Daily Briefing

Michigan's strong 'uncommitted' vote shows Israel's impact on Biden support, why US housing inflation relief may be short-lived, and Google is working to fix its AI bot.

Plus, China's Xian to give lottery tickets to newlyweds in a bid to spur births.

By Kate Turton

Today's Top News

Barbara McClorin inspects flags made at Valley Forge Flag's manufacturing facility. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein/File Photo

US POLITICS

President Joe Biden easily won the Democratic presidential primary in Michigan, amid a protest vote by Democrats angry over his support for Israel's war against Hamas in Gaza. Donald Trump won the state's Republican presidential primary by a large margin.
Congress has three days to avert a partial government shutdown, as disagreements between the two parties and within the fractious House Republican majority delay lawmakers in their duty of funding federal agencies.
Worries about political extremism or threats to democracy have emerged as a top concern for voters and an issue where Biden has a slight advantage over Trump ahead of the November election, a new Reuters/Ipsos poll showed.

IN OTHER NEWS

French President Emmanuel Macron wanted to create "strategic ambiguity" by openly discussing the idea of sending Western troops to Ukraine. Listen to Europe Affairs Editor Andrew Gray discuss the reaction to Macron's comments.
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich pledged to continue expanding settlements in the occupied West Bank, defying international pressure on Israel to stop building on land Palestinians see as the core of a future independent state.
Some British lawmakers are ready to stand down amid fears for their safety after threats and abuse over Gaza. After the October 7 Hamas attack that sparked the war in Gaza, more than 10 British politicians told Reuters.
Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny's funeral service and burial will take place in Moscow on Friday, his spokesperson said, after a search for a hall to allow his supporters to bid farewell to him failed.
North Korea's first spy satellite is "alive", a Netherlands-based space expert said, after detecting changes in its orbit that suggested Pyongyang was successfully controlling the spacecraft - although its capabilities remain unknown.

Business & Markets

US Federal Reserve officials say they are confident housing inflation will finally cool in coming months, a key and long-awaited component of their effort to control overall price increases and secure their turn to interest rate cuts.
Country Garden said a liquidation petition has been filed against it for non-payment of a $205 million loan, clouding its debt revamp prospects and undermining Beijing's effort to restore confidence in the property sector. How bad are Country Garden's debt problems?
Google is working to fix its Gemini AI tool, CEO Sundar Pichai told employees, saying some of the text and image responses generated by the model were "biased" and "completely unacceptable". Listen to Jeffrey Dastin on the Reuters World News podcast discuss the issues with Gemini.
Apple has canceled work on its electric car, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters, a decade after the iPhone maker kicked off the project.
The Federal Trade Commission's bid to block grocer Kroger's $25 billion acquisition of Albertsons could benefit Walmart, a rival whose close relationships with suppliers already gives it a price advantage over other chains.
Toyota did not respond to a trade union's wage demands in a second round of pay talks, a senior union official said, keeping investors guessing about the outcome of closely-watched annual wage talks due to conclude on March 13.
Sam Bankman-Fried's lawyer urged a judge to impose a lenient sentence for the FTX founder's conviction for stealing $8 billion from customers of the now-bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange.

With handouts, piped water and cooking gas, India's Modi woos women voters

Women at an event where the senior BJP leader Shivraj Singh Chouhan was visiting, February 8, 2024. REUTERS/Anushree Fadnavis

Living in a slum in central India with her widowed mother and two young daughters, Nayantara Gupta says she owes her relative prosperity in recent years to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party.

Gupta, a 28-year-old single mother, said she voted for the BJP in the last two general elections and plans to do the same in the next vote due by May, citing the party's focus on women's welfare, including cash handouts and domestic benefits such as piped water, 24/7 electricity and a cooking gas connection in her cramped home.

Growing numbers of women voting for the BJP

And Finally...

A woman tries on a wedding dress at a booth at the China International Wedding Expo in Beijing June 5, 2010. REUTERS/Christina Hu/File Photo

Authorities in China's city of Xian will spend 700,000 yuan on lottery tickets to give as prizes to newlyweds who present a marriage certificate, in an effort to encourage weddings at a time of fewer births.

With marriage rates closely tied to birth rates as unmarried mothers are often denied child-raising benefits, Xian promised a lottery ticket to any couple presenting a marriage certificate from March 1, as "a double surprise".

China's Xian to give lottery tickets to newlyweds in bid to spur births.

Sponsors are not involved in the creation of newsletters or other Reuters news content.

Advertise in this newsletter or on Reuters.com

Reuters Daily Briefing is sent 5 days a week. Think your friend or colleague should know about us? Forward this newsletter to them. They can also sign up here.

Want to stop receiving this email? Unsubscribe here.
To manage which newsletters you're signed up for, click here.