Crash black boxes, Trump's diversity claim, hostage swap chaos and Canadian tariff fears
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Today, as investigators try to piece together the events leading up to the fatal crash over Washington DC, President Trump takes aim at the Federal Aviation Administration. Why the European Central Bank keeps cutting rates while the Fed holds steady. Chaotic scenes in the latest transfer of hostages from Gaza. And farmers in Canada brace for US tariffs.

It's Friday, January 31st. This is Reuters World News, bringing you everything you need to know from the front lines in 10 minutes, every weekday. I'm Christopher Waljasper in Chicago. And I'm Tara Oaks in Liverpool. When you hear LSEC data and analytics, what do you think of?

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Investigators have recovered the so-called black boxes from an American Airlines jet carrying 60 passengers and four crew members, which collided with an Army Black Hawk helicopter and crashed into the Potomac River. The cause of the crash is still under investigation. President Donald Trump was quick to blame his predecessors and diversity initiatives at the Federal Aviation Administration.

A week before I entered office, they put a big push to put diversity into the FAA's program. Now, Trump has no evidence to back his claim, which was quickly denounced by his political opponents. Officials say there were no survivors among the 64 people on the jet or the three soldiers on the helicopter, which was on a training flight.

One controller rather than two was handling local plane and helicopter traffic on Wednesday night at the airport, a situation deemed not normal but considered adequate for lower volumes of traffic, according to a person briefed on the matter.

Joe Brock's been digging into what happened. We may not have a complete picture for weeks or even months. What we do know is that the air traffic controller asked the pilot of the military Black Hawk helicopter to fly behind the passenger jet in the seconds before the crash. That obviously didn't happen.

But we don't yet know why. The black boxes and the wreckage of the aircraft will provide clues. Investigators will also be studying the air traffic tapes and interviewing the controllers and the witnesses. And they'll also scrutinise the army's safety procedures for the helicopter. How common are close calls and crashes like this over the nation's capital? Yeah, this...

airport is actually unique in many ways and there have been several close calls. We spoke to several pilots who explain the unique challenges at the airport because they have to navigate a very narrow flight path to avoid restricted airspace around the White House and the Pentagon. One pilot described to us it to us is very, very tight.

And also commercial planes and military aircraft use different radio frequencies. So that provides a communication issue in an area where they test military aircraft. Kash Patel, the president's nominee for FBI director, told senators on Thursday he would protect FBI employees against political retribution.

That's even as the Trump administration has begun to fire or sideline Justice Department officials who were involved in investigations into the president.

Now, Patel's been amongst the most vocal critics of those investigations, depicting them as works of a "deep state." Though he did appear to break with Trump on his sweeping pardons for the January 6th rioters. I do not agree with the commutation of any sentence of any individual who committed violence against law enforcement.

A testy exchange with senators at Tulsi Gabbard's confirmation hearing, too. Trump's pick for director of national intelligence faced harsh criticism for her past defense of ex-NSA contractor Edward Snowden and comments seen as pro-Russia. Was he a traitor at the time when he took America's secrets, released them in public, and then ran to China and became a Russian citizen? Senator, I'm focused on the future and how we can prevent something like this from happening again.

Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel has criticized Friedrich Merz, her successor as leader of the country's conservatives, for pushing through a bill on tighter immigration control with the help of the far right. In Europe, the cuts keep coming.

The European Central Bank has cut interest rates again, the fifth time since June. Balash Karani is our chief ECB correspondent. At first glance, you might say, wow, ECB's cutting rates, it's great for the European consumer and mortgage holder. But the underlying reasons for this divergence with the Federal Reserve is quite grim. European economy is stagnating. Industry has been in a two-year recession. Unemployment is inching up.

And China's previously insatiable appetite for European goods seems to be waning. Enter Donald Trump and his tariff threats into all this, and the picture gets worse. Europe relies on net trade for much of its growth and has a massive current account surplus here.

Chaos during Thursday's tense hostage handover. As Hamas freed three Israeli and five Thai hostages in Gaza. Israeli female hostage Abel Yehoud looking fearful. Struggling to walk through the surging crowds in Gaza as armed militants handed her over to the Red Cross.

In response, Israel delayed the return of 110 Palestinians. But later, the release was back on. The prisoners met by cheering crowds in the West Bank and Gaza. After, Israel received assurances from mediators that future swaps would be run safely. Our Israel and Palestinian Territories Bureau Chief, James McKenzie, is here to tell us more. There were really tumultuous scenes, crowds pressing in the Hamas guardrails

guards had a really great deal of difficulty in keeping the crowds back. I mean, we've seen on every occasion the handover to the Red Cross happens in a public place, basically. And it's always a bit of a sort of an occasion for Hamas to give a bit of a display of strength.

meant to demonstrate that they're still there after this 15-month war. And that's always angered the Israelis. But this particular one was the most

striking sort of scenes that we've had so far. So in one sense, this is the kind of one of the hiccups that we're going to see. It remains to be seen whether they will constitute the kind of thing that actually derails the process. But it was certainly something that caused a lot of anger in Israel yesterday.

President Trump's promise of sweeping tariffs on Canada and Mexico starting February 1st are yet to manifest. But that doesn't mean businesses aren't bracing for the impact of those extra fees. One sector that's extremely vulnerable to these duties is food, especially food grown in Canada before making its way to U.S. grocery stores.

Ed White covers Canadian agriculture from Winnipeg. Last week I was at a big farm show and I ran into a farmer I know. His name is Chuck Fossey from Starbuck, Manitoba. And he, like a lot of farmers, focused on the same thing, which is it's really hard to prepare for what seems like a big threat when you don't know how much of that threat will be carried out. It's probably going to reduce the amount of canola we sell to the U.S. Not just canola, but canola oil and canola meal.

that we ship down to California for dairy producers. Just how much food product moves across the U.S.-Canada border? What kind of stuff are we talking about? Well, you know, there are so many different things, and no one ever thinks about it because the two parts of the ag economy are pretty much intertwined. But say things like Quaker oats, that's mostly Canadian oats because...

Americans don't grow a lot of oats for grain anymore. Same with Cheerios, those are made from Canadian oats. So that's just a very basic product. There are things like piglets, which there are millions here in the middle of Canada that are born on Canadian farms and then at a few weeks old they're shipped down to Iowa and Minnesota where they're fed out and then they become meat in the United States. And some of it gets shipped back to Canada. It kind of goes back and forth and there's a lot of beef that goes both ways. It's

So any kind of a tariff barrier becomes a real factor when that hasn't normally been one in the business. How has Canada responded to the threat of tariffs? There's everything from the threat of dollar for dollar retaliatory tariffs, adding export tariffs to Canadian oil and gas going to the U.S. There has been a lot of talk of trying to pacify the concerns of the Trump administration of

No one really quite knows what is going to happen in the next weeks and months. To stay ahead in fast-moving markets, you need to transform quality data into tailored, practical, and valuable intelligence. Access your choice of pre-built and market-validated models fast. And choose AI-powered analytics tools to suit your specific business needs.

And for today's recommended read, how people in Japan are coming up with creative ways to fight soaring food prices. Learning how to grow vegetables at home after the cost of staples like cabbage have tripled. There's a link to the story in the pod 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 favorite podcast player. We'll be back on Monday with our daily headline show.