Author: News Room

When the Supreme Court hears arguments on Friday over whether protecting national security requires TikTok to be sold or closed, the justices will be working in the shadow of three First Amendment precedents, all influenced by the climate of their times and by how much the justices trusted the government.During the Cold War and in the Vietnam era, the court refused to credit the government’s assertions that national security required limiting what newspapers could publish and what Americans could read. More recently, though, the court deferred to Congress’s judgment that combating terrorism justified making some kinds of speech a crime.The…

The next big fight over offshoring is playing out in Washington, and this time it involves artificial intelligence.The Biden administration, in its final weeks in office, is rushing to issue new regulations to try to ensure that the United States and its close allies have control over how artificial intelligence develops in the years to come.The rules have touched off an intense fight between tech companies and the government, as well as among administration officials.The regulations, which could be issued as early as Friday, would dictate where American-made chips that are critical for A.I. could be shipped. Those rules would…

Two prominent labor groups are joining forces in an attempt to expand union membership and protect members’ interests as they face the likelihood of a less union-friendly federal government under Donald J. Trump.The Service Employees International Union, which represents nearly two million workers in industries like home health care and janitorial services, said on Wednesday that it would become part of the A.F.L.-C.I.O., an umbrella group of more than 50 unions that represent more than 12.5 million workers.The boards of the two groups formally approved the affiliation arrangement earlier in the day.April Verrett, the service employees’ president, said in an…

Dockworkers on the East and Gulf Coasts reached a tentative labor agreement with employers on Wednesday, averting a strike that could have hammered the economy days before President-elect Donald J. Trump took office.The International Longshoremen’s Association, the dockworkers’ union, and the United States Maritime Alliance, the employers’ negotiating group, overcame their differences over a big sticking point in their talks: the introduction of automated cargo-moving machinery at the ports.“This agreement protects current I.L.A. jobs and establishes a framework for implementing technologies that will create more jobs while modernizing East and Gulf Coasts ports,” the two sides said in a joint…

Meta would like to introduce its next fact-checker — the one who will spot falsehoods, pen convincing corrections and warn others about misleading content.It’s you.Mark Zuckerberg, Meta’s chief executive, announced Tuesday that he was ending much of the company’s moderation efforts, like third-party fact-checking and content restrictions. Instead, he said, the company will turn over fact-checking duties to everyday users under a model called Community Notes, which was popularized by X and lets users leave a fact-check or correction on a social media post.The announcement signals the end of an era in content moderation and an embrace of looser guidelines…

In the days after Donald J. Trump was re-elected president, one of his most high-profile stops was at an Ultimate Fighting Championship event at Madison Square Garden.Mr. Trump’s appearance in the front row was notable, as was the presence of some of his closest confidants, like Elon Musk, who sat alongside him. But few in attendance for the fights would have recognized the other man sitting beside the president-elect.Yasir al-Rumayyan, the governor of Saudi Arabia’s vast sovereign wealth vehicle, the Public Investment Fund, watched the action from ringside, and is getting even closer to being part of the action. A…

When President-elect Donald J. Trump called Hussain Sajwani to the lectern at Mar-a-Lago on Tuesday to promise a $20 billion investment in the United States, it was a moment for the Dubai developer to savor. For more than a decade, his company, DAMAC Properties, has helped generate millions for the Trump Organization through a partnership in the Middle East.Those ties appear to have helped open a broad opportunity for Mr. Sajwani as he moves to diversify his empire into the multibillion-dollar market of building data centers needed to meet fast-growing demands for cloud computing and artificial intelligence.“For the last four…

Federal Reserve officials cut interest rates as expected last month. But minutes from their December meeting suggest that the decision was a close call — and that there is no guarantee policymakers will lower rates again anytime soon.The minutes of the central bank’s Dec. 17-18 meeting, released on Wednesday, showed that most Fed officials still expected to cut rates eventually. But they also showed that policymakers were concerned about signs that their fight against inflation was losing momentum, and they were no longer certain that interest rates were doing much to slow the economy down. That makes a rate cut…

When Laura Loomer, a far-right activist, regained control of her Twitter account in late 2022, she knew whom to praise for her reinstatement.“Thank you, Elon!” she wrote to Elon Musk, who had recently bought the social network. In another post, Ms. Loomer, who had been booted from the platform in 2018 for writing an anti-Muslim message, complimented Mr. Musk’s commitment to “free speech.”Ms. Loomer is now sharing a different message about Mr. Musk. She and a prominent group of right-wing figures — many of whom have enjoyed more visibility on the platform, renamed X — are increasingly raising alarms about…

President-elect Donald J. Trump has threatened tariffs on many countries for many different reasons.On Monday, he found a new purpose for his favorite economic tool. Mr. Trump said he would “tariff Denmark at a very high level” if it refused to allow Greenland — a North American island that is an autonomous territory within the Kingdom of Denmark — to become part of the United States.“They should give it up, because we need it for national security,” Mr. Trump said of Greenland. Denmark, which has a smaller population than New York City, is not a huge trading partner for the…