Reuters World News - Ukraine, Trump-Mamdani and Marjorie Taylor Greene

Episode Date: November 22, 2025

Ukraine under pressure to accept a U.S. peace plan or risk losing American support. President Trump and New York Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani's warm White House meeting. Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie T...aylor Greene to resign. Plus Netflix’s big bet on YouTube star Jake Paul. Listen to the latest episode of On Assignment Recommended read: Inside Track, your essential guide to the week ahead in sports Sign up for the Reuters Econ World newsletter Listen to the Reuters Econ World podcast 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 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Starting point is 00:00:00 Hi, I'm Christopher Waljeper in Chicago. It's Saturday, November 22nd. Today, Ukraine faces pressure to agree to a U.S. peace plan. Trump and New York's mayor-elect find common ground. Plus, Marjorie Taylor Green quits Congress after her feud with Trump. This is Reuters' world news, bringing you everything you need to know from the front lines in 10 minutes, seven days a week. Ukraine faces a stark choice, except a U.S. 28-point peace plan that includes Russian demands or risk losing Washington, D.C.,'s defense and intelligence support.
Starting point is 00:00:50 President Donald Trump says Kiev should agree within a week. He'll have to like it, and if he doesn't like it, then, you know, they should just keep fighting, I guess, you know. President Volodemir Zelensky says he'll work with Washington, but says he won't betray Ukraine's interests. And now, Yedneiss, also, we've, like Nikol, or in our home,
Starting point is 00:01:12 was our chief Ukraine correspondent, Tom Baumforth, has more on what's at stake from Kyiv. U.S. intelligence sharing has been a real boost for Ukraine throughout the war. No other European power could step in and replace it. It's important for things like intercepting Russian missile and drone strikes.
Starting point is 00:01:29 It's also been used for long-range drone and missile strikes aimed at degrading Russia's energy industry. the US makes the air defense systems that are essential to Ukraine's ability to repel incoming missile strikes, particularly the ones involving ballistic missiles. So where does this leave Zelensky? There are various points in the US peace plan that are non-starters for Ukraine, so that includes things like the idea of it withdrawing its troops from parts of the Donbass region, and also this idea that it should reduce the size of its armed forces.
Starting point is 00:01:59 So I think it would be very difficult for him to agree to these kind of proposals. I would say that in spite of all of the sort of the doom for Ukraine, the overall battlefield situation for Ukraine is not one of collapse, and it's easy to leap to conclusions and assume that this is it for Ukraine. I think we just need to see how the next several days go. I just had a great meeting, a really good, very productive meeting. President Trump and New York's mayor-elect Zoran Mamdani at a White House meeting on Friday.
Starting point is 00:02:33 What was expected to be a tense meeting instead turned into a warm display of bipartisan connection. Trump, who's recently called Mom Dani a, quote, radical left lunatic, was supportive of the mayor-elect, even patting him on the arm during press questions. Mom Dani, a self-described Democratic socialist who's called Trump a despot, returned the warmth, and when reporters pressed Mom Dani about calling Trump a fascist, The president jumped in to shield him from the heat. Are you affirming that you think President Trump is a fascist? I've spoken about...
Starting point is 00:03:09 That's okay. You can just say, yes. Okay. It's easier. It's easier than explaining it. The two connected over affordability and housing, pledging to work together on crime and high costs New Yorkers are facing. It all goes away and gets better. If I am cast aside by the president... Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Green,
Starting point is 00:03:30 announcing her resignation from Congress after a brutal falling out with President Trump. Trump's called her a traitor and a ranting lunatic. He's told ABC her resignation is great news for the country. Green's exit shrinks the GOP majority to just five seats. Her last day will be January 5th. On this week's episode of our podcast On Assignment, my colleague David Spencer sits down with Reuters reporters, including photographer Hannah McKay, to explore the rapidly changing politics around immigration in Europe, on both the left and the right. So then the boat comes around the corner into the shore, and they run out and get on the boat. For me, I've seen these pictures.
Starting point is 00:04:15 I've seen the statistics. It's in the UK news almost every day, but actually seeing it with my own eyes was quite emotional. There will be a link to that episode in today's show notes. The U.S.-Mexico border has undergone a dramatic transformation in less than a year. Border crossings have dropped 90 percent, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection. That's the lowest since 1970. Last year, Scripps Mercy Hospital in San Diego, California, treated more than a thousand people who had fallen from the 30-foot border wall.
Starting point is 00:04:53 Any allergies? Dr. Vichal-Bonsal says this year, they've seen just 44. It was hard. You're dealing with multiple injured patients, generally all coming at once. It requires a great deal of effort to manage these patients, great deal of effort to be able to provide the injury care and also the social care. Inside the U.S., detentions by immigration and customs enforcement agents have hit a record 66,000 people, with at least 22 dying in custody in the past year.
Starting point is 00:05:23 National Affairs reporter Dan Trotta recently spent time in the corridor between San Diego and Tijuana to see what's changed as a result of Trump's immigration crackdown. I think the border crisis has not been solved permanently. A lot of what has happened is the problems have been moved elsewhere. People have started to try to make a home for themselves in Mexico since they couldn't quite clear that last hurdle and get across the border. There may be cases where people are sneaking in undetected. We understand both from the Border Patrol and from migrant advocates that instead of crossing the border in San Diego to turn themselves in, migrants are now going into the desert and in the mountains and trying to cross
Starting point is 00:06:12 that way. What's interesting, we found in Tijuana where there still are quite a number of migrants in shelters, although down dramatically from where they were a year ago. What we've been told is that a lot of people are going to weed it out. That is, they're going to make a home of it in Mexico for now, and see what happens in three years after Trump is no longer on the scene. Maybe there will be another policy change, and they can make another go of it. So for those who are coming from desperate situations, they may have no other choice but to wait it out.
Starting point is 00:06:46 YouTube star Jake Paul will face former heavyweight boxing champion and Olympic gold medalist Anthony Joshua in an eight-round bout next month in Miami. It'll also be streamed live on Netflix. Now, Joshua is 36 and weighed in for his last fight at 252 pounds. Jake Paul is 28 and at his heaviest for his fight against Mike Tyson weighed in at just 227 pounds. Our reporter Don Chimelousky covers the media business and says live streaming events like this are providing a massive payday for Netflix. Netflix is looking to capitalize on events
Starting point is 00:07:26 that will catalyze large groups of people. So Jake Paul falls into this context. So back, you know, in the fall of 2024, Netflix hosted a boxing match with social media influencer Jake Paul and Mike Tyson, which is this crazy spectacle that drew, 60 million households.
Starting point is 00:07:51 Simply having a subscription to Netflix got you a ringside seat for this event. And that's what Netflix is seeking to replicate. It's selling sponsorships for these events. It's not like traditional ad breaks, but it is still a way to keep subscribers, paying their monthly fees. And now for a bit of intimate anthropology.
Starting point is 00:08:18 You might remember your first kiss, But research from Oxford and the Florida Institute of Technology shows that it's not just a human thing. A new study suggests our primate ancestors were puckering up around 20 million years ago. Researchers have used evolutionary models to trace the origins of this intimate gesture. Our correspondent, Toby Sterling, explains the theories. All of the great apes, including humans, but also gorillas and bonobos and chimpanzees, They all do kiss. There's different theories for how kissing evolved, like chewing food and then sharing it between members of the same clan or a family of these kind of ancient human-like creatures. Or it could have been like a mother that was nursing a child or a baby. And that could be a way that puckering motion began. But of course, it's changed and it has very different meaning when you're pressing lips together. The research even suggests kissing took place across species.
Starting point is 00:09:21 This study makes the argument that humans almost certainly did kiss Neanderthals, and that's for a couple of reasons. One is that they know that there was interbreeding between non-African descended humans and Neanderthals. Also, there was a kind of a microbe that both humans and Neanderthals share, which kind of means that they were swapping spit, for lack of a better way to say it. could have been sharing food, but also very likely was kissing, I think. And for today's recommended read, it's a busy week ahead in the world of sports. Cricket's most storied rivalry, tennis's Davis Cup, and the lighting of the Olympic torch ahead of the 2026 Winter Games. Our sports editor, Mitch Phillips, breaks it all down this week.
Starting point is 00:10:13 There's a link to that story in the show notes. For more on any of the stories from today, check out Reuters.com or the Reuters app. Don't forget to follow us on your favorite podcast player. If you're listening on a smart speaker, just ask for the latest news from Reuters, seven days a week. We'll be back tomorrow with our daily headlines show.

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