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Meta, TikTok, YouTube and other platforms are facing landmark “social media addiction” trials in California, where juries are weighing whether features like endless feeds and autoplay are harming young users. A lead Los Angeles case brought by a woman known as K.G.M. has become the template for hundreds of similar suits, and TikTok and Snap have already quietly settled while denying wrongdoing—signaling some companies may prefer deals over having their recommendation engines dissected in open co

In a series of X posts on Friday (Feb.13), Wiz Khalifa revealed that his father, Laurence W. Thomaz, sadly passed away at 63 years old.” Today, my father decided not to wake up. I will always love him, miss him, and be grateful for the things he taught me,” he wrote.  In another post, Wiz recalled one of the last conversations he shared with his dad. “The last conversation i had with my dad was him telling me how proud of me he was for the movie i was in and I promised him i would do more. LT F

As President Donald Trump changed tariff agreements with a number of countries, there was one constant: goods became more expensive for US companies and consumers. In research released Thursday by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, a group of analysts and economists found that in 2025, the average tariff rate on imported goods rose to 13% from just 2.6% at the start of the year. The New York Fed found that 90% of the cost of increased tariffs, which Trump imposed on goods from Mexico, China

The Merchant’s House Museum, a slim 19th-century townhouse in Manhattan’s NoHo neighborhood, has discovered a link to the underground railroad just in time for Black History Month. Spectrum New York News 1 broke the news on Tuesday (Feb. 9). Located on East Fourth Street, the building is long celebrated for its preservation of the “old New York.” The building’s underground railroad discovery is set as a concealed passageway hidden inside the landmarked home, which likely served as a safe haven

The US House of Representatives has voted to rescind US President Donald Trump's tariffs on Canadian goods. In a 219 to 211 vote, six Republican lawmakers joined Democrats to back a resolution that seeks to end the tariffs Trump imposed on Canada last year.  The vote is largely symbolic as it will still need to be approved by the US Senate and then approved by Trump, who is very unlikely to sign it into law.  Since his re-election, Donald Trump has imposed a series of tariffs on Canada, recen

Ghislaine Maxwell is serving a 20‑year federal sentence for conspiring with Jeffrey Epstein to sexually abuse minors and is now trying to cut that term short through clemency and politics rather than further appeals. In 2021, a New York jury convicted Maxwell on sex‑trafficking and related counts tied to recruiting and grooming underage girls for Epstein over many years; she was sentenced in June 2022, with the judge calling her conduct “heinous and predatory.” Her direct appeals have effectiv

Ukraine is preparing to open 10 weapons export centers across Europe and begin production of Ukrainian‑designed drones in Germany, marking a shift from wartime arms recipient to emerging arms exporter. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told students at the Kyiv Aviation Institute that the export hubs—planned for 2026 across the Baltic and Northern European states—will sell systems built with Ukrainian technology, with German production to start in mid‑February and lines already running in the UK. A

Venezuela’s ousted president Nicolás Maduro is in U.S. federal custody in New York, where he and his wife, Cilia Flores, face a superseding indictment in the Southern District of New York on narco‑terrorism, cocaine‑importation conspiracy, weapons and related charges. Prosecutors allege that for years Maduro and senior Venezuelan officials worked with Colombian guerrilla groups and traffickers to move large quantities of cocaine from Venezuela toward the United States, using state resources and

Lil Jon said this week that his son, Nathan Smith, has died after authorities recovered a body from a pond in Georgia believed to be the 27-year-old. Smith, who performed under the name DJ Young Slade, had been reported missing days earlier. Officials said confirmation from the medical examiner is still pending. The news has drawn widespread attention and sympathy. In a statement to TMZ, Lil Jon described the loss in personal terms. “I am profoundly heartbroken over the tragic loss of our son,

Mayor Zohran Mamdani said this week that New Yorkers will soon be able to access the cupola atop the David N. Dinkins Manhattan Municipal Building, opening a civic space long closed to the public. The announcement was made in a video posted on X, where the mayor described the structure as “one of the most magnificent government buildings in the world.” Named for the city’s first Black mayor, the building occupies a central place in Manhattan’s civic landscape. City officials framed the plan as a

Savannah Guthrie’s 84‑year‑old mother, Nancy, is still missing in Arizona, and investigators now say they believe she was abducted from her home outside Tucson. Authorities and Guthrie’s family have shared key details of the case in an ongoing timeline from ABC News. Nancy was last seen on the night of January 31, when family members dropped her at her house after dinner; by the next morning, church friends raised the alarm when she didn’t show up to Sunday services. Deputies later found her ca

Lil Jon’s son, DJ Young Slade, is reportedly missing. The 28-year-old artist was last seen in Milton, Georgia, on Tuesday (Feb.3).  TMZ reports that Young Slade—real name Nathan Murray Smith—was allegedly last seen fleeing his home on foot around 6 a.m. It was also reported that Smith left with no belongings. Questions have arisen about Smith’s state of mind. According to police reports, Smith was reportedly disoriented and allegedly naked at the time he left. The official missing person alert

The U.S. Department of Justice has released roughly 3 million additional documents related to Jeffrey Epstein, fulfilling a congressional mandate to make more of the case file public. Officials say the new batch—part of a larger archive estimated at more than 800,000 records—includes emails, messages and jail records, with many names of women redacted for privacy. Early reporting from outlets such as The Wall Street Journal says the files contain references to several high‑profile men, includin

Jay-Z and Pusha T have been listed in the Epstein files following the release of new documents by the United States Department of Justice. The Epstein files is a nearly 3.5 million pages of documents, images and videos detailing the activities of Jeffrey Epstein, the disgraced financier and convicted sex offender. It refers to materials that allegedly name or implicate powerful people who may have had connections to Epstein or his sex-trafficking network. Part of the newly released documents,

Ray J, the US singer, has revealed that doctors have warned he may not have much time left to live. The 45-year-old hitmaker, who was hospitalised on January 6 for pneumonia and heart-related issues, disclosed the severity of his condition in a recent Instagram post and a live video. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Ray J (@rayj) Ray J revealed that is health “isn’t okay,” adding that “my heart’s only beating like 25%”. “I want to thank everybody for praying for me. I was i

US technology giant Amazon has confirmed it will cut 16,000 jobs - hours after it told staff about a new round of global redundancies in an email apparently sent in error. View this post on Instagram A post shared by New Dope (@newdopehq) The email, which has been seen by the BBC, was sent late on Tuesday and refers to a swathe of employees in the US, Canada and Costa Rica having been laid off as part of an effort to "strengthen the company." The message was apparently shared by mistake

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte has told Europe it should “keep on dreaming” if it thinks it can defend itself without the support of the United States. “If anyone thinks here again that the European Union, or Europe as a whole, can defend itself without the US, keep on dreaming. You can’t. We can’t. We need each other,” Rutte said during an address to the European Parliament in Brussels on Monday. The NATO chief warned European nations they would need to increase defense spending to 10% if

The killing of a US citizen by federal immigration agents on Saturday — the second in Minneapolis this month — sparked new protests and impassioned demands by local leaders for the Trump administration to end its operation in the city. Federal agents shot dead Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old ICU nurse, while scuffling with him on an icy roadway, less than three weeks after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer shot and killed Renee Good, also 37, in her car. The Trump administration

In a recent social media post, Nicki Minaj confirmed that she’ll be a guest speaker at an upcoming summit on behalf of President Donald Trump.  According to reports, Trump will be joined by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and philanthropist Michael Dell. On Saturday (Jan.24), Minaj reposted a flyer about the event from Bessent’s press secretary with a photo of her in front of an American flag. Dubbed the “Trump Accounts Summit,” the day-long event will take place on Wednesday, Jan. 28, in Wash

US federal officials struggled Friday to quell growing outrage over the detention of a five-year-old boy in a massive immigration crackdown in Minneapolis, as businesses in the city shut down in protest at the ongoing raids. The superintendent of Columbia Heights Public Schools, where Liam Conejo Ramos was a preschool student, said the child and his Ecuadoran father, Adrian Conejo Arias — both asylum seekers — were taken from their driveway as they arrived home. Ramos was then used as “bait” by

Prince Harry arrived Monday at London’s High Court for an anticipated nine-week trial into claims that a UK newspaper group unlawfully gathered information on him. In the last unresolved case after the British royal brought lawsuits against several UK newspaper publishers, Harry is jointly suing Associated Newspapers Ltd (ANL), the publisher of the Daily Mail and The Mail on Sunday tabloids. Harry, who is set to take the stand to give evidence on Thursday, entered the Royal Courts of Justice s

A high-speed train has derailed and been hit by another in southern Spain killing at least 39 people and injuring more than 120, authorities said on Monday. It said the country’s worst train crash in over a decade was “extremely strange”. This was the deadliest train accident since 2013, when 80 people died after a train veered off a curved section of track outside the northwestern city of Santiago de Compostela. The crash happened on Sunday evening when a train operated by rail company Iryo

UN chief Antonio Guterres Saturday deplored a host of “powerful forces lining up to undermine global cooperation” in a London speech marking the 80th anniversary of the first UN General Assembly. Guterres, whose term as secretary-general ends on December 31 this year, delivered the warning at the Methodist Central Hall in London, where representatives from 51 countries met on January 10, 1946, for the General Assembly’s first session. They met in London because the UN headquarters in New York

US President Donald Trump has threatened to place tariffs on nations that do not go along with his ambitions to annex Greenland. Trump said at a White House meeting that he "may put a tariff on countries if they don't go along with Greenland", which is a self-governing territory controlled by Denmark.  He did not say which countries might be hit with new tariffs, or what authority he would invoke to use such import taxes in pursuit of his goal. Along with Denmark and Greenland, other countrie