Russian missile, Adani, school choice and Target’s woes
12:33 Share

Today, Kyiv says Russia has for the first time fired an intercontinental ballistic missile at Ukraine. Indian billionaire Gautama Dhani is facing US charges of fraud and bribery. What does that mean for his global empire? We'll look at Donald Trump's plans for a US education system. And Target's shares slide as it heads for a lackluster holiday season.

It's Thursday, November 21st. This is Reuters World News, bringing you everything you need to know from the front lines in 10 minutes every weekday. I'm Christopher Waljasper in Chicago. When you hear LSEC Data & 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 & Analytics.

Russia has launched an intercontinental ballistic missile from its southern Astrakhan region in an attack on Ukraine this morning. That's according to Kyiv's Air Force. If confirmed, it would mark the first time Russia has used the powerful nuclear-capable missile during the nearly three-year war. These ICBMs have a range of thousands of kilometers.

The move comes as Ukraine fired a volley of British Storm Shadow cruise missiles as well as U.S. ATAKMS into Russia this week, something Moscow has warned for months would be seen as a major escalation. Russia has not commented on the Air Force's statement. Indian billionaire Gautam Adani is facing a U.S. indictment for an alleged $265 million bribery scheme. It's a huge blow for one of India's biggest businessmen.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been accused by political opponents of favoritism toward Adani's businesses.

Aditi Shah is covering the fallout in New Delhi. Broadly, there are two main charges. One charge is of the $265 million bribery and the other charge is of fraud. Now, the bribery charge involves an Adani entity called Adani Green Energy and an Indian company called Azure Power that was listed on the New York Stock Exchange until late last year. What the prosecutors allege is that the two companies colluded to pay bribes to Indian government officials to

to win and retain some renewable energy projects in the country. The second fraud charge is that when Adani went out to the market to raise money to fund some of his renewable energy projects, he also raised money from US investors.

But around the time when he was raising money, it was also the same time when, you know, these bribes were underway. So how has Adani responded? He's denied all the charges. He's called them baseless, saying that, you know, it upholds the highest standards of governance, transparency and compliance.

And finally, the group said that they're going to take all possible legal recourse as well. What are the possible ramifications to his businesses? Yeah, so he's got a sprawling empire, not just in India, which cuts across ports, airports, other infrastructure projects in countries like Australia and India.

in places like Sri Lanka, in Kenya, and in Israel. We don't know yet what the immediate impact on that will be, but there has been immediate setback in India already. There was sort of a bloodbath on the stock exchange, and investors in his listed entities here have already lost over $30 billion. He's also canceled a $600 million U.S. dollar-nominated bond issue. Now, U.S. prosecutors have issued an arrest warrant for Adani.

Is there any chance he'd actually be detained? So the U.S. and India have an extradition treaty between them. But for any arrests to be executed, what lawyers say is that U.S. authorities would need to get in touch with Indian authorities. The Australian government has introduced a bill that aims to ban social media for children under the age of 16.

The proposal includes fines of up to $32 million for social media platform breaches, as well as a trial of an age verification system that could include biometrics or government IDs to enforce the age limit. The U.S. House Ethics Committee is not releasing the findings of an investigation into sexual misconduct allegations against Attorney General nominee Matt Gaetz.

The Ethics Committee met behind closed doors where ranking Democrat Susan Wild says members were split along party lines. A powerful storm has clobbered Washington state, killing two people, knocking out power to hundreds of thousands, and disrupting road travel. The first atmospheric river storm of the season has shifted to California and is expected to bring extreme rainfall by the end of the week.

In the US, the Senate has voted to block three resolutions introduced by progressives that would have stopped the transfer of some US weapons to Israel. And a UN Security Council resolution for a ceasefire in Gaza faced similar fate after the US vetoed it, drawing criticism of the Biden administration for again blocking international action aimed at ending Israel's war with Hamas.

The holiday season is upon us, but retail giant Target isn't optimistic about the final months of the year. The company is announcing that its earnings fell short, sinking its stock price by 20%.

Ariana Mocklamore has been looking into why consumers are shopping elsewhere. Well, it's important to think about how shoppers at Target are looking for, I would say, higher quality items. And a lot of Target's merchandise is discretionary items. So think about your TVs, your iPads, your electronics, home goods, and things like that, which budgeted

budget-conscious shoppers aren't really looking for right now. They're spending their money on toiletries and they're spending their money on groceries, which is what Walmart is more known for. So Target is going to have to keep their eye on the Walmarts and the Amazons. It's going to be interesting to see how this is going to play out for the holiday season when shoppers do want the deepest discounts and they want to see promotions earlier because

There are less days between Thanksgiving and Christmas this year, so shoppers don't have as much time to figure out where they want to buy their Christmas gifts and merchandise. Donald Trump is poised to reshape the U.S. education system. He and proposed Education Secretary Linda McMahon are expected to expand tax breaks that would make it easier for parents to send their children to private schools.

Many conservatives say these controversial school choice programs give parents more options, while Democrats say it undermines the public school system. McMahon has been a vocal proponent of school choice since resigning as head of the Small Business Administration in Trump's first term back in 2019.

Reporter Andy Sullivan has been looking into how these incentives would work. A lot of states already have these in place. And by creating a federal program like this, it would really sort of amplify it because they'd be able to give away up to five billion dollars.

I talked to one expert. He said that would cover about 600,000 people's tuition. So they have high hopes that they can pass a tax break next year that will really boost participation. And significantly, it also would apply in Democratic states like New York that have not set up school choice programs. These programs right now tend to be in places like Arizona, Florida, dominated by Republicans.

Democrats have opposed this so far, but they're not going to be in charge of Congress next year. So Republicans stand a good chance of passing this. Also, it would probably be one tiny little line in a massive tax bill that they're going to advance. So how might this impact public school funding? This tax break that we are talking about wouldn't

take money away from federal funding, which is about $20 billion or so per year, wouldn't take money away from state or local funding. It would just give people a tax break if they wanted to donate to a scholarship. Now, of course, that tax break means there's less money coming into the federal government, $5 billion per year. That's

That's not a huge amount in the grand scheme of things when we have a $6 trillion budget. But, you know, that's $5 billion that we're not getting that we could use for something else. Is school choice widely supported by conservatives? But it's not universally popular. People in rural areas don't like it so much because, you know, there may not be a private school if you live out in the middle of nowhere in Nebraska.

Voters rejected vouchers in, let's see, Kentucky, Nebraska and Colorado in this most recent election. And two of those are very Republican states. Whenever they bring it up in Washington, it doesn't get far either. Republicans in Congress rejected an idea to take federal money and sort of make vouchers out of it. To stay ahead in fast moving markets, you need to transform quality data into tailored, practical and valuable intelligence.

Today's Recommended Read is all about Angela Merkel's memoir, which hits bookstores next week.

In excerpts published in a German newspaper, the former chancellor recalls her tricks for dealing with Donald Trump, including asking the Pope's advice on how to convince Trump not to quit the Paris Climate Accords. Freedom, Memories 1954-2021 is out November 26th, and a link to our story is in the podcast description.

And now that you're finished listening to Reuters World News, check out Reuters Econ World. This week, Carmel Crimmins goes deep on what the future looks like coexisting with AI.

You can catch it on Reuters.com, the Reuters app, or wherever you listen to podcasts. We'll be back tomorrow with our daily headline show. For more on any of the stories from today, check out Reuters.com or the Reuters app. And to make sure you never miss an episode, follow on your favorite podcast player or download the Reuters app.