Prices rose just 0.1% in July, while annual inflation dipped slightly to 3.4% in June. Meanwhile, core inflation, which strips out food and energy prices, fell to its lowest level in five years.

These little hints all suggest that inflation may finally be losing steam.

After months of inflation swings fueled largely by surging energy costs from the Iran war, July brought the second straight month of relatively mild inflation. Along with it came some other welcome decreases:

While prices are improving… that doesn’t mean they’re back to normal. Grocery prices were still 2.7% higher than a year ago, while gas costs a dollar more per gallon than this time last year.

Does this mean we’ll get an interest rate hike? It’s possible, since inflation is still well above the Fed’s 2% goal. However, last week's weak jobs report could push officials to keep rates steady, especially if inflation stays calm this month.

🌎 Why is this important? July’s cooler inflation could provide some breathing room for consumers, with grocery and gasoline prices both falling during the month. If that trend continues, Americans could eventually benefit twice, through slower price increases at the checkout counter and greater potential for lower borrowing costs.

We’re tracking a wide range of topics on our Watchlist. See live updates on inflation, interest rates, financial stress, and more below.

The Department of Health and Human Services proposed a new rule this week that would require food manufacturers to notify the FDA before introducing new ingredients into their products.

It closes a loophole many food safety advocates have complained about for years.

It would make a fundamental change to the “Generally Recognized as Safe” (GRAS) system, which allows food companies to decide what ingredients are safe and use them in their products.

However… it wouldn't completely eliminate companies' ability to determine that an ingredient is safe. While experts largely praised the proposal, they warned it may have limited impact if food companies can still make that determination for themselves.

For consumers, the most noticeable effect could eventually be changes to ingredient lists. Greater FDA scrutiny could:

Does this mean a bunch of ingredients are now considered unsafe? No. GRAS ingredients are already legally required to meet a safety standard, but the FDA hasn't been notified of every company's safety determination. The new system is designed to eliminate that blind spot.

🌎 Why does this matter? The change should give consumers more confidence in what's actually in their groceries and pressure manufacturers to reconsider questionable additives. However, it could also raise costs for some products.

Several cities have recently ended their contracts with Flock Safety, which operates a network of more than 120,000 license plate readers across the country, after privacy concerns and dozens of cases of alleged police misuse.

The devices, which have spread rapidly throughout the US this year, photograph passing cars and record various information, including license plates, vehicle types, timestamps, locations, and even bumper stickers.

Those records can then be searched, allowing authorities to reconstruct where a particular vehicle has traveled. They’re everywhere:

Why are they spreading so fast? The technology has largely become a time-saving device. They can help officers quickly locate stolen cars, suspects, and missing people, tasks that would usually require officers to manually search through hours of footage.

While the International Association of Chiefs of Police has praised the technology's usefulness in fighting crime, critics say its sweeping surveillance capabilities can be used for unrelated purposes.

Several recent incidents have fueled concerns over abuse:

Public outcry has led to cancellations: Ring dropped its Flock partnership in February amid surveillance concerns, while more than 70 municipalities have also stopped using the company in recent months. Some, however, have simply moved to other license plate-reading systems.

🌎 What’s the bottom line? Flock's rapidly expanding camera network could make it easier for police to recover stolen cars and solve crimes, but it also means Americans' everyday driving can increasingly be recorded and searched even when they aren't suspected of anything. The backlash could lead to stricter rules governing who can access that location data, how it can be used, and how long it is kept.

Track the latest updates on digital privacy and other important topics with our Technology index.

Home furniture brand Blu Dot blew up on CTV with help from Roku Ads Manager. Here’s how:

After a test campaign reached 211,000 households and achieved 1,010% ROAS, the brand went all in to promote its annual sales event. It removed age and income constraints to expand reach and shifted budget to custom audiences and retargeting, where intent was strongest.

The results speak for themselves. As Blu Dot increased their investment by 10x, ROAS jumped to 2,308% and more page-view conversions surpassed 50,000.

“For CTV campaigns, Roku has been a top performer,” said Claire Folkestad, Paid Media Strategist, Blu Dot. “Comping to our other platforms, we have seen really strong ROAS… and highly efficient CPMs, lower than any other CTV partner we've worked with.”

Using Roku Ads Manager, the campaign moved from a pilot to a permanent performance engine for the brand.

Learn more

High housing costs, inflation, and a difficult path to financial independence are pushing more adult children to rely on their parents well beyond college.

Parents are increasingly helping with everything from rent and groceries to phone bills, health care, and transportation. About 75% of parents provide some financial support to at least one adult child, according to AARP.

Age isn’t necessarily a factor, either:

Why the prolonged support? Researchers say several financial pressures are driving the trend, including a challenging labor market, rising rents and housing costs, and expensive college tuition.

Living at home has become more common as well: As the overall cost of living has risen, so too has the number of adult children moving home. Almost half of US adults ages 18 to 29 still live with their parents, compared with 37% in 2019, according to the Federal Reserve.

🌎 Why should you care? While the trend will help younger Americans manage today's high cost of living, it may also delay important milestones like moving out, homeownership, marriage, and starting a family, and leave parents with less money to put toward their own retirement.

See what's changed, recent data, what we're watching next, and every other major story that affects you on our Watchlist… completely free.

In an attempt to keep pace with its rivals, Meta released Muse Glimmer, a new open-weight AI model designed to run locally right on your everyday devices.

Open-weight AI models allow developers to download and run powerful AI systems on their own hardware rather than relying on a company's cloud service (watch short explainer).

Meta says Glimmer is tailored for developers who want to build AI assistants that constantly perform tasks on computers, phones, and eventually wearables. Running AI locally has several advantages:

It’s also much more useful: A locally running assistant sits in the background, understands what's happening on your device, and performs tasks based on that data. Meta claims Glimmer is specifically designed for these kinds of “always-on” workflows.

It’s part of a bigger shift: Other AI titans, like Microsoft, Nvidia, and Google, have also released open-weight models recently, arguing that it may help change AI from something you use through a chatbot into something built directly into the devices you already use.

🌎 Why is this important? Meta’s open-weight AI push could make powerful AI cheaper and easier for smaller companies to build into everyday apps and services, giving consumers more choices beyond the biggest AI platforms.

Track the latest updates on cybersecurity, AI adoption, digital privacy, and more with our Technology index.

> Your dog may understand your mood better than you think, with new brain scan results showing dogs can distinguish between human emotions simply by looking at our faces.

> US officials revealed that President Trump hid inside a container while switching planes in Turkey last month as a security precaution against a potential Iranian missile strike. Watch Trump get smuggled here.

> Scientists have released the largest 2D map of the universe ever created, a staggering 5.6-trillion-pixel image containing nearly 4 billion stars, galaxies, and other celestial objects.

> The continental US experienced its hottest month on record in July, with temperatures averaging 76.9 degrees across the Lower 48, narrowly surpassing the previous record set during the Dust Bowl in July 1936.

> Researchers may have found a way to permanently clear HIV shortly after infection, with a three-part treatment eliminating the virus in newborn monkeys when administered within three days of birth.

> Five years into Taliban rule, about 2.4 million Afghan girls are still barred from secondary school, making Afghanistan the world's only country with formal bans on female education.

> Bumble, the dating app famous for its 'women-first' texting restriction, is now allowing both men and women to initiate conversations in an attempt to boost paying subscribers and user growth.