Reuters World News - US responds to Iran-backed militia, Israel poll on ground invasion and Ukraine aid fight

Episode Date: October 27, 2023

US launches strikes in Syria as concerns grow that the Israel-Hamas conflict may spread in the Middle East – and is Israeli support for an immediate ground offensive waning? Newly elected Speaker Mike Johnson says funding to support Ukraine and Israel should be handled separately. On the ground for the manhunt for Maine’s mass shooter. Plus, California lowriders can cruise again. 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 U.S. launches air strikes on Iranian-linked targets in Syria. An eerie silence descends on the site of America's latest mass shooting, Lewiston, Maine. The new House Speaker gets ready to respond to Biden's request for funding for Israel and Ukraine. And lowriders can roam free again in California as a decade's old ban is lifted. It's Friday, October 27th. This is Reuters World News, bringing you. everything you need to know from the front lines in 10 minutes every weekday. I'm Carmel Crimmons in Dublin.

And I'm Christopher Walgesper in Chicago. Two US fighter jets have struck weapons and ammunition facilities in Syria. It's in retaliation for attacks on US troops in Syria and Iraq by Iranian-backed militia. The strikes come as concerns grow the Israel-Hamas war may tip the region into a wider conflict. Pentagon Press Secretary, Brigadier General Patrick Ryder, saying 900 extra U.S. troops are heading to the Middle East. While I won't talk specific deployment locations for these forces, I can confirm that they are not going to Israel, and then again they are intended to support regional deterrence efforts and further bolster U.S. force protection capabilities. Iranian Foreign Minister Hussein Amir Abdulyan had this warning for the U.S. at the United Nations.

I warn if the genocide in Gaza continues, they will not be spared from this fire. Israeli troops are massed on the Gaza border, ready for a large-scale ground invasion. But a new poll in Maharive newspaper has shown that almost half of Israelis want them to hold off. Dan Williams is in Jerusalem. One has to be careful here. We're talking about one poll in one newspaper in a very, very quickly shifting public scene. what it argues is that there is an apparent dip in support, and keep in mind that critical qualifier immediate, it could be that for them it's a matter of timing rather than whether the

act should take place at all. According to the paper that conducted the poll, the guiding factor here would be the fate of hostages held by Hamas in Gaza. There's added pressure here because Hamas says some 50 hostages have died as a result of intensive Israeli bombardment. from the air, from the sea, from artillery. Now Israel has expressly said that it is attacking these tunnels and bunkers, and presumably a ground invasion would intensify that. A spider's web of dark tunnels. That's how freed Israeli hostage, Yonovid Lifshitz, described where she was held in Gaza.

But how exactly do they operate? Our regular host, Kim, sat down with correspondent Jonathan Saul for a deep dive into the tunnel. network. One contact of mine described it as the Viet Cong times 10. If we recall back in the Vietnam war days, the Viet Cong were using tunnels. This is a much more sophisticated network. Listen this weekend on a special edition of Reuters World News podcast. Up next for the new House Speaker is responding to President Biden's $106 billion funding request that includes aid to both Israel and Ukraine. Biden has urged new speaker Mike Johnson to move quickly on the package.

But Johnson has been an opponent of Ukraine aid. Politics editor Scott Malone is in Washington, D.C. Scott, the first thing Johnson did as Speaker of the House was pass a resolution supporting Israel. Does that improve the chances that President Biden's aid package will actually pass? So that's hard to say. We know that there's broad bipartisan support in the House. for Israel. But Biden's package is more complicated than that. It's a large package. It's $106 billion. It includes money for Israel. It includes money for Ukraine. It includes money for Taiwan. And it

includes money for the southern border. And there are some House Republicans who have argued and some Senate Republicans who've argued that that shouldn't go through as one big package, but go through in separate tranches. And so what remains to be seen is if the House will even take it up is one piece. How long could it take to pass this funding? I could take quite some time. There's a lot of other deadlines that Congress is facing right now, with one of the more urgent ones, being November 17th, when a stopgap measure keeping the federal government open runs out. And if they have an extended funding by that time, we'd see a partial government shutdown. Ukraine, meanwhile, is optimistic that Johnson's new position won't affect Washington's ongoing support.

In televised comments, senior official Alexei Dentalov says Johnson's election was good for Ukraine because it ends. weeks of a leadership vacuum. China's former Premier Lee Ku-Chang has died of a heart attack at the age of 68. Once seen as a contender for president, reformist Lee was sidelined in recent years by President Xi Jinping. The full scale of the destruction from Hurricane Otis is only now becoming apparent. At least 27 people have been killed and the Mexican beach resort of Acapulca has been left in ruins. Four people are still missing.

The Russian military is executing. soldiers who don't follow orders related to the war in Ukraine, the White House has said. National Security spokesman John Kirby. We also have information that Russian commanders are threatening to execute entire units if they seek to retreat from Ukrainian artillery fire. Russian authorities did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the issue. Solid earnings from Amazon and Intel and signs U.S. inflation is easing are expected to spur a rebound on Wall Street today.

U.S. futures are tracking higher after Amazon predicted a rise in holiday season sales, and said its cloud business was stabilizing. Intel, meanwhile, signaled a healthy rebound in personal computer sales. All eyes are going to be on U.S. data out later. It's expected to show that the pace of inflation is moderating, and traders are looking to solidify their bets that the Fed will pause rate hikes next week. The ECB kept interest rates and change this week, but we may have a volatile few days next week with back-to-back meetings from the Bank of England,

the Fed, and the Bank of Japan. A mass shooting has taken its toll on another town in America. Police say 18 people were killed and 13 wounded when an army reservist shot up a bowling alley and a bar in Lewiston, Maine. Once again, routine gatherings, this time at a bowling alley and a restaurant, have been turned into scenes of horrific carnage. The vice president echoing the grief of state, and local officials.

We pray for those who were injured and grieve with so many. Guns are lightly regulated in Maine. About half of all adults in the largely rural state live in a household with a gun, according to a 2020 study by the Rand Corporation. But it has one of the lowest rates of violent crime in the nation. It's a small town. You get to know everybody. It's tight community.

It's close to everything. That's Ken Spalding, a school bus driver who lives. lives in nearby Lisbon. Richard Valdmanus was in Lewiston on Thursday as an eerie silence descended on the streets. Richard, what do we know about the shooter? So police have named somebody named Robert Card as a suspect. A bulletin that was shared with law enforcement says that he was an army reservist, trained in firearms instruction, and also made the point that he had suffered some mental health

issues recently and had actually been gotten treatment earlier this summer. So, yeah, he's on the run at the moment. The number of mass shootings in the U.S. just keeps growing. What's the mood like there right now? This is a situation in Maine that a lot of people are shocked by. Maine's kind of got a reputation as being like a nice bucolic state. Vacation land is the motto. It's considered a very safe place. And this incident kind of strikes it everything the state stands for. And I think the people here in Lewiston kind of feel the same. I mean, this is not a particularly genteel city. It's a former mill town. It's a bit down on its luck. The people here basically are saying this is a shocking incident. It takes it into a whole new level and shows that even

Maine can be afflicted by the scourge of mass shootings. And finally, to the streets of Los Angeles, where a bright green tricked out Chevrolet Chevelle bounces down the boulevard, a gleaming pink pickup cargo bed whirls in the air, and a blue Cadillac rolls on three wheels. Until recently, this was illegal. But a decades-old ban on cruising in low-sloan, modified classic cars, known as low-riders, has been lifted in California. Los Angeles, this is where it's at. You know, this is where low-riding started.

This is where the heart is at. Many in the low-riding community say the ban disproportionately targeted communities of color and wrongfully associated the culture with crime. The ordinances were very, very discreet. Now, cruising advocates like Marissa Rosales say this will pave the way for other states to follow suit. So we're doing this so that they can cruise in peace. That's it for today's episode. Remember to listen in this weekend to that special episode on the Hamas Tunnel Network.

And we'll be back on Monday with our daily news 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 Reutersath.