Inflation hits highest level in nearly 3 years, Fed’s preferred gauge shows
A worker stacks groceries at a store in Brooklyn on May 12, 2026, in New York City. The rise in fuel, food, and other essentials for millions of Americans comes as the war with Iran continues to be a drag on both the domestic and international economy. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — Inflation jumped for a second consecutive month in April as the Iran war drove up gasoline prices and strained household budgets, government data on Thursday showed.
Prices rose 3.8% in April compared to a year earlier, according to the Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) Index, an inflation gauge preferred by the Federal Reserve. The PCE stood at 2.8% as recently as February.
Inflation now stands at its highest level since May 2023, the Commerce Department report showed.
The savings rate, meanwhile, fell to 2.6%, its lowest level since 2022, suggesting some strapped consumers are struggling to stash away extra funds.
A persistent increase in consumer prices may put pressure on the Fed to raise interest rates as a means of dialing back inflation. The latest reading comes days after Fed Chair Kevin Warsh began a four-year term atop the central bank.
For now, futures markets overwhelmingly expect the Fed to hold interest rates steady when policy makers meet next month, according to the CME FedWatch Tool, a measure of investor sentiment.
However, markets peg the chances of a quarter-point rate increase by the end of the year at more than one in three, well above where odds of a rate hike stood prior to the war, the tool shows.
The benchmark interest rate stands at a level between 3.5% and 3.75%. That figure marks a significant drop from a recent peak attained in 2023, but borrowing costs remain well above a 0% rate established at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Middle East conflict prompted the Iranian closure of the Strait of Hormuz, a maritime trading route that facilitates the transport of about one-fifth of global oil supply. The standoff triggered one of the largest oil shocks ever recorded.
As a result, gasoline prices surged. The price of an average gallon of gas stood at $4.42 as of Thursday, AAA data showed – an increase of $1.44 per gallon since the war began on Feb. 28. That amounts to a 48% price jump in about three months.
The fraternity house at the center of a rape allegation stands on the campus of Cornell University on September 30, 2026, in Ithaca, New York. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — One of the Cornell fraternity brothers who allegedly attacked Jane Doe appeared to show remorse days later, writing to her in a text message that was showed to ABC News, “I just wanted to apologize for how things went down the other night.”
She responded, “At the end of the day non [sic] of the sexual stuff was illegal and honestly I really liked being with u.”
Nearly two weeks later, Jane Doe’s view appeared to change, according to the text exchange: “Let’s be clear that 90% of what happened that night was not consensual,” Jane Doe wrote. “All i remember after that was you giving me ket[amine].”
She said it made her feel “like a sex doll/worker.”
Days after those text messages Jane Doe went to campus police. Authorities memorialized her first report: “A female undergraduate student reported that she was recently raped by 8-10 men at the Chi Phi fraternity house.”
Those new details were included in the lengthy confidential investigative report compiled by Cornell and reviewed by ABC News. Newly obtained videos from that probe show the bedroom in the fraternity house where Jane Doe alleged she was gang raped. It was left strewn with garbage, leftover food and discarded furniture after Cornell University suspended the Chi Phi chapter.
On the bedroom floor, there is a composite photo of every member of a sorority class, a fentanyl test, beer cans and liquor bottles littering the space.
ABC News has also obtained an extended version of the Snapchat group chat shared among more than 50 fraternity brothers during the alleged assault.
The frat brother who invited Jane Doe to the house that night sent a photo to the chat that appears to show her in the bedroom.
Another asked, “Are you guys at least naked??”
He replied, “Boys come whip it out.”
On Thursday, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said she issued an executive order to appoint Attorney General Letitia James as a special prosecutor for the alleged gang rape that took place in 2024.
“Newly released information continues to raise serious questions about the investigation conducted by the Cornell Police Department and the decision by the Tompkins County District Attorney not to prosecute an alleged sexual assault on Cornell University’s campus,” Hochul said in a statement.
Karen Read and Alan Jackson greet her supporters after she is acquitted on many of the charges against her on June 18. (Staff Photo By Stuart Cahill/Boston Herald via Getty Images)
(Canton, Mass.) — Karen Read has filed a lawsuit against Massachusetts State Police and the Canton Police Department nearly a year after she was acquitted of killing her police officer boyfriend.
Prosecutors had accused Read of fatally hitting John O’Keefe with her car outside of another officer’s home and leaving him to die in a blizzard in January 2022, to which she pleaded not guilty.
Her first trial ended in a hung jury. In her second trial she was found not guilty of the most serious charges, including second-degree murder, manslaughter and leaving the scene after an accident resulting in death.
The jury did find her guilty of operating under the influence of liquor. The judge immediately sentenced her to one-year probation, the standard for a first-time offense.
In the lawsuit filed Thursday, Read claims she was “wrongfully prosecuted” for the death of O’Keefe — a Boston Police officer — costing her employment and leading to reputational damages, millions of dollars in legal expenses and serious emotional and physical distress and injury.
In the lawsuit, Read alleges that two former officers assigned to the case, former Massachusetts Police Officer Michael Proctor and former Canton Police Officer Sean Goode, were “misogynist bigots” who led a “conflicted and corrupt ‘investigation'” into the death of O’Keefe.
The suit listed some of the text messages found on Proctor and Goode’s phones with sexist and racist remarks that came under scrutiny during the course of Read’s criminal trials.
Proctor previously said he developed strong negative feelings about Read “as the case went on,” in an interview with ABC News. He said he “shouldn’t have” expressed his emotions in that way and should not have texted his friends about the case, calling the texts “regrettable.”
In a statement Friday, an attorney for Proctor pushed back against Read’s claims and maintained that there is “overwhelming” evidence that Read killed O’Keefe by “backing up and striking him” with her vehicle while “highly intoxicated.”
“The focus on anything other than Ms. Read’s own conduct on the night Officer O’Keefe was killed is as telling as it is predictable. Events in Mr. Proctor’s personal life have been reviewed, ad nauseum, by a grand jury, the District Attorney and the Massachusetts State Police,” Matthew Hamel, Proctor’s attorney in the Karen Read case, told ABC News in a statement.
“It is a matter of undisputed fact that anything Mr. Proctor did or said in his personal life, years before Officer O’Keefe was killed, had no bearing whatsoever on the investigation of Karen Read,” Hamel said.
In a statement Thursday, Massachusetts Police said Proctor’s comments are “not tolerated within our ranks.”
“These disturbing messages are entirely inconsistent with any basic standard of decency and certainly with the expectations of a Massachusetts State Trooper. These racist, sexist and abhorrent comments absolutely do not reflect the values of the Massachusetts State Police and are not tolerated within our ranks. They underscore and fully support my decision to terminate Michael Proctor,” Massachusetts State Police Col. Geoffrey Noble said in a statement to ABC News.
Noble also recognized that “this misconduct harmed the public trust on which our mission depends.”
An attorney for Proctor did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment Thursday. Attorney information for Goode was not immediately available Thursday.
The Town of Canton said in a statement Thursday it “learned of a lawsuit filed by Karen Read from the news media and via a press release issued by Read’s legal team. Town Counsel had previously attempted to communicate with Read’s legal team as to the status of her claim, but received no response at the conclusion of the notice period.”
“The Town has not been served, and as such we have nothing to review with legal counsel at this time,” the statement added.
The statement went on to say, “The Town of Canton has the utmost faith and confidence in the new leadership of Canton Police Department under Chief Michael Daniels, and we would refute any broad stroke characterizations about the brave and dedicated men and women who serve in the Department. The Department has made significant strides forward over the past two years, including the acceptance and implementation of findings and recommendations in the outside audit report.”
Read’s suit alleges that the officers began “targeting and framing the female outsider, Ms. Read” after the owners of the house where O’Keefe was found in the front lawn “falsely” told police he never entered the house.
In a statement to ABC News in 2023, the prosecutors said, “There was no conspiracy or coverup. Such claims have been systematically refuted by evidence submitted to Norfolk Superior Court.”
Proctor denied fabricating evidence in the June 2025 interview with ABC News, saying “there is no evidence of it.”
Goode said during his testimony at the trial that he stood by his investigation in the case.
In the lawsuit, Read alleges that O’Keefe had gone into the house of fellow cops and friends Brian and Nicole Albert and claimed that there were signs of dog bites and scratches on his arm and a laceration on his head that “could have only come from a backwards fall on a ridged surface in the house.”
The prosecution said in its statement to ABC News that, according to O’Keefe’s cellphone GPS records and 11 witness statements, O’Keefe never entered Albert’s home. The medical examiner found “no signs of Mr. O’Keefe being involved in any type of physical altercation or fight.”
The Alberts previously said in a statement after Read’s acquittal that they “mourn with John’s family and lament the cruel reality that this prosecution was infected by lies and conspiracy theories spread by Karen Read, her defense team, and some in the media.”
“Today, our hearts are with John and the entire O’Keefe family. They have suffered through so much and deserved better from our justice system,” the statement at the time said.
Read’s suit alleges that Proctor and Goode’s investigative approach was born out of “singling out and vilifying an outsider while protecting the ‘blue line’ and their families.”
Goode resigned this week while on paid administrative leave from the Canton Police Department amid an outside investigation into alleged misconduct, the Boston Herald reported. The resignation does not alter the completion of the investigation and the results will still be submitted to the town and the Peace Officer Standards and Training Commission, the town of Canton told ABC Boston affiliate WCVB.
Read’s suit criticizes police for not searching the home where O’Keefe was found for blood, fingerprints or DNA evidence. Police only entered the “crime scene house” a week later, according to the suit.
Prosecutors said that evidence shows O’Keefe never entered the home and was not murdered by anyone inside the residence, alleging his injuries were sustained by Read hitting him with her car. Prosecutors insisted that those gathering inside the house had no idea O’Keefe was outside until he was discovered the next morning.
Read is asking the court for a ruling against Massachusetts State Police and Canton Police, an unspecified amount of damages to be calculated at trial and attorney’s fees.
Christine Banfield is seen in an undated photo. (Photo obtained by ABC News.)
(NEW YORK) — A Virginia man found guilty of killing his wife and a stranger lured to their home in an elaborate plot to get rid of his spouse so he could be with his au pair was sentenced to life in prisonon Friday.
Brendan Banfield was convicted in the 2023 murders of his wife and a man prosecutors said he “catfished” on a fetish website. Prosecutors said Brendan Banfield pretended to be his wife to lure the man to their Fairfax County home for what was believed to be a consensual fake rape scenario in order to frame that stranger for his wife’s murder.
A jury found him guilty of two counts of aggravated murder in February.
“It is a harsh sentence, but in this case it is a justified one,” Judge Penney Azcarate said, noting she had “no hesitation” in handing down the life sentence without the possibility of parole.
“The disregard of the life of your wife, someone you supposedly loved, is almost unfathomable,” she said.
The judge denied a defense motion to overturn his murder convictions on Thursday, ahead of his sentencing.
The former IRS agent was charged with two counts of aggravated murder in 2024 following a monthslong investigation into the deaths of his wife, 37-year-old nurse Christine Banfield, and the stranger, 39-year-old Joseph Ryan.
Prosecutors said Brendan Banfield plotted the murders with the family’s au pair, Juliana Peres Magalhães, with whom he was having an affair.
Police responded to a 911 call from the home in Reston on Feb. 24, 2023, and found Ryan dead in an upstairs bedroom with gunshot wounds to his head and chest. Christine Banfield had been stabbed seven times in the neck, prosecutors said.
At the time, Magalhães and Banfield told police they came home to find Ryan stabbing Christine Banfield to death. Banfield and Magalhães each shot Ryan, they said in their 911 call and to responding officers at the scene.
Magalhães was arrested first and initially charged with second-degree murder for the death of Ryan. She pleaded guilty to manslaughter in 2024 and was sentenced to 10 years in prison, the maximum, in February. Prosecutors said she admitted to shooting Ryan at Brendan Banfield’s direction.
Brendan Banfield was arrested several months after Magalhães and charged with two counts of aggravated murder for the deaths of his wife and Ryan.
Prosecutors said Brendan Banfield stabbed his wife with a kitchen knife that Ryan had been instructed to bring, and, before calling 911, altered the crime scene to make it look as though Ryan stabbed her — including by transferring some of his wife’s blood onto Ryan’s hands.
Magalhães testified against Brendan Banfield during his trial, telling the court that he expressed his desire to “get rid of” his wife in October 2022. She said he told her he wanted to marry her and have children with her, and that he didn’t want to divorce his wife because “she would have more money than he would” and because he wanted custody of the couple’s daughter.
She prayed for forgiveness from the victims’ families during her sentencing hearing.
“There is nothing I could possibly do to make it up to you, for your loss. There are so many regrets, this is my biggest. It’s a tragedy I have been carrying with me, and I know I can never take back the devastation of what I have done,” she said.
Following Magalhães’ sentencing, Fairfax County Commonwealth’s Attorney Steve Descano said the au pair’s testimony was “invaluable in helping the jury understand the convoluted double-murder plot orchestrated by Brendan Banfield.”
During his three-week-long trial, Brendan Banfield testified in his own defense. He admitted to the affair though maintained his innocence.
He said he came home on Feb. 24, 2023, after the au pair called to alert him about a stranger in the home. He said he went up to his bedroom with his gun drawn and found his wife naked with Ryan and that she called out, “Brendan, he has a knife!”
“I was extremely terrified,” Brendan Banfield told the jury. “I don’t think I’ve ever been more panicked in my life.”
He said he fired his government-issued firearm, striking Ryan in the head, after he said the man appeared to stab his wife.
The couple’s then-4-year-old daughter was in the basement of the house at the time of the killings. Brendan Banfield was additionally found guilty of child endangerment, as well as using a firearm while committing or attempting to commit murder.
ABC News’ Sophie Sonnenfeld contributed to this report.
