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Investopedia

UK Antitrust Regulators Clear Microsoft's Partnership With Inflection AI

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Worldnews

Malaysia Suspends Search For Long-missing Flight MH370

Relatives of passengers lost on the 2014 flight have continued to demand answers from Malaysian authorities. The latest search for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 has been suspended as it is “not the season”, according to the country’s transport minister, more than a decade after the plane went missing. “They have stopped the operation for the time being, they will resume the search at the end of this year,” Anthony Loke said in a voice recording sent to the AFP news agency on Thursday. “Right now, it’s not the season.” Flight MH370, a Boeing 777, was carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew members when it vanished en route to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur in 2014 in one of the world’s greatest aviation mysteries. The decision came a couple of weeks after authorities said the search for the missing flight had resumed, following earlier failed attempts that covered vast swaths of the Indian Ocean. An initial Australia-led search covered 120,000sq km (46,300sq miles) in the ocean over three years, but hardly found any trace of the plane other than a few pieces of debris. Maritime exploration firm Ocean Infinity, based in the United Kingdom and the United States, led an unsuccessful hunt in 2018, before agreeing to launch a new search this year. Last month, Ocean Infinity resumed the search for the wreckage of the missing flight. Its most recent mission was conducted on the same “no find, no fee” principle as its previous search, with the Malaysian government paying out only if the firm finds the aircraft. “Whether or not it will be found will be subject to the search, nobody can anticipate,” Loke said on Thursday, referring to the wreckage of the plane. MH370’s disappearance has long been the subject of theories – ranging from the credible to outlandish – including that veteran pilot Zaharie Ahmad Shah had gone rogue. A final report into the tragedy released in 2018 pointed to failings by air traffic control and said the course of the plane was changed manually. Investigators said in the 495-page report that they still did not know why the plane vanished and refused to rule out that someone other than the pilots had diverted the jet. Relatives of the missing passengers of the flight have continued to demand answers from Malaysian authorities. Two-thirds of the passengers were Chinese, while the others were from Malaysia, Indonesia, Australia, and elsewhere. Last month, family members of Chinese passengers gathered in Beijing outside government offices and the Malaysian embassy on the 11th anniversary of the flight’s disappearance. Attendees of the gathering shouted, “Give us back our loved ones!” Some held placards asking, “When will the 11 years of waiting and torment end?” Follow Al Jazeera English:...

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P7as2

As TikTok Ban Intensifies World Over, This App Can Become The Next Big Thing

The digital world is a fast-moving beast, and if there’s one thing we’ve learned in recent years, it’s that people’s obsession with social media knows no bounds. The minute something becomes outdated, it’s replaced—sometimes in a flash. The latest victim of this relentless cycle is TikTok, a platform that, just a few days ago, boasted a massive following of 170 million users in the United States. But with a looming US ban on the horizon, many TikTokers, also referred to as “TikTok Refugees”, are packing up and heading to this new Chinese app, RedNote (also known as Xiaohongshu in China). And guess what? It’s taking over big and fast. The app saw almost 3 million users registering in one day! Americans are currently facing a digital crisis as there are reports that TikTok will shut down its operations in the country after a federal ban was imposed on the Chinese company during Biden’s rule. ByteDance had nine months to find a US-approved buyer or risk closure under a bipartisan law signed by President Joe Biden and ratified by Congress in April 2024. Described as, “a national-security threat of immense depth and scale,” by the US Justice Department, ByteDance faced allegations of giving up user data belonging to Americans to the Chinese government. TikTok and ByteDance vehemently refuse this accusation. The method of collecting data, data privacy, and algorithmic content delivery were the staggering points of concern for the US government as it was used by almost 170 million users in America. But even before America found the security implications of the application on privacy and security, many other governments had banned the app, including India. However, the irony is undeniable as users moved on to another Chinese-language app, RedNote as the replacement for TikTok. Within just a couple of days, RedNote skyrocketed to the top of app store download charts. The app was already seeing a rise in popularity with about 3.4 million daily active users in the US on January 15. Just the day before, that number was a mere 700,000. It’s clear – Americans were in full crisis mode, searching for something to fill the void TikTok was about to leave behind. The app, initially built to be a lifestyle and e-commerce platform in China, serves as a kind of mix between Instagram and Pinterest, with a heavy focus on sharing content like lifestyle tips, fashion, beauty, food, and travel. It’s got all the elements people crave when they’re looking to kill time: pretty pictures, fun trends, short-form videos, and the virality of TikTok. It has a built-in e-commerce platform that allows users to shop directly. As per reports, Shanghai-based Xingyin Information Technology Co., Ltd. is the owner of RedNote. Thus, in a technical sense, the Chinese government does not own it. However, Chinese legislation gives the government extensive control over every aspect of business activities. What’s fascinating about this sudden surge is not just the rise of a new app but the clear reflection of social media addiction. Here’s the thing: Social media is no more just a time-filler; it’s a part of life or sometimes, the whole life of a person. People go to these platforms to escape, to entertain themselves, and sometimes, to find community or validation. It’s become such a deep part of daily life that even the thought of losing access to it – like the possibility of TikTok being banned, sparks near-panic among millions of users. Just like TikTok Refugees flooding to RedNote. In this case, RedNote is the beneficiary of TikTok’s downfall, but who knows? If RedNote faces its own issues in the future, another platform will likely be waiting in the wings. The digital world is full of these cycles—rising, falling, and being replaced at the speed of light. RedNote is taking over, and it might very well be the next big thing in social media in the US But the larger question remains: How long before this cycle repeats itself again?

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Worldnews

Newark Mayor Ras Baraka Arrested During ICE Detention Centre Protest

US attorney says Baraka ‘committed trespass’ during protest of facility, which he argues opened without proper permits. Rights groups and Democratic officials have decried the arrest of the mayor of Newark, New Jersey, during a protest at an immigration detention centre. Mayor Ras Baraka had joined several lawmakers at the detention centre, called Delaney Hall, for a demonstration on Friday. For weeks, he has been among those protesting the recently opened 1,000-bed centre, which critics see as a key link in President Donald Trump’s mass deportation efforts. Those in attendance said Baraka sought to enter the facility along with members of the United States Congress on Friday, but he was denied entry. A video reviewed by The Associated Press showed a federal official in a jacket with the logo for the Homeland Security Investigations unit telling Baraka he could not tour the facility because “you are not a congress member”. Baraka then left the secure area, rejoining protesters on the public side of the centre’s gate. Video showed him speaking through the gate to a man in a suit. The man said, “They’re talking about coming back to arrest you.” “I’m not on their property. They can’t come out on the street and arrest me,” Baraka replied. Moments later, several Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, some wearing face coverings, surrounded the mayor and others on the public side of the gate. Baraka was dragged back through the security gate in handcuffs, while protesters yelled, “Shame!” In a subsequent post on the social media platform X, Alina Habba, Trump’s former personal lawyer and acting US attorney for New Jersey, said Baraka had “committed trespass and ignored multiple warnings” to leave. “He has willingly chosen to disregard the law. That will not stand in this state,” Habba wrote. “He has been taken into custody. NO ONE IS ABOVE THE LAW.” US Representative LaMonica McIver was also at the centre on Friday, along with Representatives Bonnie Watson Coleman and Robert Menendez Jr, to conduct what they called an “oversight inspection”. In a post on X, McIver said Baraka “did nothing wrong” and had already left the facility at the time of his arrest. “This is unacceptable,” McIver said in the video. For its part, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security accused the lawmakers of “storming” the facility in a “bizarre political stunt”. Baraka has said the detention centre — located in Newark, not far from New York City — opened despite not having the proper local permits and approvals. He has launched a lawsuit to halt its operations. The GEO group, which runs the centre in coordination with ICE, has denied his claims. It entered into an agreement with the federal government in February to run the Delaney Hall facility, under a 15-year contract valued at $1bn. Local elected officials swiftly condemned the federal agents’ actions, with the state’s governor, Phil Murphy, writing on X that he was “outraged by the unjust arrest” of Baraka. Murphy called the mayor an “exemplary public servant who has always stood up for our most vulnerable mayors” and appealed for his release. The governor noted that New Jersey had previously passed a law banning private immigration detention centres in the state, a Democratic stronghold, although it was partially struck down by a federal court in 2023. An appeal is ongoing. Baraka, who is running in next month’s Democratic primary for governor, has been an outspoken critic of the Trump administration’s immigration policies. He struck a defiant tone against the Trump administration in January, after ICE raided businesses in the city he leads. “Newark will not stand by idly while people are being unlawfully terrorised,” he said at the time. Follow Al Jazeera English:...