US consumer inflation cooled slightly in April, but analysts warned prices could spike in the coming months as businesses grapple with President Donald Trump’s sweeping “liberation day” tariffs.The data released Tuesday covers the early days of Trump’s new levies against most countries — including steep duties on China — which spooked financial markets and raised fears of a spike in prices. The US president has since reversed some of the duties and paused others, helping to soothe nervous investors. The consumer price index (CPI) eased to 2.3 percent in April from a year ago, a tick below the 2.4 percent figure recorded in March, the Labor Department said in a statement.”The CPI report shows that the American people are experiencing real economic relief: grocery, gas, and egg prices are down, while real wages are up,” White House spokesman Kush Desai said in a statement.Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren took a different view on the data.”Consumers and businesses will feel little relief from President Trump folding to Xi Jinping and are bracing for supply chain disruptions and even empty shelves,” she said in a statement, referring to the deal struck over the weekend between the United States and China to lower tariffs. The April CPI release was the smallest 12-month increase since February 2021, and was slightly lower than the median estimate from surveys of economists conducted by Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.”This may be the low point in 2025,” Nationwide senior economist Ben Ayers wrote in a note shared with AFP. “As tariff costs increasingly flow into consumer prices, we expect a jump in the CPI this summer, pushing the annual reading back above three percent,” he added.”Looking ahead, higher tariffs will lead to a renewed inflation impulse,” EY chief economist Gregory Daco said in a statement. But, he added, the recent tariff detente with China means that impulse will be slightly weaker than previously expected. Prices rose 0.2 percent from a month earlier, with “more than half” of the increase due to a 0.3 percent rise in shelter costs, according to the Labor Department.Excluding volatile food and energy costs, the inflation rate was 0.2 percent from a month earlier, and 2.8 percent over the past 12 months.The monthly figure was slightly below expectations, while the annual figure was in line with forecasts. US stocks were mixed in early trading. – ‘Too early’ to tell -Despite the good news overall, there were nevertheless some signs of Trump’s tariffs in the data. The index for household furnishings and operations increased 1.0 percent in April after standing still in March, the Labor Department said. In a recent investor note, economists at Deutsche Bank had flagged that this data point would provide a good indication of how some “import-heavy categories” could be affected by tariffs.But, they added, it was still “too early for tariffs to be evident in the aggregate numbers.” The energy index — which fell sharply in March — increased 0.7 percent in April, according to the Labor Department, spurred by a sharp rise in natural gas and electricity prices. The gasoline index decreased 0.1 percent over the month on a seasonally-adjusted basis, and by 11.8 percent over the past 12 months.The data will likely be well-received by the US Federal Reserve as it weighs when to cut interest rates.Futures traders see a roughly 90 percent chance the central bank will extend its recent pause at the next rate decision in June, holding its benchmark lending rate at between 4.25 and 4.50 percent, according to data from CME Group.

Reality TV star Kim Kardashian told a Paris court on Tuesday she feared she would be killed by the masked men who robbed her at gunpoint of some $10 million of jewellery in her hotel room in 2016, but expressed her forgiveness despite the “trauma”.The trial of 10 suspects has attracted huge media attention, with close to 500 reporters accredited, and crowds flocking around the courthouse on Paris’s historic Ile de la Cite hoping for a glimpse of the celebrity.”Hi! I’m Kim Kardashian and I just want to thank everyone, especially the French authorities, for allowing me to testify today and tell my truth,” she told the packed court, wearing a black skirt suit and jewelled necklace.”I came to Paris for Fashion Week and Paris is always a place I love so much,” Kardashian said, giving the court her account of the night of October 2-3, 2016, when she was robbed while staying at an exclusive, discreet hotel in the centre of the city.- ‘Prayer for my family’ -She was in her room — “with my best friend downstairs, my sister and my friend and my mom… all out for the night” — when she heard “stomping” up the stairs.Then people “who I assumed were police officers because they were in uniform” entered her room, said Kardashian, who is among the world’s most followed people on Instagram and X. “Then I heard one of the gentlemen say ‘ring’ a few times over, ‘ring’, ‘ring’ and he pointed his finger with an accent,” she said, adding that she didn’t at first “understand it was for my jewellery”.The man found what he was looking for: a diamond ring given to Kardashian by her then-husband, rapper Kanye West, and valued at 3.5 million euros ($3.9 million).The attackers then began to look for more valuables, threatened Kardashian with a gun and tied her up with a zip tie, she said, visibly emotional.”I was certain that he was going to shoot me, so I said a prayer for my family.”Asked by the presiding judge if she feared she was going to be killed, Kardashian replied: “I absolutely did. I thought I was going to die.”She said she also feared she would be raped but the man with the gun “closed my legs and put a tape on my leg.”- ‘Absolutely terrifying’ -Kardashian said she was “grabbed and dragged into the other room” but not hit by the men. Their sudden appearance and the gun were, however, “absolutely terrifying”.From comments from one of the men, “I felt that he wanted me to know that I would be OK if I just shut up,” she said.”Ultimately I decided not to resist and stay calm. That calmness saved my life.”Those on trial are mainly men in their 60s and 70s with previous criminal records, with nicknames such as “Old Omar” and “Blue Eyes”.Sixty-eight-year-old Aomar Ait Khedache, known as “Old Omar”, has admitted to tying up Kardashian but denies being the mastermind of the robbery.Another suspect in the dock, 71-year-old Yunice Abbas, later wrote a book about the heist.- ‘I forgive you’ -Khedache, who according to his lawyers is no longer able to speak due to health problems, told Kardashian that he “regrets” his actions in a letter that was read out in court. He said he had been “moved and touched by your tears”.Kardashian, who appeared tearful during the reading, said: “I do appreciate the letter, for sure” and “I’ve always believed in the second chance.”She added: “I forgive you for what has taken place but it does not change the emotion, the feelings, the trauma and the way my life changed.”Kardashian has never viewed her security in the same way since the Paris robbery, she told the court. “It changed the way that I felt safe at home,” she said, adding she now relied on up to six security guards there.”We have security everywhere we go,” she said, adding she now longer posts her whereabouts in real time “unless it is on a public schedule”.Kardashian also said she had undergone therapy to deal with her fears because “I have babies that I have to raise,” but “I try to be strong.”Asked about suggestions made at the time that the robbery could have been a publicity stunt or insurance fraud, Kardashian said that those reports had been “really hurtful”.The US celebrity, sometimes described as being “famous for being famous”, became well known in the early 2000s through TV reality shows, before launching fashion brands and appearing in several films.The trial is scheduled to run until May 23.mdh-alv-edy-jh/rlp

“The Apprentice” star Jeremy Strong — who was nominated for an Oscar for playing Donald Trump’s ruthless early mentor — said Tuesday that “truth is under assault”.Strong told reporters at the Cannes Film Festival that lawyer Roy Cohn, who he played in the controversial biopic, was the inventor of “fake news”.President Trump’s lawyers threatened to file a lawsuit against the film, which was released during last year’s presidential campaign.”Roy Cohn I see essentially as the progenitor of fake news and alternative facts, and we’re living in the aftermath of what I think he created,” said Strong, who is on the jury at Cannes.The actor, best known for his role in the series “Succession”, said we are living at a “time where truth is under assault, where truth is becoming increasingly in danger”.”Here specifically in this temple of film, the role of film is increasingly critical, because it can combat those forces in the entropy of truth, and it can communicate truths, individual truths, human truths, societal truths, and affirm and celebrate our shared humanity,” he said.”The Apprentice”, directed by Ali Abbasi, portrays a younger Trump as a nervous, naive outsider trying to make his way in cutthroat Manhattan.But in one shocking scene, it also shows him raping his first wife, Ivana, after she belittles him for growing overweight and bald.In real life, Ivana accused Trump of raping her during divorce proceedings, but later withdrew the allegation. She died in 2022.The movie also shows Trump suffering erectile dysfunction, and undergoing liposuction and surgery for hair loss.The film was eventually released in October last year before the presidential election that he won.In his first 100 days, his administration has slashed federal funding for disinformation research.Social media platforms have scaled back content moderation, with Meta suspending third-party fact-checking in the United States.