Zelenskiy-Vance meet in Munich, Musk friction, RFK Jr and Eric Adams
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Today, Ukraine dominates the agenda of a Munich security conference as the city reels from a car ramming attack. The growing tension between Elon Musk and parts of Trump's administration. RFK's priorities as health secretary. And fallout and resignations after the Justice Department orders the corruption case against Mayor Eric Adams to be dropped. It's Friday, February 14th.

This is Reuters World News, bringing you everything you need to know from the frontlines in 10 minutes every weekday. I'm Tara Oaks in Liverpool. And I'm Christopher Waljasper in Chicago.

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Learn more at phrma.org slash IPWorksWonders. The Munich Security Conference kicks off today with global leaders gathering to tackle a wide array of security challenges facing the world. President Donald Trump's phone call with Vladimir Putin this week will put the war in Ukraine front and center. Our reporter Andrew Gray is covering the conference.

Andrew, what's the mood like right now among Europeans, given that Trump has taken the wheel on negotiations between Russia and Ukraine? Yeah, it's been a bit of a wake-up call, I think. There was a lot of talk from European officials that they expected the Trump administration to be in listening mode, that this was the Europeans' chance to influence the Trump administration when it came to Ukraine. And

And then they discovered that actually the administration was going ahead without them. They're clearly very uncomfortable with a lot of Trump's approach to foreign policy, now particularly what's happening with Ukraine. On the other hand, they see Russia as a growing threat and they know that America is their protector. America gives them the nuclear umbrella. America has tens of thousands of troops on European soil and America has a bunch of military capabilities that other countries don't.

don't have other NATO members. They're trying to walk this very uncomfortable line of trying to keep in Trump's good graces as much as possible, while also not necessarily buying into all of it. So what does this mean for the agenda at the conference? It puts Ukraine right at the heart of it. President Zelensky will be there. Vice President Vance will be there. Secretary of State Rubio will be there. The last two presidents

President Trump has said are part of his negotiating team and he says negotiations will start immediately. So that raises the prospect that actually peace talks of a sort could start already during the conference. Trump has said that Ukraine would be involved in peace talks with Russia.

Munich was in the spotlight before the conference's official start yesterday when a car driven by an Afghan national ploughed into a crowd, injuring 30 in what officials say was likely an attack. The incident and the conference come as Germany prepares for an election dominated by immigration and security issues. You can hear more about the upcoming vote in our weekend special episode of the podcast, Out Tomorrow.

The top federal prosecutor in Manhattan has resigned after refusing to drop the corruption case against New York Mayor Eric Adams. Danielle Sassoon, as well as five other officials at the Justice Department, all resigned following the order from a top DOJ official to drop the case. The first wave of a mass firing of federal workers has begun at several agencies, including the Education Department and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Termination emails have been sent out in the past 48 hours, though it's unclear how many federal workers stand to lose their jobs. Trump and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi have agreed to talks in an effort to land an early trade deal and resolve their standoff over tariffs. New Delhi has promised to buy more U.S. oil and gas and military equipment, as well as fight illegal immigration.

Hamas says it's committed to releasing hostages this weekend, as long as Israel upholds its end of the ceasefire deal. The fragile truce looked close to collapse earlier this week when Hamas announced it would stop releasing hostages, leading Israel to respond with a threat of returning to war.

And a Reuters exclusive: The Trump administration's sweeping cuts to foreign aid has halted US-funded anti-narcotics programs in Mexico that were working to curb the flow of fentanyl into the states. And the Pope is in hospital, where the Vatican says he'll be continuing treatment for his ongoing bronchitis.

President Trump has ordered his economics team to come up with a plan for reciprocal tariffs on every country that taxes U.S. imports. Kamal Crimmins has more. So Trump's directive stops short of actually imposing tariffs. What it does do is kick off weeks or even months of work for his team to calculate the duties that would match what other countries currently charge. If Trump does move ahead with such tariffs, it would kickstart a global trade war.

But his decision not to go with tariffs right away could be seen as the start of negotiations to extract concessions from trade partners. Markets are certainly taking it that way for now. Wall Street ended higher and bond yields fell, suggesting investors are more confident about inflation cooling. As Elon Musk expands his influence over federal agencies, slashing budgets and jobs, sources tell Reuters that frustration is growing among President Trump's top aides.

Perhaps the most important person who has expressed some frustration with Musk is Chief of Staff Susie Wiles.

Our reporter Alexandra Ulmer has been digging into what's happening behind the scenes. The main issue seems to be about communication. Susie Wiles and her team don't always feel like they're in the loop about what Doge is doing, according to our sources. We have sources telling us that the White House team has found out about some of Doge's activities through X, i.e. they weren't in the loop ahead of time. Some of the emails that were sent out to federal workers in late January, offering them incentives, a buyout to quit Doge,

For instance, her team wasn't signed off on some of those emails, according to two of our sources. Now, this is happening against the backdrop of Musk dismissing concerns over transparency. So all of our actions are maximally transparent. In fact, I don't think there's been, I don't know of a case where an organization has been more transparent than the Doge organization.

White House Press Secretary Carolyn Leavitt addressed it, too. This is a unified team who is working at the pleasure of the president to do what's right for the American people. Now, the administration is new. We have a source pushing back saying we've sorted out some of our differences. On the other hand, this could also foreshadow a bigger clash to come.

Trump ran a very tight operation under Susie Wiles during the campaign, but his first administration was famously chaotic and had a lot of infighting. Are we at the brink of something else like that or will they sort it out? I think that's one of the key questions for the kind of stability of his administration and the future of Doge. Department of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. of California to be secretary. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been confirmed and sworn in as the new U.S. health secretary.

Senate Republicans were almost all united in Kennedy's confirmation, with Senator Mitch McConnell the only holdout.

Reporter Stephanie Kelly has the details on what comes next. When he was sworn in on Thursday during that ceremony, he said he wanted to prioritize on his first day radical transparency and removing conflicts of interest from government. At the same time, Trump also signed an executive order to establish a Make America Healthy Again commission.

that will investigate chronic illness and deliver an action plan to fight childhood diseases. And he managed to win over some skeptics, right? About a week ago, before Kennedy's confirmation, it was unclear whether a Republican Senator Bill Cassidy from Louisiana would end up supporting Kennedy. Cassidy was concerned about statements Kennedy had made in the past about vaccines and vaccine skepticism.

And to gain the support of Cassidy, Kennedy pledged that he would not remove government health agency statements that vaccines do not cause autism. And he committed to honor decisions by an outside panel of experts on vaccines, except we're not really sure how to take those commitments because he's not legally required to keep those pledges.

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It's Valentine's Day, so we're recommending a breakup podcast for you about central banks. It's not quite conscious uncoupling, more like conscious decoupling between the Fed and its peers on rate cuts. President Trump's threatened trade war is helping to drive a wider wedge. And yes, there is the risk of financial heartache. That's all in the latest episode of Econ World, and there's a link 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.