Speaker 1: News when you want it with Bloomberg News Now, I'm
Speaker 1: mid Kleggy. Berkshire. Hathaway released earnings Saturday, which showed the
Speaker 1: company spent about four and a half billion dollars to
Speaker 1: buy back its own shares of the second quarter, providing
Speaker 1: shareholders with the largest quarterly payouts since twenty twenty one.
Speaker 1: Bloomberg's Matthew Paulizilla says operating earnings also surged sixteen percent
Speaker 1: in the three months through June.
Speaker 2: They're over earning, but I think some of the gains
Speaker 2: they're making are sustainable, so I think he's looking at
Speaker 2: that a little bit better. Burlington Northern, the railroad, he's
Speaker 2: got his eyes on that. He called them out at
Speaker 2: the annual meeting. He said they're going to improve their
Speaker 2: margins there, so I think the underlying earnings power of
Speaker 2: those businesses are improving. They have tons of cash, so
Speaker 2: I think he's putting something that to work.
Speaker 1: The firm's cash pile fell to three hundred and sixty
Speaker 1: five point five billion dollars in the second quarter, as
Speaker 1: its net purchases of equities reached nearly twenty billion. Iran
Speaker 1: says it's very close to a deal with Oman on
Speaker 1: a new maritime transit route on the Strait of Horne
Speaker 1: moves even as the Islamic Republic renewed a list of
Speaker 1: demands for the US to agree to before the waterway
Speaker 1: would open. A running and Foreign Minister Abbas Arachi said
Speaker 1: Saturday that negotiators are closing in on a temporary maritime
Speaker 1: transit rounde for ships entering and exiting the Persian Gulf.
Speaker 1: He cautioned that any agreement will not result in an
Speaker 1: immediate reopening of the strait, signaling that any respite for
Speaker 1: energy supplies may be limited. Besides compensation, Iran wants the
Speaker 1: US to lift the naval blockade and withdraw military forces
Speaker 1: from around Iran, remove US sanctions on Iran, and unconditionally
Speaker 1: release frozen assets, among other things. In an interview with
Speaker 1: Fox News, Vice President JD. Van says that the US
Speaker 1: is currently in the middle of the game regarding the
Speaker 1: conflict with Iran, noting that some progress has been made
Speaker 1: in recent talks.
Speaker 3: Right now, we're trying to see if they're willing to
Speaker 3: make the kind of long term changes that would be
Speaker 3: necessary to have a better relationship with the United States,
Speaker 3: and if not, that's fine too. We're just going to
Speaker 3: keep on applying the pressure that we can apply and
Speaker 3: getting as much oil and gas out of the Middle
Speaker 3: East so that Americans can enjoy lower gas and energy prices.
Speaker 1: Vice President Jady Vance. Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll says the
Speaker 1: US Army is aiming to make it easier for defense
Speaker 1: firms to get access to military test ranges to experiment
Speaker 1: with critical weapons technology. In the latest effort to shake
Speaker 1: up Pentagon procurement and replenish stockpiles drained by the war
Speaker 1: against Iran, Secretary Driscoll spoke with Bloomberg Television's Tyler Kendall.
Speaker 4: When we slow things down in the innovation loop by
Speaker 4: twelve or eighteen months at a time, that is just
Speaker 4: bad for soldiers, it's bad for taxpayers, and it's bad
Speaker 4: for companies. And so what we're announcing today is basically
Speaker 4: a new front door to access all of the US
Speaker 4: Armies or many of the US Army's ranges. We're layering
Speaker 4: in international partners. We're going to give concierge access, and
Speaker 4: we are going to aspire to get these companies onto
Speaker 4: our arrange within thirty days. Every single time.
Speaker 1: Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll. The US Senate confirmed Todd Blanche
Speaker 1: as Attorney General, elevating President Trump's one time personal defense
Speaker 1: lawyer to lead the nation's top federal law enforcement agency.
Speaker 1: Republicans closed ranks and supported Blanch at a fifty to
Speaker 1: forty nine vote, even after two GOP senators joined Democrats
Speaker 1: in opposition. Republican Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, one of
Speaker 1: the holdouts, came out in supportive Blanche after Senators Susan
Speaker 1: Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska voted against him.
Speaker 1: Congress just went on recess without tackling Puerto Rico's ongoing
Speaker 1: water crisis. Bloomberg's Monica Rick supports.
Speaker 5: Congress hasn't addressed the month's long water crisis in Puerto Rico,
Speaker 5: as a bipartisan built to increase federal funding for infrastructure
Speaker 5: upgrades lingers on its to do list. The islands now
Speaker 5: dealing with drought conditions after a major water pipeline ruptured
Speaker 5: back in June, leaving one hundred and eighty thousand people
Speaker 5: without access to water in and around San Juan. The
Speaker 5: National Guard's been helping with water distribution and rationing measures.
Speaker 5: Have now been put into place to deal with the
Speaker 5: shortage as Puerto Rico enters its hottest month and most
Speaker 5: dangerous part of the Atlantic hurricane season. Monica Ricks Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 1: Canadian negotiators are trying to secure a deal with the
Speaker 1: US before fifty percent tariffs on a wide range of
Speaker 1: goods threatened by President Trump kick in on August nineteenth,
Speaker 1: while a warning of an ugly new phase of the
Speaker 1: trade dispute if the levies are imposed. After months with
Speaker 1: little progress, of a flurry of high level meetings have
Speaker 1: given some Canadian in officials optimism for reaching an interim
Speaker 1: agreement to ease trade tensions across the US Canada border
Speaker 1: that would effectively be a side deal before more substantial
Speaker 1: talks in the future of the North American trade relationship.
Speaker 1: But Canadian officials have told their US counterparts that if
Speaker 1: the President carries out his fifty percent tariff threat this month,
Speaker 1: it would severely damage relations. The Environmental Protection Agency is
Speaker 1: directing local water systems to sources of funding for cybersecurity upgrades,
Speaker 1: even though the EPA has been looking to cut those funds.
Speaker 1: Bloomberg's Amy Marris reports from Washington.
Speaker 6: Cyber attackers have hit drinking water or wastewater cit in
Speaker 6: at least seven states. The EPA is urging states to
Speaker 6: use its drinking Water and Clean Water State Revolving funds
Speaker 6: for cybersecurity upgrades that can pay to upgrade outdated computers
Speaker 6: and software, create network backups, and install monitoring systems. But
Speaker 6: at the same time, the EPA is proposing to slash
Speaker 6: funding for those programs by more than eighty five percent,
Speaker 6: saying that states should be responsible for their own water systems.
Speaker 6: In Washington, Amy Moore as Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 1: That's news when you want it with Bloomberg News. Now
Speaker 1: I made Kleggi. This is Bloombergs