USA

WASHINGTON (AP) — An inflation index that is closely monitored by the Federal Reserve tumbled last month to its lowest level since April 2021, pulled down by lower gas prices and slower-rising food costs.

At the same time, consumers barely increased their spending last month, boosting it just 0.1%, after a solid 0.6% gain in April.

The inflation index showed that prices rose 3.8% in May from 12 months earlier, down sharply from a 4.4% year-over-year surge in April. And from April to May, prices ticked up just 0.1%.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Former President Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, the main rivals for the Republican presidential nomination, are scheduled to speak Friday at the annual gathering of Moms for Liberty, a group that has fiercely opposed instruction related to race and gender identity in the nation’s classroom.

UNITED NATIONS, June 29. /TASS/: The funds that the UN has raised so far this year to help the people in need across the globe make up just 20% of the amount that the US and its allies spent on weapons for Ukraine, Russia’s envoy to the UN Vasily Nebenzya said on Thursday.

CHICAGO, June 29 (Reuters) - Murky, dull skies loomed over tens of millions of Americans on Thursday as smoke from prolonged Canadian wildfires drifted across the Midwest and East, causing unhealthy and, in some spots, dangerous conditions.

Air-quality alerts were in effect until midnight for a swath of the United States that extended from Wisconsin and northern Illinois stretching through Michigan and Ohio and extending into New York, Washington and the East Coast, the National Weather Service said.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden has cozied up to high-dollar donors at Upper East Side penthouses in New York and on West Coast decks in recent weeks. He has two more fundraisers in Manhattan on Thursday that will close out an end-of-quarter campaign blitz that his team believes will put him on strong financial footing for a 2024 White House contest expected to set spending records.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Israeli President Isaac Herzog will address a joint meeting of Congress on July 19 to commemorate the 75th anniversary of Israel’s statehood and to reaffirm his nation’s special relationship with the United States, congressional leaders announced on Thursday.

ALLEN, Texas (AP) — Police released video footage on Wednesday of an officer killing a neo-Nazi gunman, quickly ending a mass shooting that left eight people dead and seven others wounded at a Dallas-area shopping mall.

The edited five-and-a-half-minute video details the final moments of Mauricio Garcia, 33, after he unleashed a rain of bullets from an AR-15-style rifle at the Allen Premium Outlets on May 6.

Those killed included three members of a Korean American family including a 3-year-old child, two young sisters, a security guard and an engineer from India.

NEW YORK (AP) — Three Florida men were arrested Thursday and charged with illegally making more than $22 million by insider trading ahead of the public announcement that an acquisition firm was going to take former President Donald Trump’s media company public.

The charges were outlined in an indictment unsealed in Manhattan federal court that did not in any way implicate Trump or his media company, which owns his Truth Social platform.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Gen. Sergei Surovikin, the deputy commander of the Russian group of forces fighting in Ukraine, is believed to have been detained days after mercenaries staged a revolt inside Russia, two people familiar with the matter told The Associated Press on Thursday, citing U.S. and Ukrainian intelligence assessments.

The people spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Thursday struck down affirmative action in college admissions, declaring race cannot be a factor and forcing institutions of higher education to look for new ways to achieve diverse student bodies.

The court’s conservative majority overturned admissions plans at Harvard and the University of North Carolina, the nation’s oldest private and public colleges, respectively.