2 Telangana men killed by Pakistani national in Dubai, minister G Kishan Reddy assures MEA support
The Minister said that he has spoken to External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, who has assured full support to the bereaved families.
Mark Zuckerberg on the stand: ‘Crazy,’ ‘scary’ ideas led him to buy Instagram and WhatsApp
It’s too bad there are no cameras allowed in federal courtrooms, because I really would like to see Mark Zuckerberg testify. He was the leadoff witness in the Federal Trade Commission’s antitrust lawsuit against Meta, and that in itself was news. The clash is the most sweeping attempt to dismember the world’s biggest social network, and goes to the heart of how competition is defined. HAWLEY DEMANDS ZUCKERBERG TESTIFY ON ALLEGED TIES BETWEEN META, CHINA Not since the government broke up AT&T more than four decades ago has a mega-corporation faced the prospect of being torn apart. The suit was filed in the first Trump term (the president couldn’t stand Facebook at the time), aggressively pursued by Joe Biden, and now has finally come to trial in a Washington courtroom. Trump once told me Facebook was such a threat to society that he used it as justification for flip-flopping on his effort to ban TikTok. But since he won a second term, Zuck, like many tech bros, has been cozying up to the new sheriff in town, including a $1-million donation to the president’s inaugural. There are reports that when the man who runs Facebook recently met with Trump, he asked about the possibility of dropping the lawsuit. Obviously, it didn’t work. The focus of the trial is Zuckerberg’s decision to buy Instagram and WhatsApp when they were small start-ups. FACT-CHECKING DIRECTOR WARNS OF ‘CRISIS’ AS META, TRUMP’S DOGE CUTS THREATEN THEIR ‘HONORABLE, PATRIOTIC’ WORK The FTC’s lead lawyer questioned Zuckerberg about a platform meant to foster ties between family and friends to a concentration on showing users interesting third-party content through its news feed. “It’s the case that over time, the ‘interest’ part of that has gotten built out more than the ‘friend’ part,” Zuckerberg said. He added that “the ‘friend’ part has gone down quite a bit, but it’s still something we care about.” Translation: Screw the friends. Very 2010s. We’ve moved on. Zuckerberg spoke slowly – at least according to reporters who were there – and he was back on the hot seat yesterday. FTC lawyers pressed him on a stack of emails he had sent: “We really need to get our act together quickly on this since Instagram’s growing so fast. “Instagram has become a large and viable competitor to us on mobile photos, which will increasingly be the future of photos.” WHISTLEBLOWER TELLS SENATE COMMITTEE THAT META UNDERMINED US NATIONAL SECURITY TO COZY UP TO CHINA “If Instagram continues to kick ass on photos, or if Google buys them, then over the next few years they could easily add pieces of their service that copy what we’re doing now.” Which was a flop called Facebook Camera. In yet another message, Zuck called Instagram’s growth “really scary,” saying “we might want to consider paying a lot of money for this.” Facebook bought Instagram for $1 billion in 2012, and two years later spent $19 billion on WhatsApp. In an email to Tom Alison, head of Facebook, Z offered alternatives: “Option 1. Double down on Friending. One potentially crazy idea is to consider wiping everyone’s graphs and having them start again.” Alison responded: “I’m not sure Option #1 in your proposal (Double-down on Friending) would be viable given my understanding of how vital the friend use case is to IG.” Now we come to the fascinating part. It’s not breaking news that Mark’s judgment can be flawed. Remember when he insisted that virtual reality would be the next big thing? But he argues that Meta has all kinds of rivals in the “entertainment” area, such as X, TikTok and YouTube – and he easily could have added Snap, Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and HBO’s Max. It’s all about the battle for eyeballs now. There are only so many hours in the day. Mindshare is everything. SUBSCRIBE TO HOWIE’S MEDIA BUZZMETER PODCAST, A RIFF ON THE DAY’S HOTTEST STORIES And with group chats all the rage, Meta doesn’t do well on that kind of interaction, with Instagram as a possible exception. Now of course it’s in Zuckerberg’s self-interest to testify that he competes with anything that has a screen. But it’s not that far off the mark. Keep in mind that Meta has 4 billion active monthly users. I sure wish we could see the embattled CEO making the case that he’s awash in a vast sea of rivals.
Gurugram shocker: Air hostess on ventilator in hospital sexually assaulted by staff, say police
Following the complaint, an FIR was registered against unidentified staff members of the hospital at Sadar police station on Monday, police said.
Trump believes it’s up to China to open talks on trade, White House says
Hong Kong’s postal service says it will no longer accept US-bound goods in response to US ‘bullying’. United States President Donald Trump believes China must take the initiative to find a resolution to trade tensions between Washington and Beijing, the White House has said. In a statement on Tuesday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt quoted Trump as saying that “the ball is in China’s court”. “China needs to make a deal with us, we don’t have to make a deal with them,” Leavitt told a media briefing in remarks that she said came directly from Trump. “There’s no difference between China and any other country except that they are much larger. And China wants what we have – every country wants what we have – the American consumer. Or to put it another way, they need our money,” Leavitt said, adding that Trump had made it “quite clear” that he is open to a trade deal with China. Trump’s statement came shortly after he accused China of reneging on a deal with US aircraft manufacturer Boeing, following a report by Bloomberg that Beijing had directed Chinese airlines to stop taking deliveries of Boeing planes. Advertisement Boeing shares fell 2.36 percent after the report, which cited “people familiar with the matter”. Boeing and Chinese authorities have not confirmed or commented on the report. “They just reneged on the big Boeing deal, saying that they will ‘not take possession’ of fully committed to aircraft,” Trump said on Truth Social. The US and China have been locked in an escalating trade war since Trump’s return to the White House. Despite pausing most of his “reciprocal” tariffs on dozens of trading partners, Trump has ramped up import taxes on most Chinese goods to 145 percent. China has, in turn, hit US exports with a 125 percent tariff. In the latest escalation on Wednesday, Hong Kong’s postal service said it would stop carrying US-bound mail in response to the tariffs. “The US is unreasonable, bullying and imposing tariffs abusively. Hongkong Post will definitely not collect any so-called tariffs on behalf of the US and will suspend the acceptance of postal items containing goods destined to the US,” Hong Kong Post said in a statement. It added that it would stop taking surface mail with immediate effect and stop accepting airmail from April 27. China has said that it opposes protectionism but it is willing to “fight to the end” if the US continues to escalate its trade salvoes. In an op-ed published in Vietnam’s Nhan Dan newspaper on Monday, Chinese President Xi Jinping said that trade wars “yield no winners” and protectionism “offers no solutions”. “There is a need to resolutely protect the multilateral trading system, sustain the stability of global production and supply chains, and maintain an open and cooperative international environment,” Xi said in the op-ed, which was published to coincide with the Chinese leader beginning a five-day tour of Southeast Asia. Advertisement Adblock test (Why?)
Xi arrives in Malaysia with a message: China’s a better partner than Trump
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia – China’s President Xi Jinping has arrived in Malaysia as part of a Southeast Asian tour which is seen as delivering a personal message that Beijing is a more reliable trading partner than the United States amid a bruising trade war with Washington. Xi arrived in the capital, Kuala Lumpur, on Tuesday evening in what is his first visit to Malaysia since 2013. He flew in from Vietnam where he had signed dozens of trade cooperation agreements in Hanoi on everything from artificial intelligence to rail development. On touching down, Xi said that deepening “high-level strategic cooperation” was good for the common interests of both China and Malaysia, and good for peace, stability and prosperity in the region and the world”, according to the official Malaysian news agency Bernama. Xi’s three-country tour and his “message” that Beijing is Southeast Asia’s better friend than the truculent administration of US President Donald Trump comes as many countries in the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) bloc are unhappy with their treatment after the US imposed huge tariffs on countries around the world. Chinese President Xi Jinping, right, shakes hands with Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, left, as he arrives for a three-day state visit, at Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Malaysia, on Tuesday evening [Handout/Department of Information Malaysia via Reuters] “This is a very significant visit. You can read many things into it,” said Mohamed Nazri Abdul Aziz, a former Malaysian ambassador to the US and minister of legal affairs. Advertisement “China is telling us they are a reliable trading partner, more than the US. We never had problems dealing with them,” Abdul Aziz told Al Jazeera. “Under PM Anwar, Malaysia is getting very much closer [to China]. It’s a good thing,” he added, noting that “in the long run”, Washington’s “influence will be reduced”. With China, however, trade relations and diplomatic ties are getting stronger and both countries are benefitting, the former ambassador said. “We are very focused on China. That’s our mentality,” he said. Washington hit Malaysia with a 24 percent trade tariff, accusing it of imposing a 47 percent tariff on US imports, a rate that Malaysian officials rejected. Trump has more recently brought in a 90-day moratorium on the highest US tariffs imposed on countries around the world. Instead, they face a 10 percent tariff on goods exported to the US. That is except for China, which has been hit with levies of 145 percent on its goods. ‘Bypass America’ Xi will be in Kuala Lumpur for three days, during which he will meet with Malaysia’s King Sultan Ibrahim ibni Iskandar and Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim and attend state banquets before heading to Cambodia on Thursday. During his earlier visit to Vietnam, Xi urged Hanoi and China to “jointly oppose hegemonism, unilateralism and protectionism” and pushed for “economic globalisation that is more open, inclusive, balanced and beneficial to all,” the official Chinese state news agency Xinhua reported. Trump was quoted by The Associated Press news agency as saying that China and Vietnam were trying “to figure out, how do we screw the United States of America?”. Advertisement Xi’s visit to Malaysia is in part an effort to “reinforce” the view that China can “offer to bypass America”, said James Chin, professor of Asian studies at the University of Tasmania in Australia, via a different international order such as BRICS – the 10-country intergovernmental organisation comprising Brazil, Russia, India and China, among others. There is also the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) free trade agreement – arguably the largest in the world – of which all 10 ASEAN nations are members along with China, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand. “Basically, this is all architectured to build a new international order… Trump has given China the excuse to push harder amongst countries around the world, especially developing countries,” Chin said. “One of the things they [the Chinese] are trying to do is to set up a bilateral trading system where they can stop using US dollars. Any country that trades with China can do a currency swap [where] you pay in your own currency or swap with the [Chinese] renminbi,” he added. ‘We make money’ with China Of the three countries Xi chose to visit this week, analysts said Malaysia is deemed to be the most important for China, given its sizeable 32 million population, its developing high-tech base and its current chairmanship of ASEAN. China is also Malaysia’s largest trading partner since 2009, and in 2024, China-Malaysia trade reached $212bn. “China hopes to jack up trade with Malaysia, which will make up for the expected downgrading of exports to the US,” said Willy Wo-Lap Lam, a senior China analyst with the US-based Jamestown Foundation and author of the book, From Confucius to Xi Jinping. Advertisement “Politically, Malaysia has a lot of influence among all 10 ASEAN states,” Lam said. “Including how countries that have territorial disputes with China in the South China Sea should respond to Beijing’s aggressive tactics in bolstering its hold over.” Alfred Muluan Wu, associate professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore, agreed, saying that Beijing also views Malaysia as being within its traditional sphere of influence, regionally. That includes economically in terms of Chinese investments and the “China Plus One” strategy, which involves Chinese companies diversifying their manufacturing bases and supply chains and setting up plants outside of China. Beijing sees the establishment of business enterprises in Malaysia and other Southeast Asian countries as a way “to spread” China’s influence, Wu said. Ei Sun Oh, principal adviser at the Pacific Research Center of Malaysia, a think tank, also believes that Xi’s visit is about encouraging Kuala Lumpur to look more towards Beijing and “not unduly take the US side”, which is something that may suit Malaysia, too. “Geopolitically, Malaysia might still toy with the idea of having a fling with China to deliberately antagonise the US over very remote
Supreme Court to hear pleas against Waqf Amendment Act today
A three-judge bench comprising Chief Justice Sanjiv Khanna and Justices Sanjay Kumar and K V Viswanathan, so far, listed 10 petitions on the issue.
Texas GOP could stall Trump’s bold AI vision with red tape as China races ahead: ‘Investors are nervous’
President Donald Trump’s high-tech moonshot may hit a Texas-sized speed bump — and it’s coming from his own party. Trump’s AI initiative, dubbed “Stargate,” aims to build 20 ultra-powerful data centers across the country. Backed by heavyweights like OpenAI, Oracle, SoftBank, and the UAE-funded MGX, the project represents a $500 billion bet on the future with Texas chosen as ground zero for the first 10 centers. But a new Texas bill, Senate Bill 6, could delay or derail that momentum. The legislation adds a six-month regulatory review on top of an existing 6–18-month timeline, while also requiring new fees and mandatory backup generators, doubling approval time and inflating costs. EXCLUSIVE: WHITE HOUSE ROLLS OUT IMPLEMENTATION OF AI FOR FEDERAL EMPLOYEE RECORDS And while the legislation is pitched as a safeguard against another Winter Storm Uri-style blackout, Trump allies warn it could torpedo a generational opportunity. “This bill would be a serious roadblock to the president’s vision,” said Vance Ginn, president of Ginn Economic Consulting and former chief economist at the White House Office of Management and Budget during Trump’s first term, in an exclusive interview with Fox News Digital. “It’s a misguided effort that’s rooted in fear: fear of energy scarcity, fear of AI, fear of the future.” According to Ginn, the bill’s hefty requirements, including a $100,000 grid connection fee and a so-called “kill switch” that would let the Electric Reliability Council of Texas cut power to data centers, could end up pushing these billion-dollar projects out of Texas entirely. “These companies aren’t just using energy,” Ginn said. “Many of them actually put excess electricity back onto the grid. So instead of hurting Texas, they help stabilize it.” Stargate has already broken ground in Abilene, but the next 10 data centers are still up in the air. If Texas becomes too costly or complicated, experts warn the back half of the project might never happen — even as rival states like Wyoming and Tennessee court businesses without Texas’s infrastructure. WHITE HOUSE SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY CHIEF WARNS CHINA IS ‘CATCHING UP’ IN AI RACE “The Texas legislature should be working in lockstep with President Trump to build out AI infrastructure, not throwing up barriers,” Ginn added. “The AI revolution is here. If Texas fumbles this, it will fall behind.” The bill’s sponsor, Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, insists the legislation won’t hurt Trump’s agenda. “Senate Bill 6 actually ensures President Trump’s Stargate Plan is a success,” Patrick said in a statement. “We are in lockstep with the president on his goal to make America number one, and dominate China on AI, data centers, and cryptocurrency.” Even with a Trump endorsement for Patrick’s re-election, Trump-aligned economists say the state is playing a dangerous game. “We’re already seeing signs of this,” Ginn warned. “Microsoft has pulled back on projects. Investors are nervous. And meanwhile, China’s forging ahead.” A Chinese startup called DeepSeek has made headlines for rolling out cutting-edge AI models in record time, triggering fresh anxiety about America’s standing in the global AI arms race. “This isn’t just about innovation,” Ginn said. “This is national security. If we’re six months behind China, we may never catch up.” Trump has backed up his AI push with hard policy, including a 10% blanket tariff on all imports and a steep 125% tariff on Chinese goods, announced just last week. But those tariffs could also raise the price of key data center components, from steel to electrical transformers. Despite the tradeoffs, the Trump administration sees Stargate as a cornerstone of 21st-century American leadership in everything from education to healthcare. CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP “Texas should be leading,” Ginn said. “We can’t let fear of the unknown hold us back.”
DOT Sec Sean Duffy finalizes $150M grant to build new port of entry on southern border
U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) Secretary Sean Duffy announced Tuesday that a $150 million federal grant had been finalized to construct a new port of entry facility and road for the San Diego-Baja California border. As part of the agreement for the grant, Green New Deal requirements from the Biden administration, including a zero-emission vehicle charging provision, will be removed. The DOT called the requirements a waste of taxpayer funds, taking away from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s (CBP) mission toward national security. DOT SAVES TAXPAYERS OVER $60M BY TERMINATING TEXAS HIGH-SPEED RAIL CONTRACT The Otay Mesa East Port of Entry project was awarded a grant from the Nationally Significant Multimodal Freight and Highway Projects program in September 2022, though the project never moved forward. “Thanks to the prior administration’s lack of focus, this critical project sat in limbo for two years. No more. We moved to finalize this deal so we can help protect our Southern border and crack down on drug trafficking while preventing tax dollars subsidizing pointless Green New Deal priorities,” Duffy said. “This department will continue to clear the previous administration’s unprecedented grants backlog and deliver results.” The $150 million investment will give the CBP new state-of-the-art inspection facilities, as well as a commercial vehicle enforcement facility. DC TRANSIT POLICE OFFICER STABBED AT TRAIN STATION AS SEC SEAN DUFFY ARRIVES TO TALK SAFETY: ‘UNACCEPTABLE’ The deployment of intelligent transportation technologies to help manage traffic demand through dynamic tolling will also be included, which the DOT said will increase inspection efficiency and bolster cross-border trade. TRANSPORTATION SEC SEAN DUFFY SLAMS BLUE-STATE GOVERNOR, SAYS CRIMINALS ‘CONTINUE TO TERRORIZE’ CITY RESIDENTS DOT added that the project will reduce congestion, bring economic benefits and spur job creation across Southern California. The nearly 3,600 trucks that cross the border at Otay Mesa and Tecate Ports of Entry, which are currently operating at full capacity, will have an alternative crossing once the project is complete. The project comes after the Trump administration inherited over 3,200 grants which were promoted by the Biden administration but never followed through on, according to the DOT. “This unprecedented backlog of unobligated grants delayed critical investments in communities across the country,” the DOT said in a news release. “Under Secretary Duffy’s leadership, the Department is working diligently to accelerate the distribution of these long-overdue funds and address core infrastructure projects.”
Biden recalls seeing ‘colored kids’ on segregated bus during his youth in post-presidency speech
Former President Joe Biden, while reflecting on his youth and witnessing segregation firsthand, referred to Black students as “colored kids” in his first major address since exiting the Oval Office. “We lived in an apartment complex, and she’d [Biden’s mom] drive us only about half a mile to Holy Rosary School in Claymont. But it was so dangerous, she wouldn’t let us walk up,” Biden said Tuesday evening while delivering a speech on the Social Security Administration before a disability advocacy conference in Chicago. “There were hardly any Black people in Scranton at the time … and I was only going into fourth grade. And I remember seeing kids going by, at the time called colored kids, on a bus going by,” Biden added in his anecdote to explain the importance of civil rights laws to him and why he got involved in politics. The 46th president was reflecting on how his family moved from Scranton, Pennsylvania, to Wilmington, Delaware, when he was in fourth grade and how he witnessed segregated schools in the nation’s second-smallest state. BIDEN RETURNS TO PODIUM FOR FIRST TIME TO SLAM TRUMP’S SOCIAL SECURITY PLANS: ‘WRECK IT SO THEY COULD ROB IT’ “They never turned right to go to Claymont High School,” Biden said of Black students not attending a White school. “I asked my mom why? Why? In Delaware, they’re not allowed to go to school in public school with White kids. “And it sparked my sense of outrage as a kid, just like it does [now].” The Supreme Court effectively ended segregation in public schools across the country in the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision. BIDEN AIDES ‘SCRIPTED’ EVERYTHING, ALLOWED HIS FACULTIES TO ‘ATROPHY,’ NEW BOOK CLAIMS The former president joined the Advocates, Counselors and Representatives for the Disabled (ACRD) conference in Chicago Tuesday evening, where he received the “beacon of hope award” for his accomplishments as president and addressed the gathering about the Social Security Administration, including attacking the Trump administration for its policies. “Why are these guys taking aim at Social Security now?” Biden asked, referring to the Trump administration. “Well, they’re following that old line from tech startups. The quote is ‘move fast, break things.’ They’re certainly breaking things. They’re shooting first and aiming later. “The result is a lot of needless pain and sleepless nights.” Biden added that the Trump administration is looking to “wreck” Social Security to “rob it.” “My friend, Gov. O’Malley, knows what they’re really up to. He says, and I love his quote, ‘They want to wreck it so they could rob it.’ They want to wreck it so they could rob it. Why do they want to rob it? In order to deliver huge tax cuts to billionaires and big corporations and keep it going. They want to make permanent the 2017 tax cuts, which overwhelmingly benefits the wealthiest Americans and the biggest corporations. That’s going to cost $5 trillion. Where are they going to get $5 trillion to pay for (it) when they continue to run the deficit up? BIDEN’S TEAM HID THE TRUTH ABOUT HIS HEALTH ALL ALONG: WH PRESS SEC “What they always do … by running up the national debt, No. 1. Then by taking the money from someplace else. What are the two big pots of money out there in raw numbers? Social Security and Medicaid. …. Republicans, these guys are willing to hurt the middle class and the working class in order to deliver significant, greater wealth to their already very wealthy. Who in the hell do they think they are?” The Trump administration has cut about 7,000 Social Security Administration staffers since taking office as part of its mission to cut government fat and bureaucracy and realign agencies with “America First” policies. Democrats have slammed President Donald Trump over the cuts, claiming he will cut Social Security benefits to seniors. The White House has repeatedly rejected claims that the Trump administration will cut such benefits, vowing to “always protect” Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid benefits. The Trump administration’s official Social Security X account responded after the speech that “Biden is lying to Americans,” before providing a detailed list of “facts,” including that Trump has repeatedly pledged to protect benefits and that no field office has been closed since Jan. 20. The ACRD conference was billed as the 46th president’s first public speech since leaving the White House. Biden however, has delivered other public remarks since Jan. 20, Fox Digital found, such as speaking at the National High School Model United Nations in March, but those events received little media coverage.
Pentagon deputy chief of staff is second Hegseth advisor removed amid DOD leak probe
The Defense Department’s (DOD) deputy chief of staff was placed on administrative leave on Tuesday, following the steps of another Pentagon official earlier in the day. Darin Selnick, the deputy chief of staff for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, has been removed, a senior U.S. official confirmed to Fox News. Selnick is under investigation for the same leak probe that saw Hegseth aide Dan Caldwell escorted out of the Pentagon by security. Both Selnick and Caldwell are on administrative leave. According to the Pentagon’s website, Selnick is a retired Air Force officer who has worked extensively in veterans’ affairs organizations. “Mr. Selnick leverages his extensive government and non-government experience advocating for veterans to position Service members for productive post-separation lives from the first day they put on a uniform,” the biography states. GENERAL WHO HELPED TRUMP DECIMATE ISIS TERRORISTS IN FIRST TERM CONFIRMED AS JOINT CHIEFS CHAIRMAN Both Selnick and Caldwell worked for Concerned Veterans for America in the past, a group formerly led by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Reuters reported that Caldwell was placed on leave for an “unauthorized disclosure,” as part of an investigation into leaked Pentagon documents. The probe was announced last month, and concerned itself over “recent unauthorized disclosures of national security information.” HEGSETH QUIPS ‘99.9%’ OF DEI INITIATIVES ARE GONE FROM THE MILITARY UNDER TRUMP’S WATCH “The use of polygraphs in the execution of this investigation will be in accordance with applicable law and policy,” DOD Chief of Staff Joe Kasper wrote in a memo at the time. “This investigation will commence immediately and culminate in a report to the Secretary of Defense.” An official told Politico that the leak concerned Panama Canal plans and Elon Musk’s visit to the Pentagon, among other matters. More information about the leak is unknown, and there is currently no evidence to connect Caldwell or Selnick to that leak. Fox News Digital’s Morgan Phillips contributed to this report.