Reuters World News - Second Trump ban, Bitcoin's outlook and New Year, new cocktails

Episode Date: December 29, 2023

Maine disqualifies Donald Trump from the state ballot in next year’s presidential primary. Russia launches a huge wave of air strikes across Ukraine. Bitcoin's bounce-back and what comes next. Our photos of the year from Reuters journalists. And are you ready for New Year's Eve? Drinks makers push for homemade cocktails to celebrate.  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, a second state blocks Donald Trump from the primary ballot. Can crypto's recovery continue in 2024, shaking up the world of cocktails, and the US military's secret mission into space has a successful launch? It's Friday, December 29th. This is Reuters World News, bringing you everything you need to know from the front lines in 10 minutes every weekday. I'm David Spencer in London. We begin in Maine, which has followed Colorado and barred Donald Trump from the ballot in its state primary ahead of next year's US presidential election.

Maine's secretary of state Shenna Bellows concluded that Trump incited an insurrection ahead of the January 6th attacks on the capital. The decision can be appealed to a state superior court and Bellows has suspended her decision until the court rules. Trump's lawyers called the decision atrocious and say they will file an objection. Russia has launched its biggest air attack so far across Ukraine, killing at least 12 people. Ukraine's army chief says most of the 158 drones and missiles fired on Friday morning were shot down. The strikes hit the capital Keeve, the northern city of Kharkiv, western Leviv, eastern Denipro and southern Odessa,

with major infrastructure and military facilities targeted. Israeli forces have continued to attack Central and Southern Gaza, as the UN says an estimated 150,000 Palestinians are being forced to flee central areas. Egypt has confirmed it's put forward a three-stage proposal to stop the fighting, ending with a ceasefire, but says it's awaiting responses to the plan. markets head into their last trading day of the year, with US stocks hovering around all-time highs. The SMP 500 is up 24% this year, thanks to big tech and the AI glitterati. Also fuelled by hopes the Fed and other central banks will start cutting rates next year.

The SMP 500 now just 0.3% short of its record closing high. Another market on a tear this year has been Bitcoin. So what can we expect from the volatile asset in 2024? Crypto correspondent Elizabeth Howcroft is in London. So as today, crypto is ending 2023 on quite a high. Bitcoin has gained around 160% so far this year, although of course it helps to start from a low base. This time last year, the market had been really battered

by the various collapses and crashes that defined 2022. Looking to next year, the main thing crypto investors will be focusing on are what major central banks will do with interest rates and also any decision by US regulators about whether or not to allow a spot Bitcoin ETF. What is a spot Bitcoin ETF exactly? An ETF is an exchange traded fund. So a spot Bitcoin ETF being approved by regulators in the US would be a way for US investors to get exposure to the price of Bitcoin without actually buying the underlying cryptocurrency. The hope from within the crypto, industry is that this will draw in a load of new investment, maybe from pension funds or other

asset managers, who hadn't previously wanted to take the risk of getting involved in crypto markets. Some analysts say it might be an anti-climax, if or when it does actually happen. The halving is happening in 2024 too, right? What is that? The Bitcoin halving is a change to the way the incentive structures in the blockchain technology work. Analysts expect the price of Bitcoin to go up when this halving process takes place because it went up previous times it happened. There have been lots of scandals in the crypto world this year, including, of course, Sam Bankman, Fried and FTX.

How does the industry improve its reputation? So the crypto industry is on track to hit a record for the amount of money they've spent on lobbying in the US this year. And the idea is that crypto firms say they're keen to engage with policymakers, build relationships, and what they say is sort of bridge the gap between what policymakers might think of the crypto industry and the kind of image the companies are keen to present.

As you get ready for New Year's Eve on Sunday night, the hunt for a pre-mixed cocktail in New York. I'm happy holiday. Thank you. This year, spirit makers are hoping you'll be your own bartender and try a DIY bottled cocktail. Think ngronis, old-fashions, even espresso martinis. Emma Romney is in London and explains how the big,

alcohol brands are trying to make this happen. They've tried to create some bottle cocktails that have a kind of very different feel to those kind of big litre bottles of margarita, for example. So essentially they've designed packaging that feels a lot more high end and are kind of like marketing them as a product that you could show off to guests if you're hosting or give us a gift. They're also higher alcohol content and of course they're more expensive to kind of reflect all of this. And the companies claim at least that they can rival a bar made cocktail, which isn't the case with these larger mixes of margarita, etc. They're offered at far cheaper prices.

It smells strong. So these drinks are only available in the US right now. So my retail colleague, Ariana Maclamo and Technology Editor Ken Lee, did the honours of trying one of the drinks they found in store, which was an old-fashioned. Not bad. It could use an orange peel, but it's delicious. Mixologists pointed out that these products really aren't supposed to replace cocktails in bars, and in a way they can't as well, because the cost.

cocktail that is poured in front of you in a bar will probably always be higher quality. And there's a real, the sort of experiential part of it is really important. Some of the people that we spoke to actually pointed out that this could actually help out. A lot of venues that don't have the resources for full-blown mixology, but are increasingly expected to offer a cocktail menu. So that could be some bars and restaurants, but also other places too, say, like on an airline, which would usually just serve you wine or beer or a hard salsa. Cheers.

Cheers. 2020 was a hugely busy year for news, from natural disasters in Turkey and China to wars in Ukraine and the Middle East. Working hard to bring those moments to you were Reuters photojournalists on the ground. Mei Wang is our senior editor of long-form visual storytelling, and Ricky Rogers is our global pictures editor. They've been through more than a million images to pick their most impactful photos of the year.

It's like asking me to choose between children, right? I can point out a few. One of them was a picture from Ukraine. It was a very quiet moment. And it kind of spoke to where we are with the war in Ukraine. The war is still ongoing, but people are kind of living with this wall in the background, right? They're trying to find a way to carry on. And there was this picture.

It's a picture of a woman looking over dead bodies. She was like taking a walk and it almost looks like. she was sad, but she wasn't shocked. So it's a rare quiet moment where they've lived with the war for so long. It was that powerful. I can also flag one more, which is Renin Sawafta's photo from the West Bank of a fighter sitting on a windowsill. It's a photo that is so gritty and brutal in its own way of a fighter.

And the thing that really makes this photo is that the hands on this fighter's waist that are holding them from falling. But the photo just works in this case because of the content and the position of the body and he's obviously shooting at the moment or close to it. It doesn't matter that it's messy. If the elements, if the content, the context are strong enough, then bring on the messy pictures because they're real life, right?

You can look at all the images, May and Ricky help select for photos of the year at Reuters.com forward. slash pictures. The U.S. military's secretive X-37B robot spaceplane, blasting off from Florida on its seventh mission. This followed more than two weeks of full starts and delays, blamed on poor weather and unspecified technical issues. We know very little about the X-37B mission, with few details released by the Pentagon. Tests are conducted by the U.S. Space Force under the military's National Security Space Launch Program.

We do know this was the first launch atop a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket, which is capable of delivering it to a higher orbit than ever before. Let's watch as the side boosters touchdown for landing. Stage two is in thermal guidance. As the team on the ground celebrated the successful landing of the boosters, what was left unclear was whether the X-30s, B reached its intended destination in space. That's it for today's episode of Reuters World News.

Listen for our weekend episode, looking ahead to an extraordinary year for democracy in 2024, a record year for elections around the world. We'll be back on Tuesday with our daily headlines show. To make sure you know what's going on in the world, listen in for 10 minutes every weekday. And don't forget to subscribe on your favorite podcast player, or download the Reuters app.

Thanks for being with us this year. We look forward to bringing you more in 2024.