This episode is brought to you by Slack. With Slack, you can bring all your people and

tools together in one place. It's your digital HQ where you can increase productivity,

enable flexibility and automate workflows. Plus, Slack is full of game-changing features

like huddles for quick check-ins or Slack Connect, which helps you connect with partners

inside and outside of your company. Slack, where the future works. Get started at

Slack.com slash DHQ. On certainty, it continues in Congress over who will be the next house

speaker. To have a hard time electing a speaker, likely means that all objectives, that the

new Congress faces in terms of mass past legislation, keeping the government open by passing

funding bills, increasing the debt ceiling so the nation doesn't default on its debt. These

challenges are also going to be tricky. And what the Fed minutes tell us about the central

banks plans for the new year. Plus, malls are opening their doggie doors and things are

getting rough. It's Wednesday, January 4th. I'm Ann Marie for Tolly for the Wall Street

Journal. This is the PM edition of What's News that hop headlines and business stories that

have moved the world today. Market optimism is usually a good thing. But when it comes

to the Federal Reserve, investors hoping the Fed might end its rate hikes, could end up

complicating efforts to slow down the economy and tame inflation. That's according to the

minutes from the Fed's December meeting released this afternoon. The Fed has slowed the

pace of rate hikes, but officials are projecting that rates could still rise to higher than

anticipated levels this year. The Fed's next meeting is in February.

The consultant at the heart of the scheme to rig college admissions was sentenced to

three and a half years in prison today. William Rick Singer pleaded guilty to four felonies

in 2019, admitting he arranged to fraudulently boost students' test scores and bribed college

...