Trump and Zelenskiy, PKK, measles and Apple DEI
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Today, Trump and Zelensky are set to meet at the White House. What a call for Kurdish militants to disarm means for the wider Middle East. A measles outbreak in Texas is an early challenge for vaccine skeptic RFK Jr. And Apple defends its diversity policies.

It's Friday, February 28th. This is Reuters World News, bringing you everything you need to know from the front lines in 10 minutes every weekday. I'm Tara Oaks in Liverpool. And I'm Jonah Green in New York. Have you ever spotted McDonald's hot, crispy fries right as they're being scooped into the carton? And time just stands still. Ba-da-ba-ba-ba.

President Donald Trump says he will meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky later today. In an Oval Office meeting on Thursday with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Trump touted a potential minerals deal with Ukraine. We're going to be actually in there, digging our hearts out.

saying it would act as the security guarantee Kyiv needs against Russia. It's a backstop, you could say. I don't think anybody's going to play around if we're there with a lot of workers. Trump also softened his tone about the Ukrainian leader ahead of his visit. Did I say that? I can't believe I said that.

Mexico has begun to hand over major figures in the country's drug gang underworld to U.S. authorities. The surprise extradition follows ongoing threats by Trump to impose across-the-board tariffs on Mexican goods. Among the nearly 30 convicts is Rafael Caro Quintero, alleged to be responsible for the 1985 murder of a U.S. anti-narcotics agent. He's due to be arraigned today in Brooklyn federal court.

Andrew Tate and his brother Tristan arriving in Fort Lauderdale, Florida after prosecutors lifted a travel ban on them. The brothers are under criminal investigation in Romania on accusations of rape and human trafficking. They have denied all wrongdoing.

Tate is a self-described misogynist whose online instructional videos direct men to, among other things, physically assault women who accuse them of cheating. All I can say is they have been deceased for quite a while. An update from a Santa Fe County sheriff after Gene Hackman and his wife were found dead in their New Mexico home. Sheriff's deputies found Hackman in the kitchen.

His wife and a dog, which was inside a crate, were in a bathroom with scattered pills from an open prescription bottle on the bathroom counter. People tending to a man lying injured on the ground in Congo, his leg soaked in blood. Explosions killed 11 and wounded dozens at a rally held by M23 rebels in the city of Bukavu.

Some of the biggest digital currencies have erased nearly all of the gains they made after Donald Trump's election win triggered a wave of excitement across the industry. Bitcoin fell below $80,000 for the first time this year. Hopes for a strategic Bitcoin reserve are fading and tariff threats are weighing on demand for speculative assets.

Trump's own so-called "meme coin," which he launched days before his inauguration in a move that sparked conflict of interest concerns, is down 80% from a January peak. That's according to CoinMarketCap data. Kurds in Turkey's southeastern province of Diyarbakir celebrating as they watched a statement from jailed militant leader Abdullah Erdogan calling for his Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, to lay down arms.

His message could end a 40-year conflict with Ankara and her far-reaching political and security consequences for the region. Ece Toksibay has more. Abdullah Ocalan's statement marks a potential turning point in one of Turkey's most deep-rooted conflicts. For President Erdogan and his ruling AK Party, this moment presents both an opportunity and a challenge. The government has consistently framed the PKK as Turkey's foremost security threat.

justify military operations in northern Iraq and Syria as well as in Turkey. If the PKK were to formally disarm, it could shift the focus toward a political solution to the Kurdish issue.

So what are the implications for the wider Middle East? Öcalan's call could have really wide-ranging consequences across the region. The PKK is deeply embedded in regional power struggles. So if the PKK were to step away from armed conflict, if it were to lay down arms, it could reshape many dynamics within the region, especially between Turkey, the Kurdistan regional government in Iraq,

the Kurdish forces in Syria, such as the YPG, which has U.S. backing. A growing measles outbreak in West Texas is posing the first major test to U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime vaccine skeptic. One child has died and nearly 20 others have been hospitalized with serious complications. All were unvaccinated.

Overall, more than 130 cases have been reported in Texas and neighboring New Mexico. Our health reporter Chad Terhune in Los Angeles has been looking into the response. After the first death was confirmed earlier this week, U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. really had an opportunity to come out with a very forceful message about vaccination, how serious this disease is, particularly to young children.

and prepare medical professionals all across the country to be ready for this to help stem a growing outbreak. But instead, at a cabinet meeting with Donald Trump, he basically said, "This was not unusual. We've had outbreaks in the past." Incidentally, there have been four measles outbreaks this year in this country last year that were 16.

So it's not unusual. This was stark contrast to later in the day when Texas hospital officials who have been treating these patients, about 20 children, including the one death, the first one we've had in 10 years, had a very different message. They emphasized the importance of vaccination, that this is a totally preventable disease. Earlier this week, state officials in Texas announced

issued an alert because one of the infected individuals had traveled 400 miles away from this area of West Texas, had visited busy college campuses, a large convenience store, a tourist attraction, and they were just warning, this is exactly how this virus can spread far and wide and infect many more people. President Trump is pushing Apple to drop its DEI efforts.

The company's shareholders voted to keep diversity, equity, and inclusion policies this week, even as other tech companies fold diversity programs under pushback from conservative groups.

Our tech reporter, Stephen Nellis, is here to explain the impact of Apple's stance. What this tells us is that Apple's shareholders are very comfortable with the way that Apple and Tim Cook have implemented DEI at Apple. One thing that Tim Cook has been eager to point out is that Apple has never set any kind of quotas or any kind of metrics for target numbers they wanted to hit. Prior to this, Apple had actually...

among large tech companies come in for criticism of not making the kind of progress that advocates for DEI programs had wanted to see. So I think what this really shows is that Apple does these things a little bit differently than many other companies in corporate America. And if you just actually look at some of the data that Apple themselves publish on race data, in 2019, the company had about 4% of its leadership reported as black.

And then in 2022, that was 4.4%. So there wasn't a huge difference there. But I think it pays to remember here that Apple actually has more than 100,000 employees. And a lot of those employees are the face of its retail operations.

So it's very difficult to sort of lump Apple in with a lot of its Silicon Valley peers who did things like put targets or quotas into place. So how is Apple now responding to pressure from the Trump administration to pull back efforts and even threatening legal action? I think Tim Cook is a masterclass of engagement without necessarily compromising on any core principles.

There were media reports that Tim Cook met with President Trump last week. On Monday, you saw Apple come out and say, we're going to spend half a trillion dollars in the United States. Now, a lot of that is spending that Apple probably would have done anyway. But after the vote, Tim Cook said, if the legal environment changes, we will make any changes that we need to be compliant. But our, quote, North Star of dignity for every individual is not going to waver.

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And for today's recommended read, a Hollywood comeback story. Demi Moore is eyeing her first Oscar for her starring role in The Substance, a movie about a fading TV fitness instructor whose injection of a youth serum goes awry. There's a link to the story in the pod description. And of course, this being Oscars weekend, our weekend podcast dropping tomorrow is all about Hollywood's big night. The films, the fashion, the scandals, all of it.

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. So make sure to check that out. And we'll be back on Monday with our daily headline show.