Reuters World News - Biden diagnosis, Trump-Putin, crypto kidnappings and tax bill

Starting point is 00:00:01 Today, Trump and Putin are due to discuss a ceasefire in Ukraine after Russia launched its biggest drone attack of the war. Trump's big, beautiful bill passes a key hurdle to advance in Congress, and the spate of crypto-kidnappings shocking France. It's Monday, May 19th. This is Reuters World News, bringing you everything you need to know from the front lines in 10 minutes every weekday. I'm Tara Oaks in Liverpool. Starting with the headlines today and former US President Joe Biden has been diagnosed with an aggressive form of prostate cancer that has spread to his bones.

Starting point is 00:00:59 That's according to a statement from his office. He and his family are reviewing treatment options with doctors. Current president, Donald Trump, who has repeatedly berated Biden since taking office in January, expressed sympathy for Biden and. and his wife in a post on social media. Israel says it will allow limited amounts of food into Gaza. The announcement comes as the military begins extensive ground operations

Starting point is 00:01:27 into the northern and southern ends of the strip. Israel has blocked all aid into Gaza for almost three months, and international experts have warned of a looming famine in the enclave. Centrist Nikusur Dan has won the Romanian presidential election in a shock upset. His climb to the top comes after weeks of trailing George Simeon, a hard right Trump-inspired Eurosceptic who wanted to end military aid for Ukraine.

Starting point is 00:01:58 The election drew the highest percentage of voter turnout in a quarter of a century. A breakthrough in UK-EU talks. The UK will agree the most significant reset of ties with the European Union since Brexit pulled the country out of the bloc. At the heart of the very, reset is a pact that could allow British defence companies to take part in a program to rearm Europe. And investigators have identified a suspect connected to a bombing near a fertility clinic in Palm Springs,

Starting point is 00:02:32 California, and say he held nihilistic ideations. That's according to an FBI official, who identified the suspect as 25-year-old Guy Edward Bartkus. One person was killed and at least four were injured in the blast. Officials say no embryos stored inside the clinic were harmed. Emergency services searching through rubble in Kiev after Russia launched its largest drone attack on Ukraine since the start of the war. Sunday's attacks came on the eve of President Trump

Starting point is 00:03:15 speaking with Russian President Vladimir Putin. In a call today, they're expected to discuss a potential ceasefire, with Trump saying he'll speak to Ukraine's president, Volodymy Zelensky afterwards. Andrew Osborne is our Russia chief political correspondent. I think what's clear is that both sides, Russia and Ukraine, are trying to influence Trump as best they can ahead of these calls.

Starting point is 00:03:40 Ukrainian president Volomé Zelenskyy was in Rome on Sunday, the Vatican. He had meetings we know with J.D. Vance, with Marco Rubio as well. We kind of know what Ukraine wants right. It wants Trump to effectively slam the door, on Russia to say that he's lost patience and they want him to get tougher with Moscow. They want him to impose sanctions on Moscow. So that's what they're aiming for.

Starting point is 00:04:05 And the Russians? What they want essentially is Ukrainian forces to withdraw from the entirety of the territory of the four regions to four Ukrainian regions that Russia claims but does not control completely. So they want Ukrainians out of there before they even have a ceasefire. And then what they also want is they want U.S. and kind of international. national recognition that those four regions, plus Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014, belong to Russia. And they want Ukraine to promise not to make any future claims on these regions. So they essentially, what they're asking for is Ukraine just to walk away. Those, of course,

Starting point is 00:04:42 the demands which Ukraine has great trouble accepting and says, says no, right? Says has refused. Says that would be us capitulating. We're not going to do that. President Trump's sweeping tax cut bill has won approval from a key congressional committee. The unusual late-night committee session saw four hardline Republicans allow the bill to move forward. The move comes just days after Moody's downgraded the U.S. sovereign credit rating due to concerns about the nation's growing debt. Non-partisan analysts say the bill, which would extend Trump's 2017 tax cuts, would add three to five trillion dollars to the nation's debt over the next decade.

Starting point is 00:05:32 Scott Malone is our U.S. politics editor. Republicans are really divided on what to do about this. They hold a fairly narrow majority in the House, and that means that a small group of lawmakers can derail a bill. You have several different camps right now. One of them is the hardliners who want greater amounts of spending cuts to offset, partly offset the cost of the tax cut, their case has been strengthened by Moody's action on Friday. The next group is Republicans who come from

Starting point is 00:06:04 largely coastal states, often Democratic-run states. Those include New York, New Jersey, California. And their issue is they want to raise the amount of state and local taxes that can be deducted from federal taxes, state and local taxes in those seats. And their issue is that they're not going to, not going to for anything that basically raises taxes on their constituents because it reduces their ability to deduct state and local taxes. Beyond that, you have a really broad debate about Medicaid. The headline, Trump and leadership say that they don't want to cut Medicaid, and we're seeing divides in the party about that with quite a number of members saying, hey, we have constituents who depend on this program. What happens next? Once this is out of committee in the House, it'll come up

Starting point is 00:06:56 for a vote on the House floor. Mike Johnson has said he wants to have the bill passed the House by the end of this week before the Memorial Day holiday. If he succeeds in doing that, the Senate needs to take up the bill. Senate has its own concerns about it. It's not as beholden to the hardliners who are pushing for dramatic spending cuts. Senators also are a bit more sensitive to the concerns around Medicaid. So there's a long road ahead. masked men wrestling people on the ground in a botched attempt to kidnap the daughter of a French crypto businessman. After failing to snatch her, the attackers eventually gave up and drove off. It's the latest in a series of violent crypto-related kidnappings sending shockwaves through France.

Starting point is 00:07:48 Reporter Elizabeth Haghcroft is in Paris. We don't know for sure why these individuals have been targeted. The French authorities haven't released information about these cases. But security experts we interviewed said that it could be to do with rising cryptocurrency prices in the last year or so creating the perception that the people in crypto are wealthy and that they have access to large amounts of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies in their virtual wallets. When it comes to ransom payments, there's also a perception that crypto is easier for criminals to launder. There aren't the same kind of checks in place that you'd get within the mainstream financial system.

Starting point is 00:08:22 So people can move large sums of money more quickly. So how are people in the crypto industry reacting? Well, after this shocking footage of an attempted kidnapping was shared online, people in crypto have told us that they're worried about their own safety and the safety of their families. Some are also angry at the government. They see these attacks as part of a growing crime problem in France, which they think the government isn't doing enough to clamp down on. So what is France doing to boost security?

Starting point is 00:08:49 France's interior minister had a meeting on Friday with the police and executives from the crypto world. And in that, he promised a series of measures, including giving crypto investors priority access to emergency police services and also offering to provide security checks of their houses. But some crypto bosses are taking measures into their own hands. We spoke to people who run security companies in France. And they said they'd actually seen an increase in clients in the crypto industry wanting to know about getting close protection officers or bodyguards to keep them safe. Today's recommended read takes us to Indonesia. her concerns have been raised about government plans to release new books about the country's history.

Starting point is 00:09:36 Some historians claim the books are the equivalent of propaganda, but ministers say they aim to reinvent the Indonesian identity. Find out more by clicking the link in the pod description. For more on any of the stories from today, check out Reuters.com or the Reuters app. To never miss an episode, click follow on your favourite podcast player. We'll be back tomorrow with our daily health. headline show.

Reuters World News - Biden diagnosis, Trump-Putin, crypto kidnappings and tax bill

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