Stray Dogs: