The daily business briefing: April 13, 2023

A key inflation gauge increases less than expected in March, Juul Labs agrees to pay $462 million to settle multistate youth vaping lawsuit, and more

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1. Consumer prices rose less than expected in March

The Labor Department reported Wednesday that the consumer price index rose by just 0.1 percent in March, falling short of an expected 0.2 percent increase as gasoline prices fell. Consumer prices increased 5 percent from the same time last year, down from a 6 percent annual increase in February and a 40-year high of 9.1 percent in June. March's annual increase was the smallest since May 2021, and marked the ninth straight month of slowing inflation. Grocery prices fell 0.2 percent, the first monthly decline since September 2020. Still, high housing costs kept core inflation hotter than the Federal Reserve wants, so economists expect the central bank to raise interest rates again next month to continue its fight against inflation.

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Harold Maass, The Week US

Harold Maass is a contributing editor at The Week. He has been writing for The Week since the 2001 debut of the U.S. print edition and served as editor of TheWeek.com when it launched in 2008. Harold started his career as a newspaper reporter in South Florida and Haiti. He has previously worked for a variety of news outlets, including The Miami Herald, ABC News and Fox News, and for several years wrote a daily roundup of financial news for The Week and Yahoo Finance.