Will TikTok be banned? Here are the latest details on the app's legal fight to stay in the US and Trump's options
Congress passed a law in April that set a nine-month deadline for TikTok's owner, ByteDance, to divest from the app or be booted from US app stores. The US government is on track to force the app out on January 19, the day before Donald Trump takes office. There's a possibility that President Joe Biden could extend that deadline by 90 days, but he hasn't said he will.TikTok is currently challenging the divest-or-ban law in the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, but legal analysts generally aren't optimistic about TikTok's prospects in court.
President-elect Trump has said he would try to save the app once in office, a flip-flop from his position during his first presidential term.
Australia passes law to keep under-16s off social media – good luck with that, mate
The law requires some social media platforms to "take reasonable steps" to ensure that people under 16 can't use their services. How they do it is up to them. The government will soon run an age verification trial that it thinks will be instructional, and has promised that citizens will be able to use social media without having to show ID – but the details of how the obligation will be implemented are not known.Chinese Ship Surrounded Over Alleged Undersea Internet Cable Sabotage
A Chinese ship was surrounded by European vessels due to suspicions it attempted to sabotage fiber-optic undersea cables in the Baltic Sea. It dragged an anchor over 100 miles across Northern Europe's Baltic seabed, apparently to ntentionally damage the cables. Cables connecting Lithuania and Sweden as well as Finland and Germany were slashed on Nov. 19.The price tag on Project 2025’s abortion plan: $300 million cut to Medi-Cal
Project 2025, a right-wing blueprint for the next president, targeted the state with an ultimatum that would require California to start reporting abortion data to the Centers for Disease Control or risk losing critical Medicaid funding.Texas governor threatens to pull children’s hospital funding over doctor’s viral post
Texas hospitals that take Medicaid must ask patients if they’re US citizens, but a doctor posted a viral TikTok telling patients they’re not legally obligated to tell a hospital their citizenship status. Dr. Tony Pastor also said he’s “going to keep advocating for our patients because that’s why we went to medical school, and not to be ICE deportation people”.Elon Musk publicized the names of government employees he wants to cut. It’s terrifying federal workers
Musk reposted two X posts that revealed the names and titles of people holding four relatively obscure climate-related government positions. Each post has been viewed tens of millions of times, and the individuals named have been subjected to a barrage of negative attention. At least one of the four women named has deleted her social media accounts.Musk accuses Trump whistleblower Vindman of ‘treason,’ says ‘he will pay’
The former Trump impeachment witness accused the tech billionaire and close Trump ally of being unwittingly used by Russia. “Vindman is on the payroll of Ukranian oligarchs and has committed treason against the United States,” Musk wrote on his social media platform X, responding to comments Vindman made in an interview about Musk’s reported conversations with Russian President Vladimir Putin.“Clearly Putin has a type. He likes narcissists and egomaniacs that he knows as a case officer can easily pander to manipulate, to do his dirty work,” Vindman said in the late October interview circulated online by X users this week. “Russia has been using different levers — whether that’s corruption networks, in this case, its influencers like Donald Trump, like Elon Musk, to kind of sow discord.”
Mexican President’s Harsh Takedown of Trump Exposes an Ugly MAGA Scam
At the center of it is a lie. This lie is hiding in plain sight: It’s the underlying suggestion that Mexico is not doing anything to stop migrants from coming and that Trump’s threat of tariffs is needed to change that. "Mexico has developed a comprehensive policy to assist migrants ... and according to data from your country’s Customs and Border Protection (CBP), encounters at the Mexico-United States border have decreased by 75% between December 2023 and November 2024." Trump does not allow that the reality depicted by our own data even exists. During the fall campaign, Trump endlessly repeated the lie that our “open” border is getting obliterated by a world-historical invasion, even as apprehensions plummeted and matched levels sometimes seen during Trump’s presidency.