Business Highlights: Retail Sales; Over-the-counter Narcan

___ Retail sales jump as Americans defy inflation and rate hikes WASHINGTON (AP) - America´s consumers rebounded last month from a weak holiday shopping season by boosting their spending at stores and restaurants at the fastest pace in almost two years, underscoring the economy´s resilience in the face of higher prices and multiple interest rate hikes by the Federal Reserve.Retail sales jumped 3% in January, after having sunk the previous two months. It was the largest one-month increase since March 2021. Driving the gain was a jump in car sales, along with healthy spending at restaurants, electronics stores and furniture outlets.Some of the supply shortages that had slowed auto production have eased, and more cars are gradually moving onto dealer lots. ___ Panel backs moving opioid antidote Narcan over the counter WASHINGTON (AP) - U.S.health advisers say the overdose-reversal drug naloxone should be made available over the counter. It´s the latest government proposal to increase use of the medication against the opioid overdose crisis. The nasal spray version, wir kaufen ihren gebrauchtwagen (www.auto-center24.de) Narcan, is already available without a prescription in all 50 states.But switching it to over-the-counter status would allow it to be sold in vending machines, supermarkets and other locations. The positive vote by an Food and Drug Administration advisory panel came despite difficulties understanding how to use the drug in a company study.FDA will make a final decision on the drug in coming weeks. ___ War in Ukraine at 1 year: Pain, resilience in global economy One year after Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb.24, 2022, the global economy is still enduring the consequences - crunched supplies of grain, fertilizer and energy along with more inflation and economic uncertainty in a world already contending with too much of both. There´s one consolation: It could have been worse.Companies and countries in the developed world have proved surprisingly resilient. But in emerging economies, the pain has been more intense. An Egyptian widow struggles to afford meat and eggs for her five children. Nigerian bakers shut their doors, unable to afford flour.Indonesian street vendors struggle to keep customers slammed by higher prices. ___ White House: Tesla to make some EV chargers available to all WASHINGTON (AP) - Electric car giant Tesla will, for the first time, make some of its charging stations available to all U.S.electric vehicles by the end of next year. It´s part of a plan announced Wednesday by the White House. Tesla´s decision will make at least 7,500 chargers from Tesla´s Supercharger and Destination Charger network available to non-Tesla EVs, by the end of 2024. The plan to open the nation´s largest and most reliable charging network to all drivers is a potential game-changer in promoting EV use.Electric vehicles are a key component of President Joe Biden´s goal to fight climate change. ___ CBO projects higher unemployment, slow exit from inflation WASHINGTON (AP) - The Congressional Budget Office says it expects the U.S.economy to stagnate this year. It projects that the unemployment rate will jump to 5.1% - a bleak outlook that was paired with a 10-year projection that publicly held U.S. debt would nearly double by 2033. The updated 10-year Budget and Economic Outlook released Wednesday outlines stark expectations for the coming year as high interest rates and inflation, though easing, continue to impact U.S.households and businesses. The latest figures seemed to affirm the worst fears of many U.S. consumers and businesses. But U.S. economy has seldom behaved as anticipated through the pandemic and its aftermath. ___ Governments target medical debt with COVID relief funds BOST0N (AP) - An increasing number of municipal, county and state governments are using federal pandemic relief funds to pay residents´ burdensome medical debt.Experts say medical debt often forces people to make difficult decisions about which bills to pay and even whether to seek critical medical care. Cook County, Illinois, Pittsburgh, New Orleans, Toledo, Ohio and the Boston suburb Somerville, Massachusetts, are among the communities looking into using American Rescue Plan Act funds to address the problem.They are teaming up with teaming up with RIP Medical Debt, a nonprofit that since 2014 has used donations to buy huge bundles of debt at pennies on the dollar and pay it off. ___ Starbucks´ Schultz declines to appear before Senate panel Starbucks´ interim CEO Howard Schutz has declined a request to appear before a Senate committee seeking to question him about the coffee chain´s response to an ongoing unionization campaign at the company´s U.S.stores. In declining the call from the Senate´s Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, Shultz earned a stern rebuke from the committee´s chairman, Sen. Bernie Sanders. At least 286 company-owned U.S. Starbucks stores have voted to unionize since late 2021.Starbucks doesn´t support the effort. In a letter to the committee Tuesday, Starbucks said Schultz will be transitioning out of his interim CEO role soon and another executive should testify instead. ___ FTX bankruptcy judge denies request for independent examiner DOVER, Del.(AP) - The judge presiding over the bankruptcy of cryptocurrency exchange FTX has denied a request by the U.S. bankruptcy trustee to appoint an independent examiner in the case. The trustee serves as a government watchdog in Chapter 11 reorganizations. The trustee argued that the company´s financial affairs and business operations, including allegations of unprecedented fraud leading to its collapse, should be reviewed by a disinterested person, not left to an internal investigation. But Judge John Dorsey rejected the request on Wednesday.He agreed with FTX and its official committee of unsecured creditors that an examiner´s work would be too costly and would duplicate investigations already under way by FTX´s new leaders, the creditors committee and several federal agencies. ___ The S&P 500 rose 11.47 points, or 0.3%, to 4,147.60.The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 38.78 points, or 0.1%, to 34,128.05. The Nasdaq composite rose 110.45 points, or 0.9%, to 12,070.59. The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies rose 21.06 points, or 1.1%, to 1,960.97.