Reuters World News - Iowa evangelicals, SpaceX and music's AI Oasis

Episode Date: April 21, 2023

Why the cheers after SpaceX’s Starship explodes? The answer lies in four minutes of data. Can Donald Trump keep his hold on the evangelical vote? Ryan Reynolds gears up for a fairy-tale ending in Wrexham. Plus, the “lost” Oasis album created by A.I. Help us improve the Reuters World News podcast by taking this short survey. 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

Find out why Elon Musk and NASA cheered after Starship exploded. We're in Iowa this weekend as Donald Trump makes his case to evangelical voters. We rate Ryan Reynolds' chance of a fairy tale ending in Wrexham. Plus, we talk to the artists behind this viral hit. Stop crying your heart out if you can't place it. That was a pun for those in the know. It's Friday, April 21st. This is Reuters World News.

bringing you everything you need to know from the front lines in 10 minutes. I'm Kim Vennel in London. First, the headlines making news around the world. Gunfire continues to ring out in Khatoum, despite one of Sudan's two warring factions declaring a 72-hour truce. The paramilitary rapid support forces announced the ceasefire to coincide with the start of the Muslim holiday of Idal Fiter. Criminal charges against Alec Baldwin have been,

dropped over a fatal on-set shooting. The dramatic twist comes after new evidence emerged on the gun Baldwin was using during the filming of the movie Rust in 2021. In Britain, the deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab has resigned after an investigation into bullying complaints made against him. A big moment when the most powerful rocket ever built achieved liftoff. But SpaceX's starship cruise vessel exploded just four minutes later. What should have been a 90-minute flight into lower Earth orbit broke apart of the Gulf of Mexico. That didn't stop the control room from cheering or Musk tweeting congrats. We got hold of space reporter Joey Roulette to explain why an exploding rocket isn't necessarily a failure. Hi Joey. Hi, how's it going? Very well, thanks.

So there were chairs at SpaceX, even as this rocket exploded. Why is SpaceX still so happy with this? I think the excitement was really just around finally seeing this thing launch for this test mission, which wasn't really ever expected to be fully successful in the first place. And then it blew up, you know, four minutes later. But the four minutes that it was in the air before blowing up gave SpaceX really important test data that will inform its future tests. Okay, so four minutes have done.

from the world's largest and most powerful rocket. How much does that kind of failure cost? Yeah, it's not exactly clear. I asked Elon Musk that actually on Sunday how much money has gone into this particular rocket that they just launched. And he dodged the question. You didn't really answer it. But they've invested probably hundreds of millions of dollars into this program. To date, NASA is investing almost $3 billion into this rocket. It has not all been spent, but they have an interest in this. What was this rocket supposed to do? Yeah, it was supposed to basically reach Hawaii

and splash down about 60 miles off the coast. And if they achieve that, then they probably would have done a few more similar tests and started launching missions and eventually reached this ultimate goal of landing humans on the moon for NASA by around 20, 26 or later. That's probably going to get delayed,

but that's the big milestone right now for Starship. Thanks, Joey. Thanks so much for having me. Republican presidential hopefuls will have a chance to woo evangelicals at an event in Iowa this weekend. Donald Trump has long had the lock on this important voting block. Nathan Lane will be on the ground in Iowa, Nathan. So we know that evangelicals like Trump, but your reporting has found that there may be an opening. How so?

Well, I think at top of mind for a lot of evangelicals is electability. And while, you know, a lot of evangelicals like Trump for what they believe he achieved for them in office, they have serious questions about whether he can actually win in general elections. And there's also some concern about the indictment of the potential indictments coming as well as what transpired on January 6th. Do evangelicals care about Trump's private life? Does he align with Christian values? Yes and no. I mean, in a general sense, at this point where we are in our political landscape and political environment, it doesn't seem to matter that much. I mean, if evangelicals were to vote in line with their values,

I guess Mike Pence, you know, would be at the top of the list. But his support has dipped somewhat, right? You know, exit polling shows that he had 80% of the white evangelical vote in 2016, and that dip to 76% in 2020. So there is, you know, some of the shine is coming off of Trump with respect to evangelicals. Tell us about the event this weekend in Iowa and how significant that will be. Well, it's an event sponsored by a conservative nonprofit group called the Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition. And it's important because it's the first kind of major gathering of evangelicals and the slate of Republican candidates for president. So it's kind of the first cattle call in front of evangelicals. That's notable that Ron DeSantis won't be there. He was invited, but has decided not to participate. And Trump won't be there in person, but he will be participating via video link.

How significant is the evangelical vote? It's incredibly significant. About one third of the U.S. adult population identifies as born again or evangelical Christians. according to a Reuter Zipsis poll. So it's incredibly important for a Republican candidate to cater to that audience. All right, Nathan, thanks so much. That is actually not Oasis. It's the work of a band called Breezer, who released an AI-enhanced version of a song

to sound a lot like the Gallagher brothers. It's called, are you ready? AISIS. AI-generated music is having its moment. A viral AI track based off Drake the weekend was taken off streaming platforms over copyright concerns. But Oasis doesn't seem as fussed. I spoke to Breez's drummer, John Clare, about his big hit. So how did AIS come about? So AIS was, it's songs from a previous project that myself and two fantastic

songwriters called Bobby and Chris have worked on called Breezer. Myself and Bobby, our singer, had discovered there was a YouTube musical Jack Speck who was doing some Liam Gallagher AI experiments and they were sounding pretty amazing

he was doing sort of what if Liam sung Noel songs and stuff and we were like really taken aback by this we're both huge oasis fans and Bobby was like I want to work out how to do this I'm going to find out how to do this

I want to hear what the breezer song sound like with Liam singing them at this point this is purely like just for ourselves to laugh fat. Then we thought, you know what, let's see if the OASIS community on Reddit likes it. Let's put it out there. Let's see, you know, and that's when we just sort of said, hey, why don't we just create this sort of like lost mixtape and alternate reality? And it's gone viral. What do you make of the response? It's just been incredible. Oasis, a very divisive band,

and so is AI at the moment. So, you know, we're really, yeah, we're really putting ourselves out there in the firing line. But I've never actually seen the internet so unanimous about some think it seems to be being praised by everyone, including Liam himself. Yeah, so Liam Gallagher, he thinks it sounds mega. What did you think when you saw his response to the song? I just thought, well, if you think it sounds that kid, mate, why don't you come down and sing it with us? Hello, I'm Amy Tederie.

I'm a sports reporter with Reuters, and we are in the thick of Stanley Cup playoffs, NBA playoffs, but we're not talking about any of that. No, we are talking football. And by football, for my American friends, I mean soccer. Joining me today to unpack all of this is the incomparable Alan Baldwin. Alan, what are you most excited about this weekend? Well, there's some big matches over here. We've got the FAA Cup semi-finals on Saturday and Sunday,

Manchester City playing Sheffield United. We got Manchester United against Brighton in the FA Cup. And then, of course, there's a Premier League fixtures list, which is everything geared really to next week with Manchester City. and Arsenal, the leaders at the moment coming together in what could be a decisive match. But for many viewers, the big match, the big emotional match is actually probably Reksham against Borenwood. Yes, of course.

So my friends here in the U.S. are familiar with Rexam, a team they probably never would have heard of in their lives, were it not for Dead Cool himself, Ryan Reynolds? And they have this now quite successful sort of docu-series. and they've actually kind of made good on their promise to turn this team around. Is that the case? Yeah, they're about to go up, up in the world. Literally, they're going to go back into the football league for the first time since 2008, if all goes well, the match on Saturday, home match in front of their fans,

probably will be the one that sends them up. All right, well, Alan, it's been a pleasure talking with you, as always. Thanks so much. That's it for today. We'll be back with an Earth Day special for the weekend. But before you go, we would love for you to tell us what you think about the show. There's a survey in the pod's description on the Reuters app or on your preferred podcast platform.