Plus, Instagram shows more ‘eating disorder adjacent’ content to vulnerable teens.

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Daily Briefing

Daily Briefing

By Kate Turton

Hello. Israel says ceasefire and aid to resume after airstrikes kill 26 in Gaza, and the brazen Louvre heist is condemned in France. Meanwhile, major apps and websites go dark in global outage, and Instagram shows more ‘eating disorder adjacent’ content to vulnerable teens.

Plus, how we confirmed an Assad plot to move a mass grave.

 

Today's Top News

 

Smoke rises following an Israeli airstrike in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, October 19, 2025. REUTERS/Ramadan Abed

  • The Israeli military said a ceasefire in Gaza had resumed after an attack killed two of its soldiers and prompted a wave of airstrikes that Palestinians said killed 26 people, in the most serious test yet of this month's truce.
  • A jewellery heist at Paris' Louvre museum has cast France in a "deplorable" light, Justice Minister Gerard Darmanin said. Gabriel Stargardter tells the Reuters World News podcast that the robbery raises awkward questions about security at the world-famous museum.
  • Britain is drafting new powers to allow troops to shoot down unidentified drones threatening its military bases, defence minister John Healey will announce. Healey is due to unveil measures in response to what is widely seen as a growing threat posed by Russia.
  • Britain's Prince Andrew asked police in 2011 to dig up personal information about Virginia Giuffre, the woman who accused him of sexually abusing her as a teenager, a British newspaper reported, days after the royal gave up his Duke of York title.
  • US President Donald Trump said he would raise tariffs on Colombia and stop all payments to the South American nation, escalating a feud that stems from the US military's strikes on vessels allegedly transporting drugs in the region.
  • Centrist Rodrigo Paz won Bolivia's presidential runoff, defeating conservative rival Jorge "Tuto" Quiroga, as the country's worst economic crisis in a generation helped propel the end of nearly two decades of leftist rule.
  • Hardline conservative Sanae Takaichi is almost certain to become Japan's first female prime minister, after the right-wing opposition Japan Innovation Party, known as Ishin, said it was ready to back her premiership.
  • Two Hong Kong airport security staff were killed after a cargo plane from Dubai skidded off the runway on landing, collided with their security patrol vehicle and pushed it into the sea, the city's airport operator said.
  • Residents of Sudan's besieged city of al-Fashir have been taking refuge in underground bunkers to try to protect themselves from drones and shells after intensifying attacks on displacement shelters, clinics and mosques.
 

Business & Markets

 
  • The Federal Reserve will go into a policy meeting next week with its view of the economy obscured by a US government shutdown that has suspended the release of key data, a less-than-ideal situation for policymakers divided over which risks deserve the most attention.
  • Amazon's cloud services unit AWS was hit by an outage that took down several popular apps including Fortnite and Snapchat and caused connectivity issues for many companies around the world.
  • Meta researchers found that teens who report that Instagram regularly made them feel bad about their bodies saw significantly more “eating disorder adjacent content” than those who did not, according to an internal document reviewed by Reuters.
  • A group of 55 Chinese iPhone and iPad users filed a complaint with China's market regulator, a lawyer representing the group said, alleging that Apple abuses its market dominance by restricting app distribution and payments to its own platforms while charging high commissions.
  • After a turbulent week in which some regional US banks flagged bad loan and fraud issues, investors are now awaiting for more earnings reports from the lenders to check for signs of a wider strain across the sector.
  • The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said it has opened an investigation into about 2,000 Waymo self-driving vehicles after reports the robotaxis behaved unsafely near stopped school buses.
 

Witnesses, a drone and colored soil: How we confirmed a plot to move a mass grave

 

Forensic geologists designed the methodology Reuters used to capture imagery at both sites. REUTERS/Feras Dalatey

Every patch of earth has a signature and a secret.

The signature is its individual combination of geological influences and organic material that create distinct color profiles.

The secret is what lies beneath.

Working with a team of forensic geologists, a Reuters investigation used comparative soil techniques to further corroborate our key finding: Bashar al-Assad’s government transferred thousands of bodies from one mass grave in the Damascus suburb of Qutayfah to a hidden location in Syria’s desert. 

The transfer of bodies and the existence of the new mass grave in the Dhumair desert were revealed for the first time by Reuters last week.

Read our special report
 

And Finally...

Flags flutter in front of the Hollywood sign, Los Angeles, California. September 29, 2025. REUTERS/Daniel Cole/File Photo 

"Star Wars: Starfighter" is filming in Britain, soundstages in Hungary are packed and post-production houses in Australia are humming, as the global film industry keeps rolling despite Trump's renewed threats to impose tariffs on movies made outside of the United States.

Trump has proposed levying a 100% tariff on films produ