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A curated weekday guide to major news and developments over the last 24 hours. Here’s today’s news:
IRAN
President Trump was briefed yesterday by his top advisers on the nuclear talks with Iran held earlier this week in Geneva. “The Iranian foreign minister told Kushner and Witkoff a lot of positive things but the devil is in the details. The ball is in Iran’s court, so let’s see,” a U.S. official said.“ A second U.S. official was more skeptical, calling the talks in Geneva “a nothing-burger.” Barak Ravid reports for Axios.
Senior national security officials told Trump that the U.S. military is ready for potential strikes on Iran as soon as Saturday, sources told CBS News. Trump has not yet made a final decision about whether to strike Iran, officials said, describing the conversations around Iran as fluid and ongoing. One source said that Secretary of State Marco Rubio plans to visit Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel in about two weeks for further discussions. Jennifer Jacobs and James LaPorta report.
RUSSIA-UKRAINE WAR
Officials from Moscow and Kyiv said the talks held in Geneva this week were difficult. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said yesterday that “as of today, we cannot say that the result is sufficient.” Washington, however, reported “meaningful progress,” suggesting there would be another set of talks soon. John Revill and Olivia Le Poidevin report for Reuters.
The heads of five European intelligence agencies told Reuters in recent days that they did not believe an agreement to end the war in Ukraine would be reached this year, adding that Russia does not want to end the war quickly. Four of them said Moscow was using the talks with the United States to push for sanctions relief and business deals. “Russia is not seeking a peace agreement. They are seeking their strategic goals, and those have not changed,” one intelligence chief said.
Ukraine yesterday imposed sanctions against Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko. Zelenskyy said that Minsk had allowed Russia in the second half of 2025 to deploy a system of relay stations in Belarus to control its drones in attacks on Ukraine, adding that Lukashenko “continues to play along with Putin in his dangerous geopolitical game.” Lukashenko is already under European and U.S. sanctions. Reuters reports.
A Russian lieutenant colonel, Konstantin Frolov, is on trial in Russia for allegedly leading a scheme in which soldiers shot themselves or falsified injury reports to collect millions in battlefield compensation, with commanders taking a cut. Frolov has struck a pretrial deal that amounts to admitting guilt. He is scheduled to appear in military court next month for sentencing. Valerie Hopkins and Ksenia Churmanova report for the New York Times.
ISRAEL-HAMAS WAR
Trump’s “Board of Peace” will gather today in Washington for its inaugural meeting that will focus on reconstruction and building an international stabilization force in Gaza. More than 40 countries and the EU have confirmed they will send officials to the meeting, according to a U.S. official. Germany, Italy, Norway, and Switzerland are among dozens of countries that have not joined the board but are expected to attend as observers. Aamer Madhani and Matthew Lee report for AP News.
The U.N. Security Council held a meeting yesterday on the ceasefire deal and Israel’s efforts to expand control in the West Bank. The U.N. meeting was meant to go ahead today, but was moved after Trump announced the board’s meeting. “We are hearing the chattering class criticizing the structure of the board, that it’s unconventional, that it’s unprecedented,” U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Mike Waltz told the council. “Again, the old ways were not working.” Aamer Madhani and Matthew Lee report for AP News.
Hamas continues to hold influence over key power structures in Gaza, placing loyalists in government roles, collecting taxes, and paying salaries, according to an Israeli military assessment seen by Reuters and sources in Gaza. Hamas has recently named five district governors, all of them with links to its armed al-Qassam Brigades, two Palestinian sources said. Hamas has said it is ready to hand over administration of Gaza to the U.S.-backed committee of Palestinian technocrats headed by Ali Shaath, adding that Israel has not yet allowed committee members to enter Gaza. Nidal al-Mughrabi and Maayan Lubell report.
SUDANESE CIVIL WAR
A “campaign of destruction” carried out by the Sudanese Rapid Support Forces paramilitary last October against non-Arab communities in and near El Fasher shows “hallmarks of genocide,” the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission for the Sudan reported today. “Thousands of persons, particularly the Zaghawa, were killed, raped or disappeared during three days of absolute horror,” the report said. Jamey Keaten and Samy Magdy report for AP News.
At least 57 civilians were killed between Sunday and Monday, including at least 15 children, in separate drone attacks in four states across Sudan, according to U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk. Olivia Le Poidevin reports for Reuters.
OTHER GLOBAL DEVELOPMENTS
Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, formerly Prince Andrew, was arrested this morning on suspicion of misconduct in public office after accusations that he shared confidential information with Jeffrey Epstein while serving as a British trade envoy. The Thames Valley police said it had “arrested a man in his sixties from Norfolk on suspicion of misconduct in public office and are carrying out searches at addresses in Berkshire and Norfolk.” BBC News reports.
A South Korean court today sentenced former President Yoon Suk Yeol to life in prison for leading an insurrection during his attempt to place the country under martial law in December 2024. Jack Kim reports for Reuters.
Fewer than 1,000 families remain at al-Hol, a camp where relatives of suspected Islamic State fighters had been held in north-eastern Syria, the camp’s former director said yesterday. The remaining families are Syrian nationals and are being transferred to a camp in Aleppo. According to the latest camp data seen by Reuters, dated Jan. 19, the camp’s population was 6,639 families comprising 23,407 people. Feras Dalatey reports for Reuters.
Kosovo’s former President Hashim Thaci yesterday told judges at his war crimes trial in The Hague that justice cannot be served by “prosecuting the innocent.” Thaci and three other former Kosovo Liberation Army commanders are charged with persecution, murder, torture, and forced disappearance of people during the war. The verdict is expected within three months. Fatos Bytyci reports for Reuters.
“We have a catastrophic nutritional crisis on our hands with two-thirds of [Afghanistan] in a very serious or crisis level for acute malnutrition,” said John Aylieff, Afghanistan Country Director for the U.N.’s World Food Program. “The aid cuts have been devastating,” Aylieff told AP News. Of the 4 million acutely malnourished children, “we are forced now to turn away three out of four of them because we simply don’t have the money.” Abdul Qahar Afghan and Elena Becatoros report.
TECH DEVELOPMENTS
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg yesterday testified in front of a jury in LA, saying that his company does not seek to make Instagram addictive to younger users and pushing back against claims that the app is designed to be harmful to children. Shanshan Dong and Angela Yang report for NBC News.
U.S. CARIBBEAN AND PACIFIC OPERATIONS
U.S. Gen. Francis Donovan and senior Pentagon official Joseph Humire made a surprise visit to Venezuela yesterday for security talks, U.S. officials said. The trip is the first by a U.S. military delegation since U.S. forces captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro last month. Venezuela said that the delegation met with Interim President Delcy Rodriguez, Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino and Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello. The two sides agreed to work together to combat drug-trafficking, terrorism and migration. Phil Stewart and Idrees Ali report for Reuters.
Rubio has been holding secret talks with Raul Guillermo Rodriguez Castro, the grandson of Raúl Castro, three sources told Axios. “I wouldn’t call these ‘negotiations’ as much as ‘discussions’ about the future,” a senior administration official said. Trump advisers have spoken with other influential Cubans besides the younger Castro, but he is seen as the most important relationship to cultivate, sources said. Marc Caputo reports.
U.S. FOREIGN AFFAIRS
The United States is pushing for NATO to cut many of its foreign activities, including ending a key alliance mission in Iraq, four NATO diplomats told POLITICO. The United States has also lobbied to scale down NATO’s peacekeeping operation in Kosovo and keep Ukraine and Indo-Pacific allies from formally participating in the July annual summit in Ankara. The U.S. push to curtail “out-of-area” activities has become known internally as a “return to factory settings,” the four diplomats said. Victoria Jack reports.
The State Department is developing an online portal that will enable people in Europe and elsewhere to see content banned by their governments, including alleged hate speech and terrorist propaganda, according to three sources. The site will be hosted at “freedom.gov,” the sources said. Headed by Undersecretary for Public Diplomacy Sarah Rogers, the project was expected to be unveiled at last week’s Munich Security Conference but was delayed. A State Department spokesperson said the U.S. government does not have a censorship-circumvention program specific to Europe but added, “Digital freedom is a priority for the State Department, however, and that includes the proliferation of privacy and censorship-circumvention technologies like VPNs.” Simon Lewis, Humeyra Pamuk, and Gram Slattery report for Reuters.
U.S. IMMIGRATION DEVELOPMENTS
Homeland Security Investigations, a branch of ICE, recently issued a memo requiring its employees to “review all open and closed voter fraud cases” involving immigrants who registered to vote, or actually voted, before they became U.S. citizens. The initiative “reflects the administration’s commitment to safeguarding democratic processes and maintaining public confidence in the electoral system,” the memo stated. The push comes as an analysis of immigrant voting, commissioned by the Trump administration, has provided no evidence of widespread or even significant voter fraud. Glenn Thrush, Devlin Barrett, Alan Feuer, Zolan Kanno-Youngs, and Hamed Aleaziz report for the New York Times.
The Trump administration has given immigration officers broader powers to detain legal refugees awaiting a green card to ensure they are “re-vetted”, according to a Homeland Security Department memo. The memo, dated yesterday, said refugees must return to government custody for “inspection and examination” a year after their admission to the United States. Ted Hesson and Devika Madhusudhanan Nair report for Reuters.
A draft law from the Department of Transportation would prohibit state and local governments from using federal transit money to help migrants elude federal immigration enforcement, according to a proposal obtained by POLITICO. A source said the proposed language could encompass much broader activity, such as any free transportation to migrants. Chris Marquette reports.
The Trump administration has violated 52 orders from federal judges in the District of New Jersey since Dec. 5, all in cases where immigrants are challenging the legality of their detention, according to a court-ordered review. The review found that detainees were transferred 17 times despite court orders prohibiting them from being moved. Mattathias Schwartz, Zach Montague, and Luis Ferre-Sadurni report for the New York Times.
A federal judge in Minnesota yesterday found a Trump administration lawyer in civil contempt of court. According to the ruling, the government had failed to return “identification documents” belonging to Rigoberto Soto Jimenez, a detained immigrant whom the judge had ordered to be released with all of his property. The judge imposed a $500 daily fine on the lawyer for each day the documents are not returned, beginning on Friday. Mattathias Schwartz and Seamus Hughes report for the New York Times.
Four journalists investigating a Trump administration effort to deport migrants from the United States to Cameroon were detained in Yaoundé, the capital of Cameroon, on Tuesday. The journalists and a lawyer were released following interrogation. Pranav Baskar reports for the New York Times.
U.S. DOMESTIC DEVELOPMENTS
Defense lawyers have created a case tracker, sponsored by the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, to “spotlight the unusual cases being prosecuted by the Department of Justice,” Steven Salky, a lawyer in Washington, D.C., said. The tracker also monitors cases where government charges of resisting federal law enforcement have been undercut by videos and eyewitness accounts from protestors. “This tracker is an essential tool for an era where federal overreach has become the standard operating procedure,” said NACDL Executive Director Lisa Wayne. Carrie Johnson reports for NPR.
House Democrats said yesterday that Les Wexner downplayed and denied nearly all aspects of his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein during a closed-door House Oversight deposition. Kate Santaliz reports for Axios.
New Mexico’s Justice Department said yesterday that the state was investigating an allegation, which emerged from documents released in the latest tranche of Epstein files, that Epstein ordered the bodies of two foreign girls to be buried outside his New Mexico ranch. Andrew Hay reports for Reuters.
TRUMP ADMINISTRATION ACTIONS
Jay Bhattacharya, the head of the National Institutes of Health, will become acting director of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, following the dismissal of Jim O’Neill, according to a White House official and an administration official. One official said that Trump will name O’Neill to lead the National Science Foundation. Cheyenne Haslett, David Lim, and Sophie Gardner report for POLITICO.
The Trump administration yesterday paid the remaining portion it owed to the Gateway rail tunnel project that spans New York and New Jersey, according to Gov. Kathy Hochul (D-NY). Chris Marquette reports for POLITICO.
TRUMP ADMINISTRATION LITIGATION
A federal judge yesterday vacated the decision by the Board of Immigration Appeals, finding that the administration had failed to comply with her earlier order declaring unlawful the underlying policy of denying detainees the chance to seek release on bond. The administration has “far crossed the boundaries of constitutional conduct,” the judge said. Nate Raymond reports for Reuters.
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ICYMI: Yesterday on Just Security
