Energy prices were volatile in December, contributing to a moderate month-over-month rise in inflation.
STILFONTEIN, South Africa (Reuters) -At least 78 dead bodies have been pulled from an illegal gold mine in South Africa where police cut off food and water supplies for months, in what trade unions called a "horrific" crackdown on desperate people trying to eke out a living. Hundreds more people are feared trapped 2 km (1.5 miles) below the surface of the mine at Stilfontein, southwest of Johannesburg, with rescuers scrambling to haul them out alive or dead in a court-ordered rescue operation that began on Monday. A total of 216 survivors, some of them emaciated and disorientated, have been brought to the surface and immediately arrested for illegal mining and immigration.
The Pacific Palisades fire first sparked on January 7 and has since been just 19 percent contained