Former President Barack Obama will soon begin campaigning for Vice President Kamala Harris. He is set to embark on a blitz across the battleground states, with several events in the last month before Election Day. 

The former president will kick off his campaign efforts next Thursday, Oct. 10, in the Pittsburgh area. It’s unclear if Harris will appear with him. 

Obama has been a staunch supporter of Harris since she joined the top of the Democratic ticket, officially endorsing her just days after President Biden exited the race. Obama vowed to do anything he could to help Harris defeat former President Donald Trump. 

“Kamala Harris won’t be focused on her problems, she’ll be focused on yours,” Obama said in an address at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in August. “A president, she won’t just cater to her own supporters and punish those who refuse to kiss the ring or bend the knee. She’ll work on behalf of every American. That’s who Kamala is.”

Harris and Obama have yet to appear together this cycle, and while it is not yet known if they will before Election Day, their relationship stems back to when the former president was seeking a Senate seat in Illinois. Harris also campaigned for Obama during his 2008 presidential run.

Obama’s first campaign event will take place in one of the most contested battleground states. In 2020, President Biden won the Keystone state by less than 81,000 votes, flipping a state that Trump won in 2020. 

Harris herself has visited Pennsylvania more than 13 times in 2024, and seven times since launching her presidential bid. Surrogates like her husband, second gentleman Doug Emhoff, have also campaigned in Pennsylvania. 

The latest CBS News polling shows the presidential race remains a tight contest, with Harris up four points nationally over Trump, 52% to 48% among likely voters, and with a slight edge of 51% to 49% in the battleground states. 

A woman who says she worked as a hair-and-makeup stylist for Garth Brooks alleged in a lawsuit filed Thursday that he raped her in a Los Angeles hotel in 2019.

The woman does not use her name and goes by Jane Roe in the lawsuit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court. 

She said the assault occurred when she traveled with Brooks from Nashville to Los Angeles, where he was performing at a Grammy Awards tribute concert in October 2019.

The woman says in the lawsuit she had worked for Brooks’ wife, country singer Trisha Yearwood, since 1999, and had started also working for Brooks in 2017.

In a statement provided to CBS News on Thursday night, Brooks said that he had filed his own lawsuit “anonymously” almost a month ago against the plaintiff for “extortion and defamation of character.”

“For the last two months, I have been hassled to no end with threats, lies, and tragic tales of what my future would be if I did not write a check for many millions of dollars,” Brooks said. “It has been like having a loaded gun waved in my face. Hush money, no matter how much or how little, is still hush money.  In my mind, that means I am admitting to behavior I am incapable of—ugly acts no human should ever do to another. We filed suit against this person nearly a month ago to speak out against extortion and defamation of character.  We filed it anonymously for the sake of families on both sides. I want to play music tonight. I want to continue our good deeds going forward. It breaks my heart these wonderful things are in question now.  I trust the system, I do not fear the truth, and I am not the man they have painted me to be.”

According to the lawsuit filed by the woman Thursday, Brooks normally traveled with an entourage, but the two were alone on his private jet, and he booked just one hotel suite for both of them. The woman alleges that in the suite, he appeared naked in the doorway to the bedroom and raped her.

The suit says that he then proceeded as though nothing had happened and expected her to do his hair and makeup immediately after.

She alleges that earlier in 2019, when she was at Brooks’ home, he had appeared naked in front of her, grabbed her hands, and put them on his genitals.

The lawsuit says that Brooks filed his preemptive lawsuit in federal court in Mississippi last month, in which both him and the woman are anonymous.

The woman’s attorney, Douglas Wigdor, acknowledged Brooks’ “preemptive complaint” in his own statement to CBS News.

“We applaud our client’s courage in moving forward with her complaint against Garth Brooks,” Wigdor said. “The complaint filed today demonstrates that sexual predators exist not only in corporate America, Hollywood and in the rap and rock and roll industries but also in the world of country music. We are confident that Brooks will be held accountable for his actions and his efforts to silence our client through the filing of a preemptive complaint in Mississippi was nothing other than an act of desperation and attempted intimidation. We encourage others who may have been victimized to contact us as no survivor should suffer in silence.”

The lawsuit did not state if the woman reported the alleged incident to the authorities. CBS News has also reached out to a representative of Yearwood for comment on the lawsuit.

In the lawsuit filed by Brooks, the plaintiff, going by John Doe, says the allegations are “wholly untrue” and that he first learned of them in July when she threatened to publicly sue him unless he gave her millions of dollars.

He asks a judge to stop the woman from “intentional infliction of emotional distress, defamation, and false light invasion of privacy.”

The woman’s suit also says Brooks exposed himself to her many other times and talked about sexual fantasies with her and sent her explicit text messages.

She said she was forced to keep working for Brooks because of financial hardship, which he knew about and took advantage of.

The 62-year-old Oklahoma-born Brooks was the biggest star in country music of the 1990s, with hits including “Friends in Low Places” and “The Thunder Rolls.” He brought arena-rock theatrics to his concerts and a pop-music sensibility to his recordings. He had huge success that went beyond typical country audiences.

He married fellow country star Yearwood in 2005.