Morning Report

TODAY’S BUSINESS story

TikTok finalizes deal creating US version

What happened
TikTok’s Chinese owner ByteDance and a group of investors yesterday closed a $14 billion deal to create a U.S. version of the popular social video platform. The joint venture, which leaves ByteDance with a 19.9% stake and non-Chinese investors with the other 80.1%, ends years of uncertainty over the platform’s U.S. future. A 2024 law ordered TikTok to sever ties with China by last January or go dark, but President Donald Trump pushed back that deadline five times as his administration sought to broker a deal.

Who said what
The main investors in TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC include Oracle, Silver Lake and the Emirati investment firm MGX, each with a 15% stake. Adam Presser, TikTok’s former head of operations, will lead the new venture as CEO, and Oracle and its partners “will retrain, test and update the content recommendation algorithm on U.S. user data,” TikTok said.

The platform’s 200 million U.S. users “will be able to keep their existing TikTok app,” The New York Times said, but it is “too soon to say” how the “much vaunted algorithm” will change with Oracle overseeing content moderation. Lawmakers forced this ownership change over concerns that China could surveil Americans or spread propaganda. But by shifting ownership to “American companies who perhaps have a close relationship with the sitting president,” said Georgetown University law professor Anupam Chander, “we may have traded fears of foreign propaganda for the reality of domestic propaganda.”

What next?
“China hawks” in Congress have “vowed to scrutinize the potential deal to ensure it adheres to the law,” Politico said, but yesterday “they seemed prepared to accept Trump’s claim the deal would resolve concerns over national security and control.”

TODAY’S LEGAL Story

Trump sues JPMorgan for $5B over ‘debanking’

What happened
President Donald Trump yesterday filed a $5 billion lawsuit against JPMorgan Chase and its CEO, Jamie Dimon (pictured above), accusing the banking giant of abruptly closing his accounts for “political” reasons after the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot. The lawsuit, filed in Florida state court in Miami, alleges that JP Morgan “debanked” Trump and his businesses after his first term “because it believed that the political tide at the moment favored doing so.”

Who said what
Debanking, “once a relatively obscure issue in finance,” has “become a politically charged issue in recent years, with conservative politicians arguing that banks have discriminated against them,” The Associated Press said. Along with the account closures, Trump’s suit also claims that JPMorgan put him on a “blacklist,” The Wall Street Journal said, and that this alleged blacklisting was “personally approved by Dimon and led other banks to avoid working with the Trumps.”

A “number of companies shunned doing business” with Trump after his “most rabid supporters” stormed the Capitol, but “most businesses rushed to welcome him back” after he won in 2024, The New York Times said. Over the past year, Trump has “sought to settle old grievances” by suing or threatening lawsuits “against companies and individuals that he says have wronged him.” A similar Trump debanking lawsuit filed against Capital One last March is “still winding its way through the court system,” the AP said.

What next?
JPMorgan said Trump’s suit “has no merit,” but “we respect the president’s right to sue us and our right to defend ourselves.” The bank said it “does not close accounts for political or religious reasons,” but has to if they “create legal or regulatory risk for the company.” Trump is “demanding a jury trial,” Fox Business said.

It’s not all bad

Students at Boyle County High School in Kentucky are eating five-star lunches, thanks to a kitchen staff that cooks from scratch with fresh ingredients from local farmers. Fajitas and street tacos are among the most popular items, using beef from a sustainable farm seven miles from campus. The school’s partnership with farmers benefits everyone, officials say, with food waste plummeting and kids enjoying their meals. “Most days, honestly, I’m gonna give it a good 9.5,” student Nora Coleman told LEX 18.

Under the radar

How space travel changes your brain

They say travel broadens your mind. But if you are travelling into space, it could displace your brain.

New research adds to a growing body of evidence that astronauts’ brains change position and shape in space. The brain shifts “upward and backward within the skull following spaceflight, with sensory and motor regions exhibiting the largest shifts,” according to a NASA-funded study published in PNAS this month. These brain shape changes are “considerable” and can lead to disorientation and loss of balance. They can persist for more than six months after return to Earth. This evidence of brain deformation “could complicate future efforts to explore the cosmos,” said Futurism.

The researchers examined MRI scans from 26 astronauts who had been in space for varying amounts of time. Those astronauts who went to space for a year “showed the largest changes,” said study co-author Rachael Seidler at the University of Florida.

Most of the astronauts’ brain deformation “recovered over six months postflight” but “some persisted,” the study concluded. The “health and human performance implications” of these findings require “further study to pave the way for safer human space exploration.”

But further research on spaceflight’s long-term effects on humans is hamstrung by the small available sample size. Although the number of long-duration spaceflights has increased significantly over the past 15 years, they are still very rare.

“In short, we’re only beginning to understand how microgravity affects our brains,” said Futurism.” More research “could prove invaluable” if we’re thinking of venturing “even deeper into space.”

On this day

January 23, 1997

Madeleine Albright was sworn in as secretary of state under President Bill Clinton, becoming the first woman to hold that office. Two other women have since served as America's top diplomat: Condoleezza Rice and Hillary Clinton.

TODAY’S newspaperS

‘Another loss’

“Children as young as 5 detained” in Twin Cities as “tactics raise questions on ICE training,” The Minnesota Star Tribune says on Friday’s front page. “Man not guilty in Bovino murder-for-hire” case as jury deals “swift repudiation of Trump administration,” the Chicago Tribune says. Federal prosecutors “thrown for another loss” in an ICE-related case, the Chicago Sun-Times says. “Europe distrust of Washington lingers after Greenland crisis,” The Wall Street Journal says. “Weary Greenlanders don’t trust Trump’s word,” the Los Angeles Times says. “Trump’s vision for Gaza belies reality on ground,” The Washington Post says. “Few say return of Trump has improved life in U.S.,” The New York Times says. “Ready or not, the cold is coming” for much of the U.S., says The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

► See the newspaper front pages

Tall tale

Who let the dogs out?

Several attendees at an American Humane Society gala held at President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club “raised eyebrows” by wearing 18th century formal wear with “dog masks over their heads,” said People. Their “unconventional” attire echoed the “furry” fetish subculture, and pictures of the participants quickly went viral online. “Why is Donald Trump hosting a FURRY PARTY???” California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) asked on X. Trump attended the event, though not in costume.

Morning Report was written and edited by Nadia Croes, Catherine Garcia, Scott Hocker, Anya Jaremko-Greenwold, Justin Klawans, Chas Newkey-Burden, Rafi Schwartz, Peter Weber and Kari Wilkin, with illustrations by Stephen Kelly and Julia Wytrazek.