World
US House passes bill that would ban TikTok amid national security concerns
The United States House of Representatives has overwhelmingly passed a bill that could eventually ban the social media platform TikTok in the country, in its latest salvo against both China and big tech.
The bill received resoundingly bipartisan support, with vote of 352 to 65 in favour. It now heads to the 100-member Senate, where its prospects are less clear. For his part, President Joe Biden has said he would sign the bill into law if it reached his desk.
If that happened, TikTok’s Chinese owner ByteDance would be given about six months to divest from its US assets or see its video-sharing app banned in the US.
The legislation stems from concerns that ByteDance is beholden to the Chinese government. Government officials have expressed fears that the data TikTok collects from its roughly 170 million American users could pose a national security threat.
Recent national security laws passed in China, which can compel organisations to assist with intelligence gathering, have further buoyed those concerns.
Bytedance, however, has repeatedly maintained it operates independently of the Chinese government.
Speaking on Wednesday, US Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers said the legislation has “given TikTok a clear choice”.
“Separate from your parent company ByteDance, which is beholden to the CCP [the Chinese Communist Party], and remain operational in the United States, or side with the CCP and face the consequences,” she said. “The choice is TikTok’s.”
Opponents of Wednesday’s bill cited concerns about freedom of speech and called the move a knee-jerk effort that falls short of meaningful reform.
“Rather than target one company in a rushed and secretive process, Congress should pass comprehensive data privacy protections and do a better job of informing the public of the threats these companies may pose to national security,” Representative Barbara Lee, a progressive stalwart, posted on the social media platform X.
TikTok decries ‘ban’
In advance of the House vote, a top national security official in the Biden administration held a closed-door briefing with legislators to discuss TikTok and its national security implications.
Meanwhile, both Republican and Democratic legislators reported a flood of calls from TikTok users in opposition to the legislation.
Voted NO on the TikTok bill.
Not only are there 1st amendment concerns, this is bad policy.
We should create actual standards & regulations around privacy violations across social media companies—not target platforms we don’t like.
— Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) March 13, 2024
Several TikTok supporters, including prominent content creators on the platform, gathered in front of the US Capitol on Wednesday in advance of the vote. The company also issued a statement opposing the vote.
“This process was secret, and the bill was jammed through for one reason: It’s a ban,” TikTok spokesperson Alex Haurek said in a statement.
“We are hopeful that the Senate will consider the facts, listen to their constituents, and realise the impact on the economy, seven million small businesses and the 170 million Americans who use our service.”
Will TikTok be unavailable in the US?
Tiktok’s future in the Senate remains uncertain. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat, has said he will consult with relevant committee chairs to determine the bill’s path.
For their part, Democratic and Republican leaders of the US Senate Intelligence Committee said they were encouraged by the bill’s passage in the House.
“[We] look forward to working together to get this bill passed through the Senate and signed into law,” Senators Mark Warner and Marco Rubio said in a statement.
TikTok is set to remain available in the US for the foreseeable future.
If the bill were to be passed into law, ByteDance would have six months to divest before a ban would be imposed. A sale in that amount of time is possible, but the timeline would be tight for such a large acquisition.
Failure to comply with the deadline would mean that US-based app stores could not legally offer TikTok or provide web-hosting services for ByteDance-controlled applications.
But any forced divestment would almost certainly face lengthy legal challenges. ByteDance would need to file an appeal within 165 days of the bill being signed by the president.
Last year, for instance, a US judge blocked a Montana state ban on TikTok use after the company sued.
TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew will visit Capitol Hill on Wednesday on a previously scheduled trip to talk to senators, a source briefed on the matter told the Reuters news agency.
World
Minnesota braces for what’s next amid immigration arrests and in the wake of Renee Good shooting
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Already shaken by the fatal shooting of a woman by an immigration officer, Minnesota’s Twin Cities on Sunday braced for what many expect will be a new normal over the next few weeks as the Department of Homeland Security carries out what it called its largest enforcement operation ever.
Protesters screamed at heavily-armed federal agents and honked car horns, banged on drums and blew whistles in attempts to disrupt their operations in one Minneapolis neighborhood filled with single-family homes.
There was some pushing and several people were hit with chemical spray just before agents banged down the door of one home on Sunday. They later took one man away in handcuffs.
“We’re seeing a lot of immigration enforcement across Minneapolis and across the state, federal agents just swarming around our neighborhoods,” said Jason Chavez, a Minneapolis city councilmember. “They’ve definitely been out here.”
Chavez, the son of Mexican immigrants who represents an area with a growing immigrant population, said he is closely monitoring information from chat groups about where residents are seeing agents operating.
People holding whistles positioned themselves in freezing temperatures on street corners in the neighborhood where 37-year-old Renee Good was shot and killed Wednesday, watching for any signs of federal agents.
More than 20,000 people have taken part in a variety of trainings to become “observers” of enforcement activities in Minnesota since the 2024 election, said Luis Argueta, a spokesperson for Unidos MN, a local human rights organization .
“It’s a role that people choose to take on voluntarily, because they choose to look out for their neighbors,” Argueta said.
The protests have been largely peaceful, but the Twin Cities remained anxious. Minneapolis public schools on Monday will start offering remote learning for the next month in response to concerns that children might feel unsafe venturing out while tensions remain high.
Many schools closed last week after Good’s shooting and the upheaval that followed.
While the enforcement activity continues, two of the state’s leading Democrats said on Sunday that the investigation into Good’s shooting death shouldn’t be overseen solely by the federal government.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and U.S. Sen. Tina Smith said in separate interviews Sunday that state authorities should be included in the investigation because the federal government has already made clear what it believes happened.
“How can we trust the federal government to do an objective, unbiased investigation, without prejudice, when at the beginning of that investigation they have already announced exactly what they saw — what they think happened,” Smith said on ABC’s “This Week.”
The Trump administration has defended the officer who shot Good in her car, saying he was protecting himself and fellow agents and that Good had “weaponized” her vehicle.
Todd Lyons, acting director of ICE, defended the officer on Fox News Channel’s “The Sunday Briefing.”
“That law enforcement officer had milliseconds, if not short time to make a decision to save his life and his other fellow agents,” he said.
Lyons also said the administration’s enforcement operations in Minnesota wouldn’t be needed “if local jurisdictions worked with us to turn over these criminally illegal aliens once they are already considered a public safety threat by the locals.”
The killing of Good by an ICE officer and the shooting of two people by federal agents in Portland, Oregon, led to dozens of protests across the country over the weekend.
Thousands of people marched Saturday in Minneapolis, where Homeland Security called its deployment of immigration officers in the Twin Cities its biggest ever immigration enforcement operation.
___
Associated Press journalists Giovanna Dell’Orto in Minneapolis, Thomas Strong in Washington, Bill Barrow in Atlanta, and John Seewer in Toledo, Ohio, contributed.
World
Netanyahu and Rubio discuss US military intervention in Iran amid ongoing nationwide protests: report
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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Secretary of State Marco Rubio discussed the possibility of U.S. intervention in Iran, according to a report.
The two leaders spoke by phone Saturday as Israel is on “high alert,” preparing for the possibility of U.S. military intervention in Iran, according to Reuters, citing multiple Israeli sources. A U.S. official confirmed the call to Fox News Digital but did not provide additional details.
The report comes as nationwide anti-regime demonstrations across Iran hit the two-week mark.
On Saturday, the Iranian regime triggered an internet “kill switch” in an apparent effort to conceal alleged abuses by security forces and as protests against it surged nationwide, according to a cybersecurity expert. The blackout reduced internet access to a fraction of normal levels.
KEANE WARNS IRANIAN REGIME TO TAKE TRUMP ‘DEAD SERIOUS’ ON PROTEST KILLING THREAT AMID ONGOING DEMONSTRATIONS
Secretary of State Marco Rubio holds his end-of-year press conference at the State Department in Washington, D.C., Dec. 19, 2025. (Kevin Mohatt/Reuters)
On Sunday, Iran’s parliament speaker warned that the U.S. military and Israel would be “legitimate targets” if America strikes the Islamic Republic.
Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf issued the threat as lawmakers rushed the dais in the Iranian parliament, shouting, “Death to America!” according to The Associated Press.
President Donald Trump offered support for the protesters on Saturday, writing on Truth Social that “Iran is looking at FREEDOM, perhaps like never before. The USA stands ready to help!!!”
IRANIAN MILITARY LEADER THREATENS PREEMPTIVE ATTACK AFTER TRUMP COMMENTS
In this frame grab from video obtained by the AP outside Iran, a masked demonstrator holds a picture of Iran’s Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi during a protest in Tehran, Iran, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026. (UGC via AP)
At a news conference Friday, Trump said Iran was facing mounting pressure as unrest spreads across the country.
“Iran’s in big trouble,” he said. “It looks to me that the people are taking over certain cities that nobody thought were really possible just a few weeks ago. We’re watching the situation very carefully.”
The president said the U.S. would respond forcefully if the regime resorts to mass violence.
“We’ll be hitting them very hard where it hurts. And that doesn’t mean boots on the ground, but it means hitting them very, very hard where it hurts,” he said.
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP
Protests in Iran intensify for the 12th day. (The National Council of Resistance of Iran)
Fox News Digital reached out to the State Department and White House for comment.
Fox News Digital’s Emma Bussey, Brie Stimson and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
World
Four killed, 20 injured in overnight Russian strikes across Ukraine
Published on
Russia fired more than 150 drones overnight into Sunday targeting close to two dozen locations across Ukraine, killing at least four people and injuring 20 more.
Ukraine’s Air Forces say they intercepted 125 drones aerially but confirmed that at least 25 strike drones struck their targets.
They added that Moscow’s latest barrage mainly targeted Kharkiv, Kherson, Zaporizhzhia and Dnipropetrovsk, all of which were targeted in Saturday’s overnight strikes as well.
Local officials in the southern region of Zaporizhzhia say the strikes targeted residential areas and energy infrastructure. More than 385,000 homes were affected by electric, gas or water outages, at a critical time as temperatures plunged to 10 degrees below Celsius.
Regional lawmakers say service was restored to most of the affected households and areas by Sunday morning, but added that emergency work was still being carried out to restore power to the remaining homes.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Russia of timing their attacks with the cold peaks of winter as to maximise civilian suffering.
“They struck targets that have no military purpose whatsoever – energy infrastructure, residential buildings. They deliberately waited for freezing weather to make things worse for our people. This is deliberate, cynical Russian terror specifically against civilians,” wrote Zelenskyy in a post on X.
He also noted that this week had seen heightened Russian assault on Ukrainian cities, announcing that his country’s defence forces recorded thousands of attacks using a variety of different weapons.
“Over the course of this week, Russia launched almost 1,100 attack drones against Ukraine, more than 890 guided aerial bombs, and over 50 missiles of various types – ballistic, cruise, and even the Oreshnik medium-range ballistic missile.”
The Ukrainian leader thanked all units responsible for protecting the country and responding to attacks, and praised their tireless efforts and resilience.
He also called on allies to ensure his embattled country maintains “stable support”, in defence and diplomatic fields as coordinated dialogue efforts continue in search of peace.
Meanwhile, Russia says that one person was killed in Ukrainian strikes on the western city of Voronezh. Officials say a young woman succumbed to her wounds at an intensive care unit of a local hospital after debris from a drone fell on her house during Saturday’s attacks.
They added that at least three others were injured in the attacks which targeted more than 10 residential apartment buildings, private homes and a high school.
The city of Voronezh lies just 250 kilometres from the Ukrainian border and is home to approximately one million people. The attacks, which Kyiv have yet to confirm, came after the Kremlin’s major offensive on Ukraine in the early hours of Saturday.
Additional sources • AP
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