Reuters World News - Japan quake, ICE children arrests and Johnson & Johnson talc deal

Episode Date: July 28, 2026

A magnitude 7.1 earthquake hits Japan's Kyushu region. Thousands of migrant children and their sponsors have been arrested by U.S. immigration authorities following tips from the Office of Refugee Resettlement. A new poll shows just one in three Americans back the Iran war. Johnson & Johnson reach a talc settlement that could end a decade of litigation. And Germany plans to tighten sick-note rules. Watch the latest episode of On Assignment ⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠. 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 Tuesday, July 28th. Today, a Reuters exclusive reveals thousands of migrant children and their relatives have been arrested after a US child welfare agency shared hundreds of thousands of tips with ice. Johnson & Johnson is set to pay $5.5 billion to settle lawsuits, claiming its talc powder caused cancer. And is 22 sick days a year too many? Germany thinks so, and it's cracking down.

This is Reuters World News, bringing you everything you need to know from the front lines in 10 minutes, seven days a week. Car shopping this civic holiday weekend, most car dealerships are closed and all you'll find are crickets. Not Performance Auto Group, they're open this Saturday and holiday Monday for their annual Civic Holiday Sales event. Celebrate this long weekend with rates from 0%. They might be closed. Performance Auto Group is open to serve you. Join Performance Auto Group this Saturday or Civic Holiday Monday 9 to 5 for the best time to shop this summer. First, with some breaking news, I'm Elena Kassas in London.

A major earthquake has hit Japan's Kyushu region, knocking out power to thousands of homes with a preliminary 7.1 magnitude. A tsunami warning issued has since been withdrawn. Companies including Sony and chipmaker TSM have plants in the area of the quake. This is a developing story. Head to Reuters.com and the Reuters app for the latest. Now back to Kim for the rest of today's news. Thousands of children have been arrested in the US, thanks to tip-offs from a government program dedicated to caring for unaccompanied migrant children and their relatives. An exclusive Reuters investigation has found that since President-Dourkewarm,

Donald Trump returned to the White House, the Office of Refugee Resettlement has shared more than 460,000 leads with immigration and customs enforcement. That's led to the arrest of more than 12,000 people. Reporter Christina Cook spoke with Aurora and her six-year-old daughter, who were among those caught up. So Aurora's story is really emblematic of this change. She came to the U.S. illegally two years ago through the desert and she left her daughter behind in Mexico with a relative

because she thought that that journey would be too dangerous for her. She settled in Mississippi and last year a family member brought her daughter to the border. That's something that happens somewhat regularly. Parents cross into the U.S. first and their kids come alone later because when children cross alone, they're meant to be looked after.

The Office of Refugee Resettlement is legally bound to ensure migrant children are released from detention as soon as is safely possible, regardless of the legal status of the adult they're released too, which is often the parent. Traditionally, the whole process has been walled off from immigration enforcement. But the day before she got her daughter back,

Aurora was visited by ICE agents who asked her about her daughter and they told her to come for a check-in the next week. When she came, they detained both her and her daughter. Aurora says she and her daughter were sent to a detention center in Texas. She says her daughter is so traumatized, she's afraid of appointments of any kind, worried even a doctor's visit will see her separated from her mom. The Department of Homeland Security told Reuters

ICE was given potential investigative leads as part of efforts to find unaccompanied children who were placed with unvetted sponsors, including some with criminal records. The Trump administration says that previous administrations didn't have sufficient vetting processes and that kids ended up in dangerous situations. Former OOR officials say the Trump administration

is essentially turning what was more of a child welfare agency into another way to pursue their mass deportation goals. The Federal Reserve meets today, with markets weighing whether the central bank's focus will stay on containing inflation, which could require rate hikes, or whether new Fed chair Kevin Wash will bow to Trump's repeated calls for cuts. Here's Morningbid host, Mike Dolan. Yeah, the Fed begins its two-day meeting today. We don't get the decision until Wednesday evening. And it's a super busy week for markets because either side of that decision, we get these huge hyperscaler. corporate earnings. But the Fed story in itself is very, very interesting now. We've had a $10 plus drop in oil prices this week, yet no change in the expectations for a possible hike

as soon as Wednesday. There's a one in three chance still in futures markets, despite that drop in oil prices, which shows that people are looking well beyond the Iran and oil price story for the inflation pressures that the Fed needs to keep an eye on. Thanks, Mike. You can catch morning bed wherever you get your podcasts. A helicopter drops water as firefighters battle to contain a blaze in Spain's eastern Castellon province. More than 300,000 people have been evacuated across Spain and France due to the unprecedented wildfires. French President Emmanuel Macron, meeting first responders in Bordeaux, described it as the toughest situation for the country since World War II. A new Reuters Ipsos poll has found that just

one in three Americans now support the war with Iran, the lowest level since the conflict began five months ago. Crucially, almost 70% of people say President Trump has not clearly explained what the US is trying to accomplish. In contrast, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan had support above 70% in their early months. President Trump says the U.S. is having good talks with Iran, but is warning, again, that airstrikes will resume if negotiations fail. No, you can't bribe them. You've got to beat them, and we're beating the hell out of them.

But we'll see how it turns out. Washington suspended a two-week bombing campaign on Saturday, but the pause is being tested, with drone attacks reported in Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Iraq. on Monday. If you want a $3,000 a month payday for life, what would you feel free to do? Maybe take a long weekend, every weekend, or try a bunch of new hobbies. Would you feel free to upgrade and listen ad-free?

Don't worry, we get it. Every $20 ticket could win you $3,000 a month for life and supports life-saving cancer research at the Princess Margaret. Feel free to buy your payday for life ticket today. Raffle number 155-214. Please play responsibly. Johnson & Johnson says it will pay $5.5 billion to settle nearly all remaining lawsuits, claiming its talc-based baby powder and other products, caused ovarian cancer.

The landmark deal could bring one of the biggest product liability battles in U.S. corporate history to a close. Legal reporter Dietrich Canaut has more. Yeah, so this is a litigation that has gone on for more than 10 years. So tens of thousands of women have accused Johnson & Johnson of causing their ovarian cancer. They've alleged that talc-based products, including baby powder, have been contaminated with asbestos and caused them to develop cancer after using these products for a long period of time. Johnson & Johnson has denied that, but these cases have continued to go to trial. It's been a hard-fought legal battle on both sides.

Over the years, Johnson and Johnson has tried to settle several times, at one point creating a shell company and putting that company in bankruptcy. But it was a court ruling in the last week about causation, which may be what brought this to a head. Earlier this year, Johnson and Johnson essentially lost a ruling on the general causation idea. So plaintiffs were allowed to put out evidence that says talc sometimes causes cancer. But then last week, Johnson Johnson won a ruling on the more specific evidence for each individual plaintiffs. So it became harder for plaintiffs to argue that Talc caused their own cancer.

So it's sort of a nuanced ruling and people have disagreed about the impact of that. But that was something that might have scared some of the plaintiffs' Germany is cracking down on sick days. In 2024, workers there took an average of 22 days of sick leave among the highest levels in the world. Under current rules, when you call out sick, you only need a doctor's note on the fourth day, and you can get that doctor's note over the phone. But the government of Chancellor Friedrich Mers wants change as part of wider economic reforms. German economic correspondent Maria Martinez has more on the proposal. Telephone signals would be scrapped and employers could require medical certificates

from the first day of absence. The government has been one year in power and when they finally presented this package, this was the most controversial point because everybody was mad like basically the services union birdie said that it was a, exemplifying a culture of mistrust towards workers. Maria says the new policy may not address the root causes of sick days. What we have seen now speaking with researchers in different studies is that actually there has been a sharp increase in mental health issues. This is particularly high in certain sectors such as nursing, care work and teaching.

And what experts say is that actually this reform proposed by the government is not tackling the causes of these problems because we see that in these professions we have chronic understaffing, low pay and of course high emotional demands. 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 favorite 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.