Reuters World News - Autoworkers strike, Biden woos rural America and Australia’s cat crackdown

Episode Date: September 15, 2023

Billions of dollars in federal funding have flowed to rural areas since Joe Biden was elected president. But is it going to help him in 2024? Autoworkers go on strike against Detroit’s Big Three. Suspicion deepens over the whereabouts of China’s defence minister, Plus, NASA appoints a Chief of UFO research and Australia gets tough on cats. Visit the Thomson Reuters Privacy Statement for information on our privacy and data protection practices. You may also visit megaphone.fm/adchoices to opt out of targeted advertising. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today, auto workers go on strike against Detroit's Big Three. Can the Democrats win over rural America with fists full of cash? It's proving tough in places like Maine's second congressional district. Australia ruffles feathers by getting tough on cats. And NASA releases a report on UFOs. Find out what the body of independent scientists had to say about aliens on Earth. It's Friday, September 15th. This is Reuters World News, with everything you need to know from the front lines in 10 minutes every weekday.

I'm Kim Vennel in London. And I'm Christopher Waljasper in Chicago. We start in the Midwest, where thousands of members of the United Auto Workers have walked off the job in the first strike to ever hit all three Detroit automakers. This is our generation's defining moment. The money is there. the cause is righteous, the world is watching. Sean Fane, the union's president, calling on workers at three factories owned by GM, Ford, and Chrysler parent, Stalantis, to walk out.

The UAW is holding off for now on company-wide strikes, but has said all options are open if new contracts are not agreed. Now, the rest of the headlines making news around the world. Is China's defense minister under house arrest? The U.S. ambassador to Japan, Rahm Emanuel, posed that question in a social media post on Friday. Li Shang Fu hasn't been seen in public for more than two weeks. China's foreign and defense ministries did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is headed to California to meet with Elon Musk.

Musk says their talks will focus on AI, not the Anti-Defamation League, the Jewish advocacy group that Musk is feuding with on his social media platform, X. Hunter Biden has been indicted on federal gun charges. The president's son was hit with three criminal charges related to lying about his drug use when he tried to buy a gun. It's the first time the child of a sitting president has been indicted. It's time now for markets with Carmel Crimmons. Carmel, what is going on?

Well, British chip designer Arm has given the IPO market a major boost. its shares jumped 25% when they launched on the NASDAQ, and that's rekindled some hope about the future market for IPOs, which have been in the doldrums. Why has it been so weak? Higher interest rates and geopolitical tensions. The war in Ukraine, China, US tensions. All of those things have put companies offgoing public,

but there are a few that are willing to test the waters in the next few weeks. We're going to have IPOs from Instacart, which is the Grocery Delivery Service, and German footwear maker Birkenstock. If they succeed, that's likely to trigger a, wave of stock market launches in 2024. Getting credit for economic gains is key to Joe Biden's re-election bid. But it's proving an uphill battle in remote areas of the country, places like the

second congressional district of Maine. White House reporter Andrea Shalal spoke to officials and locals there about the fight to convince voters they're doing better. So the second congressional district of Maine is the second most rural congressional district in the country. And I spoke with the woman who is the rural development director there. And she said, she drives hundreds of miles across the main countryside. And she's never seen so many newly paved roads and rebuild the bridges as in the past year. And she says that when she talks to people, they don't connect the dots. That's the problem. And so she reminds them that the hospital that they are going to or the care that they can give or the $35.

as opposed to what it was costing hundreds before is really a byproduct of some of the actions of the administration. So why is there a disconnect between rural voters and Democrats? You know, rural America, whether you're speaking about the Northeast or the rural South or other pockets of the country, have seen terrible economic decline. Globalization really took its toll. So you watched industrial manufacturing facilities that would hire and create a whole employment ecosystem and an economic safety blanket for an entire region. They went away. They wandered off to China and to other parts. And those facilities, those industrial manufacturing facilities haven't been replaced.

And then wage growth hasn't been as great as it has been in cities. And on top of it, everyone in the United States was hit with high inflation. But that really makes a big difference in a rural area. So high gas prices have a bigger impact if you're driving 25 miles to work every day. Democrats have been winning in population centers. Why do they feel like they need these rural communities to win the election? Rural communities make up about one in five Americans, one in five voters, roughly. Donald Trump won rural America by 59% in 2016 and then 2020 by 65%.

Even if they don't win the overall rural vote, even making a difference on the margins by 4 or 5% would be enough to ensure that they are able to secure the electoral votes to win the election. beloved pet or dangerous predator. Australians are grappling with a cat conundrum. After years of policing feral cats, the federal government is now looking to tighten rules for domestic kitties. Self-confessed cat person, Melanie Burton and Melbourne, is here to explain. So, Melanie, what is this cat crackdown about?

So Australia's federal government has introduced what's a draft action plan. It's basically to cut down the number of feral cats we've got in this country and also to put some restrictions on house cats to stop them from killing and eating all of our furry creatures. What are the proposed controls for domestic cats? What they're proposing already exists in part of Australia. In some of the areas like where I live, there's a nighttime curfew. So you have to have them inside after dark. And in some of some of the areas that are a bit more regional, you actually have to keep them confined to your property. And so you need to register your cat and you need to desex your cat.

Can you explain why? I mean, there are a lot of places in the world people love their cats so much they would bulk at having to put restrictions like this on their cats. Why is this happening in Australia and why do people seem to be okay with it? I'm sure there's plenty of cat owners out there with a bit of a guilty conscience. when they think of the little presence, their darling cats have dropped off to them. I mean, I'm certainly one. And so really, in Australia, there's, I think, 200 mammals now that are at risk of, well, they're threatened or they've had their populations really hurt by feral cats.

So given climate change and these other things, the federal government is trying to really preserve our natural wildlife as much as possible. The truth is out there, and NASA has a new person dedicated to finding it. The space agency has appointed a new director of research into unidentified anomalous phenomenon. That means UFOs. Our space correspondent, Joey Roulette, was at NASA's headquarters. Joey, is NASA acknowledging the presence of extraterrestrial life? Not exactly. No.

What NASA is doing here is trying to establish a method for detecting mysterious objects and mysterious phenomena in the sky in the future, and then applying its scientific prowess and its resources into studying what those detections actually are. NASA administrator Bill Nelson did have an interesting response. If you ask me, do I believe there's life in a universe that is so vast, that it's hard for me to comprehend how big it is? My personal answer is yes. But he did say that it's unlikely that they have visited Earth in the past, but he's a believer, so to speak.

What will this new director of research be doing? Yeah, so NASA is kind of trying to figure that out specifically right now, but the main task for this new director is to enhance the coordination between NASA and the Department of Defense. And keep in mind that the Department of Defense, in 2021, there was a key report that came out that basically said we've detected dozens of mysterious events in the sky.

A lot of them we can't explain. Some of them we can explain as just weather balloons or other atmospheric phenomena. So the director role will be responsible for sharing that kind of intelligence between NASA and the DoD. That's it for today's episode of Reuters World News.

We'll have a special weekend edition previewing the UN General Assembly. And we'll be back on Monday with our regular daily news show. To make sure you know what's going on in the world, listen in for 10 minutes every weekday. And don't forget to subscribe on your favourite podcast player or download the Reuters app.