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A curated guide to major news and developments over the weekend. Here’s today’s news:
IRAN
President Trump said yesterday that he is going to be “involved indirectly” in the second round of talks between Iran and the United States that will take place in Geneva today. Indirect talks are set to go ahead between U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, mediated by Oman. Araghchi also met yesterday with the International Atomic Energy Agency chief, ahead of today’s meeting. Barak Ravid reports for Axios; AP News reports.
Another group of 18 F-35 fighter jets, together with several tankers, arrived in the Middle East yesterday, according to open-source flight radar data. Also yesterday, Iran began a military drill in the Strait of Hormuz. Barak Ravid reports for Axios; Elwely Elwelly and Humeyra Pamuk report for Reuters.
The U.S. military is preparing for the possibility of sustained, weeks-long operations against Iran, according to two U.S. officials, in what would become a far more serious conflict than previously seen between the two countries. Phil Stewart and Idrees Ali report for Reuters.
Trump told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a meeting at Mar-a-Lago in December that he would support Israeli strikes on Iran’s ballistic missile program if a deal between Washington and Tehran cannot be reached, two sources told CBS News. Senior figures in the U.S. military and intelligence community are contemplating the possibility of supporting Israeli airstrikes in Iran, including how the United States could assist with aerial refueling and securing overflight permission from countries along the routes, two other sources said. Margaret Brennan and James LaPorta report.
ISRAEL-HAMAS WAR
Israeli airstrikes killed at least 11 people in Gaza on Sunday, according to Palestinian officials. Medics said that a strike on a tent encampment housing displaced families killed at least four people, while another strike killed five people in Khan Younis and another person was fatally shot. An Israeli military official said that Sunday’s strikes were “precise” and in line with international law. Nidal al-Mughrabi and Steven Scheer report for Reuters.
Doctors Without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières) announced on Sunday that its noncritical medical operations at Nasser Hospital in Gaza were suspended in January due to security breaches that posed “serious” threats to its teams and patients. MSF said there had been an increase in patients and staff seeing armed men in parts of the compound. Nasser Hospital said that the increase in armed men was due to a civilian police presence aimed at protecting patients and staff, calling MSF’s allegations “factually incorrect.” Samy Magdy and Melanie Lidman report for AP News.
Trump said on Sunday that “Board of Peace” members will announce a pledge of more than $5 billion for reconstruction or humanitarian efforts in Gaza at the board’s first meeting on Thursday. Trump also said that members have committed thousands of personnel towards a stabilization force and local police in Gaza. Reuters reports.
RUSSIA-UKRAINE WAR
Ukrainian and Russian officials are set to meet today in Geneva for a new round of U.S.-brokered peace talks. The talks mark the third trilateral meeting in recent weeks. Kyiv and Moscow are still far apart on territory and security guarantees. Constant Meheut reports for the New York Times.
SUDANESE CIVIL WAR
Airstrikes on a market in Sudan’s Kordofan region on Sunday killed at least 28 people and wounded dozens, according to Emergency Lawyers, a rights group tracking violence against civilians. The group said that the drones belonged to the Sudanese army. Two military officials told AP News that the army does not target civilian infrastructure, denying the attack. AP News reports.
More than 6,000 people were killed over three days in October when the Sudanese Rapid Support Forces paramilitary captured the city of el-Fasher, the U.N. Human Rights office said in a report released on Friday. Samy Magdy reports for AP News.
OTHER GLOBAL DEVELOPMENTS
The Kremlin yesterday rejected accusations from five European countries that the Russian state killed Alexei Navalny two years ago using the toxin from poisonous dart frogs. “Navalny died while held in prison, meaning Russia had the means, motive, and opportunity to administer the poison to him,” the European countries said in a joint statement on Saturday. Andrew Osborn reports for Reuters.
TECH DEVELOPMENTS
Spain has ordered prosecutors to investigate social media platforms X, Meta, and TikTok for allegedly spreading AI-generated child sexual abuse material, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said today. Ireland’s Data Protection Commission also said today that it had opened a formal investigation into Grok over the processing of personal data and its potential to produce harmful sexualised images and video. Reuters reports.
U.S. CARIBBEAN AND PACIFIC OPERATIONS
The U.S. military killed three people in a strike on an alleged drug trafficking vessel in the Caribbean Sea on Friday, U.S. Southern Command said in a statement. Carol Rosenberg reports for the New York Times.
The U.S. military boarded a second oil tanker, the Veronica III, in the Indian Ocean over the weekend, after tracking it from the Caribbean Sea. “Distance does not protect you,” the Pentagon said in a statement on Sunday. The statement did not say whether the United States had seized the vessel. Max Matza reports for BBC News.
U.S. FOREIGN AFFAIRS
Secretary of State Marco Rubio addressed the Munich Security Conference on Saturday, stressing that Europe and the United States were “heirs to the same great and noble civilization” but also conveying that any ruptures between the countries on either side of the Atlantic were because of the Trump administration’s view that Europe had strayed too far from that shared culture. Edward Wong reports for the New York Times.
U.S. Congressmen said on Sunday that Greenland dominated conversations at the Munich Security Conference. “If I were to draw a cartoon,” Rep. Jim Himes (D-CT) said of his meetings in Munich, “it would be a European saying, ‘Greenland, Greenland, Greenland, Greenland.” Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) said the issue of Greenland had “distracted in ways that I don’t think any of us could have anticipated.” Megan Mineiro reports for the New York Times.
The transfer of 5,700 suspected Islamic State fighters from Syria to Iraq was completed last Thursday, U.S. military officials said in a statement. Many of the detainees are expected to be held at the Al-Karkh prison near Baghdad International Airport, officials said. Hussein Allawi, an Iraqi security adviser, said his government is urging other governments to take back ISIS suspects from their countries so that Iraq is not overwhelmed. Dan Lamothe, Susannah George, Suzan Haidamous, and Mustafa Salim report for the Washington Post.
The U.S. military conducted 10 strikes against more than 30 ISIS targets in Syria between Feb. 3 and Feb. 12, hitting weapons storage facilities and other infrastructure, U.S. Central Command said on Saturday. POLITICO reports.
U.S. IMMIGRATION DEVELOPMENTS
A man fleeing ICE agents in Savannah, Georgia, yesterday killed a public school teacher when he crashed his car into the teacher’s vehicle, according to the local police. Soumya Karlamangla reports for the New York Times.
Journalist Don Lemon on Friday pleaded not guilty to federal charges stemming from his reporting at an anti-ICE protest in a Minnesota church last month. Lemon faces charges under the FACE Act, a federal law that prohibits interfering with people exercising their religious rights. April Rubin reports for Axios.
The Trump administration flew nine people, nearly all of whom had been granted U.S. court protections from being sent back to their home countries, to Cameroon in January. None of them comes from Cameroon, according to documents obtained by the New York Times. The United States has not made any public deal with Cameroon to accept deportees from other countries of origin. Several of those who were deported said they did not know they were being sent to Cameroon until they were handcuffed and chained on a Department of Homeland Security flight on Jan. 14. Pranav Baskar and Hamed Aleaziz report.
ICE is preparing to spend $38.3 billion this year on a “new detention center model” to detain 92,600 people, according to an ICE memo from last week. The memo states that ICE plans to buy eight large-scale detention centers and 16 processing sites, as well as the acquisition of 10 facilities where ICE is already operating. Brittany Gibson reports for Axios.
More than 400 judges across the United States have ruled at least 4,421 times since October that the Trump administration is detaining immigrants unlawfully, according to a review by Reuters. The number of people in ICE detention reached about 68,000 this month, up about 75% from when Trump took office last year. Nate Raymond, Kristina Cooke, and Brad Heath report.
U.S. DOMESTIC DEVELOPMENTS
The NAACP and other organizations asked a judge to protect personal voter information that was seized by the FBI from the Fulton County elections hub last month, according to a motion filed on Sunday. The motion seeks “reasonable limits on the government’s use of the seized data,” prohibiting its use for purposes other than the criminal investigation cited in the search warrant affidavit. They also want the judge to order the government to disclose an inventory of all the documents and records seized, the identity of anyone who accessed the records outside of those involved in the criminal investigation, any copying of the documents, and all efforts to secure the information. Kate Brumback reports for AP News.
Thomas J. Pritzker yesterday resigned from his role as executive chairman of the Hyatt Hotels Corporation due to his “association with Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell,” Pritzker said in a letter. Rebecca Davis O’Brien reports for the New York Times.
Casey Wasserman, a Hollywood talent agent and chair of the LA28 Olympic committee, announced on Friday that he is selling his agency. This move comes amid growing controversy over his connections with Epstein and Maxwell. Sara Fischer reports for Axios.
TRUMP ADMINISTRATION ACTIONS
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is close to cutting ties with Anthropic and designating the AI company as a “supply chain risk,” amid disputes over how its Claude AI model can be used in military operations, a senior Pentagon official told Axios. The conflict centers on Anthropic’s push to restrict uses like mass surveillance and fully autonomous weapons, while the Pentagon insists on “all lawful purposes.” Dave Lawler, Maria Curi, and Mike Allen report.
The Trump administration’s repeal of the 2009 “endangerment finding” has effectively stripped the federal government of its authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, leaving the United States with no significant clean-car standards. “The U.S. no longer has emission standards of any meaning,” Margo T. Oge, who previously served as the Environmental Protection Agency’s top vehicle emission regulator, said yesterday. “Nothing. Zero,” she added. “Not many countries have zero.” Hiroko Tabuchi reports for the New York Times.
TRUMP ADMINISTRATION LITIGATION
A federal judge yesterday ordered the Trump administration to restore displays discussing slavery at a site in Philadelphia where George Washington lived as president. The ruling granted an immediate injunction, requiring the reinstallation of 34 education panels removed last month. “The government claims it alone has the power to erase, alter, remove, and hide historical accounts on taxpayer and local government-funded monuments within its control. Its claims in this regard echo Big Brother’s domain in Orwell’s 1984,” the judge wrote. Gregory S. Schneider reports for the Washington Post.
A federal judge on Friday ordered the Trump administration to return Any Lucia López Belloza, a college freshman who was mistakenly deported to Honduras in November, to the United States within two weeks. Hannah Ziegler and Mattathias Schwartz report for the New York Times.
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