Panama’s Supreme Court is winding up deliberations that will decide whether a Hong Kong company can run two ports at either end of the Panama Canal, a decision closely watched in Washington and Beijing. A ruling is expected soon, the WSJ’s Santiago Pérez writes.

The political pressure on the justices is immense. President Trump has said he wanted to take back control of the canal. China has thrown up obstacles to the sale of the canal ports and other assets operated by CK Hutchison to a group led by BlackRock and Mediterranean Shipping Co.

Lawsuits filed against Hutchison with the Supreme Court allege the company violated the interests of the government and taxpayers. An audit showed up to $1.3 billion in lost government revenue since Hutchison’s arrival in the late 1990s. Its 25-year license was renewed for another 25 years in 2021.

Hutchison would take the case to international arbitration panels to protect its investment if justices rule against it, a person close to the company said. Beijing would likely look for ways to retaliate if Hutchison is stripped of its license.

Microsoft promised to pay higher utility bills for all of its U.S. data centers powering AI models, a pledge designed to address local fears that AI is pushing up electricity prices, the Journal’s Amrith Ramkumar and Sebastian Herrera report.

The software company committed Tuesday to paying high-enough electricity rates to cover the electricity costs of its data centers so they aren’t passed on to consumers, replenishing more water than it withdraws locally and paying the full property tax rate.

The tech giant’s pledge comes as the broader AI boom has stressed power grids across the country, pushing the nation’s largest grid operator, PJM, to the brink of a supply crisis.

Rates are going up for consumers in PJM’s region, the Journal’s Katherine Blunt and Jennifer Hiller write. Older power plants are going out of service faster than new ones can be built. And the grid’s capacity is in danger of maxing out during periods of high demand, which could force PJM to call for rolling blackouts.

PJM expects power demand to grow by 4.8% a year, on average, for the next decade, after not seeing substantial demand growth in years.

Inflation remained relatively contained at the close of 2025 despite turbulence from tariffs, with consumer prices rising 2.7% in December from a year earlier, the Labor Department said. That was unchanged from November’s pace and in line with economists’ expectations, the WSJ’s Harriet Torry reports.

The consumer-price index report showed the impact of tariffs is still relatively muted. Although inflation readings bounced around last year and remain stuck above the 2% rate that policymakers prefer, year-over-year CPI inflation cooled 3% in January. People paid more for rent, airline fares and visits to the doctor’s office in December compared with the prior month, while gasoline costs and used car and truck prices declined.

• Trump has proposed several measures to address affordability, including a 10% cap on credit-card rates and using tariff revenue for payments to Americans. (WSJ)

• The World Bank upgraded its global economic growth estimate for 2025 to 2.7% from 2.3%, citing surprising resilience despite tariff hikes. (WSJ)
• Sales of new single-family homes edged down to 737,000 in October last year, from 738,000 in September, but up from a downwardly revised 711,000 in August. (WSJ)
• The National Federation of Independent Business said its small-business optimism index rose to 99.5, compared with 99.0 in November. (WSJ)
• Diana Shipping said its offer to acquire Genco Shipping & Trading was rejected by Genco’s board without engaging with the bidder. (WSJ)
• Boeing delivered 600 airplanes in 2025, marking its busiest shipping year since 2018, including 63 jets in December. (WSJ)
• L3Harris Technologies will spin off its missile business into a public company with a $1 billion Defense Department investment. (WSJ)
• SK Hynix, a supplier of high-bandwidth-memory products to Nvidia, plans to build a $13 billion chip-packaging plant in South Korea. (WSJ)
• Two oil tankers, including one chartered by Chevron, were hit by drones in the Black Sea as they sailed toward a terminal on the Russian coast. (Reuters)
• RoadOne IntermodalLogistics purchased the first of what could be up to 10 fully electric semi-trucks from Tesla. (The Trucker)
• New Jersey’s SeaCube Cold Solutions acquired Martin Container for undisclosed terms to expand its presence on the West Coast. (FleetOwner)
• Cosco Shipping signed two orders worth a total of nearly $2.7 billion for 18 new containerships to be delivered in 2028 and 2029. (Journal of Commerce)
• The U.S. Postal Service plans to tighten businesses’ access to large volumes of tracking data starting in April. Consumers’ ability to track their packages won’t change. (SupplyChain24/7)
• Alphabet’s Google plans to start developing and manufacturing high-end smartphones in Vietnam this year. (Nikkei Asia)
• Aldi plans to open three new U.S. distribution centers, in Florida, Arizona and Colorado, by 2029. (SupplyChainDive)
• Amazon started testing drone deliveries in the U.K. and plans to launch operations there later this year. (Air Cargo News)
• The U.S. House of Representatives passed a three-year extension of preferential trade programs for Haiti and sub-Saharan Africa, which both expired on Sept. 30. (Politico)
• The cost of tariffs has led to 32% of supply-chain managers reporting layoffs in December, twice as many as in April, according to a survey from CNBC and the Association of Supply Chain Management. (CNBC)
• Sales of Class 8 heavy-duty trucks more than doubled from November to 42,700 in December, according to ACT Research. (Transport Topics)

Mark R. Long is editor of WSJ Logistics Report. Reach him at mark.long@wsj.com. Follow the WSJ Logistics Report team on LinkedIn: Mark R. Long, Liz Young and Paul Berger.