Reuters World News - Hamas' counteroffer, GOP border battles, Trump and Prince William's duties

Episode Date: February 7, 2024

Hamas has proposed a ceasefire plan that would halt fighting in Gaza for four-and-a-half months. Donald Trump has moved closer to an unprecedented criminal trial after a federal appeals court rejected his immunity claim. Prince William is expected to help carry out public duties while King Charles is being treated for cancer. Boeing is facing even more regulatory scrutiny after it emerged a door panel that flew off mid-flight appeared to be missing four key bolts. Plus, Haley’s defeat in Nevada and the bitter fight over US border legislation.  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, Anthony Blinken discusses Hamas's ceasefire proposal with Israeli leaders. A fight over the border consumes Congress and leaves aid for Ukraine in limbo. Donald Trump's legal setback. And what King Charles's cancer diagnosis means for William and Harry. It's Wednesday, February 7th. This is Royce's World News, bringing you everything you need to know from the front lines in 10 minutes. Every weekday.

I'm Kim Vennel in Wanganui, New Zealand. Hamas has proposed a ceasefire plan that would halt fighting in Gaza for four and a half months and allow for talks to end the war. The offer from the militant group is in response to last week's ceasefire proposal from Qatari and Egyptian mediators.

According to a draft document seen by Reuters, the Hamas counter-proposal would see the exchange of Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners and the complete withdrawal of Israeli forces. An end to the war would have to be agreed before the final hostages were freed. It's not clear how Israel will respond. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

has previously said he will not pull troops out of Gaza until Israel has achieved total victory. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken is in Israel today to discuss next step. There's still a lot of work to be done, but we continue to believe that an agreement is possible and indeed essential. A battle over the border is consuming Congress. The yeas are 214 and the nays are 216. The resolution is not adopted.

House Republicans failed in their effort to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Miorchus. Four Republicans joined Democrats in opposing the charges. Meanwhile, in the Senate, Republicans appeared to have killed a bipartisan border deal. The measure was an effort to solve the very border security problems that they wanted Mayorkas to stop. And it leaves other major issues, including U.S. military aid for Ukraine and Israel, in limbo. Donald Trump has been pushing congressional Republicans to reject the bill. On Tuesday, President Joe Biden accused them of abandoning their own goals. So Republicans have to decide who do they serve?

Donald Trump, with the American people. Later, a Republican-led bill to send aid only to Israel also failed. Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley has suffered defeat in Nevada's primary. She was outvoted by a none of these candidates option on the ballot. Trump didn't compete in Tuesday's primary, which carries no weight in the Republican presidential nominating. contest, but he did suffer a major setback. A federal appeals court rejected the former president's claim that he has immunity from charges he plotted to overturn his 2020 defeat. This brings him one step closer to an unprecedented criminal trial. Andrew Gardswood is a legal reporter.

Andrew, why did the court not buy Trump's immunity argument? So a three-judge panel of the court found that essentially would put Trump above the law to give him this sort of blanket immunity from prosecution. It's generally established that presidents can't be indicted while they're in office. But the court found that giving this sort of immunity even after leaving office would make a president different than any other American citizen. And sort of the idea under the law is that when a president leaves office, they become a common citizen just like anybody else and are then subject to the law. So what happens now? So now Trump can appeal, and he has a couple different options to appeal. He could ask the full D.C. Circuit, so it was a three-judge panel that made the ruling. He could ask all 11 active judges on the court to reevaluate that ruling. The thing is, is the case right now is paused. But if Trump were to ask the full D.C. Circuit to weigh in, that pause goes away. And so in theory that the case could move toward trial even while the judges are considering whether or not to review this decision. The other

more likely option is that Trump goes to the U.S. Supreme Court, and the court could either decide not to take the case, in which case it will go back to the trial court and we'll have a trial fairly soon, or if the Supreme Court does decide to take the case, we're likely to have several more weeks or months of delay, and there'll be considerable uncertainty about whether or not the trial can take place before the 2024 election. And if he were to win the 2024 presidential election? It's very likely to go away. You could either seek to pardon himself or, you can either seek to pardon himself or just ask his Justice Department to drop the charges. Chile's president, Gabriel Borich,

announcing the death of former President Sebastian Panera. Panero was killed in a helicopter accident on Tuesday. A Michigan jury has convicted the mother of a school shooter of manslaughter. Jennifer Crumley's son, Ethan, was 15 when he shot and killed four classmates at a high school near Detroit in 2021. Prosecutors argued she bore responsibility because she and her husband gave their son a gun and ignored warning signs of violence.

Her husband faces his own trial in March. Two blasts near candidate's offices have killed at least two dozen people in Pakistan on the eve of the general election. It was not immediately clear who was behind the attacks in the southwestern province of Balochistan. Investigators have found that the door panel, which flew off a Boeing jet mid-flight last month, appeared to be missing four key bolts.

It's the first official look into how the frightening mishap took shape. The head of the Federal Aviation Administration, Mike Whitaker, told lawmakers the FAA would put more boots on the ground to scrutinize Boeing's production. The events of January 5th, it really created two issues for us. one, what's wrong with this airplane, but two, what's going on with the production at Boeing? Transportation reporter David Shepidson was at that hearing. David, first off, what did we learn from the review by the National Transportation Safety Board or the NTSB? Assuming what the NTSB has discovered that these bolts are missing, it's a pretty shocking revelation, right?

because one, that these bolts were taken out at the factory and not reinstalled, and the paperwork has not yet been located or turned over the NTSB that's supposed to document every step of the process, right? Who approved removing the bolts? Who signed off that they will put back in? Building an airplane, which has about 500,000 parts, is a very complex process, but requires pretty detailed paperwork. Boeing has said it implemented a control plan to ensure all 737 Max 9 mid-exit door plugs are installed

according to specification. What about Boeing's customers? If the airlines are not happy with them, where can they go? We basically have in the world a duopoly, right? There's Airbus and Boeing, right? So yes, airlines are annoyed. We've seen some airlines talk about, well, maybe we'll try to move some of those orders to Airbus, but it can take years to get in line. there. And in this environment, there's really no real alternative to Boeing and Airbus. So airlines don't like it, but they don't really have a lot of good options if they want airplanes in a timely fashion. In Britain, King Charles's cancer diagnosis has stirred up questions about what this all means for his family, specifically William and Harry. Mike Holden is in London.

Mike, Charles has been advised to postpone public engagements while he gets treatment, but the pool of working senior royals who can step in for him is shrunk, right? Charles's idea was always that the royal family would be slimmed down, and it would be essentially based around his family, so his eldest son, Prince William, his wife, Kate, and then his younger son, Prince Harry, and his wife, Megan. Of course, Harry and Megan have since stepped away from Royal duties, and now live in America. His younger brother, Prince Andrew, who also used to carry out

royal duties, he stepped down from those because of his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, the convicted sex offender. And it's basically left them a little bit short of numbers. And to add to their difficulties, Kate has recently herself been in hospital to have surgery, abdominal surgery, and she's not going to be able to carry out any royal duties until after Easter. What happens if Charles becomes really ill with this cancer? If Charles is unable to basically do some sort of ordinary day-to-day jobs, he can appoint what's known as councillors of state. That's made up of his wife, Queen Camilla, and six of the other senior rules, such as

his sister, Princess Anne, another younger brother, Prince Edward, Prince William, and they can step in and do basic roles for him. If he was to be incapacitated, Prince William could take over as regent. Now, that basically means he would do all the jobs that a king would do. but he would not actually have the title of King. And that can be a temporary matter, or it could be on a much longer term basis if necessary. Prince Harry is back in the UK.

Does that mean a reconciliation is on the cut? A raw source has told me that Harry and William are not planning on seeing each other during this trip. So there's going to be no reproshment between the two brothers as it stands. Of course, Harry is here to see his father, so there will be hopes that the two of them can put some of the bad feeling behind them,

and this perhaps will bring them back closer together as they used to be. That's it for today's episode of Reuters World News. We'll be back tomorrow with our daily headline show. To make sure you know what's going on in the world, listen in for 10 minutes every weekday. Don't forget to subscribe on your favourite podcast player or download the Reuters app.