How is this news? Gas companies have been doing it for at least 60 years. Oil price goes up? Prices go up at midnight. Oil price goes down? You see, friend, this gasoline was made with the expensive oil, there’s a certain lag in the supply chain that we need to account for etc. etc.

Pure capitalism knows just one correct price, and that’s the price that the market will bear. Combine it with a monopoly and sky’s the limit.

It’s gonna suck in Act 3 when the hero visits the BBEG devastated ruins, if you’re lucky you get to tell them who did it and cry for vengeance with your dying breath.

The Shire Remembers.

You mean a tide locked planet, as in, one side of the planet would always face the star? The Moon does this with respect to the Earth, so yes, it is possible.

If you mean no spinning around the star, then no. The orbital equilibrium is given by the attraction force between the planet and the star being countered by the centrifugal force of the planet spinning around the sun. If the planet were to slow down, it would move closer to the star. If it would stop, it would eventually fall into the star.