Tuesday Afternoon News Updates: Inflation Surges as Trump Posts AI Slop — 5/12/26

While Americans lose purchasing power and the Middle East spirals, Trump is on social media making racist jokes and posting AI cartoons

Hi all, Ben here. It’s Tuesday and there’s a whole lot going on. Here are the big stories we’re tracking right now:

• April CPI inflation hits 3.8% — highest since May 2023 — as wage growth gets wiped out entirely

• Gas prices up 65% over the past six months; energy commodity inflation at 29.2%

• Trump spends the morning posting racist AI memes about Hakeem Jeffries and obesity jokes about Governor Pritzker

• Pete Hegseth testifying before the House Appropriations Committee on Iran war costs. The number jumped from $25 billion to $29 billion in the span of ten minutes (and even that’s a lie)

• Iran threatens 90% uranium enrichment (nuclear weapons grade) in response to continued U.S. pressure

• Norway’s deputy foreign minister travels to Tehran for bilateral talks; European nations scrambling as jet fuel supplies run dangerously low

• Qatar’s former prime minister says the U.S. military operation served Netanyahu personally, not the region

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Now let’s get into the details: