today, a senior commander with the islamist hezbollah movement was reportedly killed in an apparent israeli drone strike in southern lebanon. and israel s prime minister benjamin netanyahu was on the northern border today, where he signalled that he is prepared, if necessary, to escalate military operations in lebanon, with 80,000 israeli s now displaced from their homes. to the south, the death toll in gaza, stands at 23,000, according to the hamas run health ministry. and so intense is the fighting that several aid agencies have now begun withdrawing medics from the only functioning hospital in central gaza. on his visit to qatar, secretary blinken said washington has an intense focus on preventing this conflict from spreading and a warning to some members of the israeli government. palestinian civilians must be able to return home as soon as conditions allow. they cannot, they must not, be pressed to leave gaza. we reject the statements by some israeli ministers and lawmak
with what economists are expecting for the latest inflation figures that they will likely show that inflation went up slightly month over month, but it will drop year over year. numbers like that would be encouraging for the us federal reserve as it debates whether or not to make a change to interest rates. well, the us central bank started hiking rates aggressively last year. authorities have hiked rates ten times marking the fastest tightening cycle since the 1980s. expectations are high that this time , they might pause. earlier, i spoke with market strategist charu chanana, and she gave me her outlook for the us federal reserve. expectations are built in for the next two quarters. this time. i think the markets are being complacent about that slow down in information that you just talked about as well as a potential fall or skip, whatever you might call it. if you remember, last week we got some hock wish trends in the market from the reserve band of australia and reser
welcome to the programme. plenty of elections around the world this year. now know a bit more about what could be happening here in the uk. rishi sunak says the general election is likely to happen in the second half of this year . he didn t rule out it happening earlier but says his working assumption is later this year. take a listen. so, look, my working assumption is we ll have a general election in the second half of this year, and in the meantime, i ve got lots that i want to get on with. that means cutting people s taxes this saturday. that s a tax cut worth £450 for the average person in work. we can do that because we d halved inflation. i want to keep going, managing the economy well and cutting people s taxes, but i also want to keep attacking illegal migration. last year, we got the numbers down by a third, and now we need to get our rwanda schema through parliament, up and running, so we have a full deterrent. and that s how we are really going to solve this
a huge response to the tv drama about the post office scandal that saw hundreds of innocent branch managers wrongfully prosecuted for theft. we ll hear from one who s fought forjustice for 20 years. whilst there are some brighter skies ahead for us all there is still some rain in the forecast today particularly across the south, i will have your full forecast here on breakfast. it s thursday 4th january. our main story. a row about emergency cover has broken out between nhs bosses and union leaders, as a strike byjunior doctors in england enters its second day. yesterday nhs leaders made 20 requests for striking doctors to return to the wards and help overstretched services but the british medical association accused them of misusing the system, which is known as derogation. a number of nhs trusts have reported long waiting times in a&e, with some declaring critical incidents. here s more from our health editor hugh pym. # hey, vicky, ooh, ahh # i wanna know when you ll pay u