Underlying US inflation accelerated in July, though the cost of tariff-exposed goods didn’t rise as much as feared, boosting expectations that Federal Reserve officials will lower interest rates when they meet next month. The core consumer price index, which excludes the often volatile food and energy categories, increased 0.3% from June, the strongest pace since the start of the year.

The source of this information is the Bureau of Labor Statistics—an arm of the US Department of Labor—and its data was in line with economists’ forecasts, as was the overall CPI on a monthly basis.

Nevertheless, whether the attribution according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics still carries the same weight with markets, economists and business owners may soon be an open question. President Donald Trump fired the BLS’s nonpartisan commissioner following a recent report of deepening unemployment. Now he’s named to the post EJ Antoni, former chief economist of the conservative Heritage Foundation and a contributor to its far-right Project 2025 manifesto.

Antoni recently proposed ending the BLS’s monthly jobs report. The agency’s work, in addition to that of other US statistical offices now under Trump’s control, has a “gold standard” reputation globally for being free of political influence—a status which many now fear is at risk. —Jordan Parker Erb and David E. Rovella

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US short-term debt yields declined. While Treasury yields across maturities failed to sustain their initial drop to session lows, the two-year note’s yield remained three basis points lower on the day as swap traders priced in nearly 90% odds of a Fed rate cut on Sept. 17, up from about 80% before the data. Rising yields in UK and euro-zone debt markets—including the highest German 30-year yield since 2011—contributed to weakness in longer-term Treasuries after the inflation report.

Worries that artificial intelligence tools could disrupt the world’s biggest software businesses are sparking a selloff across the sector. A 30% plunge in Monday.com shares grabbed investor attention in Europe on Tuesday, with some analysts saying the drop reflected concerns over the long-term competitive threat of AI as much as results that failed to meet higher investor expectations.

Such worries fueled big losses across the sector. SAP—Europe’s biggest company by market value—dropped as much as 7.1% in Frankfurt, erasing almost €22 billion ($26 billion) at the session low.

Speaking of AI: Perplexity made a $34.5 billion bid for Google Chrome in an audacious attempt to get ahead of a potential requirement for the search giant to sell the web browser in US antitrust proceedings.

The AI startup’s unsolicited bid—which Perplexity intends to fund with the help of outside investors—comes shortly after OpenAI also expressed interest in acquiring Chrome. After a federal judge found last year that Google has an illegal monopoly in internet search, the US government has said it wants Google to sell the Chrome browser. A district judge is expected to issue a ruling in the coming days with remedies to prevent the company from monopolizing the online search market

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said he won’t cede the eastern region of Donbas to Russia and pushed for Kyiv to be included in talks as the US and Russian leaders prepare to meet on Friday. (Neither Ukrainian nor European leaders were invited to Friday’s meeting in Alaska, which yesterday Trump mistakenly said was in Russia.)

Vladimir Putin is demanding that Ukraine give up the Donetsk and Luhansk regions that together form Donbas as a condition to unlock a ceasefire and enter negotiations over a longer-term peace accord. Such a decision would hand Moscow a victory that its army couldn’t achieve militarily for more than a decade, during which time it has killed tens of thousands of Ukrainians, flattened towns and cities and allegedly committed scores of war crimes.

George Washington University is the latest school in Trump’s crosshairs. The Department of Justice claims the university violated federal civil rights law during student protests against the war in Gaza, making it the latest target in the administration’s campaign to exert power over US colleges.

The DOJ’s contention echoes a pattern in which the administration uses allegations of antisemitism to justify funding freezes and litigation threats against universities. Subsequent negotiations by schools including Columbia, Brown, Harvard, Northwestern and Cornell often had more to do with forcing the elimination of diversity programs and shifting academic teaching rightward.

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