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Kristen Wiig Deserves an Emmy for the ‘Palm Royale’ Finale
Photo Illustration by Thomas Levinson/The Daily Beast/Getty/Apple TV+(Warning: Spoilers ahead.)There comes a time to retire songs from being used in TV shows or movies because they have been done to death (hello, “Hallelujah”), or it was part of a scene so iconic it would be impossible to top it.“Is That All There Is?” by Peggy Lee falls into the latter camp after Mad Men used the late-’60s existential anthem in its final season. However, Palm Royale and Kristen Wiig’s uniquely heartbreaking performance of this song—complete with new spoken word lyrics—proves there are still ways to surprise with a classic track. (For starters, the word “cunnilingus” is a new addition specific to this new version.)Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Jimmy Kimmel Roasts Donald Trump for Embarrassing Stormy Daniels Details
ABCIt’s been a rough time in court for former president Donald Trump. Not only was he fined $9,000 and threatened with jail time for violating a gag order, but on Tuesday he was forced to listen–quietly–as porn star Stormy Daniels gave a long, in-depth testimony about her experience with him during their alleged 2006 affair.Daniels’ testimony was apparently considered so graphic that the judge criticized it for going into “too much detail,” but Seth Meyers, Stephen Colbert, and Jordan Klepper didn’t seem to mind; all throwing in plenty of jokes at Trump’s expense during their opening monologues Tuesday night.But none of them seemed to be having quite as much fun as Jimmy Kimmel.Read more at The Daily Beast.
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‘Game of Thrones’ Actor Ian Gelder Dies at 74, Just Months After Cancer Diagnosis
Jeff Spicer/Getty Images for SOLTBritish actor Ian Gelder, known for his role playing Kevan Lannister in Game of Thrones, has died just five months after being diagnosed with bile duct cancer. He was 74.Gelder’s death on Monday was announced by his husband and fellow actor, The Crown’s Ben Daniels, on Instagram Tuesday. Daniels described a “huge huge sadness” and a “heavy heart broken into a million pieces” after the passing of “my darling husband and life partner.”Daniels added how he had stopped work after the December diagnosis but that “neither of us had any idea that it would all be so fast.”Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Bridget Ziegler Dubs Her Anti-Trans Comeback ‘Masks 2.0’
Ricardo Ramirez Buxeda/Orlando Sentinel/Tribune News Service via Getty ImagesEarlier this year, Moms for Liberty co-founder and right-wing activist Bridget Ziegler was keeping a low profile as her and her husband’s three-way sex scandal blighted their status as conservative culture-war celebrities in Florida.The embattled “parental rights” activist for months has refused calls to resign from the Sarasota school board and recently returned from a hiatus on X, formerly Twitter, to advance posts against gender affirming care for trans youth.At a Tuesday board meeting, Ziegler took her penchant for waging ideological battles a step further, introducing a resolution blocking protections for LGBTQ students and employees mandated by the Biden Administration’s newly-released Title IX rule that prohibits harassment and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Newsmax Host Gets Real With Kristi Noem About Her Political Implosion
NewsmaxSouth Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem still isn’t done lashing out at members of the press regarding the fallout from her story about shooting and killing her 14-month old puppy, this time complaining about a “hit job” interview on Newsmax after a host said he doubted whether Noem is still on Donald Trump’s VP shortlist.The controversial elements of Noem’s memoir, including a story—which she refuses to say is true or not and has since been removed from the book—of her meeting North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, are widely seen as having buried her chances of being the former president’s running mate. A Trumpworld source told The Daily Beast late last month that the likelihood of a Trump-Noem ticket was “less than zero now.” After Wake Up America co-host Rob Finnerty mentioned this reality to Noem, their exchange grew tense—unlike Noem’s prior Newsmax interview on Monday night.“Governor, if you had asked me a month ago who’s at the top of the list to run with Donald Trump, I would have said your name. If you had asked me that same question this morning, I don’t even think you’re on the list.”Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Opinion: Why Is Trump Denying He Banged a Porn Star?
Photo Illustration by Thomas Levinson/The Daily Beast/GettyDear Penthouse: I never thought it would happen to me but I went to a golf tournament and had sex with a porn star…The testimony offered by Stormy Daniels at Donald Trump’s hush-money trial on Tuesday would have been more shocking if it hadn’t sounded like a classic Penthouse male fantasy from the 1980s.As Daniels told it, Trump left his post-partum wife and newborn son to attend a 2006 celebrity golf tournament in Lake Tahoe with more than links on his mind. Through his bodyguard, Trump invited the enticing Daniels to dine with him at his actual penthouse suite. He greeted her in slinky pajamas. Suave move. Except Daniels, who is actually there for dinner, mocked them. Trump changed into regular clothes and, for a moment, it looked like the fantasy might never become a reality.Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Idaho Teen Who Shouted Racial Slur at Women’s Team Won’t Be Charged
Myk Crawford/NCAA Photos via Getty ImagesProsecutors in Idaho have declined to bring charges against an 18-year-old high school student who confessed to yelling a racial slur at members of the University of Utah women’s basketball team earlier this year.Authorities found “insufficient evidence to establish probable cause” that Anthony Myers had specifically intended to harass the Utes, they said in a charging document dated May 3. “[O]n the contrary,” they continued, “the sum of the evidence supports that Mr. Myers’ intent was to be funny.”The incident occurred during the team’s stay at an Idaho hotel while playing in the NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament in nearby Spokane, Washington, authorities previously said.Read more at The Daily Beast.
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‘Vanderpump Rules’ Finale: Is the Show Broken Beyond Repair?
Photo Illustration by Thomas Levinson/The Daily Beast/Getty/BravoHow will this season of Vanderpump Rules be remembered? Coming off the soaring high of the Scandoval, Season 11 has been one big hangover, neither matching the unrealistic expectations set by the scandal, nor sinking under pressure.It’s been a haze, a real-time look into how a reality show adapts to a completely new world. It’s easy to forget that the original Season 10 finale served more as a swan song than a promise of many seasons to come. Renewed attention gave the show a second life, but what is Vanderpump Rules without SUR? Can the show successfully spin off into a modern rendition of The Hills? Will good ratings keep the gears turning, even when the cast stops?After 15 episodes, those questions largely remain unanswered. VPR is stuck in an unsustainable purgatory, further complicated by the fact the current star of the show is holding it hostage. That’s how we ended up here, at a season finale that wants you to know production is ready to blow everything up to move forward.Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Rudy Giuliani Forced to Learn Accounting After Bankruptcy Beancounter Bails
Jeff Kowalsky/AFP via Getty ImagesRudy Giuliani’s bankruptcy accountant took $12,000 from him and quit, and now he can’t find anyone else willing to sign his financial statements—potentially forcing him to become his own accountant and assume personal responsibility for his records.That’s one piece of eye-popping news found in a series of court records filed on Tuesday related to Donald Trump’s bankrupt, criminally indicted, slanderous former personal attorney’s ongoing financial woes. In all, the filings paint a picture of a recalcitrant debtor abusing the judicial system in an attempt to stave off his financial obligations with one hand, while blissfully draining his bank accounts with the other.Giuliani’s creditors likened the experience to being “on a hamster wheel,” in a separate filing on Tuesday detailing their efforts to hold Giuliani accountable “for his recurring and continuous misdeeds.”Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Ex-Georgia Lt. Gov. on Backing Biden: Trump Is a ‘Fake Republican’
CNNUnlike former attorney general Bill Barr, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and other Republicans who have criticized Donald Trump only to end up endorsing him, former Georgia Lieutenant Governor Geoff Duncan has thrown his support behind Joe Biden.Duncan, now a CNN political commentator, appeared on Laura Coates Live Monday night following the publication of his opinion piece in the Atlanta Journal Constitution, in which he describes Biden as a “decent person I disagree with on policy,” while Trump is “a criminal defendant without a moral compass.”Duncan told Coates that Republicans are kidding themselves if they think Trump is a Republican, saying “we’ve been faking this long enough.”Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Opinion: Michael Ian Black: Biden, Get Your Ass Out There and Make Some Headlines
Photo Illustration by Thomas Levinson/The Daily Beast/GettyForgive my Scrantonese, but where the fuck is Joe Biden?As Donald Trump’s leathery mug fills the cable news networks day after day during his fucking criminal trial, why isn’t the President of the United States hopscotching across the country tooting his own goddamned horn?When an exhausted Trump emerges from his shabby Manhattan courtroom every day to yell at the sky, why aren’t there contrasting images of Biden base-jumping off the Statue of Liberty or some other freedom-loving bullshit like that?Read more at The Daily Beast.
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These Skirts Are Serving Tenniscore Vibes on and off the Court
Scouted/The Daily Beast/Retailers.Scouted selects products independently. If you purchase something from our posts, we may earn a small commission.Following in the footsteps of trends like ‘quiet luxury’ and ‘cowgirl coquette,’ ‘tennis-core’ is taking over mainstream fashion. Whether it be the release of Zendaya’s sporty-chic looks in the recent Challengers movie, the rise in pickleball and tennis during the past couple of years, or tennis pros like Coco Gauff becoming bona fide style icons, we’re seeing pleated skorts, white polos, and tennis dresses galore everywhere right now. While the sport has certainly inspired some runway looks over the past few seasons, tennis-inspired fashion has saturated the fashion mainstream more than ever before this year, with #tenniscore generating an increasing number of searches on TikTok. Whether it’s the quiet luxury feel we get from these country club-centric looks or the fact that we can finally wear skorts in peace, we’re quite obsessed with this athletic aesthetic, which will be our go-to sporty style this summer and beyond.Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Donald Trump Still Makes Stormy Daniels Cringe
Photo Illustration by Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily Beast/GettyWhen the porn star at the center of Donald Trump’s New York case finally took the witness stand at the first ever criminal trial of a former American president on Tuesday, it sounded less like stodgy courtroom testimony and more like a chatty brunch to go over a horrible date.Stormy Daniels raised her eyebrows suggestively when describing what it was like to suddenly find a business tycoon who wears his Brioni suit like a mandatory uniform suddenly appear in his hotel bed only clad in boxers and a T-shirt when she walked out of his bathroom.She smiled as she threw herself back in the chair to imitate what it was like to see him lying down in bed, “like this,” she said, raising her bare right leg above the wooden panels that line the witness box.Read more at The Daily Beast.
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They Wanted to Be Seen at the Met Gala. They Sure Were.
Photo Illustration by The Daily Beast/GettyThe iconic Met Gala; what better night to exhibit intense main-character energy? It’s one of the only times you can wear a truly absurd gown, so impractical that it requires you to be physically carried up the steps (looking at you, Tyla). Or when could you don an ensemble that seemingly defies the laws of physics and leaves us wondering, “How did that fit in the car to get here?!” (Shoutout to Cardi B.)The Costume Institute exhibit at the Met Museum is “Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion,” but this year’s dress code advised “Garden of Time” as the theme, its name taken from a J.G. Ballard short story. Before the event, while acknowledging the likelihood of flowers on outfits, event supremo Anna Wintour also apologized for unleashing general sartorial confusion. Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Driver Charged After Allegedly Hitting Pro-Palestinian Protester With Car
Spencer Platt/Getty ImagesA group protesters who gathered on Tuesday to urge Columbia University to divest from Israel said a man intentionally drove his car into their group, hospitalizing one person.A group of about 25 protesters picketed outside of the home one of the university’s Board of Trustees in the Upper East Side on Tuesday morning, according to USA Today. Police told the outlet that an argument broke out between protesters and a driver, and that as the protesters attempted to leave the area, the driver drove at the crowd, hitting one person. Three people, including the driver and the injured protester, were arrested, police said.Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Eric Trump Whines Online After Staring Down Stormy Daniels in Court
Curtis MeansEric Trump went scorched earth on Stormy Daniels and prosecutors on Tuesday, tweeting a tirade after he stared down the former porn star from a front-row pew as she gave graphic testimony about having sex with his father, former President Donald Trump. The scene played out in Manhattan Criminal Court, where the elder Trump is standing trial for allegedly falsifying business records to cover up a $130,000 payment to Daniels in 2016 to keep her quiet about an affair he had with her a decade prior, during his first year of marriage with his current wife, Melania. Like his dad has claimed previously, Eric decried that the allegations against him are a “massive extortion play” and that he personally witnessed prosecutors becoming “giddy” after watching Tuesday’s “salacious show.”Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Jeff Ross: Tom Brady Wasn’t Actually Mad at My Roast Joke About Robert Kraft
Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images for NetflixTurns out Tom Brady might be a good sport after all.The future Hall of Famer was subjected to a vicious drubbing during a Netflix roast on Sunday, and only appeared to raise his hackles once—when comedian Jeff Ross cracked wise about Robert Kraft, the New England Patriots owner.Brady’s reaction? To get up from his seat, cross the stage, and audibly tell Ross: “Don’t say that shit again.”Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Stormy’s Testimony: Old Spice, Silk Jammies, and No Condom
Eduardo Munoz Alvarez/AFP via GettyStormy Daniels, the porn star at the center of Donald Trump’s first criminal trial, spent five hours on the witness stand on Tuesday, detailing her sex romp with him and the payoff to buy her silence. Here are the highlights of her testimony.Pajama PartyAfter meeting Trump at a 2006 golf tournament, Daniels testified, he invited her to dinner through his bodyguard. She said when she overcame her misgivings and showed up at his hotel suite, he was wearing “silk or satin” pajamas.Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Stormy Daniels’ Trump Trial Testimony Was Like an Episode of Real Housewives
Photo Illustration by Luis G. Rendon/The Daily Beast/Getty Images/Everett Collection/BravoAt The Daily Beast’s Obsessed, we think the ongoing Trump Trial is about as gossipy and enthralling as any episode of The Real Housewives. With that in mind, we’re recapping the drama like we’d write about any weekly Bravo show—with plenty of wit and snark.On Tuesday, the Donald Trump trial begins with an objection to sex. Kind of a shocker, right? Trump isn’t known to protest those kinds of topics. Alas, Trump’s lawyer, Susan Necheles, starts things off by objecting to Stormy Daniels testifying “about any details of sexual acts” which would be “unduly prejudicial.”Perhaps Necheles just didn’t want this to happen because she’d have to sit next to Trump as he twiddled his fingers underneath the table, reliving his wildest fantasies. But the prosecutor Susan Hoffinger chimes in, saying that there would be “no descriptions of genitalia or anything”—much to Trump’s apparent dismay.Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Federal Judge Postpones Trump’s Classified Docs Case ‘Indefinitely’
Reuters/Marco BelloFederal Judge Aileen Cannon announced Tuesday she was indefinitely postponing Donald Trump’s classified documents trial in Florida, putting the case on ice less than three weeks before it was slated to begin.The announcement likely means the case will not be tried until after the 2024 election. Trump’s camp is sure to view the postponement as a major win, as they’ve tried nearly everything legally possible—through a variety of appeals and motions—to have each trial against the former president pushed back or thrown out entirely, including the classified documents trial in question.Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Opinion: Stormy Daniels Put Trump’s Toxic Horniness on Full Display
Photo Illustration by Luis G. Rendon/The Daily Beast/Getty images/ReutersOne thing is clear from Stormy Daniels’ testimony on Tuesday in Donald Trump’s New York “hush money” trial: she’s not doing this for herself.Between detailing her career in adult films to an entire courtroom of strangers to getting fired from her podcast for not speaking enough about Trump, there’s very little upside in this for Daniels.In fact, I’ve been indignant on her behalf for years that she was only paid $130,000 for keeping her story quiet before the 2016 election. He wastes far larger sums of money all the time (like on Don Jr. and Eric’s college educations, for example).Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Cops Refute Rumors Surrounding Death of Pastor’s Wife in South Carolina
GoFundMeNorth Carolina cops released a statement Tuesday detailing evidence supporting that Mica Miller, the wife of a South Carolina preacher, took her own life last month—tamping rumors suggesting her estranged husband may have been involved. Loved ones of Miller, 30, claimed in court documents this weekend that she was abused by her ex, John-Paul Miller, and that she’d eerily warned previously that if a bullet was found in her head, it was the doing of her former partner.In a news release Tuesday, however, the Robeson County Sheriff’s Office said that a slew of security footage and a 911 call, in which she told an operator she was about to kill herself, showed that Mica died by suicide and not foul play. Read more at The Daily Beast.
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‘How My Large Intestine Was Stolen’
YouTube/McDougal BugleAn ulcerative colitis patient unhappy with the results of a surgical procedure allegedly embarked on a four-year stalking campaign against the doctor who performed it, vowing to brutalize and torture him until he was little more than “[a] consciousness trapped in a body experiencing nothing but physical and emotional pain and regret.”That’s according to a criminal complaint obtained by The Daily Beast, which accuses Robert Bouton McDougal of threatening unspeakable violence against Dr. Jared Frattini and his family after an operation left the 27-year-old Costa Mesa, California resident with near-constant diarrhea.“I dream of seeing him limbless and blind, but conscious,” McDougal posted to Substack on March 29. “I want bones shattered into pieces… He needs to be gunned down in the parking lot. He needs to be thrown in the back of a truck, and tortured. Brutally tortured. He needs to feel levels of pain no living creature has ever felt… I want to kill this man. I want to genocide his family. I want him tortured, skinned alive, mutilated.”Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Student Arrested After Georgia Teen Collapses and Dies at School
GoFundMeLoved ones of a 15-year-old girl who collapsed and died inside an Atlanta high school this week said Tuesday that one of her classmates was arrested in connection to her death. Mia Dieguez died Monday after going into cardiac arrest at Dunwoody High School, with first responders unable to revive her despite school authorities placing the campus on lockdown to facilitate medical attention to her. Dieguez’s sister, Pamela Dieguez, posted to Facebook that her sister died from an overdose of drugs laced with fentanyl—the highly deadly synthetic opioid that was responsible for 200 American deaths a day in 2022. Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Panera Bread Nixes ‘Charged Lemonade’ After Deaths
Smith Collection/Gado/Getty ImagesThree lawsuits later, Panera Bread is getting rid of its highly caffeinated “Charged Lemonade” drinks. The chain plans to replace the infamous beverage with new drink options, over the course of the next two weeks, according to an internal memo sent to employees on Monday, which was obtained by Bloomberg. Not all Panera employees said they’d received the memo, however, according to NBC.Panera framed the decision as part of a “recent menu transformation,” which will introduce several new products to its menu, according to Forbes, rather than a response to a recent spate of lawsuits, which allege “Charged Lemonade” is dangerous to consume. Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Bette Midler Reveals Why She Should Have Sued Lindsay Lohan
CBS via Getty ImagesIn a bit of celebrity beef you probably never saw coming, Bette Midler has said she regrets not suing Lindsay Lohan.During an interview on David Duchovny’s podcast Fail Better, Midler discussed some of her various career failures, which she said includes not “asserting” herself after her early-aughts sitcom Bette began to fall apart. Lohan, who was around 14 years old at the time, had signed on to play Midler’s daughter on the show, but backed out after shooting the pilot. She was later replaced with actress Marina Malota for the remainder of Bette’s one and only season, but Lohan’s exit threw things into chaos, Midler said.“Lindsay Lohan was cast as my daughter in the pilot,” she began. “Well, after the pilot, Lindsay Lohan decided she didn’t want to do it, or she had other fish to fry. So Lindsay Lohan left the building—and I said, ‘Well, now what do you do?’” Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Law Firm Claims Netflix Star Julia Haart Won’t Pay Up
Paul ZimmermanFormer modeling mogul and Netflix star Julia Haart’s legal battles are mounting—and this time, she’s facing off against her own lawyer.Houston-based law firm Ajamie LLP sued Haart on Monday, alleging the former Elite Models CEO owes them more than $1 million in legal fees from her sprawling court fight against her ex-husband.According to the federal civil complaint, Haart hired Ajamie in February 2022 to assist on two of the ongoing lawsuits between her and Silvio Scaglia. She hired the firm that March to represent her before U.S. Customs and Border Protection regarding duties she allegedly owed on imported goods, the complaint saysRead more at The Daily Beast.
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Boy Scouts of America Gets New Name to Reflect Its Newest Members
David Ryder/GettyAfter more than 100 years, the Boy Scouts of America are getting a rebrand.On Tuesday, the organization announced that it will be changing its name to Scouting America, to reflect the organization’s thousands of female members.The new name is the extent of the organization’s rebrand, as girls have been welcomed into the group, which teaches leadership, civic responsibility, and wilderness training to kids, for over five years. According to the announcement, the organization serves more than 176,000 girls and young women across all its programs. More than 6,000 have earned the rank of Eagle Scout.Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Jailed U.S. Soldier Was Warned Against Visiting Girlfriend in Russia
Gordon Black Via Facebook/via ReutersThe parents of Gordon Black, an American soldier who was arrested in Russia last week, had warned him against flying to the city of Vladivostok to meet his “girlfriend,” according to his stepfather.Black’s stepfather, Martin Jones, told The Daily Beast that the American soldier had mentioned wanting to visit Russia when they last spoke over Facebook a few weeks ago.“He mentioned it once and we told him, ‘Don’t you dare do it,’” Jones, 53, said in a phone interview. “I told him he needs to get back to the States. That’s all I told him. I told him he had no business being there.”Read more at The Daily Beast.
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TikTok Takes to U.S. Courts to Have Nationwide Ban Scrapped
DADO RUVICTikTok’s parent company sued the U.S. government on Tuesday, alleging it violated Americans’ First Amendment rights by forcing it to either sell the social media company or have it outright banned in the states. ByteDance, TikTok’s owner, had hinted that a lawsuit was imminent for weeks after lawmakers—on both sides of the aisle—combined to pass legislation to crackdown on TikTok last month, with President Joe Biden signing it into law on April 24.The legislation requires ByteDance to sell off TikTok, which is estimated to be worth tens of billions, to a non-Chinese buyer. If it fails to do so, U.S. app stores and web hosting services will be required to stop hosting it, amounting to a ban. ByteDance has until by Jan. 15, 2025—or until April 24, 2025, if the White House grants an extension—to sell.Read more at The Daily Beast.
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