Pierre Bien-Aimé

I'm Pierre Bien-Aimé for The Wall Street Journal.

Inflation slowed to 2.4% in January, falling more than economists expected.

The Labor Department said prices fell for gasoline and used vehicles.

But costs for services rose at their fastest monthly clip in a year.

Prices overall are growing more slowly, a good signal for the economy, along with a better-than-expected jobs report earlier this week.

The reports taken together suggest that the Federal Reserve will stick with its wait-and-see approach to cutting interest rates.

In Dubai, the CEO of ports operator DP World, who was named in the Epstein files, has resigned.

And we exclusively report that Anthropic has added former Microsoft and General Motors executive Chris Liddell to its board of directors, as the AI startup considers an IPO.

As chief financial officer at GM, Liddell led the carmaker's successful $23 billion IPO in 2010.

He also served in President Trump's first administration.

Anthropic yesterday said it had closed a $30 billion funding round that valued the company at $380 billion.

Heads up, an artificial intelligence tool helped us make this episode by creating summaries that were based on WSJ reporting and then reviewed and adapted by an editor.

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Here's your midday brief for Thursday, February 12th.

I'm Pierre Bien-Aimé for The Wall Street Journal.

Snowstorms and low consumer confidence slowed a housing market that was showing signs of recovery.

Homes are sitting longer on the market given high home prices and average 30-year mortgage rates stuck above 6%.

And AI startup Anthropic said today it is donating $20 million to a group pushing for safety guardrails and transparency from AI developers.

The group, Public First, was set up to oppose a super PAC network launched by executives at OpenAI and venture firm Andreessen Horowitz.