China has announced retaliatory tariffs on U.S. goods after President Trump initiated a trade war by imposing an additional 10% tariff on all Chinese products. China’s Finance Ministry said it would levy 15% tariffs on U.S. coal and liquefied natural gas and 10% on crude oil, farm equipment and some U.S.-made vehicles. China is also imposing new export controls on certain minerals, including rare earth elements critical to the electronics industry. This comes after Trump said he would delay plans by at least a month to impose tariffs of 25% on Canada and Mexico. Trump’s reversal came after Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promised to take steps to crack down on fentanyl smuggling at the U.S. border — even though Canada contributes less than 1% of fentanyl consumed illegally in the U.S. And Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said Trump called off the tariffs after she agreed to send 10,000 troops to the border.

President Claudia Sheinbaum: “He asked me how long I wanted to pause tariffs. I said, 'Forever.' He told me, 'How much time?' I told him, 'A month.' I’m sure that during this month we’ll be able to deliver good results for his people and the people of Mexico.”

President Sheinbaum said that under the deal, the U.S. pledged to slow the illegal trafficking of weapons to Mexico, though Trump’s account of the agreement on Truth Social made no mention of that commitment.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio has named Trump ally and State Department official Pete Marocco as acting deputy administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, after the Trump administration placed staff members on leave and took the agency’s website and social media accounts offline. NBC reports that under the first Trump administration, Marocco’s efforts to consolidate power and slash funding drove officials to write a dissent memo that ultimately pushed him out of office. Marocco was also reportedly among the insurrectionists who attacked the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.

On Monday a group of House and Senate Democrats rallied outside USAID’s shuttered headquarters in Washington, D.C., and were denied entry to the building. This is Congressmember Ilhan Omar of Minnesota.

Rep. Ilhan Omar: “This is what the beginning of dictatorship looks like. When you gut the Constitution and you install yourself as the sole power, that is how dictators are made. What Trump and Elon and all of their cronies are trying to do is take away the constitutional power of Congress.”

A federal court in Washington, D.C., has extended a temporary injunction against President Trump’s effort to freeze trillions of dollars of federal spending. U.S. District Judge Loren AliKhan ruled Trump’s order appears to violate the Constitution’s separation of powers, which grants Congress the authority to tax and spend. She also cited the “catastrophic” impact the freeze would have on millions of people who receive government services, including food, home heating and medical assistance.

On Monday, protesters gathered outside of the Office of Personnel Management, which associates of Elon Musk have taken over. The White House has confirmed that Musk is now a “special government employee,” with a government email address and office space in the White House complex.

Musk tweeted Monday that he had “deleted” a government agency that worked on a free online system for filing 2024 tax returns directly with the IRS — although for now the software appears to remain available. Companies including H&R Block and TurboTax are seeking to protect their multibillion-dollar industry, which sees the average U.S. taxpayer spend $140 a year on tax preparation.

This comes after Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said he had halted most of the work of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau — the agency established after the 2008 banking crisis to prevent unfair, deceptive or predatory financial practices.

The Trump administration has deactivated the Famine Early Warning System Network after the State Department issued a “stop-work” order on all U.S. foreign assistance, with exceptions for some emergency food aid and military aid for Egypt and Israel. The monitoring program was established after the 1984 famine in Ethiopia. More recently, it predicted the unfolding hunger crisis in Sudan, where fighting between rival military factions has plunged half the population — some 25 million people — into high levels of acute food insecurity.

In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwandan-backed M23 forces have declared a ceasefire, pausing all fighting in the east of the country for humanitarian reasons. The deal, which begins today, comes after at least 900 people were killed as M23 fighters seized the eastern city of Goma over the past week. International groups have called for sanctions and an arms embargo against Rwanda over its support of M23. In an interview with CNN, Rwandan President Paul Kagame claimed he was unaware of any Rwandan military troops fighting in the eastern DRC.

Larry Madowo: “Today, on the 3rd of February, does Rwanda currently have any troops at all in eastern DRC?”

President Paul Kagame: “I don’t know.”

Larry Madowo: “You’re the commander-in-chief.”

President Paul Kagame: “Yeah. There are many things I don’t know.

Meanwhile, the World Food Programme says 25.6 million people across the DRC are facing acute food insecurity. Four-and-a-half million children under the age of 5 require treatment for malnutrition.

Israel’s 15-month assault on Gaza has killed more than 61,700 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Government Media Office, which added over 14,000 people missing and presumed dead to its death toll. Nearly 18,000 of that total are children, including 214 newborn infants. A recent study in The Lancet finds the true death toll in Gaza may be 40% higher than official figures. Over 2 million people have been displaced.

Gaza officials warned this week the most urgent humanitarian need is for temporary shelters as thousands of Palestinian families are sleeping outdoors in frigid temperatures. Authorities say Israel is continuing to obstruct aid access to Gaza, violating the terms of the ceasefire.

This comes as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is meeting with Trump at the White House today. Ahead of their meeting, Trump said there were “no guarantees” the Gaza ceasefire will hold. Trump also recently called for the “cleaning out” of Gaza and forcibly expelling its population to neighboring countries. This comes amid reports Netanyahu will not commit to implementing the second stage of the ceasefire agreement and is refusing to withdraw troops from Gaza while Hamas remains in political power.

In the occupied West Bank, the Oscar-nominated director Basel Adra filmed armed and masked Israeli settlers attacking his community of Masafer Yatta last night. The settlers threw stones, smashed vehicles, slashed tires and punctured a water tank. Israeli soldiers on the scene did not intervene to halt the crimes. Basel Adra’s film “No Other Land” is about Israel’s mass expulsion of Palestinians living in Masafer Yatta.

The Palestinian Ministry of Health says Israeli forces have killed at least 70 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank since the start of 2025, more than half of those in Jenin.

Al Jazeera has published satellite images that show Israel is building out seven military bases within the demilitarized buffer zone with Syria following the ouster of Bashar al-Assad in December. One of the bases is being built outside the buffer zone, inside Syrian territory. Israel’s incursions into Syria violate a 1974 truce that designated the area of the Golan Heights as a buffer zone.

Here in New York, three Columbia University students filed a lawsuit Monday against Columbia’s administration after they were suspended last year just ahead of graduation for taking part in peaceful campus protests for Palestinian rights. This is one of the plaintiffs, Catherine Curran-Groome.

Catherine Curran-Groome: “This all comes in response to Columbia’s repression against us, where they created sham disciplinary proceedings to target and discriminate against us. And this led to the suspension and, in my case, effective expulsion from the university. Today we stand here saying that not only do we refuse to be intimidated by the university, but we actively seek through this lawsuit to hold our university accountable for their violation of our rights and for the immeasurable harm that they have inflicted upon us and anti-Zionist students like us who are simply struggling for Palestinian rights to freedom and safety.”

Click here to see our coverage of the Gaza solidarity protests at Columbia and campuses across the country.

The Senate has confirmed fracking executive Chris Wright as secretary of energy. Wright has long advocated for fossil fuels and has publicly denied the existence of the climate crisis. He’s the founder of the Denver-based oil field firm Liberty Energy, and until recently served on the board of Oklo, a nuclear power startup.

Wright’s confirmation came as the Trump administration sent emails to over 1,100 recently hired Environmental Protection Agency workers, warning them they could be fired at any time. The New York Times reports the affected staffers work on climate change, air pollution reduction, clean energy and enforcing environmental laws like lead pipe remediation.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Monday unveiled an agreement with the government of El Salvador, which says it will receive immigrants and asylum seekers of different nationalities who are deported from the United States. In his remarks Monday, Rubio praised Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, who has been accused of gross human rights abuses and of violating El Salvador’s constitution by remaining in power for a third presidential term.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio: “He has agreed to accept for deportation any illegal alien in the United States who is a criminal, from any nationality, be they MS-13 or Tren de Aragua, and house them in his jails. And third, he has offered to house in his jails dangerous American criminals in custody in our country, including those of U.S. citizenship and legal residence.”

Rubio’s visit to El Salvador came after he met with officials in Panama. Rubio is heading to Costa Rica and then Guatemala today, before making a stop in the Dominican Republic as part of his first foreign trip as Trump’s secretary of state. We’ll have more on his trip after headlines.

Businesses across the U.S., from child day cares to grocery stores, closed their doors Monday to mark “a day without immigrants” in protest of the Trump administration’s mass raids and deportations. Students also skipped school to join the peaceful action. Thousands of people took to the streets in cities nationwide, including in Phoenix, Arizona; New York; and Los Angeles.

Protesters also rallied outside Trump Tower in downtown Chicago. This is Melanie, the daughter of undocumented immigrants, who held a sign that read “Speaking out for immigrants who can’t!”

Melanie: “On the other side, I have, like, 'Immigrants built America,' because who’s the one who does your crops? It’s immigrants. They’re the ones in the fields. Who picks up your trash? It’s immigrants. They’re the ones that are cleaning out the offices, the bathrooms. Everywhere you work, they’re the ones that clean up. They’re not the ones that are sitting in an office desk doing paperwork. They’re the ones behind everything.”

President Trump has named his former speech writer Darren Beattie to a senior position at the State Department. Beattie was fired in 2018 after CNN reported he’d spoken at a conference attended by white nationalists. Last October, Beattie wrote, “Competent white men must be in charge if you want things to work.”

In Germany, 160,000 demonstrators rallied at Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate Sunday to condemn conservative leader Friedrich Merz for collaborating with the extreme-right Alternative for Germany party to push an anti-immigrant measure. The bill ultimately failed after members of Merz’s own CDU party refused to support it. Merz has been favored to become Germany’s next chancellor in the upcoming elections.