ByteDance Gets 15-Day Extension on US Order to Divest TikTok: Treasury

Biden Calls for ‘Immediate’ Congressional Action on Student Loan Forgiveness

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden wants an immediate $10,000 erasure of people’s student debt. “Legislation passed by the Democratic House calls for immediate $10,000 forgiveness of student loans. It鈥檚 holding people up. They鈥檙e in real trouble. They鈥檙e having to make choices between paying their student loan and paying the rent, those kinds of decisions,” Biden said during a press conference in Delaware on Monday. “It should be done immediately.” A person in Biden’s camp told Fox News that Biden was referring to congressional action, as opposed to potential executive action if Biden wins the presidency. Biden’s campaign didn’t respond to a request for comment. One of the 15 policies listed in Biden’s COVID-19 response plan is forgiving $10,000 in student loans. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said earlier this…

WASHINGTON—The Trump administration granted ByteDance a 15-day extension of a divestiture order that had directed the Chinese company to sell its TikTok short video-sharing app by Thursday.

TikTok first disclosed the extension earlier in a court filing, saying it now has until Nov. 27 to reach an agreement. Under pressure from the U.S. government, ByteDance has been in talks for a deal with Walmart Inc and Oracle Corp to shift TikTok’s U.S. assets into a new entity.

The Treasury Department said on Friday the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) granted the 15-day extension to “provide the parties and the committee additional time to resolve this case in a manner that complies with the Order.”

ByteDance filed a petition on Tuesday with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia challenging the Trump administration divestiture order.

ByteDance said on Tuesday CFIUS seeks “to compel the wholesale divestment of TikTok, a multibillion-dollar business built on technology developed by” ByteDance and based on the government’s review of the Chinese company’s 2017 acquisition of Musical.ly.

President Donald Trump in an Aug. 14 order had directed ByteDance to divest the app within 90 days.

The Trump administration contends TikTok poses national security concerns, saying the personal data of U.S. users could be obtained by China’s regime. TikTok, which has over 100 million U.S. users, denies the allegations.

Trump has said the Walmart-Oracle deal had his “blessing.”

One big issue that has persisted is over the ownership structure of the new company, TikTok Global, which would own TikTok’s U.S. assets.

In Tuesday’s court filing, ByteDance said it submitted a fourth proposal last Friday that contemplated addressing U.S. concerns “by creating a new entity, wholly owned by Oracle, Walmart and existing U.S. investors in ByteDance, that would be responsible for handling TikTok’s U.S. user data and content moderation.”

Separate restrictions on TikTok from the U.S. Commerce Department have been blocked by federal courts, including transaction curbs scheduled to take effect on Thursday that TikTok warned could effectively ban the app’s use in the United States.

A Commerce Department ban on Apple Inc and Alphabet Inc’s Google offering TikTok for download for new U.S. users that had been set to take effect on Sept. 27 has also been blocked.

By David Shepardson

The Epoch Times contributed to this report

Focus News: ByteDance Gets 15-Day Extension on US Order to Divest TikTok: Treasury

Pandemic Underscores Importance of Financial Intelligence, Federal Centre Says

OTTAWA—The federal anti−money laundering agency says it gave more than 2,000 intelligence leads to partners in the last fiscal year despite the havoc the COVID−19 pandemic created for the business world. The Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada, known as Fintrac, tries to pinpoint cash linked to money laundering and terrorism by sifting through millions of bits of information from banks, insurance companies, securities dealers, real estate brokers, casinos and others. In its annual report tabled in Parliament this week, Fintrac says it disclosed 2,057 pieces of financial intelligence to police and security agencies such as the RCMP and Canadian Security Intelligence Service. Of the disclosures, 1,582 were related to money laundering, 296 to terrorism financing and threats to the security of Canada, and 179 to a combination…