An independent federal agency has become one of the most reliable executors of President Biden’s attempts to fight inflation, at a time when the White House has few weapons of its own to quickly bring down stubbornly high prices of consumer staples like groceries. The Federal Trade Commission filed a lawsuit on Monday, joined by…
A measure of inflation most closely watched by Federal Reserve officials picked up in April, reflecting the difficult path ahead for economic policymakers as they weigh whether to raise interest rates again to bring down stubborn price increases. The Personal Consumption Expenditures index climbed 4.4 percent in April from a year earlier, according to a…
Summers in Maricopa County, Ariz., have become at times unbearable, Kyle Hawkinson said on Friday. Smog and haze hung heavily over Phoenix, and residents were bracing for fire season, when the heat and air pollution would only grow worse. Climate change, he said, is at least partly to blame. But when Mr. Hawkinson, a 24-year-old…
WASHINGTON — At her confirmation hearing in early 2021, Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen told lawmakers that it was time to “act big” on a pandemic relief package, playing down concerns about deficits at a time of perpetually low interest rates and warning that inaction could mean widespread economic “scarring.” A year and a half…