Americans are paying for the war in Iran with every visit to the gas station, but some of the damage to the U.S. economy is being offset — for now anyway — by big tax refunds and an investment boom driven by artificial intelligence. Prices rose at the fastest pace in almost three years last month, U.S. economic growth is steady and layoffs fell last week, according to a slew of economic data released Thursday. The inflation gauge favored by the Federal Reserve — the Commerce Department's Personal Consumption Expenditures price index — rose 0.7% from February to March and 3.5% from a year earlier. The year-over-year gain was the biggest since May 2023. No secret what was driving the increase: Gasoline prices shot up 21% in March from February after Iran responded to U.S. and Israeli attacks by closing the Strait of Hormuz and creating the biggest disruption of oil supplies in history.…