Fed expected to issue lower rate hike in tough inflation fight

The Federal Reserve is poised to slow its interest rate hikes next week, economists say, as central bankers' most forceful moves in decades to fight inflation ripple through the economy. But the half-point increase analysts expect to see in the Fed's benchmark lending rate will still be a steep rise, as it struggles to cool demand in the U.S. to bring consumer costs down. The decision will be announced after a two-day meeting of the policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) starting Tuesday.

WHAT ANALYSTS ARE SAYING ABOUT THE FED STRATEGY

Pipeline leak threatens US oil supply as cleanup continues

An outage on the largest oil pipeline to the U.S. from Canada could affect inventories at a key U.S. storage hub and cut crude supplies to oil-refining centers. TC Energy's Keystone pipeline, which ferries about 600,000 barrels of Canadian crude per day to the U.S., was shut last week after a leak spilled more than 14,000 barrels of oil into a Kansas creek, making it the largest crude spill in the U.S. in nearly a decade as workers continue to fix the leak.

HOW THE PIPELINE LEAK IMPACT OIL PRICES IN THE US

More than 1 million immigrants became US citizens in 2022

Nearly 1 million adult immigrants became U.S. citizens in the year ending in September, a high not reached since 2008. Counting children, 1,023,200 immigrants were granted citizenship in that time, according to a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) report. The record-high number could be due to the large backlog of applications created during the COVID-19 pandemic.

WHY 2022 WAS A NEAR-RECORD HIGH FOR CITIZENSHIP