By BARBARA ORTUTAY, AP Technology Writer

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — TikTok has signed a deal to sell its U.S. business to three American investors — Oracle, Silver Lake and MGX — ensuring the popular social video platform can continue operating in the United States.

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The deal is expected to close on Jan. 22, according to an internal memo seen by The Associated Press. CEO Shou Zi Chew told employees in the memo that ByteDance and TikTok have signed binding agreements with the three investors.

Half of the new TikTok U.S. joint venture will be owned by a consortium of investors — among them Oracle, Silver Lake and MGX will each hold a 15% share. Another 30.1% will be held by affiliates of existing ByteDance investors and 19.9% will be retained by the China-based ByteDance, according to the memo.

The U.S. venture will have a new, seven-member majority-American board of directors, the memo said. It will also be subject to terms that “protect Americans’ data and U.S. national security.”

U.S. user data will be stored locally in a system run by Oracle.

TikTok’s algorithm — the secret sauce that powers its addictive video feed — will be retrained on U.S. user data to “ensure the content feed is free from outside manipulation,” the memo said. The U.S. venture will also oversee content moderation and policies within the country.

The deal marks the end of years of uncertainty about the fate of the popular video-sharing platform in the United States. After wide bipartisan majorities in Congress passed — and President Joe Biden signed — a law that would ban TikTok in the U.S. if it did not find a new owner in the place of China’s ByteDance, the platform was set to go dark on the law’s January 2025 deadline. For a several hours, it did. But on his first day in office, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to keep it running while his administration tries to reach an agreement for the sale of the company.

Three more executive orders followed, as Trump, without a clear legal basis, continued to extend the deadline for a TikTok deal. The second was in April, when White House officials believed they were nearing a deal to spin off TikTok into a new company with U.S. ownership that fell apart after China backed out following Trump’s tariff announcement. The third came in June, then another in September, which Trump said would allow TikTok to continue operating in the United States in a way that meets national security concerns.

The St. Paul City Council voted 5-1 on Wednesday to award $2.95 million in tax increment financing to a private developer to demolish and redevelop three properties at the northeast corner of Grand and Victoria avenues, including the Victoria Crossing East Mall.

Developer Ari Parritz and Afton Park Development, who plan a mixture of 90 apartments over 12,800 square feet of retail space, had requested the tax incentive, a request that has drawn opposition from different corners of the city. The financing would be paid back by the developer over the life of the 26-year tax increment financing district using property tax increments that otherwise flow to the city’s general fund.

TIF districts are designed to help the city spur private sector investment in blighted areas, but the prospect of using the development incentive in one of St. Paul’s toniest restaurant and retail districts has drawn relatively heavy scrutiny. The city council received at least 32 pages of emailed comments, most of them critical of the proposal.

“This is not a blighted area, this project does not in any sense fulfill the definition of need for TIF funding,” wrote Rodden Turner, a resident of Laurel Avenue. “As my property taxes have become unmanageable, like so many St. Paul residents, we cannot afford to grant our money to wealthy developers who are and have been allowed to feed at the city trough, with the approval of city government. We cannot afford these policies any longer!! Please vote no.”

Similar sentiments were shared by multiple members of Insight, a fiscal watchdog group, who testified before the council during a public hearing on Wednesday alongside other city residents opposed to the TIF district.

City Council President Rebecca Noecker noted that while Grand Avenue remains a popular destination, a third-party review found the three buildings to be substandard, and the $44 million project likely would not occur but for TIF assistance.

“I do think that the blight test is met,” said Noecker, who pointed out that most of the recent major real estate development in the city has received some form of public assistance. “I think that there’s compelling evidence that this project would not happen but for … subsidy. … We have the option to not grow or we have the option to grow.”

“We haven’t seen a completely unsubsidized housing development in St. Paul in a long time,” she added later, in an interview. “Landmark Towers was completely market rate, and it still required TIF to move forward. A third party review found there was a (financial) gap, and the amount of the gap is what we’re allowing.”

Council Member Anika Bowie, who cast the sole dissenting vote, said she supported the project but saw no need for public financing. She said TIF-backed projects should include affordable housing. Council Member Cheniqua Johnson is on leave following the recent birth of her child.

The 845 Grand LLC project would replace three buildings, including the former home of Billy’s on Grand and the adjoining mall, as well as a small and vacant apartment building. The mixed-use development that would rise in its place would include 90 units of rental housing, 22 public parking stalls and 99 private parking stalls. It would span 12,800 square feet of commercial space on the first floor for two restaurants and a retailer.

Parritz, addressing the council, explained that the city would continue to collect the $200,000 in existing property taxes at Grand and Victoria, and the TIF district would be paid back through the tax increment generated above and beyond that amount based on the development’s increased property value.

“If this TIF plan is approved, nothing happens to that $200,000 that goes to pay for city services,” Parritz said.

The project, according to the TIF plan, would increase the site’s $6.5 million value by $20 million.

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While the developer would receive $2.95 million to put toward site improvements and construction preparation, as well as other qualifying public improvements, the overall TIF district would total $9.4 million. That includes $908,000 for administrative costs, $3 million toward off-site affordable housing, and $2.6 million in interest.

The city currently captures 7% of its annual tax capacity for TIF spending, or about $37 million this year in 58 TIF districts.

By ADITHI RAMAKRISHNAN

NEW YORK (AP) — NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope got a rare look at the aftermath of two cosmic collisions — and helped scientists solve a decades-old mystery.

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Many years ago, scientists saw a dense, bright spot near a young star called Fomalhaut. They thought it could be a planet and continued to track it.

But in 2023, Hubble’s pictures revealed something strange. The bright spot had vanished — and a new one had appeared — a sign that it wasn’t a planet after all.

Scientists had stumbled on the dusty debris from two cosmic crashes. Massive space rocks slammed together to create clouds of dust that were thick enough to masquerade as planets. Over time, the remains spread out and eventually disappeared altogether.

Scientists think the space rocks involved in the collision were at least 37 miles wide. It’s rare to capture such clashes on camera, especially since theories suggest they only happen in the same vicinity about once every 100,000 years.

It’s “highly unexpected” that this area “has now exhibited two, unique, massive collisions inside 20 years,” said Joshua Lovell with the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in an email. He had no role in the study, which was published Thursday in the journal Science.

The new observations could just be a lucky find. Or, they could mean that such smashups happen more often than scientists thought. It’ll take more data to know for sure.

Collisions of large space rocks are essential to how planets like ours form and what they’re made of. Studying them is “like taking a toddler picture of our solar system,” said astrophysicist Meredith MacGregor with Johns Hopkins University, who was not involved with the study.

Researchers plan to track the new dust cloud in the coming years to see how it changes and eventually disintegrates.

The star near the collision site is in our cosmic neighborhood, just 25 light years from Earth. A light year is nearly 6 trillion miles.

By keeping an eye on it, scientists are “catching these violent explosions in real time,” said study author Paul Kalas with the University of California, Berkeley.

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

By Summer Lin, Los Angeles Times

The Powerball jackpot has soared to an estimated $1.5 billion for Saturday night’s drawing, the fifth largest in game history and the seventh highest among all lottery jackpots in the United States.

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The jackpot has an estimated cash value of $686.5 million, according to a Powerball news release.

No ticket matched all six numbers drawn Wednesday: white balls 25, 33, 53, 62, 66 and red Powerball 17, according to the release. The Power Play multiplier was 4.

Six tickets matched all five white balls to win $1 million prizes, according to the release. The winning tickets were sold in Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania and Tennessee.

Two tickets that were sold in Arizona and Massachusetts matched all five white balls, according to the release, and these players had added the Power Play option for $1 more so the $1 million prize rose to $2 million per ticket.

The drawing resulted in 72 tickets that won $50,000 prizes and 14 tickets that won $200,000 prizes.

The Powerball jackpot was last won in September by two tickets in Missouri and Texas that split a $1.787 billion prize.

Saturday’s drawing marks the second time in Powerball history that the game has resulted in consecutive jackpots exceeding $1 billion. The only other time was in 2023, when a $1.08 billion jackpot was won on July 19, followed by a $1.765 billion jackpot on Oct. 11. Both jackpots were won in California.

If someone wins Saturday’s jackpot, they can choose between an annuitized prize around $1.5 billion or a lump sum payment around $686.5 million, according to the release. If the person picks the annuity option, they will get one payment, followed by 29 annual payments that go up by 5% every year.

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