Waltz exit, China’s hint, Apple and Australian election
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Today, a shakeup in President Trump's inner circle. China considers trade talks with the United States. Apple faces a contempt investigation as it tries to navigate the hit from tariffs. Plus, Australians head to the polls this weekend. It's Friday, May 2nd. 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. And I'm Carmel Crimmins in Dublin.

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It's the first big shakeup of President Donald Trump's inner circle. Mike Waltz is out as national security advisor, but Trump says he'll nominate him to be his U.S. ambassador to the United Nations instead. Now, Waltz had come under fire for adding an Atlantic journalist to a sensitive military group chat on the app Signal. Trump has named Secretary of State Marco Rubio as Waltz's interim replacement.

Our White House reporter Steve Holland explains. What we've learned is that Trump had grown weary of Waltz, specifically for the signal chat scandal, but also for being a hawk in a group that's sort of war-averse. I think Trump likes Waltz enough that he wanted to give him a soft landing. And so instead of firing him outright, he gave him a nomination to be the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. And he's very likely to get confirmed.

So Rubio's in the spot for now. Do we have any idea who might replace Waltz more permanently? There are a number of options for the position long term. One of them that we're hearing is that it could be the U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, who is one of Trump's most trusted advisors. They could also leave Rubio in it long term. That's another option. Doesn't Rubio have enough to do as it is?

Well, and it's very funny. Rubio is Secretary of State. He's the acting head of USAID, the aid organization that the Elon Musk group has tried to gut. Apparently, he's also the chief archivist. And so now he's going to be national security advisor.

So this is the first big shakeup. Do we know if Secretary of Defense Pete Hagseff, who was also on that chat, is under similar scrutiny?

Trump almost daily expresses confidence in the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth. So that's the going line now. But privately, we do hear that there were concerns about, well, Hegseth has had some turnover at the top of the Pentagon, and he was also involved in the signal chat. I think they're trying to work with him to make some improvements. Trump, if he can hold on to Hegseth, he will. But yeah, we'll see.

China says it's considering trade talks with Washington. It's the first sign of a de-escalation with Beijing since Trump hiked tariffs. The thaw comes as Trump moves to tax small parcels coming into the U.S. from China. The duty-free exemption for packages worth less than $800 ends today, exposing those goods to tariffs of 145%.

The US is pushing Congo and Rwanda to sign a peace deal. What would follow are billion-dollar mineral deals for Western investment in the region. That's according to Trump's senior Africa adviser. Germany's domestic intelligence agency has classified the far-right Alternative for Germany as an extremist entity. The move enables the agency to better monitor the political party, which came second in February's federal election.

Reform UK has won a special local election by six votes in a blow to British Prime Minister Keir Starmer. Nigel Farage's right-wing populist party is hoping a strong performance in local English elections will mark the start of the breakdown of Britain's two-party system.

A US judge blocked the Trump administration from using an 18th century wartime law to deport some Venezuelan migrants. But the injunction only applies to migrants detained in the Southern District of Texas. And Trump has signed an executive order to cut funding to NPR and PBS. The order labeled the news outlets as partisan and biased.

Hopes of a thaw in trade tensions between China and the United States are lifting global stocks. But not Apple. The tech giant has spooked investors with a reality check on how the trade war is hitting its business. It says tariffs could add about $900 million in costs this quarter as it shifts its fast supply chain to avoid the import charges. And all of this is coming as the iPhone maker is facing legal troubles.

A judge on Wednesday referred Apple to federal prosecutors for a criminal contempt investigation. She says Apple violated a court order in an antitrust lawsuit brought by Fortnite maker Epic Games. Reporter Mike Scarcella is following the case. This is a blockbuster order against a major U.S. company. It's very rare that a judge would issue such an order referring a company for contempt. The

The big issue in the case before Judge Gonzalez-Rogers in Oakland was, you know, what was Apple saying in real time at the company about complying with her 2021 court order versus what Apple was saying in court papers and at court hearings? And the judge in this case found a really clear difference.

disconnect. She says essentially that Tim Cook ignored one of Apple's senior executives and instead followed some of the financial executives who were urging a different course. And the court says in her ruling, Tim Cook chose poorly. And so it's a stunning rebuke insofar as court orders go. And what's Apple saying?

Apple has denied violating the court order. It says in a statement that it disagrees with the order, and we can expect to see some of those arguments made to the Ninth Circuit Appeals Court. That's up to federal prosecutors to look at the judge's ruling and decide whether to go down that path. But certainly, Apple likely will try to argue to prosecutors not to bring any such case.

Australians head to the polls this weekend in another federal election that's being swayed by global uncertainty. And as our politics reporter Kirstie Needham in Sydney has been reporting, that uncertainty is shifting voter sentiment. So at the start of the year, global inflation, cost of living pressures was really causing voter anger and a potential shift towards the conservative opposition leader, Peter Dutton.

But that changed when Donald Trump entered the White House with his Doge advisor, Elon Musk. And the polling shows that by the time the Australian election campaign had kicked off last month, Australian voters were really concerned about what they were seeing with Trump's stop-start tariffs and volatile diplomacy. And so the polling has shown Dutton falling behind in the election race.

As Australian voters become risk averse and the centre-left Labour government has been successful in comparing Dutton's policies to Trump. Now, this sounds very similar to what we heard recently in Canada's federal elections. How is the situation in Australia different, though?

There are some similarities, but some key differences. So Canada had been directly attacked by Trump in a way that Australia hasn't been. Australia is a close US security ally. And Prime Minister Albanese has been careful not to directly attack Trump. So he instead has been highlighting the potential risk of chaos and cuts. And Labor social media marketing has been talking about Doge Dutton,

Early on in the campaign, Dutton had come out with several policies, which he says are typical of an Australian conservative of cutting public service jobs.

And he also made a few comments about why do we need to have diversity, gender and inclusion advisers in the federal government? And that's been read by Australian voters as very dogy. Dutton was asked directly about this and he said, I'm not trying to distance myself from Trump. I've always been an Australian conservative leader, but he's known for 20 years in parliament as the hard man of Australian politics and particularly his hard line on immigration.

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And for today's recommended read, the US-style Marshall Plan ambitions Iran once had for rebuilding Syria and how it all went spectacularly wrong with the fall of Bashar al-Assad. And we're sticking with Syria for this weekend's recommended listen. We take a look at life five months after Assad's regime crumbled and the uphill challenges facing the country as it tries to reinvent itself. That pod drops on Saturday morning.

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. We'll be back on Monday with our daily headline show.