Hezbollah says it targeted the Ashdod naval base in southern Israel “for the first time” and Tel Aviv, resulting in 500 air raid sirens sounding across north and central Israel on Sunday, sending up to four million Israelis to underground bunkers. The attack is in response to the powerful Israeli airstrike that killed at least 29 people in Beirut on Saturday.

Hezbollah also said it launched “a strategic and unprecedented operation” in southern Lebanon on Sunday, destroying six Israeli Merkava tanks and inflicting heavy casualties on Israeli forces.

Lebanese group said it also conducted an operation against a “military target” in Tel Aviv using advanced missiles and strike drones. Hezbollah is believed to have launched more than 400 rockets and drones, leading to the injury of 11 Israeli forces and some civilians.

The Lebanese health ministry said Israeli attacks on Saturday killed 84 people, bringing the total death toll to 3,754 since 8 October 2023. The ministry added that 15,626 people have been wounded during this period. On the Israeli side, authorities say at least 82 soldiers and 47 civilians have been killed.

Meanwhile, the European Union’s foreign policy chief Josep Borell called for pressure to be exerted on both the Israeli government and Lebanon’s Hezbollah to accept a US ceasefire proposal.

Israel escalated air attacks on Lebanon on September 23, sending ground troops to southern Lebanon a week later.

Ireland, Britain, and France faced travel chaos on Saturday, and one person died as a winter storm battered northwest Europe with strong winds, heavy rain, snow, and ice.

Hampshire Police in southern England said a man died after a tree fell onto a car on a major road near Winchester early in the day.

Police in West Yorkshire said they were probing whether a second death from a traffic accident was linked to the storm. It is understood the road was not icy at the time of the incident.

Storm Bert left at least 60,000 properties in Ireland without power and closed roads and some ferry and train routes on both sides of the Irish Sea.

Channel ports and airports in Britain were badly affected, while in France, tens of thousands remained without power after Storm Caetano on Thursday. Hundreds of passengers were stranded when trains were halted by power cuts.

Media footage showed flooding in the west of Ireland, which also caused rail closures in Northern Ireland. Snow impacted travel across Britain.

The heaviest snow hit Scotland and parts of northern and central England, with dozens of flood alerts in place.

The UK Met Office issued snow and ice warnings for those regions, saying there was a “good chance some rural communities could be cut off.”

Scottish hills could see up to 40 centimetres (16 inches) of snow, while winds approaching 113 kilometres (70 miles) per hour were recorded in Britain.

Ferry operator DFDS cancelled services on some routes until Monday, with sailings from Newhaven and Dover in southern England to Dieppe and Calais in France severely affected.

Flights were disrupted at Newcastle Airport due to heavy snow, with some flights diverted to Belfast and Edinburgh.

– Blackouts –

Avanti West Coast, which runs rail services between England and Scotland, advised customers not to attempt travel beyond the northern English city of Preston, as it cancelled numerous trains.

National Highways also issued a “severe weather alert,” warning of “blizzard conditions” affecting Yorkshire and northeast England, with a number of road closures announced.

Met Eireann, the Irish National Meteorological Service, also issued a warning for “very strong winds and heavy rain.”

The worst affected areas for power outages in Ireland were in western and northwestern counties, according to ESB Networks, which runs the country’s electricity system.

“Crews and contractors are deployed and restoring power in impacted areas where it is safe to do so,” it said.

In Britain, the National Grid operator said power had been restored to “many homes and businesses,” but more than 4,000 properties across the country were still without electricity on Saturday—the majority in southwest England.

Some 47,000 homes remained without power in northern France on Saturday, two days after the country was battered by Storm Caetano, power company Enedis said.

Up to 270,000 people had been cut off due to the storm, but Enedis said it had 2,000 technicians working to reconnect electricity lines torn down by winds of up to 130 kph.

Several hundred passengers were stranded on two trains in western France halted by power cuts.

Some 200 people on a train going from Hendaye to Bordeaux and 400 on a high-speed TGV going from Hendaye to Paris spent up to nine hours in the carriages.

Junior transport minister Francois Dourovray told RTL radio that up to 1,000 passengers on different trains were affected by the power cut.

AFP

President-elect Donald Trump announced Friday evening that investor Scott Bessent will be his nominee for Treasury secretary, picking a campaign trail partner and early frontrunner for the job after a long and contentious process.

Trump called him “one of the World’s foremost International Investors” in his announcement, adding that he is “a strong advocate of the America First agenda.”

Bessent beat out a series of other candidates from former Federal Reserve governor Kevin Warsh to Apollo Global Management (APO) CEO Marc Rowan to cap a drawn-out process that saw candidates’ chances seem to rise and fall by the day. (Disclosure: Yahoo Finance is owned by Apollo Global Management).

Assuming he is indeed nominated and then confirmed, Bessent will face the difficult challenge in the months ahead of simultaneously working to calm US and global markets while also being tasked with selling many of the president-elect’s economic plans.

The issue is that many of those ideas remain unpopular in business world corners — specifically renewed tariffs and, perhaps, increased deficit spending.

In a live Yahoo Finance video appearance earlier on Friday, Hoover Institution fellow Lanhee Chen offered that Trump’s nominee would need to be well-qualified, aligned with his economic agenda, and also serve as “a calming force to markets.”

Then Republican candidate Donald Trump listens as investor Scott Bessent speaks on the economy during a stop in Asheville, N.C. in August. (AP Photo/Matt Kelley)
A well-known nominee from the investing world

From the beginning of the process, Bessent was often viewed as the front-runner for the post, but saw his fortunes rise and fall. The former Soros Fund Management investing chief met with Trump multiple times in the weeks following the election after being a regular campaign trail partner of the president-elect.

The race was anything but drama-free, with betting markets have yo-yoing in recent days and Polymarket odds putting three different candidates as the favorite at various points.

Trump ended up settling on the figure who often appeared with him on the campaign trail, citing Bessent’s expertise before rally crowds, specifically the notion that stocks were on the rise because of the prospects of a Trump victory.

Trump described Bessent’s mission Friday as one to help “usher in a new Golden Era for the United States,” including the stopping of trade imbalances.

Bessent is currently the CEO of Key Square Capital Management and made a notably public case for the job since Trump’s victory.

At various points in recent weeks, Bessent was live on the set of Fox and Friends offering “any way I can help,” and appearing with Trump ally Steve Bannon to discuss his vision for the US economy.

He also published op-eds in the Wall Street Journal and on FoxNews.com to discuss issues close to the president-elect.

Bessent has also donated more than $3.1 million to Trump and other Republicans during the recent election season, according to government records.

Evercore ISI in a note to clients this week called Bessent “the investor favorite given his knowledge of macro and markets and his credibility with the bond market.”

A perch of relative stability in Trump’s orbit

During Trump’s first term, the Treasury secretary role was a rare area of relative stability and persistent influence throughout the term, with Steven Mnuchin holding the post for Trump’s entire term even as turnover at the White House and other Cabinet agencies was rampant.

Mnuchin, who was succeeded by current Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, also found himself at the center of an array of issues, notably the negotiations that led to the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.

Many provisions of that law expire at the end of 2025, leaving Bessent to likely assume a central role on the same issue.