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we re going to get an update as the markets close out a roller coaster week. i m hallie jackson in washington on this friday afternoon with our nbc news team, carole lee covering the white house, matt bradley in ukraine, courtney at the pentagon, also joined by jason beardsley, national executive director of the advocacy group the association of the u.s. navy. carole, start with you, with the first lady s first day in east europe, it s a busy and significant stretch for her overseas now. it is. the first of a four-day trip and she started in romania where she visited with u.s. troops serving them dinner and bringing them ketchup, learning there was a ketchup shortage there and so she brought gallons of ketchup to them, apparently very well received, and she also read to some children of service members there. there was a moment where she was reading with a service member and her son. i think we have that if we can take a listen. the end. and nathan, thank you for yo ....
rate hikes to come, but maybe not as steep at a single time as was earlier thought. for example, the federal reserve today raising rates half a point. we haven t seen that type of increase in the better part of 22 years. at that time bill clinton was president. that was then, this is now. all in the face of polls that show americans are very worried about inflation right now. nine out of ten of us say it is our number 1 concern. getting more so. the federal reserve doing its best today to address the problem by saying we re going to keep on top of the problem by continuing to hike interest rates. again, it s very unusual for a stock market to respond to this so positively. but the belief might be as simple as this. they re the only ones trying to do something about it. so we put our faith in them. they re the only game in town. let s go right now to ed lawrence who will be following this from the federal reserve. madison alworth in gilbert, arizona. we begin with the fe ....
reign ininflation. any time you borrow money, you will pay more interest to the bank because the banks are paying more to borrow from the feds. why raise rates at all? let me bring in now nbc news business and technical correspondent jolene kent. 2:00 announcement. my clock in here is wrong but i think it s just turning over to the tick of two. is it official yet? what s the expectation? it is official. the federal reserve is going to be raising the benchmark basis rates. we are seeing that the balance sheet will be cut to rise to and i just lost the number here in my notes. but the feds saying job gains have been robust so they do expect to they are raising it by half a point. what does this mean? this is the most aggressive hike since 2000 and it the most aggressive move that we ve seen so far in this inflation situation right now. consumers across the board facing 8.5% inflation. and it s a markedly stronger move than last time back in march when we were report ....
final offer and he stuck to it. this comes after a weekend of developments including shareholders pressuring the board to take the deal. stockholders will receive $54.20 in cash for each share valuing the deal. the purchase price represents a 38% premium to twitter the day before musk disclosed his 9% stake. now elon s involvement boosted the price. musk announced his reasons for the purchase. he said now, while many are excited about his planned changes, it s his crusade for free speech that is driving this buy-out. he disapproves policies that the white house says doesn t go far enough. here s jen psaki moments ago. no matter who owns or runs twitter, the president has long been concerned about the power of large social media platforms, the power that they have over our every day lives. he s been a strong supporter of fundamental reforms to achieve that goal. one of the most prominent deactivated accounts is former president trump. he was confirmed moments ago ....
we begin in the uk, where inflation is rising at its fastest rate in decades as fuel, energy and food costs surge. the price rises are putting increasing pressure on household budgets, we ll find outjust how much pressure in the coming hours when the country s cpi inflation figure for march is released. prices rose by 6.2% in the 12 months to february, and the uk s office for budget responsibility suggests they could rise as high as 8.7% in the final three months of 2022. at the beginning of this month, energy bills rose by as much as 5a%, following the introduction of a higher price cap for how much energy firms can charge consumers. all this, of course, is eroding spending power. new data released on tuesday found that while wages rose for public sector workers, price rises outpaced them meaning a 3% drop in spending power, the biggest fall in 20 years. in a moment, we ll be taking a closer look at what today s figures may reveal, but first dougal shaw has been visiti ....