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By STAN CHOE, Associated Press Business Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stock indexes are edging back from their records on Tuesday following a mixed start to the latest profit reporting season for big U.S. companies. An update on inflation is meanwhile giving Wall Street little momentum, either upward or downward, after coming in close to expectations.

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The S&P 500 slipped 0.3% after drifting earlier between small gains and losses. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 343 points, or 0.7%, as of 10:15 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.2% lower. Both the S&P 500 and Dow are coming off all-time highs. read more

By ANNE D’INNOCENZIO

NEW YORK (AP) — Google said Sunday that it is expanding the shopping features in its AI chatbot by teaming up with Walmart, Shopify, Wayfair and other big retailers to turn the Gemini app into a virtual merchant as well as an assistant.

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An instant checkout function will allow customers to make purchases from some businesses and through a range of payment providers without leaving the Gemini chat they used to find products, according to Walmart and Google.

The news was announced on the first day of the National Retail Federation’s annual convention in New York, which is expected to draw 40,000 attendees from retail and technology companies this week. The role of artificial intelligence in e-commerce and its impact on consumer behavior are expected to dominate the three-day event. read more

By CHRISTOPHER RUGABER, Associated Press Economics Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) — Inflation cooled a bit last month as prices for gas and used cars fell, a sign that stubbornly elevated cost pressures are slowly easing.

Consumer prices rose 0.3% in December from the prior month, the Labor Department said Tuesday, the same as in November. Excluding the volatile food and energy categories, core prices rose 0.2%, also matching November’s figure. Increases at that pace, over time, would bring inflation closer to the Federal Reserve’s target of 2%.

Many economists had expected inflation to jump last month as the government resumed normal data collection after the six-week shutdown last fall, so the modest increases that matched the November figures came as a relief. The price of manufactured goods was flat in December, a sign that the impact of tariffs may be starting to fade.

“Distortions caused by the government shutdown have made the inflation data harder to interpret, but the recent run of figures suggests inflation has peaked,” Michael Pearce, chief U.S. economist at Oxford Economics, wrote in a note to clients. read more

By MATT O’BRIEN and MARC LEVY, Associated Press

It won’t be easy for Big Tech companies to win the hearts and minds of Americans who are angered about massive artificial intelligence data centers sprouting up in their neighborhoods, straining electricity grids and drawing on local reservoirs.

Microsoft is trying anyway.

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  Google teams up with Walmart and other retailers to enable shopping within Gemini AI chatbot

• 
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  Tech industry group opposes Florida proposal to regulate AI

• 
  State orders Citizens Insurance to provide deeper rate cuts than requested

The software giant’s president, Brad Smith, is meeting with federal lawmakers Tuesday to push forward an approach that calls for the industry, not taxpayers, to pay the full costs of the vast network of computing warehouses needed to power AI chatbots like ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini and Microsoft’s own Copilot. read more