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By Jody Godoy (Reuters) -The U.S. Federal Trade Commission passed a rule on Tuesday requiring ticket sellers, hotels and vacation rental sites to disclose total prices, including fees upfront, prohibiting them from concealing add-on charges until the last minute. The rule is one of the final pieces of President Joe Biden’s wide-ranging crackdown on junk fees that drive up consumer costs without providing visible benefits. “We all know the experience of encountering a hidden fee … Read more…

By Harry Robertson LONDON (Reuters) – Investors have poured a record $600 billion into global bond funds this year, taking advantage of some of the highest yields in decades ahead of an uncertain 2025. Dwindling inflation has finally allowed central banks to lower interest rates, pushing investors to lock in the relatively high yields available and finally delivering the “year of the bond” after $250 billion left fixed-income funds in 2022. “The story is income,” … Read more…

By David Ljunggren OTTAWA (Reuters) – Canada’s ruling Liberals lost a special election in the western province of British Columbia, provisional results showed on Tuesday, deepening the political woes of beleaguered Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. The minority Liberal government was rocked on Monday when Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland unexpectedly resigned, citing policy differences with the prime minister whom she said had asked her to take on a lesser post. A string of opinion polls over … Read more…

By Ann Saphir WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Since Donald Trump’s election to a second term last month, Federal Reserve policymakers including Chair Jerome Powell have said it is too soon to factor in the U.S. president-elect’s yet-to-be-detailed policies into forecasts. But eight years ago Powell as a Fed governor joined the majority of his colleagues in doing just that, meeting records show, bumping up estimates for economic momentum and interest rates to reflect the expected effect … Read more…

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – An Israeli resident of Jerusalem has been arrested on suspicion of being in contact with Iranian intelligence agents as part of a plot to carry out an attack in Israel in return for payment, Israeli security forces said on Tuesday. The 23-year-old man was activated by an Iranian agent known as “John” in October and arrested in November on suspicion of committing security offences, said a joint statement from spokeswomen for the … Read more…

By Emma Farge GENEVA (Reuters) – A U.N. refugee agency official said on Tuesday that some 1 million Syrian refugees are expected to return to the country in the first six months of 2025, asking states to refrain from forcing them to do so. A lightning rebel advance swept Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad from power this month, shocking the world and raising the prospect that some of the millions of people who fled the country … Read more…

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has filed a lawsuit against the Des Moines Register and its top pollster over their poll earlier this year that showed him trailing in the state, Fox News said on Tuesday. The lawsuit, which Fox said was filed Monday night, comes after Trump on Monday vowed to pursue more defamation claims against the media following a settlement with ABC News over the weekend. Trump ultimately won Iowa in the … Read more…

By Sarupya Ganguly BENGALURU – U.S. Treasury yield forecasts from bond strategists have marched higher for a second month amid expectations of limited remaining Federal Reserve rate reductions and rising inflation risks in 2025, a Reuters survey found. Having kicked off its easing cycle with a jumbo half-percentage point cut in September, the central bank has lowered its fed funds rate by 75 basis points and looks set to trim another 25 bps on Wednesday … Read more…

By Jonathan Cable LONDON (Reuters) -The decline in euro zone business activity eased this month as the bloc’s dominant services industry bounced back to growth and offset a long-running contraction in the manufacturing industry, a survey showed on Monday. HCOB’s preliminary composite euro zone Purchasing Managers’ Index, compiled by S&P Global, rose to 49.5 in December from November’s 48.3 but was still shy of the 50 mark separating growth from contraction. A Reuters poll had … Read more…