Reuters World News - DHS funding, paratroopers to Iran, Meta fine and Epic cuts

Episode Date: March 25, 2026

Signs of progress emerge on a Homeland Security Department deal which would restart TSA workers' paychecks. The Pentagon is expected to send thousands of soldiers from the elite 82nd Airborne Division to the Middle East. Meta is ordered to pay $375 million in its New Mexico trial over child exploitation. And Epic Games will lay off more than 1,000 workers as engagement with its flagship game "Fortnite" lags. Listen to the Morning Bid podcast ⁠⁠here⁠⁠. Sign up for the Reuters Econ World newsletter ⁠⁠here⁠⁠. Listen to the Reuters Econ World podcast ⁠⁠here⁠⁠. Visit the Thomson Reuters Privacy Statement for information on our privacy and data protection practices. You may also visit megaphone.fm/adchoices to opt out of targeted advertising. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hi, I'm Kim Vinal in Wanganui, New Zealand. It's Wednesday, March 25th. Today, small signs of progress as TSA agents wait for pay, with ice on the ground at US airports. Thousands more US paratroopers are expected to be sent to the Middle East. Meta is ordered to pay millions in a case over child safety. And Epic Games is cutting jobs as Fortnite. wanes in popularity.

This is Reuters World News, bringing you everything you need to know from the front lines in 10 minutes, seven days a week. We begin in Phoenix, Arizona, where ICE agents sent to help TSA agents at the International Airport, have left some travelers like Mike and Diane from Oregon uneasy. It was very intimidating and it's scary. I'm scared.

Unless they don't have masks on. They didn't have masks on. ICE agents were deployed to more than a dozen airports to help with a TSA in crisis. Because while ICE is still getting paid, thanks to President Donald Trump's spending bill passed last year, TSA offices haven't been paid for weeks, with lawmakers in D.C. so far unable to agree on terms

to turn their funding back on. Here's TSA employee and union member, Pasquale Contreras. back in Phoenix. What I'm getting from some of the officers is that they're just in the way. On a personal level, I don't think we need them here. We need to be paid. On Monday, more than 10% of all TSA officers

across the country missed work. But in D.C., there are some small signs of progress. Congressional reporter Richard Cowan explains the changes to ICE tactics that Democrats want before they agree to back a spending bill. Maybe the most difficult, most consistent. contentious thing is Democrats want to put a new control on these agents to stop them from entering people's houses or cars or private property without a warrant issued by a court and a judge.

Instead, DHS has been doing what's called administrative warrants, and that is DHS saying, yes, DHS can do this. They want that to stop. And Democrats think that Republicans have only made it worse by sending ICE agents to airports, ice agents who are getting paid, to sort of help out with TSA agents who are working and not getting paid. Richard says the clock is ticking to get a deal over the line. Republicans say that they now have a proposal and Senate Majority Leader John Thune says he's going to put it to a vote and we'll see where Democrats land on that. Democrats are saying it's far short of what they need.

but they do say that we're talking to each other. And that's a good sign, especially given that by the end of the week, Congress is supposed to go on a two-week recess. The Pentagon is expected to send thousands of paratroopers to the Middle East, according to sources, even as U.S. President Donald Trump talks about a possible deal to end the war. Washington has sent Iran a 15-point plan aimed at ending the conflict, and President Trump says negotiations. with Iran are underway. Iran, and its unified command of the Iranian armed forces,

has again rejected claims of talks, saying that the U.S. is negotiating with itself. U.S. foreign policy reporter Idris Ali says, while we don't know when or where these latest soldiers will be going in the Middle East, we do know they come from the 82nd Airborne Division, which specializes in parachute assaults. Since the Second World War, it's sort of the preeminent unit that you go to when you want a parachute behind enemy lines, really go into hostile environments and take territory. It doesn't mean that that is what the United States is going to use these troops for, but it's definitely something that they are best suited for.

So the one thing this signals right off the bat is that even as they are seeking some sort of negotiations with the Iranians, they are not putting a pause on the military build up in the region, which already includes 50,000 troops. They are sending 5,000 Marines separately, and so they are sort of full steam ahead with the military component of this. And that military buildup may well come and useful, as President Trump weighs further military options.

The administration is looking at next steps and some of those options include putting boots on the ground in places like Karg Island, a key territory for Iran, and oil production and oil facility. there have also been conversations about potentially putting the US troops in the Strait of Hormuz to open it up. The global economy remains tethered to the headlines out of Washington and Tehran. For more on how markets are being impacted by the military ramp-up and conflicting stories about whether talks for a ceasefire are happening at all.

Here's Mike Dolan from our sister podcast Morning Bit. Good morning. Yes, some glimmers of optimism in the energy markets at least this morning. oil prices, global oil prices falling just below $100 a barrel, a key psychological level. Two stories are actually being circulated. One, Iran suggesting that some ships of non-combatant nations, it says, can pass through the Straits of Hormuz in a statement to the UN, and also this 15-point US potential negotiating plan that is reports of this circulating that would include a one-month ceasefire. Thanks, Mike. MorningBid is available wherever you get your podcasts.

President Trump's approval rating has dropped to 36%, the lowest since he returned to the White House, according to a new Reuters Ipsos poll. Contributing to that record low is Trump's handling of the economy and cost of living concerns, as gas prices have surged a dollar a gallon since the US and Israel began hitting Iran in late February. Only 29% of Americans polled say they approve of Trump's economic stewardship. That's lower than at any point in Biden's term. 61% of respondents say they disapprove of the Iran war, and nearly half say it will make America less safe. Mail-in voting.

Mail-in voting means mail-in cheating. I call it mail-in cheating. When a state is for mail-in voting, that means they want dishonest elections. No mail-in ballots. We have no bailout. Despite repeatedly blasting the practice, President Donald Trump voted by mail in yesterday's special election in Florida. In that race, Democrats managed to flip a Florida State House seat.

And it's a symbolic blow for the Republicans because the district that's turned from red to blue is home to Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate. The White House says Trump is a resident of Palm Beach and participates in Florida elections but lives primarily at the White House. A U.S. Judge says the Pentagon's blacklisting of Anthropic looks like an effort to punish the AI lab

for going public with concerns about AI safety in the military. During a court hearing, Judge Rita Lynn said the designation appeared aimed at crippling the company after it refused to allow its technology to be used for surveillance or autonomous weapons. Anthropic is asking the court to temporarily block the move while its lawsuit proceeds and a ruling is expected in the next few days. A New Mexico jury has found META violated state consumer protection laws ordering the company to pay $375 million in civil penalties. The jury agreed with the state attorney general that meta misled users

about the safety of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp and enabled child sexual exploitation on its platforms. Meta says it disagrees with the verdict and will. appeal. A second phase of the trial is set for May when a judge could order changes to Mehta's platforms. Epic Games is cutting more than a thousand jobs, citing a drop in engagement for its flagship game Fortnite. It's the latest in a series of cuts in the video game industry, where growth has stalled as economic uncertainty hits spending. The job cuts alongside $500 million in spending cuts are an effort to put the company in a more stable place,

according to a note from Epic's CEO to employees. And as our tech editor, Aditya Soni explains, Fortnite's business model puts it in a uniquely challenging position. Fortnite's not like most of the other titles. It's a free-to-play game, so you don't really have to spend money to buy and play it. The reason that people have to spend there is to buy costumes, to buy skins, and developing those new skins, developing those experiences that cost a lot of money. Now, Epic just last week raised the cost of their in-game currency because they're realizing this is getting too much.

They're in this conundrum where they really need to drive up revenue and they can't really do that because engagement is falling. This is not unique to Epic because quite a few gaming companies have laid off employees in the past few months. We had EA laying off several hundred workers. We had Amazon layoffs which gutted their gaming division. So this has been happening across the industry. Fortnite is still the most popular and most engaged game. We had some data from this third party called Sarkana, which showed that last month, Fortnite top charts both on PlayStation and Xbox.

But despite that, the average playtime, that's down by several hours. That's been hurting them quite a bit because the cost of developing these games, of developing these new features for Fortnite is so expensive that it's quite hard to continue when the engagement is falling. For more on any of the stories from today, check out Reuters.com or the Reuters app. Don't forget to follow us on your favourite podcast player. If you're listening on a smart speaker, just ask for the latest news from Reuters seven days a week.

We'll be back tomorrow with our daily headline show.