Reuters World News - Outside the Manhattan courthouse for Trump’s surrender

Episode Date: March 31, 2023

Donald Trump is criminally indicted – a first for the United States. We are in New York ahead of the former president’s expected surrender. Plenty of legal action across the pond too, will the Daily Mail publisher defeat Prince Harry and Elton John in court? Weight loss drugs – a Hollywood fad no longer? Plus new rules for baseball and a fake French video. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today, for the first time in American history, a former president has been criminally indicted. We're on the ground at the Manhattan Courthouse, ahead of Donald Trump's expected surrender to authorities, and across the United States for all the latest legal developments and the political fallout. As we head into the weekend, we'll also go behind the scenes of the most talked about headlines this week, including the global debate raging over weight-loss drugs. Britain's celebrity court case against the Daily Mail, a fake French video, and new rules for baseball's opening day. It's Friday, March 31st. This is Reuters World News, bringing you everything you need to know from the front lines in 10 minutes. I'm Kim Vinal in London. But first, Donald Trump

is indicted by a grand jury probing hush payments to Pornstar Stormy Daniels in the run-up to his 2016 election. The 45th president of the United States is the first to face criminal charges, even as he makes another run for the White House. The felony indictment remains under seal, but some media outlets are reporting it contains more than two dozen counts. Trump learned of the charges at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, where some have already gathered outside to show their support. Trump says he's completely innocent, accusing Manhattan prosecutor Alvin Bragg, a Democrat, of trying to try to, to hurt his re-election race against Joe Biden. Trump's also appealing for money for his legal defense. He's already raised $2 million since he first told supporters he was about to be arrested. Bragg's office says he's in contact with Trump's lawyer to coordinate his surrender.

The former president must fly to New York to be booked and fingerprinted. The action will center on the Manhattan Courthouse just a few blocks from the Brooklyn Bridge. There, the world's media is waiting for Trump to surrender. and do a so-called perp walk. Breaking news reporter Tyler Clifford ran downtown as soon as the news broke and filed this. I'm currently in front of the Manhattan County Courthouse here in New York, where former President Donald Trump has been indicted. As news spreads about the indictment that was just handed down,

you know, the news starting to get around to different residents out here in New York. I saw one woman walk by. She was on the home. She said, oh, so this is where the perp walks are going to have. People are starting to get their variance and understanding what's happening and see this unprecedented moment fold out right before eyes. I do see a lot of media lined up along the streets on the sidewalks, got the cameras pointed directly towards the courthouse,

waiting for any sign of Alvin Braggs or whomever else might come out in the building. As of right now, we're not quite sure exactly how this is going to unfold, but we do have Reuters reporters like myself out here in front of the courthouse. In Manhattan, this is Tyler Clifford for Reuters. You can follow all of the latest developments at Reuters.com or on the Reuters app. London has also had plenty of high-profile court action this week. Prince Harry and Elton John are suing the owners of the Daily Mail over allegations of hacking. Michael Holden's been following the case in the High Court for us.

So Michael, what's it been like? It's been a slightly surreal week because we've had Prince Harry sitting about six feet away from me for a couple of the days hearing. We've also had Elton John make an appearance. His husband, David Furnish, has been here quite a few days. We've had lots of people, members of the public coming in, who wouldn't normally come to the High Court, wandering up to have a listen. I saw a couple of looked like tourists

who'd come in Ireland with Lego bags at one stage, sitting down to have a little listen and then realising it was an incredibly boring legal argument and tutling off as fast as they could. So speaking of dry legal stuff, try and bring this to life for us. Is this just about celebrities wanting to protect privacy? This is part of a very long-running saga

and to do with phone hacking, it started in 2005, and it's brought in many British newspapers. But as yet, the Daily Mail on Sunday, these are the two papers that Prince Harry and Elton John and the others are suing. They've been immune to it. They said they weren't involved in this at all. Just remind us of some of the allegations here. Well, there's some pretty serious ones.

They're talking about the hacking of the voicemail messages that they've been left by friends, family of people very close to them, and then actual physical bugging of their cars, their homes, people breaking into their homes, people lagging, pretending to be them or people close to them in order to obtain private medical records and things like that. Could this go to criminal charges? I think that's probably unlikely. Never say never, we have had criminal charges.

We've had the former editor of the News of the World, one of Rupert Murdoch's newspapers. He was found guilty and went to prison. That was back in 2014. This is much more about reputation of the newspaper itself, the daily mail mail or something. Huge newspapers, huge online presence, not just in Britain, but in the United States. What it could do is have huge financial implications for them.

This case could cost them a lot of money and also other people could come forward with similar claims, which could run into tens of millions of pounds. All right. Thank you so much. Weight loss drugs could soon be much more than a Hollywood fad. The World Health Organization is considering classifying these drugs as essential medicine. That would give governments around the world access to cheaper medicine

in the global fight against obesity. Global health editor Michelle Gershberg in New York has been covering the story. Michelle, let's start with how the drugs actually work. Does taking them just make you less hungry? It does. So it basically interferes or changes the signaling to the brain. And it also slows down the rate at which your stomach empties of food. So you feel full or longer.

And people who take Ozempic or the version of it that's proved for weight loss called Wagovi, say, you know, they are eating a much smaller amount of food than normal because they feel full. What are the conversations happening right now around, you know, using this drug to lose weight? Is it bypassing the natural order of things? So there's no question that the introduction of drugs like Wagovi are completely changing the conversation around obesity and weight loss. And there are absolutely doctors and other parties who will say this shouldn't be considered a quick fix. And that dealing with obesity, it's a complex condition. it affects different people differently.

So we can't think of this as a one-size-fit-all solution. On the other hand, there is powerful testimony, you know, from patients and doctors that when they use a treatment like Wagovi, their relationship to food changes in a significant way. And that that helps explain something that's been going on, that the idea that we've held so closely for so long that it's a failure of the individual to control their eating health. habits is an incorrect notion. All right, Michelle, thank you so much. There's been no shortage of dramatic footage coming out of pension protests in France. And while the clip you're hearing right now is real, some you've seen floating around the internet are not.

Nick Harding's joins me in London to talk about his work debunking one of those videos. So the video that we're talking about shows French police throwing their hat and cuffs on the floor in a protest. that took place in 2020, but people have been claiming that this protest took place in 2023 during the current demonstrations against President Macron. And what they're suggesting is that the French police are joining in with protesters, laying down their handcuffs, and choosing not to arrest them anymore.

We debunk this because by our team recognising the video from a previous claim that we'd address back in September 2020, Back then, people were falsely claiming that police were throwing the handcuffs on the floor to protest COVID dictatorship. So seeing old footage resurfacing for contemporary events is really common in the fact-checking and misinformation world. So it's one of the easier misinformation traps to fall into. And quite often it's not done for any nefarious reason, but it can still pose real world dangers. Nick Hardings, thank you. The weekend is upon us.

but for our American friends, it started early with the beginning of baseball season. Our resident sports watcher Amy Tennery was at Yankee Stadium in the Bronx for opening day. I know a lot of us haven't put away our winter coats yet, but Major League Baseball is underway, and we have some of the biggest changes that the sport has seen since it was invented in the 1800s. They've introduced a pitch clock to speed up getting batters in the box and getting pitchers to throw the ball.

They've made the bases a little bit bigger. They've eliminated what's called infield shift. Under this new rule, you've got to have a player on either side of second base that'll create more hits, higher batting averages, and the commissioner hopes more exciting game. The buzz here at Yankee Stadium is the return of Aaron Judge. After producing an AL record 62 home runs in a single season, all the fans here are hoping that he can do it again.

They'd like to make it all the way to the World Series. That team that stopped their path was none other than the Houston. and Astros. They won the World Series last year and they are the favorites to do it again. So I think we're up for a pretty exciting season. From Yankee Stadium, I'm Amy Tennery for Reuters. And that's it for Reuters World News. We'll be back on Monday. Don't forget to subscribe or follow us on your favorite podcast app. In the meantime, you can find more trusted news at at Reuters.com.