Biden’s commutations, Matt Gaetz and Christmas in Syria
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Today, Biden's death sentence commutations and how they'll frustrate Trump's plan to expand executions. Details of Matt Gaetz's House Ethics Report reveal the scale of allegations against the former congressman. And how Christian leaders in Syria are advising their followers to enjoy a scaled-back Christmas this year.

It's Tuesday, December 24th. This is Reuters World News, bringing you everything you need to know from the front lines in 10 minutes every weekday. I'm Christopher Walgesper in Chicago. And I'm Tara Oaks in Liverpool. When you hear LSEC Data and Analytics, what do you think of? Comprehensive data you can trust. Exclusive access to Reuters news. Industry-leading analytics and unique insights. Discover new possibilities with LSEC Data and Analytics.

President Joe Biden is commuting the sentences of 37 death row inmates, converting them to life in prison without parole. The decision is in direct opposition to President-elect Donald Trump, who says he plans to resume executions at the federal level once he's in office. White House reporter Nandita Bose has been digging into Biden's decision.

So President Biden was under a lot of pressure from congressional Democrats, human rights groups, Pope Francis weighed in, and they wanted him to do away with the death penalty. And there was this consistent pressure building on the president for the past several months.

And he did not do away with the death penalty entirely. He still left three men on the death row for crimes they've committed. But he definitely moved the needle when it comes to doing away with the death penalty. It was a huge step forward. What did Biden have to say about his reasoning for making this decision? Biden said he was guided by his conscience and that he was convinced that the

the death penalty at the federal level needs to be stopped and that he couldn't stand back and see a new Trump administration resume executions that he had stopped when he got into office.

So 37 out of 40, who are the three individuals whose sentences he didn't commute? Right. So it leaves out three of the most actually well-known men. It's Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who was convicted of the Boston Marathon bombing in 2013. And then there was Robert Bowers, who was convicted for the mass shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh in

in 2018, and then Dylann Roof, who was convicted for the shooting at the church in Charleston in 2015. And the reason these three men were left out is because Biden's decision does not apply to cases of terrorism or mass murder. All three have filed their appeals, you know, and legal challenges to their sentences, which is a process that can take years and may not happen while Trump is in office.

Matt Gaetz, former Florida congressman and briefly president-elect Donald Trump's pick for attorney general, allegedly paid a 17-year-old young woman for sex and purchased drugs illegally, dating back to 2017. That's according to a House Ethics Committee report made public on Monday. Our legal reporter, Andrew Goldsward, is based in D.C. and is covering the fallout.

I think the most surprising thing is that the scale of this we knew, I mean, Congressman Gates has been facing allegations in this area for quite a long time. But this report really laid out in detail how long it lasted and how many people were involved. The report found that he paid more than $90,000 to about 12 different women from 2017 until 2020. And the report found that many of those payments were for illegal drugs or for sex.

And now he's already dropped out of consideration for a cabinet appointment. But what sort of fallout could Gates see from this? It's unclear. I mean, obviously, this could become an issue if Gates wants to try to get back his House seat or potentially run for the Senate in Florida. We know that he's already been announced to join the right wing news organization, One America News Network.

As a host there, he's already been criminally investigated over these allegations by the Department of Justice, and they told him last year that he was not going to face charges. How has Gates responded? He issued a statement on X on social media before it came out, basically characterizing this as his generosity to what he called former girlfriends or people that he dated. He has denied having sex with anyone who is underage, but he also didn't agree to speak under oath with the committee.

Luigi Mangione has pled not guilty to charges of terrorism and murder in the December 4th fatal shooting of health insurance executive Brian Thompson in Manhattan. If convicted, Mangione faces life in prison without the possibility of parole. Donald Trump says he'll consider not shutting down social media site TikTok. Maybe we gotta keep this sucker around a little while, you know?

The US Senate passed a law last April requiring TikTok's Chinese parent company ByteDance to divest the app, citing national security concerns. The app could be banned in the United States by January 19th, though ByteDance is fighting the law and the US Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case. And the Trump transition team is planning to pull out of the World Health Organization on day one. That's according to a health law expert familiar with the discussions.

Trump kickstarted the one-year exit process in 2020 during his first term, but Biden later reversed the decision.

Sudan has dropped out of a global hunger monitoring system, a move likely to undercut efforts to deal with one of the world's largest hunger crises. It comes as the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification System, or IPC, is due to release a report that's expected to show famine spreading across the country. The Sudanese government has accused the IPC of issuing unreliable reports to undermine the country's sovereignty.

A Russian cargo ship has sunk in the Mediterranean Sea between Spain and Algeria. Two of its crew are missing, according to the Russian Foreign Ministry. The ship went down after an explosion in the engine room. In Israel, the Defense Ministry has publicly admitted for the first time to killing Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh. Haniyeh was assassinated in Tehran in July.

Chinese authorities have agreed to issue 3 trillion yuan, that's over 400 billion dollars worth of special treasury bonds next year. It would be the highest number on record as Beijing ramps up its fiscal stimulus to revive a faltering economy. China's trying to soften the blow from an expected increase in US tariffs on Chinese imports when Donald Trump returns to the White House in January.

The move underscores Beijing's willingness to go even deeper into debt to counter deflationary forces in the world's second largest economy. Now to Syria, where church leaders are advising Christians to scale back Christmas celebrations this year. Despite assurances from the Islamists who have just taken power that they are free to practice their religion. Amina Ismail is in Damascus.

The de facto ruler Ahmed al-Sharah has repeatedly assured them and said that Christians and other religious minorities will be safe in the new Syria and will have equal rights. But there has been a few incidents that took place over the last two weeks that are triggering these fears. For example, on December 18th, a group of armed men raided a church in Homs, opened fire, tried to destroy a cross, destroyed a Christian cemetery.

The church leaders called HTS and they said in a statement that they quickly sent people and it was dealt with swiftly. But that's not the only incident. Like, for example, I've seen SUVs driving in predominantly Christian areas, blasting

jihadist songs. And although Christian leaders or have every time they have reported any of these incidents to HDS, they would distance themselves from them and they would apologize and promise that they're still trying to restore security and order in the country.

But they're still worried. So Christian leaders in Damascus, for instance, held a meeting and they decided that they will scale back on their Christmas celebrations this year, meaning that they will keep any kind of celebrations inside the premises of the church, unlike what they used to do in previous years.

For example, a Santa that was connected to the church would walk around the streets and distribute sweets and things in the area. But they decided for this year they're going to keep it inside the church to avoid any kind of confrontation and provocation with these armed men who are just roaming around the streets.

For now, they're cautious. They're waiting to see whether ACS and Ahmed El-Sharah will be able to contain all these armed groups and give them their freedoms and rights that they used to have. Experience the difference with Elsec Workspace. Your personal ecosystem for unique insights, news and analytics. With AI-augmented recommendations to gain the competitive edge and collaborate effortlessly with your community.

And today's recommended read is the story of Oleg Kolesnikov, a Ukrainian citizen turned Russian spy. There's a link to that story in the pod description. For more on any of the stories from today, check out Reuters.com or the Reuters app. Don't forget to follow us on your favorite podcast player. We're taking a few days off for the holiday, but we'll be back on Friday with our daily headline show.