A residential building damaged by a strike in Tehran, Iran, March 23, 2026. Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
Middle East
President Donald Trump said Iran was desperate to make a deal to end nearly four weeks of fighting, contradicting the Iranian foreign minister who said his country was reviewing a US proposal but had no intention of holding talks to wind down the conflict.
Israel took Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi and Parliamentary Speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf off its hit list after Pakistan requested that Washington not target them, a Pakistani source told Reuters.
In other news
In the US, the chairman of the Conservative Political Action Conference said he plans to use its annual gathering this week to rein in Republican infighting, warning that divisions could hurt the party in November's midterm elections.
Long lines were reported at major US airports as the Transportation Security Administration said the number of airport security officers quitting had jumped to more than 480 since the mid-February start of a partial government shutdown.
Ousted Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro returns to a Manhattan court where he will argue that drug trafficking charges against him should be thrown out more than two months after he and his wife were captured in a surprise US military raid in Caracas.
Cuba's healthcare system, long seen as a great achievement of the 1959 revolution and decades of Communist rule, has suffered obvious decline for years as a failing economy and punishing US economic sanctions take their toll. That decline has accelerated with the oil blockade imposed by the United States this year.
A resolution proposed by Ghana at the United Nations to recognise transatlantic slavery as the "gravest crime against humanity" and calling for reparations has been adopted despite resistance from Europe and the US.
Business & Markets
Meta and Google lost a bellwether social media trial after an LA jury found them liable for designing addictive products that harmed children's mental health. Courtney Rozen tells the Reuters World News podcast this landmark decision moves the discussion about social media apps out of homes and schools and into courtrooms.
The escalating conflict in the Middle East has knocked the global economy off a stronger growth path, the OECD warned, as a near-halt in energy shipments through the Strait of Hormuz threatens to push inflation sharply higher.
From beer and chips to noodles, toys and cosmetics, companies - and consumers - across Asia are bracing for a crisis as the Iran war wreaks havoc on supply chains, plastics and oil supplies, upending everyday life and sending prices soaring.
Britain sanctioned the operators of what it described as the largest fraud compound in Cambodia and an online crypto marketplace used to trade stolen personal data, in a bid to protect people in the UK from organized online scams.
As war rages and Trump looms, the recent Denmark election barely mentioned ailing Novo Nordisk, once so successful it distorted economic figures. In this Viewsroom podcast, Breakingviews columnists discuss the future of weight-loss pills and Novo’s place in it.
REUTERS/Illustration/Catherine Tai. Source photos: Alexander Ermochenko and Alexander Nemenov
Moscow is pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into an aggressive buildout of transport and trade infrastructure in the Ukrainian territories it has seized.
The projects are inexorably weaving these occupied areas into Russia and undermining demands by Kyiv and its allies that the land be returned.
Stephen Colbert at the 77th Primetime Emmy Awards in Los Angeles, California. September 14, 2025. REUTERS/Mike Blake/File Photo
Stephen Colbert is heading to Middle‑earth.
The comedian announced in a video that following the end of his 11‑year run as host of CBS's "The Late Show" in May, he will co‑write and develop a new film in the "Lord of the Rings" franchise.
It marks a new chapter for Colbert, a noted devotee of J.R.R. Tolkien’s fictional world of Middle-earth.
