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    FAA head Michael Whitaker to step down before Trump takes office

    Federal Aviation Administration chief Michael Whitaker said he will step down on Jan. 20, when President-elect Donald Trump is scheduled to be inaugurated.
    Whitaker, who was nominated to the top FAA role by President Joe Biden, began a five-year term in October 2023.
    Trump’s last appointed leader, ex-Delta captain Steve Dickson, stepped down in early 2022.

    Federal Aviation Administration Administrator Mike Whitaker listens to a question during a news conference on the FAA’s work to hold Boeing accountable for safety and production quality issues, at the Federal Aviation Administration Headquarters on May 30, 2024 in Washington, DC. 
    Andrew Harnik | Getty Images

    The head of the Federal Aviation Administration, Mike Whitaker, said Thursday he will step down Jan. 20, the day President-elect Donald Trump takes office, leaving the key agency that oversees Boeing and the U.S. airline industry again without a leader.
    Whitaker was confirmed to serve a five-year term as FAA administrator in October 2023. He set production limits and heightened the agency’s scrutiny of Boeing after a near-catastrophic door-plug blowout on a Boeing 737 Max in January, when he was months into the job.

    Mark House, the FAA’s assistant administrator for finance and management, will become acting deputy administrator.
    The agency has seen several changes in leadership in recent years. These have come during one of the U.S. aviation industry’s most tumultuous periods, which has included two crashes of Boeing’s best-selling 737 Max planes and a subsequent grounding, the Covid-19 pandemic, and series of high-profile close calls and safety issues involving U.S. airlines and airports.
    Trump’s last nominee to lead the FAA, ex-Delta captain Steve Dickson, resigned in 2022, midway through his term.
    “You have seen leadership come and go — and through every transition you have kept air travel steady and safe. This transition will be no different,” Whitaker said in a statement.
    A spokesman for Trump’s transition team didn’t immediately comment.

    Trump has not yet nominated an FAA administrator for his second term. His eventual nominee, if confirmed, will face a host of challenges, including continued oversight of Boeing and staffing up and modernizing air traffic control. Shortages of controllers have vexed airline executives, who have blamed staffing shortages for congestion in some of the country’s busiest airports.
    The FAA’s oversight of the space industry has also been the source of controversy. Companies including Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin have been urging improvements to the FAA’s speed and efficiency in regulating rocket launches and spacecraft returning from orbit.
    Musk also said in September that his company would sue the FAA for “regulatory overreach,” after the agency fined SpaceX for license violations and, according to the company, held up test flights of its Starship rocket. More

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    CFPB announces rule limiting bank overdraft fees

    The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on Thursday announced the final version of a rule limiting banks’ ability to charge overdraft fees.
    It says the rule will save American consumers $5 billion annually.
    The CFPB said that its overdraft rule will take effect Oct. 1, 2025, though its ultimate fate is unclear.

    Rohit Chopra, director of the CFPB, testifies during a House Financial Services Committee hearing on June 14, 2023.
    Tom Williams | Cq-roll Call, Inc. | Getty Images

    The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on Thursday announced the final version of a rule limiting banks’ ability to charge overdraft fees. It says the rule will save American consumers $5 billion annually.
    The regulator said that banks could opt to charge $5 for overdrafts — a steep drop from the average fee of around $35 per transaction — or limit the fee to an amount that covers the lenders’ costs, or charge any fee while disclosing the interest rate of the loan.

    “For far too long, the largest banks have exploited a legal loophole that has drained billions of dollars from Americans’ deposit accounts,” CFPB Director Rohit Chopra said in a statement. “The CFPB is cracking down on these excessive junk fees and requiring big banks to come clean about the interest rate they’re charging on overdraft loans.”
    While overdraft fees have been a lucrative line item for the industry, generating $280 billion in revenue since 2000 according to the CFPB, banks’ revenue from the service has been on the decline. That’s because lenders including JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America have either reduced the fees or limited the types of transactions that trigger them, while some banks dropped the fee altogether.
    The CFPB rule applies to banks and credit unions with at least $10 billion in assets.
    The effort, part of a flurry of activity from the CFPB in the waning days of the Biden administration, faces stiff opposition from U.S. banking groups that have successfully stymied other efforts from the regulator. For instance, a rule capping credit card late fees at $8 per incident that was set to take effect in May has been held up in federal court.
    The CFPB said that its overdraft rule will take effect Oct. 1, 2025, though its ultimate fate is unclear.

    Even before the election victory of Donald Trump last month, the fate of the overdraft rule would’ve been murky, thanks to industry pushback. But Trump is expected to install a new CFPB head next month that is unlikely to support Biden-era efforts to rein in banking activity.
    Bank lobbying groups have argued that the overdraft rule, first proposed in January as part of Biden’s war on junk fees, would reduce access to overdraft services and could send customers to worse alternatives like payday loans.
    The Consumer Bankers Association said Thursday it was “exploring all options” to push back against the rule.
    This story is developing. Please check back for updates. More

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    The World Bank is struggling to serve all 78 poor countries

    Impoverished countries do not have much in common. Half the population of Niger, a landlocked African nation beset by military coups, live in extreme poverty, eight in ten people have no access to electricity and GDP per person is just $620. By contrast, the average Bangladeshi is four times richer, and just one in 18 is among the world’s poorest. The country’s policymakers do not have to worry about simply providing power. They want to attract foreign capital to build renewable energy, so as to reduce reliance on coal. More

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    The Federal Reserve takes on Trump—and stubborn inflation

    A lot is riding on the numbers after the decimal point. In the argot of investors, inflation in America is back to having a “two-handle” (that is, running above 2% but below 3%). It is a far better position to be in than a couple of years ago, when price rises were threatening to hit double digits. But there is a big difference between inflation decelerating towards 2% in the coming year or getting stuck nearer 3%. Not only would the latter forestall aggressive interest-rate cuts by the Federal Reserve, it would also put the central bank on a collision course with Donald Trump—a double-whammy of monetary hawkishness and political turbulence that would cast a shadow over the global economy. More

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    What a censored speech says about China’s economy

    At this time of year, many policymakers want to know how fast their economies will grow in the year ahead. China’s leaders set themselves a still tougher question: how fast their economy “should” grow. They are seeking not a forecast but a target. More

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    Bitcoin is up by 138% this year. It is a nonsense-free rally

    BITCOIN IS BACK. Since Donald Trump’s election victory on November 5th, the world’s dominant cryptocurrency has surged to new heights above $100,000 a unit, enjoying a rise of 138% since the start of the year. Altogether, the world’s cryptocurrencies now have a market capitalisation of almost $4trn—making them more valuable than the entirety of Britain’s stockmarket. More

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    Whoopi Goldberg aims to raise awareness about women’s sports with new network

    Whoopi Goldberg started the All Women’s Sports Network with George Chung, co-founder of international media holding company Jungo TV.
    Goldberg told CNBC her childhood passion for sports and desire for greater female representation in the field inspired her to start the network.
    AWSN is available in the U.S. on the free streaming service Vizio WatchFree+.

    Hollywood icon Whoopi Goldberg hopes her newly launched All Women’s Sports Network will bring more attention to women’s sports.
    Goldberg started the network with George Chung, co-founder of international media holding company Jungo TV. It’s the first global media channel dedicated exclusively to highlighting women’s sports and is available in the U.S. on the free streaming service Vizio WatchFree+.

    Goldberg told CNBC her childhood passion for sports and desire for greater female representation in the field inspired her to start the network.
    “I want little girls to have what we used to call baseball cards for their new favorite players, and I want them to follow just like I used to follow Mickey Mantle,” Goldberg said.
    AWSN is also available via international partners in India, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and the Philippines.
    The network will air 2,000 hours of live sports the remainder of this year and into 2025. It will feature a wide range of sports from soccer, basketball, volleyball and field hockey to cricket, judo and table tennis.

    Actor & comedian Whoopi Goldberg arrives on the Tonight Show starring Jimmy Fallon on Wednesday, November 6, 2024.
    Todd Owyoung | Nbcuniversal | Getty Images

    Goldberg said she hopes the growth of women’s basketball and soccer will help put the spotlight on other women’s sports.

    “We started to see amazing basketball being played, and I think more people said, ‘Hey, I want to watch more of that.’ What other sports are women playing that we don’t know about? Like hockey or roller derby. I love roller derby. I want America to have a roller derby team,” Goldberg said. “I want it out there because women are doing it.”
    Chung said Vizio currently reaches 20 million television sets, and, within the next three to four months AWSN expects to be available over on 100 million devices in the U.S.
    Goldberg acknowledged she faced some initial resistance in launching the network, but once she met Chung, their goals aligned.
    “I like a good business proposition, and I want this to go way past my lifetime. I want it to be as well known as an ABC, NBC or CBS,” she said.
    Disclosure: NBC and CNBC are divisions of NBCUniversal. More

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    Health-care stocks fall as lawmakers, patients push for changes to their business models

    Shares of major health-care companies fell nearly 5% on Wednesday on concerns related to potential changes to their complex business models.
    That includes UnitedHealth Group, Cigna and CVS Health, which operate three of the nation’s largest private health insurers and drug supply chain middlemen called pharmacy benefit managers.
    The stock reaction on Wednesday appeared to be in response to new bipartisan legislation that aims to break up pharmacy benefit managers.

    UnitedHealth Group signage is displayed on a monitor on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.
    Michael Nagle | Bloomberg | Getty Images

    Shares of major health-care companies fell as much as 5% on Wednesday as investors feared pressure from lawmakers and patients could force changes to their business models.
    The declining stocks include UnitedHealth Group, Cigna and CVS Health, which operate three of the nation’s largest private health insurers and drug supply chain middlemen called pharmacy benefit managers, or PBMs. They also own pharmacy businesses. Shares of all three companies closed at least 5% lower.

    The stock reaction on Wednesday appeared to be in response to new bipartisan legislation that aims to break up PBMs, which was first reported by The Wall Street Journal. PBMs have faced yearslong scrutiny from Congress and the Federal Trade Commission over allegations they inflate drug costs for patients to boost their profits. 

    The share moves also come as insurance companies and their practices face heightened public criticism following the fatal shooting of Brian Thompson, the CEO of UnitedHealth Group’s insurance arm, last week. Health stocks had already fallen in the days after Thompson’s killing.
    A Senate bill, sponsored by Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Josh Hawley, R-Mo., would force the companies that own health insurers or PBMs to divest their pharmacy businesses within three years, the Journal reported. The lawmakers told the Journal that a companion bill is scheduled to be introduced in the House on Wednesday.
    “PBMs have manipulated the market to enrich themselves—hiking up drug costs, cheating employers, and driving small pharmacies out of business,” Warren said in a release. “My new bipartisan bill will untangle these conflicts of interest by reining in these middlemen.”
    The release added that health-care companies that own both PBMs and pharmacies are a “gross conflict of interest that enables these companies to enrich themselves at the expense of patients and independent pharmacies.”

    The largest PBMs — UnitedHealth Group’s Optum Rx, CVS Health’s Caremark and Cigna’s Express Scripts — are all owned by or connected to health insurers. They collectively administer about 80% of the nation’s prescriptions, according to the FTC.
    PBMs sit at the center of the drug supply chain in the U.S., negotiating rebates with drug manufacturers on behalf of insurers, large employers and federal health plans. They also create lists of medications, or formularies, that are covered by insurance and reimburse pharmacies for prescriptions.
    The FTC has been investigating PBMs since 2022. 
    — CNBC’s Bertha Coombs contributed to this report.

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