This week has been filled with controversial new bills like South Dakota’s “bathroom bill,” Cuba and the U.S. signing a deal officially ending the Cuba embargo and the FBI and Apple battling over privacy rights.
Taylor Swift scolds Kanye
It began when Kanye West’s new album “The Life of Pablo” released with a controversial song called “Famous” that included some derogatory words supposedly about Taylor Swift.
To make it even more awkward, in a leaked audio obtained by Page Six, Kanye can be heard repeatedly yelling ,“Don’t (expletive) with me,” before branding Swift — whom he claims he made famous — a “fake ass.”
In response, Swift replied with her own pointed response in her Album of the Year Grammy acceptance speech.
“As the first woman to win Album of the Year at the Grammys twice, I want to say to all the young women out there: there are going to be people along the way who will try to undercut your success or take credit for your accomplishments or your fame,” Swift said near the end of the show.
“But if you just focus on the work and you don’t let those people sidetrack you, someday when you get where you’re going, you’ll look around, and you’ll know it was you and the people who love you who put you there, and that will be the greatest feeling in the world.”
South Dakota passes the “bathroom bill”
The South Dakota Senate approve a bill, 20 to 15, on Tuesday afternoon that will require students at public schools to use the bathroom that corresponds to their sex at birth.
Supporters say the bill protects kids from “inappropriate” exposure. Many fired back, saying it was a discriminatory act toward transgender people.
“History has never looked kindly upon those who attack the basic civil rights of their fellow Americans, and history will not treat kindly those who support this discriminatory measure,” Chad Griffin, the president of the LGBT-rights organization Human Rights Campaign, said in a statement Tuesday.
Airlines bid to offer flights to Cuba
U.S. and Cuba signed a historical deal that enables airlines to offer flights to Cuba for the first time in nearly five decades.
U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx and Transportation Minister of Cuba Adel Yzquierdo Rodriguez signed the deal in an official ceremony at the Hotel Nacional de Cuba in Havana.
Cuba and U.S. will see 110 daily flights, with 20 heading toward Havana. The remaining flights will route to Cuba’s nine other international airports.
Major airlines plan to submit applications to the Department of Transportation. All airline companies have a 15-day window starting on Tuesday to bid, according to USA Today.
Apple and FBI battle over privacy laws
During its latest investigation on last year’s terrorist attack in San Bernardino, Calif. that killed 14 people, the FBI has been trying to crack one of the shooters’ iPhone password.
As part of Apple’s security features, the company has no way to unlock its phones.
So the FBI asked Apple to make an upgrade to its operating system to unlock the shooter’s phone. The FBI was clear that the technology would only be used on this phone, but Apple CEO wrote a letter saying the upgrade would compromise its privacy policy promise to all its users.
Pope says the Donald isn’t Christian
On his way back from his tour of Mexico, Pope Francis said presidential hopeful Donald Trump “is not a Christian” because he wants to build a wall between Mexico and the U.S. and deport undocumented immigrants.
Trump fired back and questioned the Vatican’s own wall.
“If and when the Vatican is attacked by ISIS, which as everyone knows is ISIS’s ultimate trophy, I can promise you that the Pope would have only wished and prayed that Donald Trump would have been president,” Trump said.
Trump later said he didn’t like fighting with the Pope and he likes his personality, according to CNN.
