Trump asks Supreme Court to Pause TikTok Ban

Good morning. I'm Taylor Wilson, and today is Sunday, December 29, 2024. This is the passage in which Trump urged the Supreme Court to pause a law that could ban TikTok in the US next month. He claims he can find a way to save the platform without jeopardizing national security or Americans' right to free speech. In support of the law, the departing Biden Administration warns that unless Tik Tock is separated from its Chinese parent company, Bite Dance, the man accused of killing a woman after setting her on fire on a New York subway has been charged, and the bald eagle has been designated as our national bird.

 China can gather data on Americans or manipulate the content on Tik Tok to shape us opinion opponents of the law which passed Congress this year with wide bipar in support say federal judges so far have given too much deference to the US government's National Security concerns and not enough considerations to freedom of expression Tik Tok will be banned in the country on January 19th unless it's sold Tik Tok has already asked the Supreme Court to pause enforcement of that requirement while the company continues to make their case for why the law is unconstitutional but the high court this month said they won't decide whether to keep the deadline until after the justices debate the merits of the law during oral arguments scheduled for January 10th Trump's filing yesterday was part of a slew of written briefs filed before those arguments a debate is brewing pitting some of president-elect Donald Trump's biggest supporters against each other in recent days at issue whether his incoming Administration should allow more highly skilled immigrant labor to come to the country at what some see as the expense of American workers on one side are Elon Musk the world richest man and VI ramaswami who's worth an estimated billion dollars the two and some Venture capitalists say in recent social media posts mostly on musk's xplatform that America needs more highly skilled workers to come to the US under what's known as the H1B program they argue an expansion of the temporary work visa program is desperately needed to attract Global Talent for Innovation and competitiveness in technology sectors on the other side are some of Trump's more traditional Hardline conservative backers who say such a Reliance on bringing in foreign workers to the country is a slap in the face to American citizens after immigration served as a critical campaign plank that helped Trump win the White House last month you can read more about some of these tensions this week with a link in today's show notes the man accused of setting a woman on fire in a New York City subway car last week has been indicted on murder and arson charges I spoke with USA Today breaking news news reporter Christopher Khan to learn more about this disturbing incident Chris hello and thank you for making some time on this today yeah no problem thank you so for folks who are maybe just a little bit out of the loop over the last few days what happened here during this incident in New York on Sunday police and prosecutors say the suspect who they've now identified as 33-year-old Sebastian zapeta khil and the victim their bu rting on an F train subway car headed toward Cony Island in Brooklyn around 7:30 a.m. Sunday morning morning and as a train ported to the station the suspect walked up to the woman with a lighter ignited her clothes on fire and the woman pretty much became engulfed in flames so then he appears to sit on a bench on the subway platform as the woman continued to burn there were several onlookers who seem to not have intervened immediately and that includes an NYPD officer who's kind of seen walking back and forth on the platform just feet away from her uh the woman was pronounced dead and then the following day on Monday zapa was arrested in Manhattan after a group of teenagers saw him in the subway called 911 zapeta is a Guatemalan immigrant he was in the country illegally and he had previously been deported in June of 2018 and it's not exactly clear when he had re-entered the country do we know anything about the victim at this point Chris we don't really know anything about the victim at this point officials haven't publicly identified her and on Friday the Brooklyn district attorney said they were still working to find out you know who exactly she was where she was going uh when she was on the subway so he mentioned this suspect 

What charges does he now face and how is he responding he now faces charges of first and second degree murder and a charge of first degree arson uh the Brooklyn distri attorney announced Friday that he was indicted by a grand jury so he has not entered a plea at this point and at a hearing earlier in the week prosecutor had he had identified himself in imagees related to the attack but also that he had denied knowing anything about the incident and then as far as his personal life you know his last known address was a Brooklyn homeless shelter for people struggling with substance abuse so just in terms of the legal proceedings there what happens next in the case yeah so there's going to be a hearing on January 7th that's when the indictment against him will be unsealed and we should learn more at that point you know about the incident and what investigators have found so far he's also expected to enter plea during that hearing then also hopefully by then we have the name of the victim and know more about her you know there's this widely circulated video of this horrific incident that seems to show a New York police officer kind of walk by past the burning woman that's what the video shows at least how are police defending the actions of that officer and their actions overall on that day so regarding that officer in particular police officials have come out defending his actions basically by saying he was trying to control the crime scene as he waited other officers that you know bring fire extinguishers and uh as well as you know Metropolitan Transit Authority employees who eventually had worked with the nyp to extinguish the Flames so basically he was just clearing the scene okay and in terms of just New York public transit going forward Chris I mean are there any changes expected to safety protocols yeah so the incident you know was shocking and um so it's raised a lot of concern over a generally safety on the New York City subway system the week New York Governor Kathy hokel said an additional 250 National Guard members will be deployed to the city to generally Bal safety and the mta's also announced that you know more than 15,000 security cameras had been installed in that mass transit T Christopher Khan covers breaking news for USA Today thank you so much Chris yeah thank you sports broadcaster Greg Gumble has died the legendary Broad cter spent much of his career with CBS first starting there in 1989 where he worked as an NFL play-by-play announcer and Studio host for college basketball including the iconic NCAA tournament Gumble the older brother of fellow broadcaster bran Gumble was born in 1946 in New Orleans and grew up in Chicago he left a medical sales job after his brother informed him of an open sports caster position in Chicago Greg Gumble died after a fight with cancer he was 78 the bald eagle has been officially recognized as America's national bird I spoke with USA Today democracy reporter Aaron Mansfield for more hello Aaron Hi how are you I'm good happy holidays thanks for hopping on today thank you for having me so let's just start with this Ain what's the history of the bald eagle in this country how did it become such an American symbol the Great Seal which is the symbol that we see on the rugs when you see the president come out and give an a addess the seals that are on the placards of the president's Podium that came around during the Revolutionary War you know late 1700s and it's really always been around right we can always remember the the eagle with the arrows and whatnot but it actually wasn't the national bird we actually didn't have a national bird and now we do and it's the bald eagle so a lot of you know maybe it's a technicality maybe it's a long time coming but it is now final and that eagle is not going anywhere so in terms of getting to this point Ain I mean was this um a bipartisan agreement was there any tension here how did we get here no this was a bill that passed unanimously and of course it's the kind of thing that one of the reasons it's news is that I think a lot of people probably already thought the bald eagle was the national bird but senator Amy kachar she's a Democrat from Minnesota she was the lead sponsor on the bill and she said you know in Minnesota we know a thing or two about eagles she said her state is the home to one of the largest populations of bald eagles in the country and and the national Eagle Center which advocated for this is also based in Minnesota so fitting that she was able to Champion it there are over 300,000 bald eagles in the United States and from 2016 to 2020 it did increase which is quite a different situation from you know when we were kids and we were hearing about this endangered species Erin does this functionally mean anything or is it really mostly a symbolic gesture it's mostly a symbolic gesture however there are folks who have been working for you know many many years to save the bald eagle you know it used to be an endangered species it was on the endangered list until about 2007 um and they were actually able to kind of bring it back so there are people with for example the national Eagle Center in Minnesota and other people who are you know those types of environmental activists who for them it's very very important you know you mentioned some other National symbols that we have in America ER you want to talk through some of those I know the bald eagle isn't the only one right so what happened was President Joe Biden signed a bill that added a national bird to a statute that already had a national tree a national flower a national mammal so our national tree is the oak tree our national floral emblem is the technical term is the rose and then the national mammal is the Bison you know and then there are other parts of the law that you know designate the national anthem Star Spangled Banner the national march by John Philip sua so this really just has codified what for a lot of people they might have assumed was already the national bird it's really codified it into into the law into American culture yeah one of the last actions for President Biden in office Aon Mansfield covers democracy for USA Today thanks aarin thank you the AI Doom Loop is real for many folks but can we harness its strength to our advantage tune in tomorrow to hear my colleague Dana Taylor chat with bestselling author and life coach Jim froley about how to not only Embrace change but Master it in one of our favorite episodes of the Year originally from August you can find it right here on this feed tomorrow 

Thanks