(WASHINGTON) — A coalition of racial justice and civil rights nonprofit advocacy organizations are formally joining the fight to prevent a ban on TikTok.
The Asian American Federation, Asian Americans Advancing Justice Southern California, Calos Coalition and Hispanic Heritage Foundation are among the 13 groups arguing that TikTok serves as an essential platform for communities of color and other marginalized groups.
“TikTok is a modern-day digital town square that empowers diverse communities, often neglected by traditional media outlets, to share their underrepresented voices with people across America and the world,” lawyers from the firm Cooley LLP wrote in a court filing expected to be filed Thursday on behalf of the coalition.
The Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, which President Joe Biden signed into law as part of a larger spending package, could potentially make the app unavailable in the U.S. TikTok and its parent company ByteDance filed a lawsuit against the law, which is now formally supported by the civil rights nonprofits.
Supporters of company’s lawsuit argue the legislation threatens the First Amendment rights of 170 million U.S. users and would effectively ban the app. The groups argue the legislation is unconstitutional and they also expressed “grave concerns about anti-Asian animus undergirding the TikTok Ban.”
“The TikTok Ban imposes an unprecedented prior restraint on free speech, silencing countless voices, while also discriminating on content and viewpoint,” the Cooley lawyers wrote.
Congressional leaders and President Biden have argued that restricting the app is necessary due to security concerns with the Chinese government.
ByteDance refuted those allegations in its lawsuit, arguing there has been no tangible evidence that the app poses any security risk.
Roddy Ricch calls 911 in his latest single and video, directed by Spike Jordan.
In it, he takes on the role of a man who saves people from danger, including a woman who almost got hit by a train.
“Shake my hand, and I might take you on a trip/ Pretty, smooth skin, nice toes, you just my type/ Usually I don’t take her home first night/ But for you, I just might/ I know you know, these b****** can’t f*** with you/ On your worst day when you come around my way,” Roddy sang.
“911” follows Ricch’s “Survivor’s Remorse” and appears on his upcoming third studio album, The Navy Album.
(BEND, Ore.) — A wind-driven wildfire threatening homes and causing evacuations in Central Oregon has grown to 3,889 acres, officials said Thursday.
The Darlene 3 Fire, which started around 2 p.m. Tuesday in Deschutes County, remained 30% contained Thursday for the second consecutive day. Between Wednesday night and Thursday afternoon, an additional 1,474 acres had burned, according to the Central Oregon Fire Management Service.
Fanned by gusty winds, the blaze quickly spread through a pine forest near homes on the south side of La Pine, a small town of about 2,500 people in the foothills of the Cascade Mountains, officials said. On Wednesday, fire officials said a new blaze broke out on the east side of La Pine, threatening homes in several neighborhoods and triggering more evacuation ordered from the Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office.
Officials said shelters were opened at a local high school and the La Pine Rodeo Grounds.
The Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office said evacuation alerts were sent to 1,100 homes and businesses.
It was not immediately clear if any structures had been damaged or destroyed.
Several campgrounds and hiking trails in the area were also closed, officials said.
The cause of the fire is under investigation.
The sheriff’s office posted photos and video on its Facebook page showing a large plume of smoke emerging from a forest behind a group of homes and a firefighting air tanker dropping fire-suppression retardant on the flames.
Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek invoked the Emergency Conflagration Act after determining the fire posed a threat to life and property and exceeded the resources of the local fire agencies. The act allows the state fire marshal to mobilize firefighters and equipment throughout the state to assist local fire crews in battling the fire.
Oregon State Fire Marshall Mariana Ruiz-Temple said gusty winds and hot weather caused the fire to quickly spread.
“The Emergency Conflagration Act allows us to send the full power of the Oregon fire service to protect life and property,” Ruiz-Temple said in a news release. “As we enter the hot and dry summer months, I am asking Oregonians to do everything they can to prevent wildfires.”
(WASHINGTON) — The first presidential debate of the 2024 election will be the first ever to feature two former presidents, but that isn’t the only thing that makes it unprecedented: It’s also the earliest general election debate ever.
When President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump take the stage at the CNN-hosted contest on Thursday — it will be 131 days ahead of the Nov. 5 Election Day — months ahead of the usual fall timeline.
Since 1960, Debates have been sanctioned — and scheduled — by the nonpartisan Commission on Presidential Debates, with the previous earliest one taking place when Ronald Reagan faced off against Independent candidate John Anderson during the 1980 election cycle. That occurred on Sept. 21, 44 days ahead of that year’s general election.
Since 1976, the average length of time between the first general election debate and election date has been about 35 days, according to CPD records. The shortest interval was in 1992, when there were only 23 days between a debate an Election Day — when Democrat Bill Clinton debated Republican George H. W. Bush.
Biden and Trump will have about three extra months on the campaign trail following their first public faceoff — and experts ABC News spoke with said the early timing could have a significant impact on the race.
“The combination of having so many people with doubts about both candidates, coupled with the first debate occurring before either convention, heightens its potential importance,” said Republican political strategist Whit Ayres. “I don’t know that it will be actually important. But it certainly heightens the potential for importance.”
But Mitchell McKinney, a professor at the University of Akron and noted political communication scholar, took a different view, predicting that this early debate may not matter as much.
First, he said, at this stage in the cycle, voters aren’t as tuned in as they would be in early fall, when the debates are usually held.
“Our most recent general election presidential debates, which typically occur in late September into October, have continued to be big draws, as in 75 to 80 million” viewers, said McKinney. This time around, he continued, “It could be half that.”
The New York Times has reported that TV industry observers expect the debate to draw between 30 and 70 million viewers. For comparison, the first debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump — in September 2016 — topped 84 million viewers, according to Nielsen ratings.
Second, regardless of whether CNN’s debate exceeds ratings expectations Thursday night, the extra months between the first debate and election debate allow the candidates time to recover from a poor performance.
“If there is for a candidate — one or both of these candidates — some sort of gaffe or blunder,” McKinney said, “there is plenty of time for other events to take over … the candidate or candidates can recover,” he added.
But with Biden and Trump barreling toward a November rematch that voters are broadly unenthusiastic about, veteran Democratic strategist James Carville told ABC News that any new information about the two presidents on debate stage could make a difference for some key voters.
“People’s attitudes are very fixed and voters tend to be pretty entrenched. The person that ‘wins’ — I don’t know how you determine that — in this debate is going to be the one that provides voters with some new information, something they thought about before,” said Carville, who ran Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign.
“I guess this seems to be pretty, kind of hard to move a lot of people in this election, but if you move a few, it makes a big difference,” he added.
The decision to move up the timing followed disputes between the campaigns and the Committee on Presidential Debates — partially over scheduling.
Before the Biden and Trump campaigns declared their participation in a non-Commission for Presidential Debates-sanctioned broadcast, the candidates were planning on appearing on stage for the first time together this fall, on Sept. 16.
The Trump campaign urged the commission in May to move up its debate schedule, arguing that early voting would have already begun in some places by the time Trump and Biden debated at that date.
“As it always does, the CPD considered multiple factors in selecting debate dates in order to make them accessible by the American public. These factors include religious and federal holidays, early voting, and the dates on which individual states close their ballots,” the commission wrote in a statement.
Kendrick Lamar‘s Pop Out event turned out to be more than a Juneteenth celebration. It was also a win for Kendrick and many of the artists who performed onstage.
Kendrick earned almost 61 million combined official on-demand U.S. streams in the three days after the event (June 20-22), a 31% increase over the three-day period before the show (June 16-18), Billboard reports. His song “Not Like Us,” which he performed a few times at the event, garnered 21 million combined streams in the three-day period following the concert, a 62% jump.
ScHoolboy Q, Jay Rock and Ab-Soul also saw some bumps in their streams in the three days after their onstage reunion with K.Dot, their fellow Black Hippy crew member.
ScHoolboy earned 4.3 million streams, a 31% increase. Jay Rock acquired a little over 1 million streams, up 45%, and Ab-Soul garnered 291,000 streams, up 44%.
Even Dr. Dre, who appeared onstage, saw his song “Still D.R.E.” jump 19% after the event.
Also seeing bumps in streams are Tyler, The Creator, Dom Kennedy and YG, who all took the stage during Mustard‘s part of the show: Tyler for “Wusyaname” and “Earfquake,” which he performed that day; Dom Kennedy for “When I Come Around” and “My Type of Party”; and YG, whose whole catalog saw a 35% increase in streams over the three-day period.
Mustard’s song “Perfect Ten,” featuring the late Nipsey Hussle, also saw a 127% rise in streams over the three-day period, up to 123,000.
(WASHINGTON) — As former President Donald Trump and his team continue to tease his vice presidential pick, his potential VP contenders were gathering in Atlanta Thursday to support the former president around the debate and make a case that they’re the best choice to be his running mate.
Potential vice presidential candidates, including Sens. J.D. Vance and Marco Rubio and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum are among the dozens of surrogates the campaign is expected to have on the ground in Atlanta, including in the debate spin room aftereard and at a watch party the campaign is holding Thursday night, where loyal supporters and donors will gather.
Trump himself was scheduled to arrive in Atlanta later Thursday afternoon from his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, and is feeling confident and ready, his senior campaign advisers told ABC News.
As Trump was set to take the debate stage later Thursday, his campaign is fundraising off his much-anticipated running mate selection, suggesting that person could be present at the debate.
“Do you want to see my Vice President at the debate? They could be there, but you’ll never know until I make the OFFICIAL VP ANNOUNCEMENT!” a Trump campaign fundraising email sent out to supporters Thursday morning said.
Trump for weeks has been saying that he’s likely to announce his vice presidential candidate around the Republican National Convention scheduled to take place next month, but Trump in recent days has been teasing the idea of his potential running mate joining him in Atlanta, telling his supporters at a retail campaign stop in Philadelphia last week that that his vice president will “most likely” be in attendance at the debate site.
In recent weeks, Trump has also been asking his donors at fundraisers who they want to see as his running mate and sending out fundraising emails to small-dollar donors asking the same question.
Those on the vice presidential shortlist — including Vance, Rubio and Burgum — were staying mostly quiet on the eve of the debate as they prepared to rally behind their Republican leader. Other Trump surrogates have been on a media tour, holding intimate campaign stops in Atlanta on Wednesday and making television appearances Thursday morning.
In a taped interview on “Fox and Friends,” South Carolina GOP Sen. Tim Scott said he had told Trump “never forget the provocative racial past of Joe Biden,” when asked if he helped the former president in prepare for the debate.
“Donald Trump has done more for progress from a racial perspective economically than any president in my lifetime,” Scott continued. “He should focus on that.”
Florida Republican Rep. Byron Donalds, asked by CNN Thursday morning if he expects Trump to discuss looking forward as a country during the debate rather than focusing on the past, said the former president has been looking forward but added that he might still comment about the 2020 election and the hush money trial and verdict.
“If you’ve been on a trail with the president — I’ve been on a trail with him — if you listen to everything that he says, he’s been talking a lot, significantly, a lot about what’s going on in our country, inflation, the border, foreign policy, all the issues that really matter to the American people,” Donalds said.
Donalds and GOP Rep. Wesley Hunt made rounds of surrogate campaign stops in Atlanta on Wednesday to court black voters on behalf of Trump, stopping by a barbershop and local cigar lounge.
Trump called into the barbershop event earlier on Wednesday, touting his administration’s record, bashing CNN ahead of Thursday’s debate, and once again repeating his argument that he is gaining support with the Black community because of his indictments.
“Since that happened, the Black support, I think my representatives will tell you this, the Black support has gone through the roof and, I guess they equated to problems that they’ve had,” Trump said.
At the watch party Thursday night, where Trump is advertised to potentially make post-debate remarks, Burgum, Vance, Rubio, Donalds, Hunt as well as Rep. Elise Stefanik, former Trump Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson and Sen. Lindsey Graham are scheduled to attend as featured guests.
(NEW YORK) — Author Sadie Dingfelder discusses her experiences with face blindness in her new book, “Do I Know You? A Faceblind Reporter’s Journey into the Science of Sight, Memory, and Imagination.”
From a young age, Dingfelder has been aware of her struggle with remembering people and faces. However, it took her decades to realize that her experience was not the norm.
She didn’t realize this until one day when she mistook her husband for a random man in the grocery store who had a similar build as her spouse.
A recent study found that only 3.08% of Americans meet the criteria for face blindness, or prosopagnosia. This condition affects close to 10 million Americans.
In her latest book, Dingfelder delves into her condition and unveils the incredible neural diversity of humans. ABC News sat down with Dingfelder to discuss her book in more detail.
ABC NEWS LIVE: Since childhood, science journalist Sadie Dingfelder has known that she isn’t good at remembering people or faces, but for decades she failed to notice that most people function otherwise. In fact, a recent study found that only 3.08% of Americans meet the criteria for face blindness. That number is close to 10 million Americans.
In her newest book, “Do I Know You?: A Faceblind Reporter’s Journey into the Science of Sight, Memory, and Imagination”, Sadie Dingfelder explores her condition and reveals the remarkable neural diversity of humans. Sadie, thank you so much for joining us.
DINGFELDER: Thank you for having me.
ABC NEWS LIVE: All right. So how did you realize that you have face blindness?
DINGFELDER: Well, let me tell you. I was in a grocery store and I was following my husband around. He was. And all of a sudden, he went rogue. And he started filling up our grocery cart with all this junk food. And I, I, you know, had to stop him, obviously. So I plucked a jar of generic peanut butter out of the cart, and I said, ‘since when do you buy generic?’
And Steve looked completely horrified, and it took me a second, but he looked horrified because he was not Steve. He was not my husband. He was a random Steve-shaped stranger. And, you know, and on the way home, I just was thinking, ‘this is not the kind of mistake that neurotypical people make.’
ABC NEWS LIVE: You said that he looked horrified. So you were able to see certain emotions in the face? But not, just give us a sense if you can kind of describe what kind of images you might see.
DINGFELDER: Well, it’s really interesting because face recognition is controlled by a totally different part of your brain than emotion, recognizing emotion or gaze direction or even telling genders. So, I’m normal at all those things. My problem is I just can’t remember faces.
ABC NEWS LIVE: And so when did you connect the dots that this was somehow related to the brain function?
DINGFELDER: Well, so ironically, I am a science writer, and I specialize in neuroscience and psychology.
ABC NEWS LIVE: Convenient.
DINGFELDER: Right! So I knew, like, how to do the research, and I got myself into a study. So I pitched it as a story and I thought, oh, this is a fascinating disorder that I probably don’t have. But I had it, turns out.
ABC NEWS LIVE: And so not only do you have face blindness, but you also have something called stereo blindness. Explain what that is.
DINGFELDER: Yeah. This is. My world is very flat. I can’t catch a ball or a frisbee, and I stumble a lot. It’s because my brain — I only look out of one eye at a time. And in most people’s brains, combine the images from their two eyes into a single, you know, three-dimensional image. And my brain doesn’t doesn’t do it.
ABC NEWS LIVE: So you’ve really kind of taken this deep dive into your own brain. But in the same time, what have you learned just about neuroscience and how other people’s brains work?
DINGFELDER: Yeah, that’s been the huge revelation for me, is that, you know, your father, your best friend, your spouse. They could all be living in a world that like, if you could beam into their minds, you you would find the world to be completely unrecognizable. I had no idea that other people could visualize. I thought that people were speaking in metaphors.
You know, when you’re in yoga class and they’re like, shine your sternum forward, like, I didn’t realize people could actually visualize like, rays of light coming out of their sternum.
ABC NEWS LIVE: So if I were to say, visualize a meadow, a very calm scene, you’re not able to do that?
DINGFELDER: That. No, I can just think I can think about a calm scene.
ABC NEWS LIVE: But you wouldn’t be able to picture it?
DINGFELDER: Right.
ABC NEWS LIVE: Your story is really vulnerable. You really allow your inner thoughts, emotions, experiences. You kind of put it all out there for everyone else. What have you learned along this whole journey?
DINGFELDER: Oh, gosh. I have learned that there is just a wild amount of sort of hidden neurodiversity in the world. And so even people who seem completely, you know, like normal and like they’re fitting in, they might have, you know, they might have ADHD or autism or some of the rare things that I seem to have, and you wouldn’t have any idea.
And they often don’t have any idea either, because they have nothing to compare their experience to. And even cooler is how science, scientists are beginning to study this. You know, they they are peeking into our brains in lots of clever ways and discovering that this is not just a problem with describing things. We really do have very different inner lives from one another.
ABC NEWS LIVE: So fascinating. I think a lot of people are going to be really intrigued by this, Sadie. Thank you so much for sharing your story with us. You can now purchase “Do I Know You? A Faceblind Reporter’s Journey into the Science of Sight, Memory, and Imagination,” wherever books are sold.
Donald Glover has been teasing his upcoming Childish Gambino album with the phrase “Bando is coming,” but a note about one of its songs did not actually come from him.
Taking to Instagram Live Wednesday, he confirmed the news about his final project, titled “Lithonia,” noting it’s a single and the prequel to his forthcoming LP, Bando Storm and the New World.
“That got leaked, it kind of pissed me off,” Glover said. “And I know who did it, Audiomack, f****** no soup for you. You’re not getting the album now. That’s what time I’m on.”
According to Glover, his new album rollout was intended to be “mostly about fun,” but “the problem is we’re not having fun.”
“I’m trying to have fun,” he said. “Because I feel like there’s just people not having enough fun. … When I was a kid there was, like, big things that would unite us and I just feel bad for y’all. I feel bad for some of y’all.”
Glover added that it’s “f***** up” that “the most fun we had was from a fight,” referring to the Kendrick Lamar and Drake feud.
“[It] was a song from a fight, from a rap beef, which I enjoyed every minute of,” Glover said. “It was very fun. But, still, kind of negative, in a certain light, I guess.”
50 Cent has a wealth of knowledge in business and music, so he’s sharing some with those attending this year’s Invest Fest, “a first of its kind, in-person experience to combine investing, entrepreneurship, pop culture, and entertainment in a festival setting,” the website describes.
The Grammy winner will be headlining the event, where he’ll talk about Black entrepreneurship and his recent trip to Capitol Hill to push for more Black representation in the liquor industry, among other things. He’ll join a lineup of artists, influencers and more, including T.I., Lauren London, Monica, Wyclef Jean and Steve Harvey.
Invest Fest was launched in 2022 by co-founders Troy Millings and Rashad Bilal of Earn Your Leisure, a media platform that includes information about a range of business, finance and entrepreneurial topics.
Speaking to TMZ, Troy said they chose 50 Cent because he is “the powerful blend of culture and business.”
Bilal added, “We believe [50’s] insights and experiences will inspire and empower our audience to pursue their own paths to financial freedom.”
Invest Fest 2024 takes place in Atlanta Aug. 23-25; tickets are now available.
50 Cent has a wealth of knowledge in business and music, so he’s sharing some with those attending this year’s Invest Fest, “a first of its kind, in-person experience to combine investing, entrepreneurship, pop culture, and entertainment in a festival setting,” the website describes.
The Grammy winner will be headlining the event, where he’ll talk about Black entrepreneurship and his recent trip to Capitol Hill to push for more Black representation in the liquor industry, among other things. He’ll join a lineup of artists, influencers and more, including T.I., Lauren London, Monica, Wyclef Jean and Steve Harvey.
Invest Fest was launched in 2022 by co-founders Troy Millings and Rashad Bilal of Earn Your Leisure, a media platform that includes information about a range of business, finance and entrepreneurial topics.
Speaking to TMZ, Troy said they chose 50 Cent because he is “the powerful blend of culture and business.”
Bilal added, “We believe [50’s] insights and experiences will inspire and empower our audience to pursue their own paths to financial freedom.”
Invest Fest 2024 takes place in Atlanta Aug. 23-25; tickets are now available.
