New Orleans, Tesla truck explosion, Gazprom and the debt ceiling
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Today, a driver flying an ISIS flag rams into a New Orleans crowd celebrating New Year's Day. A Tesla Cybertruck explodes outside the Trump International Hotel, Las Vegas. The Russian gas era in Europe ends as Ukraine refuses to renew a transit agreement. And what is the US debt ceiling, anyway?

It's Thursday, January 2nd. This is Reuters World News, bringing you everything you need to know from the front lines in 10 minutes every weekday. I'm Tara Oakes in Liverpool. The streets of New Orleans before midnight on New Year's Eve. Just hours later, a US Army veteran flying an ISIS flag from his truck ploughed into the crowded French Quarter, killing 15 people.

The suspect has been identified as Shamsud Dinjabar, a 42-year-old US citizen from Texas who once served in Afghanistan. He was killed in a shootout with police. He was hellbent on creating the carnage and the damage that he did.

Police Chief Anne Kirkpatrick describing how the attacker drove around security barricades in an attack officials say may have been carried out with the help of others. Kimberley Strickland was just 20 yards from where the truck hit pedestrians. Around 30 people were also injured.

Police have found weapons and a potential explosive device inside the vehicle.

US President Joe Biden called it a "despicable attack," adding that all resources are being made available for a full investigation into the incident, as well as the explosion of a Tesla Cybertruck outside the Trump Hotel in Las Vegas. Law enforcement and the intelligence community are investigating this as well, including whether there's any possible connection with the attack in New Orleans.

That explosion in Las Vegas happened just hours after the New Orleans attack. The driver was killed and seven others injured. Videos taken by witnesses inside and outside the hotel show the vehicle exploding and then flames pouring out of it. I just heard a boom.

Oh my God. In this video, taken by Jeffrey Miller, black smoke can be seen rising in front of the hotel. Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department Sheriff Kevin McMahill described what they found in the back of the truck. So those are gasoline canisters. They are camp fuel canisters and large firework mortars. The FBI says it's investigating whether the Vegas blast was an act of terrorism.

Former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Galant has resigned from parliament. Galant was fired from the government in November by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after months of disagreements over the conduct of the war against Hamas in Gaza. Energy is being restored in Puerto Rico after a grid failure on New Year's Eve left nearly all of the island without power.

Incoming governor Jennifer Gonzalez has said on social media that she's forming an energy task force to address the frequent blackouts. The Fiji government says police are investigating incidents involving two crew members of Virgin Australia Airline who are allegedly victims of rape and theft in the early hours of New Year's Day. The crew members were in the popular tourist destination of Nadi on a layover before they were supposed to fly off the following day.

A gunman who killed at least 10 people in a rampage in a small town in Montenegro has died from self-inflicted injuries. The gunman, identified by police as Alexander Martinovich, died after attempting suicide near his home in the town of Sotinje. Donald Trump's impending return to the White House and his plans for hefty import tariffs, tax cuts and immigration restrictions is setting the tone for the new year on markets.

Chinese stocks in particular fell heavily, as did the yuan, which weakened to its lowest level against the US dollar in almost 14 months. Trump's talk of tariffs in excess of 60% on imports of Chinese goods has coincided with central government pledges of proactive policies to promote growth this year, muddying the outlook for an economy that has struggled for momentum. It's the end of an era.

No more Russian gas to Europe after the expiry of a five-year transit agreement between Russia and Ukraine and a reversal of fortune for Russia's energy giant Gazprom. Dmitry Zhdanov is our EMEA Energy and Commodities Editor.

So, Dima, what does this mean for Gazprom? I mean, it's enough to look at their financial performance in 2023 to see the real impact. They've posted a loss of $7 billion. They haven't had a loss since 1999. Just to remind people, in 1999, Putin was not even in power back then. So,

For Gazprom, it's a massive problem because they used to supply dozens of countries in Europe and they had great plans to expand worldwide, supply liquefied gas from America to Asia. And all these plans are now essentially in ruins. They have...

Also, these pipelines, the pipelines that connect Russia with Europe, the tens of billions worth of infrastructure, which is just buried in the ground.

Conversely, it's ended up as a big win for the US, right?

is booming. It's very ironic. Gazprom dismissed for many years the might of US gas industry, saying they won't be able to compete. Well, turns out they are the ones who displaced all the Russian gas in Europe. And the US role will only be rising. In December, Trump said that he will be pressing the EU to buy more US energy or face tariffs. Gazprom has recognised that the loss of major EU clients has adversely impacted its business.

but says it plans to grow exports to Asia to compensate for the loss. Donald Trump wanted to start his second presidency without having to worry about the debt ceiling. Things didn't go his way. And so here we are, once again, with the United States pushing up against its legal borrowing limit and everyone having to fret about a potential default by the world's biggest debtor.

Outgoing Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen says government officials may have to take extraordinary measures by as early as January 14th to prevent that happening. But what exactly is the debt limit? David Lauder covers the Treasury and breaks it down for us. The debt ceiling was created by Congress in 1917 when the United States entered World War I. So up until that time,

Any borrowing that was done by the Treasury Department required a specific act of Congress. They had to go back and ask for permission every time they wanted to sell bonds. And this was not a very efficient way to borrow the vast sums of money that were needed for the war effort. So Congress authorized the Treasury to go to the debt markets at the optimum times to raise money as it saw fit.

But in exchange for this, it set an overall cap on the amount that could be borrowed. So to go above that level, the president would have to go back to Congress for permission. And so that became the debt limit that we know today. How is it used? So in terms of doing what it says on the box, which is to limit the debt, it has failed miserably. For the most part, debt ceiling expirations have been used

as leveraged by Congress to extract spending concessions. And it's usually been the Republicans that have used it as a bargaining chip. So in recent years, it's been a message of cut spending or else we will force a default on the payment obligations of the U.S. government. It's an artificial construct that a lot of policy experts view as needless friction.

for the global financial markets and financial stability, but it never seems to go away. And if you want to dive more into debt, check out an early episode of Reuters Econ World podcast. Our very own Carmel Crimmins talks to Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman about why he isn't worried about a US debt crisis. There's a link to the show in the description of today's pod.

Our recommended read today is also a recommended watch as nuns in Nepal show off their martial arts skills at the reopening of their nunnery. The site, belonging to the thousand-year-old Drupka lineage, has been closed since the pandemic. There's a link to the article and the video in today's pod description. 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 favourite podcast player and we'll be back tomorrow with our daily headline show.