April 23 2026: Israel-Lebanon Agree to Ceasefire, Intel Reports Earnings, More

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News when you want it, with Bloomberg News Now, I'm Doug prisoner.

Israel and Lebanon will extend their ceasefire by three weeks, according to President Trump.

The President of Lebanon and the Prime Minister of Israel over the next couple of weeks

will be coming here.

They've agreed to an additional three weeks of, I guess, no firing ceasefire.

Trump also said the U.S. is going to work with Lebanon in order to help it protect itself

from Hezbollah.

Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps reportedly laid more minds in the state of

Hormuz this week.

Axiocytes, a U.S. official saying the American military detected the Iranian-Mine-Laying

Operation and it's being closely tracked.

Meanwhile, the Navy is operating underwater drones in the strait for mine clearing operations.

Here today, President Trump ordered the Navy to shoot and kill any Iranian boats laying

mines with no hesitation.

Later in the day, U.S. Interior Secretary Doug Burnham denied this marked an escalation

in the conflict.

In the early hours of Thursday, U.S. forces boarded a super tanker carrying Iranian oil in

the Indian Ocean.

Jennifer Welch is chief geoeconomic analyst at Bloomberg Economics.

We're in this murky limbo where the ceasefire has been unilaterally extended by the United

States for an undetermined amount of time.

The blockade is still in place, which is technically an active war.

We have very real action happening on both sides.

The Iranians firing on ships, the U.S. intercepting ships, a debate about whether Iranian ships

are still able to make it through the blockade.

That is Jennifer Welch, chief geoeconomics analyst at Bloomberg Economics, speaking on

Bloomberg's balance of power.

Crude oil prices rose today with WTI and Brent each adding more than 3 percent.

WTI settled New York trading at nearly $96 and Brent just above $105.

The Trump administration is planning to extend a shipping waiver, allowing foreign tankers

to move oil and gasoline around the U.S.

Now under the Jones Act, crude oil, as well as refined petroleum products and other

commodities being shipped between U.S. ports, must be transported on U.S. built, owned,

and flagged vessels.

We are told an extension of the waiver from the Jones Act is set to be announced as soon

as Friday.

Paul Sanky is founder of Sanky Research.

He says the impact of the war on energy prices may be felt for a minimum of two months.

The paper will act crazy and will react to the headlines, but the physical is a physical

fact.

The fact of physics literally.

And the physics involved tankers and the tankers are in all the wrong places, a lot

of them are trapped, 20 percent of the capacity that's out is effectively 10 percent of tankers

plus the fact that those middle eastern tankers and base load tankers, they run all year

running around the clock, they're not shadow tankers, they're not wobbly tankers.

They are the tankers that run the base load and they're trapped.

That is Paul Sanky of Sanky Research speaking earlier to Bloomberg's surveillance.

After the bell, Intel issued a strong forecast for sales in the current quarter, the company

is seeing strong demand for its flagship Xeon server processors, thanks to strong demand

from AI data centers and we got reaction from Thomas Hayes, chair of Great Hill Capital.

Everyone is starting to direct orders to Intel and I think we are early days.

We're seeing it in the guidance, we're seeing it in the margins and we're seeing it in

the trends.

LLM's and LLM training was all about GPUs, agentech AI and inference is all about CPUs

and Intel is a leader.

Thomas Hayes chair of Great Hill Capital, which incidentally does own Intel shares the stock

rallied by 20% in late U.S. trading.

Major job cuts were announced today at Meta Platforms and Microsoft is offering worker

buyouts, more from Bloomberg's Charlie Pellet.

At Microsoft, the early retirement offer went out to thousands of employees in the U.S.

with about 7% of the U.S. workforce eligible for the buyouts.

The company had 125,000 employees in the U.S. as of June 2025, meaning about 8,750 workers

could be eligible.

Meanwhile, Meta Platforms plans to cut 10% of its workers in an effort to boost efficiency

and offset its heavy spending on artificial intelligence.

In New York, Charlie Pellet, Bloomberg Radio.

The Justice Department has reclassified state-regulated marijuana as a less dangerous drug, licensed

marijuana products now schedule one drugs, the same federal category as heroin and LSD,

will be moved to the less strictly controlled schedule three.

Now the DOJ's action does top short of fully legalizing marijuana for recreational use

nationwide, but it does meet the demands of many advocates who have long argued for

looser restrictions.

Here is Boris Jordan, CEO of Cureleaf, on the next steps for cannabis companies.

I believe that you're going to see action from the Treasury.

We know that both Janet Yellen and I believe Scott Besan have both said they want major

banking institutions to bank the cannabis sector.

They also want to see these companies on U.S. exchanges.

That will be a part of the process.

That may need some legislation from Congress, but also because of the fact that we will be

applying for DA licenses, that will make us federally legal as medical companies.

Now, that will most likely give us the ability to at least apply for uplifting on the U.S.

Exchange.

Jordan there, he is the CEO of Cureleaf, speaking on Bloomberg's business week daily.

The Department of Justice has charged a U.S. soldier with using classified information

to profit from prediction market bets.

The DOJ says, Ganon Ken Van Dyke allegedly made more than $400,000 trading on polymarket

on the basis of classified information.

It involved the timing of a U.S. military operation to capture Nicholas Maduro in Venezuela.

And out of sports, Indiana quarterback Fernando Mendoza has been selected by the Las Vegas

Raiders with the first overall pick in the 2026 NFL Draft.

And that is news when you want it.

With Bloomberg News Now, I'm Doug prisoner, and this is Bloomberg.