{"id":201724,"date":"2026-02-26T21:29:13","date_gmt":"2026-02-26T21:29:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/us-and-iranian-negotiators-meet-for-critical-nuclear-talks-in-geneva-first-thing-the-guardian\/"},"modified":"2026-02-26T21:29:13","modified_gmt":"2026-02-26T21:29:13","slug":"us-and-iranian-negotiators-meet-for-critical-nuclear-talks-in-geneva-first-thing-the-guardian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/us-and-iranian-negotiators-meet-for-critical-nuclear-talks-in-geneva-first-thing-the-guardian\/","title":{"rendered":"US and Iranian negotiators meet for critical nuclear talks in Geneva | First Thing – The Guardian"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tehran insists deal is possible if Trump abides by preconditions agreed with Witkoff. Plus, will Andrew bring down the British monarchy?
Good morning.
Iran enters critical talks on its nuclear program<\/a> with the US in Geneva today, insisting a deal is possible as long as Washington sticks by three preconditions: to concede Iran\u2019s symbolic right to enrich uranium, allow Tehran to dilute its stockpile of highly enriched uranium, and not impose controls on Iran\u2019s ballistic missile programme.
Iranian officials claim these principles had already been accepted in two previous rounds of indirect talks by the US special envoy Steve Witkoff, who is heading to Geneva with Jared Kushner, but it is unclear if Donald Trump will accept these parameters.
Meanwhile, the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, said on Wednesday it would be a \u201cbig problem\u201d if Iran did not negotiate over missiles.
What do we know about Trump\u2019s position?<\/strong> In his State of the Union speech, Trump veered sharply away from the negotiating path adopted by Witkoff when he warned about Iran\u2019s ballistic missiles reaching Europe, accused Iran of being the number one sponsor of terrorism and again claimed Iran had not promised to forgo nuclear weapons. He also claimed 32,000 demonstrators had been killed by the Iranian authorities in recent protests.
This is a developing story. <\/strong>Follow our live coverage here<\/a>.
JD Vance announced on Wednesday that the Trump administration would \u201ctemporarily halt\u201d<\/a> more than $250m in Medicaid reimbursements to the state of Minnesota, escalating Donald Trump\u2019s newly announced \u201cwar on fraud\u201d.
Vance said the action was to ensure Minnesota was \u201ca good steward of the American people\u2019s tax money\u201d. The Trump administration has aggressively targeted Minnesota after a fraud scandal involving the state\u2019s social service programs. Federal prosecutors estimate as much as $9bn has been stolen across schemes linked to the state\u2019s Somali population. Dozens of people were charged with fraud in 2022 during the Biden administration.
In recent months the Trump administration has sent thousands of federal immigration agents to Minneapolis, resulting in the deaths of two US citizens and widespread protests.
How have Democrats responded?<\/strong> \u201cThis has nothing to do with fraud,\u201d Tim Walz, the Minnesota governor, said on X. \u201cThe agents Trump allegedly sent to investigate fraud are shooting protesters and arresting children. His DoJ is gutting the US Attorney\u2019s Office and crippling their ability to prosecute fraud. And every week Trump pardons another fraudster.\u201d
A record 129 journalists and media workers were killed<\/a> in the course of their work in 2025, two-thirds of them by Israeli forces, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).
It was the second consecutive year in which killings of members of the press reached unprecedented levels, and the second year running in which Israel was responsible for roughly two-thirds of the total, the CPJ\u2019s annual report found.
Israeli fire killed 86 journalists last year, the CPJ said, the majority of them Palestinians reporting from Gaza.
What is the context?<\/strong> Israel does not permit foreign journalists to enter Gaza, so all the media workers killed there were Palestinians. The report said the \u201cIsraeli military has now committed more targeted killings of the press than any other government\u2019s military on record\u201d, noting that the CPJ started collecting data more than three decades ago.
A guest of the congresswoman Ilhan Omar was arrested<\/a> by Capitol police for standing at Donald Trump\u2019s State of the Union address.<\/strong> Aliya Rahman, a Minneapolis resident, was arrested for unlawful conduct and disruption of Congress, police stated.
Cuban forces killed four exiles and wounded six others, the country\u2019s government said,<\/strong> saying<\/a> a Florida-registered speedboat had sailed into its waters and opened fire on a Cuban patrol.
Larry Summers, a former president of Harvard University, will resign<\/a> from teaching at the end of the academic year<\/strong> \u201cin connection with the ongoing review\u201d of Epstein files.
Two women have been arrested<\/a> and detained in Uganda after allegedly kissing in public,<\/strong> an act of \u201csame-sex activity\u201d that can lead to a life sentence in the east African country.
A North Dakota judge has said he will order Greenpeace to pay damages expected to total $345m<\/a> to the pipeline company Energy Transfer. It relates to protests against the Dakota Access oil pipeline in 2016 and 2017. A jury found Greenpeace USA liable on counts including conspiracy, trespass, nuisance and tortious interference. Greenpeace says the lawsuit was intended to silence activists.
\u201cFinding the perfect chocolate bar is a bit like dating. Some bars are an acquired taste, while others are love at first sight,\u201d write Karen Yuan and Lauren Gould<\/a> for the Filter. \u201cWhich ones actually taste good? To find out, we held a blind taste test of 10 of the top chocolate brands in the US.\u201d
As UK lawmakers vote to release documents relating to Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor\u2019s appointment as trade envoy, Today in Focus spoke to Andrew Lownie<\/a>, the author of Entitled: The Rise and Fall of the House of York, about whether this scandal could be the British monarchy\u2019s last.
Tropical flowers are blooming months earlier or later because of climate breakdown, with potentially \u201ccascading impacts across ecosystems\u201d, according to a study of 8,000 plants dating back 200 years. \u201cThese changes, and more in turn, fracture communities and food chains,\u201d the researchers wrote in the paper<\/a>.
There\u2019s been a recent spate of postmortems<\/a> revisiting 2000s shows \u2013 The Biggest Loser, To Catch a Predator and America\u2019s Next Top Model \u2013 that monetized humiliation at scale. \u201cThese docs provide a strange nostalgia trip,\u201d writes Andrew Lawrence. \u201cBut today\u2019s young scolds should take heed: soon enough, you\u2019ll have to answer for Love Island and MrBeast.\u201d
First Thing is delivered to thousands of inboxes every weekday. If you\u2019re not already signed up, subscribe now<\/a>.
If you have any questions or comments about any of our newsletters please email newsletters@theguardian.com<\/a><\/p>\n

source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tehran insists deal is possible if Trump abides by preconditions agreed with Witkoff. Plus, will Andrew bring down the British monarchy?Good morning.Iran enters critical talks on its nuclear program with the US in Geneva today, insisting a deal is possible as long as Washington sticks by three preconditions: to concede Iran\u2019s symbolic right to enrich […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":201725,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-201724","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-us","8":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201724","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=201724"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201724\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/201725"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=201724"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=201724"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=201724"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}