Axios

The White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on Sunday responded to criticism from Jeff Bezos about President Biden's call for oil executives to reduce gas prices, saying high gas prices are emblematic of "a market that is failing the American consumer."

Driving the news: After Biden tweeted on Saturday reiterating calls for oil companies to lower prices, Bezos responded by tweeting, "inflation is far too important a problem for the White House to keep making statements like this."

Ttravelers are facing delays and cancellations amid the traditionally busy Fourth of July travel weekend.

Driving the news: More than 1,000 flights have been cancelled so far this weekend within, into or out of the U.S. Fifty-five flights for Independence Day itself have been cancelled, according to the flight tracker FlightAware.

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In America, we value family and work — but friendship often falls behind. Many of us have few or no close confidants, the data shows.

Why it matters: Friends help us get through the tough times and sweeten the good times. And a thriving society is filled with strong friendships.

• Studies have shown friendship lengthens our lives, improves our performance at work, makes us better parents and broadens our minds.

Crypto is facing a crisis moment — and its ecosystem is proving much less capable of reacting in a way that's predictable and fair than the dollar-based system generally does when firms implode.

Why it matters: There will always be institutions that take on too much risk or that end up insolvent. A well-functioning system will swing efficiently into action in such cases, while a chaotic system will spiral into ever-greater troubles.

When Queen Victoria's mother and husband died in quick succession, the result was a significant expansion of public education in England.

• That's the conclusion of what is easily my favorite economics paper of the year so far, from Marc Goñi of the University of Bergen in Norway.

Financial advisers' bullishness is reaching new and ever more unrealistic levels, even as the stock market pulls back from its recent excesses.

Why it matters: Advisers are already doing a bad job managing their clients' expectations. But it turns out their own instincts have also been skewed by the long bull market of the past decade.

Whether you’re firing up the grill, lighting up the sky with fireworks or taking a road trip during the July 4th weekend, inflation has likely been an uninvited guest.

The big picture: Prices for most July 4th cookout staples are up as much as 36% over last year, according to a recent survey from the American Farm Bureau Federation, Axios' Julia Shapero reports.