Author: Disha Mishra

The U.S. Supreme Court upheld on Friday a law banning TikTok in the United States on national security grounds if its Chinese parent company ByteDance does not sell the short-video app by Sunday, as the justices in a 9-0 decision declined to rescue a platform used by about half of all Americans. The justices ruled that the law, passed by an overwhelming bipartisan majority in Congress last year and signed by Democratic President Joe Biden, did not violate the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment protection against government abridgment of free speech. The justices affirmed a lower court’s decision that had upheld…

French President Emmanuel Macron called on Israel on Friday to accelerate its troop withdrawal from southern Lebanon, as a deadline nears for the pullout under the terms of a ceasefire that ended the war with Hezbollah last year. Speaking during a visit to Beirut, Macron also said Lebanon’s military must have a total monopoly on weapons, and he voiced France’s support for strengthening the Lebanese army’s deployment in the south. “We need a total withdrawal of the Israeli army,” Macron said, speaking alongside Lebanon’s new president, Joseph Aoun, who commanded the Lebanese military until parliament elected him as head of…

The U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau announced on Friday it had fined credit reporting bureau Equifax $15 million for failing to sufficiently investigate consumer disputes of its credit reports. The bureau said Equifax ignored consumer documents and evidence submitted alongside disputes, allowed previously flagged inaccuracies to return to credit reports, and relied on flawed software code, leading to inaccurate credit scores. A spokesperson for Equifax did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Under the settlement, Equifax agreed to pay $15 million into the CFPB’s victim relief fund and fix its dispute resolution processes. (Reuters)

President Joe Biden, who leaves office next week, announced on Friday that he was commuting the sentences of nearly 2,500 people convicted of non-violent drug offenses, saying he has now issued more individual pardons and commutations than any predecessor. Those benefiting from Friday’s action “are serving disproportionately long sentences compared to the sentences they would receive today under current law, policy, and practice,” Biden said in a statement. The move provides clemency relief to individuals who were sentenced based on discredited distinctions between crack and powder cocaine and outdated sentencing enhancements for drug crimes, according to the statement issued by…

Botswana’s economy is expected to grow 3% to 4% in 2025 after a contraction last year, a senior government official said at a budget workshop on Friday, as the global diamond market is anticipated to recover. The Southern African country’s economy shrunk 3.3% in the first three quarters of 2024, raising government expectation of a bigger contraction than the 1.7% forecast in December. An updated contraction estimate was not given. “The domestic economy is anticipated to rebound in 2025 to a growth of 3-4%, reflecting a combination of base effects, the global recovery in the major diamond export markets and…

India’s economic growth is poised to rebound as domestic demand regains strength, but “stickiness” in food inflation warrants careful monitoring, the central bank said in its monthly bulletin released on Friday. In India, there is a “conducive quickening” of high-frequency economic activity indicators in the second half of 2024-25, signalling implicit pick up in real gross domestic product growth for this period, the Reserve Bank of India said in an article titled ‘State of the Economy’ in the bulletin. Rural demand continues to gain momentum, reflecting resilience in consumption, supported by brighter agricultural prospects, the RBI said. A revival in…

International Criminal Court Prosecutor Karim Khan has defended his decision to bring war crimes allegations against Israel’s prime minister, saying Israel had made “no real effort” to investigate the allegations itself. In an interview with Reuters, he stood by his decision over the arrest warrant despite a vote last week by the U.S. House of Representatives to sanction the ICC in protest, a move he described as “unwanted and unwelcome”. ICC judges issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, former Israeli defence chief Yoav Gallant and Hamas leader Ibrahim Al-Masri last November for alleged war crimes and crimes…

Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Iranian counterpart Masoud Pezeshkian held talks in Moscow on Friday ahead of the signing of a strategic partnership treaty involving closer defence cooperation that is likely to worry the West. Pezeshkian, on his first Kremlin visit since winning the presidency last July, said he thought the two leaders might be able to finalise an agreement on building a nuclear power plant in Iran with Russian help. Putin greeted Pezeshkian in a grand Kremlin room as they sat down at an ornate table flanked by the two countries’ flags. “We will discuss all areas of…

The Israeli security cabinet has recommended approving the Gaza ceasefire and hostage return deal, ahead of a full cabinet meeting expected later on Friday, a statement from the prime minister’s office said. Cabinet is expected to meet at 3.30 p.m. (1330 GMT) to give final ratification to the agreement, which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said is expected to take effect on Sunday, with the release of the first hostages. If successful, the ceasefire would halt fighting between Hamas and Israeli forces that has razed much of heavily urbanised Gaza, killed more than 46,000 people, and displaced most of the enclave’s…

U.S. stock index futures edged higher on Friday, with the S&P 500 and the Dow looking set to log their biggest weekly advances since November, while investors awaited a wave of policy changes under the incoming Trump administration. At 7:21 a.m. ET, Dow E-minis were up 164 points, or 0.38%, S&P 500 E-minis were up 21.5 points, or 0.36% and Nasdaq 100 E-minis were up 93.25 points, or 0.44%. Better-than-expected earnings from major banks and signs that underlying inflation was cooling have prompted risk taking on Wall Street this week, putting the benchmark S&P 500 (.SPX), and the blue-chip Dow…