** Georgia Power Co. said Thursday that vibrations found in a cooling system of its second new nuclear reactor will delay when the unit begins generating power.
** ExxonMobil and Chevron reported lower but still strong profits Friday as they push ahead with hefty shareholder payouts and major acquisitions. The two biggest US oil companies, which have similar profiles and strategies, both saw fourth-quarter profits dip amid lower commodity prices, especially for natural gas.
** The Justice Department announced Friday that it was seizing more than 500,000 barrels of internationally sanctioned Iranian fuel that officials said was illegally trafficked to provide funding for the country’s paramilitary force.
** Federal wildlife officials on Friday rejected requests from conservation groups to restore protections for gray wolves across the northern U.S Rocky Mountains, saying the predators are in no danger of extinction as some states seek to reduce their numbers through hunting.
** Historic record freezing temperatures are gripping Alaska. In the small town of Kotzebue, 550 miles (885 kilometers) by air to the northwest, temperatures of minus 30 Fahrenheit (minus 34.4 Celsius) and below caused heating fuel to thicken so much that home heating systems and stoves stopped working, the Anchorage Daily News reported. City Manager Tessa Baldwin told the newspaper that water lines have frozen across town.
** Ford Motor reported an about 11% fall in January sales of electric vehicles (EV) on Friday, as the industry grapples with shrinking demand for the cars that are typically costlier than their gasoline-powered counterparts.
World
** Two Ukrainian attack drones struck the largest oil refinery in southern Russia on Saturday, a source in Kyiv told Reuters, detailing the latest in a series of long-range attacks on Russian oil facilities.
** Climate activist Greta Thunberg was acquitted Friday of a charge of refusing to follow a police order to leave a protest blocking the entrance to a major oil and gas industry conference in London last year.
** To keep Earth from overheating too much, the nations of the world need to put fewer loopholes in climate agreements and far more money — trillions of dollars a year — into financial help for poor nations, the United Nations climate chief said Friday.
** OPEC and its allies began to pare back oil production last month, following through with plans to curtail output in order to boost slumping global crude prices. Bloomberg reported on Thursday that a survey of shipping data, estimates from officials, and information from energy consulting firms showed that OPEC+ scaled back output by 490,000 barrels a day last month.
** Farmers blocked the Dutch-Belgian border and occupied roads in Greece on Friday, while a Polish union announced plans to shut border crossings with Ukraine as European protests over prices and red tape spread.
** Cuban president Miguel Díaz-Canel sacked economy minister Alejandro Gil on Friday, state media reported, as controversy continued to grow over the delay of recently announced measures to hike the price of fuel and transportation fares in the communist-run country.
