Baby formula factory could reopen soon
The head of the Food and Drug Administration told lawmakers Thursday that a shuttered baby formula factory could be up and running as soon as this week, though he sidestepped questions about whether his agency should have intervened earlier at the plant at the center of the national shortage.
FDA Commissioner Dr. Robert Califf faced a bipartisan grilling from House lawmakers over the baby formula issue that has angered American parents and become a political liability for President Joe Biden.
The problems are largely tied to Abbott Nutrition’s Michigan formula plant, the largest in the U.S., which has been closed since February due to contamination problems. The FDA announced a preliminary agreement with Abbott earlier last week to restart production, pending safety upgrades and certifications.
“We had to wrestle this to ground with Abbott,” Califf told members of a House subcommittee “I think we are on track to get it open within the next week to two weeks.”
After production resumes, Abbott has said, it could take about two months before new formula begins arriving in stores.
Fed will ‘keep pushing’ until inflation cools, Powell says
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, in his most hawkish remarks to date, said the U.S. central bank will keep raising interest rates until there is “clear and convincing” evidence that inflation is in retreat.
“What we need to see is inflation coming down in a clear and convincing way, and we’re going to keep pushing until we see that,” Powell said Tuesday during a Wall Street Journal live event. “If that involves moving past broadly understood levels of ‘neutral,’ we won’t hesitate at all to do that.”
The Fed chair repeatedly stressed the need to curb the hottest inflation in decades during the roughly 35-minute interview, calling price stability “the bedrock of the economy” and acknowledging that some pain in achieving this — including a slight rise in the unemployment rate — was a cost worth paying in order to achieve it.
Powell and his colleagues on the central bank’s Federal Open Market Committee voted to raise their benchmark rate by a half-percentage point at a policy meeting earlier this month, and the chair at the time suggested to reporters that hikes of similar magnitudes would be on the table at their next two meetings in June and July. He repeated that guidance Tuesday, while adding that near-term inflation developments would be a critical determinant of the size of
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said the U.S. central bank will keep raising interest rates until there is “clear and convincing” evidence inflation is in retreat.
coming moves.
Walton family loses $17 billion in Walmart wipeout
The Walton family fortune tumbled more than $16.5 billion Tuesday after Walmart slashed its profit outlook.
Walmart, controlled by the family, fell as much as 11% in New York trading after the Bentonville, Arkansasbased company reported earnings that lagged analysts’ estimates. Soaring inflation heaped pressure on the retailing giant’s profit margins in the first quarter, testing the company’s appetite to raise prices.
The family’s late patriarch, Sam Walton, centered the business around a discount ethos that has in the past helped buoy its stock during recessionary times. Walton’s three surviving children, Alice, Jim and Rob; daughter-inlaw Christy; and Christy’s son, Lukas, own just under half the retailer, giving them a combined net worth of about $214 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
The family, which owns its stake through various trusts, has stepped up its stock sales in recent years. It unloaded $6.2 billion in shares last year, which the company has said is part of a strategy to keep the family’s stake under 50% amid buybacks.