Reuters World News - Israel’s Syria strikes, UnitedHealth suspect’s extradition and TikTok

Episode Date: December 11, 2024

The Israeli military says its air strikes have destroyed the bulk of Syria’s strategic weapons stockpiles. Luigi Mangione, the suspect in the murder of UnitedHealth executive Brian Thompson, plans to fight extradition to New York. And we look at TikTok’s future after a federal appeals court upholds a U.S. law requiring Chinese-owned ByteDance to spin off the social media app.  Sign up for the Reuters Econ World newsletter here. Listen to the Reuters Econ World podcast here. Find the Recommended Read 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, an angry outburst from a United Health shooting suspect who will oppose extradition to New York. Israel says it's destroyed most of Syria's strategic weapons stockpiles, and TikTok prepares to ask the Supreme Court to block a law that could ban the platform in the US. It's Wednesday, December 11th. This is Royce's World News, bringing you everything you need to know from the front lines in 10 minutes every weekday. I'm Tara Oaks in Liverpool. Luigi Mangone, yelling to reporters as he's led into the county courthouse in Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania. The 26-year-old is accused of gunning down United Health Executive Brian Thompson in Manhattan last week.

His defense lawyer says Mangone intends to fight his extradition to New York to face murder charges. Julio Cesar Chavez was in the courtroom and explains what's next. They are planning to fight the extradition. Tom Dickey, Mangione's attorney, said in court that the defense is working to make sure that the states and the prosecutors go through every step of the legal process needed in order for Mangioni to be extradited from Pennsylvania over to the state of New York. If you're an American, you believe in an American criminal justice system, you have to resume him to be innocent.

And none of us would want anything other than that. Manjone and his attorney are planning to plead not guilty to the Blair County charges, which is what he was arrested for, including fraud, because of what police are alleging are falsified identification documents. The second trial is the one that prosecutors in New York are requesting that be started, the murder trial in the state of New York. Another point of contention inside the courtroom was, whether or not Manjone would be allowed bail when it comes to the extradition case.

Tom Dickie said that because the charges don't rise to the level of life without parole in Pennsylvania, he should be allowed bail. Since the crime, at least what was set forth by the district attorney, was alleged to be a second-degree murder. That's not life without parole. So I believe that bail should have been set. But the argument that won out before the judge was from, Blair County District Attorney Peter Weeks,

who said that no matter how high bail might be, Manjoni would still be a danger to society if he had the chance to be released. Israel's Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, saying he has no intention of intervening in Syria's internal affairs, but will take every step to ensure Israeli security. It's been a busy 48 hours for him, splitting his time between the courtroom where he testified for the first time in his corruption trial

and the war room from which the Israeli military has made more than 350 strikes on Syrian military targets since the weekend collapse of the Assad dynasty. Here to unpack Israel's positioning for us is Bureau Chief James McKenzie. Well, Israel has generally been very pleased by the fall of Assad, obviously. He was a major ally of their main enemy, Iran. I think they're very cautious about the new regime, for want of a better word, in Damascus. They're very well aware of their origins in the radical Islamist world, are the connections with al-Qaeda and Islamic State,

even though in the period since their creation, they've moved distinctly away from that, and they're presenting themselves a much more moderate force. I think the Israelis aren't entirely convinced of that. So what have they been doing in the past 48 to 72 hours? They've basically destroyed as much of the infrastructure of the Syrian military as they could. They've conducted hundreds of air strikes. They've destroyed planes on the ground, tanks, ships, pretty much everything you can think of,

to prevent it getting into hands of earning a regime, which they're still seeing as a sort of jihadist power. A US judge has blocked a $25 billion. merger of U.S. grocery store giants, Kroger and Albertsons. The Federal Trade Commission argued in court that the merger would eliminate competition, leading to higher prices for shoppers and hurt unionized workers. South Korean police have raided President Yun Suk Yol's office. It's a dramatic escalation of the probe over the surprise martial law declaration

that plunged Asia's fourth largest economy into a constitutional crisis. Officials say the defence minister at the time, the close confidant of Yun, also tried to take his own life while being held at a detention centre. He's now reportedly under observation and his life is not currently in danger. A federal congressman was assassinated late on Monday in Mexico's Gulf Coast state of Veracruz is the latest killing in an outbreak of political violence in the country. Boeing is restarting production of its best-selling 737 months. max jetliner. The move comes about a month after the end of a seven-week strike by tens of thousands

of factory workers and is seen as essential to Boeing's financial recovery. Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orbán has met with Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk at Mara Lago. The Prime Minister announced a visit on the social media platform X. An intense wildfire is burning northwest of Los Angeles, forcing some residents in Malibu to evacuate. as it knocked out power and closed roads. A US bankruptcy judge has stopped the parody news site The Onion from buying conspiracy theorist Alex Jones' InfoWars website, ruling that a bankruptcy auction did not result in the best possible bids.

Investors are gearing up for inflation data out today that will determine whether the Fed will cut or hold rates next week. Kamil Grimmons is in New York for the Royce's next summer and has been gauging the mood among Wall Street executives on the great. ground. So financiers at the summit were positive about the prospects for the U.S. economy under President-elect Donald Trump. We had the CEO of Goldman Sachs, David Solomon, saying he was quite optimistic that the next administration would be very, very pro-growth. His words. On the European side, Ferrari's CEO, Benedito Vigna, is taking the threat of tariffs in his

stride. He says the brand will never make cars in the U.S. Maranello, Ferrari's home base in Italy is where they make their cars, period. And Reuters Next continues today with a host of speakers, including Spain's foreign minister, the president of the New York Stock Exchange, and the CEOs of BNY and Lazard. Now that federal appeals court has upheld a U.S. law of requiring Chinese-owned bite dance to spin off TikTok, the fate of the social media site, which boasts 170 million U.S. users, is up in the air. Here to walk us through what might be ahead is Mike's Garcella. He's one of our legal reporters based in D.C. Things are going to probably move fairly quickly here.

TikTok asked the court months ago, hey, let's get this order out by December 6th because that will allow us to go to the U.S. Supreme Court to ask for what's called emergency relief. So now that the appeals court has ruled, big blockbuster order last week, TikTok wants to go to the Supreme Court to do exactly what it said it would do.

And you only do that, of course, if you are on the losing side. But there's a quick step before that. ByteDance, which is the China-based owner of TikTok, has asked the D.C. Circuit to put its order on hold, recognizing it has to get to the Supreme Court really quickly. And that's because the law goes into effect on January 19th, one day before the inauguration. So on January 19th, absent any relief by the D.C. Circuit or more likely the Supreme Court, bite dance, if it hasn't divested TikTok its asset, there will be no more TikTok in the United States. the highest court in the land do now? The Supreme Court will be the court of last resort in this case. Byte Dance and TikTok had hired one of the

country's most prominent veteran appellate lawyers, Noel Francisco. And it's notable because Noel Francisco formerly was the Senate-confirmed solicitor general during the first Trump administration. So clearly,

I mean, you could infer that that ByteDance and TikTok have brought on a veteran lawyer who knows the Supreme Court, but also who simultaneously knows the Trump administration. The justices are going to be asked likely to issue what's called an administrative stay, an emergency stay, essentially to pause the lower court's order while the court debates whether to take up a fuller, more robust appeal. They also could try to resolve the case on the merits by January 19th. And for today's recommended read, we look at whether a U.S. missile defense system,

shield can protect its specific stronghold of Guam from a Chinese onslaught. The technical challenges are considerable and people on the island are worried that missile defences could make their home more of a target. There's a link to the story in today's pod description. For more on any of the stories from today, check out Rootus.com or the Reuters app. Don't forget to follow us to never miss an episode on your favourite podcast player. We'll be back tomorrow with our daily headline show.