Reuters World News - Meta and Google’s reckoning, Israel’s Lebanon plan and Maduro in court

Episode Date: March 26, 2026

A jury finds Meta and Google liable for harming children’s mental health by designing addictive social media platforms. Iran says it’s reviewing a U.S. ceasefire plan and wants Lebanon included in any truce. Israel’s defense minister says it will occupy south Lebanon up to the Litani River. Venezuela's Nicolas Maduro is due back in U.S. court amid a dispute over legal fees. And airport wait times hit a record high. 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 Thursday, March 26th. Today, a landmark verdict for Meta and Google, as a jury finds them guilty of designing harmful, addictive products. Israel outlines its plan to occupy Lebanon using Gaza as its blueprint. And Maduro gets ready for court, with a question mark over who foots the bill for the lawyers. This is Reuters World News, bringing you everything you need to know from the front lines in 10 minutes, seven days a week. An LA jury has found meta and Google negligent for the way they've designed their platforms, in a verdict that could redefine the legal responsibilities of social media companies. A 20-year-old woman brought the case saying she became addicted to Instagram and YouTube at a young age because of features.

is designed to keep users hooked. The jury found both companies had failed to properly warn users about the risks of their platforms, and that was a large factor in harming the young woman. The court has ordered Meta to pay $4.2 million and Google $1.8 million in damages, relatively small sums given the size of the companies. But as Reuters' legal correspondent Courtney Rosen explains, the case is being watched closely. as a test with thousands of similar lawsuits going through the courts? There is a federal law that companies like META and Google have relied on for decades to defend themselves in court against similar lawsuits.

And that law says that these companies are not responsible for the content that users post on their platform. The attorneys for the plaintiffs came up with a novel theory to argue in court where they focused on the platform's features or the products as opposed to the plaintiffs. content that was posted on the platform. For example, they talked about endless scroll, which is if you go on Instagram, for example, and content keeps loading at the bottom as you scroll down the page. Or they talked about autoplay where videos start automatically after you finish one. They focused on what these platforms are how they're built as opposed to the content that users are seeing on them. Courtney says beyond the verdict, even just the way the trial played out,

marks a shift? We've had parents and teachers and school officials say for years now that these apps, Instagram, YouTube, other social media apps are designed to be drawing in their students, drawing in their kids and keeping them hooked. This is the first time that the CEO of META, Mark Zuckerberg, had to answer questions about his products in front of a jury. And this is the first time that those issues were litigated in front of a jury. So we're moving now from parents and schools and teachers having these discussions to courtrooms. Mehta and Google have both pushed back against the decision and both say they will appeal.

And they are negotiating, by the way, and they want to make a deal so badly, but they're afraid to say it because they figure they'll be killed by their own people. President Donald Trump speaking at a Republican fundraising dinner in Washington, D.C., doubling down on his position that negotiations with Iran to end the war are underway. Iran's foreign minister confirms Tehran is reviewing a U.S. plan to end the war, although he says messages relayed through mediators do not count as negotiations. One message Tehran has sent through intermediaries that Lebanon must be included in any ceasefire deal with the U.S. and Israel.

That's according to six sources. Israel says it's attacking Hezbollah and it plans to occupy the country south comparing its approach in Lebanon to what it did in Gaza. Israeli Defence Minister Israel-Katz announcing plans to create a defensive buffer from the border up to the Latani River, 20 miles deep inside Lebanon. Much like the defensive buffer Israel created in Gaza. Katz also says Israel's occupation of Lebanon will outlast the war in Iran. Our Lebanon Bureau Chief Maya Jabali is in Iran.

Beirut. It's the first time they spelled out their intentions as clearly, and it's the first time they actually spelled out intentions so deep into the country. That's much, much more land, where hundreds of thousands of people live, that would seem to then fall under Israeli control. More than a million people already displaced are hunkering down in makeshift shelters. And for them, hearing that Israel is using Gaza as its playbook is terrifying. I think for many Lebanese hearing those words, it's just the worst case scenario. What that immediately evoked in Lebanese was wholesale demolition of homes, and that's something that the Israeli defense minister has also brought up. He's described a lot of these homes as terrorist

outposts, but really they are populated villages in the southern border strip. So what people are thinking about is the possibility that their villages will be entirely demolished, erased. Hezbollah says it will fight to stop Israeli troops from occupying southern Lebanon, calling the move an existential threat to the country. For a deeper dive on how possible talks on a Middle East ceasefire is shifting stock portfolios, tune in to our sister Markets podcast MorningBid. It's available wherever you get your podcasts. Travelers around the US are now facing the longest lines in the history of the TSA.

At the top of the wait time list, Houston's George Bush Intercontinental Airport, where traveler Jared Rivers says he doesn't blame TSA agents for the delays. I'm not going to work for free. I don't expect them to. But I mean, the politicians need to get their head out of their ass. Lawmakers still haven't agreed on a deal to restart funding to the TSA, with 50,000 workers still going without pay. ousted Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife are back in a New York courtroom today. They're facing narco-terrorism and drug trafficking charges, all stemming from the dramatic U.S. military raid, that brought them from Caracas into U.S. custody earlier this year. Now the judge is weighing a pretty unusual dispute

whether Venezuela's government should be allowed to pay for their legal team. US sanctions block that money from moving. Maduro and his wife say those restrictions violate their right to choose their own lawyers. Prosecutors counter that if they don't like it, they can use public defenders. Legal reporter Luke Cohen has more. without payment from the Venezuelan government, according to Medudo's lawyers, he can't afford to pay them with his own money. And now they say that if he's unable to pay them, then they would not be able to represent him in court.

And they call that a violation of Maduro's right to the counsel of his choice under the Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. And so Maduro's lawyers say the remedy for this is dismissing the entire case. While we don't know if the judge will rule on that, Maduro's lawyers are saying they want permission to withdraw if they can't get paid. I'm curious to see if Maduro's lawyer, Barry Pollack, truly does seek to withdraw from the case. This is a successful high-profile lawyer who previously represented Julian Assange, right, the WikiLeaks founder. So he's specialized in these kinds of cases involving U.S. national security and, you know, U.S. adversaries. And so if he were to be replaced by a public defender, I think that could change the tenor of the case. Ukrainian president, Volodymy Zelensky, in a sit-down interview with Reuters,

saying Russia tried to blackmail the United States by offering to stop sharing military intelligence with Iran, if Washington cut off intelligence. support to Ukraine. And Zelensky says Ukraine has irrefutable evidence that Moscow is still doing it. In the same interview, Zelensky also says the U.S. is making security guarantees for a Ukraine peace deal conditional on Kiev withdrawing from the eastern Donbass region, something he warns would undermine Ukraine's security as well as Europe's. The United Nations has voted to recognize transatlantic slavery as the gravest crime against humanity. That vote coming despite opposition from the United States and resistance

from Europe. Some Western governments say they oppose the wording of the resolution adopted because of legal concerns that it could retroactively apply international law. Here's UN Secretary-General Antonio Gertedish. This was not simply forced labor. It was a machinery of mass exploitation and deliberate dehumanization of men, women and children. The resolution, which is not legally binding, also calls for dialogue on reparations. And finally, today, a Florida woman has pleaded not guilty in L.A. to the attempted murder of singer Rihanna. Prosecutors say Ivana Lizette Ortiz drove to the front of Rihanna's house earlier this month and fired some 20 rounds from a semi-automatic rifle. They say Rihanna

and her partner, ASAP Rocky, and their three kids were there at the time, but no one was shot. The judge has barred Ortiz from her work as a licensed speech therapist while the case proceeds. 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.