Geoffrey Fowler, our tech columnist, breaks down the real privacy risks of using TikTok.
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The Trump administration’s move to fire thousands of federal employees could have a swift and severe impact on public services, staffers warned Friday, making it harder for veterans to get mental health care and hampering electric service to some rural residents as a beleaguered workforce struggles to cover for lost colleagues. The full impact of the terminations will not be fully known for weeks or months, and some job losses may be reversed or challenged by law. At least one agency, the Department of Energy, paused some cuts to assess their effect on nuclear defense programs, according to three people who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. Still, workers said basic functions at many agencies are slowing almost immediately and could break down as critical colleagues are shown the door.
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·5d ago Welcome to the resistance, Mitch McConnell? On Thursday, McConnell cast the lone Republican “no” vote against Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as secretary of health and human services, just a day after he cast the only GOP “no” vote for Tulsi Gabbard to be director of national intelligence. In a statement Wednesday, he blasted Gabbard as an unqualified candidate with a history of “alarming lapses in judgment” and indirectly indicted his colleagues for failing to do their constitutional duty to check Trump’s nominees. Those followed a similar vote against Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth last month. As many of his colleagues have swallowed their concerns about these nominees’ backgrounds or policy positions, McConnell has silently and with little fanfare voted against them — refusing to even meet with the candidates one on one before doing so. “The Senate’s power of advice and consent is not an option; it is an obligation, and one we cannot pretend to misunderstand,” McConnell said in his statement Wednesday. “When a nominee’s record proves them unworthy of the highest public trust, and when their command of relevant policy falls short of the requirements of their office, the Senate should withhold its consent.” Caption from article by Liz Goodwin and Hannah Knowles.
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·1w ago Trump advisors have suggested ignoring judicial orders that paused executive orders. Federal judges have issued President Donald Trump stinging legal rebukes in the early clashes over his blitz of executive orders, and two of his top advisers have responded by suggesting that his administration defy the courts and move forward with its agenda. There’s no indication that Trump has adopted such a strategy, although a U.S. judge in Rhode Island ruled Monday that the administration has been violating a court order to disburse billions of dollars in already-approved grant funding and hinted at possible penalties. But the combative rhetoric by Vice President JD Vance and top adviser Elon Musk has troubled legal experts, who said there is no modern precedent for a president to ignore or defy court orders. All of the rulings are temporary for now, and the legal fights are just beginning. The Trump administration probably will prevail in some cases as they wend through the appeals courts or make their way to the Supreme Court, where several justices have expressed support for an expansive view of executive power. Caption from article by Justin Jouvenal.
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·2-12President Donald Trump signed an executive order Wednesday that aims to ban transgender athletes from competing on girls’ and women’s sports teams by denying federal funds for schools that allow it, delivering on another contentious culture war promise. The order directs the Education Department to inform schools that allowing transgender athletes to compete will put them in violation of Title IX, the federal law banning sex discrimination in schools. Under the law, schools that discriminate based on sex are not eligible for federal funding. Since Trump took office, his allies in the states have used the directives from the White House to try to push local policies to the right when it comes to transgender students. School districts have ranged widely in their responses — from acquiescence to defiance. Caption from article by Hannah Natanson and Laura Meckler.
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·2-6President Trump proposed displacing Palestinians and taking over Gaza. U.S. allies on Wednesday rejected his proposal to turn the enclave into a “Riviera” of the Middle East, arguing that such a plan would worsen the conflict and could constitute a violation of international law. Saudi Arabia said it will not establish diplomatic relations with Israel without the establishment of an independent Palestinian state, hardening its posture on a long-term U.S. foreign policy goal. Officials from Moscow to London, without naming Trump, reaffirmed commitments that Palestinians be allowed to stay on their land and to the two-state solution. Iran-backed militant groups, including Hamas, said the plan would exacerbate regional tensions. In Israel, far-right leaders and settlers lauded the idea.
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·2-5Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President Donald Trump’s controversial selection to run the Department of Health and Human Services, ended his first of two expected days of confirmation hearings before Senate committees on Wednesday. Kennedy faced questions about his position on vaccines, abortion and other major health-care issues. He has been critical of vaccines for years and founded Children’s Health Defense, an anti-vaccine group. In public statements, Kennedy has repeatedly said he is not anti-vaccine. Meanwhile, former vice president Mike Pence and his conservative advocacy group have raised concerns about Kennedy’s past support for abortion. Kennedy, who has vowed to make combating chronic diseases a focal point if confirmed, appears to have a narrow path to securing the HHS post. If all Senate Democrats vote against his nomination, Kennedy can afford to lose only three Republicans.
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·1-29Scores of Reddit’s online communities have banned the posting of links from the social media platform X in protest of owner Elon Musk’s inauguration hand gesture that critics contend was a Nazi salute. Among the most notable subreddits to ban X links are the sports discussion hubs r/NFL and r/NBA, which have 12 million and 15 million subscribers respectively, along with the women’s issues and news subreddit r/TwoXChromosomes, which has 14 million members. Musk sparked controversy while thanking fellow supporters of President Donald Trump when he clasped his hand against his chest then raised it, flat-palmed, in the air during a post-inauguration speech at Capital One Arena on Monday while saying, “My heart goes out to you,” to attendees. A spokesperson for X did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday. Caption from article by Ben Brasch.
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·1-24Donald Trump began issuing executive actions Monday after being sworn in as the 47th president of the United States, kicking off his second term in office at a signing desk inside Washington’s Capital One Arena with family members and allies behind him onstage and a crowd of supporters in the audience. On the 2024 campaign trail, Trump promised to impose broad tariffs on imports, expand domestic energy production and launch mass deportations. Trump has also long vowed to dismantle federal regulations, exact revenge on his political enemies, uproot the federal bureaucracy he has referred to as the “deep state” and eliminate what he sees as government waste.
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·1-22Naps can IMPROVE cognition A simple way to sharpen your cognition and memory is also an enjoyable one: Take a nap.Research shows that napping can not only take the edge off a night of inadequate sleep but also boost our cognitive and learning capabilities. Even a 10-minute nap can have profound effects on our cognition and mood in addition to alleviating afternoon slumps.Even “short naps can be restorative,” said Michael Chee, the director of the Center for Sleep and Cognition at the National University of Singapore.
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·1-22We’re back … for now. President-elect Donald Trump confirmed Sunday that he will issue an executive order once he takes office Monday to delay the federal ban against TikTok and give the company more time to distance itself from its Chinese owner and take on partial U.S. ownership. Such an order would be a legally questionable move that could test the limits of Trump’s authority. Trump said in a post on his Truth Social platform that the order would “extend the period of time before the law’s prohibitions take effect” so the company and the Trump administration “can make a deal to protect our national security.” The president-elect said the order would also make clear that companies that host or distribute the platform — such as Google and Apple, which were forced to implement the ban Sunday — would not face liability for keeping TikTok from “going dark.” The Washington Post first reported Wednesday that Trump was considering issuing an executive order to delay enforcement of the ban of the popular video-sharing platform by 60 or 90 days. The success of such a maneuver hinges in part on a legal question: whether a president can direct his administration not to enforce a law that Congress passed with broad bipartisan support and that the Supreme Court upheld, a prospect some legal scholars have cast doubt on.
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·1-19The Supreme Court on Friday upheld a federal law that effectively bans TikTok in the United States on Sunday unless the wildly popular video-sharing app pulls off an unlikely, last-minute divestiture from Chinese ownership. The unanimous decision was a major blow for TikTok, injecting deep uncertainty into the app’s future with the deadline to sell the platform just two days away. President-elect Donald Trump, who has vowed to use his power to “save” the app, will be sworn into office a day later. The court’s unsigned, 20-page decision said the ban-or-sale law does not violate the free speech rights of millions of TikTok users in the United States. The law was passed in April with bipartisan support and signed by President Joe Biden in response to national security concerns about the Chinese government’s potential influence over the platform. The justices said the U.S. government was justified in singling out TikTok and its China-based parent company, ByteDance, writing that the app’s “scale and susceptibility to foreign adversary control, together with the vast swaths of sensitive data the platform collects, justify differential treatment.” Trump, who said Friday he discussed TikTok with Chinese President Xi Jinping, said in a social media post that the court’s decision was expected and “everyone must respect it.” His decision about the app’s fate, he added, “will be made in the not too distant future, but I must have time to review the situation.” Caption from article by Ann Marimow and Cristiano Lima-Strong.
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·1-17Trump might try to save TikTok with an executive order. President-elect Donald Trump is considering an executive order once in office that would suspend enforcement of the TikTok ban-or-sale law for 60 to 90 days, buying the administration time to negotiate a sale or alternative solution — a legally questionable effort to win a brief reprieve for the Chinese-owned app now scheduled to be banned on Sunday nationwide. Trump has been mulling ways to save the day for the wildly popular video app, talking through unconventional dealmaking and legal maneuvers such as an executive order that would unravel the law passed by Congress last year with bipartisan support, according to two people familiar with the deliberations, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private talks. Though he tried to ban TikTok during his first presidential term, Trump has in recent years celebrated the app as a way to undercut tech companies he despised, such as Meta, and reach young voters at viral speed. He was shadowed during the campaign by a young TikTok specialist who made videos for the app. TikTok chief Shou Zi Chew, who lives in Singapore, flew to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach last month as part of the company’s last-ditch attempt to save the app in the U.S. Shortly after, Trump posted to his social media platform Truth Social a collection of data showing that Trump is a star on the platform, with TikTok videos from Trump and his campaign having been viewed nearly 4 billion times — more than Kamala Harris, Fox News and Taylor Swift. “Why would I want to get rid of TikTok?” Trump said in a separate Truth Social post this month. Trump transition officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Caption from article by Drew Harwell and Elizabeth Dwoskin
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