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TikTok has lost an emergency bid to temporarily halt a fast-approaching deadline under a US “divest or ban” law, leaving the fate of the popular video app owned by China’s ByteDance in the country ever more uncertain.

The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on Friday rejected the emergency motion filed by the platform and its Chinese parent company at the start of the week, requesting the law be stayed from taking effect next month while it asks the Supreme Court to take up a challenge. 

The law, signed by President Joe Biden earlier this year, orders TikTok to be banned in the country if the app fails to divest from its parent by January 19 2025 — the day before Donald Trump is inaugurated as the new president.

Last week, the US appeals court upheld the law. TikTok subsequently requested a temporary injunction.

“The petitioners have not identified any case in which a court, after rejecting a constitutional challenge to an Act of Congress, has enjoined the Act from going into effect while review is sought in the Supreme Court,” the appeals court wrote in a brief order on Friday.

The court added that TikTok’s petition had relied on claims of free speech violations, which the judges had already rejected in their original decision last week.

The ruling now places TikTok’s future in the hands of the Supreme Court, which will need to decide if it will hear the appeal. 

TikTok may also be hoping for assistance from Trump, who has promised to “save” the app, without making clear the mechanisms he would use to do so when he takes the White House.  

The US Department of Justice has argued that TikTok poses a national security threat due to its Chinese connection and could be wielded for espionage or propaganda purposes. A US House of Representatives committee on Friday sent letters to Apple and Google, which operate popular app stores, reminding them that updates or downloads of the TikTok app would be prohibited after the deadline passes unless TikTok is divested.

TikTok has denied the accusations and deemed the law unconstitutional, while arguing that a spin-off would be technically “unfeasible” in the timeframe. Beijing has also said it opposes a sale. 

TikTok said in a statement on Friday: “As we have previously stated, we plan on taking this case to the Supreme Court, which has an established historical record of protecting Americans’ right to free speech. The voices of over 170 million Americans here in the US and around the world will be silenced on January 19th, 2025 unless the TikTok ban is halted.”

Additional reporting by Stefania Palma in Washington

The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday agreed to decide whether charities run by religious groups have to pay unemployment taxes that cover their employees.

Most, but not all, states generally exempt religious groups from having to pay into the state’s unemployment tax system. Federal law does exempt religious schools from having to participate in the federal-state program. But the court has never ruled on the question of participation by charitable organizations run by religious groups. Now the court has agreed to tackle the question in a case brought by Catholic Charities against the state of Wisconsin.

The Catholic Charities Bureau of the Diocese Superior, Wisconsin, a non-profit corporation, is the social ministry arm of the Catholic Church. Its mission is to “carry on the redeeming work of our Lord by reflecting gospel values and the moral teaching of the church,” and it carries out that mission by “providing services to the poor and disadvantaged” without making distinctions “by race, sex, or religion.” The organization hires staff without regard to religion, instructs that the charity should be exercised “in an impartial manner towards members of other religions,” and operates “dozens of programs in service to the elderly, the disabled, the poor, and those in need of disaster relief.” In addition, the charity avowedly does not proselytize.

In light of all that, Catholic Charities applied to the state for an exemption from paying unemployment taxes for its employees. But the state labor commission refused the application, on grounds that the charitable group was engaging in activities that “are not religious, per se,” and thus are not entitled to be exempt from paying unemployment taxes.

In March, a closely divided state Supreme Court agreed, citing what it called objective criteria. The state court said that the charity’s activities were mostly secular, noting that the organization does not “attempt to imbue program participants with the Catholic faith, nor supply any religious materials.” The state court also observed that the charity “did not proselytize, did not conduct worship services, religious outreach, or religious education.” Therefore, the state court concluded, the charity is not qualified to be exempt from state unemployment taxes as a religious institution.

Catholic Charities promptly appealed to the Supreme Court, asserting that the Wisconsin decision violates the First Amendment guarantee to the free exercise of religion, as well as the separation between church and state.

The court will hear arguments in the case after the first of the year, with a decision expected by late June.