Liberal Senator Dave Sharma says the US’ support for Israel’s defence and continued vetoing of “hostile resolutions” will be “maintained” despite a ceasefire motion passing in the UN Security Council. Israeli senior officials cancelled a visit to Washington in retaliation for the US abstaining from voting UN Security Council’s demand for a ceasefire in Gaza. “This is a complicated picture,” Mr Sharma told Sky News host Chris Kenny. “But I’d say that interestingly enough or strangely enough, both Netanyahu and Biden have a degree of domestic political interests in having a bit of a difference of opinion over these issues. “But I think the fundamentals of US support for Israel defence assistance, military assistance, and vetoing any hostile resolutions will be maintained.”

February’s inflation numbers are set to be released on Wednesday, and economists are predicting it will rise slightly. Reportedly, February’s inflation is expected to rise to 3.5 per cent from January’s 3.4 per cent. “It’s because of services price inflation,” Sky News Business Reporter Edward Boyd said. “That’s the thing that Governor Bullock talked about at her press conference last week. “It’s things like rates that are still increasing pretty significantly for Australians.”

Australia’s retail figures are set to be released on Thursday, and it is expected to jump 0.4 per cent. “It doesn’t sound like a lot, but when Aussies are spending about $35 billion a month, 0.4 per cent does actually make a difference,” Sky News Business Reporter Edward Boyd said. “We saw spending drop quite a bit in December, but it is slowly recovering. “So these figures are for the month of February – they go hand in hand with the inflation numbers. “We have more people spending money in retail. It pushes up inflation; they go together.”

The ASX 200 may finish off the week and this year’s first quarter at a record high. Reportedly, the ASX 200 is about 20 points off its all-time high. “We could see it go through that point today,” Sky News Business Reporter Edward Boyd said. “Or potentially tomorrow. “So we could see another big record for the ASX to finish off this week and cap off the end of Q1.”

The effects of the war in Gaza are being felt by families in the occupied West Bank. Economic downturns and widespread Palestinian job losses are leaving houses in crisis. Jewish Human Rights activists are working alongside Palestinians in the West Bank to deliver food aid at a time when more and more families are facing difficulties. “The West Bank is an economic catastrophe at the moment – when we’re talking about hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who were working in Israel and on October 7 suddenly their jobs ended, along with that you’ve got a lot of army restrictions around freedom of movement and getting to workplaces … it’s really making peoples lives unbearable,” Israeli human rights activist Anton Goodman said. Food insecurity in the West Bank has increased because of Israel’s war in Gaza.

Baltimore City Councilman Mark Conway has described the collapse of one of Baltimore’s main bridges as a “terrible accident” which has left residents “sombre”. Search and rescue operations are underway for six people still missing after the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, Maryland, due to a shipping container colliding with the pylon. “It’s a really, really tragic accident that unfortunately is going to result in maybe some folks not being able to go home to their families,” Mr Conway told Sky News Australia. “We in Baltimore are pretty sombre and taking this pretty hard but doing everything we can to make sure we respond, and we find the folks there.” He said the bridge was in “strong structural condition” prior to the “freak accident” which caused the collapse.

GB News host Nigel Farage has discussed the latest on the UK High Court ruling on Julian Assange's appeal. The WikiLeaks founder faces further waiting to find out if his final UK appeal against his US extradition can go ahead. The UK High Court has granted the WikiLeaks founder leave to appeal his extradition. “I do not want to see him extradited to the USA, I’m afraid my confidence in their judicial system right now is at an all-time low,” Mr Farage told Sky News host Paul Murray. “So the fact that he's been given leave to appeal is I think a very good thing.”

Sky News Australia host Liz Storer fears Instagram’s new political censorship settings puts a “free and fair” 2024 US election at risk. The popular social media app introduced a new limitation on political content, with users who do want to view such content having to go into their settings to opt in. “Given we have a very important election this year, how many times do these guys have to be busted in the light of day before people cotton on whatever you see on your social media platforms has already been censored to the hilt,” Ms Storer said. “It’s disgraceful, it’s disgusting. “And we can’t say we have free and fair elections when we have these giants like Meta messing with what people can and can’t see.”

Sky News Australia host Caleb Bond has responded to the Victorian government cracking down on dark roofs for new homes. The government are arguing that light coloured roofing will reduce energy consumption, as well as cooling the local climate on hot days. “Seriously if you want to put a dark roof on your house, you’re the person who has to pay the cost of when it comes to turning the air conditioner on," Mr Bond said. “You can’t tell me that people who have a light-coloured roof are not going to use their air-conditioners in summer. “If it’s hot you’re going to turn your air conditioner on anyway.”

GB News host Nigel Farage has reacted to a guest on MSNBC having a meltdown over a New York court appeal decision to reduce Donald Trump’s $US454 million bond payment to $US175 million. A former New York assistant attorney general Tristian Snell said during an interview on MSNBC “I don’t even know if I care what the process is that these judges are arriving at. Whatever it is, it’s flawed. I can tell you that much”. "This is a different process for this person. We have decided that he gets his own private court of justice,” he continued Mr Farage labelled the comments “absolutely farcical and comical”. “You know we’ve talked a bit before about Trump derangement syndrome he just drives some people nuts that they lose any sense of logic what so ever,” Mr Farage told Sky News host Paul Murray.

Sky News host Andrew Bolt has discussed former US president Donald Trump’s “big win” in getting his bond reduced to $US175 in a New York civil fraud case. A New York appeals court on Monday (local time) agreed to reduce the former US president's $US454 million civil fraud case to $US175 million. The former US president has ten days to pay the $US175 million bond. Mr Trump thanked the appellate division for acting quickly on its decision. "This is an important win for Donald Trump," Mr Bolt said

Sky News contributor Kristin Tate has reacted to Australian ambassador to the US Kevin Rudd's “Trump derangement syndrome”. “I’ve seen these symptoms many times, it’s quite obvious that Kevin Rudd is suffering a very bad case of what many people here in the United States call Trump derangement syndrome,” she told Sky News host Chris Kenny. “Of course, his trying to walk back these comments now that it seems Trump has a very good chance of winning back the White House, but it’s not going to work. “This guy has no spine. “It's going to take a lot more than kind of timidly walking back comments in order to curry favour with Donald Trump if Mr Rudd wants to keep his job.”

Sky News host Paul Murray says local authorities in the Baltimore bridge collapse claim there may well be as many as “20 people” in the water following the incident. “It has just broken 6am as you know four and a half hours ago a ship smashed into the city’s major bridge and it collapsed,” he said. “Local authorities claim there may well be as many as 20 people in the water.” The 47-year-old American bridge dramatically collapsed after being struck by a cargo ship. Emergency services scrambled to rescue several people believed to have fallen into the water below as a result.

Sky News host Caleb Bond has pointed out Donald Trump’s civil fraud case only “boosts his base”. Mr Bond said the case against the former US president is “just absurd”. “It just helps Trump,” Mr Bond told Sky News host Sharri Markson. “It boosts his base. “They love this stuff.”

Australia has taken a “very simple view” towards the competition in Antarctica, says ANU North America Director Professor John Blaxland. “The competition over Antarctica is growing, we’ve got several Chinese bases on Australian Antarctic territory,” Professor Blaxland told Sky News host Andrew Bolt. “China is looking at this with the long game in mind. “We can barely agree on building a runway, we’ve decided not to build a runway when it’s clearly in our interests to do so in my view. “And we face the prospect of more competition and that use of Antarctica by so-called scientific purposes by others, I think is seriously questionable.”

The Australian’s Media Writer Sophie Elsworth says James Carville makes a “pretty good point” about the Democrats having too many ‘preachy females’. Ms Elsworth told Sky News host Rita Panahi that it is really important coming up to the election that there isn’t “preachy females that are telling us how to live our life”. “I think there’s some pretty valid points there.” American political assistant and author released a statement saying ‘A suspicion of mine is that there are too may preachy females’. The statement also stated that ‘the message is too feminine’.

Rebecca White resigns as Tasmanian Labor leader, former Victorian Liberal director Sam McQuestin fined for breaches of the electoral act, Victoria’s Ombudsman delivers a parting shot to the agency that regulates her office, the London High Court is set to rule on Julian Assange’s appeal tonight, net overseas migration is set to surpass the government’s targets, New Zealand confirms a Chinese cyber attack on parliament, and Florida restricts social media for minors. See omnystudio.com/listener (https://omnystudio.com/listener) for privacy information.

Rennie Co-Chief Executive Matt Rennie says “there hasn’t” been a country that has been “run on renewable energy”. Dick Smith told 2GB, “Look, I can tell you, this claim by the CSIRO that you can run a whole country on solar and wind is simply a lie … It is not true. They are telling lies. No country has ever been able to run entirely on renewables – that’s impossible.” “It’s one of those situations where I think the question probably bears a little bit of interrogation,” Mr Rennie told Sky News host Chris Kenny. “Yes, there are situations where, say, Germany, for example, does have a day where it runs completely on renewable energy. “The conversation about whether or not there ever has been one that’s been run on renewable energy, I think the answer is no there hasn’t.”

Westpac senior economist Matthew Hassan reveals consumers are increasingly pessimistic about their finances, and the state of the economy. His remarks are in light of a key consumer confidence measure by Westpac and the Melbourne Institute published on Tuesday which showed an ongoing weakness in consumer sentiment. “Pessimism is the dominant theme,” Mr Hassan told Sky News Australia Business Editor Ross Greenwood. “And really, it’s the cost-of-living crisis that is dominating consumers. “The sentiment measures are telling us there are concerns around family finances. “Pessimists dominate optimists by a huge margin at the moment.”

Sky News host Chris Kenny says the Albanese government is turning out “just as many of us feared” following its many backflips and failures. “It was like the Olympic gymnastics had started a few months early today – the Albanese Labor to government has been twisting and turning and backflipping away, but it's hardly stuck a landing,” Mr Kenny said. “First up, let's look at the ridiculous attack on the driving choices of Australia's motorists. “For months, Climate and Energy Minister Chris Bowen has been arguing that increasing the cost of petrol and diesel utes and the like to try to force us into EVs and hybrids was all about saving the planet, and get this, giving us more choice, and even about saving us money." Mr Kenny said after pushing this “nonsense” for months and after attacking all of their critics, the Labor government has backflipped. “It's going to slow down the emissions standards regime; it’s going to go easier on utes and SUVs.”