Reuters World News - White House's Ukraine order, Oregon shooting and California's ballot battle

Episode Date: October 16, 2026

Sources say the order to throttle Ukraine's battlefield communications came from inside the White House. A 16-year-old gunman kills three children and a teacher at an Oregon elementary school. The US Justice Department goes to court to block thousands of California ballots over citizenship concerns. And students take to the streets in Albania to demand the prime minister's resignation. Podcasts, breaking news, and video analysis from the source. ⁠Download the Reuters app here.⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Listen to the Morning Bid podcast ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Sign up for the Reuters Econ World newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Listen to the Reuters Econ World podcast ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. 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

Hi, I'm Kim Vinal in Wonganui, New Zealand. It's Friday, October 16th. Today. Ukraine Zelensky says he's done with an energy ceasefire, as it's revealed in order to throttle the country's battlefield communications came from the White House. A shooter kills four at an Oregon elementary school. And Nevada's top election official says

his state's voter rolls are coming under scrutiny in a bid to get him out. This is Reuters World News, bringing you everything you need to know from the front lines in 10 minutes, seven days a week. Ukraine has struck a Russian oil refinery after President Vladimir Zelenskyy said in an interview with the Financial Times that Kiev is, quote, done supporting an energy ceasefire, announced by President Trump. That's it. Block is out. The drone strike sparked a fire at Russia's Riazan Refinery, a major Rosneft facility that supplies Moscow and accounts for nearly 5% of the country's refining capacity.

Meanwhile, Reuters has learned that a recent order to limit a satellite system used by Ukraine for battlefield communications came from inside the White House. That's according to three officials briefed on the matter, although they didn't specify who exactly made the decision. The White House did not respond to questions about whether other administration officials may have made the request. Ukraine reported issues with its Starlink battlefield service during days of intense Russian attacks,

including on its energy infrastructure. Kiev resident in Akosub says the country desperately needs help from its allies. They're saying they for Ukraine to do, and as if he was up, calling Washington's actions unacceptable. White House reporter Graham Slattery says this could be a turning point in the U.S.-Ukraine relationship. This is a huge moment. You know, this is really the most serious and the tensest stretch of the U.S.-Ukraine

relationship since, I would say, early 2025. So more over a year. You know, the last couple of weeks have been really rocky. And, you know, it's going to be the next few days I've been. to determine what the U.S.-Ukraine relationship looks like going forward. Zelensky met with European leaders on Thursday, on the sidelines of an EU meeting in Brussels. He stressed the need for continued NATO military supplies, including ballistic missile interceptors and ammunition for F-16 fighter jets.

So Ukraine is basically saying, we have to hit these refineries. If we're not hitting refineries, we're fighting with two arms tied behind our back. Trump on the head and says, you know, look, we've given you a lot of intelligence. We've given new weapons. This war's gone for four years and change. And we're asking you to do this one thing, so just do it. And the two sides are out of a really nasty impasse. Meanwhile, the Trump administration is considering easing sanctions on so-called

shadow fleet tankers that haul sanctioned to oil from Russia, Iran, and Venezuela, among others. The move is aimed at lowering freight costs and fuel prices. But analysts say it likely won't help bring down the price at the pump for US consumers. A gunman opened fire at an elementary school in Bend, Oregon on Thursday, killing three children and a teacher. The shooter was 16 years old. Police say he fired through locked doors to get inside Silver Rail Elementary School.

An armed member of the community followed him in and shot him dead before police arrived. The community gathered for a candlelit vigil last night, Bend resident Carlos Castellon, among them. While we're standing here putting up the candles and trying to keep the candles lit up, we were able to see how the forensics were here taking out the bodies and there's three vehicles, one black truck and two vans that we saw that left. And it was very heartbreaking to see something like that.

The children were aged 5, 8 and 11. Another child and a teacher remain in hospital in critical condition. We make Chevrolet vehicles, but what you do with them makes them so much more. You make them mobile offices, your kids' personal taxi, a concert shuttle, your hockey equipment locker, your recording studio. We make a Chevrolet, but you make it a Chevy. Discover yours at Chevrolet.ca. Nevada's top election official says he's under growing pressure from the Trump administration,

which is taking aim at voter fraud ahead of midterms. Public records show the Justice Department sent Nevada Secretary of State, Cisco Aguilar, seven subpoenas between June and September seeking voter data. President Donald Trump says without evidence that large numbers of non-citizens are registering to vote in Nevada and other states. We have no evidence of massive fraud in the state. Again, from 2020, we have replaced our entire. entire election system. We replace the voter registration system, the election management system.

We actually replace the machines that are now used. Aguilar says federal scrutiny of Nevada's voter rolls is overwhelming election officials and undermining public trust. He also says it's a political move to weaken his re-election bid and ensure a Trump-friendly election overseer is in place ahead of the 28 presidential race. Over in California, The Trump administration is asking a federal judge to stop the state from counting mail ballots for more than 20,000 voters, it says, could be non-citizens. The Justice Department says the voters were identified by matching voter roles against Homeland Security databases.

The administration wants the ballot set aside until the voter's immigration status can be verified. California is pushing back, accusing the Justice Department of creating confusion just weeks. before Election Day. Our Justice Department correspondent, Andrew Goodswood, explains. If the department, you know, succeeds in this lawsuit, that could cause a lot of uncertainty in the California election at least, and, you know, potentially if there are close races, those 20,000 votes could prove significant. California hasn't formally responded to the lawsuit in court, but they have, you know,

released a statement saying that they have procedures in place to protect their elections. Los Angeles County has said that there are potential privacy issues with looking at this list of voters that the government, the federal government has given. And we also know that there are concerns about potentially, you know, purging voters right before an election. It's actually a federal law that says that you can't do mass purges of voter rolls within 90 days of an election, which were clearly within here. Andrew says it's unclear if this dispute will work its way through the legal system before election day. It's always possible if there's quick rulings that this reaches the Supreme Court potentially, and obviously we're less than three weeks away now. The court may be pretty reluctant to intervene in a way that would cause chaos or disruption to the midterms. Off the back of Investor jitters about CoreWeave's AI debt warning signs, relative calm has returned to the markets.

For more, here's Elena Cassas from Morningbid. We did see some recovery in AI stocks overnight. That was partly because Nvidia's Jensen Huang stepped in to defend Corweave. That's the loss-making data centre company that started this sell-off, as you were saying, and lost 15% on Wednesday. He jumped in to say he does think that Corweave will be profitable in the longer run. But bear in mind, this company is $50 billion in debt, and the question marks over how exactly that's going to be financed haven't gone away.

In Asian markets, we saw some recovery overnight, but markets are nowhere near back to being where they were before the AI sell-off. as Cospy, which is heavily reliant on two chip makers, Samsung and S.K. Hynix, has had its worst week since 2008. You can catch morning bid wherever you get your podcasts. Police in Albania's capital, Tirana, fire water cannon, tear gas and sound grenades as they try to break up crowds of student protesters. The demonstrators smashed windows, set up barricades and clashed with security forces, demanding that Prime Minister Eddie Rama step down. Here's protest at Migerta Dimalia.

Everyone is so tired of him, we're just done with him, we're asking him just to leave. This is all we want. They accuse Rama's government of corruption and of neglecting education and are angry of a rising living cost. And they say officials have ignored concerns about a controversial luxury resort development tied to Jared Kushner. Rama rejects the calls to step down, but says he is ready to discuss the rising cost of education. And finally, Tesla has unveiled its long-delayed roadster,

although it's not exactly clear who or where one might want to drive it, given this version is designed to fly through the air. In a showy demonstration, the electric sports car drove upper loop going upside down using a suction system, before turning in the air and landing with built-in thrusters. Production is slated for 2008, although analysts say it's more of a symbolic offering, showing off Tesla's engineering and technology. We make Chevrolet vehicles, but what you do with them makes them so much more. You make them mobile offices, your kids' personal taxi, a concert shuttle, your hockey equipment

locker, your recording studio. We make a Chevrolet, but you make it a Chevy. Discover yours at Chevrolet.ca. For more on any of the stories from today, as well as more analysis and news shaping our world, check out Reuters.com or the Reuters app. There's a link in the description to download it and start getting pure news straight from the source. 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 a little later with an update.