Day: August 25, 2025

Fifteen individuals have been reportedly killed in an alleged Israeli strike on Khan Yunis.

• Telegram CEO Pavel Durov said he’d “rather die” than give third parties access to messages on Telegram.
• Durov was detained by French authorities last year and charged with six crimes related to illegal activity on his platform.
• In a social media post on Sunday, Durov said the arrest is “legally and logically absurd.”

For Pavel Durov, data privacy is a matter of life and death.

The founder and CEO of the messaging and social media app Telegram outlined his stance in a post on X on Sunday.

“I’d rather die — no third party has access to private messages on Telegram,” the Russian-born entrepreneur wrote in response to a comment that suggested he gave French authorities “backdoor” access to Telegram data.

Durov became a symbol of the struggle over user data privacy between social media companies and national governments after he was arrested by French authorities one year ago, in August 2024.

The CEO was detained for four days and accused of being complicit in allowing criminal activity to occur on Telegram. He has denied all the criminal charges laid against him.

Durov shared a four-part thread about the ongoing case on X on Sunday, the anniversary of his arrest.

“One year ago, the French police detained me for 4 days because some people I’d never heard of used Telegram to coordinate crimes,” Durov wrote in the thread.

“Arresting a CEO of a major platform over the actions of its users was not only unprecedented — it was legally and logically absurd,” he said.

French prosecutors charged Durov in late August 2024 with six crimes, including “complicity” in the distribution of child sexual abuse material and drug trafficking, arguing that he allowed illegal activity to flourish on Telegram while refusing to cooperate with authorities.

Durov said on X that the investigation against him “is still struggling to find anything that I or Telegram did wrong.”

Telegram’s moderation practices align with industry standards, and it has “always responded to every legally binding request from France,” he added.

“The only outcome of my arrest so far has been massive damage to France’s image as a free country,” Durov said.

In his posts on Sunday, Durov said he does not have an appeal date and has to return to France every 14 days.

Durov set up Telegram in 2013 after previously founding the Russian social media network VK. Telegram has about 1 billion active users globally.

The influential messaging platform has grown to be a primary source of information in the war in Ukraine and Russia. It has been called out by critics and researchers for refusing to remove graphic, misleading, and sometimes criminal content.

Durov and Telegram did not respond to requests for comment from Business Insider.

• After nearly 12 years in New York City, I felt like I needed a fresh start.
• I got a job in Pittsburgh, excited to start my new life in the Midwest.
• Pittsburgh wasn’t what I’d hoped for, but it helped me realize where I truly belong: Los Angeles.

I was almost 33 years old, had $200 in my savings account, and had felt adrift in New York City for years. So in December of 2012, after almost 12 years in the big city, I packed up my tiny one-bedroom apartment and moved to Pittsburgh, excited to restart in the Midwest.

I grew up in Cleveland, only two hours from my Shadyside neighborhood in Pittsburgh. (Well, only 80 minutes depending on how quickly I drove on the turnpike, but please don’t tell my mom.) While the catalyst for my move was mainly for a big Copy Director job at a fashion company, I was also excited to be closer to my immediate family and have the chance at a fresh start in both friendships and relationships.

The first six months were great. My job was going well, I connected with new friends, and I liked my neighborhood and apartment. I was also spending almost $1,000 less each month on rent, which was helping me finally save money. All in all, the move felt like a win.

And then, all of a sudden, it wasn’t. I lost my job. I realized I didn’t actually have that many friends there. And I started sinking into depression, wondering if I’d made the wrong choice.

Simultaneously, I kept visiting friends in Los Angeles. I’d always felt a pull to the West Coast, but because it was so far from family, I hadn’t tried to move there. After visiting six times within two years, however, I thought it might be time for something new.

What changed my mind

At 35, only a year and a half after moving to Pittsburgh, nothing was going right. I felt super lonely with only a couple of friends in the area. The food and bar scene, which seemed so vast upon my arrival, had shrunk to about 10 bars and restaurants I’d already visited and didn’t feel the need to go back to.

After months of struggling with my boss over creative vision, which typically ended in him telling me I was uncreative and unintelligent and me crying in a corner, I was unceremoniously fired.

That’s when I met my now ex. I’ll keep it short, but the gist is that when it ended between us, I had less of the savings I’d worked so hard to earn and lower self-respect.

At this point, I felt like I was dangling on a dangerous precipice. Pittsburgh, the city that had once seemed so full of possibility for me, was feeling more and more like a wasteland both professionally and personally.

I knew I needed a change.

Why I moved to Los Angeles

While I’d been visiting Los Angeles increasingly more in the last 15 months, I’d actually been going there for a decade at this point, visiting different friends and distant family members each time.

I’d always felt a strong connection to the city. It seemed as if creative vibes ran through every street, nook, and cranny. Practically everyone I met was creative in some way, and respected that trait in others, too.

I’d been craving that creative spark throughout my life, but especially in Pittsburgh, where saying I was a writer was typically met with blank stares.

Each visit made me want to leave even less. In fact, during a February 2015 trip, as my best friend drove me to the airport, I repeated, “I don’t want to leave.” At which point he said, “You don’t have to.” It was like a lightbulb went on over my head.

I didn’t have to leave Los Angeles, and I could leave the city that was dragging me down.

My bad decision ended up being the perfect one

Pittsburgh and I will never be friends. However, I’m grateful that my time there led me to where I’m actually supposed to be.

In October of 2015, I packed up my life once again. That same friend who’d driven me to the airport in February flew to Pittsburgh and spent five days driving across the country with me. When I finally drove on the 405 that first night in Los Angeles, it felt like I was home.

I’ve been able to build a successful freelance writing career and continue to feel creative every single day.

I’ve found my forever friends, the ones who will drive me to the hospital (which has happened) or just sit around my apartment laughing uproariously at a TV show.

I’m constantly finding new restaurants, bars, museums, popup exhibits, and other interesting ways to occupy my time. I go to weekly trivia nights with friends, hike Runyon Canyon with a college friend and his son, and visit Disneyland a few times a year.

I’ve never been one to sit home night after night, but I find myself actually having to schedule nights off since there’s so much happening all the time.

It’s been 10 years since I left Pittsburgh for Los Angeles. And it’s been the happiest, most settling, most fulfilling 10 years of my life.

Discover the top 5 TV shows to binge-watch on Amazon Prime Video this week, including critically acclaimed dramas, cult comedies & thrilling prequels.

Vietnam began evacuating more than half a million people Sunday in preparation for a powerful typhoon, which made landfall on the country’s coasts on Monday afternoon.

Typhoon Kajiki, which drenched China’s Hainan Island and parts of Guangdong province on Sunday evening, has forced mass evacuations, school and airport closures, and emergency preparations in Vietnam’s coastal provinces from Thanh Hoa to Quang Tri. The typhoon hit Vietnam’s coast with winds of up to 133 km/h (82 mph) and was moving inland as of Monday 4 p.m. local time (5 a.m. ET). The wind is expected to rapidly weaken over land, according to the Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JWTC), although heavy rain will likely persist for a few days.

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Kajiki is also expected to affect Laos, northern Thailand, eastern Cambodia, and central Myanmar, according to the World Meteorological Center Beijing.

“This is an extremely dangerous, fast-moving storm,” the Vietnamese government said in a statement Sunday.

“Strong winds can last for hours. When the storm passes, it may temporarily calm down but then increase in intensity,” Vietnam’s Deputy Prime Minister Tran Hong Ha said on Monday morning, adding that “floods and landslides are sometimes more dangerous than storms.

Here’s what to know.

Vietnam braces for powerful storm

The Vietnamese government expects Kajiki, the fifth tropical storm to hit the country this year, to be as powerful as Typhoon Yagi, which brushed Vietnam’s north last year—killing 300 people in the country and leaving more than $3 billion in damages in its wake.

Meteorologists from Vietnam’s National Center for Hydro-Meteorological Forecasting described Kajiki as a “very unusual” typhoon, local media reported, saying its rapid movement was alarming. 

Kajiki is also expected to bring in torrential rains to Vietnam: VnExpress reported that some areas could receive as much as 40 cm (15 in) of rain, and some places may experience downpours of 20 cm (7 in) in just three hours.

Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh has issued dispatches to ministers, local government leaders, and other officials, ordering the immediate evacuation and relocation of residents in dangerous areas. A Sunday government statement said that more than 16,500 soldiers and 107,000 paramilitary forces were on standby to assist in disaster response and relief efforts.

Two airports in Thanh Hoa and Quang Binh provinces closed down on Monday for the safety of passengers. Local carriers Vietnam Airlines and Vietjet have also cancelled flights.

The Railway Transport Joint Stock Company also suspended some scheduled passenger train services plying Hanoi-Ho Chi Minh routes because of the storm.

Fishermen in central coastal areas where the typhoon will pass were called back to dock and anchor their ships. 

Southern China also shuts down

Southern China’s Hainan Island saw heavy rainfall and gales as the typhoon brushed past the island on Sunday. The island’s Sanya City, a popular tourist resort destination, closed businesses and public transport as it braced for the intensifying storm. Around 20,000 people in Hainan were evacuated, and more than 30,000 fishing boats were recalled to ports, according to state news agency People’s Daily.

China’s national weather agency forecast that Hainan, southwestern coastal areas of Guangdong, and other coastal areas will experience torrential rain of up to 25 to 35 cm (10 to 14 in), and that strong winds could continue to affect coastal areas of Hainan, Guangxi, and Guangdong till around 2 p.m. Tuesday local time (2 a.m. E.T.). Yunnan, Guangdong, Hainan, and Guangxi are also forecast to receive heavy rain till Tuesday.

Chinese authorities issued a yellow alert, the third highest level of a four-tier warning system, on Monday.

The country was recently battered by torrential rainfall which caused flooding and landslides, which killed at least 30 people in Beijing, forced more than 80,000 people to evacuate, and impacted electricity in around 130 villages.

How to stay safe

The U.S. embassy in Vietnam recommends that people take the following precautions:

• Monitor local media and weather forecasts;
• Monitor the JWTC and Vietnam’s national weather agency;
• Follow instructions from local officials;
• Avoid walking or driving across flooded areas.