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Pearl Harbor “changed the future of the world,” U.S. President Joe Biden said at a White House event for veterans and their families on Friday, the eve of the anniversary of Japan’s surprise attack on Pearl Harbor.

The president recalled that he “heard so much” about Pearl Harbor when he was growing up and talked about his uncles who enlisted in the military after the attack.

“During World War II, we stood at an inflection point,” the president said.  “We still stand at an inflection point. The decisions we make now in the next four to five years will determine the course of our future for decades to come. … We owe it to the next generation to set that course on a more free, more secure and more just path.”

Saturday, December 7, marks the 83rd anniversary of Japan’s surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, a U.S. naval base on the island of Oahu, Hawaii, near Honolulu.

Hundreds of Japanese fighter planes unleashed bombs, bullets and aerial torpedoes on America’s Pacific Fleet in the Sunday morning attack.

More than 2,400 U.S. sailors, soldiers and civilians were killed that day. About half of them died on the USS Arizona battleship.

The Japanese succeeded in sinking four of the eight U.S. battleships at Pearl Harbor and damaging the remaining four.

According to the Naval History and History Command website, “That more Japanese aircraft were not shot down had nothing to do with the skill, training or bravery of our Sailors and other servicemembers.

“Rather, U.S. antiaircraft weapons were inadequate in number and capability, for not only had the Japanese achieved tactical surprise, they achieved technological surprise with aircraft and weapons far better than anticipated — a lesson in the danger of underestimating the enemy that resonates to this day.”

The day after the attack, U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt appeared before a joint session of Congress, seeking a declaration of war. After he delivered his famous “Day of Infamy” speech, the Senate unanimously supported the declaration. In the House, there was one dissenter, Montana’s Representative Jeanette Rankin, a pacifist.

Roosevelt signed the declaration Monday afternoon. The United States had now been officially drawn into World War II.

Before the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States had imposed economic sanctions on Japan as a way of stopping Japan’s expansion goals in Asia. The sanctions affected Japan’s access to aircraft exports.

The attack on the U.S. Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor was part of Japan’s plan to prevent any challenges to those goals in Asia.

There is now a USS Arizona Memorial that expands over the hull of the sunken vessel without touching it.

Earlier this week, a 104-year-old survivor of Pearl Harbor returned to Hawaii to participate in this year’s commemorations. Ira “Ike” Schab Jr. of Portland, Oregon, who was a Navy musician, was greeted at the airport in Honolulu with a water cannon salute and music from the U.S. Pacific Fleet Band.

When asked what he remembers about that day, Schab told the Hawaii News Now website, “Being scared, more than anything else.” Schab said he made the trip because he is one of the Pacific Fleet’s “very few” survivors remaining from that day.

He said, “They deserve to be recognized and honored.”
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Efforts to reduce the nation’s persistently high maternal mortality rates involve state panels of experts that investigate and learn from each mother’s death.

The panels — called maternal mortality review committees — usually do their work quietly and out of the public eye. But that’s not been the case recently in three states with strict abortion laws.

Georgia dismissed all members of its committee in November after information about deaths being reviewed leaked to the news organization ProPublica. Days later, The Washington Post reported that Texas’ committee won’t review cases from 2022 and 2023, the first two years after the state banned nearly all abortions. In Idaho, the state let its panel disband in 2023 only to reinstate it earlier this year.

“They’ve become more of a lightning rod than they were before,” said epidemiologist Michael Kramer, director of the Center for Rural Health and Health Disparities at Mercer University in Georgia.

Here’s what maternal mortality review committees across the nation do and what might happen next:

What are they?

“Maternal mortality review committees are important because they are the most comprehensive source of information about maternal mortality that we have,” said David Goodman, who leads the maternal mortality prevention team at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The panels review deaths that occur during pregnancy or within a year after it ends, whether directly related to the pregnancy or not. Causes of death can range from hemorrhage during childbirth to drug overdoses to traffic accidents.

The goal, Kramer said, is to examine maternal deaths and help “decide what we can do about them.”

All states, a few cities and Puerto Rico have these committees. Their membership varies and may include OB-GYNs, maternal-fetal medicine doctors, nurses, midwives, mental and public health experts and members of patient advocacy groups. Most have representatives from several areas of expertise, which the CDC recommends.

How members are selected also varies; people may apply, submit letters of interest or be invited to serve.

The selection shouldn’t be politically motivated, Kramer said, because “if there’s a systematic exclusion of certain data or certain perspectives” it’s difficult to truly understand what’s happening.

How do they look at deaths?

First, the panels work with state vital statistics offices and epidemiologists to identify deaths associated with pregnancy by examining death certificates and looking for a pregnancy checkbox or a related cause of death. They may also search for links to birth and fetal death records, or delve into hospital discharge data, media reports and obituaries.

Once they identify cases, they collect as much information as possible, such as prenatal care records, hospital and social service records, autopsy reports and interviews with family members. Professional “abstractors” distill all this into case narratives, which committee members pore over. Most use a standardized review process developed by the CDC — and all panels can get help and guidance from the agency.

They consider questions such as: Was the death pregnancy-related? What was the underlying cause? Was it preventable? What factors contributed?

States generally have privacy rules that protect committee members and people who provide information on the deaths.

The groups then issue public reports that don’t name moms or hospitals but include overall findings, trends and recommendations. Some come out a couple of years or more after the deaths.

Across the nation in 2023, Goodman said, 151 recommendations from those reports were implemented by communities, hospitals, medical professionals and policymakers.

What about Georgia, Texas and Idaho?

Georgia will rebuild its committee through a new application process, the state public health commissioner said.

Texas’ committee has been reviewing 2021 deaths and will start on 2024 cases at its next meeting, Texas Department of State Health Services spokesperson Lara Anton said in an email to The Associated Press.

“Reviewing cases is a lengthy process and legislators have asked for more recent data. Starting the next review cycle with 2024 cases will allow us to provide that in the next report,” Anton said, adding that maternal and child health epidemiologists will continue to analyze and publish data for 2022 and 2023.

In Idaho, the reconstituted review committee now falls under the state board of medicine, which licenses doctors, instead of the state’s health and welfare department. It will operate like it always has, said Bob McLaughlin, spokesperson for the medical board. Members met for the first time in November and plan to issue a report by Jan. 31. Because the legislature wanted the most up-to-date information, McLaughlin said the first report will cover only 2023 cases, and the group will review 2022 deaths next.

Goodman said he’s encouraged that every state has a review committee now — only 20 had them in 2015.
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WASHINGTON — A retired Washington, D.C., police officer charged with lying about his private communications with former Proud Boys national leader Enrique Tarrio testified Friday that he never leaked sensitive police information to the far-right extremist group leader. 

Taking the witness stand at his federal trial, former Metropolitan Police Department Lieutenant Shane Lamond said he was upset that a prosecutor labeled him as a Proud Boys “sympathizer” who acted as a “double agent” for the group after Tarrio burned a stolen Black Lives Matter banner in December 2020. 

“I don’t support the Proud Boys, and I’m not a Proud Boys sympathizer,” said Lamond, whose bench trial started Monday and continues next week. 

Tarrio, who testified Thursday as a witness for Lamond’s defense, is serving a 22-year prison sentence for his role in a plot to use force to keep Donald Trump in the White House after the 2020 election. Tarrio previously was sentenced to more than five months in jail for burning the banner stolen from a historic Black church in downtown Washington and for bringing two high-capacity firearm magazines into the district. 

Lamond said Tarrio never confessed to him that he burned the banner. He also denies tipping off Tarrio that a warrant for his arrest had been signed before he arrived in Washington on January 4, 2021 — two days before other Proud Boys joined a mob’s attack on the U.S. Capitol. 

Lamond’s indictment says he and Tarrio exchanged messages about the January 6 riot and discussed whether Proud Boys members were in danger of being charged in the attack. 

“Of course I can’t say it officially, but personally I support you all and don’t want to see your group’s name and reputation dragged through the mud,” Lamond wrote. 

Lamond said he considered Tarrio to be a source, not a friend. But he said he tried to build a friendly rapport with the group leader to gain his trust. 

Justice Department prosecutor Joshua Rothstein pointed to other messages that suggest Lamond provided Tarrio with “real-time updates” on the police investigation of the December 12, 2020, banner burning. 

Lamond is charged with one count of obstruction of justice and three counts of making false statements. U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson will decide the case after hearing testimony without a jury. 

Lamond, who met Tarrio in 2019, had supervised the intelligence branch of the police department’s Homeland Security Bureau. He was responsible for monitoring groups like the Proud Boys when they came to Washington. 

The men exchanged hundreds of messages across several platforms, with Lamond frequently greeting Tarrio as “brother.” However, Lamond acknowledged that he only sent encrypted messages to Tarrio or met him in person after the banner burning.  

On the day of his arrest, Tarrio posted a message to other Proud Boys leaders that said, “The warrant was just signed.” Tarrio testified Thursday that he didn’t confess to Lamond or receive any confidential information from him. 

After the banner burning but before Tarrio’s arrest, Lamond told him that the FBI and U.S. Secret Service was “all spun up” by chatter that Proud Boys planned to dress up as supporters of President Joe Biden for the Democrat’s inauguration in January 2021. 

“I’m just going to let them get all freaked out. They’re idiots,” Lamond wrote of his federal colleagues. 

“Lol,” Tarrio responded. 

Lamond, 48, of Colonial Beach, Virginia, retired in May 2023 after 23 years of service to the police department. 
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A federal appeals court in Washington on Friday upheld a law requiring the wildly popular social media app TikTok to be sold to a non-Chinese owner or face closure in the United States by next month. The court cited “persuasive” and “compelling” arguments presented by the federal government that TikTok poses a risk to national security.

The ruling could leave the 170 million Americans who regularly use TikTok without access to a social media platform that has enjoyed explosive global growth in recent years. It could also mean that the millions of Americans who create content for TikTok — some of whom rely on monetizing that content for their livelihood — could be cut off from their audiences.

The government has argued that TikTok presents a unique danger to national security because it collects vast amounts of information about its users, and because the Chinese government ultimately exercises control over its parent company, ByteDance, and over the algorithm that determines what content TikTok users see.

Because ByteDance is in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) it is subject to that country’s laws, including measures requiring private companies to cooperate with government intelligence agencies.

The three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit found that the government has a compelling interest in taking steps “to counter the PRC’s efforts to collect great quantities of data about tens of millions of Americans” and “to limit the PRC’s ability to manipulate content covertly on the TikTok platform.”

TikTok signals an appeal

TikTok immediately signaled that it would appeal the circuit court’s ruling to the Supreme Court.

In a statement posted to its website, the company said, “The Supreme Court has an established historical record of protecting Americans’ right to free speech, and we expect they will do just that on this important constitutional issue.”

The company said that the law underlying the case “was conceived and pushed through based on inaccurate, flawed and hypothetical information, resulting in outright censorship of the American people,” and warned that it “will silence the voices of over 170 million Americans here in the U.S. and around the world.”

The Supreme Court is not obligated to hear the company’s appeal, and it was not immediately clear that it would do so. If the high court accepts the case, it is possible that it would block the government from enforcing the law until the case is decided.

President-elect Donald Trump, who once supported a TikTok ban before changing his mind during the recent presidential election, has suggested that he will act to save the app when he takes office. However, it is unclear what options he might have for doing that.

Lack of trust

In April, President Joe Biden signed the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act into law. The measure gave TikTok 270 days to find a way to separate itself from ByteDance before a ban on the application would kick in on January 19, 2025.

The federal government made it clear that the only kind of divestiture that it would accept was a complete separation of TikTok from its Chinese parent. The company offered alternatives, and established TikTok U.S. Data Security Inc. (TTUSDS) as a subsidiary in Delaware, to wall off U.S. user data from ByteDance.

However, the government cited instances in which U.S. user data that the company claimed to have shielded from the PRC was, in fact, accessible to ByteDance employees in mainland China. It told the court that it lacked “the requisite trust” that “ByteDance and TTUSDS would comply in good faith” with any arrangement other than complete separation of TikTok and ByteDance.

In Friday’s ruling, the judges wrote, “The court can neither fault nor second-guess the government on these crucial points.”

First Amendment concerns

TikTok and its supporters have claimed that severing TikTok from ByteDance is both practically impossible for technological reasons and legally impossible because the Chinese government will block the sale of the company. Therefore, they claim, the law constitutes a de facto ban and a violation of the guarantee of free speech enshrined in the First Amendment to the Constitution.

In a sign of how seriously the court took the First Amendment arguments, the panel of judges agreed that the law should be subject to “heightened scrutiny,” which the Supreme Court has applied to measures restricting fundamental rights.

In the end, the panel determined that the law satisfies even the most stringent form of “strict scrutiny,” which requires that the government “prove that the restriction furthers a compelling interest and is narrowly tailored to achieve that interest.”

Free speech advocates respond

The decision came under immediate criticism from free speech advocates.

“Although we’re still analyzing the decision, we find it deeply disappointing,” David Greene, civil liberties director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said in a statement emailed to VOA. “The court appropriately applied strict scrutiny as we have urged it to. But the strict-scrutiny analysis is lacking, relying heavily on speculation about possible future harms.

“Restricting the free flow of information, even from foreign adversaries, is fundamentally undemocratic,” Greene said. “Until now, the U.S. has championed the free flow of information and called out other nations when they have shut down internet access or banned online communications tools like social media apps.”

George Wang, a staff attorney at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, told VOA that the court accorded “a shocking amount of deference” to the government’s claims about the danger TikTok poses to national security.

“We should be really wary whenever we allow the government to use vague national security arguments as a justification to shut down speech,” Wang said. “That’s a tactic of authoritarian regimes, not democracies. It’s usually the job of courts to stand up to the government when it infringes on the constitutional rights of millions of Americans, and I think the D.C. Circuit really didn’t do that today.”

‘A victory for the American people’

Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi, the senior Democrat on the House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party, and one of the original sponsors of the law requiring TikTok’s divestiture or ban, released a statement Friday praising the court’s decision.

“With today’s opinion, all three branches of government have reached the same conclusion: ByteDance is controlled by the Chinese Communist Party, and TikTok’s ownership by ByteDance is a national security threat that cannot be mitigated through any other means than divestiture,” Krishnamoorthi said.

“Every day that TikTok remains under the Chinese Communist Party’s control is a day that our security is at risk,” Krishnamoorthi added.

Representative John Moolenaar, the committee’s Republican chairman, said in a statement that the ruling was “a victory for the American people and TikTok users, and a loss for the Chinese Communist Party, which will no longer be able to exploit ByteDance’s control over TikTok to undermine our sovereignty, surveil our citizens and threaten our national security.”

Moolenaar also held out hope to the app’s users that access to it may, in the end, be preserved under a Trump presidency.

“I am optimistic that President Trump will facilitate an American takeover of TikTok to allow its continued use in the United States and I look forward to welcoming the app in America under new ownership,” Moolenaar said.
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WASHINGTON — American journalist Austin Tice is still alive, more than 12 years after he was detained in Syria, his mother Debra Tice said Friday, citing a source vetted by the U.S. government. 

“Austin is alive and being treated well, and I can tell you he is waiting to come home,” Debra told VOA. “We have a very reliable source that is totally verified.” 

A Texas native and former U.S. Marine, Tice is an award-winning freelance journalist and photographer who works for outlets including The Washington Post, CBS and McClatchy. 

Tice was detained at a checkpoint in Damascus in August 2012. Aside from a brief video after his capture, little has been seen or heard of him since. 

“He is so ready. And he has known from the very first day that he was detained that he was going to walk free again,” Debra told VOA. “And so, we want to see him on the tarmac. We want to see that happen.” 

Tice’s father Mark characterized the source as “unimpeachable” but said the family could not share more details because the intelligence was classified. 

The U.S. State Department did not immediately reply to VOA’s request for comment.  

The revelation comes as the Tice family met with White House officials on Friday to push for the U.S. government to do more to secure Austin’s release. The meeting occurred amid renewed clashes in Syria, as insurgent fighters who have already captured the northern city of Aleppo, one of the country’s largest, are pressing their march against President Bashar Assad’s forces. 

At a press conference following the White House meeting, the Tice family criticized Biden administration officials for not providing any updates during their meeting. 

Debra told VOA she hopes President Joe Biden uses his final weeks in the White House to do everything he can to secure her son’s release. 

The family’s update comes the same week that President-elect Donald Trump announced that he would select Adam Boehler to serve as special presidential envoy for hostage affairs. The former chief executive officer of the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation, Boehler was a lead negotiator on the Abraham Accords. 
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WASHINGTON — Lost in much of the debate over “hostage diplomacy” after last week’s rare prisoner swap between the U.S. and China is that in addition to the three Americans, three Uyghurs were on the flight from China. The exchange highlights Beijing’s persecution of ethnic minorities prompting renewed international scrutiny.

A U.S. State Department spokesperson confirmed to VOA that the three Uyghurs were on the flight but declined to provide additional details “out of respect for their privacy.”

“The Biden-Harris Administration has continuously advocated for cases of humanitarian concern, including Uyghurs,” the spokesperson told VOA. “We are pleased that these [Uyghur] individuals are home with their families.”

Among those freed was 73-year-old Ayshem Mamut, the mother of prominent Uyghur rights advocate and Uyghur American lawyer Nury Turkel.

According to Turkel, the last time he saw his mother was 20 years ago, when she traveled to Washington for his graduation from American University.

“Her last trip to the U.S. was in the summer of 2004, when she came to D.C. with my late father for my law school graduation,” Turkel told VOA.

Turkel’s parents stayed in the U.S. for about five months before returning to China. Since then, his mother had been barred from leaving the country.

“The Chinese authorities never specifically said why my parents couldn’t leave the country,” Turkel said. “However, I believe a travel ban was imposed on my parents because of my decades-long advocacy work and my U.S. government service from 2020 to 2024.”

Turkel served as a commissioner and chair of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) from 2020 to 2024. In response to his advocacy for religious freedom for oppressed communities, he was sanctioned by China in 2021 and Russia in 2022.

Turkel described the reunion with his mother as a profoundly emotional moment, crediting years of persistent advocacy by individuals and institutions across multiple U.S. administrations.

“This reunion is a testament to the U.S. government’s steadfast commitment to human rights and justice for the Uyghur people,” Turkel said. “I am so proud of our country and leadership at the highest level — President [Joe] Biden, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, Secretary [Antony] Blinken and countless national security professionals invested so much time and energy over the years.”

He added that the reunion has been transformative for his mother.

“For my mother, this moment represents a rebirth of joy and humanity,” Turkel said.

“After decades apart, she can finally experience the love and laughter of her grandchildren — a connection that transcends the pain of separation and reminds us of the enduring power of family. She is profoundly grateful to those who made this reunion possible, especially Ambassador Nick Burns, whose compassionate actions reflect the best of humanity.”

Advocates push for continued U.S. action

Rayhan Asat, a fellow at the Atlantic Council and a Uyghur lawyer whose brother, Ekpar Asat, remains imprisoned in China, welcomed the release but called for continued efforts to secure freedom for other Uyghurs.

“I urge President Biden to secure Ekpar’s release and bring him home during the remainder of his presidency. His continued imprisonment sends a chilling message that participating in U.S. programs comes with grave risk,” Asat told VOA.

Ekpar Asat was sentenced to 15 years in prison after participating in a U.S.-China cultural exchange program organized by the State Department.

“As the Ambassador emphasized today, the state of U.S.-China relations hinges on the choices China makes, including its support for unjust wars. One of those choices must be to end the ongoing genocide against the Uyghur people,” Asat added.

Ferkat Jawdat, another Uyghur American advocate, expressed mixed emotions about the release. Jawdat has lobbied U.S. administrations to secure the freedom of his mother, whom he has not seen since 2006. She has been barred from leaving China for nearly two decades.

“While I’m very happy for @nuryturkel and his family’s reunion with their mother, I’m very sad that my mom was excluded from this,” he wrote. “I’ve been asking the U.S. government for years for the same when I met with former Secretary of State @mikepompeo and @SecBlinken,” Jawdat said in a tweet on social media platform X.

Turkel offered a message of hope and resilience to the global Uyghur community, encouraging them to remain steadfast in their advocacy.

“To my Uyghur communities around the world, I urge you to hold onto hope and faith,” Turkel said. “My family’s reunion is a living testament to the possibility of change, even in the face of immense challenges. Share your stories, advocate for your loved ones, and know that your voices matter.”

He emphasized that international attention and tireless efforts are making a difference.

“The world is listening, and there are people tirelessly working for justice and reconnecting families like ours,” he added. “Together, our resilience and solidarity can pave the way for others to experience similar moments of joy and relief.”
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Для промисловості та бізнесу діятимуть графіки відключень з 8-ї по 21 годину
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A federal appeals court panel on Friday upheld a law that could lead to a ban on TikTok in a few short months, handing a resounding defeat to the popular social media platform as it fights for its survival in the U.S. 

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled that the law, which requires TikTok to break ties with its China-based parent company ByteDance or be banned by mid-January, is constitutional, rebuffing TikTok’s challenge that the statute ran afoul of the First Amendment and unfairly targeted the platform. 

“The First Amendment exists to protect free speech in the United States,” said the court’s opinion. “Here the Government acted solely to protect that freedom from a foreign adversary nation and to limit that adversary’s ability to gather data on people in the United States.” 

TikTok and ByteDance — another plaintiff in the lawsuit — are expected to appeal to the Supreme Court. Meanwhile, President-elect Donald Trump, who tried to ban TikTok during his first term and whose Justice Department would have to enforce the law, said during the presidential campaign that he is now against a TikTok ban and would work to “save” the social media platform. 

The law, signed by President Joe Biden in April, culminated a years-long saga in Washington over the short-form video-sharing app, which the government sees as a national security threat because of its connections to China. 

The U.S. has said it’s concerned about TikTok collecting vast swaths of user data, including sensitive information on viewing habits, that could fall into the hands of the Chinese government through coercion. Officials have also warned the proprietary algorithm that fuels what users see on the app is vulnerable to manipulation by Chinese authorities, who can use it to shape content on the platform in a way that’s difficult to detect. 

However, a significant portion of the government’s information in the case has been redacted and hidden from the public as well as the two companies. 

TikTok, which sued the government over the law in May, has long denied it could be used by Beijing to spy on or manipulate Americans. Its attorneys have accurately pointed out that the U.S. hasn’t provided evidence to show that the company handed over user data to the Chinese government, or manipulated content for Beijing’s benefit in the U.S. 

They also have argued the law is predicated on future risks, which the Department of Justice has emphasized pointing in part to unspecified action it claims the two companies have taken in the past due to demands from the Chinese government. 

Friday’s ruling came after the appeals court panel heard oral arguments in September. 

Some legal experts said at the time that it was challenging to read the tea leaves on how the judges would rule. 

In a court hearing that lasted more than two hours, the panel — composed of two Republican and one Democrat appointed judges — appeared to grapple with how TikTok’s foreign ownership affects its rights under the Constitution and how far the government could go to curtail potential influence from abroad on a foreign-owned platform. 

The judges pressed Daniel Tenny, a Justice Department attorney, on the implications the case could have on the First Amendment. But they also expressed some skepticism at TikTok’s arguments, challenging the company’s attorney — Andrew Pincus —on whether any First Amendment rights preclude the government from curtailing a powerful company subject to the laws and influence of a foreign adversary. 

In parts of their questions about TikTok’s ownership, the judges cited wartime precedent that allows the U.S. to restrict foreign ownership of broadcast licenses and asked if the arguments presented by TikTok would apply if the U.S. was engaged in war. 

To assuage concerns about the company’s owners, TikTok says it has invested more than $2 billion to bolster protections around U.S. user data. 

The company also argues the government’s broader concerns could have been resolved in a draft agreement it provided the Biden administration more than two years ago during talks between the two sides. It has blamed the government for walking away from further negotiations on the agreement, which the Justice Department argues is insufficient. 

Attorneys for the two companies have claimed it’s impossible to divest the platform commercially and technologically. They also say any sale of TikTok without the coveted algorithm — the platform’s secret sauce that Chinese authorities would likely block under any divesture plan — would turn the U.S. version of TikTok into an island disconnected from other global content. 

Still, some investors, including Trump’s former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and billionaire Frank McCourt, have expressed interest in purchasing the platform. Both men said earlier this year that they were launching a consortium to purchase TikTok’s U.S. business. 

This week, a spokesperson for McCourt’s Project Liberty initiative, which aims to protect online privacy, said unnamed participants in their bid have made informal commitments of more than $20 billion in capital. 

TikTok’s lawsuit was consolidated with a second legal challenge brought by several content creators — for which the company is covering legal costs — as well as a third one filed on behalf of conservative creators who work with a nonprofit called BASED Politics Inc. 

If TikTok appeals and the courts continue to uphold the law, it would fall on Trump’s Justice Department to enforce it and punish any potential violations with fines. The penalties would apply to app stores that would be prohibited from offering TikTok, and internet hosting services that would be barred from supporting it.
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Постраждали п’ятеро людей у Білозерській громаді і один чоловік у Центральному районі Херсона
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Учасники прийшли зі світлинами загиблих бійців ЗСУ
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WASHINGTON — U.S. President-elect Donald Trump said Thursday he is choosing former Sen. David Perdue of Georgia to be ambassador to China.

Trump said in a social media post that Perdue, a former CEO, “brings valuable expertise to help build our relationship with China.” Perdue pushed Trump’s debunked lies about electoral fraud during his failed bid for Georgia governor.

Perdue lost his Senate seat to Democrat Jon Ossoff four years ago and ran unsuccessfully in a primary against Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp.

Economic tensions will be a big part of the U.S.-China picture for the new administration.

Trump has threatened to impose sweeping new tariffs on Mexico, Canada and China as soon as he takes office as part of his effort to crack down on illegal immigration and drugs. He said he would impose a 25% tax on all products entering the country from Canada and Mexico, and an additional 10% tariff on goods from China, as one of his first executive orders.

The Chinese Embassy in Washington cautioned earlier this week that there will be losers on all sides if there is a trade war.

“China-US economic and trade cooperation is mutually beneficial in nature,” embassy spokesman Liu Pengyu posted on X. “No one will win a trade war or a #tariff war.” He added that China had taken steps in the last year to help stem drug trafficking.

It is unclear whether Trump will actually go through with the threats or if he is using them as a negotiating tactic.

The tariffs, if implemented, could dramatically raise prices for American consumers on everything from gas to automobiles to agricultural products. The United States is the largest importer of goods in the world, with Mexico, China and Canada its top three suppliers, according to the most recent U.S. Census data.

Trump also filled out more of his immigration team Thursday, as he promises mass deportations and border crackdowns.

He said he’s nominating former Border Patrol Chief Rodney Scott to head U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Scott, a career official, was appointed head of the border agency in January 2020 and enthusiastically embraced then-President Trump’s policies, particularly on building a U.S.-Mexico border wall. He was forced out by the Biden administration.

Trump also said he’d nominate Caleb Vitello as acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the agency that, among other things, arrests migrants in the U.S. illegally. Vitello is a career ICE official with more than 23 years in the agency and most recently has been the assistant director for the office of firearms and tactical programs.

The president-elect named the head of the Border Patrol Union, Brandon Judd, as ambassador to Chile. Judd has been a longtime supporter of Trump’s, appearing with him during his visits to the U.S.-Mexico border, though he notably supported a Senate immigration bill championed by Biden that Trump sank in part because he didn’t want to give Democrats an election-year win on the issue.
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U.S. President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris attended the annual National Christmas Tree Lighting ceremony Thursday night on the Ellipse, south of the White House.

“During this season of reflection,” Biden said, “may we continue to seek the light of liberty and love, kindness and compassion, dignity and decency.”

The president said the event is a favorite of his wife’s and that she was sorry to miss this year’s event. First lady Jill Biden is in Qatar for her initiative on women’s health.

Country singing star Mickey Guyton hosted this year’s event.

The tree lighting was launched in 1923 when first lady Grace Coolidge allowed the District of Columbia Public Schools to erect a 48-foot balsam fir on the Ellipse. Three thousand people attended the ceremony that year when President Calvin Coolidge lit the tree, which came from Middlebury College in Vermont.

This year’s tree, a 30-foot red spruce from Virginia, is anchored by steel cables after strong winds blew over last year’s tree.

Americans from every U.S. state and territory and the District of Columbia create the one-of-a-kind ornaments that adorn the tree as it glows with thousands of lights.

Trisha Yearwood, James Taylor, Stephen Sanchez and Trombone Shorty were among the musical guests who performed at this year’s holiday event.

The show will be broadcast on December 20 on CBS-TV.
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«Жодного лікування він не проходить. Здорових зубів практично не залишилося – всі розкришилися чи випали самі», розповіла Репіка Ахтемова
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«Пов’язані з діяльністю онлайн-казино особи провадять свою господарську діяльність на території т. зв. «лнр», наповнюючи таким чином бюджет агресора»
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