World News updates: Court orders Meta to pay $567 million to address kids’ mental health and safety on its platforms

In a ruling late Thursday, Judge Bryan Biedcheid said the bulk of the money - USD 420 million - will be used for treatment services for young people. The rest will go toward awareness and prevention, screening services and other costs over the next five years.

From tighter immigration rules in Washington to a fresh legal setback for Big Tech, courts and governments on both sides of the Atlantic are making headlines this week. In the latest, a New Mexico court has dealt Meta one of the largest child-safety penalties yet handed to a social media company, ordering it to pay out more than half a billion dollars.

A New Mexico judge has ordered Meta, the parent company of Instagram and Facebook, to pay USD 567 million to address the harm its platforms have caused young users, according to the Associated Press. The ruling, issued late Thursday by Judge Bryan Biedscheid, marks the second phase of a case Meta had already lost back in March.

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Most of the money  USD 420 million  will go toward funding treatment services for affected young people. The remaining amount is earmarked for awareness campaigns, prevention work, screening programmes and related costs, to be rolled out over the next five years.

This follows an earlier phase of the trial, in which jurors ordered Meta to pay USD 375 million in civil penalties after finding the company knowingly damaged children’s mental health and hid what it knew about child sexual exploitation occurring on its platforms.

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Live Updates
Aug 7, 2026 05:45 AM IST
NASA astronauts Anil Menon and Jessica Meir complete spacewalk to upgrade ISS power system

NASA astronauts Anil Menon and Jessica Meir wrapped up a spacewalk outside the International Space Station on Friday, working to fit hardware that will eventually let the station host new solar arrays, according to PTI.

Key points:

The spacewalk was the 281st carried out in support of the ISS the sixth for Meir and the first for Menon.
It ran for six hours and 27 minutes, starting Thursday morning US time and wrapping up early Friday in India.
The astronauts exited through the Quest airlock to install mounting hardware on the station's 3B power channel, on the Starboard 6 truss.
This groundwork will later support the installation of roll-out solar arrays known as iROSA, which NASA says will boost power for the station's systems and support its eventual safe deorbit.
Six of the planned eight iROSA units have already been deployed since 2021; two more are due later this year.
Menon worked from a foot restraint fixed to the truss for a stable vantage point, while the pair also ran cabling for the future solar arrays and wrapped the structure in insulation.
During a break, Menon spotted the moon in the sky and joked about it being a good site for a future lunar base — a lighter moment during an otherwise technical outing.

This was the first of three spacewalks planned this month for the station's Expedition 75 crew. The next, on August 13, will focus on replacing a communications antenna; the third, on August 25, will handle cabling work and swap out a docking aid.

Aug 7, 2026 05:03 AM IST
ACLU says Trump's new birthright citizenship orders are doomed to fail in court

The American Civil Liberties Union has hit out at Donald Trump's new executive orders, which once again try to limit birthright citizenship. The move comes just five weeks after the US Supreme Court struck down a similar order Trump issued last year.

In a statement, the ACLU called the president's latest move an attempt to work around the Supreme Court's ruling. The rights group said the new orders will not hold up if challenged in court.

Cody Wofsy, deputy director of the ACLU's Immigrants' Rights Project, said the top court had already settled the matter and that birthright citizenship is guaranteed by the Constitution, adding that no order from the president can change what the Constitution means. He said any order that tries to rewrite the rule on birthright citizenship will face the same outcome as the last one.

The ACLU's response follows Trump signing two executive orders on Thursday. One order widens the list of children the White House says do not qualify for automatic citizenship. The other targets so-called "birth tourism", the practice of travelling to the US just to give birth so a child gains citizenship. Trump's first attempt to limit birthright citizenship, signed on his first day in office last year, was struck down by the Supreme Court in a 6-3 ruling in June. Legal experts expect the new orders to face fresh court challenges on similar grounds.

Aug 7, 2026 04:59 AM IST
Trump signs orders to limit US birthright citizenship, despite Supreme Court ruling

A month after the US Supreme Court struck down his first bid to limit birthright citizenship under the constitution, Donald Trump signed fresh executive orders on Thursday. The orders seek to deny US citizenship to children born on American soil to "birth tourists".

What the orders say

The orders have not been made public yet. They appear to widen the categories of children the White House sees as ineligible for birthright citizenship, and aim to ban "birth tourism" outright. Trump claimed on Thursday that the practice is used by "hundreds of thousands" of people.

Numbers don't add up

That figure looks far too high. The Migration Policy Institute says the highest census-based estimate puts birth tourism at 22,000 to 26,000 babies born on US soil each year. Government data show a much smaller number just 9,600 births to mothers with foreign addresses in 2024.

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