The World · 2026-07-15

economy & finance

US consumer prices fall 0.4% in June, cooling inflation to 3.5%¹

The consumer price index fell 0.4% in June on a seasonally adjusted basis, pulling twelve-month inflation to 3.5%, below the roughly 3.8% economists had expected.² Almost all of the relief came from energy, where prices dropped 5.7% over the month and gasoline fell 9.7%; core inflation, which strips out food and energy, was flat on the month and still runs at 2.6% over the year. The monthly figure flatters the annual one: energy is down sharply since May but remains 15.7% higher than a year ago, gasoline 26.7% higher, so June cooled the index without making energy cheap. That gap is why several Federal Reserve officials still expect a September rate rise, wanting a few clean months before they call inflation beaten.³

policy & law

The House votes 308-117 to make daylight saving time permanent⁴

The House passed the Sunshine Protection Act, H.R. 139, on Tuesday by 308 votes to 117, sending to the Senate a bill that would end the twice-yearly clock change and put the country on permanent daylight saving time. The tally crossed party lines, with Republicans in favor 193 to 22 and Democrats split 114 to 95. Backed by President Trump and sponsored by Representative Vern Buchanan, the measure would still let individual states opt out.⁵ Its odds narrow in the Senate, where a committee has resisted the switch and skeptics including Senator Tom Cotton remain unconvinced.⁶

health & science

The CDC bars US entry from three African nations as Ebola spreads⁷

The Centers for Disease Control issued an order on July 13 suspending entry to the United States for foreign nationals present in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda, or South Sudan within the previous 21 days, and requiring returning Americans from those countries to spend 21 days elsewhere first; the restriction runs for 30 days. It responds to an outbreak of the Bundibugyo strain of Ebola that the World Health Organization recorded at 1,460 confirmed cases and 452 deaths in the DRC as of July 1, more than nine in ten of them in Ituri province.⁸ By mid-July that count had risen to 1,963 cases and 719 deaths, and a US aid worker had tested positive, roughly 500 new cases in under two weeks.⁹ The outbreak has already crossed into Uganda and drawn a regional response, and the order weighs a small number of blocked travelers against a low but real chance of importing a virus that has killed more than a third of its confirmed cases, a trade that stays cheap only while the outbreak abroad keeps growing.¹⁰

world

A Soyuz carries a NASA astronaut and two cosmonauts to the ISS¹¹

A Soyuz MS-29 spacecraft launched from Baikonur, Kazakhstan at 10:47 a.m. EDT on Tuesday and docked with the station's Prichal module at 1:52 p.m., after a two-orbit rendezvous of about three hours, according to NASA. Aboard were NASA astronaut Anil Menon and the Roscosmos cosmonauts Pyotr Dubrov and Anna Kikina; their arrival brought the outpost to ten people for about two weeks, until Expedition 75 formally begins on July 26. NASA's release fixes the launch and the docking but not how long the new crew will stay, and reporting that puts the flight at a standard eight-month increment runs ahead of what the agency has confirmed.¹² The launch drew notice less for its cargo than for its crew: a joint American-Russian team still riding the same capsule to orbit, one of the few programs the two governments still run together.¹³

US consumer prices fall 0.4% in June, cooling inflation to 3.5%1

The House votes 308-117 to make daylight saving time permanent4

The CDC bars US entry from three African nations as Ebola spreads7

A Soyuz carries a NASA astronaut and two cosmonauts to the ISS11

Sources

US consumer prices fall 0.4% in June, cooling inflation to 3.5%¹

The House votes 308-117 to make daylight saving time permanent⁴

The CDC bars US entry from three African nations as Ebola spreads⁷

A Soyuz carries a NASA astronaut and two cosmonauts to the ISS¹¹