"We are getting closer," said St. Louis Fed President James Bullard during a talk to business leaders in St. Louis. "What we're looking at is a combination of factors that are making it more likely that 2023 will be a disinflationary year."
U.K. Property Funds Extend Withdrawal Limits
LONDON-Some large U.K.-focused property funds are limiting withdrawals, extending restrictions that began in the fall, as investors such as pension funds pull back from the sector.
BlackRock Inc. is deferring meeting third-quarter requests for redemptions from a fund that would ordinarily have been paid at the end of December, said a person familiar with the matter.
China to Allow Rapid Tests to Confirm Covid Cases
SINGAPORE-China said Friday that it would allow citizens to confirm Covid-19 infections using antigen tests, while no longer requiring a negative Covid test for patients to be discharged from hospitals, as Beijing moves to dismantle the last remaining vestiges of the "zero-Covid" regime that it has used for the past three years.
Updates to follow as news develops.
Kevin McCarthy Steps Up Talks After Failing to Win 11 Rounds of House Speaker Votes
WASHINGTON-Kevin McCarthy stepped up negotiations with Republican detractors, offering fresh concessions to win support after a third day of House speaker votes yielded no movement toward a winner in the GOP-controlled chamber.
Mr. McCarthy and some of his opponents appeared to be coalescing around a deal, stepping up the pace of discussions as the House marked its 11th round of votes with no winner, the most since just before the Civil War. Most Republicans backed Mr. McCarthy over three days of tallies, but 20 continued to oppose him, and it wasn't known if enough holdouts would potentially change their votes to give Mr. McCarthy the gavel. All Democrats supported their pick, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York.
Venezuela's Wager to Oust Maduro With Parallel Government Ends
Venezuela's Juan Guaidó, once recognized by more than 60 countries as his country's rightful president, was stripped of his position on Thursday when the opposition dissolved a U.S.-backed parallel government that had failed to oust strongman Nicolás Maduro.
With Mr. Guaidó out, lawmakers from Venezuela's battered opposition will create a committee to oversee billions of dollars in assets abroad that had come under the control of the so-called interim government. They will also try to negotiate conditions for free and fair elections in 2024.
China Estimates Passenger Trips to Almost Double in Coming Travel Rush
Passenger trips in China over the coming Lunar New Year holidays are expected to jump 99.5% compared with last year's holidays, after Beijing's abrupt reversal of its zero-Covid strategy last month removed most of the country's travel restrictions.
The travel rush over the period, which runs from Jan. 7 to Feb. 15 this year, is expected to see around 2.1 billion trips, which would be 70.3% of the number seen in 2019, Xu Chengguang, deputy head of the Ministry of Transportation, said in a press conference Friday.
Visits to family and friends are expected to account for 55% of the traffic while job hunters will be about 24% and the rest equally split between tourism and business travel, according to Mr. Xu.
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This article is a text version of a Wall Street Journal newsletter published earlier today.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
01-06-23 0610ET
