Chapter 1: Why is Trump welcoming the Saudi crown prince?
Hi there, it's Shamita here. Before we get into today's episode, we have a quick question for you. What was your favorite piece of art or culture from this year? On our interview show, Apple News in Conversation, we're putting together an episode about 2025's best TV, film, music, books, and more.
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And we might include your voice on the show. Thanks. Good morning. It's Tuesday, November 18th. I'm Shamita Basu. This is Apple News Today. On today's show, FEMA's acting head, the second one this year, is out. Why it's easier than you think to rob a French museum. And if you're planning to buy a big bird for Thanksgiving, be prepared for sticker shock.
But first, Saudi Arabia's crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, is set to meet with President Trump at the White House today. He's expected to receive a red carpet welcome complete with pageantry, the Oval Office photo op, and a weapons deal.
I think this trip is really the culmination of a years-long effort at trying to restore the Saudi crown prince's international standing after the death of Jamal Khashoggi in 2018.
Matthew Martin is the Saudi Arabia bureau chief for Semaphore. He told us that bin Salman has been on a mission to rebuild his reputation after the CIA concluded he approved the killing of the journalist Khashoggi, something he's always denied.
I think it's going to be a real coup for this sort of Saudi's ability to take a slow and steady approach to rebuilding the crown prince's reputation, which is now going to be sort of back at the level that you would have seen it in 2017 when he was being feted by world leaders as a reformer and as Saudi Arabia's best chance of success and development and modernization.
While campaigning ahead of his 2020 win, Joe Biden promised to make Saudi Arabia a pariah. But the country's strategic importance and its oil revenues apparently proved too important for him to really turn his back. Relations slowly began to recover, and Trump has since embraced the crown prince as a great ally. Martin told us that, above all, will today be demonstrated in military terms.
Number one on the list is going to be some sort of defence agreement and perhaps even a mutual defence commitment between the two countries as the Saudis look at taking more steps to guarantee their security in an unstable region.
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Chapter 2: What does the meeting signify for U.S.-Saudi relations?
Four people have since been arrested, but most of the jewels remain missing. Amid the ongoing search and investigation, there have been major questions about just how easily these thieves got into the museum.
I think it's one of these places that the public thinks of as being a fortress, that it's going to have these really sort of tight security measures.
Stacey Mictry is the Paris bureau chief for The Wall Street Journal. He says that France has been contending with a museum robbery crisis. Nine different heists have taken place over the past year. The entire rest of Europe has only seen four in that time, according to the journal. And Maitreyi said the issue is not that thieves are necessarily outsmarting security with inventive tactics.
We're talking about thieves that are not using highly sophisticated methods. They're, again, using these very sort of low-tech means to penetrate museums that everybody thought were safe.
In the case of the Louvre, it was a team of people with a truck-mounted lift that was parked outside. They zoomed up, cut through an exterior window, and walked right in. all at around 9.30 in the morning during visiting hours. The issue that France is confronting has to do with the buildings that are housing these highly valued pieces of art.
The Louvre, like many other museums, was once built for and used for different purposes, including as a residence for a noble family, not as a bank or other modern building that's designed to withstand security threats.
And as the French government has been dealing with serious budget deficits for years, the country has found itself unable to pay for meaningful security updates to guard items of high national and cultural value.
The Louvre itself had a 80 million euro plan to upgrade their security to install new security cameras, sort of state-of-the-art monitoring software. And unfortunately, that plan was never put in motion simply because, well, first of all, you need the money. But second of all, you have to jump through a number of bureaucratic hoops.
Not everyone is sympathetic to that. Some art critics have pointed out spending on new artwork and ambitious projects was prioritized. The museum is now belatedly working on security upgrades. One wider economic trend that might be pushing these heists up is the increasing value of gold.
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