Reuters World News - Zelenskiy/Trump, Italy’s Hamas probe and US inflation woes

Episode Date: December 28, 2025

Ukraine's President Zelenskiy meets Donald Trump in Florida seeking a deal, as Putin vows Moscow will achieve its goals by force. In Italy, prosecutors arrest nine over $8M diverted to Hamas-linked groups. Plus, inflation squeezes Trump voters in Michigan, testing loyalty ahead of 2026. Listen to Morning Bid podcast ⁠⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠⁠. Sign up for the Reuters Econ World newsletter ⁠⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠⁠. Listen to the Reuters Econ World podcast ⁠⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠⁠. Find the Recommended Read 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 Christopher Walgessper in Chicago. It's Sunday, December 28th, today. Zelensky meets Trump in Florida, as Putin warns Moscow will achieve its goals by force after deadly strikes on Kiev. Italian prosecutors arrest nine people accused of diverting millions in aid to Hamas-linked organizations. And in rural Michigan, Trump voters face rising costs as inflation tests party loyalty. This is Reuters World News, bringing you everything you need to know from the front lines in 10 minutes, seven days a week.

Today, Ukraine's president, Volodemir Zelensky, meets with Donald Trump in Florida, hoping to hammer out a plan to end the war. The talks follow Russian missile and drone strikes on Kiev that killed two and wounded dozens. Russian president Vladimir Putin told Russia's state news agency, Tass, that Ukraine is in no hard. hurry for peace and warned that Moscow will achieve its goals by force. Zelensky called the attacks Russia's answer to our peace efforts. And this really shows that Putin doesn't want peace, and we want peace, and he the men over war. Our correspondent, Max Hunter, says Ukraine is eyeing one major goal from their talks with Trump. Territory.

Territory is the big one. Ukraine wants to freeze the conflict on the current battle lines. and keep control of all the territory that it currently holds. And it's being pushed to give up some further territory, a few square thousand kilometers of quite important territory in eastern Ukraine, which it currently controls and has fought for years to keep. Now, there's also another big sticking point of the Zaporizian nuclear power plant, which is the largest nuclear plant in Europe,

and it was occupied by Russia in the first days of the invasion. Ukraine basically wants to run that plant jointly with the US, and it doesn't want any Russian presence at that plant. After the strikes on Kiev, Canada's Prime Minister, Mark Carney, pledged more than $2.5 billion in aid for Ukraine, which Carney says could help unlock IMF financing. The attack on Kiev shows just how important it is that we stand with Ukraine, during this difficult time.

Zelensky met Carney in Halifax before heading to Florida for today's talks. Italian prosecutors have arrested nine people accused of funneling millions to Hamas through charities in Italy. Investigators say more than $8 million meant for humanitarian aid was diverted to Hamas-linked entities, with assets worth more than $9 million seized. The operation, courted, with anti-mafia and anti-terror units involved EU-wide cooperation. Prime Minister Georgia Maloney calls it a complex and important case,

as protests have erupted over her support for Israel. And in Britain, fresh deals have been struck with Angola and Namibia to take back undocumented migrants after threatening visa penalties if the countries fail to cooperate. The Democratic Republic of Congo has already been stripped of fast-track visa perks and could face a full visa halt. The agreements mark the first big step under new reforms to make refugee status temporary and speed up deportations. This year, Intel CEO Lipbutton went from President Trump calling for him to resign to walking

out of the White House with a multi-billion dollar government investment that included a 10% stake in the company. The dealmaker's charm offensive has worked. Intel's stock has nearly doubled, and he's secured billions more from Nvidia and SoftBank. But big questions remain over whether Ton's venture capitalist instincts can actually fix Intel's deep manufacturing problems. Our reporter Jeffrey Daston has been digging in to Ton's leadership. He came in, shook up the management team, laid off 15% of the company to have it operate in a lean way. And he told people he's going to read every email that staff sent him,

but he's not going to respond to them all because the way he wanted to spend time was talking to trusted confidants, was talking to customers, asking what they wanted. His task before him requires not just making Intel lean, but it's also making it once again a top manufacturer since it's already been for years now, clips by TSM in Taiwan and has competition also in South Korea with Samsung and so forth. The real crux of what Intel needs is to land a big whale, to land a company that is going to pay it to print chips in Intel factories in the United States or around the world.

Intel still hasn't gotten that, even though it clearly has a very strong partnership with Nvidia and Nvidia's CEO is called Liputan, a longtime friend. So whether Intel and whether Lipputan can change that is going to be a really big story to follow in the months ahead. We've decided, at the moment, to decide the Constitution. Guinea's military leader, Mamadi Dumboya, is set to complete a controversial transformation from coup leader to elected president in a vote today. The former Special Forces commander seized power in 2021, promising a return to democracy and pledging not to run himself. But after sidelining key opponents and rewriting the Constitution,

he's now the frontrunner. Robbie Corey Boulay is our bureau chief for West and Central Africa. Dumboya is the man who just last month officially launched the mega mine at Samandu, which is the world's richest untapped iron ore deposit. This is a long-delayed project that, is really the cornerstone of Guinea's development plans. And while Dumboya didn't do all of the work to bring it online, this milestone did happen on his watch, and it is a success that he can point to.

It's a region with a very young population, and I think Dumboya has played into that. The official handout photo from the referendum that they held in September showed him casting his ballot, wearing enormous black sunglasses and a baseball cap. and this is how people dress in the region. They don't wear custom suits. And I think that kind of imagery is really powerful for voters. Robbie says the election poses a dilemma for Western governments. Well, Western governments generally are against coups.

They're against military rule. And they're against the restrictions on the political space that have happened under Dumboya since 2021. But Guinea has other options, namely China, 75% percent. of the Samanji Project, the iron or megamine that came online last month, is Chinese-owned. And there is a real risk that if Western governments focus on democratic backsliding in Guinea, on human rights abuses in Guinea, and trying to denounce those things, they could end up pushing Guinea closer to China and to other rivals.

In Northeast Michigan, volunteers load boxes of fresh produce and grocery staples into waiting cars. lined up down the street. The demand for food aid like this has climbed recently as elevated prices for all sorts of necessities have made it more difficult for Americans to make ends meet. And in St. Clair County, a rural, industrial area about an hour north of Detroit, an area which voted for President Trump last year,

that financial stress is butting up against the promises that the president made on the campaign trail. Our reporter, Nathan Lane, visited the region. We decided to go to St. Clair County because there's a mix of industrial and rural, and also because it's on the Canadian border. So they're sort of taking the brunt of the tariff policies of the Trump administration. There was a food drive on the day that we were there. We met her mother of three, Taylor Ludwig. Christmas time gets a little tight in budget.

I've got three kids, so things with the presence and everything and family to buy for, food kind of ends up down the list of it. Some independents who happened to vote for Trump like Trump's policies, and it was kind of a mix. There were several retirees who were, you know, living on Social Security and saying basically, given grocery prices and other household costs, it's hard to make ends meet. I met a Marine veteran who also voted for Trump. The majority of them said, look, I like Trump. I'm going to give him time. They don't blame him for inflation. And they're almost certainly going to vote Republican.

But we did have four, including Taylor Ludwig, who told us, look, I'm not tied to one man or one party necessarily. I mean, I'm a realistic person and I'm not just going to follow along somebody like a sheep, you know. However, inflation hasn't cooled to the extent that I think a lot of Trump supporters expected from him based on his campaign promises. That's it for today's episode. For more on any of the stories from today, check out roiders.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 headline show.