The world’s biggest economy is motoring on, as last week’s strong jobs data showed. But with that strength comes a nagging worry that inflation in America may prove stubborn. Over the past half year the pace of inflation has steadily slowed, giving the Federal Reserve the confidence to start cutting interest rates. Data for consumer prices in September, due on Thursday, will show whether this benign trend has continued.

The median forecast is for a 0.1% monthly rise in the headline price index, down a touch from August. Financial markets will, however, focus on the core price index, which strips out volatile food and energy costs. That is expected to have risen by 0.2% month on month, and some analysts think a tight housing-rental market may have nudged it even higher. Any evidence of persistent inflation will raise questions about how quickly the Fed can cut rates, unsettling investors around the world.

Michel Barnier, France’s new conservative prime minister, will present his budget for 2025 to his cabinet on Thursday. He is expected to unveil planned savings worth €60bn ($66bn): two-thirds from spending cuts and one-third from tax increases. Among the proposed measures is a temporary super-tax on firms with a turnover exceeding €1bn and on individuals earning more than €250,000 a year.

Parliament must pass the budget by the end of the year. Mr Barnier’s tax increases will make President Emmanuel Macron’s centrists uneasy. But the opposition left and hard right will approve. Spending cuts will be much more difficult to get through. Yet France has little choice. The country is under scrutiny. Three ratings agencies are due soon to report on its creditworthiness. Bond markets are wary. And France needs the European Commission’s permission to postpone bringing down its budget deficit to the EU limit of 3% by 2029, instead of 2027.

Late on Wednesday Hurricane Milton made landfall in Florida as a category 3 storm just south of Tampa—a region that is home to 3.3m people and has not had such a hit for a century. Milton is arriving just two weeks after Hurricane Helene thrashed the coastline, before becoming the deadliest storm in mainland America since Katrina in 2005.

Before Milton landed Florida’s motorways were jammed and Joe Biden warned airlines against price-gouging as residents scrambled to travel north. Tampa’s mayor had a dire message to locals choosing to stay in evacuation zones: “You’re going to die.” Florida’s attorney-general, Ashley Moody, told those ignoring the orders to write their names on their arms in permanent ink.

Hotter oceans make storms more dangerous. Earlier this year experts predicted the most active hurricane season ever. But the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the government’s first responder, is strapped for cash. Officials say they have enough to cover “life-savings” needs from Helene and Milton. Funding recovery is another matter.

Trying to hail a taxi can sometimes involve a long wait. So it is with Tesla’s robotaxi. Elon Musk, the carmaker’s boss, has been promising driverless cabs for years and once promised to have 1m on the roads by 2020. On Thursday, at last, he will reveal his plans for his Cybercab at an event at Warner Bros Studios in Hollywood.

The location suggests that there will be no shortage of pizazz. But what exactly the bumptious boss will disclose is uncertain. Alongside a purpose-built vehicle, Mr Musk may also reveal an app to order one up. He may also outline plans for trials of the new venture. Still, doubts remain over the maturity of Tesla’s self-driving technology and whether it can catch up with the likes of Waymo, Baidu and other firms already testing and operating services. One thing is certain: Tesla fans will greet his announcement overenthusiastically.

“BIFF! POW! SOCKO!” Boris Johnson’s punchy new memoir went on sale on Thursday. At over 700 pages long, it lands with a satisfying “thud” (or, to use a Borisism, a “THUDDEROO”) on the desk. And it is in many ways vintage Boris. It is rich in classical allusion (leaping onto a bus reminds him of Athena mounting Diomedes’s chariot); in puns (he claims to be able to tell his “SARS from his Ebola”); and, of course, in words such as “BIFF!”, “POW!” and, alas, “SOCKO!”.

But in another way it is entirely unexpected. Because it is really not very good at all. Far too much of it reads less like the work of a statesman than a schoolboy. This makes it worse than merely unamusing. It feels, for a former prime minister, embarrassingly inappropriate. David Cameron is a “girly swot”; a tricky moment is the “stickiest wicket”; he likens himself to “Evel Knievel”; and a chapter on international relations is titled “Gøing Gløbal”. Gød help us.