do you owe over $10,000 in back taxes? kevin sorbo here with an important message. this means they could garnish your wages levy your bank account and even seize your property. tax network usa, a trusted tax firm can help protect your income and assets today while quickly settling your tax debt. but you have to act now while you still have options. call tax network usa today. >> they should be feel better before joe biden became president because he's been an awful president. the inflation reduction act is

nothing. they've got to control spending. >> markets have priced this in and at this point, bottom line is nothing exciting and remarkable out of this. >> this report came in heavy. average hourly earnings now for the month of january fell 1.8%. that determine add decline and inflation will be sticky and feds will tighten more and no question about that. ashley: the great pete townsend looking at fox square on this tuesday morning. good morning, everyone.

it is 11:00 a.m. on the east coast. it is february the 14th, valentine's day. i'm ashley webster in today for stuart varney. let's get a look at these markets. they were down when we started and they suddenly turned positive and now negative. volatile as investors try to find out the latest reading on inflation and it's pretty hot and very sticky and stubborn. we know that. the dow off about 206 points at this hour. let's take a look at big tech names a, which we like to co. microsoft and meta up slightly but amazon, alphabet and apple down. alphabet down 1.13%. we're keeping an eye on the treasury yield and it's been moving higher and up 5.1 basis points and up to 3.75% on the 10-year yield. consumer prices rose half a percent in the last six months and up 6.4% from a year ago and

it was a little higher than expected. mike murphy joining us this morning. mike, good morning to you. what did you expect. is this no huge surprises but a little better progress. it's coming down but at a very, very slow rate. >> morning, ash. we had a bit olekowski selling going on but into this print we're up 8 on the s&p 500 and six weeks we had a nice rally recovering from last year and for me the key story is that the fed appears to have this under control and as long as that stays to be the main story, we're going to be fine here and the recovery will be in good shape and we're going to have higher market prices. ashley: they're in control but it's going to take a long haul.

scott shellady on the show earlier saying this will go on forever and does it confirm that the fed needs to continue to be aggressive? >> well, i think again, i want them to be data dependent and to say that it's going to be very long, i would kind of push back and say i don't think we've seen the recent rate hikes work their way fully through the economy yet. to predict that how long it's going to take, i'm happy where we are at this moment in time. let's see how it goes for the next readings as we get into q2 but for right now, i don't think you can really say it's going to take longer. it may actually -- we could get a reading that shows that recent rate hikes did their job and the market would rally to the upside on that. ashley: very true. i want to get into some of the individual and we talk about earning ands coca-cola and airbnb. what did you glean from those? >> really what we're looking for, i think the theme of this earning season, ashley, is there

a complete miss or whiff? a lot of companies were saying we had a dee cent quarter as -- decent quarter as we're see with these guys but put the inflation word out there and say, hey, inflation is weighing on us here or there. looking at coke for instance, quarter was fine. so the reaction is kind of what you expected, but if this is where coke is today, and we've already seen this big inflationary pressure on the company, the changes they're making in house right now as we speak, i think pave the way for higher earnings going forward. this for me is kind of a microcosm from both companies on how this earning season has gone. not great, but definitely good enough after last year selloff. ashley: no big recession in the near future as we continue to try and bring the inflation number, mike murphy, overall are you neutral to per happen as little more bullish? >> i stay bullish, ash, the

reason is all though there are negative head winds out there, we're going to overcome them. the time to be negative was 18 months ago or 16 months ago now with where we are after last year's pull back, stay the course and stay invested and there's more upside on the other side of this. >> i feel better -- ashley: i feel better already, mike murphy. always positive. thank you so much, mike. appreciate your time this morning. i do. i feel better. now this, still have more questions than answers on the white house shooting down flying objects over the weekend, but the white house is ruling out one thing: aliens. listen. >> there is no indication of aliens or terrestrial activity with the recent takedowns. wanted to make sure that the american people knew that. >> i don't think the american people need to worry about aliens with respect to these crafts, period. there's no more that needs to be said there. ashley: really?

that to me, those two sound bytes, jimmy failla sounds like the beginning of syfy movies like independence day. what do you say? >> i don't think they're aliens because biden would have offered them stimulus checks and put them in a luxury hotel around the block and would have complained about accommodations. i don't believe, if we were just talking, you and me, ash, i don't believe aliens want anything to do with our society. i believe they came halfway here and saw everybody staring at their phones all day and posting pictures of their food and flew away. like there's got to be a better planet than this. regardless of what this is, it's definitely a demonstration of weakness by our government and certainly by this president because he has not spoken on it number one. number two, there's clearly been an effort to manage him and keep him away from the story, probably because what you eluded to earlier. if they ask biden about aliens, he'll start talking about s

igourney weaver and what an underrated actress she is and that won't do us any favors. ashley: i understand washington dc will allow the aliens to vote if they decide to stay. another one for you, jimmy. one tech company is going after terms they say are too violent. they want jump the gun to be start too soon. shoot me an e-mail should be send me an e-mail and roll with the punches should be well, let's move forward. what is so violent about the original sayings? tell me? >> well, i think what's actually violent about this cheers is if you spend enough time with these people, you'll want to jump off a bridge or harm yourself in some other way. the real issue, ash, is they're teaching people to seek out grievance and it's such anastole way to live. you're never going to be at a party and be like i can't be the guy that gets offended at

everything is coming and this will be great. you'll never find yourself in that position because that guy doesn't get invited to parties. nobody wants to hang around that level of misery. we're fighting so many of the wrong battles. ashley: can't say jump off the bridge but take it down with journey. jimmy, thank you so much. we could do this all day. thank you very much, jimmy. come in here, lauren. you have movers for us. begin with peabody energy. lauren: going up 4.5%. he's still talking next to me, ashley. now he's going to get out of here. it's a coal miner. worldwide competition for fuel driven up demands for coal power and peabody reporting 29% from last year and nvidia bank of america hiking price target to 255 all about ai optimism. it's the technology behind the chat bots, nvidia and others provide that. b of a said some enterprise

customers could quadruple their data sales center in the next five years. this will be huge. burger king owner restaurant brands, same store sales across all brands increased about 12% but a year ago about 14%. still growth but a slow down in growth, ashley. ashley: oh, the president is expected to name two economic advises. what are they names? lauren: lael brainard and reporting that lael brainard will be tapped as new director of national economic counsel and coordinating policy, negotiating with congress and would replace brian dietz and jared burnstein reportedly chair of the economic advisers and the white house has not made a public announcement. ashley: all right. we'll wait for it. thank you very much, lauren.

now this >, the ratings for the super bowl are in and it was a great game and most watched. tesla just increased their profits for the fourth time this year. this year? it's only february. how much more you'll be paying for your new ev. and the u.s. may have misspent hundreds of billions of dollars on ppp and unemployment insurance and one congressman call it is the greatest theft of taxpayer dollars in american history. grady trimble will have that report from capitol hill next. ♪ get refunds.com powered by innovation refunds can help your business get a payroll tax refund, even if you got ppp and it only takes eight minutes to qualify. i went on their website, uploaded everything,

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ashley: taxpayer haves lost up to $349 billion to covid fraud. that's remarkable. grady trimble on capitol hill this morning. grady, the big question is where did all that money go. reporter: good morning, ash. simply put, it went to criminals and house republicans are taking aim at them. the oversight committee launching an investigation into pandemic era fraud between people falsely filing unemployment claims or applying for paycheck protection program loans. the total amount of fraud we're talking about or money misspent as the department of labor puts it totals nearly $350 billion. that's just what we know about. that number could top $1 trillion by some estimates. so far more than 1,000 people have pleaded guilty to or were found guilty of defrauding covid

relief programs according to the government accountability office. president biden claims he's cracking down on the covid crooks but the department of justice didn't turn up to the first hearing on the matter even though they were invited. system of articulation i hope the white house will show up and they don't like a lot of lights turned on into the darkness they've been approaching. >> it's totally self-serving and misleading because his administration gutted the authority of inspectors general related to covid and we have to restore that authority and get the money back. it's simply outrageous. reporter: the government accountability office says the federal government needs more controls and oversight in place to stop this kind of fraud from happening again with future government programs, ash. ashley: got it, grady. thank you very much. now this, look at this headline. it says weaponnizing of government must end and republicans, dems should work together to make that happen.

great to see you. we're talking about protecting free speech and got to be a bipartisan issue; right? >> you'd think so and thanks for having me. revelations that our government is actively working to suppress free speech should horrify all americans and as you pointed out, it shouldn't be a partisan issue. it's a bipartisan concern hawaii are we learn something over the past week, we've seen hearings about twitter, and about the fbi and how they work to suppress and coerce social media platforms into suppressing speech and discussion into the internet. things like hunter biden laptop story and things about the origins of covid and stuff about reopening schools and these are the types of conversation that we need to know about and we need to have, but we can't just have congress out there doing these hearing. we need to take the next step and stop this type of bad action and how do we do that? with legislation and laws that have actual teeth.

now fortunately there's legislation in congress to look at this. one example is protecting free speech from government interference act from comers, rogers, and jordan and it goes after the real problem, after the paychecks and pension of federal employees putting politics and partisan wokism ahead of doing their jobs. we have seen time and time again how federal employees are just willing to blame the agency but you know what, this legislation makes them actually pay for what they're doing. ashley: but you know, kyle, you mentioned the word woke and that comes from the gop a lot, but the democrats dismiss it as just being a fascination or obsession from the gop that it's really not that much of an issue so when you talk about both sides working together, that's not going to be as easy as you make it sound. >> you know, i actually think it will be. one of the things we've learned is it's not just democrats

leaning on social media platforms for example to suppress or promote speech but some republicans are doing it too. the thing is there will be a republican in the white house, and there will be republican control of the fbi. democrats will rue the day that they didn't take this opportunity to join hands and reach across the aisle and stand up for all american people, not just a political party. so i am actually optimistic that democrats will look past partisan politics and recognize their own self-interests in advancing these types of steps. ashley: i wouldn't hold my breath but i'm with you. another one for you, senator ted cruz launching an investigation with >> the twitter alga relationship. >> we're going to take the twitter files and what elon musk has made public and use that as a road map to go after facebook, to go after grade schooling, to

go after -- google, youtube, tiktok and all of big tech that's trying to silence conservatives, and we are going to bring accountability, we're going to bring transparency and shine a light and expose their collusion with democrats and the deep state -- ashley: kyle, we've seen that collusion in those twitter document it -- dumps and americs should be concerned about censoring social media. >> one thing that elon musk rightfully brought to light is our own government and getting back to weaponization issue is our own government was leaning on these platforms to promote and remove content. at the end of the day one of the things is these businesses, they're subject to the whims of a white house and a federal agency that has essentially been unchecked for the past two

years. that's the type of power that allow this is type of government suppression of free speech. so i'm thankful that senator ted cruz is looking into this, but what i'd also like to see him do is take the next step. introduce legislation to make sure that government employees work for all americans, not just a political party. because at the end of the day, if all we do is have hearings, that's a good start but we need to take the next step. we need to claw back some of that money. use the power of the purse to prevent federal agencies from keeping afloat bad federal employees. there's a lot of options for congress to take the next steps because we shouldn't expect it to necessarily come from the white house or the federal agency. congress is going to do it is oversight job, write laws and use the power of the purse to hold this administration accountable. ashley: very good. talk is cheap for sure and we need action. kyle, thank you so much for talking with us today. we appreciate it. let's take a look at the markets

for you. they've been up and down this morning and we started low and moved up and then went down. that's how the markets have been. very volatile and the dow off half a percent and down 175 points and gain add percent yesterday and giving some back today. rather modestly so. amazon's robotaxi is giving rides to employees on public roads in california. did i read that right? lauren: you did. that's correct. this is the fully autonomous car with no steering wheel or pedals and no human but the passenger. that looks like the airport shuttle tram car. it's by directional -- bidirectional meaning it can change directions without reversing so it's more efficient. amazon bought them three yearsing and have the green light by the state of california to test robotaxis on some public

roads. basically the mile area where their workers are and headquarters are. that's kind of cool though. ashley: i was going to say the same thing. it's kind of cool; right. looks good and efficient. very good indeed. tesla just changed it is price for the fourth time in two months. ashley: up down, up down. it's very confusing so here's the latest. some model ys are seeing their price go up by $1,000 to just under $59,000. the y has had five price changes since january. you can see here some model 3s are being cut by $50. 500. it's confusing and bottom line is i think tesla is adjusting to demand because they can. their market share is 65%. in second place is ford, market share at 7%. so tesla still has a wide lead. ashley: wow. i did not realize that and ford share is just 7%. i'm sure that will change but

that's very interesting. lauren, thank you very much. this story, it's projected to be one of the most expensive valentine's day ever and yes, thank inflation for that. what if i told you chatgpt could make you the perfect valentine for free. that got you interested. we'll explain. americans in russia being told to leave the country immediately. they've been warn that had if they don't leave, they may be forced to fight in the war on ukraine. are you kidding me? rebecca coughler is here on that store, next. ♪ my asthma felt anything but normal. a blood test helped show my asthma

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ashley: looking at rather merky independence, missouri. right near the home of the super bowl champions, the kansas city chiefs and we now know that 113 million people tuned in for the big game on fox and third most watched tv program in

resident reigns leading and the biggest super bowl audience since the patriots beat the falcons in 2017. 113 million. take a look at the markets and we've been moving lower now after starting that way and we did proofly move hire and on the way down for the dow jones industrial down about 1%, same story on the s&p down seven tenths and nasdaq down half a percent. susasusan li is here keep ago ck on the markets and what's going on in the crypto world. susan: yeah, big name buyers moving in and successful hedge fund manager and ken griffin buying a 5.5% stake in the capital given that griffin citadel given by any single hedge fund returning $16 billion

and see value and imagine the markets listen as well and the coin base share for a second straight day and $15 million in two straight sessions despite the crack down and coin base up 60% this year and six weeks in and by thuation it's worth $57 according to barklies that raised its price target and you have a high-tech, high growth rally underway and first ever profit and gunning for the first year of profit ever and that means other high-tech companies and profitable names hope they'll make money and crowd strike with goldman sachs with $141 and boeing announced sale to india and buying 137 maxes and $34 billion deal according

to list prices and usually boeing offers discounts on the bulk sale and i thought january was tepid for boeing and 16 plane orders up from december but the best performer on the dow and you were talking about the super bowl, 113 million tuning in and it's alive but alive because of the sports rights and they're paying billions of dollars for the nfl rights and takes place for the nba and could double the price of last time. ashley: wow, sports generate as lot of money. that's for sure. susan li, thank you very much. now this, russia is ramping up attacks in ukraine as head of nato warns putin is preparing for more war. trey yingst joining us from kyiv. good morning to you. what's nato doing to try and get more weapons to ukraine?

reporter: ashley, good morning. nato secretary is calling for more international support to ukraine so they can win this war. the call comes as ukrainian civilians pay a heavy price under russian bombardment. artillery shells ex-ploid in the distance, a heavily damaged charred hospital remains standing in the front line city. we probably have more than 20 shell craters on the hospital compound one doctor said. before the russian invasion, 32,000 people lived here, still thousands remain and with no pharmacies or clinics open, this battered building is the only place to seek medical treatment for miles. nearby two elderly women shelter in the basement of a super market. despite living under ground for more than ten months, these pensioners are reluctant to leave. where should i leave to one woman asks? i'm on my land to which other

place should i go? as russian forces advance in the donbas region, they're leveling everything in their way. they show images from august to february. there's almost nothing left of the town. i spoke with an american fighter from the international legion helping ukrainian force in the eastern part of the country and describinged intense battles taking place as we speak and he also said that russian forces have a different value of human life than the ukrainians. ashley. ashley: trey, great reporting. thank you very much. trey yingst in kyiv. good time to bring in former defense intelligence agency officer rebekah koffler joining us this morning. i want to get back to nato and feels like the susan li doing most of the evansville -- u.s. is doing most of the heavy

lifting here. >> ashley, we just for what specific reason? we have been providing billions of dollars worth of high-tech weaponry to ukraine. javelins, stingers, now patriot missiles and even tanks and deliberations within nato to possibly provide f16 war planes and the concern is obviously the conflict potentially will escalate out of control dragging in the united states. no one has specified achievable goals and the goal that the biden administration has stated is to evict the russians completely from the entire ukraine and including crimea and that's unachievable and this conflict exposed the biden administration and p pentagon's

inability to plan ahead and they've been killed between russians and ukrainians and we now have a quarreler of a million -- quarter of a million men and women obviously both civilians and military either injured or and the war is nowhere near the end. ashley: in fact, we just starting to see the major offenses from the russians and i read a lot about the town of bakmute and it's a target for the russian and ukrainians are hanging on but it's starting to ramp up again, is it not? >> oh, absolutely. my intelligence analysis tells me that russia is unleashing a massive offensive across ukraine, which is now concentrated on bakmute and it would enable russia to gain a foothold into the entire region

of donbas and it's the heartland of ukraine and putin's key strategic goal at this stage of this war. unfortunately ukrainians are not receiving the weaponry that we have promised to them fast enough to defend themselves and this is a deeply, deeply unfair fight. putin mobilized additional 315,000 troops and 150 150,000 e in training camps so this war is an endless war and it's turning into another afghanistan, and it's really time for the pentagon to really sit down and think what is the ultimate goal. there's no strategy for victory. there's no exit strategy and it's time to really be serious about what's going on. the conflict that's going to rip europe apart if it doesn't stop

very soon. ashley: we hear your message loud and clear. rebekah koffler, thank you as always, rebekah, for bringing us your insight to what's going on in ukraine. thank you so much. now this, china sends more students to u.s. colleges than any other foreign country and donates the most money for higher education and that's raising big questions about national security. jeff flock will have that report from philadelphia. plus, three people are dead and five more are hurt after a shooting at michigan state university. the gunman is also dead as police reveal he was not affiliated with the school. we'll have the very latest breaking details, next. ♪ believe

oh yeah, that is them. (that is howard) yeah, that's on howard's campus. ohhh, she's so powerful, she carried on the family legacy. we were blown away. (chuckles)

i not only was a student and an undergrad, but i've been a professor there for twenty years, so it's really a special moment to know that i had a family member who over a hundred years prior have walk these grounds. it's deeply uplifting. yes, it is. we're walking in their footsteps. ashley: three people are dead and five people critically wounded in a shooting at

michigan state university and the suspect was found dead with a self-inflicted gunshot wound. lauren, what are police saying about a possible motive? lauren: they don't have one, at least not yet. that's what they're searching for. the gunman is identified at a 43-year-old man, anthony mccray. he died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound several miles off campus after a three-hour long man hunt late last night. police say, you know, he had no affiliation with the university whatsoever and he didn't go there, didn't work there. he killed three students in his rampage, another five in the hospital in critical condition, ashley. ashley: all right, awful obviously. lauren, thank you very much. now we move onto this story. there are concerns growing about china's influence on higher education in the u.s.. jeff flock, come in. good morning to you. how much money did china give to our universities last year?

reporter: well, the short answer, ashley, as we hear sirens in the background, billions, billions with a b. on the campus of the university of pennsylvania, which is one of the universities -- hundreds of colleges and universities that got billions since the '80s, but a fox analysis of some of that data finds that since president xi took power in china in 2013, $2.6 billion flowed from china to colleges and universities. here at the university of pennsylvania, home to biden penn center, which was across the state the center of the classified documents issues, we reached out to them and there's concern about some influence or exposure and we told fox business and i quote them "the penn biden center never solicited or received any gifts from any chinese or foreign

entity and university never solicited any gifts for the center. 100% of the budget comes from university funds". another data shows they got $54 million in chinese funds and $23 million came anonymously. lawmakers have expressed concern among them jim rish, the idaho senator that tells fox business, "for years i pressed congress and administration to conduct more rigorous oversight of foreign money being funneled into u.s. unive universities and research institutions and chinese used to steal research and technology after a product was developed and now they want the information sooner. jim rish is the ranking republican on the foreign relations committee. he tried to sponsor a bill with a couple of democrats and

senator menendez, new jersey republican among them trying to push for oversight for gifts that came in, foreign concerns of gifts coming in. that didn't pass but the science and chips act did contain this language, which prohibits funding from that bill to any university that maintains a contract between a confusion institute and that's the name for institutes of higher learning in china that are funded by the government. obviously all this stuff floating around below the radar and the sky has caused people on the ground to think about fourtive stuff flying -- figurative stuff floating below the radar. ashley: thank you, jeff.

the dow 30 stocks and the selling is going on. nearly 400 points on the dow and boeing with the plane odor is higher and chevron with the energy play is higher and everyone else in the red as investors realize that had the january inflation report came in hotter than exp expected and noe selling picked up some steam. all right, it is valentine's day and means about 220,000 couples will get engaged today and many of them with opt for lab-grown diamond rings. are they that much different from natural diamonds? good question, we'll get into that next. ♪

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to new york city in the style of a haiku. this is what it came up with: rising spirit stands tall, dreams of steel and stone. her loves bond never breaks. new york city. that's not bad. i'm not expert on haikus but that seems pretty good. now this, gifts are going to cost you a lot more this valentine's day. lydia hu at a bake shop this morning. how much more is it going to cost to buy sweets this year? reporter: hi, ashley. if you're coming to desert ladies here in new jersey, about 8 to 10% because the business had to increase their prices. we're here with gerald who is the co-owner of desert ladies. gerald, your price haves gone up but so have your costs. what's the cause? >> inflation. our costs have gone up between 22-26% and we've reluctantly raised our prices between 8-10%

at the beginning of the year because we had to. everything has gone up. the price of eggs, all our ingredients are raw ingredients and there's nothing that hasn't increased quite a lot. reporter: a lot of people will be spending more this year, about $17 more per person on average. how are your customers reacting to increased prices? >> they've been good but they're also buying less than they did before. not as big of quantity and not as -- they're still buying but not as much as they had been. we can definitely see since before christmas, the downturn. they've cut back. reporter: i just want to end on a sweet note, ashley, here at desert ladies, they're still worth every penny. i can tell you. i got to go because i got to eat some of this, ashley. >> thank you so much. ashley: i don't blame you, lydia. you're talking my language. reporter: i'll bring you some back. ashley: i'm going to hold you to that. so sweet. hundreds of thousands of couples by the way will get engaged today and many of them will seal the deal with a lab-grown

diamond. we're joined now by the head of product ritani and online jewelry design company. good morning to you. >> good morning, ashley. happy valentine's day. ashley: same to you. does a lab-grown die diamond he the same c cachet as a normal o? >> it's starting to. it's diamond seeds and created in a lab and they're a little different than natural diamonds under the expert take millions of years to form but they co. they have their own beauty and an affordable price point and great entry way for young comes starting their lives together to break into the diamond market and build out luxurious diamond collections. ashley: how much cheaper are they, the lab grown versus natural? >> well, i wouldn't use the word

cheap. i would use the word inexpensive and affordable. but they are about 30 to 40% less than natural diamonds if not a little bit more. ashley: shouldn't have used the word cheap. anyway, what are the most popular engagement styles, ria? >> we see ovals and a trend that's solidifying it is place in the market as second runner up to round, which is classic styles. we have our ovals, our three stone sol solitaries are trendi, they're always a classic. ashley: they look terrific. and how's business, you know, i mean we say thousands of people get engaged today but how is business overall? >> business is amazing during these times especially. we see that love is growing, people are committing to one another, purchasing engagement rings natural or lab. as well as this time of year

especially today for valentine's day, we see hearts trending and people are purchasing beautiful heart pendants and solitary pendents and earrings. ashley: i'll have to leave it there, ria. on a positive note, love is always abounding. that's what we love to hear. time for the tuesday trivia question. how many roses are sent for valentine's day each year? 30 million, 40, 50, 60 million? it's interesting. we're going to have the answerta for you when we come back.enti ♪ and orders to your style of trading. personalized education to expand your perspective. and a dedicated trade desk of expert-level support. that will push you to be even better. and just might change how you trade—forever. because once you experience thinkorswim® by td ameritrade

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♪. ashley: all right. well guess what? we just asked how many roses are sent for valentine's day eacher. year? look at that, we blew the budget on special graphic. lauren, what do you think? >> 50 million because i cheated. but i didn't get any of 509 million. ashley: you cheated? ah. i would have said 40 million. 50 million. quick look at the markets. selloff picked up speed, investors say you know what, january inflation was still pretty hot that led to the sentiment on the dow. the dow down 342 points. that's it for "varney & company" today. guess what? "coast to coast" is next. ♪