Trending TikTok content creator and social media personality Breckie Hill rose to fame through the use of her self-titled account. She shares modeling and lip-sync videos set to the platform’s hottest sounds. She has more than 3 million fans on the platform.
With President-elect Trump adding uncertainty around whether a TikTok ban will go into effect, the focus is now turning to companies like Google and Apple, who are expected to take the popular video sharing app off their platforms in just two days. The court decision comes against a backdrop of unusual political agitation by President-elect Donald Trump, who vowed that he could negotiate a solution after he takes office, and the administration of President Joe Biden, which has signaled it won’t enforce the law beginning Sunday, his final full day in office. “We’re really in uncharted territory here in terms of tech policy,” said Sarak Kreps, the director of Cornell University’s Tech Policy Institute.
The struggle over the Equal Rights Amendment started more than a century ago when leading suffragist Alice Paul first proposed it shortly after the ratification of the 19th Amendment, which granted women the right to vote. The ERA, if formally recognized as the 28th Amendment, would make gender equality explicit under the Constitution. President Joe Biden on Friday declared that the ERA should be considered a ratified addition to the Constitution.
Starbucks said Friday it plans an unspecified number of layoffs as it restructures its corporate staff. In a letter to employees, Starbucks Chairman and CEO Brian Niccol said the Seattle coffee giant needs to ensure all work has a clear and accountable owner who can make decisions. “Our size and structure can slow us down, with too many layers, managers of small teams and roles focused primarily on coordinating work,” Niccol wrote.
Americans will be hit by a "Trump tariffs tax" if the US president-elect increases customs duties on Canadian products, the Canadian foreign minister said Friday, pledging a hard-hitting response in any trade war."This would be the biggest trade war between Canada and the US in decades," Foreign Minister Melanie Joly said.
Even with any assurances from Donald Trump, companies like Apple, Google, and Oracle would be taking a risk by not complying with the TikTok ban.
"I almost, like, don't know how to define myself without TikTok," content creator Ayman Chaudhary sighed, reflecting the consternation of millions over US authorities' scheduled banning Sunday of the hugely popular app.Until then, Ayman and countless other content creators have been left gloomily contemplating a future without TikTok.
In one of her last acts as Treasury Secretary, Janet Yellen said her agency will start taking “extraordinary measures,” or special accounting maneuvers intended to prevent the nation from hitting the debt ceiling, on January 21, in a letter sent to congressional leaders Friday afternoon. The department has in the past deployed what are known as “extraordinary measures,” or accounting maneuvers, to keep the government operating. “The period of time that extraordinary measures may last is subject to considerable uncertainty, including the challenges of forecasting the payments and receipts of the U.S. Government months into the future,” Yellen wrote in a letter addressed to House and Senate leadership.
Global equities rallied on Friday as traders digested corporate results and prepared for US President-elect Donald Trump's inauguration next week, pushing London's benchmark FTSE 100 and Frankfurt's DAX 40 index to new all-time highs."Although fresh volatility is expected on global markets after President Trump returns to the White House, there may be more appetite to shelter in the resilience of the UK market," she added.
Sentencings for five former Memphis police officers convicted of federal charges in the beating death of Tyre Nichols will take place after an April state court trial on second-degree murder in the Black man's death, a judge ruled Friday. Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Emmitt Martin, Desmond Mills Jr. and Justin Smith will be scheduled for sentencing in federal court the week of June 16, with specific dates for each former officer to be set later, U.S. District Judge Mark Norris said during a court hearing.
The Supreme Court took up a dispute on the tensions between LGBT rights and religious rights by agreeing to hear a claim by parents in Maryland who objected to books in elementary school classrooms on gender transition and same-sex relationships.
Behaving at their best, a dozen dogs attended Mass at Mexico City’s cathedral Friday, waiting for their turn to de doused with holy water. The blessing of the animals is a long-time Catholic tradition celebrated on January 17. On this day, Mexican Catholic congregations and priests welcome pups, cats and the occasional parrot on the feast day of St. Anthony the Abbot, considered the patron saint of animals.
"Guess I'll be eating ramen again tonight," tweets one customer on third day of issues linked to a data-center power outage.
NYC Mayor Eric Adams met with President-elect Donald Trump at his Mar-a-Lago home today in Florida.
A fire broke out at one of the world's largest lithium battery storage facilities in Monterey County, California, forcing evacuation orders and closing a portion of coastal Highway 1.
The cause of the deadly Palisades Fire, which has burned almost 24,000 acres since erupting on Jan. 7, is still under investigation. LADWP, the largest U.S. municipal utility, has not yet filed an incident report related to the blaze, Moody's said.
Israel is preparing for the return of the hostages from Gaza with the expectation that many are likely to have severe, life-threatening complications after more than a year in captivity in Gaza. While it’s impossible to know the exact conditions in which hostages have been held, the Health Ministry and the Hostages Family Forum, which represents families of the hostages, are preparing for several different scenarios based on information gathered from hostages previously released or rescued.
IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel will resign to preempt Donald Trump firing him. Trump had already nominated former GOP Rep. Billy Long to replace him.
A U.S. appeals court on Friday ruled against outgoing Democratic President Joe Biden's effort to protect immigrants illegally brought to the U.S. as children, siding with Texas just days before Republican President-elect Donald Trump takes office. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals largely upheld a 2023 lower court judge's decision that found a Biden administration regulation aimed at strengthening the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program did not remedy its legal deficiencies, but limited the scope of the ruling to the state of Texas. The program for so-called "Dreamer" immigrants brought to the U.S. illegally as children provides 537,000 people with deportation relief and work permits, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services data.
The United States on Friday grounded SpaceX's Starship and ordered Elon Musk's company to investigate why the spaceship spectacularly disintegrated in a fiery cascade over the Caribbean during its latest test mission.- Mars rocket - Starship is the biggest and most powerful rocket ever built, and is key to Musk's ambitions of colonizing Mars.
A South Carolina inmate who has spent more than half his life on death row has chosen to die by lethal injection instead of by electric chair or firing squad later this month. Marion Bowman Jr., 44, is the third inmate set to die since the state was able to restart executions after a 13-year pause last year. All three have chosen lethal injection over the electric chair or a firing squad, which was created when the state feared it might never be able to obtain drugs for lethal injections again.
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