Consumers and U.S. workers are feeling the pinch of a wage growth rate that lags behind the rate of inflation.

Inflation is likely to have increased for a third straight month in May as the war with Iran sent energy prices higher and ratcheted up pressure on U.S. consumers.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Consumer Price Index for last month will be released at 8:30 a.m. ET Wednesday. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones expect it will show the annual rate of inflation hit 4.2%, well above the 2.4% level it hit before the war and its highest point since early 2023.

“High energy prices will again provide upward pressure, although potentially less than in the previous two months,” analysts at Lloyd’s Bank said.

Nine months into the Trump administration’s deadly campaign against so-called drug boats, there is a pattern to the strikes. And a glaring anomaly.

The U.S. military has conducted more than 60 attacks, resulting in over 200 extrajudicial killings in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean. In almost all the strikes, between one and four people lost their lives. In only one strike did the death toll of a single boat reach double digits: the first attack on September 2, 2025.

Since then, experts, lawmakers, and even military officials behind the scenes have been asking a simple but haunting question: Why was that boat packed with 11 people?

Exclusive: poll across 15 countries finds ‘deep mistrust’, with majority doubting US would come to their aid in an attack

European confidence in an American “security guarantee” has hit a historic low, a survey suggests, with only one in 10 people across 15 countries seeing the US as an ally and majorities in all doubting it would come to their aid if they were attacked.

The survey, published on Wednesday by the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) thinktank before critical G7 and Nato summits in France and Turkey over the coming weeks, revealed “deep European distrust in the US”, the authors said.

It also showed that, while many Europeans felt relations with Washington would improve once Donald Trump leaves office, they were increasingly ready in the meantime to protect themselves against US unreliability by bolstering Europe’s defence.

Federal health regulators on Tuesday signed off on the first new sunscreen ingredient for the U.S. market in more than 25 years, giving Americans access to a skin-protecting chemical long used in Europe and other parts of the world.

The Food and Drug Administration says the ingredient, bemotrizinol, met the agency’s standards for protecting from dangerous ultraviolet rays while causing little irritation or absorption into the skin. The ingredient is safe for adults and children 6 months and older, the agency stated in a release.

Bemotrizinol will initially be sold in the U.S. by the Dutch manufacturer DSM Nutritional Products under the brand name Parsol Shield, which is expected to launch later in the year. After an 18-month exclusivity period, the ingredient will be available for use by other manufacturers.

Southern Poverty Law Center releases report as US government pursues federal fraud charges against group

A new report from the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) finds hard-right groups have increasingly expanded their influence across the US government, which is pursuing a federal fraud case into the civil rights organization.

Tuesday’s report – which identified 1,263 hate and anti-government groups in operation throughout 2025 – comes less than two months after it was indicted by the government it says the hard right has infiltrated.

According to the SPLC’s annual Year in Hate and Extremism report, Donald Trump’s administration has “radically transformed government policy in favor of far-right interests and individuals” since the start of his second presidency in early 2025.

The lawyers on both sides of a federal court case in Mississippi were caught using artificial intelligence, a situation where, effectively, generative AI tools were used to argue against each other.

The judge wrote in a blistering sanctions order, that the lawyers wasted the court’s time, and that “in an era of rampant unverified AI usage within the legal field, this case presents a prime example of the risk associated with serving as a rubber-stamp.”

“This case presents the Court with an unusual scenario—attorneys for both litigants engaged in similar sanctionable conduct,” Sharion Aycock, senior United States District Judge for the Northern District of Mississippi wrote in a sanctions order. “This court is yet again ‘burdened with addressing AI hallucinations court filings.’”

The City of Taylor, Texas, is facing public outcry after residents found out a data center's being constructed on land donated as a public space.

As governments around the world struggle with ways to reverse plunging birth rates, new U.S. studies suggest they have ignored a key culprit -- the smartphone.

“Is the iPhone Birth Control?” asked a paper published Monday by the National Bureau of Economic Research, delving into why U.S. fertility rates have fallen by 22 percent since 2007.

For a while, experts linked the decline to the recession that struck in 2008 when the global financial system nearly imploded, driving millions of people into hardship. But when the economy picked up, a rebound in births never came.

Myriad other reasons have been posited, such as increased use of contraception, more female education, and growing housing or childcare costs. However, no clear cause has been established.

If you've been thinking it seems like there are more wars raging in the world these days, it turns out you're right and the data proves it.

A new study by researchers at a university in Sweden recorded the highest number of conflicts between states in 2025 since World War II, and the highest number of fatalities recorded since the Rwandan genocide.

Their conclusion differs from the current U.S. dietary guidelines.

Americans should limit their alcohol consumption to no more than one drink per day, according to a study published Tuesday in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs.

The recommendation — from an international team of scientists — differs from the U.S. dietary guidelines, both past and present. Previous guidelines recommended a daily limit of two alcoholic drinks for men and one for women. The latest version, released by the Trump administration in January, is less precise. It recommends only that Americans “consume less alcohol for better overall health.”

The current less-is-best message is accurate but too vague, said study co-author Priscilla Martinez-Matyszczyk, deputy scientific director of the Alcohol Research Group at the Public Health Institute, an independent nonprofit organization in California. People need quantified guidance so they can make informed decisions about their drinking, she said.

Critics say president using well-worn playbook – with loyalists in key positions ready to amplify his message

Donald Trump is “inventing fraud” in California’s primary elections, and likely to ramp up unfounded allegations when more races go against him, pro-democracy experts have warned.

While the US president has used this playbook for years – from his loss at the Emmys as a reality TV star to his defeat in the 2020 presidential election – election integrity campaigners fear this time could be different.

“California’s election is not the problem here,” said Omar Noureldin, senior vice-president of policy and litigation at Common Cause, a pro-democracy watchdog group. “The problem is that we have a president in the Oval Office who continues to lie and sow doubt over elections instead of facing accountability from voters.”

JPMorgan Chase leads 65 banks making decisions incompatible with restraining rising temperatures, researchers say

The world’s largest banks committed $906bn in financing to the fossil fuel industry last year, an “unfathomable” increase in investment locking in years more of coal, oil and gas production as the world continues to overheat, a new report has found.

The surge in new fossil fuel lending, up $64bn or nearly 8% on 2024, shows that the world’s largest 65 banks are making decisions incompatible with international agreements to restrain rising global temperatures, according to the coalition of environmental groups behind the new analysis.

JPMorgan Chase is again the world’s leading financier of fossil fuels, according to the annual Banking on Climate Chaos report, after pushing $58bn to the sector last year – up 13% from 2024.