Reuters World News - Election lies cost, fighting shifts to Gaza and record heat

Episode Date: July 5, 2023

State Republican parties in two battleground states are paying for their leaders loyalty to election lies. A rocket attack shifts Israel's focus to Gaza as it withdraws from the heaviest fighting in the West Bank in nearly two decades. The Biden administration is warned off policing social media by a federal judge and extreme heat hits an earthly record. 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, Israel's focus switches to Gaza after two days of violent clashes with Palestinian militants in Janine. Election lies cost the GOP in battleground states, Arizona and Michigan. And a federal judge rules the Biden administration must limit contact with social media companies. It's Wednesday, July 5th. This is Reuters World News, with everything you need to know from the front lines in 10 minutes. every weekday. I'm Kim Vinal in London. A large explosions rocked Gaza City

as Israel hits back at rocket attacks from Palestinian militants. The exchanges came as Israel withdrew its forces from Janine in the West Bank. Under night skies, a convoy of military vehicles leaves Janine after a major two-day operation, the biggest there for decades.

Israel says it was aimed at destroying militant infrastructure and weapons in the vast refugee camp. It was launched with a drone strike on Monday and more than a thousand troops were deployed. Palestinian officials say at least 12 people have died. Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned it would not be a one-time action. Now, two other stories making headlines around the world. A federal judge has blocked officials from the Biden administration from contacting social media companies. The ruling says the government's attempts to police social media is likely a violation of the First Amendment.

The judge issued an injunction in response to a lawsuit by Republican attorneys general in Louisiana and Missouri. They allege attempts by the administration to stamp out what they saw as vaccine disinformation was censorship. Russia has suggested. it's open to talks with the US over the release of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gerskiewicz, hinting at a possible prisoner swap. Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov says there have been certain contacts with the United States.

US ambassador Lynn Tracy has been allowed to visit Gershkovich in prison this week for only the second time. Just hours after that, the Russian embassy in Moscow said its staff had visited Vladimir Dunev, a Russian national who's detained in Ohio on cybercrime charges. A security official in Ukraine says there's been progress in its counter-offensive against Russian forces. Olexey Dahlav, secretary of Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council, says the push has been particularly fruitful in the past few days. Moscow has not acknowledged Ukraine's gains.

The Taliban has ordered all beauty salons in Afghanistan to close within a month and the latest clampdown on access to public places for women. Last year, authorities closed most girls' high schools, barred women from university and stopped many female Afghan aid staff from working. It's time for our daily markets briefing and today we go to Seoul where shares in K-pop management agencies are falling. Companies reporter Joyce Lee is following the action. Joyce, what's going on here?

Yeah, shares in high. the agency of K-pop sensation BTS and a few other agencies have fallen because the South Korean antitrust watchdog has opened a probe. What are they looking for? So the watchdog is trying to tell whether these agencies treated their subcontractors well or not in making their physical albums and their merchandise, which is very lucrative. They're trying to tell whether there was any delays in payment or unfair contracts. Could this affect any of the band's wealth themselves?

So far, it doesn't seem so. There was no probe into the treatment of artists, just the production of albums. So these agencies are all publicly listed, right? That's right. So that means in some ways a lot of people in Korea get to own a little bit of the K-pop movement. Yes, there are a lot of interest in investing in these companies. Loyalty to Donald Trump's election lies is costing the Republican Party. In the key presidential battlegrounds of Arizona and Michigan, the state Republican parties are essentially broke.

Tim Reed has been reporting what led to donations drying up and what that means for candidates running in 2024. So, Tim, how did these states get into this situation in the state? the first place. Well, in both Arizona and Michigan, the party leaders spent a lot of time and a lot of energy trying to overturn the results of the 2020 election. This turned off a lot of major donors. And at the same time, in Arizona, the party burned through a lot of cash, paying lawyers, fighting back against subpoenas that the party leader and her husband were given from the January Sixth Committee investigating the insurrection on Capitol Hill. As of pretty much today, the Republican Party in Arizona has about $50,000 left in its bank accounts. Now, that is not even enough to cover

day-to-day operating expenses. At the same time, it's only taken in just less than $7,000 in its state account and about $130,000 in its federal account, which experts tell me is an astonishing low sum of money for a state party at the beginning of a fresh election cycle. And in the terms of Michigan, Michigan has about $130,000 cash on hand at the moment in its federal account, but it is about $450,000 in debt. So it's essentially broke as well. Who were the donors who stopped giving? We've spoken to some major donors that used to give significant amounts of money to both parties. In Michigan, Ron Weiser, who's a real estate mogul, he gave $2 million in the last cycle, basically propping it up, and he told us that his

largesse is now ending. How does this impact the 2024 election? Right. So the reason state parties are so important and why state parties need money is that they play a really important role in picking, promoting, backing, supporting candidates in their states from the presidential level on down. They're particularly important in close elections, in swing elections. And Arizona and Michigan are two states that could well determine who wins the White House next year. And if they don't have enough money to help their respective presidential candidates, that could potentially have a detrimental effect on the Republican presidential candidates' efforts in those two swing states. And whoever wins the Arizona Senate race could flip the Senate back into Republican control.

So again, it's not just the presidential race, but the Senate seat in Arizona will be front and center next year. Now, the Republican National Committee did not respond to Reuters' requests for comment about the two state parties. The former Arizona Party chair, who stepped down in January, said her team always had revenues to cover outgoings and she'd left her successor at least three months operating expenses. The new chair said cash reserves were extremely low when he took over, but contributions are on the uptick. A water park in Arizona, where kids are keeping cool from the hot sun. The southwestern U.S. has been suffering under an intense heat. dome in recent weeks, and it's not alone. Officials say that Monday was the hottest day recorded on Earth. The US National Centers for Environmental Prediction says average global temperatures

reached 17.01 Celsius, that's 62.62 Fahrenheit. That beats the August 2016 record. Parts of China and India, and even Antarctica currently in its winter, registered unusually. high temperatures. That's all we have for today's edition of Reuters World News. We'll be back tomorrow with our daily news show. To make sure you know what's going on in the world, don't forget to subscribe on your favourite podcast player or download the Reuters app.