Reuters World News - Gaza ceasefire setbacks, America’s most downloaded news app and Kenya’s ‘holy’ mission

Episode Date: June 6, 2024

An Israeli strike on a Gaza school and Hamas leader’s bottom line deliver setbacks to president Joe Biden’s ceasefire proposal. The most downloaded US news app has Chinese roots and ‘writes fiction’ using AI. And the unlikely circle of advisers Kenya’s William Ruto turned to for guidance on his country’s upcoming mission to Haiti. Plus we take you to a beach in Normandy, France as veterans and world leaders gather to mark the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings ushering in the beginning of the end of World War Two. Sign up for the Reuters Econ World newsletter here. Listen to the Reuters Econ World podcast here. 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, a strike on a Gaza school and Hamas' insistence on a definitive end to the war, hamper ceasefire efforts. The evangelical advisers President Ruto turned to as Kenya prepares for a mission in Haiti. One of the most downloaded news apps in America has origins in China and how Reuters reported D-Day in 1944. It's Thursday, June 6th. This is Reuters World News, bringing you everything you need to know from the front of the lines in 10 minutes every weekday. I'm Tara Oaks in Liverpool. Ambulances take away the injured from a Gaza school hit by an Israeli airstrike. Israel says it contained a Hamas compound and fighters involved in the October 7th attack were killed. Israel says there will be no halt

to fighting during ceasefire talks. James McKenzie is our bureau chief for Israel and Palestinian territories. The ceasefires seems to have reached yet again a bit of a dead end. From what we can see, the issue remains essentially the same that Hamas is insisting on an end to the war as a sort of condition for agreeing to the agreement, which would see a return of some of the hostages in stages and an exchange with some Palestinian prisoners. And Israel is just not agreeing to that because they think that's something that can be negotiated subsequently. First of all, the hostages need to come back, and then in the later stage, there can be a negotiation of going into the war.

Russian President Vladimir Putin says Russia could deploy missiles within striking distance of the West. Putin also said the West would be wrong to assume Russia would never use nuclear weapons. At Georgia Court has paused Donald Trump's election interference case. The Georgia Court of Appeals, has put the former president's criminal case on ice while it considers his bid to disqualify the lead prosecutor. Trump is trying to bar Fanny Willis from his case over allegations that her

romantic relationship with the former top deputy is a conflict of interest. Stocks are in buoyant form this morning, particularly chip giant invidia. Karma Grimmons has more. Nvidia has leapfrogged Apple to become the second most valuable company in the world. The chipmaker is now valued at just over $3 trillion, and some investors believe it will eventually overtake Microsoft as the world's biggest company by market cap. That's because Nvidia is making a lot of money on AI right now, and companies like Microsoft are spending a lot on it. In general, there's a big buzz on equity markets. The S&P and NASDAQ closed at record highs on Wednesday on rising expectations that the Fed will cut interest rates in September. The European Central Bank is expected to drop

its rate later today. And if you're interested in all things economic, check out my new weekly podcast, Reuters Econ World. Every week we go deep on the one economic principle driving the news. The latest episode is out and it's focused on currencies and how the dollar affects all our fortunes. You can find it on Reuters.com or wherever you listen to your podcasts. Much has been said about the death of local newspapers in America. Reuters has been reporting on a news app with origins in China that has been trying to fill the void for millions of Americans. Newsbreak is one of the most downloaded apps in the US.

But a review of company documents and court records related to disputes over its content has found 40 instances where the app's use of AI led to erroneous stories. European cybersecurity correspondent James Pearson has been reviewing the documents and speaking to former employees. James, what do we know about Newsbreak? So Newsbreak got its start in 2015 as the US subsubstantiated. of a Chinese app called EDN, which is a news aggregator. So both EDN and Newsbreak were founded by Jeff Jung, who currently serves as Newsbreak's CEO. Newsbreaks now headquartered in California, but it has offices in Beijing and Shanghai, which is where most of the engineering work for the app

takes place. Newsbreak itself says it has about 50 to 60 million monthly users, and the app works by pushing news to the user that's based on their geographic location or their stated interests. I think given so many local news outlets in America have been forced to close in recent years, Newsbreak's kind of filled that gap a bit in the market. What are some of the concerns that are being raised about the app? Well, in order to produce all this news for its users, Newsbreak relies in part on AI tools to scrape other websites for information, which it then summarizes using AI.

We found at least 40 instances in which this practice affected the communities that Newsbreak claims to serve. For example, there is a New Jersey Police Department, which put out a statement in December last year about one of Newsbreak's stories, which had incorrectly said there'd been a Christmas Day shooting in the small town of Bridgeton and New Jersey. The police said Newsbreak's AI quote writes fiction.

They've also been sued by local news outlets for scraping and republishing content without permission and we spoke to two charities who said Newsbreak had published stories about community outreach programs which contained incorrect information leading to confusion for the people who relied upon them. In a statement to Reuters,

Newsbreak said its AI-generated content is marked with a disclaimer linking to terms which say it cannot guarantee the accuracy of AI-generated articles. In the course of reporting this story, the company added a disclaimer to its homepage, warning that it, quote, may not always be error-free.

Additionally, Newsbreak says it removed all five articles about the charities and that those errors arose from incorrect information on some of the charities' websites. James, you've mentioned the China Connection. What else can you tell us about that? Well, EDN, the company from which

the idea from Newsbreak was derived, received praise, in 2017 from the Chinese Communist Party for its efficiency in disseminating government propaganda. But to be clear, we didn't find any evidence that Newsbreaks censors or produces news, which is favourable to the Chinese government. But obviously right now, as we see this increased tension between the US and China and debate over TikTok's influence and hold over American users, there's increased attention to companies which have a large presence in China and also handle large amounts of US user data. And a Republican aide to the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee in the US told us that newsbreak's use of these Chinese-based engineers to handle all

this data did raise concerns. The company said in a statement to Reuters that it was a US business headquartered in California with offices in New York and Washington State and a subsidiary operation in China carrying out research and development. The company's CEO also told Reuters that staff in China can only access anonymous data stored on US servers. A forthcoming deployment of Kenyan police is the latest effort to help Haiti tackle its devastating crisis, fueled by gang wars. In the months leading up to the mission, Kenyan President William Ruto turned to some unusual political councillors, a circle of Christian evangelical pastors close to him and his wife. The pastors have issued recommendations to Ruto and served as a conduit between Heishan communities

and the president. Aaron Ross in Nairobi has more. Kenya's president William Ruto is a devout evangelical Christian himself, and he's closely involved pastors that he and his wife are close to in the preparation of the mission. They've been making contact with different stakeholders in Haiti, churches, civic groups, business people. And these talks have included the gangs themselves, right, including notorious gang leader barbecue. That's right. During the visit to the United States, at some point there was a Zoom call between the pastors and some of the gang leaders, including Barbecue. No one would say exactly what was discussed on the call, but the pastor who led the conversation said he was impressed by some of the arguments barbecue made about why he was fighting the government and what he saw as the illegitimacy of the government in place in Haiti. And this pastor said

he left the conversation hopeful that the conflict could somehow be resolved peacefully. He said to me that this guy might be a devil, but there's something that we can build on. What's Haiti's current relationship with evangelicals? American evangelicals have taken a big interest in Haiti for a few reasons. There's its proximity to the U.S., the scale of the humanitarian problems, particularly after the 2010 earthquake. Most people would tell you that the influence of evangelicals and missionaries in Haiti has been mixed to one degree or another. They've poured a lot of resources into Haiti. On the other hand, there's a good amount of criticism over some ethical scandals that have taken place. There's criticism over the short-term nature of a lot of the

missionary work in Haiti, and also the way that evangelicals have preached in tolerance of of local spiritual traditions like Fodoo. That's almost it for your Thursday episode. But before we go, a shout-out to a Reuters' hero of the past. On to French soil, which the enemy had had four years to fortify and which his group stubbornly depended. 80 years ago, as machine gunfire consumed the landing beach in northern France, Reuters correspondent Dune Campbell struggled to keep the keys of his typewriter

free of the exploding earth. But he needed to write his dispatch, so he tore. a page from an exercise book, lay low and scribbled by hand with the dateline, a ditch, 200 yards inside Normandy. Campbell, born with only half a left arm, was the first war correspondent from an allied nation to set foot on Normandy sand. He was also the youngest. With war raging in Ukraine on Europe's borders, this year's commemoration of a major turning point in World War II will carry Special Resonance. British Royal Navy veteran gunner, Bob Gravels, ferry troops to the beaches. War is a nonsense really, but in this occasion, it was necessary.

We'll be back tomorrow with our daily headline show. To never miss an episode, subscribe on your favourite podcast player or download the Reuters app.