内容摘要：A piano rests atop what is left of the destroyed Sunshine Hill Baptist Church, Sunday, May 18, 2025, in London, Ky., after a severe storm passed through the area. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

A piano rests atop what is left of the destroyed Sunshine Hill Baptist Church, Sunday, May 18, 2025, in London, Ky., after a severe storm passed through the area. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

Bessent said he spoke Saturday with Walmart CEO Doug McMillon, stressing in two news show interviews that what he thought really mattered for Walmart customers was the decline in gasoline prices. Gas is averaging roughly $3.18 a gallon, down from a year ago but also higher over the past week, according to AAA.“Walmart will be absorbing some of the tariffs, some may get passed on to consumers,” Bessent said on CNN. “Overall, I would expect inflation to remain in line. But I don’t blame consumers for being skittish after what happened to them for years under Biden,” a reference to inflation hitting a four-decade high in June 2022 under then President Joe Biden as the recovery from the pandemic, government spending and the Russian invasion of Ukraine pushed up costs.

Walmart did not comment on Bessent’s description of his conversation with McMillon.In a social media post on Saturday morning, Trump said Walmart should not charge its customers more money to offset the new tariff costs. “I’ll be watching, and so will your customers!!!” he posted.Bessent said Walmart on its earnings call on Thursday had been obligated under federal regulations “to give the worst-case scenario so that they’re not sued,” suggesting in an NBC interview that the price increases would not be severe in his view.

But Walmart executives said last week that higher prices began to appear on their shelves in late April and accelerated this month.“We’re wired to keep prices low, but there’s a limit to what we can bear, or any retailer for that matter,” Chief Financial Officer John David Rainey told The Associated Press on Thursday.

Bessent maintained that the ratings downgrade was a “lagging indicator” as the financial markets had already priced in the costs of a total federal debt of roughly $36 trillion. Still, the tax plan being

would add more roughly $3.3 trillion to deficits over the next decade, including a $600 billion increase in 2027 alone, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.The clinics closing in Iowa include the only Planned Parenthood facility in the state that provides abortion procedures, in Ames, home to Iowa State University. Services will be shifted and the organization will still offer medication abortions in Des Moines and medication and medical abortion services in Iowa City.

Two of the clinics being shut down by Planned Parenthood North Central States are in the Minneapolis area, in Apple Valley and Richfield. The others are in central Minnesota in Alexandria and Bemidji. Of the four, the Richfield clinic provides abortion procedures.The Planned Parenthood affiliate said it would lay off 66 employees and ask 37 additional employees to move to different clinics. The organization also said it plans to keep investing in telemedicine services and sees 20,000 patients a year virtually. The affiliate serves five states — Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota.

“We have been fighting to hold together an unsustainable infrastructure as the landscape shifts around us and an onslaught of attacks continues,” Ruth Richardson, the affiliate’s president and CEO, said in a statement.Of the remaining 15 clinics operated by Planned Parenthood North Central States, six will provide abortion procedures — five of them in Minnesota, including three in the Minneapolis area. The other clinic is in Omaha, Nebraska.