Good morning.

Donald Trump has said that Washington and Beijing have settled their dispute over rare earths after crucial trade talks with the Chinese president in South Korea.

According to China’s commerce ministry, a consensus had previously been reached during recent talks by both sides’ trade teams in Kuala Lumpur, which included a reduction in Trump’s so-called “fentanyl tariff” imposed on Chinese goods, along with reciprocal measures by Beijing to suspend export controls.

After the talks in Busan, Trump told reporters Xi Jinping had agreed to work “very hard” to prevent the production of fentanyl. In return, Trump said he would lower fentanyl-linked tariffs from 20% to 10%, thereby lowering overall tariffs from 57% to 47%.

• What else was agreed? Trump said China would axe its restrictions on rare earth exports, in a deal he said would last one year before being negotiated annually, and also buy American soya beans.

• Was Taiwan discussed? No. And while Ukraine was discussed, Trump said that the topic of Chinese consumption of Russian oil was not really discussed.

Trump directs Pentagon to ‘match’ Russia and China in nuclear weapons testing

A Trident II D5 missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead is test-launched from a US ballistic missile submarine in 2018. Photograph: Reuters

Trump has directed the Pentagon to “immediately” match other nuclear powers in their testing of nuclear weapons, specifically citing Russia and China.

In a post to Truth Social, Trump said: “Because of other countries’ testing programs, I have instructed the Department of War to start testing our Nuclear Weapons on an equal basis. That process will begin immediately.” The post came less than an hour before Trump met Xi in South Korea on Thursday.

Revealed: ICE violates its own policy by holding people in secretive rooms for days or weeks

Detained migrants are led to a holding room on the 10th floor of the Jacob K Javits federal building for holding in New York on 10 July 2025. Photograph: David Dee Delgado/Reuters

US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials have increasingly been keeping people in temporary holding rooms for days or even weeks at a time in breach of federal policy, a Guardian investigation has found.

The rooms, which are often small concrete spaces without beds, are used to detain people after they have been arrested but before they are transferred or released. In June, the agency changed its internal policies that previously banned it from detaining people in these rooms for more than 12 hours, raising the limit to three days.

Some facilities have recorded massive rises in detention length since June, with one facility in New York experiencing a rise by nearly 600% on average. ICE holding facilities do not receive the same level of oversight that larger ICE detention centers are subjected to.

• Are several people detained together? Yes. A former ICE official said that the risk of people being sexually assaulted while in a holding room, either by ICE staff or another detainee, rises the longer they are held.

In other news …

Satellite image shows objects on the ground at a former children’s hospital in El Fasher, Sudan. Photograph: Airbus DS 2025/AP

Stat of the day: In the first six months of 2025, there were more than 520 US plots and acts of terrorism and targeted violence

A memorial for Democratic state assemblywoman Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, in St Paul, Minnesota. Photograph: Tim Evans/Reuters

There is strong evidence that political violence is on the rise in the US: in the first six months of 2025, there were more than 520 plots and acts of terrorism and targeted violence, causing 96 deaths and 329 injuries. This is a nearly 40% increase compared with the first six months of 2024, according to data from the study of terrorism and responses to terrorism at the University of Maryland.

Don’t miss this: ‘Scamming became the new farming’: inside India’s cybercrime villages

Jamtara railway station. Photograph: cameranest/Shutterstock

To the uninitiated, the town of Jamtara in the eastern Indian state of Jharkhand might not stand out. But look closer and you begin to see pockets of obvious wealth. In India, the town has become known for one thing: running scam operations to siphon money from strangers’ bank accounts. “You lived in fear of being ‘Jamtara-ed’,” writes Snigdha Poonam in this long read on how the district ended up a synonym for digital deceit in the country.

Climate check: Hurricane Melissa hits Cuba after turning Jamaica into ‘disaster area’

People walk through Santa Cruz, Jamaica, on 29 October 2025, after Hurricane Melissa passed. Photograph: Matias Delacroix/AP

Hurricane Melissa – the strongest cyclone to lash Jamaica since records began nearly two centuries ago – has hit Cuba after devastating parts of the neighboring country, with Jamaica’s prime minister declaring it a disaster area. Climate scientists say global heating has made extreme weather, including storms, more intense.

Last Thing: Can anyone learn to be cool?

Studiously unsmiling … James Dean. Photograph: Allstar Picture Library Ltd/Alamy

After a study found that people around the world identify common traits when asked what “cool” people are like, Guardian writer Elle Hunt went on a mission: to find out if she could learn to be cool. “I am usually wearing head-to-toe Uniqlo. Affordable, yes, practical, certainly – but hardly cool,” she writes as she traces the history of the origins of “cool” and how it’s changed over the last century.

Sign up

Sign up for the US morning briefing

First Thing is delivered to thousands of inboxes every weekday. If you’re not already signed up, subscribe now.

Get in touch

If you have any questions or comments about any of our newsletters please email newsletters@theguardian.com