Fear as a tool: The disclosure by two U.S. officials suggests the possibility of a far more serious conflict between the two nations and emphasizes the importance of the talks underway between Washington and Tehran. Trump said Iran had been difficult in negotiations and that using fear would be the only tool to "get the situation taken care of."
Munich Security Conference: Secretary of State Marco Rubio whittled JD Vance's stick into something more resembling a carrot as he persisted in U.S. criticism of Europe's policies from migration to climate change, while saying Washington did not intend to abandon their transatlantic alliance. European leaders took it well.
Priorities: The president frequently resorts to litigation to target his opponents, but when he's on the defending side in civil litigation, he says a sitting president has better things to do. Judges also have ruled more than 4,000 times that ICE has jailed people illegally. And yet, they're still doing it. ICE also has blocked detainees from seeing their lawyers.
Developments: The Trump administration sued Harvard, accusing it of failing to comply with a federal investigation and seeking documents to determine whether the university illegally considered race in its admissions process. Did Trump alienate his Hispanic voting base with his gripes over Bad Bunny's Super Bowl halftime show? And recent Supreme Court rulings allowing partisan voting maps to be used in the midterms highlight how a 2019 court decision helped supercharge a political practice that polling shows most Americans oppose.
Siege: Rapid Support Forces violations during the capture of the city of al-Fashir amount to war crimes and possible crimes against humanity, the UN's human-rights chief said. Ethiopia revoked accreditation for three Addis Ababa-based journalists from Reuters three days after we published a report that said Ethiopia was hosting a secret camp to train fighters for the RSF.
Operation: Blackwater founder and Trump ally Erik Prince deployed a private security force to operate drones and help the Democratic Republic of Congo's army secure the city of Uvira against Rwanda-backed rebels. His contractors coordinated the operation with Israeli advisers who were involved in training Congolese special-forces battalions.
'Medical freedom': Doctors in South Carolina are trying to control the spread of measles as Americans' opposition to vaccines deepens. The state outbreak has surpassed 930 cases, while in Europe and Central Asia, cases fell 75% in 2025 from a year earlier.
Formula scare: French investigators are examining the death of a third baby who consumed infant formula subject to recall, though the health ministry said it had not established causal links.
Health hazard: The wartime garbage heap swallowed an entire Gaza City health district. Israel's Supreme Court ruled five months ago that prisons were failing to provide enough food to Palestinian detainees and ordered this to change. It hasn't, prisoners say.
Coming next week: Trump plans to announce his Gaza reconstruction plan as his Board of Peace holds its first formal meeting in Washington next Thursday. He also is expected to share plans for a U.N.-authorized stabilization force in the strip. Israel has joined the board.
Investment: The U.S. eased sanctions on Venezuela's oil and gas sector, though its authorization prevents transactions with companies in Russia, Iran or China or companies controlled by joint ventures with people in those countries. The state-run oil company is refusing to sell to companies without individual U.S. licenses, preventing Venezuela from draining its brimming storage tanks.
Three people were killed and several injured in shootings in two areas of the Papua region of eastern Indonesia. Separatists claimed responsibility for both attacks.
An airplane that took off from Mogadishu crash-landed on the seashore shortly after takeoff. All 55 people survived.
The White House deleted a JD Vance social-media post that commemorated Ottoman forces' massacre of Armenians as a genocide.
A golden heart pendant linked to the marriage of King Henry VIII and Katherine of Aragon will go on permanent display at the British Museum. The pendant includes the confident and ultimately incorrect inscription tousiors – "always."
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Dr. Justin Moll, pediatrician at Parkside Pediatrics clinic. Spartanburg, South Carolina. February 4, 2026. REUTERS/Chad Terhune
About a dozen times each day, medical staff at Parkside Pediatrics in Spartanburg, South Carolina, head to the clinic's parking lot, reaching inside cars and minivans to check children and their parents for fever, rash and other signs of measles.
Dr. Justin Moll started this outdoor triage in December to cope with what has quickly become the largest US measles outbreak in more than three decades, federal health data show.
Moll and his colleagues fear that outbreaks like these are becoming the new normal as Americans' opposition to vaccines deepens, fueled by backlash to the COVID-19 response and misinformation on social media. Medical experts say US Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s anti-vaccine policies have further undermined public trust in life-saving immunizations.
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