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Meta Platforms' WhatsApp in a lawsuit accusing Israel's NSO Group of exploiting a bug in the messaging app to install spy software allowing unauthorized surveillance. U.S. District Judge Phyllis Hamilton in Oakland, California, granted a motion by WhatsApp and found NSO liable for hacking and breach of contract. The case will now proceed to a trial only on the issue of damages, Hamilton said. NSO Group did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.

OpenAI said on Friday it was testing new reasoning AI models, o3 and o3 mini, in a sign of growing competition with rivals such as Google to create smarter models capable of tackling complex problems. CEO Sam Altman said the AI startup plans to launch o3 mini by the end of January, and full o3 after that, as more robust large language models could outperform existing models and attract new investments and users. Microsoft-backed OpenAI released o1 AI models in September designed to spend more time processing queries to solve hard problems.

Mirwaiz Umar Farooq was disallowed to address Friday congregation for the third consecutive week at the historic Jama Masjid in Srinagar as the locals termed it as interference in religious affairs of muslims. The Anjuman Auqaf which runs the affairs of the Jama Masjid Srinagar denounced the continuous house detention of Mirwaiz stating that the administration imposes arbitrary and unjustified restrictions on the religious functioning of Mirwaiz-e-Kashmir. “In such bitter cold, thousands of devoted men, women, children and physically challenged persons from various parts of the Valley gather at the historic central Jama Masjid in Srinagar to listen to the sermon of their beloved Mirwaiz,” read the statement. They said that the action of the authorities of keeping him under house arrest at his Nigeen residence “deeply hurts the sentiments of these devotees and deprives them of their religious freedoms.”

Tata Trusts, the single-largest shareholder of Tata Sons, has tightened project monitoring processes, shifting from quarterly to monthly reviews to better manage operational expenses and enhance the on-ground impact of its funds, people familiar with the matter said. The organisation may also prioritise grant-making over direct implementation (DI) projects to further minimise expenses, the people said. An inflated cost structure had led trustees to do an internal audit several months ago, the people said. This revealed many discrepancies, leading the trustees to tighten the monitoring system. Additionally, the Trusts' audit system has been strengthened and it now reports directly to the chief executive, who is responsible for updating the executive committee and board of trustees, people said. Several DI Projects

midnight government shutdown, defying President-elect Donald Trump's demand to also greenlight trillions of dollars in new debt. Next, the Democratic-controlled Senate would need to pass the bill to ensure the government will be funded beyond midnight (0500 GMT Saturday), when current funding expires. The White House said President Joe Biden intends to sign it into law if they do. The legislation would extend government funding until March 14, provide $100 billion for disaster-hit states and $10 billion for farmers. It would not raise the debt ceiling — a difficult task Trump has pushed Congress to do before he takes office on Jan. 20.

Reserve Bank Innovation Hub, or RBIH, has approached several data-rich aggregators including Namma Yatri, Rapido, Swiggy and Zomato along with farmers’ collectives such as Amul for building the ambitious Unified Lending Interface (ULI) platform, its chief executive Rajesh Bansal told ET. The Reserve Bank of India’s innovation arm is also exploring collaboration with the likes of Google Pay on the insights that can be derived from data sharing on UPI transactions and warehouse deposit receipt data, Bansal said. Discussions are also ongoing with the Open Network on Digital Commerce (ONDC), PM Gati Shakti, Unified Geospatial Interface and E-Vahan, he added. The ULI platform will enable consent-based transfer of customers’ digitised financial and non-financial data, including land records, from various sources to lenders, accelerating credit appraisals.

Accel India, an early-stage backer of Flipkart and Swiggy, has closed its eighth fund, securing $650 million in investor commitments, people briefed on the matter said. At the same time, Accel’s global growth fund based in the US has also closed its latest fund with a $1.35 billion corpus, the people said, citing US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filings. A portion of the funds raised will be allocated to Indian startups in their pre-IPO rounds, the people added. Once formally closed, Accel’s latest fund will boost its total commitments in India to nearly $3 billion. It signals a likely more active strategy by Accel to deploy capital through the India and the US growth funds across various lifecycle stages of startups.

Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, who arrived in Jaisalmer on Friday, will chair the 55th meeting of the council on Saturday. A government official familiar with the deliberations said the law panel under the council had recommended that gift vouchers be covered under the definition of prepaid instruments recognized by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) that are used as a consideration to settle an obligation. They would thus fall under a category that can't be taxed under GST.

Indian exporters of garments, handicrafts, and engineering goods expect 5-10% gains from the rupee’s depreciation, but more import-dependent sectors such as gems and jewellery and electronics see rising oil and commodity prices offsetting any benefits, trade insiders said. Moreover, the sharper depreciation of the Chinese yuan, Japanese yen, and Mexican peso against the US dollar may prompt buyers to pressure Indian exporters to pass on the gains, besides undermining any long-term competitive advantage from the rupee’s fall, they said. The rupee hit an all-time low of 85.09 per dollar on Thursday, crossing the 85 mark for the first time. On Friday, the rupee hit a new low of 85.10/$1. Almost 60% of India’s goods trade is in dollars, and the depreciation will help traditional sectors such as textiles and leather.

Trudeau government in Canada, as ex-House Speaker Newt Gringrich has claimed that the people of Canada and the House is losing confidence in the reigning Canadian PM, based on the way caved in to Trump recently. Gingrich went on to say that Trump has had an undue influence on Trudeau and the overall perspective changed about the Canadian PM in this sudden ceasefire of sots, which was looking impossible at a point when Trudeau was going all guns blazing.

Nvidia investors will soon reap in some awesome benefits in the coming months, when Donald Trump assumes the role of US President after Joe Biden's tenure. This is majorly because of the fact that Trump is considered to be pro-market and some of his economic policies, although reportedly inflationary, may bringing in a bulkload of money for the US Treasury, if reports are to be believed.

US stock market roared back on Friday to nearly halve their losses from what was tracking to be one of the market’s worst weeks of the year. Wall Street index S&P 500 rallied 1.4 per cent toward its best day since Election Day and shaved its loss for the week down to 1.7 per cent. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 602 points, or 1.4 per cent, and the Nasdaq composite rallied 1.4 per cent. Superstar stock Nvidia and other Big Tech companies led the market, which got a lift after a report said a measure of inflation the Federal Reserve likes to use was slightly lower last month than economists expected. It’s an encouraging signal following recent reports suggesting inflation may be tough to get all the way down to the Fed’s 2 per cent goal from its peak above 9 per cent. The threat of higher inflation was one of the reasons Fed Chair Jerome Powell gave this week when the central bank hinted it may deliver fewer cuts to interest rates next year than it earlier expected.

Luigi Mangione is currently in custody of the NYPD for the alleged killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, which shook the entire country, while a manhunt for the killer went on or days until Mangione was nabbed very recently. He is now lodged into a Brooklyn prison, which is one of the most dangerous ones in the entire US, and even lodges alleged sex trafficker and hip-hop mogul Sean Diddy Combs, as per reports.

Amazon in the peak festive period extended into a second day Friday as the retail behemoth said the labor action would not affect its business, as per a report on AFP. Amazon has experienced «no disruptions at all,» a company spokeswoman told AFP. «And we aren't anticipating any either», AFP reported. The Teamsters union on Thursday launched a strike targeting seven Amazon facilities spaced around the United States. Union officials said the stoppage continued Friday at the same locales.

NYPD precinct in Manhattan. Authorities responded swiftly to assess potential threats.

Party City will close all of its locations in the US due to ongoing bankruptcy proceedings. Employees were told by the CEO that closures would differ depending on the location, with some staying open until February 2025. The retail chain's decades-long presence in the market came to an end when the precise shutdown dates were not made public, as quoted in a report by Times Now. After 40 years in the US market, the retail chain Party City is scheduled to close all of its locations due to the ongoing bankruptcy. According to reports, the CEO of the retail chain informed corporate staff on Friday that all of the chain's locations would close. Nevertheless, the precise dates of the stores' closure have not been disclosed.

Justin Bieber fans believe Hailey posted their PDA photos on his page, following Selena's engagement. Fans of Hailey Bieber and Selena Gomez are always at odds with one another. Selenators were doubtful that the Love Yourself singer was the one who uploaded the content, and they flooded Justin Bieber's recent post with comments. On Monday, December 16, Justin posted a photo of his wife, Hailey, kissing him beneath his ear on his Instagram page. Many social media users, however, claimed that Hailey was the one who uploaded the picture.

Middle East. Prince Andrew hasn't exactly had a great December, or decade, when it comes to royal scandals. Following Andrew's forced withdrawal from the King's Christmas lunch and his decision to skip the Sandringham holidays due to the Duke of York's alleged ties to Chinese spy Yango Tengbo, it appears that the only people standing by him are his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson and their daughters Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie, as quoted in a report by Marie Claire. According to the Daily Beast, Prince Andrew's predicament has gotten so bad that some of his friends are even considering leaving the nation.

Donald Trump makes a bold statement when he walks out sporting a new hairstyle reminiscent of Home Alone. At his Florida golf club, Donald Trump debuted a new hairstyle that was very different from his trademark bleach-blonde toupee, and his fans are obsessed. Donald Trump caused quite a stir on the internet with his windswept new hairstyle at his Florida golf club. While welcoming supporters at his Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach on Tuesday, the president-elect made a bold statement with his new appearance.