Over 100M to hit the road for holidays
More than 100 million Americans are forecast to hit the road this holiday season, nearing pre-pandemic levels even as gasoline prices at the pump remain close to seven-year highs.
The estimate for people planning to drive 50 miles or more between Dec. 23 and Jan. 2 represents a 28 percent increase from last year, when lockdowns curbed traveling, according to data on auto club AAA’s website.
But the number is still 7.3 percent lower than two years ago.
Air travel is also picking up, with 6.4 million people forecast to fly this holiday season, more than double 2020 levels but still 13 percent lower than in 2019.
COURTS 6 sue Tesla, allege sexual harassment
Six current and former employees at Tesla filed lawsuits alleging “rampant” workplace sexual harassment just weeks after another woman from the electric carmaker’s factory in Fremont, Calif., leveled similar accusations.
“Tesla’s facilities more resemble a crude, archaic construction site or frat house than a cutting-edge company in the heart of the progressive San Francisco Bay Area,” according to the complaints filed Tuesday in Alameda County Superior Court.
The complaints detail harassment from male colleagues and supervisors as well as a lack of response from Tesla when the claims were reported internally.
BANKRUPTCY $800M settlement in Boy Scouts case
Attorneys in the Boy Scouts of America bankruptcy case have reached a tentative settlement under which one of the organization’s largest insurers would contribute $800 million into a fund for victims of child sexual abuse.
The agreement calls for Century Indemnity Co. and affiliated companies to contribute $800 million into the fund in return for being released from further liability for abuse claims. The payment would bring the amount of money in the proposed trust to more than $2.6 billion, which would be the largest sexual abuse settlement in U.S. history.
The settlement comes as more than 82,000 sexual abuse claimants face a Dec. 28 deadline to vote on a Boy Scouts reorganization plan.
The Boy Scouts, based in Irving, Texas, sought bankruptcy protection in February 2020, seeking to halt hundreds of individual lawsuits and create a fund for men who say they were sexually abused as children.
MANUFACTURING Prices for chemicals used in plastics abate
Prices of chemicals that make everyday plastics are beginning to ease from their record highs, proving rare relief for U.S. inflation running at the fastest pace in four decades.
Prices for ethylene — a primary building block for plastic — are trading nearly 50 percent below where they were in April due to higher supplies from Gulf Coast petrochemical plants ramping back up after a series of weatherrelated outages, according to ICIS, a data provider. Polypropylene, used in furniture, cleaning products and carpet, costs nearly 20 percent less than in August.
While the lower prices come too late for the holiday shopping season, it’s a welcome indicator for consumers struggling with inflation reaching 6.8 percent in November. The shale boom a decade ago gave rise to rapid growth in petrochemical facilities due to the cheap gas feedstock. But the industry’s concentration along the Texas and Louisiana coastline means it’s vulnerable to extreme weather.
Back-to-back hurricanes last year, the Texas freeze in February and another active storm season this summer wiped out a lot of the U.S. chemical manufacturing capacity over the past 18 months from which it’s now recovering. Ethylene inventories have risen to their highest levels since the first quarter of 2019, according to American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers.
CRYPTOCURRENCY Display issue blamed after prices shoot up
Prices of cryptocurrencies listed on Coinbase and popular data provider CoinMarketCap briefly went haywire Tuesday, with many tokens showing astronomical gains that sent users gushing about huge windfalls and others wondering what happened.
The issue has been resolved, CoinMarketCap.com said in a statement, and Coinbase posted on Twitter, noting that trading wasn’t impacted. Neither company provided an explanation of what went wrong.
Coinbase, the largest U.S. crypto exchange, said in a tweet that some customers are seeing inflated values for “non-tradable” crypto assets and that it’s a display issue. Still, customers were circulating screen shots of their gains and balances online.
CoinMarketCap made jokes about the issue in its Twitter feed, while some users said they almost had a “heart attack” when seeing the abnormal prices. CoinMarketCap is owned by Binance, the world’s biggest crypto exchange.
CRYPTOCURRENCY Musk: Tesla will take Dogecoin for ‘merch’
Elon Musk said Tesla will accept payment in Dogecoin for some merchandise, in the latest in a series of tweets supporting the cryptocurrency. Dogecoin jumped 33 percent.
Some of Tesla’s “merch” would be buyable with the digital coin, the chief executive officer said Tuesday, with products including the $150 Giga Texas belt buckle featuring the carmaker’s logo. Last month, Tesla’s $50 Cyberwhistle sold out almost immediately.
“See how it goes,” Musk said. Musk has been a vocal supporter of Dogecoin, a “meme” cryptocurrency featuring a picture of a Shiba Inu dog. The tweets from the world’s richest person have contributed to its rising popularity.