Reuters World News - Prepare for reruns – Hollywood poised to go on strike

Episode Date: May 1, 2023

Negotiations are down to the wire over a writers' strike in Hollywood, as studios – and the California economy - brace for the worst. How a fake ID let Hyundai suppliers use child labor in Alabama. JPMorgan just got bigger. The biggest U.S. lender acquires failed bank First Republic. And we go to a naked dinner party in Brooklyn, because why not. 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, Hollywood braces for a possible writers' strike that could bring Tinseltown to a halt. And a new report examines how major corporations are getting away with hiring kids to do dangerous factory work. The issue of child labor in the United States is widespread and increasing. Plus, we head to Brooklyn for a very stripped-down food experience. So people are getting naked. It's Monday May 1st. 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.

First, the headlines. Right now, we have zero leaves. A man hunt is underway for the man suspected of fatally shooting his five neighbors in Cleveland, Texas. So again, we're asking everyone for your help. So we can bring this suspect or this monster, I will call him, to, justice. Francisco Oropesa allegedly opened fire on his neighbors after they asked him to stop firing rounds in his yard because it was keeping a baby awake. The victims include an eight-year-old boy. Ukrainian air defenses repelled 15 out of 18 Russian missiles in an overnight attack.

Both sides are ramping up attacks in advance of a long-awaited counter-offensive by Kyiv. Over the weekend, a Ukrainian drone strike hit a fuel storage facility in Russian-occupied Crimea. Residents stranded in Sudan's capital, Khatoum, abracing for more bloodshed Monday, after rival military forces accused each other of violating a ceasefire. Hundreds of people have been killed and thousands wounded since a power struggle between two rival generals erupted into conflict last month. It's back to school for Jack Mark. China's best-known businessman is joining Tokyo College as a visiting professor from today.

It's the first public move by the Alibaba founder since he disappeared from view after Beijing's crackdown on big tech. It's time now for markets with Carmel Crimmons. Hey, Kamel. Hey Kim. So we've got some news on First Republic. What's happening? We do. So regulators have actually seized the bank and it's being sold to JPMorgan after rescue efforts failed. So this is the third major US bank failure in two months. What's happening is J.P. Morgan is going to take over the assets and the deposits of the bank, including, crucially, the uninsured deposits. So taking the uninsured deposits, that's a big deal.

It is, and it will go a long way towards allaying concerns in the market, because uninsured deposits actually constituted a big part of First Republic's balance sheet. Interesting here is also that it's JP Morgan that's swooping in. this is already the biggest bank in America and it already has over 10% of the nation's deposits. Under federal law, a bank of that size wouldn't normally be allowed to take over another lender. So clearly special dispensation has been given to JPMorgan in this instance. What else is going on this week? We've a lot happening. We've got interest rate decisions from both the Fed and the ECB.

Investors are expecting both those banks to raise rates by another quarter percentage point. The question for the Fed is, is it going to be done? here or will there be further tightening ahead? And so investors will be looking to see what the tone of the Fed's statement is going to be. Carmel, thanks so much. Thanks, Kim. New reporting from Reuters finds a Hyundai plant in Alabama used underage labor. And it's part of a problem that spans multiple industries, often involving migrant children. Our immigration reporter, Micah Rosenberg, is here to explain. Hey, Micah. Hey, Mike. Thanks for having me. So what happened at this plant?

Well, we first started reporting on the issue of child labor in the U.S. back in 2021 and ended up publishing stories last year about kids working in dangerous chicken processing plants and some as young as 12 that were working making car parts in the Hyundai supply chain. And so we had one major question over the course of this reporting, which is how are major companies getting away, with hiring kids in these potentially dangerous factory jobs. And it starts with a convoluted network of staffing firms that we found were recycling fake identity documents. And so we traced one ID that was used by a 16-year-old from Mexico at a logistics unit for Hyundai in Montgomery, Alabama. And the ID said that he was a 34-year-old man from Tennessee.

How does something like this happen? What happens is that, like in this case, the workers can be filtered through many different layers of staffing firms and subcontractors and recruitment agencies. So the workers are actually on a payroll that might not be the direct company where they end up laboring. And this can insulate the main company from responsibility. Hyundai said it's since audited suppliers and strongly discouraged the U.S. use of third-party labor recruiters. But what are the authorities doing about this?

So after our reporting brought attention to this issue specifically in the Hyundai supply chain, state and federal investigations ramped up, and those investigations are ongoing. And lawmakers are now getting more involved. And several bills, both in the House and the Senate, have been introduced to increase not only penalties on violators, but in one case, even bar repeated and egregious violators from some government contracts. Micah, thank you. Thank you. Now to Williamsburg, Brooklyn, where 29-year-old Charlie Ann Max

is explaining the menu for her dinner party to our reporter. This is a sweet potato curry. So I'll add some spinach. There's all these yummy, yummy spices in them. I should mention that Max is completely naked, as are all the guests. They're here to take part in the food breathwork experience. Food spelled like nude. Everyone is seated in a circle on the floor,

their eyes closed, to practice some guided breathwork and other cathartic exercises. After the breathing and the screaming, it's time to eat. Over plates of curry, rice and salads, guests tell us they feel lighter and unburdened. I came here because I wanted to be more in tune with my body. Out of nowhere, I realized that I was working through a fear that I didn't know I had. It's nice to be in a space that's not sexual, naked.

There's so much pressure out there on the street, the way you dress, the way you look, but there is no pressure in the street. Max is hosting four other sister events in L.A. and New York that focus on pottery and photography, but of course, all nude. Some of Hollywood's finest may finders may find they have time on their hands this week for naked pottery. Negotiations to try and avert a writer's strike are going down to the wire. The Writers Guild of America could call a work stoppage as early as Tuesday if it can't reach a deal with companies like Disney and Netflix. For more on this, we're joined by Lisa Richwine, who's in Hollywood Hills. Hi, Lisa.

Hi. So why are the writers threatening to strike? What's the issue here? Well, the film and TV writers feel like that they are not adequately paid, that they've been undervalued and that companies are making a lot of money on streaming, especially, and that their pay has not kept up

with the changes from streaming. The streaming TV seasons are shorter, so they don't have as many episodes, which declines their pay. And so a lot of them say they basically can't put together enough gigs during the year to make a decent salary and an expensive city like Los Angeles.

How are the studios preparing for this? Nobody wanted to start new productions and then have to do disrupt them in the middle. So a lot of productions have shut down. The studios have been stockpiling scripts that they can use during the strike. They also pushed up deadlines to try to hurry up and get things, you know, written and filmed quicker than they might have otherwise. Just practically, what happens once they strike? How is a TV viewer, like, say me, affected? There's expected to be a broad shutdown that the actors and directors aren't going to want to cross

the picket lines. As far as TV viewers, the first thing they will notice is late-night shows will be impacted. The late-night shows have teams of writers that work every day, making jokes based on the day's news, very topical, so you can't write that in advance. So the late-night shows will likely go into reruns immediately. And then longer term, depending on how long the strike goes, if it goes for weeks or months, the real big impact would be for the fall TV season. I know that Succession fans will be very happy that it has already wrapped filming. I know. I know. I'm a huge succession fan, thank God. But if you're a Euphoria fan, I'm told they have not started production on that one yet. Good to know. This also must have

a pretty big impact on the Californian economy, right? There could be huge ripple effects across the California economy. Writers will be out of work. Productions will be shut down. They won't be using catering, people like set decorators won't have jobs. The people who are on strike won't have money to spend. And the last strike, which was in 2007, 2008, cost the California economy $2 billion. Lisa, thanks so much. Yeah, no problem. That's it for today's edition of Reuters World News. We'll be back on Tuesday. Before you go, we'd love for you to tell us what you think about the show. There's a survey in the pod's description on the Reuters website or your preferred podcast platform. on.