How the War with Iran is impacting inflation.

From Marketplace, I'm Kimberly Adams.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics released its Consumer Price Index for May about an hour and a half ago.

And there's some bad news for consumers.

Headline inflation soared over 4% for the first time in three years. Marketplace's Nancy Marshall

Gensar joins me now live with more details. Good morning, Nancy. Good morning. I imagine much of the

increase in the CPI was caused by this jump in fuel prices that we've all seen since the start of

the war in the Middle East. Yeah. In fact, the BLS says higher energy prices account for more than 60% of the monthly increase in overall inflation.

Gas prices are about 40% higher than they were at the same time last year. They were up 7% just in May, although they have fallen a bit so far this month.

And higher energy prices can creep into the cost of other things. Are we seeing that in the

May CPI report? Yeah, food prices were up again last month. The soaring cost of diesel fuel

is pushing up shipping costs, and that means higher prices at the grocery store. Fruit and

vegetable prices are up about 6% year over year.

So what happens if we strip out this food and energy prices, which we know change so much every month, to get to that core CPI?

What does that look like?

Well, it was up 2.9% over the past year, which was about what economists expected, but still

above the Federal Reserve's 2% target. Some prices did fall last month for new cars and car

insurance. Furniture prices were also lower. The question, Kimberly, is whether the higher oil

prices will seep into other areas of the economy.

Marketplace correspondent Nancy Marshall Ginsburg. Thanks, Nancy. You're welcome.

Now, there's news on the prediction markets front this morning as well. The Wall Street Journal is

reporting that the agency regulating sites like CalShe and Polymarket, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission,

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