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US inflation rose 3.2% in October — a slightly lower-than-expected number that gave relief to investors and raised hopes the Federal Reserve could done with its rate-hiking campaign.

The Consumer Price Index which tracks changes in the costs of everyday goods and services  decelerated from the September’s 3.7% advance and was a tick below the 3.3% gain economists had expected, according to data by the Bureau of Labor Statistics released Tuesday.

Although still uncomfortably above the Federal Reserve’s 2% target, it was the first time since June that inflation had slowed month-over-month as gasoline prices eased and increases in housing costs slowed and stirred hopes that prices are finally headed in the right direction.

Stocks — which dropped last week after Fed Chairman Jerome Powell signaled the central bank wouldn’t be “misled by a few months of good data” as it stayed vigilant on prices — surged, with the Dow closing up nearly 500 points, or 1.4%.

The bar for further rate hikes is getting higher and higher, Wells Fargo’s chief economist Jay Bryson said on Bloomberg TV after Tuesdays report. This is a good start in that journey, but you would need to see a few more months of 0.2 before saying mission accomplished.

The shelter index that tracks housing costs rose 0.3%, the federal agency said Tuesday. While that offset a decline in the gasoline index and accounted for the majority of the CPI’s advance, it was half the pace of the prior month.

On a monthly basis, consumer prices remained unchanged at 0.4%, attributed to a 5% decline in the gasoline index.

As of Tuesday, a gallon of gas in the US averages $3.35, according to AAA, down from the $3.65 average price per gallon when September’s CPI report was released, and the $3.85 the month prior.

Core CPI a number that excludes volatile food and energy prices and serves as a closely watched gauge among policymakers for long-term trends increased to 0.3% in October, a 4.0% advance from a year ago .

Though October’s CPI report trends positively towards the Fed’s 2% inflation target, it doesn’t confirm whether the Fed is likely to push interest rates beyond their current range — between 5.25% and 5.5% — following their December policy meeting, set to take place Dec. 12 to Dec. 13.

Fed Chair Jerome Powell has kept the door open for another hike, reiterating during a hawkish speech at the International Monetary Funds policy panel in Washington, DC, last week: If it becomes appropriate to tighten policy further, we will not hesitate to do so.”

We will keep at it until the job is done, Powell added of the Feds 2% inflation goal, which the US economy hasnt seen since 2012.

Meanwhile, the CME FedWatch Tool projects a more than than 85% chance that the Fed doesn’t raise rates again this year — up from a 54% chance a month ago.

For months now central bankers have mulled one addition 25 basis point-hike before year’s end in hopes of an economic slowdown, and economists have been divided on what the Fed’s next move is.

Economists expected that the Fed was leaning towards another rate hike after a blowout September jobs report that said the US economy added 336,000 jobs during the month.

However, October’s 150,000 payroll gains showed that September’s surge in jobs was only temporary.

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Politics

Indian town adopts Avalanche blockchain for tamper-proof land records

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Indian town adopts Avalanche blockchain for tamper-proof land records

A district administration in India digitized more than 700,000 land records, securing them on Avalanche blockchain to ensure transparency and prevent tampering.

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Entertainment

Glastonbury 2025 line-up revealed

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Glastonbury 2025 line-up revealed

The 1975 and Olivia Rodrigo will be among the stars headlining Glastonbury Festival this year, it has been announced.

Glastonbury organisers have revealed the line-up for this summer’s event, taking place between 25 June and 29 June, after months of speculation.

The 1975 will take to the iconic Pyramid Stage on the Friday to headline, then Canadian singer-songwriter Neil Young will perform on Saturday and Olivia Rodrigo on the Sunday.

Other big names performing include British pop sensation Charli XCX, rapper Loyle Carner electronic group The Prodigy.

The announcement comes after Sir Rod Stewart was booked for the Sunday teatime legend slot and Young was confirmed as a headliner earlier this year.

Young’s announcement in January came amid some confusion, as he had days before told fans he was pulling out of the festival because the BBC’s involvement was a “corporate turn-off”.

The Canadian singer-songwriter later said this decision was down to “an error in the information I received”.

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The 1975 will be headlining for the first time, having made their Glastonbury debut in 2014.

The Cheshire band, known for hits such as Somebody Else and Chocolate, have regularly made headlines due to the antics of frontman Matty Healy.

Glastonbury, which takes place at Worthy Farm in Somerset in the summer, has worked closely with the BBC – its exclusive broadcast partner – since 1997.

Neil Young performing at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival last May. Pic: Amy Harris/Invision/AP
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Neil Young performing at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival last May. Pic: Amy Harris/Invision/AP

Appetite for the esteemed festival saw standard tickets sell out in 35 minutes in November.

They cost £373.50 plus a £5 booking fee, up £18.50 from the price from the 2024 festival, and were sold exclusively through the See Tickets website.

The date for the resale – where tickets not fully paid for are put back up for purchase – is set for some time in spring.

The headliners last summer on the iconic Pyramid Stage were Dua Lipa, SZA and Coldplay, who made history as the first act to headline the festival five times.

2026 is likely to be a year off for Glastonbury, with the festival traditionally taking place four out of every five years, and the fifth year reserved for rehabilitation of the land.

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Business

Millions in compensation for customers impacted by Barclays outages

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Millions in compensation for customers impacted by Barclays outages

Barclays is to pay millions in compensation for recent IT outages which prevented customers from banking.

The lender said it expects to pay between £5m and £7.5m in compensation to customers for “inconvenience or distress” caused by a payday outage last month, the influential Treasury Committee of MPs said.

The glitch began at the end of January and lasted several days.

Money blog: Tourists banned from driving in Spanish town

This was caused by “severe degradation” in the performance of their mainframe computer, a large computer used by big organisations for bulk data processing.

It resulted in the failure of 56% of Barclays’s online payments.

Up to £12.5m, however, could be paid when all outages over the last two years from January 2023 and February 2025 are factored in, the committee said.

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It would be by far the biggest amount of compensation paid by a firm in the last two years. Irish bank Bank of Ireland would be the second having issued £350,000 in compensation.

The committee is investigating IT problems at all banks that prevent or limit customer access.

Why does this keep happening?

As part of their inquiries, banks said common reasons for IT failures included problems with third-party suppliers, disruption caused by systems changes and internal software malfunctions.

The responses were received before last Friday’s online banking failures which caused difficulties for millions on payday but the committee said it would request data on the latest disruption.

A recurring problem

The nine top banks written to by the Treasury Committee accumulated 803 hours of unplanned outages, they said, equivalent to 33 days.

These hours were comprised of 158 individual IT failures. Barclays’ payday failure is not captured in the numbers.

As a result, the bank with the longest outages was NatWest with 194 hours of failures.

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