Violence, racism, praise for Nazis: Welcome to politics chats
And things we lost in the shutdown
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Weekend Briefing
Weekend Briefing
From Reuters Daily Briefing
By Robert MacMillan, Reuters.com Weekend Editor
Thanks for reading the Weekend Briefing and joining us on the Saturday shift. We have an engrossing story about the prospect of a record U.S. corn harvest – which is not good for farmers. Today's On Assignment podcast investigates how the former Assad regime in Syria moved tens of thousands of bodies from one mass grave to another. And our newest City Memo edition takes us to Abu Dhabi.
Group chats: Three incidents of leaked text messages from private online groups this month exposed racist, antisemitic, pro-Nazi and violent statements from people across the U.S. ideological spectrum. They raise questions about why the people involved felt comfortable expressing such views despite the risk of exposure.
Bot chats: Gutter talk it may be, but at least those comments came from humans. A conservative activist sued Google, saying that its AI systems falsely called him a child rapist, serial sex abuser and a shooter. Steve Bannon and Glenn Beck urged a ban on superintelligent AI. Two federal judges said they used AI as part of recent court orders that Sen. Charles Grassley said were "error-ridden." Here's the latest U.S. law firm that had to apologize for a court filing full of AI falsehoods. And AI assistants misrepresented news content in nearly half their responses, a report says.
Tech support: Ukraine is working on improving its drone campaign to target Russian oil facilities as Russia's interception abilities improve. Russia's fourth-largest oil refinery halted a processing unit following a Ukrainian drone attack. EU leaders stopped short of endorsing a plan to use frozen Russian assets to fund a loan to Kyiv.
And in the Middle East: President Trump and Vice President JD Vance dismissed an effort by hard-right Israeli lawmakers to push ahead with annexing the West Bank. The U.S. military is deploying 200 troops to a command center in southern Israel to monitor the Gaza ceasefire. Clearing Gaza's unexploded ordnance will take up to 30 years, an aid group said.
Meetings: Teams from both countries want to avoid an escalation of their trade war and ensure that a meeting between Donald Trump and Xi Jinping happens next week. As for U.S. talks with Canada, Trump isn't buying what Ontario is selling, and for better or worse, the Ronald Reagan is playing a posthumous and prominent supporting role.
Reliable numbers: The White House said there will not be a release of inflation data in November because of the shutdown. States warned that people might not receive food aid next month. Trump's firings of federal workers threaten the implementation of his own tax incentives. Things aren't looking good for aviation-safety staff. And one IRS lawyer on furlough is living his dream by running a hot dog cart called "SHYSTERS" on the streets of D.C.
Soldiers of fortune: Trump said a private donor gave $130 million to cover shortfalls in military salaries. He called the unidentified donor a patriot and "a friend of mine."
Carte blanche: The Wegovy maker's boardroom shake-up gives unprecedented power to the foundation that is Novo's top shareholder. That's rattling investors despite their calls for stronger leadership and the company's plan to sharpen its focus on the U.S. market.
In other business news: Weapons and war are proving more fruitful for investors than weight-loss drugs. Lockheed Martin raised its 2025 revenue and profit forecasts on strong demand for fighter jets and munitions. Defense spending also helped Thales, the defense-electronics group that just created a joint satellite services-and-manufacturing business with Airbus and Leonardo to compete with Elon Musk's Starlink.
A Belfast court found a British soldier not guilty of murder in the only trial of a member of British armed forces in the 1972 Bloody Sunday killings of 13 unarmed Catholic civil-rights marchers.
The cable that snapped and caused a Lisbon funicular railway car to crash in September, killing 16 people, was not certified for use in passenger transport, a preliminary report said.
'You can do anything you want': White House reporter Jeff Mason digs into Trump's demolition of the East Wing and all that it symbolizes.
Opponents of Javier Milei are casting Trump's support for the Argentinian president as a case of #PatriaOColonia – motherland or colony.
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