Big Boss Interview

US inflation fell to 5% last month – the lowest rate since May 2021. March’s monthly consumer price index – which measures the price of a ‘basket’ of goods and services – continued its steady decline from its peak of just over 9%. It prompted US President Joe Biden to tweet that: “Inflation has come down 45% since its summer peak. Gas prices are down, and grocery prices fell last month for the first time since September 2020”. But the slowdown is not expected to sway officials at the Federal Reserve, who set interest rates. Economists are still expecting an increase.

Also in the US - some ambitious new targets have been announced for cutting greenhouse gas emissions from cars. The Environmental Protection Agency wants two-thirds of all new vehicles to be electric within a decade. It's the latest step by the Biden administration to push for the mass adoption of EVs. Last year, electric vehicles made up about six percent of the American market so there's a long way to go to hit those targets. Are they realistic?

(Photo: President Biden during his visit to Ireland. Credit: Getty Images)

The International Monetary Fund raises concerns about the sudden failures of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank in the United States, and the loss of market confidence in Credit Swiss.

The spring meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank are beginning in Washington - the major global financial institutions - are gathering at a time of profound concern about persistent inflation, struggling countries, and the health of the banking system. It follows several failures of regional banks and uncertainty in giant finance houses like Credit Suisse and Deutsche Bank

There’s another twist in the story of FTX - the crypto-currency exchange that collapsed spectacularly last year in what US prosecutors say was an "epic" fraud. It's now emerged that the former bosses of FTX joked about losing tens of millions of dollars and even signed off expenses with emojis. These are just some of the findings of an initial report from the new management team at the company.

And President Joe Biden arrives in Northern Ireland on Tuesday to join ceremonies marking the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday peace agreement. He will be meeting business leaders there - and that's significant because business problems with the post-Brexit arrangements in Northern Ireland have been a big factor in the current failure to re-establish devolved government.

Healthcare company Johnson and Johnson has offered nearly $9 billion to settle a claim from tens of thousands of people who claim its talc product caused cancer. We hear from a lawyer whose firm is representing 17,000 claimants who say they've been affected by the company's trademarked talcum powder product.

The housing boom is definitely over. In Europe anyway. House prices in the EU have suffered their first quarterly fall since 2015, according to the EU statistics office this week. House-hunters in Germany and Denmark tells us of their difficulties finding a home.

Police forces around the world have launched a major joint operation to dismantle one of the biggest criminal marketplaces online. Genesis Market is thought to have sold personal information, such as passwords, stolen from more than two million people in the past six years. The details have allowed fraudsters to impersonate their victims online without raising suspicions. Globally, 200 searches were carried out and 120 people were arrested.

And, Sri Lanka's economic crisis is having a devastating effect on what used to be one of Asia's most successful emerging economies. It's shrunk by a fifth in the last 3 years alone. And that's having an impact on the population, hundreds of thousands of whom are simply packing up to leave the island. We speak to some of them leaving – and those left behind.

(Picture courtesy Getty Images)