Speaker 1: News when you want it with Bloomberg News Now, I'm
Speaker 1: Doug Chrisner. Israel has launched military strikes on Hamas targets
Speaker 1: in Gaza. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netniahu's office said it
Speaker 1: will act with increasing military force against Hamas now. These
Speaker 1: strikes come after nearly two months of a ceasefire preceded
Speaker 1: by fifteen months of fighting. White House Press Secretary Caroline
Speaker 1: Levitt says the Trump administration was consulted on the latest
Speaker 1: Gaza strikes by Israel. Here she is speaking on Fox News.
Speaker 2: President Trump has made it clear Hamas the who thiast aaran.
Speaker 2: All those who seek to terrorize not just Israel, but
Speaker 2: also the United States of America will see a price
Speaker 2: to pay. All hell will break.
Speaker 1: Loose, that is White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt, speaking
Speaker 1: earlier on Fox News Now. The Israeli Prime Minister's office
Speaker 1: stated the move follows Hamas's refusal to release hostages and
Speaker 1: its rejection of proposals from the US we go to
Speaker 1: the Federal Reserve next. Governor Michelle Bowman has been tapped
Speaker 1: to serve as the Central Bank's Vice chair for supervision.
Speaker 1: President Trump made the announcement earlier in a post on
Speaker 1: social media, and we got reaction from Patrick McHenry, former
Speaker 1: US Representative of North Carolina.
Speaker 3: President Trump is nominated somebody who've got a wide bipartison
Speaker 3: vote of the United States Senate to the FED Board
Speaker 3: at number one, Number two highly qualified. Number three comes
Speaker 3: from the banking industry. I would call this a normative
Speaker 3: pick right in the broader set of politics of Washington,
Speaker 3: but a significant change for the Fed on how they're
Speaker 3: going to approach bank capital.
Speaker 1: Patrick McHenry there, He is a former congressman from North Carolina.
Speaker 1: Now Bowman has been a sharp critic of a plan
Speaker 1: to require banks to hold more capital, and if confirmed,
Speaker 1: she's expected to support a lighter touch on bank regulation
Speaker 1: than her predecessor, Michael Barr. Tonight, a federal judge in
Speaker 1: Washington grilled the Department of just over its failure to
Speaker 1: comply with the judge's order to halt the deportation of
Speaker 1: hundreds of alleged Venezuelan gang members over the weekend. The
Speaker 1: Trump administration invoked the Alien Enemies Act as the basis
Speaker 1: for these deportations, and more than two hundred alleged gang
Speaker 1: members were placed on a flight to l Salvador that
Speaker 1: happened on Saturday. The judge ordered a halt to the process,
Speaker 1: but those deportations occurred anyway. So now the judge wants
Speaker 1: the DOJ to tell him by noon tomorrow exactly when
Speaker 1: the DOJ believed his order went into effect. President Trump
Speaker 1: is set to have a call with Russian President Vladimir
Speaker 1: Putin tomorrow about stopping the fighting in Ukraine. Now, the
Speaker 1: US is pressing for Russia to agree to a thirty
Speaker 1: day cease fire. Ukraine has already said it's ready to
Speaker 1: accept these terms. However, Putin has insisted on a number
Speaker 1: of conditions before he is ready to commit. Here is
Speaker 1: Trump speaking with reporters at the Kennedy Center. It's a
Speaker 1: bad situation in Russia, and it's a bad.
Speaker 4: Situation, and what's happening in Ukraine is not good.
Speaker 2: But we're going to see if we can.
Speaker 4: Work a peace agreement to ceasefire and peace, and I
Speaker 4: think we'll be able to do it.
Speaker 1: That is President Trump speaking earlier with reporters. Meantime, European
Speaker 1: leaders are worried that Trump may concede too much on
Speaker 1: Ukraine's behalf in any direct exchange with Putin, and they
Speaker 1: are pushing for security guarantees and for a peace keeping
Speaker 1: force to deter Russia from renewing hostilities in the future.
Speaker 1: Alphabet is in talks to acquire the cybersecurity startup Whiz.
Speaker 1: We are told the price tag is around thirty three
Speaker 1: billion dollars. You may remember last summer Alphabet was close
Speaker 1: to a deal for Whiz at roughly twenty three billion.
Speaker 1: Those talks, though, fell apart after Whiz and some of
Speaker 1: its investors had concern about the time it would take
Speaker 1: for a deal to clear regulatory hurdles. Today's data on
Speaker 1: retail sales suggest consumer spending is not collapsing. Overall retail
Speaker 1: sales rose by less than forecast in February, and the
Speaker 1: figures for January were revised down to mark the biggest
Speaker 1: decline since July twenty twenty one. Here is Bloomberg's Michael McKee.
Speaker 4: The seasonal of factors for February this year were very,
Speaker 4: very generous, and so we were expecting a rise in
Speaker 4: maybe a better than expected rise in the core component,
Speaker 4: which is what we got, but it really only netted
Speaker 4: out with a negative one percent. Revised down a figure
Speaker 4: for January, so for the first two months of the
Speaker 4: year it was flat, and of course the headline numbers
Speaker 4: were not very good at all, which may have something
Speaker 4: to do with the weather. We just don't know at
Speaker 4: this point, but we'll keep an eye on that going
Speaker 4: into March.
Speaker 1: That is Bloomberg's Michael McKee. Separately, today, a pair of
Speaker 1: business surveys suggested growing caution. There were signs of financial
Speaker 1: stress mounting given risk of the escalating trade wars. And
Speaker 1: that is news when you want it with Bloomberg News. Now,
Speaker 1: I'm Doug Chrisner, and this is Bloomberg