Cities around the world are set to celebrate Mardi Gras today, the final day before the Christian fasting and religious observance period of Lent begins. Mardi Gras is the culmination of the Carnival season, which officially begins Jan. 6 every year—the 12th day after Christmas—and ends the day before Ash Wednesday.
New Orleans is considered the home to the best-known Fat Tuesday festivities in the US, with at least 1 million visitors typically flocking to the city and helping to bring in up to $1B in revenue. (Although Mobile, Alabama, claims to have hosted the first Mardi Gras celebrations in the US.) The revelries also generate thousands of pounds of discarded beads; in 2018, New Orleans said it had found over 92,000 pounds of beads in its storm drains along five blocks of a parade route.
New Orleans' Mardi Gras-focused social clubs, known as krewes (see overview), will culminate Carnival season today with several parades featuring elaborate floats, including by the famous krewes of Rex and Zulu. Watch a livestream of the event here (10 am ET). See how some of the floats are made here.
U.S. stock futures slide after hotter-than-expected January CPI
U.S. stock futures aren't loving the January CPI Index. ...
U.S. stock futures aren't loving the January CPI Index. Futures jerked sharply lower ahead of the open on Tuesday after the January CPI Index came in hotter than expected, with core inflation showing a 0.4% increase last month, compared with 0.3% expected by economists polled by The Wall Street Journal.
Here is where the main index futures stood after the data:
S&P 500 futures were off 1.1% at 4,987.
Nasdaq-100 futures were off by 1.5% at 17,701.
Dow futures were off by 282 points, or 0.7%, at 38,600.
Meanwhile, Treasury yields shot higher, with the 10-year yield up 11 basis points to 4.28%, hitting its second-highest level of the year intraday.
U.S. consumer prices rose 3.1 percent in the year through January, cooling less than expected.
Inflation cooled...
Inflation cooled less than expected in January and held roughly steady on an annual basis after removing food and fuel prices — a reminder that bringing price increases under control remains a bumpy process.
The overall Consumer Price Index was up 3.1 percent from a year earlier, which was down from 3.4 percent in December but more than the 2.9 percent that economists had forecast. That figure is down from the latest peak of 9.1 percent in the summer of 2022.
But after stripping out food and fuel, which bounce around in price from month to month, “core” prices held roughly steady, climbing 3.9 percent from a year earlier.
EPA, DOE to provide funding for O&G industry methane cuts
The Environmental Protection Agency and the Energy Department have announced...
The Environmental Protection Agency and the Energy Department have announced plans to provide funding to support initiatives targeting methane emissions reduction in the oil and natural gas industry. This notice of intent is meant to give potential applicants sufficient time to prepare proposals and establish partnerships ahead of the official funding opportunity announcement.
The oil and gas industry gets another mega-merger. As...
The oil and gas industry gets another mega-merger. As consolidation of companies extracting energy in the Permian Basin continues, Diamondback Energy announced plans to buy Endeavor Energy Partners, the area’s biggest privately held oil and gas producer, in a cash-and-stock deal valued at around $26 billion. It’s the latest acquisition as energy companies look to grow and secure drilling sites with high oil prices remaining high: Exxon Mobil is snapping up Pioneer Natural Resources in a $60 billion deal, and Chevron is buying Hess for $53 billion.
An average 123.4 million viewers watched the Super Bowl across all platforms, making it the most watched broadcast in the history of television. Meanwhile, movies had a rough weekend, taking in $40 million—the lowest box office for a Super Bowl weekend in more than 30 years (not counting 2021, when most cinemas were closed).
Donald Trump filed an emergency appeal to the Supreme Court, asking the justices to halt a ruling rejecting his claims of immunity from prosecution for trying to overturn his 2020 election loss.
Tiger Woods introduced his new clothing brand, Sun Day Red, a partnership with TaylorMade Golf. It’s Woods’s first big brand move after ending his 27-year partnership with Nike.
JetBlue’s stock soared after-hours yesterday, after activist investor Carl Icahn revealed he’d taken a stake in the airline.
Jeff Bezos’s move from Seattle to Miami could save him $600 million in taxes as he sells off some of his Amazon stock.
Bob Edwards, the longtime host of NPR’s Morning Edition, has died at age 76.
