Plus, a visual investigation of Ethiopia training RSF fighters.

Add Reuters to Your Google Preferred Sources

 

Daily Briefing

Daily Briefing

By Kate Turton

Hello. ICE is cracking down on people who follow them in their cars, Fed Governor Stephen Miran claims Americans aren't bearing the burden of paying for tariffs, and a jury hears that Meta and YouTube design apps to addict kids.

Plus, our visual investigation of Ethiopia's secret camp to train RSF fighters.

Yesterday's Daily Briefing was sent out without a subject line, we apologize for any confusion this may have caused.

Today's Top News

 

Rebecca Ringstrom is detained by federal immigration agents. Blaine, Minnesota. January 29, 2026, in this screen grab obtained from a video. Collette Adkins/via REUTERS

United States

  • A Reuters review of federal court records found that the Trump administration has prosecuted at least 655 people since a series of city-focused immigration crackdowns began last summer. That’s more than double the prosecutions during the same period in 2024-2025.
  • The Trump administration is set to overturn an Obama-era scientific finding that serves as the legal basis for federal greenhouse-gas regulation, the Environmental Protection Agency said.
  • The United States issued fresh guidance to commercial vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz, a key shipping lane for Middle East oil supplies, as tensions simmered between Washington and Tehran over Iran’s nuclear program.
  • Draped in burnt-orange robes, two dozen Buddhist monks are due to finish a 2,300-mile "Walk for Peace" in Washington, D.C., a self-described spiritual journey across nine states that has been cheered on by crowds of thousands.

In other news

  • In Europe, a prince, an ambassador and a number of senior politicians have been brought down by revelations in the Epstein files. Europe News Editor Rachel Armstrong tells the Reuters World News podcast the fallout been greatest in the UK.
  • British Prime Minister Keir Starmer refused to heed calls to quit, even by the leader of his party in Scotland, pledging to fight on after his appointment of Peter Mandelson as US ambassador plunged his government into crisis.
  • Russia has no intention of launching a military attack on any NATO state this year or next, but is racing to rebuild its forces as Europe steps up its rearmament, Estonia's foreign intelligence service said in its annual report. Meanwhile, French President Emmanuel Macron has warned Europe should brace for more moments of US hostility.
  • Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s thumping election win has blunted domestic opposition to her hawkish security agenda, encouraging plans to press ahead with a defense expansion that China has condemned as a return to militarism.
  • China’s influence in Bangladesh, boosted by the 2024 ouster of New Delhi‑aligned leader Sheikh Hasina, is likely to deepen after this week's election, although politicians and analysts say India is too large a neighbor to be sidelined completely.
 

Business & Markets

 

A cargo ship full of shipping containers is seen at the port of Oakland, California. REUTERS/Carlos Barria/File Photo

  • Federal Reserve Governor Stephen Miran argued the Trump administration’s policy of trade tariffs has proved more benign than many had feared, in comments that argued that foreigners and their firms are the ones primarily paying for the tax hikes. 
  • Millions of Colombian roses arrived in the US just in time for Valentine's Day, but growing economic challenges are threatening to wilt the romance for the world's second-largest flower exporter.
  • The US Department of Agriculture, long the world's gold standard for crop estimates, faces mounting doubts about the reliability of its data from farmers, grain traders and economists following deep staff losses and a sharp upward revision in how many acres of corn were harvested.
  • Meta Platforms and YouTube deliberately designed products they knew would be addictive for children, a lawyer for a woman suing the two companies told jurors in California at a trial that will test whether Big Tech platforms can be held liable for their app design.
  • Novo Nordisk's US patent lawsuit against Hims & Hers marks a new front in the Danish pharmaceutical drugmaker's campaign against companies selling compounded versions of its blockbuster weight-loss drug Wegovy.
  • Five years after Tesco boss Ken Murphy warned that rapid-delivery startups could inflict "death by a thousand nibbles" on Britain's major supermarkets, the UK's biggest food retailer has turned the threat into an advantage.
 

Ethiopia builds secret camp to train Sudan RSF fighters, sources say

 

Source: Vantor

Ethiopia is hosting a secret camp to train thousands of fighters for the Rapid Support Forces paramilitary group in neighboring Sudan, Reuters reporting has found, in the latest sign that one of the world’s deadliest conflicts is sucking in regional powers from Africa and the Middle East.

The camp constitutes the first direct evidence of Ethiopia’s involvement in Sudan’s civil war.

Eight sources, including a senior Ethiopian government official, said the United Arab Emirates financed the camp’s construction and provided military trainers and logistical support to the site, a view also shared in an internal note by Ethiopia’s security services and in a diplomatic cable, reviewed by Reuters.

Read our investigation
 

And Finally...

A cup of coffee and a cappuccino are seen at a Juan Valdez store in Bogota, Colombia June 5, 2019. REUTERS/Luisa Gonzalez/File Photo

Drinking a few cups of caffeinated coffee or tea every day may help in a small way to preserve brain power and prevent dementia, researchers reported.

People with the highest daily intake of caffeinated coffee had an 18% lower risk of developing dementia compared to those with the lowest such intake, according to a study based on responses to questionnaires by 132,000 US adults spanning four decades.