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Weekend Briefing

From Reuters Daily Briefing

By Robert MacMillan, Reuters.com Weekend Editor

Thanks for joining me on another Saturday full of news. We have the latest on our various technology disasters below, but first: Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping and Donald Trump might hold their first three-way meeting next week in China. And our reporter Ed Ou visits Mississippi in this week’s On Assignment podcast to get a firsthand look at how the state tilted toward blue.

Flight shutdown highlights a network crisis

REUTERS/Elijah Nouvelage

Big snarl: A communications failure that froze flight departures across the country is renewing scrutiny of the aging US air-traffic network. It even came on the same day that the Transportation Department asked Congress for billions of dollars for upgrades. Here are some portraits of passenger misery that our photographers shot.
Tech support: The Microsoft glitch that sank Outlook, Teams and Copilot forced some businesses and institutions to rely on old technology from telephones to fax machines. It reminds us that a handful of big tech companies furnish most of the software and infrastructure that we use to communicate around the world.

Jensen Huang misled Nvidia lawyer on his affair, sources say

Documents: The former CEO told company leaders, including general counsel Tim Teter and chief marketing officer Alison Wagonfeld, that his interactions with Alice Huang were routine and reflected standard business practices. Jensen Huang this week hired law firm Paul Weiss, which has made headlines of its own over the past year.
Background: Several news organizations have reported that US and other government authorities had suspicions that Alice Huang was spying for China. Here is what we know and what we don’t know about the Megaspeed executive.

Trump aims to cut judges’ powers again

Challenge: A Justice Department appeal pending before the Supreme Court urges the justices to curtail the longstanding ability of judges to halt the actions of federal agencies that hold the power to carry out Trump’s policy priorities.
Speaking of priorities: The On Assignment podcast I flagged above illustrates how important food stamps are to struggling families. The Agriculture Department wants to cut millions of people from the program.

Russia tries to freeze Ukraine out one more time

Winter: Russia is trying once again to damage Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, seeking to leave millions of people without heat and power during the year’s coldest months. Our reporters visited a power plant to see how personnel repair the damage.
Talks: US negotiators said Russia agreed that Europeans can join negotiations to end the Ukraine war, but Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov a day later suggested that this is not yet so.

An urgent need, a non-urgent response

COP31: Poor nations exposed to climate-related disasters are asking for cash to help them mitigate the risk, but rich nations are offering a limited response. Our reporters at the COP31 climate talks in Turkey say Western governments are putting national security and living costs first.
Remittances: A group of small island states wants to create a fund backed by a charge on money their residents receive from abroad to raise $3 billion a year.

Before I forget…

Kazakhstan’s president said that the arrest of the country’s sovereign wealth-fund chief on corruption charges should increase investor confidence, not erode it.
Hungarian authorities recovered nearly $20 million in cash in a bribery probe of former minister Miklós Seszták. Some of the money was buried in forests and hidden in farm buildings and warehouses.
A police detective in Kentucky must face a lawsuit for allegedly relying exclusively on AI facial-recognition technology to identify a check-fraud suspect. The wrong man was arrested and imprisoned.
Indian telecom officials ordered the takedown of more than 100 websites based on fake court orders.
You’re so far away from me: NASA's Voyager 1 probe, launched in 1977, soon will reach the point of being one light-day away from Earth.
Alpacas in a retirement home? Sign me up.
If I’d known they were going to hand out awards for AI music, I’d have sent a few numbers in.

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After ICE raids, southwest Kansans swung to a Democrat. They want accountability

The Irsik & Doll cattle feed yard in Finney County. REUTERS/Matt Mills McKnight/File Photo

Early last month, in a starkly lit meeting room in southwest Kansas, Amy Soberanes stood to address members of the Dodge City commission.

It had been two weeks since US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents descended on the city, and she and other community organizers peppered the commissioners with questions: What had they known? Why had the area been targeted? How would the city respond if it happened again?

Federal immigration agents detained 104 people, according to the local US Attorney. Hispanic communities in Dodge City, Garden City and Liberal – dominated by ‌meatpacking plants staffed by a mostly immigrant workforce – were hardest hit.

There were few answers to be had that night. But on November 3, Election Day, voters made themselves heard.

Kansas elected a Democrat to the US Senate for the first time in nearly a century when Adam Hamilton ousted incumbent Republican Roger Marshall. The three counties most affected by the ICE raids swung toward Hamilton by more than 20 points on average from Republican President Donald Trump’s 2024 vote share, results compiled by Reuters and USA Today showed.

Read the full article