The Globe and Mail reports in its Saturday, June 17, edition that U.S. Federal Reserve officials struck a hawkish tone in their first comments since the central bank held the policy interest rate steady at its meeting this week but signalled that rate hikes will likely resume. A Reuters dispatch to The Globe reports that Christopher Waller, a governor with the Federal Reserve, said at an economics conference in Norway: "Core inflation is not coming down like I thought it would. Inflation is just not moving and that's going to require, probably, some more tightening to try to get that going down." In earlier prepared remarks he said that changes in U.S. credit conditions since the failure of Silicon Valley Bank in early March were "in line" with financial tightening that was already under way owing to Federal Reserve interest-rate increases -- comments that downplayed the idea a worse-than-anticipated contraction in credit might make further Fed rate increases less necessary. "It is still not clear that recent strains in the banking sector materially intensified the tightening of lending conditions," beyond what the Fed was trying to do anyway through its interest rate policy, Mr. Waller said.