Things To Do In SW Florida

By STAN CHOE, Associated Press Business Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — Wall Street got some relief Wednesday after an encouraging report said inflation slowed last month by more than expected, and the U.S. stock market is scraping back a chunk of its sharp losses from recent weeks.

The S&P 500 was 1.2% higher in early trading, a day after it briefly fell more than 10% below its all-time high set last month. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 145 points, or 0.4%, as of 9:35 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 2% higher.

Companies in the artificial-intelligence industry were leading the way, after recently getting crushed by worries their prices had gone too stratospheric in the market’s run to record after record in recent years. Nvidia climbed 6.4% to trim its loss for the year so far to 13.8%. Server-maker Super Micro Computer rallied 6.8%, and GE Vernova, which is helping to power AI data centers, rose 5.8%.

Elon Musk’s Tesla, whose price had more than halved since mid-December, was heading toward its first back-to-back gain in a month. It added 7.8%. read more

Walt Disney World again has shared updates on the nighttime parade slated to debut this summer at Magic Kingdom, so it may be a good time to recap what we know – and don’t know yet – about “Disney Starlight: Dream the Night Away.”

The parade was announced at a gathering of D23, Disney’s official fan club, last summer. “Starlight” will be the first nighttime parade in the theme park since October 2016, when the Main Street Electrical Parade wrapped its WDW run.

“There’s something so special about a nighttime show inside a Disney park. It’s a tradition that goes back more than 50 years to the Main Street Electrical Parade,” Michael Hundgen, Walt Disney World portfolio executive producer with Walt Disney Imagineering, said at a D23 session in Brazil last year.

“This new show, ‘Disney Starlight,’ will add to that legacy,” he said. “It uses the latest technology to tell all new stories with the characters that everybody absolutely loves.”

Judging from the illustrations of the ‘Starlight’ floats from Disney provided, the parade appears to be populated by old-school princesses and modern animated-movie characters. read more

By CHRISTOPHER RUGABER, Associated Press Economics Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. inflation slowed last month for the first time since September and a measure of underlying inflation fell to a four-year low, even as widespread tariffs threaten to send prices higher.

The consumer price index increased 2.8% in February from a year ago, Wednesday’s report from the Labor Department showed, down from 3% the previous month. Core prices, which exclude the volatile food and energy categories, rose 3.1% from a year earlier, down from 3.3% in January. The core figure is the lowest since April 2021.

The declines were larger than economists expected, according to a survey by data provider FactSet. Yet they remain higher than the Federal Reserve’s 2% target. And most economists still expect inflation will remain elevated this year as Trump’s tariffs kick in.

“Today’s cooler-than-expected reading was a breath of fresh air,” Ellen Zentner, chief economic strategist at Morgan Stanley Wealth Management, said. Yet she cautioned that the Fed is likely to keep its key rate unchanged for now until it sees further evidence of how the White House’s trade and immigration policies affect the economy. read more

By JOSH BOAK, PAUL WISEMAN and ROB GILLIES, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump officially increased tariffs on all steel and aluminum imports to 25% on Wednesday, promising that the taxes would help create U.S. factory jobs at a time when his seesawing tariff threats are jolting the stock market and raising fears of an economic slowdown.

Trump removed all exemptions from his 2018 tariffs on the metals, in addition to increasing the tariffs on aluminum from 10%. His moves, based off a February directive, are part of a broader effort to disrupt and transform global commerce. The Republican president has separate tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China, with plans to also tax imports from the European Union, Brazil and South Korea by charging “reciprocal” rates starting on April 2.

By LORNE COOK and DAVID McHUGH, Associated Press

BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union on Wednesday announced retaliatory trade action with new duties on U.S. industrial and farm products, responding within hours to the Trump administration’s increase in tariffs on all steel and aluminum imports to 25%.

The world’s biggest trading bloc was expecting the U.S. tariffs and prepared in advance, but the measures still place great strain on already tense transatlantic relations. Only last month, Washington warned Europe that it would have to take care of its own security in the future.

The EU measures will cover goods from the United States worth some 26 billion euros ($28 billion), and not just steel and aluminum products, but also textiles, home appliances and agricultural goods. Motorcycles, bourbon, peanut butter and jeans will also be hit, as they were during President Donald Trump’s first term.

The EU duties aim for pressure points in the U.S. while minimizing additional damage to Europe. EU officials have made clear that the tariffs — taxes on imports — are aimed at products made in Republican-held states, such as beef and poultry from Kansas and Nebraska and wood products from Alabama and Georgia. read more