A group of 42 state attorneys general are calling on Meta to curb the rise of investment scams on Facebook that fraudulently use the images of Warren Buffett and other famous figures, New York Attorney General Letitia James said Wednesday.

James said in a news release criminals are consistently evading Meta’s automated and human review systems to post fake ads that leave retail investors saddled with millions of dollars in losses. Her office continues to see the scams months after reporting them to Meta, she added.

The ads, touting access to Buffett, Elon Musk or Ark Invest’s Cathie Wood, lure Facebook users to join chat groups on Meta-owned messaging platform, WhatsApp, according to the New York AG.

There, users are unwittingly involved in alleged pump-and-dump schemes, where criminals boost the price of thinly traded stocks and quickly sell for a profit, leaving small investors with losses.

Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, is struggling to control the rise of cyber scams on its platforms and is a “cornerstone of the internet fraud economy,” the Wall Street Journal reported last month. The problem is global in nature, with one notable lawsuit being brought by an Australian billionaire who alleges that Meta’s artificial intelligence-run advertising program created and amplified false ads using his likeness.

“Thousands of Facebook users have lost hundreds of millions of dollars to these scams and Meta must do more to stop these fraudulent ads from running on its platforms,” James said. “I am leading a bipartisan coalition calling on Meta to step up its review of ads to stop these scams. I also urge all New Yorkers to be extra careful before putting their money in investments they see advertised on social media.”

The AGs urged Meta to boost its policing of ads, including with more human review, saying that unless they curb the scams, Meta should stop running investment ads altogether.

Joining James were AGs from states including California, Connecticut, Georgia, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

The annual inflation rate increased slightly in May as an uptick in grocery inflation somewhat offset lower prices at the gasoline pump.

And while inflation was relatively tame, economists said they expect President Trump’s tariff policy to raise consumer prices in coming months — and that there was already some evidence of their impact.

The consumer price index, an inflation barometer, rose 2.4% in the 12 months through May, up from 2.3% in April, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said Wednesday.

That increase to the annual inflation rate was largely due to a data quirk called “base effects,” economists said. (Basically, inflation one year prior, in May 2024, was unusually low, making the May 2025 numbers look high by comparison.)

The monthly inflation rate paints a rosier picture and gives a better indicator of underlying trends, economists said: CPI increased 0.1% from April to May, down from 0.2% the prior month, the BLS said.

A consistent monthly rate around 0.2% would generally be adequate to bring inflation down to the Federal Reserve’s long-term target, economists said.

“It was a very good report,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s. “Basically, it says inflation has finally gotten back to the Federal Reserve’s annual inflation target.”

However, tariffs President Trump levied on many countries and products will likely start to show up noticeably into the summer and fall, he said.

“I think it’s the calm before the inflation storm,” Zandi said. “This [report] still reflects the disinflation that began a few years ago and continued on through the month of May.”

Data indicate consumers are continuing to spend money and haven’t shown much reluctance to accept higher prices, House said.

“The consumer hasn’t buckled yet,” she said.

Housing inflation has also moderated, an important element since the category is the largest component of the consumer price index, economists said.

Indeed, monthly inflation for rent and “owners’ equivalent rent” (a rent measure applied to homeowners) have “returned to their pre-pandemic norms,” Stephen Brown, deputy chief North America economist at Capital Economics, wrote in a research note Wednesday.

These trends together signaled “a steady downtrend in inflation” back to the Fed’s long-term target at least by the end of this year or early next year, Oxford Economics’ Yaros said.

The Yale Budget Lab estimates the average U.S. household would pay about $2,500 more in 2025 due to tariff policy in effect as of June 1.

There were some early signs of tariff impacts in the May CPI report for people “looking through a microscope,” Brown wrote.

For example, major appliance prices jumped 4.3% for the month, and toy prices by 2.2%, he wrote, citing CPI data.

“Unless all retailers are raising prices at the same time, it may trickle not flood into the data,” Elizabeth Renter, senior economist at NerdWallet, wrote Wednesday.