DHS funding, paratroopers to Iran, Meta fine and Epic cuts

Hi, I'm Kim Vannell in Wongenui, New Zealand.

It's Wednesday, March 25th, today.

Small signs of progress as TSA agents wait for pay, with ice on the ground at U.S. airports.

Thousands more U.S. 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 fortnight, wanes and popularity.

This is Royce's World News, bringing you everything you need to know from the front lines

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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.

Listen, 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 past last year, TSA officers haven't been paid for weeks with lawmakers in DC

so far unable to agree on terms to turn their funding back on.

Here's TSA employee and union member Pasquel 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 DC, there are some small signs of progress.

General 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 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.

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 of the line.

Republicans say that they now have a proposal and the Senate Majority Leader John Thun 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 US 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 US is negotiating with itself.

US 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 to parachute behind enemy lines, really going to hostile environments and take

territory 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 build up may welcome 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 Carg Island, key territory for Iran and oil production

and oil facility.

There have also been conversations about potentially putting US troops in the street of Hormuz

to open it up.

The global economy remains tethered to the headlines out of Washington and Tufran.

For more on how markets are being impacted by the military ramp up and conflicting stories

about where the talks for a ceasefire are happening at all, here's Mike Dolan from our

sister podcast Morningbit.

Good morning.

Yes, some glimmers of optimism in the energy markets at least this morning.

Oil prices, global oil prices falling just below $100 barrel, the key psychological

level.

Two stories are actually being circulated.

One Iran is suggesting that some ships of non combatant nations it says can pasture

the streets of Hormuz in a statement to the UN and also this 15 point US potential negotiating

plan that is a report of this circulating that would include a one month ceasefire.

Thanks, Mike.

Morningbit is available wherever you get your podcasts.

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President Trump's approval rating has dropped to 36 percent.

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 percent of Americans polled say they approve of Trump's economic stewardship.

That's lower than at any point in Biden's term.

61 percent of respondents say they disapprove of the Iran war.

And nearly half say it will make America less safe.

Melan voting means melon cheating.

I call it melon cheating.

When a state is for melon voting, that means they want dishonest elections.

No melon balance.

We have no melon.

Despite repeatedly blasting the practice, President Donald Trump voted by mail in yesterday's

special election in Florida.

In their 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 harmed 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-missled users about the safety

of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp and enabled child sexual exploitation on its platforms.

Rita says it disagrees with the verdict and will appeal, a second phase of the trial

as set for May when a judge could order changes to meta'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 Sonny explains, Fortnite's business model puts it in a uniquely

challenging position.

Fortnite is 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 pay it.

So 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.

It's 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 Serkana which showed that last month, Fortnite

top charts both on PlayStation and Xbox.

But despite that, the average playtime that's down by several laws, that's been hurting

them quite a bit because the cost of developing these games, of developing these new features

for Fortnite, it's 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.

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