Author: News Room

A jury in Florida on Friday ordered CNN to pay $5 million for defaming a private security contractor in a five-minute segment that ran on the network in November 2021.CNN settled the lawsuit hours later for an undisclosed sum, before the jury had an opportunity to award additional punitive damages in the case. Those damages could have been far higher than the initial figure awarded by the jury.News organizations are facing an increasingly adverse legal and political environment. There are robust First Amendment protections for journalists, and plaintiffs in defamation cases must prove that a news outlet published false information…

TikTok said late Friday that its service would “go dark” for its 170 million American users on Sunday in the face of a federal ban over fears that its Chinese ownership poses a threat to the United States’ national security.The company said in a statement posted to its website and on X that “unfortunately TikTok will be forced to go dark on January 19” unless the Biden administration assures Apple, Google and other companies that they will not be punished for delivering TikTok’s services in the United States.The statement was TikTok’s latest attempt to pressure the administration to grant it…

Since 1988, the hulking presses at Lanex Manufacturing on the edge of Windsor, Ontario, have been stamping out door strikers, folding-seat latches, tailpipe hangers, frame braces and other prosaic bits of metal that make their way into vehicles ranging from Corvettes to Honda minivans.But, these days, worries about the future permeate the plant as President-elect Donald J. Trump prepares to enter the White House. He has threatened to impose a 25 percent tariff on all goods exported from Canada to the United States. In Windsor, that would ravage its lifeblood: automobiles and everything that goes into them.“Everybody’s waiting for the…

An interracial couple from Arizona has filed a lawsuit against American Airlines alleging they were detained by law enforcement after the husband was falsely suspected of trafficking his wife by two airline employees and another passenger on their flight.The incident took place in September 2022, on an American flight from Phoenix to Miami. Anthony Williams, a Black retired police officer, and his wife, Katsiaryna Shasholka, who is white and a Russian national, were headed to their honeymoon, according to the federal lawsuit filed last week in the Southern District of Florida.In the lawsuit, the couple alleges that another passenger suspected…

The Federal Reserve said on Friday that it had withdrawn from a network of global financial regulators focused on climate change risks just days before President-elect Donald J. Trump returns to power.The central bank formally joined the Network of Central Banks and Supervisors for Greening the Financial System in December 2020, shortly after President Biden was elected. Democrats praised that decision, arguing that regulators needed to make sure financial institutions were adequately managing the risk they faced from extreme weather events.Republican lawmakers, however, immediately blasted the Fed for joining the network, saying the central bank was overstepping its congressional mandate,…

In mid-2023, TikTok had just eluded an effort in Congress to ban the video app, the latest Houdini-like escape for the young tech company. For several years, during both Republican and Democratic administrations, lawmakers and officials had trained their sights on the app, saying its Chinese ownership posed a national security risk.Inside TikTok, a small group of employees started formulating a plan to ensure that the regulatory threat would never reappear, three people with knowledge of the project said. The employees pitched a campaign of TV commercials, messages to users and other public advocacy to turn Washington’s attention elsewhere. They…

The first time Jean Jennings confronted the Mexican federal police, they had just arrested one of her friends for public urination.It was 1983, and she was part of an eight-vehicle road test along the length of Baja California, which she had joined as a writer for Car and Driver magazine. Thinking fast, she called her friend a cerdo — pig — and talked the police down to a fine.A few days later, the cops caught them speeding outside La Paz, near the bottom of the peninsula; she wriggled out of a ticket by showing officers her Datsun’s fancy electronic voice…

A unanimous Supreme Court on Friday upheld a law that effectively bans the wildly popular app TikTok in the United States starting on Sunday. The ruling ended, at least for now, a legal battle involving national security, free speech and a cultural phenomenon that had millions of Americans deliriously swiping their phone screens at any given moment.The ruling, which forces the app to go dark if it remains under Chinese control, could be a death blow to TikTok’s American operations. President-elect Donald J. Trump, who is to be inaugurated the following day, has vowed to “save” the app though his…

Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen told Congress on Friday that on Jan. 21 the Treasury Department will have to begin using “extraordinary measures” to prevent the United States from defaulting on its debt.The warning was likely one of Ms. Yellen’s final acts as Treasury secretary before the Trump administration assumes power at noon on Monday.The debt limit — which caps the amount of money that the United States is authorized to borrow to fund the government and meet its financial obligations — will now be the problem of the next Treasury secretary, along with President-elect Donald J. Trump and the…

Vanguard, the large mutual fund company, has agreed to pay $106 million in restitution to settle a securities regulatory investigation into whether the firm misled retail investors about the tax implications of changes in some of its retirement funds.The Securities and Exchange Commission announced the settlement on Friday along with a flurry of other settlements it reached with companies in Gary Gensler’s last days as the S.E.C.’s chair. He will officially step down on Monday.The settlement with Vanguard was part of a multistate investigation led by New York, New Jersey and Connecticut along with other regulatory agencies.The joint investigation found…