Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Kurova Coleman. We'll get an update later this

morning on consumer prices for the month of April. Inflation has come down from its peak

last summer. But NPR Scott Horsley reports the cost of living is still climbing too fast

for comfort.

Forecasters think the annual inflation rate last month was somewhere around 5 percent.

Little change from the month before. Inflation has cooled since June when it topped out

above 9 percent, but it's still well above the Federal Reserve's target rate of 2 percent.

The Fed has raised interest rates aggressively for more than a year now in hopes of curbing

inflation. After the most recent rate hike a week ago, Fed policy makers hinted they might

leave rates unchanged for a time, but they're not making any promises. The economic outlook remains

highly uncertain, unemployment's very low, but consumers have been dialing back their

spending. And bank loans are likely to get harder to come by after three bank failures

in the last two months. Scott Horsley and Pairnay was Washington.

The four top congressional leaders met President Biden yesterday at the White House to discuss

the looming deadline to increase the nation's borrowing authority, the debt ceiling. Biden

has been asked whether he would invoke the 14th Amendment to stop a default on the national

debt.

The 14th Amendment to the Constitution says, in part, the validity of the public debt of

the United States shall not be questioned.

I have been considering the 14th Amendment, and a man I have enormous respect for, Larry

Tribe would advise me for a long time, thinks that it would be legitimate, but the problem

is it would have to be litigated. And in the meantime, without an extension, it would

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