With higher prices and elevated interest rates stubbornly sticking around, Chipotle burrito bowls and European vacations are still on the table for many consumers. But Big Macs and kitchen remodels aren’t.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's funding mechanism in a challenge brought by the payday loan industry, handing a victory to President Joe Biden's administration and a setback to the agency's conservative critics.

Millions of bags of laundry pods are being recalled because the packages aren't child resistant and could pose a serious risk, a federal safety regulatory agency warned Friday. 

The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) warning covers 8.4 million Proctor and Gamble Tide Pods, Gain Flings, Ace Pods and Ariel Pods liquid laundry detergent packets packaged in flexible film bags that were distributed in the United States.

Arriel Vinson hadn’t traveled much before the pandemic. Now she can’t stop.

The 28-year-old writer leaves her Dallas apartment every chance she gets: To see Beyoncé in Atlanta, Usher in Chicago and for girls’ trips in Jamaica and Mexico. When a favorite artist announces new tour dates, Vinson starts rallying friends and snapping up tickets, flights and hotel rooms for their next hurrah.

The U.S. economy grew faster than previously estimated in the fourth quarter, boosted by strong consumer spending and business investment in nonresidential structures like factories and healthcare facilities.

The report from the Commerce Department on Thursday also showed profits rising at a solid clip last quarter, driven by nonfinancial corporations. Increasing profits, together with rising worker productivity, could encourage companies to retain their employees, and extend the economic expansion.

Rising gasoline costs kept inflation elevated in February, underscoring that a return to more modest consumer price increases following a pandemic-induced spike may continue to be bumpy.

The climb in fuel costs and rent offset flat food prices.

Overall prices rose 3.2% from a year earlier, up from 3.1% in January, according to the Labor Department’s consumer price index. On a monthly basis, costs increased 0.4% following a 0.3% gain the previous month.

What is the core inflation rate right now?

Inflation rose again in February, keeping the Federal Reserve on course to wait at least until the summer before starting to lower interest rates.

The consumer price index, a broad measure of goods and services costs, increased 0.4% for the month and 3.2% from a year ago, the Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Tuesday. The monthly gain was in line with expectations, but the annual rate was slightly ahead of the 3.1% forecast from the Dow Jones consensus.

Inflation unexpectedly ticked higher in February thanks to a jump in the cost of gasoline and rent, underscoring the challenge of taming price pressures within the economy.

The Labor Department said Tuesday that the consumer price index, a broad measure of the price of everyday goods including gasoline, groceries and rent, rose 0.4% in February from the previous month. Prices climbed 3.2% from the same time last year. 

Both of those figures came in higher than the 0.3% monthly increase and 3.1% headline gain recorded in January.

On Monday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “Your World,” White House Council of Economic Advisers Chair Jared Bernstein stated that Federal Reserve rate hikes have helped lower inflation by dampening demand and that deficit decreases in 2021 and 2022 “probably helped with some disinflation” but that the spending at the beginning of the Biden administration didn’t help cause inflation.