A Japanese Ski Resort Town Is Roiled by a Debate Over Immigration
Residents are protesting a planned housing facility for foreign workers, exposing the conflict between Japan’s need for labor and anxieties over immigration.
Indonesia Suspends TikTok Registration With Over 100 Million Accounts At Risk
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Indonesia has suspended TikTok's registration to provide electronic systems after it failed to hand over all data relating to the use of its live stream feature, a government official said on Friday. The suspension could in theory prevent access to TikTok, which has more than 100 million accounts based in Indonesia.
Alexander Sabar, an official at Indonesia's communications and digital ministry, said in a statement some accounts with ties to online gambling activities used TikTok's live stream feature during national protests. [...] Sabar said the government had asked the company for its traffic, streaming and monetization data. The company, owned by China's ByteDance, did not provide complete data, citing its internal procedures, Sabar said without giving further detail.
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Man Drives Car Onto Sidewalk Outside L.A. City Hall, Barricading Himself Inside
A man in a vehicle displaying a handwritten sign referring to President Trump refused to exit his car as the authorities shut down surrounding streets. The man was taken into custody.
5 Takeaways From Taylor Swift’s ‘The Life of a Showgirl’ Movie
The pop star’s new album arrived with a limited-run film in which she debuts a video for “The Fate of Ophelia” and chats about the LP’s songs.
Google Is Ending Gmailify and POP Support
Google will discontinue Gmailify and POP email support in January 2026, forcing users who rely on these features to switch to IMAP. PCWorld reports: These changes only affect future emails. Emails that have already been synchronized in the Gmail account will remain the same. External accounts can still be used in the Gmail app, but only via IMAP. Google also recommends that users with work or education accounts contact their administrators if a Google Workspace migration is needed.
For many Gmail users, these changes will likely mean getting used to the new system. Anyone who previously upgraded their external email accounts with Gmailify or integrated them via POP will have to switch to IMAP by January 2026 at the latest and do without some convenient functions, like spam filters and automatic sorting.
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Supreme Court Lets Trump Revoke Deportation Protections for Venezuelans
The Trump administration has tried to end deportation protections for more than 300,000 Venezuelan immigrants.
2 Teen Girls Died In a Hit-And-Run. Another Teen Faces Murder Charges.
The 17-year-old friends in a small New Jersey town were killed on their way to get ice cream. Prosecutors said the crash was intentional.
Bay Area University Issues Warning Over Man Using Meta AI Glasses On Campus
The University of San Francisco issued a campuswide alert after reports of a man using Meta Ray-Ban AI glasses to film students while making "unwanted comments and inappropriate dating questions." Although no violence has been reported, officials said he may be uploading footage to TikTok and Instagram. SFGate reports: University officials said "no threats or acts of violence" have been reported, but they have been unable to identify all students who appear in the videos. They urged any school members affected to alert the app platform and the USF Department of Public Safety. "As a community, we share the responsibility of caring for ourselves, each other, and this place," school officials said in the alert. "By looking out for one another and promptly reporting concerns, we help ensure a safe and supportive environment for all."
The glasses feature a small camera that can be used for recording by pressing a button or using voice controls. Meta advises users to act "responsibly" when using the glasses. "Not everyone loves being photographed. Stop recording if anyone expresses that they would rather opt out, and be particularly mindful of others before going live," the company said.
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Trump Administration Is Said to Plan to Cut Refugee Admissions to a Record Low
Many of the slots would go to white South Africans and others facing “unjust discrimination,” according to people familiar with the matter and documents obtained by The New York Times.
Justice Kavanaugh’s Would-Be Assassin Sentenced to 8 Years in Prison
Sophie Roske traveled from California to Maryland intending to kill Justice Brett Kavanaugh, then changed her mind and called 911.
SEC Approves Texas Stock Exchange
The SEC has approved the Texas Stock Exchange (TXSE), the first new fully integrated U.S. stock exchange in decades and the only one based in Texas. TXSE is set to launch trading services, as well as exchange-traded products, known as ETPs, and corporate listings, in 2026. CBS News reports: Exchange-traded products are financial instruments that follow the performance of underlying assets such as stocks, indexes or other financial benchmarks. Like stocks, ETPs are traded on public exchanges, allowing investors to buy and sell them throughout the trading day at market prices that fluctuate in real time.
TXSE was backed by wealth management giant BlackRock and market maker Citadel Securities, among other firms. The Texas company said in June 2024 that it raised a total of $120 million from more than two dozen investors. TXSE's headquarters in Dallas opened this spring, the group said.
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Marjorie Taylor Greene Criticizes Senate Republicans for Government Shutdown
In a social media post, the far-right Georgia congresswoman called on Senate Republicans to eliminate the filibuster, lowering the threshold on future legislation to a simple majority.
Google's Jules Enters Developers' Toolchains As AI Coding Agent Competition Heats Up
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Google is bringing its AI coding agent Jules deeper into developer workflows with a new command-line interface and public API, allowing it to plug into terminals, CI/CD systems, and tools like Slack -- as competition intensifies among tech companies to own the future of software development and make coding more of an AI-assisted task.
Until now, Jules -- Google's asynchronous coding agent -- was only accessible via its website and GitHub. On Thursday, the company introduced Jules Tools, a command-line interface that brings Jules directly into the developer's terminal. The CLI lets developers interact with the agent using commands, streamlining workflows by eliminating the need to switch between the web interface and GitHub. It allows them to stay within their environment while delegating coding tasks and validating results. "We want to reduce context switching for developers as much as possible," Kathy Korevec, director of product at Google Labs, told TechCrunch.
Jules differs from Gemini CLI in that it focuses on "scoped," independent tasks rather than requiring iterative collaboration. Once a user approves a plan, Jules executes it autonomously, while the CLI needs more step-by-step guidance. Jules also has a public API for workflow and IDE integration, plus features like memory, a stacked diff viewer, PR comment handling, and image uploads -- capabilities not present in the CLI. Gemini CLI is limited to terminals and CI/CD pipelines and is better suited for exploratory, highly interactive use.
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How Fury Over Israel’s Qatar Attack Pushed Netanyahu on Gaza
Hamas has agreed to some elements of the proposal by President Trump to end the war in Gaza, but it’s not clear if its conditions ultimately would satisfy the White House or Israel.
Arthur Jones, Former Baltimore Ravens Player, Dies at 39
He played for the Ravens when the team won the Super Bowl in 2013.
Thwarted Plot To Cripple Cell Service In NY Was Bigger Than First Thought
Last month, federal investigators said they dismantled a China-linked plot that aimed to cripple New York City's telecommunications system by overloading cell towers, jamming 911 calls, and disrupting communications. According to law enforcement sources, the plot was even bigger than first thought. "Agents from Homeland Security Investigations found an additional 200,000 SIM cards at a location in New Jersey," according to ABC News. "That's double the 100,000 SIM cards, along with hundreds of servers, that were recently seized at five other vacant offices and apartments in and around the city." From the report: Investigators secured each of those locations, seized the electronics, and are now trying to track down who rented the spaces and filled them with shelves full of gear capable of sending 30 million anonymous text messages every minute, overloading communications and blacking out cellular service in a city that relies on it for emergency response and counterterrorism.
According to sources, the investigation began after several high-level people, including at least one with direct access to President Donald Trump, were targeted not only by swatters but also with actual threats received on their private phones. "The potential threat these data centers pose to the public could include shutting down critical resources that the public needs, like the 911 system, or potentially impacting the public's ability to communicate everything, including business transactions," said Don Mihalek, an ABC News contributor who was formerly with the Secret Service.
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Trump Administration Can’t Decide Whether the Shutdown Is Bad or Good
Is it “fun” and an “unprecedented opportunity,” or is it “madness” that must end? Depends who’s talking.
OpenAI Becomes World's Most Valuable Startup After $500 Billion Valuation
OpenAI's valuation has surged to $500 billion after a $6.6 billion secondary stock sale, briefly making it the world's most valuable startup ahead of SpaceX and ByteDance. The Associated Press reports: Current and former OpenAI employees sold $6.6 billion in shares to a group of investors, pushing the privately held artificial intelligence company's valuation to $500 billion, according to a source with knowledge of the deal who was not authorized to discuss it publicly. The investors buying the shares included Thrive Capital, Dragoneer Investment Group and T. Rowe Price, along with Japanese tech giant SoftBank and the United Arab Emirates' MGX, the source said Thursday.
The valuation reflects high expectations for the future of AI technology and continues OpenAI's remarkable trajectory from its start as a nonprofit research lab in 2015. But with the San Francisco-based company not yet turning a profit, it could also amplify concerns about an AI bubble if the generative AI products made by OpenAI and its competitors don't meet the expectations of investors pouring billions of dollars into research and development.
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Judge Finds ‘Likelihood’ That Charges Against Abrego Garcia Are Vindictive
The ruling was an astonishing rebuke of both the Justice Department and some of its top officials, including Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general.
Canada Will Headline the Pacific Airshow in California Because of the Shutdown
The government shutdown has prevented a U.S. Air Force group and possibly a Navy squadron from attending signature air shows in California. Instead, a Canadian team is set to be the headliner.