Reuters World News - Palestinian PM upheaval, Republicans’ IVF scramble, return of Congress and soaring airfares

Episode Date: February 26, 2024

Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh resigns. The Alabama ‘embryos are children’ ruling puts Republicans on the defensive. Congress reconvenes this week in the face of a looming shutdown, a tussle over military aid and an impeachment. And summer air fare prices are taking off. 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, the Palestinian Prime Minister resigns amid US calls for reform. Congress lurches into a new week of political chaos. Alabama's embryo ruling has Republicans on the defensive. And if you're taking to the skies for your summer vacation, be prepared. That flight is going to cost you. It's Monday, February 26th. This is Reuters World News, bringing you everything you need to know from the front lines in 10 minutes. Every weekday. I'm Kim Vinal in London.

Palestinian President Mahmouda Bass is overhauling his government. Prime Minister Mohamed Shataya is resigning and will likely be replaced by Muhammad Mustafa, the chairman of the board of the Palestinian Investment Fund. But what difference, if any, will the changes make on the ground in Gaza? James McKenzie is Reuters Bureau Chief for Israel and the Palestinian Territories. This looks like being part of the broader overhaul of the Palestinian Authority, which is being pushed by different sort of forces. On the one hand, we have the Americans and the international community in general pushing for the Palestinian Authority to be revitalized. And this is part of that, I think. There's also been a lot of internal Palestinian pressure to come up with some kind of new arrangement to look after the situation.

in Gaza after the war because Israel has sort of said it's going to destroy Hamas, the Islamist movement that runs Gaza at the moment. In itself, it doesn't really change very much. The Palestinian Prime Minister doesn't have very much actual power. The Palestinian Authority itself doesn't have very much actual power. But it's a sort of sign of the things that are happening. Would this sort of revitalized Palestinian authority be palatable to the Israelis, especially if Hamas supports it? Well, yes, that's a good question. There's no sign of that at all. The Israelis themselves have said that they don't want the Palestinian Authority as it currently stands to be involved in running Gaza after the war.

They've been looking for what they see is figures in Palestinian civil society who could help administer the enclave after the war. And then I got indicted a second time and a third time and a fourth time. and a lot of people said that that's why the black people like because they have been hurt so badly and discriminated against. Donald Trump comparing his criminal indictments with the discrimination faced by black Americans. His comments at a black conservative gala dinner drew sharp rebukes over the weekend from civil rights activists.

After winning South Carolina's Republican primary on Saturday, Trump is firmly on track to secure the party's nomination. The Supreme Court will hear arguments for two cases on Monday that could reshape free speech rights in the digital age. The cases center on laws in Florida and Texas that restricts big tech's ability to curb content on their platforms. Tech firms argue those laws violate their First Amendment rights. Russia will try a new offensive against Ukraine as early as May. according to Ukrainian president, Vladimir Zelensky. Zelensky said on Sunday that 31,000 Ukrainian soldiers had been killed since Russia's invasion two years ago.

He declined to disclose the number of wounded or missing. Hungary is expected to ratify Sweden's accession to NATO on Monday. The parliamentary vote paves the way for the Nordic country to join the military alliance. Reproductive rights was already going to be a huge issue in the 20th. 2024 presidential race up and down the ballot. But the controversial ruling out of Alabama that says embryos are children has only supercharged the issue. On Friday, Donald Trump issued a statement in support of in vitro fertilization, which shows

what a liability the topic is for Republicans. Joseph Axe covers U.S. politics. It's forcing a lot of Republicans to kind of immediately distance themselves from the decision. A lot of them have come out and kind of made sure to affirmatively voice their support for in vitro fertilization from other fertility treatments. But I think the problem for Republicans is that this decision, again, kind of highlights for voters what the potential consequences can be of some of these conservative positions on reproductive rights. And so you can be sure, I mean, we've already seen Democrats jumping on this decision to kind of try to tie it together with abortions. to make the argument that Republicans are too extreme for the American people. And, you know, we've seen Republicans in the last couple of days really scrambling to figure out

how to address that. The campaign arm for Senate candidates for the Republican Party, the National Party, sent out a memo to its candidates with talking points, encouraging them to signal their support for IVF and to make sure that they're not being tied to this decision. But again, the kind of the speed of what you're seeing these responses just shows you how much Republicans are playing defense. Beyond the presidential race, Congress reconvenes this week. With both chambers tussling over military aid, a looming government shutdown and an impeachment, or could possibly go wrong? David Morgan covers Congress.

So, David, here we are again, another shutdown hovering over our heads. What's the deal? Well, the deal is that when the Senate returns on Monday, Congress will have only five days to try to pass funding measures to a shutdown which would begin on Saturday. Current funding for about 30 percent of the discretionary budget is set to expire at midnight on Friday. Why is this going down to the wire once again? It's down to the wire because Republicans, especially in the House of the House of the Wall, of representatives have been bitterly divided over spending levels and over policy. There is an effort underway at the moment by hardline Republicans to impose policy writers on Democrats

that would restrict access to abortion, defund efforts to diversify the federal government, and that would also promote the rights of gun owners. And at the same time, the White House is trying to put pressure on Republicans to pass military aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, a bill that also includes provisions for U.S. security. Is there any movement there? It's very hard to know. I mean, the House Republicans are grasping for a way forward because they have demanded that aid to Ukraine, for example, needs to be paired with border security provisions that they favor, but Democrats don't. So that's a

block of progress. There's been some speculation that they could split up aid for other countries, such as Israel and Taiwan. But Donald Trump, who is very influential now in this election year, is in the background saying that he wants any USA to be extended. in the form of loans. How will the impeachment of Homeland Security Chief, Alejandro Mayorkas, complicate all this? It seems that there is no agreement and therefore no date on which the impeachment articles that the House passed last week will be delivered to the Senate.

And so without that delivery of the charges, so to speak, the Senate cannot begin a trial. It's a Monday in February. So surely you're dreaming of your summer getaway, right? But if you're planning to fly, be prepared. Prices are taking off and is set to keep climbing. Joanna Plotinska has been digging into the numbers for us. Joanna, what's happening?

So what we're seeing is that people are desperate to travel, but there aren't enough planes to fly everyone. And the cost of flying is also going up. Labor is becoming more expensive. and jet fuel is also becoming more expensive. How are customers reacting? I think, in short, customers are absolutely willing to suck up the higher prices. There is a sense that even though there's high inflation, as long as people are employed,

they are willing to spend on travel as a priority. They're willing to put it on their credit cards, to take on debt much more so than in the past. So how much are prices likely to rise? Some airline executives have said that they expect them to go up in the single high digits or the low double digits. So what we're hearing is anywhere between 7 to 12 percent, but it could be anywhere within that range. So it's not a massive jump in prices, but it's quite substantial. That's it for today's episode of Reuters World News. We'll be back tomorrow with our daily headline show.

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