Today’s Big Story

TikTok Talk Continues

The deadline is looming for a sale or divestment (again)

Will TikTok survive? It seems like it has to, right? After all, President Donald Trump keeps pushing the deadline. If he wanted to kill it, he would’ve by now … and what president loves social media more than Trump?

Reuters reports that the White House is expected to (again) extend the September 17 deadline for China's ByteDance to divest the U.S. assets of short-video app TikTok or shut it down. It would be the fourth reprieve granted by Trump from federal enforcement of a law that originally gave ByteDance until January 2025 to sell or shut down the popular social media platform.

“I may or may not, we're negotiating TikTok right now,” Trump said when asked by a reporter in Morristown, New Jersey, if he’d extend the deadline beyond Wednesday. “We may let it die, or we may, I don't know, it depends, up to China, … it doesn’t matter too much. I’d like to do it for the kids that like it.”

The president’s comments came as U.S. and Chinese officials met on Sunday in Madrid for their fourth round of trade talks that included discussion on TikTok, which has 170 million users across the United States. As you probably recall, Congress passed a law that former President Biden signed and the Supreme Court upheld requiring ByteDance, TikTok's parent company, to either sell the app to a U.S. firm or shut down operations by Jan. 19 due to national security concerns.

Trump was highly critical of TikTok during his first term in the White House but softened his position after he gained popularity on the app during the 2024 presidential election. And in August, The White House launched its official TikTok account.

According to the BBC, officials are also expected to lay the groundwork for a potential meeting between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping as soon as October, when they are scheduled to attend a summit in South Korea. The tariffs truce between China and the U.S. cut import taxes that had reached more than 100% on each other's goods. The extension gave them more time for negotiations about “unfair trade practices” and to address national security issues, the White House said.

Charlie Kirk Suspect Faces Aggravated Murder Charge

President claims people on ‘the left’ are under investigation

Gov. Spencer Cox of Utah on Sunday provided new information about the background and political leanings of the 22-year-old accused of killing Charlie Kirk, saying that the suspect had a “leftist ideology” and had also been in a romantic relationship with a partner who was in the process of transitioning from male to female. Robinson, who was arrested after a 33-hour manhunt, has not confessed to authorities or cooperated with the investigation since he was taken into custody Thursday, the governor said in appearances on multiple TV networks.

The Guardian reports that allies of President Donald Trump have accused liberals of fomenting anti-conservative vitriol that would encourage violence—even as the president and his allies have often invoked violent imagery against their opponents. “The problem is on the left,” Trump told reporters on Sunday. “A lot of people that you would traditionally say are on the left … [are] already under investigation.”

Meanwhile, right-wing influencers and politicians have claimed young people are radicalized on Discord. But the platform denies that the suspect used the messaging platform to discuss his crime. But the consequences are serious: Formal criminal charges are expected to be filed against Robinson tomorrow. Utah County Attorney Jeff Gray said in a statement that he expects those charges to be “consistent” with the preliminary charges Robinson was arrested on. A person convicted of aggravated murder under Utah law can face the death penalty.

Octopuses Are ‘Incredible Multitaskers’

The famously flexible mollusks coordinate some of the most complex movements in the animal kingdom

For an octopus, almost any arm will do. New research shows that these clever sea creatures have the ability to use any of their eight limbs to perform tasks like reaching, tiptoeing or grasping. “These animals are incredible multitaskers, so they’re able to perform multiple actions on one arm and on multiple arms at the same time,” said Kendra Buresch, a research biologist at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, and an author of the study.

Octopus arms are one of the most flexible structures known in all of the biological world. Their agility is so extraordinary that robotics researchers want to learn the secrets behind their movements, hoping to apply some of the same principles. They envision soft, flexible robotic appendages that, like the highly tactile octopus arms, can search and carry out tasks through tight and narrow openings, such as delivering life-saving food and water to people trapped in the rubble of collapsed buildings.

The team also explored which of the four ways octopus arms can deform—shortening, elongating, bending and twisting—was involved in each action. Overall, the team identified 15 different octopus behaviors and 12 different arm actions, with some—such as crawling or parachute attack—requiring more arm actions than others, such as backward swimming. The team found multiple arm actions could occur at the same time on the same or adjacent arms, and that all eight arms were capable of all actions and deformations.

Takeaways From a So-So Emmys

Here’s the good, the bad and the ugly …

Seth Rogen and “The Studio” turned the Emmys into a defacto wrap party, winning best comedy series Sunday and breaking a comedy record for victories in a single season with 13, while Noah Wyle and “The Pitt” took the top drama prize. The evening also brought meaningful wins for Jean Smart, Stephen Colbert and 15-year-old Owen Cooper, whose Netflix series “Adolescence” dominated the limited series categories.

Tramell Tillman made history as the first Black man to win an Emmy for outstanding supporting actor in a drama series for his role in “Severance”. Colbert’s victory was the first time his show has won the category and it comes two months after CBS announced its cancellation, citing financial reasons.

But it seems that most agree the Emmys wasn’t a good telecast. In lieu of a standard monologue, host Nate Bargatze set up his main bit for the evening, involving a timer for acceptance speeches that would cut down the amount of money given to charity; as deserving winners rushed through their speeches and as the total sum pledged to the Boys & Girls Club of America kept ticking lower, it cast an awkward, even antagonistic, pall over the whole affair, perhaps best encapsulated by John Oliver’s hearty (and bleeped) “f*ck you” to the host as he rushed to finish his acceptance speech. Vulture also pointed out another low point: Elizabeth Banks hyping up the five women nominated for Outstanding Directing for a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie … who all lost to the one man nominated.

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