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Stocks soared Thursday after new economic data showed that price increases eased in October. Investors cheered the development because it indicates the Federal Reserve's interest rate hikes may finally be cooling inflation.

The spectacular implosion of cryptocurrency exchange FTX, a so-called unicorn startup that was recently valued at $32 billion, is just the latest bit of bad news for investors in bitcoin, ethereum and other digital assets. But 2022 was already an awful year for crypto before the FTX-Binance soap opera.

The US government recorded a monthly budget deficit of $88 billion in October, the Treasury Department reported Thursday.

After an independent report found an elementary school outside St. Louis had "unacceptable" levels of radioactive contamination, preliminary results of testing for radioactive materials by the US Army Corps of Engineers showed "no presence of radioactive material above the expected range of background levels," the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said Wednesday.

In the early months of the pandemic, Facebook only grew bigger and more central to our lives. With lockdowns spreading, countless people began shopping, socializing and working on Facebook and other online platforms. As CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in March 2020, usage was so high that the company was "just trying to keep the lights on."