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Sources: TikTok Prepares to Shut Down App in US on Sunday

FILE PHOTO: US, Chinese flags, TikTok logo and gavel are seen in this illustration taken January 8, 2025. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: US, Chinese flags, TikTok logo and gavel are seen in this illustration taken January 8, 2025. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
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Sources: TikTok Prepares to Shut Down App in US on Sunday

FILE PHOTO: US, Chinese flags, TikTok logo and gavel are seen in this illustration taken January 8, 2025. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: US, Chinese flags, TikTok logo and gavel are seen in this illustration taken January 8, 2025. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo

TikTok plans to shut US operations of its social media app used by 170 million Americans on Sunday, when a federal ban is set to take effect, barring a last-minute reprieve, people familiar with the matter said on Wednesday.
The Washington Post reported President-elect Donald Trump, whose term begins a day after a ban would start, is considering issuing an executive order to suspend enforcement of a shutdown for 60 to 90 days. The report did not say how Trump could legally do so.
The law signed in April mandates a ban on new TikTok downloads on Apple or Google app stores if Chinese parent ByteDance fails to divest the site.
Users who have downloaded TikTok would theoretically still be able to use the app, except that the law also bars US companies starting Sunday from providing services to enable the distribution, maintenance, or updating of it, Reuters reported.
The Trump transition team did not have an immediate comment. Trump has said he should have time after taking office to pursue a "political resolution" of the issue.
"TikTok itself is a fantastic platform," Trump's incoming national security adviser Mike Waltz told Fox News on Wednesday. "We're going to find a way to preserve it but protect people's data."
The New York Times separately reported that Tiktok CEO has been extended an invitation to attend the President-elect's inauguration and sit in "a position of honor.”
A White House official told Reuters Wednesday President Joe Biden has no plans to intervene to block a ban in his final days in office if the Supreme Court fails to act and added Biden is legally unable to intervene absent a credible plan from ByteDance to divest TikTok.
However, a NBC report later said the Biden administration has been weighing options to keep the social media platform available to users beyond Sunday, in a bid to defer the decision to Donald Trump, who will be inaugurated on Monday.
"Americans shouldn't expect to see TikTok suddenly banned on Sunday," an administration official told the broadcast network.
US Senator Ed Markey on Wednesday sought unanimous consent to extend the deadline for ByteDance to divest TikTok by 270 days but Republican Senator Tom Cotton blocked the proposal.
If it is banned, TikTok plans that users attempting to open the app will see a pop-up message directing them to a website with information about the ban, the people said, requesting anonymity as the matter is not public.
"We go dark. Essentially, the platform shuts down," TikTok lawyer Noel Francisco told the Supreme Court last week.
The company also plans to give users an option to download all their data so that they can take a record of their personal information, the sources said.
Users took to social media platform X to express their disappointment with a potential ban on the app, in the run up to Sunday when the ban takes effect. They also expressed their happiness at reports on Trump considering ways to avert the ban.
The US Supreme Court is currently deciding whether to uphold the law and allow TikTok to be banned on Sunday, overturn the law, or pause the law to give the court more time to make a decision.
Shutting down TikTok in the US could make it unavailable for users in many other countries, the company said in a court filing last month, because hundreds of service providers in the US help make the platform available to TikTok users around the world - and could no longer do so starting Sunday.
TikTok said in the court filing an order was needed to "avoid interruption of services for tens of millions of TikTok users outside the United States."
TikTok had said that the prohibitions would eventually make the app unusable, noting in the filing that "data centers would almost certainly conclude that they can no longer store" TikTok code, content, or data.
The sources said the shutdown aims to protect TikTok service providers from legal liability and make it easier to resume operations if President-elect Donald Trump opted to roll back any ban.
Shutting down such services does not require longer planning, one of the sources said, noting that most operations have been continuing as usual as of this week. If the ban gets reversed later, TikTok would be able to restore service for US users in a relatively short time, sources said.
TikTok and its Chinese parent, ByteDance, did not immediately respond to Reuters' requests for comment.
US tech publication The Information first reported the news late on Tuesday.
Privately held ByteDance is about 60% owned by institutional investors such as BlackRock and General Atlantic, while its founders and employees own 20% each. It has more than 7,000 employees in the United States.
President Joe Biden last April signed a law requiring ByteDance to sell its US assets by Jan. 19, or face a nationwide ban. Last week, the Supreme Court seemed inclined to uphold the law, despite calls from Trump and lawmakers to extend the deadline.
TikTok and ByteDance have sought, at the very least, a delay in the implementation of the law, which they say violates the US Constitution's First Amendment protection against government abridgment of free speech.
TikTok said in the court filing last month it estimated one-third of its 170 million American users would stop accessing the platform if the ban lasted a month.

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World

Trump Set to Expand Immigration Crackdown in 2026 despite Brewing Backlash

A woman holds a poster as immigrants rights activists stage a traditional Mexican posada, reenacting Mary and Joseph’s search for shelter, to symbolize immigrants seeking refuge from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents during the ongoing immigration operation "Catahoula Crunch", in New Orleans, Louisiana, US, December 18, 2025. REUTERS/Seth Herald
A woman holds a poster as immigrants rights activists stage a traditional Mexican posada, reenacting Mary and Joseph’s search for shelter, to symbolize immigrants seeking refuge from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents during the ongoing immigration operation "Catahoula Crunch", in New Orleans, Louisiana, US, December 18, 2025. REUTERS/Seth Herald
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Trump Set to Expand Immigration Crackdown in 2026 despite Brewing Backlash

A woman holds a poster as immigrants rights activists stage a traditional Mexican posada, reenacting Mary and Joseph’s search for shelter, to symbolize immigrants seeking refuge from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents during the ongoing immigration operation "Catahoula Crunch", in New Orleans, Louisiana, US, December 18, 2025. REUTERS/Seth Herald
A woman holds a poster as immigrants rights activists stage a traditional Mexican posada, reenacting Mary and Joseph’s search for shelter, to symbolize immigrants seeking refuge from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents during the ongoing immigration operation "Catahoula Crunch", in New Orleans, Louisiana, US, December 18, 2025. REUTERS/Seth Herald

US President Donald Trump is preparing for a more aggressive immigration crackdown in 2026 with billions in new funding, including by raiding more workplaces — even as backlash builds ahead of next year’s midterm elections.

Trump has already surged immigration agents into major US cities, where they swept through neighborhoods and clashed with residents. While federal agents this year conducted some high-profile raids on businesses, they largely avoided raiding farms, factories and other businesses that are economically important but known to employ immigrants without legal status.

ICE and Border Patrol will get $170 billion in additional funds through September 2029 - a huge surge of funding over their existing annual budgets of about $19 billion after the Republican-controlled Congress passed a massive spending package in July.

Administration officials say they plan to hire thousands more agents, open new detention centers, pick up more immigrants in local jails and partner with outside companies to track down people without legal status, Reuters reported.

The expanded deportation plans come despite growing signs of political backlash ahead of next year’s midterm elections.

Miami, one of the cities most affected by Trump’s crackdown because of its large immigrant population, elected its first Democratic mayor in nearly three decades last week in what the mayor-elect said was, in part, a reaction to the president.

Other local elections and polling ‌have suggested rising concern among ‌voters wary of aggressive immigration tactics. "People are beginning to see this not as an immigration question anymore ‌as ⁠much as it ‌is a violation of rights, a violation of due process and militarizing neighborhoods extraconstitutionally," said Mike Madrid, a moderate Republican political strategist.

"There is no question that is a problem for the president and Republicans." Trump’s overall approval rating on immigration policy fell from 50% in March, before he launched crackdowns in several major US cities, to 41% in mid-December, for what had been his strongest issue.

Rising public unease has focused on masked federal agents using aggressive tactics such as deploying tear gas in residential neighborhoods and detaining US citizens.

'NUMBERS WILL EXPLODE'

In addition to expanding enforcement actions, Trump has stripped hundreds of thousands of Haitian, Venezuelan and Afghan immigrants of temporary legal status, expanding the pool of people who could be deported as the president promises to remove 1 million immigrants each year – a goal he almost certainly will miss this year. So far, some 622,000 immigrants ⁠have been deported since Trump took office in January.

White House border czar Tom Homan told Reuters Trump had delivered on his promise of a historic deportation operation and removing criminals while shutting down illegal immigration across ‌the US-Mexico border. Homan said the number of arrests will increase sharply as ICE hires more ‍officers and expands detention capacity with the new funding.

“I think you're going to ‍see the numbers explode greatly next year,” Homan said.

Homan said the plans “absolutely” include more enforcement actions at workplaces.

Sarah Pierce, director of social policy at the ‍center-left group Third Way, said US businesses have been reluctant to push back on Trump's immigration crackdown in the past year but could be prompted to speak up if the focus turns to employers.

Pierce said it will be interesting to see "whether or not businesses finally stand up to this administration."

Trump, a Republican, recaptured the White House promising record levels of deportations, saying it was needed after years of high levels of illegal immigration under his Democratic predecessor, Joe Biden. He kicked off a campaign that dispatched federal agents to US cities in search of possible immigration offenders, sparking protests and lawsuits over racial profiling and violent tactics.

Some businesses shut down to avoid raids or because of a lack of customers. Parents vulnerable to arrest kept their children home from school or had neighbors ⁠walk them. Some US citizens started carrying passports. Despite the focus on criminals in its public statements, government data shows that the Trump administration has been arresting more people who have not been charged with any crimes beyond their alleged immigration violations than previous administrations.

Some 41% of the roughly 54,000 people arrested by ICE and detained by late November had no criminal record beyond a suspected immigration violation, agency figures show.

In the first few weeks in January, before Trump took office, just 6% of those arrested and detained by ICE were not facing charges for other crimes or previously convicted.

The Trump administration has taken aim at legal immigrants as well. Agents have arrested spouses of US citizens at their green card interviews, pulled people from certain countries out of their naturalization ceremonies, moments before they were to become citizens, and revoked thousands of student visas.

PLANS TO TARGET EMPLOYERS

The administration’s planned focus on job sites in the coming year could generate many more arrests and affect the US economy and Republican-leaning business owners.

Replacing immigrants arrested during workplace raids could lead to higher labor costs, undermining Trump’s fight against inflation, which analysts expect to be a major issue in the closely watched November elections, determining control of Congress. Administration officials earlier this year exempted such businesses from enforcement on Trump’s orders, then quickly reversed, Reuters reported at the time.

Some immigration hardliners have ‌called for more workplace enforcement.

"Eventually you’re going to have to go after these employers,” said Jessica Vaughan, policy director for the Center for Immigration Studies, which backs lower levels of immigration. “When that starts happening the employers will start cleaning up their acts on their own.”

World

At Least 16 Files Have Disappeared from the DOJ Webpage for Documents Related to Jeffrey Epstein

Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein are seen in this image released by the Department of Justice in Washington, D.C., US, on December 19, 2025 as part of a new trove of documents from its investigations into the late financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. US Justice Department/Handout via REUTERS
Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein are seen in this image released by the Department of Justice in Washington, D.C., US, on December 19, 2025 as part of a new trove of documents from its investigations into the late financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. US Justice Department/Handout via REUTERS
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At Least 16 Files Have Disappeared from the DOJ Webpage for Documents Related to Jeffrey Epstein

Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein are seen in this image released by the Department of Justice in Washington, D.C., US, on December 19, 2025 as part of a new trove of documents from its investigations into the late financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. US Justice Department/Handout via REUTERS
Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein are seen in this image released by the Department of Justice in Washington, D.C., US, on December 19, 2025 as part of a new trove of documents from its investigations into the late financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. US Justice Department/Handout via REUTERS

At least 16 files disappeared from the Justice Department’s public webpage for documents related to Jeffrey Epstein — including a photograph showing President Donald Trump — less than a day after they were posted, with no explanation from the government and no notice to the public.

The missing files, which were available Friday and no longer accessible by Saturday, included images of paintings depicting nude women, and one showing a series of photographs along a credenza and in drawers. In that image, inside a drawer among other photos, was a photograph of Trump, alongside Epstein, Melania Trump and Epstein's longtime associate Ghislaine Maxwell.

The Justice Department did not say why the files were removed or whether their disappearance was intentional. A spokesperson for the department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Online, the unexplained missing files fueled speculation about what was taken down and why the public was not notified, compounding long-standing intrigue about Epstein and the powerful figures who surrounded him. Democrats on the House Oversight Committee pointed to the missing image featuring a Trump photo in a post on X, writing: “What else is being covered up? We need transparency for the American public.”

The episode deepened concerns that had already emerged from the Justice Department’s much-anticipated document release. The tens of thousands of pages made public offered little new insight into Epstein’s crimes or the prosecutorial decisions that allowed him to avoid serious federal charges for years, while omitting some of the most closely watched materials, including FBI interviews with victims and internal Justice Department memos on charging decisions.

Scant new insight in the initial disclosures

Some of the most consequential records expected about Epstein are nowhere to be found in the Justice Department's initial disclosures, which span tens of thousands of pages.

Missing are FBI interviews with survivors and internal Justice Department memos examining charging decisions — records that could have helped explain how investigators viewed the case and why Epstein was allowed in 2008 to plead guilty to a relatively minor state-level prostitution charge.

The gaps go further.

The records, required to be released under a recent law passed by Congress, hardly reference several powerful figures long associated with Epstein, including Britain’s former Prince Andrew, renewing questions about who was scrutinized, who was not, and how much the disclosures truly advance public accountability

Among the fresh nuggets: insight into the Justice Department’s decision to abandon an investigation into Epstein in the 2000s, which enabled him to plead guilty to that state-level charge, and a previously unseen 1996 complaint accusing Epstein of stealing photographs of children.

The releases so far have been heavy on images of Epstein’s homes in New York City and the US Virgin Islands, with some photos of celebrities and politicians.

There was a series of never-before-seen photos of former President Bill Clinton but fleetingly few of Trump. Both have been associated with Epstein, but both have since disowned those friendships. Neither has been accused of any wrongdoing in connection with Epstein and there was no indication the photos played a role in the criminal cases brought against him.

Despite a Friday deadline set by Congress to make everything public, the Justice Department said it plans to release records on a rolling basis. It blamed the delay on the time-consuming process of obscuring survivors' names and other identifying information. The department has not given any notice when more records might arrive.

That approach angered some Epstein accusers and members of Congress who fought to pass the law forced the department to act. Instead of marking the end of a yearslong battle for transparency, the document release Friday was merely the beginning of an indefinite wait for a complete picture of Epstein’s crimes and the steps taken to investigate them.

“I feel like again the DOJ, the justice system is failing us,” said Marina Lacerda, who alleges Epstein started sexually abusing her at his New York City mansion when she was 14.

Many of the long-anticipated records were redacted or lacked context Federal prosecutors in New York brought sex trafficking charges against Epstein in 2019, but he killed himself in jail after his arrest.

The documents just made public were a sliver of potentially millions of pages records in the department’s possession. In one example, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said Manhattan federal prosecutors had more than 3.6 million records from sex trafficking investigations into Epstein and Maxwell, though many duplicated material already turned over by the FBI.

Many of the records released so far had been made public in court filings, congressional releases or freedom of information requests, though, for the first time, they were all in one place and available for the public to search for free.

Ones that were new were often lacking necessary context or heavily blacked out. A 119-page document marked “Grand Jury-NY," likely from one of the federal sex trafficking investigations that led to the charges against Epstein in 2019 or Maxwell in 2021, was entirely blacked out.

Trump’s Republican allies seized on the Clinton images, including photos of the Democrat with singers Michael Jackson and Diana Ross. There were also photos of Epstein with actors Chris Tucker and Kevin Spacey, and even Epstein with TV newscaster Walter Cronkite. But none of the photos had captions and was no explanation given for why any of them were together.

The meatiest records released so far showed that federal prosecutors had what appeared to be a strong case against Epstein in 2007 yet never charged him.

Transcripts of grand jury proceedings, released publicly for the first time, included testimony from FBI agents who described interviews they had with several girls and young women who described being paid to perform sex acts for Epstein. The youngest was 14 and in ninth grade.

One had told investigators about being sexually assaulted by Epstein when she initially resisted his advances during a massage.

Another, then 21, testified before the grand jury about how Epstein had hired her when she was 16 to perform a sexual massage and how she had gone on to recruit other girls to do the same.

“For every girl that I brought to the table he would give me $200,” she said. They were mostly people she knew from high school, she said. “I also told them that if they are under age, just lie about it and tell him that you are 18.”

The documents also contain a transcript of an interview Justice Department lawyers did more than a decade later with the US attorney who oversaw the case, Alexander Acosta, about his ultimate decision not to bring federal charges.

Acosta, who was labor secretary during Trump’s first term, cited concerns about whether a jury would believe Epstein’s accusers.

He also said the Justice Department might have been more reluctant to make a federal prosecution out of a case that straddled the legal border between sex trafficking and soliciting prostitution, something more commonly handled by state prosecutors.

“I’m not saying it was the right view,” Acosta added. He also said that the public today would likely view the survivors differently.

“There’s been a lot of changes in victim shaming,” Acosta said.

World

Kremlin Says Chances of Peace Not Improved by European and Ukrainian Changes to US Proposals

Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, and Russian Presidential foreign policy adviser Yuri Ushakov, left, attend talks with US special envoy Steve Witkoff, back to a camera, at the Senate Palace of the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, Tuesday, Dec. 2, 2025. (Alexander Kazakov, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)
Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, and Russian Presidential foreign policy adviser Yuri Ushakov, left, attend talks with US special envoy Steve Witkoff, back to a camera, at the Senate Palace of the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, Tuesday, Dec. 2, 2025. (Alexander Kazakov, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)
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Kremlin Says Chances of Peace Not Improved by European and Ukrainian Changes to US Proposals

Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, and Russian Presidential foreign policy adviser Yuri Ushakov, left, attend talks with US special envoy Steve Witkoff, back to a camera, at the Senate Palace of the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, Tuesday, Dec. 2, 2025. (Alexander Kazakov, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)
Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, and Russian Presidential foreign policy adviser Yuri Ushakov, left, attend talks with US special envoy Steve Witkoff, back to a camera, at the Senate Palace of the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, Tuesday, Dec. 2, 2025. (Alexander Kazakov, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)

Russian President Vladimir Putin's top foreign policy aide said on Sunday that he was sure the chances of peace in Ukraine were not improved by changes to US proposals made by the Europeans and Ukraine, ‌Interfax news agency ‌reported. 

"This is ‌not ⁠a forecast," ‌Kremlin foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov told reporters. 

"I am sure that the proposals that the Europeans and Ukrainians have made or are trying to make definitely ⁠do not improve the document and do ‌not improve the possibility ‍of achieving long-term ‍peace." 

European and Ukrainian negotiators have ‍been discussing changes to a US set of proposals for an agreement to end the nearly four-year-old war, though it is unclear exactly what changes have been ⁠made to the original US proposals. 

US negotiators met Russian officials in Florida on Saturday. 

Putin's special envoy Kirill Dmitriev told reporters after meeting US special envoy Steve Witkoff and President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, that the talks were constructive and would continue ‌on Sunday.