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By Dave Lieber, The Dallas Morning News (TNS)

If you’re someone who manages the family’s finances, worries about identity theft and values maintaining a good credit score, The Watchdog has the latest updates for you.

Specifically, let’s dive into what credit reports and scores really mean, how you can access them and why staying on top of them is so important.

I recently tuned in to a town hall on consumerism sponsored by the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Much of it was old hat, but my ears perked when I heard one speaker casually mention that you could get a free copy of your credit report once a week.

Bam! It used to be you get a free copy of your credit reports every 12 months.

How did this happen? The rules were temporarily suspended during the pandemic. Afterward, they were kept in place.

It’s a little confusing because the government-sponsored website — AnnualCreditReport.com — is still keeping its name. It should be WeeklyCreditReport.com, but the feds have spent a lot of time and money promoting the website. read more

Brian Baker, CFA | (TNS) Bankrate.com

Stocks have mostly been on a tear in 2024, with the S&P 500 up more than 23% as of mid-December. But the strong performance has left stocks trading at elevated valuations, and the Federal Reserve has signaled it needs to see more progress on inflation in order to cut interest rates further in 2025.

By The Associated Press

Mexican airline Aeromexico had the world’s best record for on-time arrivals in 2024, according to an annual ranking released Thursday. Delta Air Lines scored the highest among U.S. carriers despite a computer outage that caused thousands of flight cancellations in July.

Aviation-data provider Cirium said in a report that nearly 87% of Aeromexico flights arrived within 15 minutes of their scheduled arrival, a widely used measure of on-time performance among airlines.

Saudia, the flagship carrier of Saudi Arabia, ranked second worldwide, with an on-time performance rate of just over 86%, according to Cirium.

Cirium has rated airlines for timeliness for 16 years. CEO Jeremy Bowen said 2024 was a difficult year for airlines due to severe weather patterns and the summer technology outage. The winning airlines therefore deserved credit for getting most passengers to their destinations on time, Bowen said.

Atlanta-based Delta achieved an on-time rate of more than 83%, good enough to rank third worldwide. The next-best U.S. carriers were United Airlines, at nearly 81%, and Alaska Airlines, at just over 79%, Cirium said. read more

By Michael Macagnone, CQ-Roll Call (TNS)

WASHINGTON — A federal appeals court on Thursday overturned a Biden administration rule establishing so-called net neutrality for internet providers following years of litigation over efforts to regulate internet speeds for different content online.

The ruling likely ends a long-running effort by the Biden and Obama administrations to change regulation of internet providers — requiring them to provide all internet traffic at the same speed and not discriminate against certain sites or services. A similar rule was initially put in place by the Federal Communications Commission during the Obama administration, reversed by Donald Trump in his first term then reinstated by President Joe Biden. Now it faces an eleventh-hour courtroom loss combined with a second Trump administration likely to pull the rule entirely.

Thursday’s ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit held that internet service should be considered an “information service” — not a “telecommunications service,” which is treated as a common carrier — and that the FCC’s approach was “inconsistent with the plain language” of the Telecommunications Act of 1996. Following the court loss, FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel called on Congress to act on legislation to put net neutrality in federal law. read more

By DAVID KOENIG, AP Airlines Writer

The Transportation Department said Friday it will hit JetBlue Airways with a $2 million penalty for chronically late flights along the East Coast, and half the money will go to passengers who were delayed.

The agency said it’s the first time it has fined an airline for chronic delays on specific routes, which it blamed on “unrealistic scheduling” by JetBlue.

“Illegal chronic flight delays make flying unreliable for travelers. Today’s action puts the entire airline industry on notice that we expect their flight schedules to reflect reality,” Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said. His department has led the Biden administration in criticizing airlines for poor service and an increase in passenger fees.

JetBlue said the government, which operates the air traffic control system, shares the blame for late flights.