14-year-old Unnati claims women's singles title, unseeded George wins men's competition
Odisha Open 2022
Cuttack(PTI): Teenager Unnati Hooda became the youngest Indian to win a Super 100 tournament as she beat compatriot Smit Toshniwal in straight games to claim the women's singles title while unseeded Kiran George emerged triumphant in men's singles final of the USD 75,000 Odisha Open badminton tournament here on Sunday.
The 21-year-old George prevailed over Priyanshu Rajawat
21-15 14-21 21-18 to clinch the men's singles title after battling hard for 58 minutes.
Before that, the 14-year-old Unnati produced an excellent performance to emerge triumphant in her event. Unnati won 21-18 21-11 to be crowned the Odisha Open champion for the first time.
Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand defeated Sanyogita Ghorpade and Shruti Mishra 21-12 21-10 to claim the women's doubles title after a 28-minute contest.
In the mixed doubles final, India's MR Arjun and Jolly suffered a 16-21 20-22 defeat at the hands of Sri Lankan duo Sachin Dias and Thilini Hendadahewa in a match that lasted 36 minutes.
Unnati, who entered the final after she surprised Indian Open finalist Malvika Bansod 24-22 24-22 in the last-four clash on Saturday, took 35 minutes to get the better of Toshniwal in the summit showdown of the women's singles at the Jawahar Lal Nehru Indoor Statdium.
Toshniwal too pulled off an upset, knocking out Ashmita Chaliha, seeded five, 21-19, 10-21, 21-17, to set up the title clash with the 14-year-old Unnati.
Unnati claimed the the first game after making a comeback and riding on the momentum, she won the second game without much difficulty as Toshniwal had no answer to her opponent's aggressive approach.
George won the opening game quite comfortably and was leading 5-3 in the initial phase of the second game, but Rajawat fought back brilliantly to take the match into the decider.
The battle was intense in the third and final game with Rajawat trying his best to not allow George have his way. However, the 19-year-old Rajawat fell short in the end as George kept his composure to win it and have the last laugh.
George had defeated Ansal Yadav, 19-21, 21-12, 21-14, while 19-year-old Rajawat scored a 21-17, 21-14 win over Kausal D in the men's singles semifinals.
On his way to the final, George also stunned third seed and the higher ranked Subhankar Dey in the quarterfinals.
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TikTok shuts down as US ban takes effect
Houston: TikTok’s app effectively shut down in the US, just hours before a law banning the popular video-sharing platform was set to go into effect. The app was shut down on Saturday.
“A law banning TikTok has been enacted in the US Unfortunately, that means you can’t use TikTok for now,” a message reads when American users open the app.
“We are fortunate that President Trump has indicated that he will work with us on a solution to reinstate TikTok once he takes office. Please stay tuned!”
While the Biden administration dismissed TikTok’s shutdown threat as a "stunt" and handed enforcement to the Trump administration, TikTok maintained that without clear assurances, it had no choice but to suspend its services in the US.
An internal email to employees stated that President Trump has expressed his intention to work on a solution to restore TikTok once he assumes office on January 20th. TikTok assured teams are working to resume services as soon as possible.
On Saturday evening, a warning appeared in both TikTok and CapCut apps at 9 PM Easten time:
"We regret that a US law banning TikTok will take effect on January 19th, forcing us to temporarily suspend our services. We’re working to restore our service in the US as soon as possible. Thank you for your support. Stay tuned."
By 10:30 PM ET, users were blocked from accessing both apps, with TikTok displaying a message that the app "isn’t available right now," but expects resolution under President-elect Trump.
It comes after days of speculation and confusion over the platform’s future.
The Supreme Court on Friday unanimously upheld the divest-or-ban law, which gave TikTok’s China-based parent company ByteDance until Sunday to divest from the app.
The law directed Apple and Google to remove the service from app stores. It also required web-hosting firms, including TikTok's back-end cloud provider, Oracle, to stop supporting the app or face penalties that could reach into the billions of dollars, NPR reported.
Trump said Saturday that he would most likely give TikTok a 90-day extension.
“The 90-day extension is something that will be most likely done, because it’s appropriate. You know, it’s appropriate. We have to look at it carefully,” Trump said in a call with “Meet the Press” moderator Kristen Welker. “It’s a very big situation.”
The law, which passed Congress with wide bipartisan majorities and was signed by President Biden in April, allows the president to provide a 90-day extension, as long as progress is being made toward a divestiture.
Following Friday’s Supreme Court decision, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew thanked the president-elect for his commitment to finding a solution to keep the app accessible in the US, Chew who met with Trump at Mar-a-Lago last month, is set to attend Monday’s inauguration, the Hill reported.
While the app’s message and Trump’s remarks suggest the app could be revived in the US soon, it remains unclear exactly what that would look like and how long a divestiture deal could take to hammer out.
JUST IN - TikTok officially goes offline in the US. pic.twitter.com/QpJU97grSh
— Disclose.tv (@disclosetv) January 19, 2025
