The Supreme Court on Friday seemed likely to uphold a law that would ban TikTok in the United States beginning Jan. 19 unless the popular social media program is sold by its China-based parent company.

Hearing arguments in a momentous clash of free speech and national security concerns, the justices seemed persuaded by arguments that the national security threat posed by the company’s connections to China override concerns about restricting the speech, either of TikTok or its 170 million users in the United States.

Early in arguments that lasted more than two and a half hours, Chief Justice John Roberts identified as the “main concern” in the case, TikTok’s ownership by China-based ByteDance and the parent company’s requirement to cooperate with the Chinese government’s intelligence operations.

If left in place, the law passed by bipartisan majorities in Congress and signed by President Joe Biden in April will require TikTok to “go dark” on Jan. 19, lawyer Noel Francisco told the justices on behalf of TikTok.

At the very least, Francisco urged, the justices should enter a temporary pause that would allow TikTok to keep operating. “We might be in a different world again” after President-elect Donald Trump takes office on Jan. 20. Trump, who has 14.7 million followers on TikTok, also has called for the deadline to be pushed back to give him time to negotiate a “political resolution.”

Power companies merging in $16.4b deal

Constellation Energy, the nation’s largest nuclear power plant operator, has agreed to buy another electricity producer, Calpine, for $16.4 billion, a deal that shows how fast-rising demand for power, partly a result of the data centers being built for artificial intelligence, is having far-reaching effects on the economy.

The cash-and-stock deal, announced Friday, ranks among the power sector’s biggest, and indicates that natural gas is likely to play a larger role than many expected a few years ago in meeting the nation’s electricity needs. That could undermine efforts to address climate change unless companies quickly figure out how to capture and store emissions from gas power plants.

The tie-up would broaden Constellation’s portfolio as companies like Microsoft, Google and Amazon are scrambling to secure energy for data centers used to run artificial intelligence and other services.

Electricity demand is also increasing because of the building of new factories in the United States and greater use of electric vehicles and heat pumps.

Meta diversity, inclusion effort lessens

Meta is disbanding many of its diversity and inclusion efforts, telling employees they will no longer be required to interview candidates from under-represented backgrounds for open roles, or look to do business with diverse suppliers.

Maxine Williams, Meta’s chief diversity officer and highest-ranking black woman, will be reassigned to a new role, a memo to employees stated.

Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg has been working to appeal to President-elect Donald Trump, who he recently met in person at Mar-a-Lago, after years of tension with the politician. Earlier this week, Zuckerberg halted Meta’s work with third-party fact-checking organizations. Meta on Tuesday also updated its policies around what kind of content could be removed on its sites. These changes included new provisions allowing its users to at times wield insulting language “when discussing transgender rights, immigration or homosexuality” as well as to argue for gender or sexual orientation-based limitations on military, law enforcement and teaching jobs.

Compiled from Associated Press, New York Times and Bloomberg reports.