Syrian mass graves, Mayotte, Trump’s defamation claims and Tulsi Gabbard
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Today, Syria's mass graves exposed in cyclone-ravaged Mayotte, fears over hunger and disease. Trump steps up his legal threats against news outlets. Plus, another Trump nominee struggles in her confirmation bid. It's Wednesday, December 18th. This is Reuters World News, bringing you everything you need to know from the front lines in 10 minutes every weekday. I'm Jonah Green in New York. And I'm Carmel Crimmins in Dublin.

When you hear Elsec 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 Elsec data and analytics. Evidence emerging from mass grave sites in Syria is exposing a state-run machinery of death under toppled leader Bashar al-Assad. That's according to an international war crimes prosecutor.

Anthony Deutsch has the story. We visited a couple of sites in Syria, colleagues of mine in Syria, and what they saw and what they heard from witnesses was a large scale or two large scale mass graves where hundreds and likely thousands and possibly even more of bodies were buried over a period of years during the Civil War.

And what's new about this is that while we knew that there were widespread atrocities, and there were some witnesses who came out in past years who talked about it, but what's new now and has surprised many, and also many in Syria itself, is the scale and the organization that was involved. And we spoke to a leading international prosecutor, Stephen Rapp, who visited two of these sites. And he said,

he described the scale of it and the organization and how, and neighbors told us that they had seen refrigeration trucks coming out to these sites several times a week carrying hundreds of bodies that were buried in deep trenches, dug with bulldozers. So Stephen Rapp, he said that he is convinced that there were at least 100,000 bodies buried

Possibly at just two sites alone. And what's going to be important now is that all these sites are protected and preserved so that that information can be dug up literally by prosecutors who are going to try to build cases against those who are responsible. Authorities in Mayotte are concerned about hunger and disease spreading in the wake of last weekend's devastating cyclone.

Thousands are feared dead in the poorest of France's overseas territories. President Emmanuel Macron heads there on Thursday amid criticism that his government has neglected the island.

Tassilo Hummel is in Mayotte and sent us this dispatch. We arrived in Grand Terre, the main island of Mayotte this morning after the ferry linking the two, the smaller one has the airport, went back into service. Now we went into Mamounzou and Kavizi, the neighboring Shanti town. And being here, I mean, you can see destruction everywhere. There's barely of some places, there's barely anything left.

People tell me that the hills of Maiotis, very hilly and very, very, very green area, they all used to house people who were just living there in their shacks between the trees. And that's basically all gone. No or barely any tree is left and none of the shacks, at least where I'm standing, seems to be left. The only buildings that are still standing are those built of brick and mortar.

But almost all of them have no roof. And so irons hammering on iron sheets is the main sound I'm hearing here this morning. Russia says it's detained a citizen of Uzbekistan who has confessed to planting and detonating a bomb which killed a top general in Moscow. Ukraine's SBU intelligence service has claimed responsibility for the assassination of Igor Krylov, accusing him of being responsible for the use of chemical weapons against Ukrainian troops.

Moscow denies the accusation. Luigi Mangione has been charged in New York with first-degree murder and murder as a crime of terrorism for the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. Here's Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. This was a frightening, well-planned, targeted murder that was intended to cause shock and attention and intimidation.

Mangione is currently being held on gun charges in Pennsylvania.

President-elect Donald Trump has filed a lawsuit against the Des Moines Register newspaper and its top pollster.

The lawsuit filed Monday night seeks, "Accountability for brazen election interference

over its poll published in early November that showed Kamala Harris leading Trump by 13 points in Iowa. And in my opinion, it was fraud and it was election interference. Earlier this week, ABC News agreed to give $15 million to Trump's presidential library to settle a lawsuit over comments that anchor George Stephanopoulos made on air.

Trump in recent days has stepped up his legal threats against news outlets and said he would also consider suing social media influencers and others for defamation. Legal reporter Jack Queen is in New York.

Jack, suing a pollster for a bad poll is unusual, if not unheard of. Does this case have any merit? It is unusual. And, you know, he's also suing Gannett, the parent company of the paper. And the experts I've talked to mostly think this probably isn't going to go anywhere. I mean, just initially based off the allegations they're leveling that the pollster, J. Ann Seltzer, in

intentionally revised the numbers downward with the expressed intention of hurting Trump's chances. I mean, that'd be a really difficult thing to prove. So the Des Moines Register told us in a statement that they acknowledged that the poll was flawed, but that they stand by their reporting and that they think the suit is meritless. It costs a lot of money to do it, but...

We have to straighten out the press. What do legal experts make of this tactic? There are plenty of experts, both in media and legal circles, who are saying that all of this is really contributing to an increasingly hostile environment for the press. You know, there was a lot of speculation that ABC settled this case, despite having a potentially strong hand, because they feared retribution from the Trump administration. Now, of course, that's just speculation. We can't know why ABC did what it did.

And also just today here on Tuesday, in another ongoing case he has against Simon & Schuster, the book publisher related to its use of audio recordings that its author Bob Woodward made of Trump. His lawyers specifically cited...

this settlement in a letter to the judge. And they were saying they hope that Simon & Schuster will, quote, follow Mr. Stephanopoulos' expression of contrition. So I think it's safe to say that the threat of more of these lawsuits coming against media companies is very real. A spokesperson for ABC said the network was pleased that the parties had reached an agreement to dismiss the lawsuit.

President-elect Donald Trump's cabinet nominee, Tulsi Gabbard, is meeting with Republican senators on Capitol Hill to shore up support for her bid to become director of national intelligence. And while no Republican has publicly opposed her nomination, sources tell Reuters that behind closed doors, some are sending mixed signals about voting to confirm the former Democrat. Reporter Patricia Zangerle is following the story.

One thing that we've heard, and this is from transition aides and others familiar with the process, is that as many as eight Republicans have expressed some sort of reluctance about voting for Gabbard. Eight's a lot. They can only afford to lose three if the Democrats hold together and all vote against her. There have been reports that Gabbard has underwhelmed in her interviews, that she hasn't seemed as well prepared as senators would like.

that her lack of experience in the world of intelligence has really shown. And there's concerns about her record on Syria, especially in light of recent events in Syria, the change in government there. And she has been plagued persistently with talk that she is too close to Russia, which she, of course, has denied.

In a statement, Trump transition spokesperson Alexa Henning noted that no Republican senator has publicly said they would vote against Gabbard.

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And for today's recommended read, an exclusive on SpaceX. A September power outage at its California facility caused a loss of ground control for at least an hour during a mission that included the first private spacewalk in history. A link to that story is in the pod description. For more on any of the stories from today, check out Reuters.com or the Reuters app.

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