Part of our “News That Matters“ Series, “Weekend Update” is a weekly feature that offers brief overviews of important news that might have been overlooked in the course of a busy weekend. Here’s what you may have missed in the period January 18 through January 20, 2025.
@WEATHER AND TRAVEL
Arctic Blast and Severe Winter Storm in the South to Unleash Extreme Weather Over 75% of U.S., Travelers See Thousands of Delayed and Cancelled Flights
Most of the United States will be assailed with various combinations of extreme winter weather this week, and flight delays and cancellations as a result of snow, ice, and crippling cold are already in the thousands.
The National Weather Service in a midday Sunday weather statement said that there will be “Dangerous cold weather for most of the country…” as a “rare winter storm (heads) for the South.”
“Arctic air will filter south and east through early this week,” the NWS said. “As this cold air moves across the South, a rare winter storm is forecast to develop from Texas, Gulf Coast States into the Southeast through early this week. Several new daily record low temperatures are expected, including new record-low maximum temperatures.”
Snow was falling in New York City Sunday night.
On Sunday, there were 5,760 flights within, into, and departing the United Statees that were delayed and an additional 1,222 were cancelled, according to FlightAware.com, which tracks such information. New York City’s two airports – LaGuardia and John F. Kennedy International – along with nearby Newark Liberty International Airport saw the greatest number of flight delays and cancellations in both the United States and globally Sunday, while Republic Air, JetBlue Airways, Endeavor Air, and United Airlines experienced the greatest number of delays and cancellations.
Already on Monday at 12:30 a.m., there were 408 flights within, into, and departing the United Statees that were delayed and an additional 349 were cancelled.
New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy declared a state of emergency due to the storm.
“As always, I urge all New Jerseyans to use caution, follow all safety protocols, and remain off the roads unless absolutely necessary,” the governor said in a message on social media.
In Houston, both George Bush Intercontinental Airport and William P. Hobby, the city’s two major aerodromes, will be closed all day on Tuesday and schools in the Houston Independent School District – the largest in the state and the eighth-largest in the country – will also be closed until Wednesday, Whitmire said.
Downloads for TikTok are on pause due to US legal constraints.
@DEADLINE
Tik.. Tok.. Boom! TikTok Was Forced to Shut Down in U.S. for a Minute
TikTok officially shut down in the United States… and a few hours later, it began to reappear after President-elect Donald Trump pledged to delay for 90 days the enforcement of the national security law that had caused the shutdown in the first place to allow the company to find a U.S. backer, a move that would presumably defuse national security concerns.
In informing users of the shutdown, it also said it was working to restore service, yet no one had anticipated this would happen in mere hours.
“We regret that a U.S. law banning TikTok will take effect on January 19 and force us to make our services temporarily unavailable,” TikTok said.
Apple removed the company’s app from its App Store, and Google did the same with Play Store.
It remains unclear whether Trump’s promised extension would be legal given that the law, which was strongly supported in Congress by members of both parties, was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court. Trump spoke of a joint venture under which a U.S. company would acquire 50% of the American arm of TikTok, which is owned by Beijing-based Bytedance, but the managing director of a private equity firm focused on China who wished to remain anonymous told FBT and The Travelist that if TikTok was a national security threat under 100% Chinese ownership, co-control, i.e. a joint venture, would be no better. “If TikTok doesn’t end up under majority U.S. control, it won’t be operating in the United States.”
What, me listen in?
@BRIEFLY NOTED
Capital One Has Been Hit by a National Outage
Beginning Wednesday afternoon, tens of thousands of Capital One customers began to report problems getting their banking done. The bank in a statement posted on social media on Thursday said that the problem was “temporarily impacting some account services, deposits, and payment processing for portions of our consumer, small business, and commercial bank. Finally, on Sunday, the bank announced in an e-mail to customers that the issues had been resolved and that a technical issue with a third-party vendor had been to blame for a disruption with deposits and payment processing that stretched into the weekend.
Apple to Pay $95 Million to Settle Siri Spying Lawsuit
Apple said that it will pay $95 million to settle a proposed class action lawsuit involving Siri spying accusations. The suit alleged that Apple had recorded conversations captured with accidental Siri activations, and then shared information from those conversations with third-party advertisers. Two plaintiffs claimed that, after discussing specific brands and products within earshot of Siri their iPhones displayed adverts for the very same brands and products. The customers claimed that they would not have purchased Apple products had they known about the Siri’s surreptitious recordings.
(Photos: Accura Media Group)
