Tuesday Morning Briefing: Trump's adviser to testify about concerns over Ukraine call
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October 29, 2019
Reuters News Now
Highlights
One of President Donald Trump’s top adviserson European affairs is set to testify that he told a government lawyer about concerns that U.S. national security could be undermined after a phone call between Trump and Ukraine’s president. Alexander Vindman, director of European affairs on the National Security Council, says he listened in on the call in which Trump asked Volodymyr Zelenskiy to investigate Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden.
Wind-driven wildfires burned largely uncontrolledin tinder-dry California, as firefighters battled blazes threatening thousands of homes in a race against time with even stronger gusts expected later. Thousands of residents have already fled and hundreds of thousands of others were left in the dark with power companies cut off electricity to try to prevent more fires being sparked.
Baghdadi leaves bitter legacy in city he terrorized.When Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi took to the pulpit of Iraq’s historic al-Nuri mosque to declare his caliphate in 2014, residents of Mosul had no idea the extent to which their city would be devastated. "He came to our mosque, a place of peace for us, and he turned it into a place of hell," said Fahd Qishmou, who attended Baghdadi’s infamous speech.
Hong Kong authorities disqualifiedprominent pro-democracy activist Joshua Wong on Tuesday from standing in upcoming district elections, a move likely to sow discord among anti-government demonstrators as an illegal Halloween march looms. Wong was 17 when he became the face of the 2014 student-led Umbrella Movement.
Saudi Aramco aims to announce the start of its initial public offering on Nov. 3, three people with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters, after delaying the deal earlier this month. The oil company is looking to float a 1% to 2% stake on the kingdom’s Tadawul market, in what would be one of the largest ever public offerings.
Boeing Chief Executive Dennis Muilenburg will begin the first of two days of testimony Tuesday before U.S. lawmakers and will face tough questions on the crashes of two 737 MAX planes, which killed 346 people and sparked calls for reforms.
Shares of Beyond Meat sank on Tuesday, as a lock-up period for its early backers ended, freeing them up to cash in on this year’s doubling in its share price after results which pointed to growing costs at the plant-based meat success story.
General Motors posted a better-than-expected quarterly net profit thanks to robust U.S. sales of high-margin pickup trucks and SUVs, but slashed its full-year earnings forecast citing the impact of a 40-day U.S. labor strike.
