An apology, a packed rally and a plan: 24 hours with Warren

Elizabeth Warren started the day with an apology, repeating her regrets for her past claims of Native American heritage. She ended it with a clear sign that Democrats aren't holding the mistake against her — her largest crowd yet.

The arc of the day Monday captured the strengths and struggles of a presidential candidate who has made significant headway in a Democratic primary otherwise notable for its stagnation. The Massachusetts senator stands apart by having demonstrably improved her standing since her party's White House field solidified in the spring while her competitors have risen and dipped in the national conversation and polls.

Some reasons for Warren's rise are easy to spot. When she landed in Minnesota on Monday, her first stop in a state Republicans are eyeing to win next year, she brought a forward-looking message, a sophisticated ground operation, a folksy persona and an upbeat outlook.

Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., is silhouetted as she speaks during a rally Monday, Aug. 19, 2019, at Macalaster College during a campaign appearance in St. Paul, Minn. (AP PhotoJim Mone)

"It looks like Minnesota is ready for some change in Washington!" Warren said to a crowd of several thousand, an enviable crowd size for any Democrat, including Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, a rival.

But Warren's challenges were just as clear. She continues to have no easy response to President Donald Trump's nickname for her — Pocahontas — an insult that, despite her efforts to move past her previous claims of tribal ancestry, reminds Democrats already nervous about her general-election viability of her biggest political unforced error. And the voters who filled a college green in St. Paul were overwhelmingly white, a reminder that she has not yet secured the diverse coalition she needs to win the nomination.

Warren on Tuesday took steps to expand her support with black voters, who largely favored Vice President Joe Biden in a poll released last week by the Pew Research Center, by unveiling a detailed criminal justice proposal. Underscoring the importance of filling a gap on her long list of plans for America's ills, particularly for voters of color, Warren held a meeting with criminal justice reform proponents in Minneapolis.

Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., speaks during a rally Monday, Aug. 19, 2019, at Macalaster College during a campaign appearance in St. Paul, Minn. (AP PhotoJim Mone)

The current criminal justice system "is not working," Warren said at the Tuesday event, and "it's not serving the whole country."

Her proposal includes a tripling of funding for the Justice Department's Office of Civil Rights, designed to increase oversight of police departments dealing with high rates of officer-involved violence, and a proposal to expand the rights of incarcerated individuals who want to contest their imprisonment.

Connecting with black voters isn't the only challenge Warren's campaign faced head-on this week. On Monday, she opened up remarks to a Native American forum in Iowa with a direct apology for past claims of tribal ancestry.

Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., speaks during a rally Monday, Aug. 19, 2019, at Macalaster College during a campaign appearance in St. Paul, Minn. (AP PhotoJim Mone)

Her remarks were well received by tribal members in the audience who said they had already moved on from the matter.

"That's old news," said Gary Funmaker, of Black River Falls, Wisconsin.

National Congress of American Indians CEO Kevin Allis, a tribal member of the Forest County Potawatomi Community, said in an interview that his group is not in a "position to make judgments on what people believed when they were growing up" and added that Warren is one of several contenders who "are willing to take on our issues and address them."

Supporters wave signs before Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., speaks at a rally Monday, Aug. 19, 2019, at Macalaster College during a campaign appearance in St. Paul, Minn. (AP PhotoJim Mone)

Having Native American defenders at her side could help Warren when Trump, inevitably, continues to mock her. The president last week promised to revive the derisive nickname, even suggesting that he'd misjudged his timing in hitting Warren with it too early.

There was no mention of the flap by the time Warren arrived in Minnesota.

Warren beat her chief rivals — Biden, California Sen. Kamala Harris and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders — to the state known for its progressive tradition, high voter turnout and, this year, as a possible battleground in the general election. Minnesota's primary election is March 3, but absentee voting begins Jan. 17, two weeks before the Iowa caucuses.

Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., speaks during a rally Monday, Aug. 19, 2019 at Macalaster College during a campaign appearance in St. Paul, Minn. (AP PhotoJim Mone)

Warren's event was billed as a town hall at Macalester College, a private liberal arts school. But it was moved outside to accommodate the large crowd, and Warren focused on her biography-heavy campaign speech, sprinkled with stories of her Oklahoma childhood propelling a call for "structural change."

Unlike Sanders, Warren has not anchored her campaign on her support for single-payer health care and rarely mentions Trump. She spends much of her time on a proposed "wealth tax" on the ultrarich. The crowded responded with chants of "Two cents!" — a reference to the amount of every dollar Warren wants the rich to pay for universal preschool and child care.

Her campaign appears poised to capitalize on the enthusiasm. Attendees at Monday's rally texted the campaign to gain entrance, helping Warren build her list of supporters and potential small-dollar donors. She did not let the crowd size deter her from her standing promise to take a selfie with supporters who wait in line for one. The wait on Monday was long. Warren's campaign says she took 2,500 photos after the rally, sticking around for nearly three hours.

Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., runs to the platform as she arrives to speak at a rally Monday, Aug. 19, 2019 at Macalaster College during a campaign appearance in St. Paul, Minn. (AP PhotoJim Mone)

She won praise from attendees for her focus and passion. But as other presidential candidates have learned, large crowds in August hardly guarantee victories in the spring.

"I think the problem is she might be too radical for people. Even though she has good plans," said Janet Plotsker, of St. Louis Park, a Minneapolis suburb.

"Not for me," she clarified. "I would vote for a cockroach if they could beat Trump."

NEW DELHI (AP) — The hugely popular Chinese app TikTok may be forced out of the U.S., where a measure to outlaw the video-sharing app has won congressional approval and is on its way to President Biden for his signature.

In India, the app was banned nearly four years ago. Here's what happened:

In June 2020, TikTok users in India bid goodbye to the app, which is operated by Chinese internet firm ByteDance. New Delhi had suddenly banned the popular app, alongside dozens other Chinese apps, following a military clash along the India-China border. Twenty Indian and four Chinese soldiers were killed, and ties between the two Asian giants plunged to a new low.

The government cited privacy concerns and said that Chinese apps pose a threat to India’s sovereignty and security.

The move mostly drew widespread support in India, where protesters had been calling for a boycott of Chinese goods since the deadly confrontation in the remote Karakoram mountain border region.

“There was a clamour leading up to this, and the popular narrative was how can we allow Chinese companies to do business in India when we’re in the middle of a military standoff,” said Nikhil Pahwa, a digital policy expert and founder of tech website MediaNama.

Just months before the ban, India had also restricted investment from Chinese companies, Pahwa added. “TikTok wasn’t a one-off case. Today, India has banned over 500 Chinese apps to date.”

At the time, India had about 200 million TikTok users, the most outside of China. And the company also employed thousands of Indians.

TikTok users and content creators, however, needed a place to go — and the ban provided a multi-billion dollar opportunity to snatch up a big market. Within months, Google rolled out YouTube Shorts and Instagram pushed out its Reels feature. Both mimicked the short-form video creation that TikTok had excelled at.

“And they ended up capturing most of the market that TikTok had vacated,” said Pahwa.

In India, TikTok content was hyperlocal, which made it quite unique. It opened a window into the lives of small-town India, with videos coming from tier 2 and 3 cities that showed people doing tricks while laying down bricks, for example.

But for the most part, content creators and users in the four years since the ban have moved on to other platforms.

Winnie Sangma misses posting videos on TikTok and earning a bit of money. But after the ban, he migrated to Instagram and now has 15,000 followers. The process, for the most part, has been relatively painless.

“I have built up followers on Instagram too, and I am making money from it, but the experience isn’t like how it used to be on TikTok,” he said.

Rajib Dutta, a frequent scroller on TikTok, also switched to Instagram after the ban. “It wasn’t really a big deal,” he said.

The legislation to outlaw the app has won congressional approval and now awaits a signature from Biden.

The measure gives ByteDance, the app’s parent company, nine months to sell it, and three more if a sale is underway. If this doesn’t happen, TikTok will be banned. It would take at least a year before a ban goes into effect, but with likely court challenges, it could stretch longer.

In India, the ban in 2020 was swift. TikTok and other companies were given time to respond to questions on privacy and security, and by January 2021, it became a permanent ban.

But the situation in the U.S. is different, said Pahwa. “In India, TikTok decided not to go to court, but the U.S. is a bigger revenue market for them. Also, the First Amendment in America is fairly strong, so it’s not going to be as easy for the U.S. to do this as it was for India,” he said, in reference to free speech rights in the U.S. Constitution.

As Chinese apps proliferate across the world, Pahwa says countries need to assess their dependency on China and develop a way to reduce it as the apps can pose a national security risk.

The app is also banned in Pakistan, Nepal and Afghanistan and restricted in many countries in Europe.

“Chinese intelligence law and its cybersecurity law can allow Chinese apps to work in the interest of their own security. That creates a situation of distrust and it becomes a national security risk for others,” said Pahwa.

“There should be different rules for democratic countries and for authoritarian regimes where companies can act as an extension of the state,” he added.

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This story corrects the expert's erroneous reference to Fourth instead of First Amendment.

FILE- Activists of Jammu and Kashmir Dogra Front shout slogans against Chinese President Xi Jinping next to a banner showing the logos of TikTok and other Chinese apps banned in India during a protest in Jammu, India, July 1, 2020. (AP Photo/Channi Anand, File)