Reuters World News - Greenland, Ukraine, Lisa Cook and Maine

Episode Date: January 22, 2026

U.S. President Donald Trump rules out the use of force in Greenland and backtracks on European tariffs. U.S. envoys are set to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin for peace talks in Moscow as Ukrainians endure their bitterest winter since the war began. The U.S. Supreme Court sees a risk in letting Trump run roughshod over the Fed. And ICE targets Somali communities in Maine in Trump’s latest immigration crackdown.   Listen to The Morning Bid podcast ⁠⁠here⁠⁠. Sign up for the Reuters Econ World newsletter ⁠⁠here⁠⁠. Listen to the Reuters Econ World podcast ⁠⁠here⁠⁠. Find the Recommended Read 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 Thursday, January 22nd. Today, Trump backtracks on Greenland, saying a deal has been done and he won't use force to take control of the territory. Putin and US envoys talk peace as Ukrainians endure their coldest winter of the war. The Supreme Court looks set to side with fired Fed governor Lisa Cook, and Trump's immigration crackdown heads to Maine. This is Reuters World News, bringing you everything you need to know from the front lines in 10 minutes, seven days a week. It's a long-term deal.

It's the ultimate long-term deal. U.S. President Donald Trump announcing a deal has been made with the EU over Greenland. The about turn followed a meeting between Trump and NATO chief Mark Routé on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Duny. During an earlier keynote address, President Trump also ruled out using the military to take Greenland. I don't have to use force. I don't want to use force. I won't use force. We called up our reporter Dave Graham on the ground in Darvoss. Dave says little is known so far about the deal. It appears from our reporting in the U.S. that this change of heart occurred

after advisors to the president persuaded him that the U.S. needed to adopt a less provocative approach to this and steer away from any kind of military option here on Greenland. The indications so far are that the deal will be focused on guaranteeing the security of the Arctic, which is something that, for example, on the European side, leaders were saying before this all came together, Denmark has said a few things this morning to the effect that the territorial integrity of Greenland must be upheld. So it would appear that whatever deal has been agreed, the fundamental question of who is running Greenland has not led to something which Denmark, as far as we know, is unwilling to accept.

But Dave says the whiplash from the Greenland threats are still resonating through Davos and the world. I don't think anyone really expected when we were all gearing up to get down here for Davos, that it would be about the most powerful country in NATO, threatening to apply tariffs on other NATO countries because of their opposition to the United States, acquiring Greenland. That is to say, we've met some people here from various European governments who felt that the world as they knew it was made in you after this threat was made, that this is not something that we could have imagined taking place just two weeks ago. The news has sent markets soaring. For more on the market impacts of Trump's trip to Davos,

here's Mike Dolan from our sister podcast, Morning Bid. Hi, Kim. Yeah, dramatic bounce back on Wall Street last night. Trump backed down on his threat of tariffs against European countries over the Greenland standoff. This feels an awfully like 2025 when Trump raised the threats and then moved into a negotiating period where markets came back again after initial sell-off. So it does feel a bit like Rinton repeat. He is spending the rest of today in Davos. So I think the fact that we haven't recovered all of the losses since last Friday shows you there's a certain amount of trepidation that this story isn't fully over yet. Thanks, Mike. You can listen to Morningbid wherever you get your podcasts.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is set to discuss a possible peace plan for Ukraine with U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner in Moscow today. President Trump has said a deal to end the war is reasonably close. In Ukraine itself, residents are doing everything they can to survive the coldest, darkest winter of the war. Intensifying Russian strikes and years of cumulative damage are taking their toll. Kiev resident Julia Chumach is eight months pregnant. She already has a three-year-old and is living without electricity or heating. But in spite of the grueling winter and war,

she's determined to stay and raise her family in the capital. Our reporter Max Hunter is in Kiev, where even those with power only have it for a few hours a day. And not everyone is managing to stay as strong as Yulia. People are exhausted. This isn't like the winter of 2022 where people were fresher. They were not as jaded by four years of full-scale war. Max says some people in Kiev are relying on heated tents for a moment of warmth and access to electricity. It's a pretty bleak existence, right?

If you're having to go down the stairs of your multi-story apart and block, just a trunch to a heated tent to charge your phone, get some tea, that's still very, very hard existence. Now to what's being framed as the fight for independence of the US Federal Reserve. The Supreme Court, which is weighing whether Trump should have been able to fire Fed Governor Lisa Cook, appears skeptical that the move was legal. Our Fed reporter, David Lauder, was in the courtroom. What you saw was officials coming out in support of Fed independence.

You saw Jerome Powell, the Fed chair, who's also under pressure from Donald Trump. You also saw Ben Bernanke, the former Fed chair, as well as Michael Barr, who is the former Fed vice chair for supervision. He's now a regular Fed governor. That's highly unusual for those kind of officials to show up at the Supreme Court. David says the arguments reveal a lot about which way justices are leaning. What we heard from the justices was some concern about the independence of the Fed, that it might sort of open the door for other officials to be fired by presidents of either party without really delving into the allegations here.

As Justice Kavanaugh said, it incentivizes the kind of search and destroy mission to find something that you just put on a piece of paper. There's no judicial review, no process, no nothing. You're done. Then it would come back to haunt the institution. A Republican-led House panel has voted to hold Bill and Hillary Clinton in contempt of Congress for refusing to testify about their ties to Jeffrey Epstein. The vote now goes to the full House,

which will decide whether to send the case to the Justice Department for possible prosecution. That could lead to criminal charges and up to a year in jail and $100,000 in fines. Both Clintons have offered to cooperate with the House Oversight Committee but have refused to appear in person. They say the investigation is a partisan effort to shield President Donald Trump. US Vice President J.D. Vance is due to visit Minneapolis later today for meetings that the White House says are about restoring law and order. ICE agents have had numerous violent confrontations with residents there over the immigration crackdown, with one agent fatally shooting a U.S. citizen in her car.

Meanwhile, a new immigration enforcement operation is underway, this time in Maine. The state is home to several refugee communities, including Somalis, who President Trump has previously referred to as garbage. Immigration reporter Ted Hessen has more. Maine is not exactly a state in the U.S. with a high percentage of immigrants. In fact, it's a state that's actually below the national average when it comes to people who are foreign-born. It's about 4% of the population compared to 14 or 15% across the country. But it is known as a place that has received refugees in recent decades. And this has really been a focus of President Trump over the last month or so. He has really specifically criticized Somalis and Somali refugees in the U.S., Somali Americans more broadly, linked to some allegations related to fraud in Minnesota, but really making these harsh statements in highly critical terms about Somalis in the U.S. and saying they need to leave.

The governor of Maine, Janet Mills, who is a Democrat, has clashed with Trump in the past. And even when there were talk that ICE could come to the state in the last week or so, she said that they would not be welcome there if they were using aggressive tactics like they've used in other states such as Minnesota. A Texas jury has acquitted a former school district police officer over the botched response to the 2022 Yuvaldi shooting. Adrian Gonzalez had faced 29 counts of child endangerment for failing to confront the gunman in the first minutes of the attack that killed 21 people.

Prince Harry held back tears in the witness box, as he told London's High Court yesterday that the Daily Mail had made his wife Megan's life an absolute misery. He and six other claimants, including singer Elton John, are suing the mail's publisher-associated newspapers for alleged privacy violations. Associated has called the allegations preposterous smears. And for today's recommended read, how Syria's Ahmed al-Shara managed to capture Kurdish-held areas

while keeping the US on side. Nine sources told Reuters that the takeover plans took shape in a string of high-stakes meetings in Damascus, Paris and Iraq early this month, and that the US did not stand in the way of the operation. There's a link to that story in the description. 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.