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Mayumi Negishi / Bloomberg : Japan plans to expand export controls on advanced chips, lithography equipment, and cryocoolers for quantum computers, with new rules taking effect by late May   —  Japan expanded its export controls to include cutting-edge chips and quantum computer-related technology, a move China warned …

Shivangi Acharya / Reuters : India removes import duties on some components for making smartphones, in a boost for local production efforts and benefiting companies like Apple and Xiaomi   —  India has removed import duties on some components key to producing mobile phones, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced …

The Democratic National Committee (DNC ) on Saturday elected Minnesota party leader Ken Martin, who once called for President Donald Trump to be tried for treason, as its next national chair in the wake of the party's disastrous performance in the November elections. The election of Martin is the party's first formal step to try and rebound from the November elections, in which President Donald Trump recaptured the White House, and Republicans flipped the Senate, held on to their fragile majority in the House and made major gains with working-class, minority and younger voters. "We have one team, one team, the Democratic Party," Martin said following his victory. "The fight is for our values. The fight is for working people. The fight right now is against Donald Trump and the billionaires who bought this country." Martin, over the past eight years, has served as a DNC vice chair and has led the association of state Democratic Party chairs. FINAL DNC CHA...

While legislators in the Democratic trifecta are trying to pass bills to "Trump-proof" the state, California Republican Kate Sanchez plans to introduce a bill that would crack down on what may be a "sanctuary state" loophole protecting criminal illegal immigrants involved in sex-trafficking minors. "It would eliminate all of the unnecessary restrictions for local law enforcement to cooperate with federal law enforcement in order to go after those that have been accused or convicted of sex trafficking of minors, and currently there is a clause that they cannot communicate as openly as possible," Sanchez told Fox News Digital in an interview.  NEWSOM BILL COULD SPEND TAX MONEY TO DEFEND ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS FROM TRUMP DEPORTATION PUSH: CA LAWMAKER These restrictions are part of California's "sanctuary state" policies, which are designed to limit state and local law enforcement's involvement in federal immigration enforcement. For her par...

FIRST ON FOX:  President Donald Trump is expected to sign a memo Friday to lift the collective bargaining agreements (CBA) former President Joe Biden put into effect before leaving office, Fox News Digital has learned.  The president’s memo will direct federal agencies to reject last-minute collective bargaining agreements issued by the Biden administration, which White House officials said were designed to "constrain" the Trump administration from reforming the government.  TRUMP ADMINISTRATION OFFERS BUYOUTS TO FEDERAL EMPLOYEES, INCLUDING REMOTE WORKERS: 'DEFERRED RESIGNATION' The memo prohibits agencies from making new collective bargaining agreements during the final 30 days of a president’s term. It also directs agency heads to disapprove any collective bargaining agreements that Biden put through during the final 30 days of his term.  The White House said collective bargaining agreements enacted before that time period will remain in effect while the Tr...

The Senate’s lead "DOGE" lawmaker said Friday her quest for government efficiency is beginning to come full-circle, as the Agriculture Department instituted a return-to-work mandate she said was first spurred by a 2024 whistleblower who contacted her office. "The Trump administration, DOGE, and I are already racking up wins for taxpayers," Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa , told Fox News Digital on Friday. "Growing up on a farm, I know what working from home really means." President Donald Trump too, highlighted the difference between telework in white-collar jobs and Americans in agriculture and manufacturing who don’t have the luxury of working from a desk. In remarks to reporters, Trump said federal workers appear less productive when working-from-home and that the dynamic is "unfair to the millions of people in the United States who are in fact working hard from job sites and not from their home." ‘DOGE’-MEETS-CONGRESS: GOP LAWMAKER AARON BEAN ...

There was a heavy focus on systemic racism and diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs during the final debate among the eight candidates vying to chair the Democratic National Committee (DNC ), as the party aims to exit the political wilderness. The forum, moderated and carried live on MSNBC and held at Georgetown University in the nation's capital city, develed into chaos early on as a wave of left-wing protesters repeatedly interrupted the primetime event, heckling over concerns of climate change and billionaires' influence in America's elections before they were forcibly removed by security. Thanks in part to their repeated targeting of DEI efforts under former President Joe Biden's administration, President Donald Trump recaptured the White House in November's elections, with Republicans also retaking control of the Senate from the Democrats and the GOP holding onto its razor-thin majority in the House. Jaime Harrison, the DNC chairman for the past f...

EXCLUSIVE : Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Jim Risch, R-Idaho, and Republican senators on Thursday are expected to roll out a measure that would prohibit the use of U.S. foreign aid funds for abortions , Fox News Digital has learned.  The bill, titled "the American Values Act," would permanently enact and expand existing prohibitions on the use of U.S. foreign assistance to pay for the performance or promotion of abortion services overseas. WHITE HOUSE STILL COMMITTED TO FREEZING ‘WOKE’ FUNDS DESPITE RESCINDING OMB MEMO The bill would restrict the use of foreign assistance funds to perform abortions, promote or lobby for or against abortions and force sterilization.  The bill also would ensure U.S. foreign aid funds cannot be used for biomedical research relating to abortions.  The bill also would permanently restrict funds to organizations that support or participate in the management of a program of "coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization....

Tom Warren / The Verge : Sources: Satya Nadella and Microsoft execs moved quickly to get engineers to test and deploy R1 on Azure and GitHub in 10 days, an unusually fast turnaround   —  Microsoft was ready for the next step in AI models.  —  Microsoft was ready for the next step in AI models.

Sen. Tim Kaine is claiming that President Donald Trump is going to "stiff" federal employees who accept buyout offers instead of returning to the office, telling workers "Do not be fooled by this guy."  The Trump administration is offering buyouts for nearly all federal employees, including those who work remotely, as part of the president’s efforts to get employees back into the office, but they only have until Feb. 6 to opt-in. However, Kaine argued on the Senate floor Tuesday night that Trump has no such grounds to make that kind of deal.  "The federal employees received an interesting email at the end of the day today.... that said, from the administration, if you tender your resignation by next Friday, we will guarantee you payment through the end of September whether or not you show up for work. So tender your resignation and then boy, it’s just going to be a gravy train, you are just going to get paid for seven months without working," Kaine said...

Bloomberg : Sources: the Trump administration is exploring additional curbs on the sale of chips to China to cover Nvidia's scaled-down H20, designed for the Chinese market   —  - Officials had very early talks about restricting the H20 chip  — Nvidia designed the scaled-down H20 product for Chinese market

Victoria Song / The Verge : Garmin smartwatch users report their devices are bricking after starting any activity that uses GPS; Garmin says it is looking into the issue   —  It's not just you.  Several users are reporting their watches are crashing while displaying the ‘blue triangle of death.’  —  It's not just you.

Paul Sawers / TechCrunch : Valencia-based Quibim, which is developing foundational AI models for medical imaging, raised a $50M Series A co-led by Asabys and Buenavista   —  Quibim, a Spanish startup that's developing foundational AI models for medical imaging spanning oncology, immunology, neurology, and metabolic disorders …

A new interim director has been tapped to lead the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) as President Donald Trump looks to enforce a crackdown on transgender inmates in facilities that do not match their biological sex.  William W. Lothrop was named the new BOP director after Colette Peters resigned on Inauguration Day. It's unclear when the Trump administration will appoint someone to permanently fill the role.  "As we face ongoing challenges, including staffing shortages and operational issues, I am committed to working alongside you to find real solutions that strengthen our facilities," Lothrop said in the statement. "We will continue collaborating with our law enforcement partners and stakeholders to maintain robust programming and support services for inmates." TRUMP'S 'TWO SEXES' EXECUTIVE ORDER COMES ON HEELS OF SCOTUS ACCEPTING ANOTHER CHALLENGE TO LGBT AGENDA On his first day in office, Trump announced a temporary hiring freeze for federal...

Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch : Meta says Meta AI will now use account info from across Meta's apps to give personalized suggestions; users can also ask Meta AI to “remember” specific things   —  Meta says that it is rolling out improvements to Meta AI, its cross-platform chatbot, including the ability have the bot “remember” details from conversations.

Jeffrey Emanuel / YouTubeTranscriptOptimizer : A bear case for Nvidia: competition from hardware startups, inference-heavy “reasoning” models, DeepSeek's training and inference efficiency breakthroughs, more   —  As someone who spent ~10 years working as a generalist investment analyst at various long/short hedge funds …

Sen. Lindsey Graham , R-S.C., warned that congressional Republicans must expedite funding for President Donald Trump's border czar Tom Homan to continue his mass deportation plan, or else they could "own another attack on this country."  Graham made appearances on NBC and CNN Sunday shows advocating for two separate bills – a $100 billion border package, and a second $200 billion bill centered on "national security."  As deliberations in both chambers continue, Graham cautioned Republicans against taking too long to reach a consensus. He said Homan needs immediate funding to further execute his mass deportation strategy, including to increase the number of detention beds from 41,000 to approximately 150,000, to hire more Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, finish the border wall and secure new technology.  HOMAN WARNS DAILY MIGRANT ARRESTS WILL 'STEADILY INCREASE' AS TRUMP ADMIN TARGETS NONVIOLENT ILLEGAL ALIENS "This whole debate ...

Hall of Impossible Dreams : A look at the growing prevalence of LLM-written posts that have been backdated and attributed to human authors on Physics Forums, which was founded in 2001   —  What Internet Will Look Like in the Future  —  cripes does anybody remember Google People  —  Does anybody remember PhysicsForums?