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By Caitlin Tremblay

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REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo 

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled against TikTok's bid to avoid a ban that could shut the app down in just two days and impact millions of users who rely on the platform for entertainment, ecommerce and ad dollars. The looming ban is the end result of 2024 legislation passed on national security concerns that called for TikTok parent ByteDance to sell the popular short-video app or see it shut in the United States on Jan. 19. Here's what could happen on Sunday.

It remained unclear how long a potential ban would stay in place. When President-elect Donald Trump ordered the U.S. government to ban TikTok in 2020, he said the "aggressive action" was necessary "to protect our national security."

Now Trump, who takes office on Monday, has said he would try to find a "political resolution" to keep the app operating in the United States. President Joe Biden, with just three days left in office, is being urged to give ByteDance more time to sell the app. Here's how Biden or Trump could still rescue TikTok.

U.S. Supreme Court …

The U.S. Supreme Court rejected a higher threshhold for employers to prove that workers are exempt from overtime pay and other legal protections granted by U.S. wage laws … The justices grappled with Texas’ online porn age-verification law and considered whether retirees can sue their former employers for disability discrimination after leaving their jobs, an issue that has divided lower courts and could make or break many lawsuits over retirement benefits … The justices also rejected Utah’s challenge to federal land control, turned away away gun law challenges in Delaware and Maryland, rebuffed Meta’s bid to avoid advertisers' lawsuit and declined to hear a case that sought to block the DOJ from reopening a probe into the National Association of Realtors over the commissions brokers charge on home sales.

Circuit courts …

At the 2nd Circuit video streaming site Vimeo fended off an appeal from units of record labels Universal Music Group and Sony Music in a long-running U.S. copyright dispute over alleged piracy on Vimeo's platform … The 3rd Circuit is sticking with its conclusion that Pennsylvania laws that ban 18- to 20-year-olds from carrying firearms in public during a state of emergency are unconstitutional, even after the U.S. Supreme Court directed it to reconsider that holding … The 9th Circuit upheld rulings requiring private prison operator GEO Group to pay more than $23 million to the state of Washington and hundreds of immigrant detainees who were paid $1 a day to participate in a work program … And Novartis won an order from the Federal Circuit temporarily blocking drugmaker MSN Pharmaceuticals from launching a generic version of Novartis' blockbuster heart-failure drug Entresto.

Legal industry …

Leading U.S. Supreme Court attorney Tom Goldstein charged with tax crimes … King & Spalding tapped ex-Biden officials in a string of new hires … ITC commissioner Rhonda Schmidtlein is joining WilmerHale … KPMG is poised to become the first of the Big Four accounting firms to open a law firm in the United States … And lawyers cry foul over a $34 million eXp settlement with U.S. home sellers.

Once an interloper, Trump returns to White House more