Business Highlights | Roundup of top economy stories

WASHINGTON — Worried about surging prices for everything from food and gas to airplane tickets and clothes? Well, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell had a straightforward message in two days of congressional hearings this week: Just give it more time, and those price gains should slow, or even reverse. Still, the Fed chair also acknowledged that the U.S. economy is engaged in an unprecedented reopening after the sharp pandemic recession, making it much harder to anticipate how things like inflation and unemployment will play out.

RICHMOND, Va. — Microsoft says it’s blocked tools developed by an Israeli hacker-for-hire company that were used to spy on more than 100 people around the world, including politicians, human rights activists, journalists, academics and political dissidents. Microsoft issued a software update and worked with the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto to investigate the secretive Israeli company, known as Candiru,…

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