America’s trade deficit hits a record, GM is closing American factories, OxyContin maker is preparing to file for bankruptcy, and the White House considers step towards requiring health providers to release prices that they charge insurance companies.

These are just a few of the top newsworthy items from this past week as first shared on our Facebook page.

• A podcast company called Luminary has emerged from stealth mode to unveil nearly $100 million in funding and a subscription-based business model that it hopes will push the medium into a new phase of growth.
  
  From The New York Times

• America’s trade deficit in goods hit a record in 2018, growing 10% to $891.3 billion. U.S. trade gaps with China and Mexico also reached new records.
  
  From The Wall Street Journal

• The last American-made Chevy Cruze will rolled off the assembly line this week at GM’s sprawling assembly plant in Lordstown, Ohio.
  
  It’s the first of five North American plants GM wants to close by early next year as part of a companywide restructuring.
  
  From AP

• Chevron and Exxon Mobil plan to significantly ramp up production in the oil field at the heart of the American fracking boom, the Permian Basin in Texas and New Mexico.
  
  In the next five years, Chevron expects to more than double its production there to 900,000 barrels of oil and gas a day—a nearly 40% increase from its previous forecast, while Exxon has plans to increase its daily Permian output to one million barrels of oil and gas.
  
  From The Wall Street Journal

• OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma is preparing a possible bankruptcy filing.The company has no significant debt, but is considering using a chapter 11 filing to resolve the mounting litigation filed by some 1,600 cities, counties and states looking to recoup costs incurred by widespread opioid abuse.
  
  They claim Purdue and other drugmakers’ aggressive marketing of prescription painkillers helped hook the nation, leading to a proliferation of overdoses from both legal and illegal opioids.
  
  From The Wall Street Journal

• The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is seeking public comment on whether patients, before receiving care, have a right to see the secret prices that hospitals, doctors and other health-care providers charge insurers for services.
  
  It is a major step toward a possible rule that could require providers—which would potentially face fines for noncompliance—to release such information, giving patients more decision-making power that could ultimately lead to lower copays or deductibles.
  
  From The Wall Street Journal

• A new-generation SpaceX capsule autonomously docked with the international space station yesterday, in a success deemed essential to carry U.S. astronauts on future missions.
  
  From The Wall Street Journal