Bloomberg - Evening Briefing - Yellen changes her tune

US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen had a slightly different story Thursday when it came to the ongoing debate over insuring bank deposits beyond the $250,000 limit. In prepared remarks to a House committee almost identical to those she read to a Senate panel Wednesday, Yellen repeated that the Biden administration’s actions tied to recent banking meltdowns were “taken to ensure that Americans’ deposits are safe.” But then came a new line: “Certainly, we would be prepared to take additional actions if warranted.” Why the big deal? Yesterday, bank stocks tumbled after she made a point of saying Treasury officials had neither considered nor examined the possibility of expanding federal insurance temporarily to all US bank deposits without congressional approval. Here’s your markets wrap. —David E. Rovella

Short-seller Hindenburg Research has decided to take on another billionaire, but already the fight is looking different. The firm that took a chunk out Gautam Adani’s empire with allegations of accounting malfeasance is now going after the father of social media—Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey. Hindenburg, run by Nathan Anderson, said it had conducted a two-year investigation into Dorsey’s current company, Block, that revealed the payments firm was facilitating fraud. But Block (formerly known as Square) is already saying it will explore legal action against Hindenburg. Shares of Block slumped 15% at the close of New York trading, after earlier sliding as much as 22%, the company’s biggest intraday decline in three years. 

Jack Dorsey and Nathan Anderson  Photographer: Eva Marie Uzcategui/Bloomberg; Bonnie Jo Mount/The Washington Post /Getty Images

Credit Suisse’s digestion by crosstown rival UBS has created an opportunity for Wall Street and European finance giants. With so much talent potentially looking to jump (or simply avoid being pushed), rivals are dropping their de facto hiring freezes, unable to resist the lure of top talent now available at a discount.

Over in Washington, the Swiss banks are cause for a different kind of concern. Credit Suisse and its new owner are said to be among institutions under scrutiny in a Justice Department probe of whether financial professionals helped Russian oligarchs evade sanctions.

Yevgeny Prigozhin, the founder of Russian mercenary group Wagner, is said to be preparing to scale back his private army’s operations in Ukraine after Russian military chiefs succeeded in cutting key supplies of men and munitions. Kyiv, meanwhile, may be readying its expected spring counteroffensive after months of holding the line of in the country’s east against waves of Russian conscripts, mercenaries and convicts.

 Accenture announced it will fire 19,000 of its employees, about 2.5% of its workforce, over the next 18 months, one of the largest rounds of dismissals in a consultancy sector battling economic headwinds. Wall Street cheered, sending Accenture shares up as much as 8.4%. Though its rivals have also terminated workers, Accenture’s cuts dwarf those of its peers.

In the face of sustained and unprecedented protests, Israel’s parliament nevertheless approved the first part of a radical judicial overhaul pushed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The changes reduce the authority of the legal system to declare him incapacitated—now the prime minister can be declared unable to function only for medical or mental health reasons. As a result, Netanyahu is protected from any attempt to use his ongoing corruption trial as a basis for removal. Opposition leader Yair Lapid said Netanyahu’s coalition acted “like thieves in the night” in passing what he called “a reprehensible, corrupt and personal law.”

Methane has 80 times the warming power of carbon dioxide, and huge amounts of it leak into the atmosphere every day. In the latest episode the Bloomberg Originals series Getting Warmer With Kal Penn, Penn breaks down all you need to know about the gas, the surprising places it’s leaking from, and why fixing those leaks is a quick way to slow global warming—and for some, make millions of dollars in the process. 

Kal Penn meets Ryan Keys, left, co-founder of fossil fuel company Triple Crown Resources, to find out how his West Texas company eliminated most of its methane leaks. Photographs: Bloomberg

Bloomberg continues to track the global coronavirus pandemic. Click here for daily updates.

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• TikTok CEO goes before Congress to defend his app. It didn’t go well.
• Crypto fugitive Do Kwon of Terraform Labs arrested in Montenegro.
• Apple to spend $1 billion a year on films to break into cinemas.
• Urban Outfitters sees a $1 billion business in taking on this startup.
• HBO and Netflix are deciding where you’ll take your next vacation.

Technology promises to expand opportunities for millions of people living with disabilities. From revolutionary bionic limbs designed in New York to a robot cafe in Tokyo that enables remote work for disabled people, cutting-edge endeavors are changing lives and societies. In the fifth episode of the Bloomberg Originals series The Future With Hannah Fry, Fry explores how this revolution is already transforming everyday existence for individuals in countries all over the world.

Hannah Fry drops in on a Tokyo cafe where disabled workers are able to work remotely through robot avatars, like the one above.  Photograph: Bloomberg

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The Bloomberg Wealth Asia Summit returns on May 9. Join us in Hong Kong or online as we sit down with the region’s leading investors, economists and money managers to discuss the mindset of next-generation investors, Web3 and investing in art. Speakers include top executives from the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, Sotheby’s and Two Sigma Asia-Pacific. Register here.