Reuters World News - SBF verdict, Blinken's push for a pause and factchecking Matthew Perry's death

Episode Date: November 3, 2023

Sam Bankman-Fried's fall from grace complete as he’s convicted of multi-billion dollar fraud. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken pushes for a pause in the war as Israel's troops surround Gaza City. How the 14th amendment is being used to try to keep Donald Trump off some state ballots. Misinformation around Matthew Perry's is factchecked and The Beatles have a new song. 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, FDX's founder is found guilty on all counts. Sam Bankman-Free perpetrated one of the biggest financial frauds in American history. The U.S. seeks pauses in the war in Gaza as Secretary of State Anthony Blinken arrives in Tel Aviv. Courts in two states hear cases to remove Donald Trump from the ballot over 14th Amendment claims. Friends star Matthew Perry's death is fact-checked. And The Beatles release a new song with a little help from AI. It's Friday, November 3rd. This is Reuters World News, bringing you everything you need to know from the front lines in 10 minutes every weekday.

I'm Kim Vennel in London. FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried's been found guilty of stealing from customers of his now bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange. The jury reached the verdict after just over four hours of deliberations. The conviction marks a significant victory for a broader crackdown on white-collar crime led by Manhattan's top federal prosecutor, Damien Williams. Here's the thing. The cryptocurrency industry might be new. The players like Sam Bankman-Fried might be new.

But this kind of fraud, this kind of corruption, is as old as time, and we have no patience for it. Bankman-Freed was convicted on all seven counts he faced after a month-long trial. The verdict came just shy of one year after FTX filed for bankruptcy in a swift corporate meltdown that shocked financial markets and erased his estimated $26 billion personal fortune. Anthony Blinkins arrived in Tel Aviv as Israel says it's now surrounded Gaza City. This is Blinkin's second trip to Israel in a month and he's expected to push for humanitarian pauses in the fighting to allow critical aid into the enclave. The White House says any breaks should be temporary and localized, insisting it would not stop Israel from defending itself.

The United Arab Emirates has warned there's a risk of regional spillover from the war. It says it's working relentlessly to secure a humanitarian ceasefire. Firefighters tackle huge flames at a building in Kharkiv after Russia's biggest drone strike on the country for weeks. The attacks hit critical infrastructure in the west and south of Ukraine. The Air Force said it shot down 24 drones out of 40 launched by Russia. Officials say Ukraine is preparing for a second winter of Russian air strikes on the energy system, which is said to be more vulnerable than last year. In Washington, sweeping new sanctions against Moscow of the war in Ukraine have been outlined.

Hundreds of people and entities are covered by the measures, including a major Siberian project to ship chilled natural gas, known as liquefied natural gas to global markets. Coming up on Reuters' World News, we'll look at the war in more detail and the impact of the world's attention turning to the Middle East. India's capital, New Delhi,

has been hit with a severe air pollution warning as a thick layer of toxic haze envelops the city. Regional officials said a seasonal combination of lower temperatures, a lack of wind and crops double-burning in neighbouring farm states has caused a spike in eastern. air pollutants. Many of New Delhi's 20 million residents have complained of irritation in the eyes

and itchy throats as the air turns a dense grey. The worsening air quality is cast a shadow of the Cricket World Cup being hosted by India and players complaining about the conditions. Courts in Colorado and Minnesota are hearing lawsuits that seek to have Donald Trump barred from state ballots in the 2024 race for the White House. The plaintiffs in each case arguing that Trump's involvement in the January 6th Capitol riot means he's in violation of the 14th Amendment. There are a couple of such lawsuits filed in more than a dozen states. Legal reporter Jack Queen has been following the cases.

Jack, can you start by explaining how the 14th Amendment is being used here? So the 14th Amendment was passed in the aftermath of the Civil War, and this clause in particular, it's called Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, it specifically bars people who have ever engaged in insurrection or rebellion from serving as federal officers. Now, this was designed to keep former Confederate rebels from serving in the federal government after the war. And it's never really been used before. Only in a couple of circumstances, I'd certainly never on the scale of seeking to disqualify a presidential candidate. So there's actually some debate among legal scholars about whether or not

this can even be enforced without an act of Congress laying out some sort of enforcement mechanism. Now, there are some legal scholars who say that it enforces itself, essentially. And what these lawsuits are doing is seeking court orders that would bar state election officials from placing Trump on the ballot. And so under that theory, the 14th Amendment essentially enforces itself. And you just need a court to put it in writing. Will these cases have an impact on the election? Yeah, you know, most people expect for Biden to win Colorado and Minnesota for that matter. but there are challenges like this proceeding in battleground states that could go either way. And the strategy for Trump's opponents is if they can keep him off the ballot in enough of

those critical states that could go either Republican or Democrat, you know, it can only take a few of those to be decisive in the election. If matters really come to a head and we start having a situation where Trump is actually being blocked for the ballot in any states, really, then this question probably makes us way to the Supreme Court fairly quickly. And while there's no guarantee of how the Supreme Court rule on this, it stands to reason that since there is essentially no precedent or case law to guide them here, they would be making their own determination.

And given the ideological makeup of the court, I think most observers would agree that Trump is probably favored in that setting. Friends actor Matthew Perry's surprise death has spurred an outpouring of grief. It's also stirred up unsubstantiated claims about the cause. Lydia Morris is on the Reuters fact check team. Lydia, what is your team uncovered? So even though the post-mortem for Matthew Perry was inconclusive and the cause of death is still unconfirmed, we're seeing lots of people speculate about what caused his death,

particularly in the conspiracy theory world that his death was caused by a COVID vaccine. He was selling T-shirts on his merch website that said, could I be any more vaccinated? And it was a way of seemingly promoting COVID vaccines. And people have been screenshoting these and sharing them online. to suggest that he died from the COVID vaccine. Now, this ties into years of misinformation and conspiracy theories that the COVID vaccines are harmful

and somehow ploy to depopulate the globe. And this is another example of a celebrity's death being wrapped up in these conspiracy theories. And this is not a new phenomenon, right? So with COVID vaccines, this has become a recurrent narrative with a dog whistle called Died Suddenly. We've seen this happen with other high-profile people,

celebrities, sports stars. We had Lisa Marie Presley. We had sports journalist Grant Wall. And now Matthew Perry, this happens repeatedly as Died Suddenly has become quite a prolific conspiracy theory and a dog whistle. Sorry, what's a dog whistle? A dog whistle is a form of coded language,

which isn't completely obvious what it means on the surface. So something like Died Suddenly, if you're sharing report of a celebrity's death and just saying died suddenly, perhaps to a regular internet user, it wouldn't be clear what that means. And moderators and platforms can't really take action on a certain type of content because they're not really saying explicitly, oh, I think this was caused by a COVID vaccine. But it's a special kind of coded phrase that people can use to infer a certain thing.

Why is Perry's death in particular causing so many unscerned? substantiated claims. I think because he's such a well-known character, a well-loved character, we often see with conspiracy theories when something is particularly emotional or it tugs on people's heartstrings, people get very desperate for answers. So when there's no answers for something like this, people want to fill the void with some kind of information. So people just come up with their own theories and perhaps those are fed by their pre-existing

world views. There is a new song out from The Beatles. When we lost John, we knew that it was really over. I was talking to Yoko and she said, oh, I think I've got a tape of John. Paul called me up and said he'd like to work on now and then. He put the bass on, I put the drums on. Now and then features John Lennon on vocals,

thanks to a 1970s demo and artificial intelligence. It's the first new original Beatles song since, 1995's Free as a Bird and Real Love. John Lennon's son, Sean. It's the last song that my dad and Paul and George and Ringo will get to make together. That's it for today's episode. We'll be back on Monday with our daily headline show. To make sure you know what's going on in the world, listen in for 10 minutes every weekday.

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