US President Donald Trump has said that Microsoft is in discussions to acquire TikTok and that he would like to see a “bidding war” over the sale of the social media app.
When asked by reporters whether the US tech giant was preparing a bid, Trump replied: “I would say yes” – before adding that there was “great interest in TikTok” from several companies.
Both Trump and his predecessor Joe Biden have been trying for years to force TikTok’s Chinese parent company, ByteDance, to sell its US operations on national security grounds.
It comes as Trump signed an executive order last week to reverse a Biden Administration ban on TikTok that briefly took the app offline for its 170m users in the United States.
Despite granting TikTok a 75-day reprieve from the ban, Trump had been the first president to start pressuring ByteDance to sell its app.
In August 2020, ByteDance approached Microsoft as a possible buyer – something which the US company’s chief executive later described as “the strangest thing”.
Later, TikTok chose rival Oracle as a potential partner – although that deal also never happened.
Trump has previously said that he was in discussions with several parties about purchasing TikTok and expects to make a decision on the app’s future within the next 30 days.
A spokesperson for Microsoft said the company had “nothing to share at this time”. The BBC has also reached out to TikTok for comment.
Earlier on Monday, the US president had addressed a gathering of Republican politicians in Florida and spoke about the proposed sale of TikTok.
“We’ll see what happens. We’re going to have a lot of people bidding on it,” he said.
“If we can save all that voice and all the jobs, and China won’t be involved, we don’t want China involved, but we’ll see what happens,” he added.
Previous names linked with buying TikTok include billionaire Frank McCourt and the Canadian businessman Kevin O’Leary – a celebrity investor on Shark Tank, the US version of Dragon’s Den.
The biggest YouTuber in the world Jimmy Donaldson – AKA MrBeast – has also claimed he is in the running after a number of investors contacted him following an earlier tweet signalling his interest.
Chinese startup DeepSeek said on Monday it will temporarily limit registrations due to a cyberattack after the company’s AI assistant amassed sudden popularity.
The startup earlier in the day was also hit by outages on its website after its AI assistant became the top-rated free application available on Apple’s App Store in the United States.
The company resolved issues relating to its application programming interface and users’ inability to log in to the website, according to its status page. The outages on Monday were the company’s longest in around 90 days and coincides with its sky-rocketing popularity.
DeepSeek last week launched a free assistant it says uses less data at a fraction of the cost of incumbent players’ models, possibly marking a turning point in the level of investment needed for AI.
Powered by the DeepSeek-V3 model, which its creators say “tops the leaderboard among open-source models and rivals the most advanced closed-source models globally”, the artificial intelligence application has surged in popularity among U.S. users since it was released on Jan. 10, according to app data research firm Sensor Tower.
The milestone highlights how DeepSeek has left a deep impression on Silicon Valley, upending widely held views about U.S. primacy in AI and the effectiveness of Washington’s export controls targeting China’s advanced chip and AI capabilities.
Technology stocks were hammered on Monday, sending the shares of Nvidia and Oracle plummeting.
AI models from ChatGPT to DeepSeek require advanced chips to power their training. The Biden administration has since 2021 widened the scope of bans designed to stop these chips from being exported to China and used to train Chinese firms’ AI models.
However, DeepSeek researchers wrote in a paper last month that the DeepSeek-V3 used Nvidia’s H800 chips for training, spending less than $6 million.
Although this detail has since been disputed, the claim that the chips used were less powerful than the most advanced Nvidia products Washington has sought to keep out of China, as well as the relatively cheap training costs, has prompted U.S. tech executives to question the effectiveness of tech export controls.
Little is known about the company behind DeepSeek, a small Hangzhou-based startup founded in 2023, when search engine giant Baidu released the first Chinese AI large-language model.
Since then, dozens of Chinese tech companies large and small have released their own AI models, but DeepSeek is the first to be praised by the U.S. tech industry as matching or even surpassing the performance of cutting-edge U.S. models.
Coca-Cola has recalled its drinks in some countries across Europe because they contain “higher levels” of a chemical called chlorate.
The firm said in a statement that the recall was focused on Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands. It added that just five product lines had been shipped to Britain and had already been sold.
Affected products include the Coke, Fanta, Sprite, Tropico and Minute Maid brands, according to the Belgium branch of Coca-Cola’s international bottling and distribution operation.
Chlorate can be produced when chlorine-based disinfectants are used in water treatment and food processing.
“Independent expert analysis concludes that any associated risk for consumers is very low,” a spokesperson told the BBC.
Coca-Cola said it had not received any consumer complaints in Great Britain, and that it had “alerted the authorities on this matter and will continue to collaborate with them.”
The company did not specify which products have been affected in the UK but said the five product lines were shipped to the UK towards the end of last year.
Anne Gravett from the Food Standards Agency said it was investigating.
“If we identify any unsafe food, we’ll take action to ensure it is removed and alert consumers,” she added.
Exposure to high levels of chlorate can cause health problems including thyroid problems, especially among children and infants.
NHS and private nutritionist Caron Grazette told the BBC: “We need to question whether or not we want to digest chemicals in soft drinks which are used in the production of fireworks and disinfectants, however small the quantity”.
Chlorate’s effects on humans when taken in excess include nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea, and limiting the blood’s ability to absorb oxygen, added Ms Grazette, citing recent research into the chemical.
The higher levels of chlorate were discovered during routine testing at the company’s production facility in Ghent, Belgium, according to an unnamed company spokesperson quoted by the AFP news agency.
The majority of unsold products had been withdrawn from shelves, according to AFP, and the company was in the process of withdrawing the rest.
A Coca-Cola spokesperson said it “considers the quality and safety of its products as its top priority”.
U.S. public health officials have been told to stop working with the World Health Organization, effective immediately.
A U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention official, John Nkengasong, sent a memo to senior leaders at the agency on Sunday night telling them that all agency staff who work with the WHO must immediately stop their collaborations and “await further guidance.”
Experts said the sudden stoppage was a surprise and would set back work on investigating and trying to stop outbreaks of Marburg virus and mpox in Africa, as well as brewing threats from around the world. It also comes as health authorities around the world are monitoring bird flu outbreaks among U.S. livestock.
The Associated Press viewed a copy of Nkengasong’s memo, which said the stop-work policy applied to “all CDC staff engaging with WHO through technical working groups, coordinating centers, advisory boards, cooperative agreements or other means — in person or virtual.” It also says CDC staff are not allowed to visit WHO offices.
President Trump last week issued an executive order to begin the process of withdrawing the U.S. from WHO, but that did not take immediate effect. Leaving WHO requires the approval of Congress and that the U.S. meets its financial obligations for the current fiscal year. The U.S. also must provide a one-year notice.
His administration also told federal health agencies to stop most communications with the public through at least the end of the month.
“Stopping communications and meetings with WHO is a big problem,” said Dr. Jeffrey Klausner, a University of Southern California public health expert who collaborates with WHO on work against sexually transmitted infections.
“People thought there would be a slow withdrawal. This has really caught everyone with their pants down,” said Klausner, who said he learned of it from someone at CDC.
“Talking to WHO is a two-way street,” he added, noting that WHO and U.S. health officials benefit from each other’s expertise. The collaboration allows the U.S. to learn about new tests and treatments as well as about emerging outbreaks — information “which can help us protect Americans abroad and at home.”
The CDC order isn’t the only global health effect of Trump’s executive orders. Last week, he froze spending on another critical program, PEPFAR or the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. The anti-HIV program is credited with saving 25 million lives, including those of 5.5 million children, since it was started by Republican President George W. Bush but was included in a freeze on foreign aid spendingslated to last at least three months.
PEPFAR provides HIV medication to more than 20 million people “and stopping its funding essential stops their HIV treatment. If that happens, people are going to die and HIV will resurge,” International AIDS Society President Beatriz Grinsztejn said in a statement.
A U.S. health official confirmed that the CDC was stopping its work with WHO. The person was not authorized to talk about the memo and spoke on condition of anonymity.
A WHO spokesperson referred questions about the withdrawal to U.S. officials.
Officials at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services didn’t immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.
Chinese startup DeepSeek’s launch of its latest AI models, which it says are on a par or better than industry-leading models in the United States at a fraction of the cost, is threatening to upset the technology world order.
The company has attracted attention in global AI circles after writing in a paper last month that the training of DeepSeek-V3 required less than $6 million worth of computing power from Nvidia H800 chips.
DeepSeek’s AI Assistant, powered by DeepSeek-V3, has overtaken rival ChatGPT to become the top-rated free application available on Apple‘s App Store in the United States.
This has raised doubts about the reasoning behind some U.S. tech companies’ decision to pledge billions of dollars in AI investment and shares of several big tech players, including Nvidia, have been hit.
Below are some facts about the company shaking up the AI sector worldwide.
Why is DeepSeek causing a stir?
The release of OpenAI’s ChatGPT in late 2022 caused a scramble among Chinese tech firms, who rushed to create their own chatbots powered by artificial intelligence.
But after the release of the first Chinese ChatGPT equivalent, made by search engine giant Baidu, there was widespread disappointment in China at the gap in AI capabilities between U.S. and Chinese firms.
The quality and cost efficiency of DeepSeek’s models have flipped this narrative on its head. The two models that have been showered with praise by Silicon Valley executives and U.S. tech company engineers alike, DeepSeek-V3 and DeepSeek-R1, are on par with OpenAI and Meta‘s most advanced models, the Chinese startup has said.
They are also cheaper to use. The DeepSeek-R1, released last week, is 20 to 50 times cheaper to use than OpenAI o1 model, depending on the task, according to a post on DeepSeek’s official WeChat account.
But some have publicly expressed scepticism about DeepSeek’s success story.
Scale AI CEO Alexandr Wang said during an interview with CNBC on Thursday, without providing evidence, that DeepSeek has 50,000 Nvidia H100 chips, which he claimed would not be disclosed because that would violate Washington’s export controls that ban such advanced AI chips from being sold to Chinese companies. DeepSeek did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the allegation.
Bernstein analysts on Monday highlighted in a research note that DeepSeek’s total training costs for its V3 model were unknown but were much higher than the $5.58 million the startup said was used for computing power. The analysts also said the training costs of the equally-acclaimed R1 model were not disclosed.
Who is behind DeepSeek?
DeepSeek is a Hangzhou-based startup whose controlling shareholder is Liang Wenfeng, co-founder of quantitative hedge fund High-Flyer, based on Chinese corporate records.
Liang’s fund announced in March 2023 on its official WeChat account that it was “starting again”, going beyond trading to concentrate resources on creating a “new and independent research group, to explore the essence of “AGI” (Artificial General Intelligence). DeepSeek was created later that year.
ChatGPT makers OpenAI define AGI as autonomous systems that surpass humans in most economically valuable tasks.
It is unclear how much High-Flyer has invested in DeepSeek. High-Flyer has an office located in the same building as DeepSeek, and it also owns patents related to chip clusters used to train AI models, according to Chinese corporate records.
High-Flyer’s AI unit said on its official WeChat account in July 2022 that it owns and operates a cluster of 10,000 A100 chips.
How does Beijing view DeepSeek?
DeepSeek’s success has already been noticed in China’s top political circles. On January 20, the day DeepSeek-R1 was released to the public, founder Liang attended a closed-door symposium for businessman and experts hosted by Chinese premier Li Qiang, according to state news agency Xinhua.
Liang’s presence at the gathering is potentially a sign that DeepSeek’s success could be important to Beijing’s policy goal of overcoming Washington’s export controls and achieving self-sufficiency in strategic industries like AI.
A similar symposium last year was attended by Baidu CEO Robin Li.
Colombia on Sunday backed down and agreed to accept deported citizens sent on US military aircraft, hours after President Donald Trump threatened painful tariffs to punish the defiance to his mass deportation plans.
Colombia’s leftist president, Gustavo Petro, had earlier said he would only take back citizens “with dignity,” such as on civilian planes, and had turned back two US military aircraft with repatriated Colombians.
Trump, less than a week back in office, responded furiously and threatened sanctions of 25 percent that would quickly scale up to 50 percent against Latin America’s fourth largest economy.
Petro initially sought to hit back and impose his own tariffs on US products, but by the end of the volatile Sunday he had backed down.
Colombian Foreign Minister Luis Gilberto Murillo told a late-night news conference that his country had “overcome the impasse” and would accept returned citizens.
A White House statement said that Colombia has agreed to “unrestricted acceptance of all illegal aliens from Colombia returned from the United States, including on US military aircraft, without limitation or delay.”
“Today’s events make clear to the world that America is respected again,” it said.
“President Trump will continue to fiercely protect our nation’s sovereignty, and he expects all other nations of the world to fully cooperate in accepting the deportation of their citizens illegally present in the United States.”
Colombia’s leftist president, Gustavo Petro.
Trump said he would suspend implementation of the tariffs.
It had been unclear even earlier how quickly Trump could impose tariffs on Colombia, historically one of Washington’s closest allies in Latin America, which enjoys a free-trade agreement with the United States.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, whose wife is Colombian-American, suspended issuance of visas at the US embassy in Bogota and said visas would be revoked to Colombian government officials and their immediate family members.
The White House said the visa measures would stay in place until the first planeload of deportees returns.
Trump also vowed to subject Colombians to greater scrutiny at US airports.
– Concerns over treatment –
Trump — who during his campaign said that immigrants were “poisoning the blood” of the United States — took office with promises to round up and swiftly deport undocumented people.
While some countries including Guatemala have accepted military deportation flights, Trump had faced resistance from Petro, a former guerrilla elected in 2022 as Colombia’s first left-wing leader.
“The United States cannot treat Colombian migrants as criminals. I forbid entry to our territory to US planes carrying Colombian migrants,” Petro wrote earlier on X.
The Colombian government earlier said it was instead ready to send its presidential plane to the United States to transport the migrants “with dignity.”
Petro also said there were 15,600 undocumented Americans living in his country and asked them to “regularize their situation,” while ruling out raids to arrest and deport them.
Petro’s initial hard-ball tactics infuriated his many critics in the historic US ally.
Former right-wing president Ivan Duque accused Petro of “an act of tremendous irresponsibility” for refusing what he called Colombia’s “moral duty” to take back illegal migrants and warned US sanctions would take an “enormous” toll.
– ‘Tied hands and feet’ –
Trump’s deportation threats have put him on a potential collision course with governments in Latin America, the original home of most of the United States’ estimated 11 million undocumented migrants.
Brazil, which is also led by a left-wing president, voiced outrage over treatment by the Trump administration of dozens of Brazilian migrants deported back to their country on Friday.
The migrants, who were deported under a bilateral agreement predating Trump’s return, were handcuffed on the flight, in what Brazil called “flagrant disregard” for their basic rights.
Edgar Da Silva Moura, a 31-year-old computer technician who was among the 88 deported migrants, told AFP: “On the plane they didn’t give us water, we were tied hands and feet, they wouldn’t even let us go to the bathroom.”
“It was very hot, some people fainted.”
The president of Honduras, Xiomara Castro, called for an urgent meeting of leaders from the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) to take place Thursday in Tegucigalpa to discuss migration following the latest US moves.
While previous US administrations also routinely carried out deportations, the Trump administration has begun using military aircraft, with at least one landing in Guatemala this week.
The CIA on Saturday offered a new assessment on the origin of the Covid outbreak, saying the coronavirus is “more likely” to have leaked from a Chinese lab than to have come from animals.
But the intelligence agency cautioned it had “low confidence” in this determination.
A spokesperson said that a “research-related origin” of the pandemic “is more likely than a natural origin based on the available body of reporting”.
The decision to release that assessment marks one of the first made by the CIA’s new director John Ratcliffe, appointed by Donald Trump, who took over the agency on Thursday.
Ratcliffe, who served as director of national intelligence during President Trump’s first term, has long favoured the lab leak theory, claiming Covid most likely came from a leak at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
The institute is a 40-minute drive from the Huanan wet market where the first cluster of infections emerged.
In an interview with Breitbart News published on Friday, Ratcliffe said he wanted the CIA to abandon its neutral stance on the origins of the virus and “get off the sidelines”.
“One of the things that I’ve talked about a lot is addressing the threat from China on a number of fronts, and that goes back to why a million Americans died and why the Central Intelligence Agency has been sitting on the sidelines for five years in not making an assessment about the origins of COVID,” he said.
“That’s a day-one thing for me.”
But officials told US media that the new assessment was not based on new intelligence and predates the Trump administration. The review was reportedly ordered in the closing weeks of the Biden administration and completed before Trump took office on Monday.
The review offered on Saturday is based on “low confidence” which means the intelligence supporting it is deficient, inconclusive or contradictory.
There is no consensus on the cause of the Covid pandemic.
Some support a “natural origin” theory, which argues the virus spread naturally from animals, without the involvement of any scientists or laboratories.
The lab leak hypothesis specifically has been hotly contested by scientists, including many who say there is no definitive evidence to back it up. And China has in the past dismissed the lab claim as “political manipulation” by Washington.
Still, the once controversial theory has been gaining ground among some intelligence agencies.
In 2023, FBI Director Christopher Wray told Fox News it was his bureau’s assessment that “the origins of the pandemic are most likely a potential lab incident”.
US President Donald Trump said Saturday that he may consider rejoining the World Health Organization (WHO).
“I withdrew from the World Health Organization, where we paid $500 million a year, and China paid $39 million here, despite a much larger population. … but maybe we would consider doing it again,” Trump said at ‘No tax on tips’ rally in Las Vegas.
After Trump was sworn in Monday for a second term, he signed an executive order to withdraw the US from the WHO.
“World Health ripped us off. Everybody rips off the United States, and that’s it. It’s not going to happen anymore,” Trump told reporters Monday while signing executive orders. He said the US paid $500 million to the UN agency. “Seemed a little unfair to me, so that wasn’t the reason, but I dropped out … China pays $39 million, and we pay $500 million, and China’s a bigger country.”
Turning to Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s plan to expand investments and trade with the US by $600 billion in the next four years, Trump said he would ask the Saudis for more investment.
“I believe they’ll make it a trillion. I’m going to ask him to make it 1 trillion. What the hell the money means? Nothing. You know, where they made their money from liquid gold, right? They got a lot of liquid gold,” he said.
During his first tenure (2017-2021), Trump made his first abroad trip to Saudi Arabia, reflecting warm bilateral ties. He earlier told reporters that he would repeat the visit to the kingdom if it agreed to purchase American products worth up to $500 billion.
The United States has ceased issuing passports with a gender-neutral “X” option, the State Department said, following President Donald Trump’s order limiting government recognition of transgender identity.
The move rolls back the option first introduced under former president Joe Biden’s administration and leaves an unknown number of people awaiting further guidance on the fate of their pending applications and already issued passports.
Trump, shortly after taking office on Monday, signed an executive order requiring federal agencies to only give the option of male or female, as part of an array of actions aimed at quickly reversing policies enacted by his predecessor.
“In line with that Order, the Department’s issuance of US passports will reflect the individual’s biological sex as defined in the Executive Order,” a US State Department spokesperson said Friday night.
The spokesperson said the department “is no longer issuing US passports with X markers” and has “suspended processing of all applications seeking a different sex marker than that defined by the terms in the Executive Order.”
“Guidance regarding previously issued X sex marker passports is forthcoming,” the spokesperson added, saying updates will be posted on the department’s travel website.
The State Department issued its first passport with the X designation in October 2021 after a long legal battle waged by a person from Colorado who is intersex. It began regular processing of X passports in early 2022.
The department has not released figures for how many people have requested or been issued an “X” passport, but a study by the UCLA Law School’s Williams Institute estimated over 16,000 people would apply for one each year.
On the campaign trail, Trump vilified transgender policies — particularly as they related to women’s sports and medical care for children — as part of a general broadside against diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives.
He ordered on Monday an immediate halt to federal DEI programs, anti-discrimination policies and recognition of transgender identity, drawing outrage from rights groups and creating immense legal uncertainty.
The actions will almost certainly face legal challenges.
Many states allow drivers’ licenses to be issued with a gender-neutral “X” option, while several countries have similar practices, including Australia, Canada and Germany.
If Donald Trump had been reelected as US president in 2020, the Ukraine crisis that erupted in 2022 might not have occurred, Russian President Vladimir Putin said.
In an interview with the Russian Rossiya 1 TV channel on Friday, Putin said that Russia remains open to peace talks on the Ukraine war.
He said that Moscow has never rejected contact with the US administration but the previous one opted not to pursue such engagement.
About his relationship with Trump, Putin said it was “strictly business-like, yet pragmatic and trust-based,” adding “I cannot but agree with him that if he had been president, if his victory had not been stolen from him in 2020, then maybe there would not have been the Ukraine crisis that broke out in 2022.”
He pointed out that Trump in his previous term imposed a significant number of sanctions on Russia.
“I do not think that decision was in the best interests of Russia, or the US. By the way, (Joe) Biden picked up the baton and imposed even more restrictions on us. We are all aware of the results – a lot of those decisions were detrimental to the economy of the US itself,” Putin said.
The dollar’s position as a global currency weakened following Washington’s decision to prevent Russia from using it as a unit of payment, Putin said.
“We did not refuse to use the US dollar. The previous administration prevented us from using it as a unit of payment. But I will not go into that now. All I can say is that we hear the current president say he is ready to work together. We remain open to that,” he stressed.
On Ukraine, Putin emphasized that Russia has consistently demonstrated a readiness for dialogue, but certain obstacles remain.
“For instance, it is well known that back when he was a fairly legitimate head of state, the current leader of the Kyiv regime issued an executive order prohibiting talks. How can talks be resumed now that they have been outlawed?” he asked.
“The current Kyiv regime appears quite content to receive hundreds of billions from its benefactors and – excuse me for using this homely phrase – to pig out on this money like there is no tomorrow,” Putin added.
The Russian president urged Ukraine’s financial backers to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to act. “I believe he will have no choice but to comply.”
“Until this executive order is rescinded, it is rather difficult to talk about starting and, more importantly, finishing these talks in a proper way. Preliminary plans may, indeed, be outlined, but engaging in serious talks remains a particularly difficult proposition, especially considering the ban imposed by the Ukrainian side,” he said.
Despite these challenges, Putin expressed hope for constructive engagement between Russia and the US on several shared concerns, including strategic stability, economic matters, and energy production.
“We are not just among the largest energy producers, we are also among the largest energy consumers, which means overly high prices are bad for both our economies, because energy is used to produce other goods inside the country. Overly low prices are bad, too, because they undermine the energy companies’ investment potential. We have things to discuss. There are other issues in the energy sector that may be of mutual interest,” Putin stated.
Putin also expressed skepticism about Trump’s threats regarding additional sanctions on Russia, doubting that Trump would take measures detrimental to the US economy.
“It makes sense for us to meet based on the realities of today, to sit down and discuss without haste the areas that are of interest to the US and Russia. We are ready to do that. But, again, this, first of all, depends on the decisions and choices of the current US administration,” he concluded.
The Palestinian militant group Hamas released four Israeli female soldiers on Saturday, who will be exchanged for 200 Palestinian prisoners incarcerated in Israeli jails.
The four were all members of a mainly female unit of observers posted round Gaza to watch for signs of Hamas activity, who were among around 250 hostages seized during the attack on Oct. 7.
Footage showing the capture of the four, as well as another soldier, at the Nahal Oz military base was broadcast on Israeli television last year after their families gave permission in a bid to increase awareness and build pressure to get them back.
Looking dazed and still wearing their pyjamas, the images, taken from Hamas bodycam footage recovered by the Israeli military, showed them sitting on the floor with their hands tied, some of them bloodied.
NAAMA LEVY, 20
Video of Naama Levy being bundled into a jeep in Gaza circulated on social media within hours of her abduction. It showed Levy bruised and cut, the seat of her trousers stained with blood, with her hands tied behind her back, pushed into the vehicle by a gunman while bystanders chant “God is greatest!” in Arabic. She had just begun her military service when the attack took place and as she was pushed into the jeep, she pleaded: “I have friends in Palestine,” footage released of her capture showed.
DANIELLA GILBOA, 20
Daniela Gilboa was wounded during the attack on Oct. 7 and was shown limping in the video showing the soldiers’ capture.
She was seen last year in a video released by Hamas, which showed her appealing angrily to the government to work for her release and saying she felt abandoned.
LIRI ALBAG, 19
Liri Albag was taken hostage just a day and a half after beginning her military service, Israeli media reported.
Earlier this month, Hamas released a video showing her reading a message, appealing for her release.
KARINA ARIEV, 20
Just before being taken, Karina Ariev managed to speak briefly wth her parents and sent her family a farewell message, Israeli media reported. A subsequent photo of her in captivity released by Hamas showed her with a bandaged head with what appeared to be blood stains.
The price of Bitcoin soared by 2.5% on Friday after US President Donald Trump signed an executive order on cryptocurrency markets.
The current price of Bitcoin is at around $104,736 as of 0645GMT, and its market cap increased to $2.07 trillion.
Bitcoin’s transaction volume in the last 24-hour period was around $100.44 billion.
This month, the price of Bitcoin saw the highest-ever value of around $109,000 due to Trump’s inauguration.
Ethereum prices also rose by 4% to $3,381 over the same period.
These hikes came after Trump’s new executive order which includes establishing regulations and technologies related to cryptocurrency and its advancement in the US.
Establishing a working group, named Working Group on Digital Asset Markets, to examine a national digital asset stockpile was also included in the order.
U.S. President Donald Trump ordered the declassification Thursday of the last secret files on the assassination of the late U.S. President John F. Kennedy, a case that still fuels conspiracy theories more than 60 years after his death.
Trump signed an executive order that will also release documents on the 1960s assassinations of JFK’s younger brother, Robert F. Kennedy, and civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.
“That’s a big one, huh? A lot of people have been waiting for this for years, for decades,” Trump told reporters as he signed the order in the Oval Office of the White House.
After signing the order, Trump passed the pen he used to an aide, saying, “Give that to RFK Jr.,” JFK’s nephew and the current president’s nominee to become secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services.
The order Trump signed requires the “full and complete release” of the JFK files, without redactions that he accepted back in 2017 when releasing most of the documents.
“It is in the national interest to finally release all records related to these assassinations without delay,” the order said.
Trump had previously promised to release the last of the files, most recently at his inauguration on Monday.
The U.S. National Archives has released tens of thousands of records in recent years related to the November 22, 1963, assassination of President Kennedy but held thousands back, citing national security concerns.
It said at the time of the latest large-scale release, in December 2022, that 97% of the Kennedy records — which total 5 million pages — had now been made public.
The Warren Commission that investigated the shooting of the charismatic 46-year-old president determined that it was carried out by a former Marine sharpshooter, Lee Harvey Oswald, acting alone.
But that formal conclusion has done little to quell speculation that a more sinister plot was behind Kennedy’s murder in Dallas, Texas, and the slow release of the government files has added fuel to various conspiracy theories.
A gesture to RFK Jr.
Trump’s move is partly a gesture to one of the most prominent backers of those conspiracies — Robert F. Kennedy Jr. himself.
RFK Jr. said in 2023 there was “overwhelming evidence the CIA was involved” in his uncle JFK’s murder and “very convincing” evidence the agency was also behind the 1968 assassination of his own father, Robert F. Kennedy.
The former attorney general was killed while campaigning for the Democratic nomination for president. Sirhan Sirhan, a Palestinian-born Jordanian, was convicted of his murder.
Thousands of John Kennedy assassination-related documents from the National Archives were released during Trump’s first term in office, but he also held some back on national security grounds.
Then-President Joe Biden said at the time of the December 2022 documents release that a “limited” number of files would continue to be held back at the request of unspecified “agencies.”
Previous requests to withhold documents have come from the CIA and FBI.
Kennedy scholars have said the documents still held by the archives are unlikely to contain any bombshell revelations or put to rest the rampant conspiracy theories about the assassination of the 35th U.S. president.
Oswald, who had at one point defected to the Soviet Union, was shot to death two days after killing Kennedy by a nightclub owner, Jack Ruby, as he was being transferred from the city jail.
Hundreds of books and movies such as the 1991 Oliver Stone film “JFK” have fueled the conspiracy industry, pointing the finger at Cold War rivals Russia or Cuba, the Mafia and even Kennedy’s vice president, Lyndon Johnson.
King was assassinated in April 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee.
James Earl Ray was convicted of the murder and died in prison in 1998, but King’s children have expressed doubts in the past that Ray was the assassin.
Scores of same-sex and transgender couples married in Thailand on Thursday as the kingdom’s equal marriage law went into effect, with two high-profile gay actors among the first to do so.
In matching beige suits, Apiwat “Porsch” Apiwatsayree, 49 — who was in tears — and Sappanyoo “Arm” Panatkool, 38, were handed their pink-bordered marriage certificates at a registry office in Bangkok.
“We fought for it for decades and today is a remarkable day that love is love,” said Arm.
The milestone sees Thailand become by far the biggest nation in Asia to recognise equal marriage, after Taiwan and Nepal.
“Today, the rainbow flag is proudly flying over Thailand,” Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra posted on X.
The new marriage law uses gender-neutral terms in place of “men”, “women”, “husbands” and “wives”, also clearing the way for transgender people to wed, and grants adoption and inheritance rights to all married couples.
Lesbian couple Sumalee Sudsaynet, 64, and Thanaphon Chokhongsung, 59, were the first to wed at Bangrak district office, and the couple showed the media their engagement rings.
“We are so happy. We’ve been waiting for this day for 10 years,” said Thanaphon, wearing a white gown.
Ruchaya Nillakan (L) and Nuttimon Sanyamast (R), a same-sex couple, attend their marriage registration event at Paragon shopping mall in Bangkok on January 23, 2025. [AFP]
The couple met a decade ago through a mutual friend and bonded over their passion for Buddhism and merit-making.
“The legalisation of same-sex marriage uplifts our dignity,” Sumalee told AFP.
“It allows us to enjoy the same rights as heterosexual couples. My emotions today are so overwhelming; I can’t even put them into words.”
Dozens of couples dressed in traditional and contemporary wedding outfits trickled into a large hall in a shopping centre for a mass LGBTQ wedding organised by campaign group Bangkok Pride with city authorities.
Officials helped the couples fill out marriage forms at rows of tables, an administrative step before they could collect their certificates, with hundreds expected to do so over the course of the day.
Kevin Pehthai Thanomkhet, a 31-year-old trans man, married his wife, Maple Nathnicha Klintgaworn, 39.
“So happy, like, oh my god… my heart is beating,” said Kevin.
His 65-year-old father Phornchai added: “I have always accepted (him). Whatsoever, it is OK with me.”
Reputation for tolerance
Thailand ranks highly on indexes of LGBTQ legal and living conditions, and Thursday’s milestone makes it the first country in Southeast Asia to allow equal marriage.
The kingdom’s same-sex marriage bill was passed in a historic parliamentary vote last June, the third place in Asia to do so, and the law came into effect 120 days after it was ratified by King Maha Vajiralongkorn.
Thai activists have been pushing for same-sex marriage rights for more than a decade, with their advocacy stalled by political turbulence in a country regularly upended by coups and mass street protests.
This photo taken on January 10, 2025 shows Apiwat “Porsch” Apiwatsayree (L) and Sappanyoo “Arm” Panatkool sharing a kiss at their unofficial wedding ceremony in Bangkok. [AFP]
Former Thai prime minister Srettha Thavisin, who attended Wednesday’s mass wedding event, took an apparent swipe at newly inaugurated US President Donald Trump, who on Monday decreed there were only two genders.
“Recently a country’s leader said that there were only two genders, but I think we are more open-minded than that.”
More than 30 countries have legalised marriage for all since the Netherlands became the first to allow same-sex unions in 2001.
Thailand has long had an international reputation for tolerance of the LGBTQ community, and opinion polls reported in local media have shown overwhelming public support for equal marriage.
But much of the Buddhist-majority kingdom retains traditional and conservative values and LGBTQ people say they still face barriers and discrimination in everyday life.
“In the past, LGBTQ people were seen as monstrosities,” said Ploynaplus Chirasukon, who married her lesbian partner of 17 years, Kwanporn Kongpetch.
She supports the push for gender identity recognition, including the right to change forms of address.
“People who don’t identify with their biological sex are like homeless people,” she said.
“The ability to be able to change our titles would allow for true equality.”
The U.S. Senate on Thursday confirmed John Ratcliffe as CIA director, giving President Donald Trump the second member of his new Cabinet.
Ratcliffe was director of national intelligence-during Trump’s first term and is the first person to have held that position and the top post at the CIA, the nation’s premier spy agency. The Texas Republican is a former federal prosecutor who emerged as a fierce Trump defender while serving as a congressman during Trump’s first impeachment.
The vote was 74-25.
At his Senate hearing last week, Ratcliffe said the CIA must do better when it comes to using technology such as artificial intelligence to confront adversaries including Russia and China. He said the United States needed to improve its intelligence capabilities while also ensuring the protection of Americans’ civil rights.
Ratcliffe said that if confirmed, he would push the CIA to do more to harness technologies such as AI and quantum computing while expanding use of human intelligence collection.
“We’re not where we’re supposed to be,” Ratcliffe told members of the Senate Intelligence Committee.
Democrats raised questions about Ratcliffe’s objectivity and whether his loyalty to Trump would prompt him to politicize his position and blind him to the duties of the job. Concerns from Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., forced the Senate’s Republican leaders to postpone Ratcliffe’s confirmation vote, which originally was scheduled for Tuesday.
Former Florida Sen. Marco Rubio was confirmed earlier this week as secretary of state, the first member of Trump’s Cabinet.
Ratcliffe has said he views China as America’s greatest geopolitical rival, and that Russia, Iran, North Korea and drug cartels, hacking gangs and terrorist organizations also pose challenges to national security.
He supports the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, a government spying program that allows authorities to collect without warrant the communications of non-Americans outside the country. If those people are communicating with Americans, those conversations can be swept up, too, which has led to questions about violations of personal rights.
Trump and other Republicans have criticized the work of the CIA and other spy agencies, saying they have focused too much on climate change, workforce diversity and other issues.
The calls for a broad overhaul have worried some current and former intelligence officials who say the changes could make the country less safe.
Like other Trump nominees, Ratcliffe is a Trump loyalist. Aside from his work to defend Trump during his first impeachment proceedings, Ratcliffe also forcefully questioned former special counsel Robert Mueller when he testified before lawmakers about his investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
As director of national intelligence, Ratcliffe oversaw and coordinated the work of more than a dozen spy agencies. Among other duties, the office directs efforts to detect and counter foreign efforts to influence U.S. politics.
Trump picked Ratcliffe to serve in that position in 2019, but he quickly withdrew from consideration after lawmakers raised questions about his qualifications. He was ultimately confirmed by a sharply divided Senate after Trump resubmitted the nomination.
In that job, Ratcliffe was accused by Democrats of politicizing intelligence when he declassified Russian intelligence that purported to reveal information about Democrats during the 2016 election even as he acknowledged the information might not be accurate.
Trump’s second-term nominee for director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, faces a tougher road to confirmation. Gabbard, a former Democratic congresswoman from Hawaii, has faced bipartisan criticism over past comments supportive of Russia and 2017 meetings with then-Syrian President Bashar Assad.
Real Madrid became the first soccer team to register one billion euros ($1.04 billion) in revenue in a single season in 2023-24, with the Spanish side topping the Deloitte Football Money League as the world’s highest revenue-generating club once again.
Real Madrid had overtaken Manchester City to return to the summit after they generated total revenue of 831 million euros in the 2022-23 season.
Three trophies in the 2023-24 campaign — including LaLiga and the Champions League — plus increased matchday revenue following the completion of renovation works at the Bernabeu Stadium ensured they stayed top of the list.
Deloitte said Real’s matchday revenue doubled to 248 million euros while a new sleeve sponsorship and increased merchandise sales produced commercial revenue of 482 million euros — a 19% increase.
The report also said that the top 20 revenue generating clubs in the world made a record 11.2 billion euros in the 2023-24 season thanks to record matchday, broadcast and commercial revenues.
Real’s revenue dwarfs that of even City, who remain in second place in the Money League with 838 million euros in revenue.
Although City beat their own revenue record and remain the highest revenue-generating club in the lucrative English Premier League, the gap between first and second (208 million euros) has never been bigger.
Paris St Germain (806 million euros), Manchester United (771 million) and Bayern Munich (765 million) round out the top five.
EUROPEAN SOCCER
The need for European soccer was highlighted by Juventus’ fall from 11th to 16th after the Serie A side were excluded from European competition in 2023-24 over breaches of UEFA’s Club Licensing and Financial Fair Play rules.
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On the other hand, clubs like Arsenal (717 million euros), Borussia Dortmund (514 million), Newcastle United (372 million) and Aston Villa (310 million) grew revenues by playing in various European competitions.
“While commercial revenue dominates the income of the top 10 Money League clubs, broadcast income remains crucial for teams in the second half of the rankings,” Tim Bridge, lead partner in the Deloitte Sports Business Group, said.
“As competitions expand and create more broadcast and matchday opportunities, these can further increase the earning potential for clubs.”
Thanks to their commercial revenue streams, Liverpool (715 million euros), Tottenham Hotspur (615 million) and Chelsea (546 million) still managed to stay in the top 10 despite reduced broadcast income after missing out on the Champions League.
Barcelona also saw a 63 million euros fall in matchday revenue after they were forced to play at the smaller Estadi Olimpic Lluis Companys while the Camp Nou was being redeveloped.
But the Spanish club remain top of the list of women’s sides for a third straight year with 17.9 million euros in revenue, a 26% increase from the 2022-23 season.
Arsenal Women (17.9 million euros) are second, followed by Chelsea (13.4 million), Manchester United (10.7 million) and Real Madrid (10.5 million).
Billionaire Michael Bloomberg said his foundation will step in to fund the UN climate change body after President Donald Trump declared the US would withdraw from the Paris Agreement for the second time.
Bloomberg’s intervention aims to ensure the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) remains fully funded despite the US halting its contributions.
The US typically provides 22% of the UNFCCC secretariat’s budget, with the body’s operating costs for 2024-2025 projected at €88.4m.
“From 2017 to 2020, during a period of federal inaction, cities, states, businesses, and the public rose to the challenge to uphold our nation’s commitments – and now, we are ready to do it again,” Bloomberg, who serves as the UN Special Envoy on Climate Ambition and Solutions, said in a statement.
This marks the second time Bloomberg has stepped in to fill the gap left by US federal disengagement.
In 2017, following the Trump administration’s first withdrawal from the Paris accord, Bloomberg pledged up to $15m to support the UNFCCC.
He also launched “America’s Pledge,” an initiative to track and report US non-federal climate commitments, ensuring the world could monitor US progress as if it were still a fully committed party to the Paris Agreement.
Bloomberg reiterated his commitment to upholding US reporting obligations this time as well.
“Contributions like this are vital in enabling the UN Climate Change secretariat to support countries in fulfilling their commitments under the Paris Agreement and advancing a low-emission, resilient, and safer future for all,” said UN climate chief Simon Stiell.
Saudi Arabia’s crown prince said Thursday the kingdom wants to invest $600 billion in the United States over the next four years, comments that came after President Donald Trump earlier put a price tag on returning to the kingdom as his first foreign trip.
Trump’s 2017 trip to Saudi Arabia upended a tradition of U.S. presidents first heading to the United Kingdom as their first trip abroad. It also underscored his administration’s close ties to the rulers of the oil-rich Gulf states as his eponymous real estate company has pursued deals across the region as well.
The comments from Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, reported early Thursday by the state-run Saudi Press Agency, came in a phone call with Trump.
“The crown prince affirmed the kingdom’s intention to broaden its investments and trade with the United States over the next four years, in the amount of $600 billion, and potentially beyond that,” the report said.
The readout did not elaborate on where those investments and trade could be placed. The U.S. in recent years has increasingly pulled away from relying on Saudi oil exports, which once was the bedrock of their relationship for decades. Saudi sovereign wealth funds have taken large stakes in American businesses while also looking at sports as well.
Saudi Arabia does, however, rely predominantly on U.S.-made weapons and defense systems, which could be a part of the investment.
There was no immediate readout from the White House on the call. It also wasn’t immediately clear if Trump’s call with the crown prince was his first with a foreign leader since re-entering the White House. However, it was the first reported abroad.
The crown prince, the de facto ruler of the oil-rich kingdom, also spoke with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio early Thursday.
On Monday after his inauguration, Trump talked about possibly heading to the kingdom again as his first foreign trip, like he did in 2017.
“The first foreign trip typically has been with the U.K. but … I did it with Saudi Arabia last time because they agreed to buy $450 billion worth of our products,” Trump told journalists in the Oval Office. “If Saudi Arabia wanted to buy another $450 billion or $500 — we’ll up it for all the inflation — I think I’d probably go.”
The 2017 visit to the kingdom set in motion a yearslong boycott of Qatar by four Arab nations, including the kingdom.
Trump maintained close relations with Saudi Arabia, even after Prince Mohammed was implicated in the 2018 killing and dismemberment of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul. The kingdom also had been talking for years with the Biden administration about a wider deal to diplomatically recognize Israel in exchange for U.S. defense protections and other support.
The $600 billion pledge, which dwarves the gross domestic product of many nations, also comes as the kingdom faces budgetary pressures of its own. Global oil prices remain depressed years after the height of the coronavirus pandemic, affecting the kingdom’s revenues.
Meanwhile, Prince Mohammed also wants to continue his $500 billion project at NEOM, a new city in Saudi Arabia’s western desert on the Red Sea. It also will need to build tens of billions of dollars’ worth of new stadiums and infrastructure ahead of it hosting the 2034 FIFA World Cup.
US musician Chris Brown has filed a lawsuit against Warner Bros. Discovery over a docuseries detailing his alleged history of violence.
The R&B star is accusing Warner Bros. Discovery of moving forward with the film’s release even “after being provided proof that their information was false.”
According to Billboard magazine, the R&B artist who performed at a sold out concert in South Africa in 2024, filed the complaint on Tuesday, January 21, at the Superior Court of Los Angeles.
Brown’s attorneys, led by Levi G. McCathern II and Evan Selik, argue that the Investigation Discovery docuseries, “Chris Brown: A History of Violence”, has been ‘detrimental’ to the singer and is ‘full of lies’.
The suit further alleges that the documentary intentionally sensationalised these false claims to attract viewers and generate more revenue, ultimately harming Brown’s reputation.
“This case is about protecting the truth,” said Brown’s attorney Levi McCathern. “Despite being provided with evidence disproving their claims, the producers of this documentary intentionally promoted false and defamatory information, knowingly disregarding their ethical obligations as journalists.”
Adding, “Since the beginning of October of 2024, Ample LLC and Warner Brothers were put on notice that they were promoting and publishing false information in their pursuit of likes, clicks, downloads and dollars and to the detriment of Chris Brown.”
Additional reporting from Deadline says that the suit further claims the documentary was based on a Jane Doe lawsuit, regarding a reported 2020 incident on a yacht, which they claimed has been ‘discredited over and over’ and she was ‘a perpetrator of intimate partner violence and aggressor herself’.
The lawsuit accuses Warner Bros and company Ample LLC for portraying her as ‘credible’.
The new lawsuit added: “Mr. Brown has never been found guilty of any sex-related crime (rape, sexual battery, sexual assault, etc.) but this documentary states in every available fashion that he is a serial rapist and sexual abuser.”
Attorneys for the award-winning singer, songwriter and producer said that a portion of the $500m (KSh. 64.6B) in damages would be donated to ‘survivors of sexual abuse’.
According to a report done by Entertainment Weekly, the “Please Don’t Judge Me” singer has had a history of legal troubles. These include:
Feb. 2009: Chris Brown assaults then-girlfriend Rihanna
Oct. 2013: Brown is arrested on felony assault charge; pleads to misdemeanor
Nov. 2013: Brown is ordered to leave rehab and sentenced to live-in anger management
March 2014: Brown is kicked out of a Malibu rehab center and arrested
July 2015: Brown is detained in the Philippines
Jan. 2016: Brown is investigated over allegations of domestic violence
June 2016: Brown is sued by his ex-manager
Aug. 2016: Brown is arrested following a stand-off with police but is released without charges
June 2017: Brown is ordered to stay away from ex-girlfriend Karrueche Tran
May 2018: Brown is sued for sexual assault. The lawsuit was settled out of court
July 2018: Brown is arrested on felony battery warrant after a Florida concert but charges are eventually dropped due to insufficient evidence
Jan. 2019: Brown is detained in France
Oct. 2021: Brown is sued on allegations of copyright infringement over several hit songs
Jan. 2022: Brown is sued by a woman who claims the singer drugged and raped her; judge dismisses case
July 2024: Brown is sued by concertgoers for $50 million alleging that they were “attacked and brutally beat” by Brown and his entourage following the show. The cas has not proceeded to trial.
Brown launched a career comeback in November 2023 with his eleventh studio album, 11:11 before embarking on a North American and South African tour for the album in 2024.
