Top Stories — Wednesday, September 10, 2025
What is trending in the USA today? Here is Breaking News:
- Explosive Protests in Nepal — nyt News
- Robinhood embraces copy trading after warning competitors about regulatory risks — TechCrunch
- Hong Kong's Same-Sex Rights Bill Meets Rare Defiance From Lawmakers — nyt News
Explosive Protests in Nepal
Source: nyt News • Published: 9/10/2025, 10:00:05 AM
What's behind the fiery protests in Nepal?
The sheer number of prominent buildings that were set on fire by young protesters during the second day of unrest in Kathmandu yesterday is staggering.
Protesters set fire to the Supreme Court building and the Parliament building. They set fire to the home of the prime minister, K.P. Sharma Oli, who had resigned hours earlier, and to the headquarters of his political party, the Communist Party of Nepal.
They burned the headquarters of the Nepali Congress party, the houses of three former prime ministers and the house of the home minister, who'd resigned on Monday after the security forces fired into crowds of young demonstrators that day, killing 22.
As of late Tuesday, the situation in Kathmandu was in flux. The military sent in troops to restore order, with some spotted on the street, and it was unclear who was running the country. Nepal's main international airport was shut down, and flights that had been scheduled to land there were diverted to other countries.
Here are three things we know about the protests so far:
The protests were set off by a ban on social media: Last week, the authorities banned 26 services, including WeChat, YouTube and LinkedIn, citing failures to register with the government. There's a robust culture of free speech in Nepal, and social media had become a vehicle for criticizing what's widely perceived as a deeply corrupt, two-tier society, comprising elites and everyone else. (Nepalese have used hashtags like #nepobabies and #nepokids to criticize the lavish lifestyles of politicians' children.)
But in Nepal, social media is about more than free speech: "The country's biggest slow-burning crisis centers on jobs," my colleague Alex Travelli wrote. "Getting one is a herculean task in Nepal." With many Nepalese working abroad and sending remittances back home, the social media ban "had the effect of isolating families from their faraway breadwinners," Alex wrote. The government repealed the ban after the first day of protests, but by that point, anger was already boiling over.
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Robinhood embraces copy trading after warning competitors about regulatory risks
Source: TechCrunch • Published: 9/10/2025, 9:47:09 AM
Robinhood embraces copy trading after warning competitors about regulatory risks
What a difference a changing regulatory environment makes.
Roughly nine months after suggesting that a young copy trading platform could only operate because it flew "under the radar" of regulators, Robinhood has announced its own entry into the space with "Robinhood Social," a new feature that will allow users to follow and manually replicate the trades of prominent investors.
The move represents a striking about-face for the online brokerage, which has historically been cautious about features that could attract regulatory scrutiny. The company famously ditched its celebratory digital confetti feature ahead of its 2021 IPO after regulators raised concerns about gamifying trading, making its embrace of copy trading, another potentially gamified feature, all the more notable.
This wariness was on full display in a December, when in a conversation with this editor about upstart copy trading platform Dub, Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev suggested that such platforms could operate primarily because of their smaller size, proposing that "copy trading could become of greater interest to regulators" and that Dub may not yet be under the "magnifying glass" because of its "comparatively smaller size."
Now, Robinhood is betting that the regulatory landscape has changed enough to safely enter the copy trading market.
The timing is particularly notable given the pointed criticism Robinhood faced earlier this year from Dub's 23-year-old founder Steven Wang, who has positioned his platform as a more educationally-focused alternative to traditional trading apps.
"I have a lot of respect for what [CEO] Vlad [Tenev] has done in making trading free," Wang told me back in February. "But at the end of the day, making it super easy to trade without expert guidance, without education, is really just gambling for the broader population."
Tuesday's news, announced at Robinhood's company event earlier in the day, brought to mind the possibility that Robinhood had, in fact, acquired four-year-old Dub, which officially launched just last year and has so far raised $47 million in funding from investors. But reached for comment, a Robinhood spokesperson responded via email, "No, this is not an acquisition, we are building our own platform in Robinhood." A request for comment from Wang was not returned by press time.
Robinhood's version of copy trading differs meaningfully from platforms like Dub and established players like eToro, which has offered copy trading to U.S. users for years through its CopyTrader feature. While eToro allows automatic copying of other traders' portfolios in real-time (with U.S. users limited to copying only other U.S. traders due to regulations), Dub allows users to automatically copy entire portfolios for a $10 monthly subscription, and Robinhood Social will require users to manually replicate trades, a distinction that may help address regulatory concerns.
The platform, set to launch early next year, will feature verified traders and display the activities of famous investors and members of Congress. Unlike the informal copy trading that happens on social media, Robinhood will require identity verification and proof of actual portfolio positions. The plan, according to the company, is to first invite 10,000 Robinhood Social users to test out the service before rolling it out more widely.
The launch comes at a time when the regulatory landscape is fast evolving. Crypto companies were scrutinized heavily under the Biden administration, while numerous crypto companies have become publicly traded companies in recent months, their path eased by the Trump administration's crypto-friendly stance. Meanwhile, copy trading – long common in Europe but heavily restricted in the U.S. – may be gaining acceptance finally.
Seen through that lense, Robinhood's entry into copy trading represents more than just another feature launch; it could signal the opening of floodgates for a wave of new platforms. If Robinhood can successfully negotiate the legal landscape that has long limited copy trading in the U.S., other fintech outfits seem likely to follow suit. eToro's successful May IPO, which raised $310 million and saw shares surge 29% on their debut, has already demonstrated strong investor appetite for copy trading platforms.
Whether this potential wave is good news or bad for retail investors – or it will mostly serve to boost fintech valuations – is an open question. For right now, Robinhood's shareholders are probably the clearest winners.
Read the full story at TechCrunch.
Hong Kong's Same-Sex Rights Bill Meets Rare Defiance From Lawmakers
Source: nyt News • Published: 9/10/2025, 9:31:06 AM
Since the Chinese government imposed a major overhaul of Hong Kong's political system four years ago, the city's legislature has been stacked with loyalists who have sided with the government on almost every issue.
But there is one law proposed by the Hong Kong government that faces opposition from a large number of lawmakers. It's a bill that would recognize same-sex partnerships and provide people in such relationships with rights such as the authority to make medical decisions on behalf of their partners.
Nearly half of the city's 89 legislators have indicated they would vote against the bill, which will be debated again on Wednesday, while only a handful have declared support. Holden Chow, the vice chair of the city's largest pro-Beijing party said that the bill could "result in dire consequences" for traditional Chinese family values.
Hong Kong does not recognize same-sex marriage. The proposed law would allow only same-sex couples who married or entered a civil union overseas to register as lawful couples in Hong Kong, and extends rights to such individuals in a limited way.
Once registered, people in same-sex relationships would be entitled to rights related to the medical matters involving their partners, including taking part in medical decisions. They would also be allowed to make arrangements if their partners died, including burial, cremation and the keeping of ashes.
The bill does not cover parental or adoption rights, nor does it directly address public welfare benefits for couples.
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