♪ so she said take me oh baby take me back to your place ♪ [ cheers and applause ] ♪ this is "nightline." >> tonight, sextortion. the search for online scrammers coming for the boys next door. >> this is an end running rampant. >> these people are professional con artists. every day i told my son i loved

him. and in 19 1/2 hours, they convinced him otherwise. >> the two teenage boys lured into sending explicit photos, then scammers flipping the script on them, ending in tragedy. >> it hurts me so bad as a mom to think about what he went through in the last hours of his life. >> and the lengths that law enforcement will go to get justice. plus triple threat. ♪ reggie watts, the musician, comedian, and wordsmith. >> i love questioning reality and kind of blowing it up through an absurdist lens. >> growing up biracial, too black for some, not black enough for others. >> classic hybrid life. ♪ give me the hybrid life ♪ and the pop of the charts. ♪ i wanna dance with somebody ♪ >> billboard's top 100 pop songs, whitney houston's "i wanna dance with somebody" isn't a shocker, but a big surprise at number eight could "maybe" of a gen-x and millennials taking sides.

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thank you for joining us. i'm phil lipof. president biden tonight addressing the nation as a possible ground war looms after hamas' terror attack on israel and russia's ongoing war with ukraine. joining us tonight is abc's chief white house correspondent

mary bruce. >> reporter: the president in a rare move using the power of the oval office to argue that the world is at an inflection point and that democracy is on the line here. the president really arguing, what is at stake in the fights in israel and ukraine. and he says that actually, hamas and vladimir putin share the same goal that they both want to annihilate their neighboring democracies. the president announced he is going to be asking for a lot more funding from congress, saying the u.s. cannot turn their back on these nations, saying that this is a matter of the u.s.'s national security interests and global stability, phil. >> phil: mary, thank you. the president speaking to the american people fresh off of his trip from israel. >> american leadership is what holds the world together. american alliances are what keep us in america safe. american values are what make us a partner that other nations want to work with. >> phil: tonight, a rare oval office address in the face of multiple global crises. >> history has taught us that

when terrorists don't pay a price for their terror, when dictators don't pay a price for their aggression, they cause more chaos and death and more destruction. they keep going. and the cost and the threats to america and the world keep rising. >> phil: a somber president biden facing the nation in primetime, requesting an additional $105 billion in foreign aid for allies including israel. >> the security package i'm sending to congress and asking congress to do is an unprecedented commitment to israel's security that will sharpen israel's qualitative military edge which we've committed to. >> phil: the president asking for more aid for ukraine. >> i'm asking congress to make sure we can continue to send ukraine the weapons they need to defend themselves and their country without interruption. so ukraine can stop putin's brutality in ukraine. >> phil: and yesterday pledging $100 million in humanitarian aid for the people of gaza. >> the people of gaza urgently need food, water, and medicine.

>> phil: the speech coming on the heels of his trip to israel and biden speaking with ukrainian president volodymyr zelenskyy earlier today. >> we cannot and will not let terrorists like hamas and tyrants like putin win. i refuse to let that happen. >> phil: biden emphasizes america's key role in global affairs and reiterating another core american value. >> let us not forget who we are. we reject all forms, all forms of hate. whether against muslims, jews, or anyone. that's what great nations do. and we are a great nation. >> phil: abc news will have the latest from the middle east overnight, and of course on "gma." we turn now to a growing online crime that law enforcement is calling an epidemic. sextortion. all ages and genders can be targeted, but teen boys are often easy marks. victims are approached on social media by someone posing as a peer, but who is actually a

predator. the two families you are about to meet now speaking out, telling other families and teens what they wish their sons had known. here's abc's trevor ault. >> they sent james 200 messages in 19 1/2 hours. 200 messages saying "you're nothing, you're hopeless, we'll make your life a living hell, you might as well end it now, where's our money?" >> reporter: tamia woods' pain is clear. her son, james timothy woods -- a 6'2" hurdler -- was a popular high school senior who loved anime, chess, and video games. now his parents are speaking at schools with a desperate warning. >> you are our targets. they want your money. they want $10, they want $20, they want $100. and they don't care if you're not here. >> reporter: tamia and tim son's

tragic death is part of an alarming trend called sextortion targeting young boys between the ages of 10 and 18 on social media apps and through video games. >> this is an epidemic that is running rampant. >> reporter: scammers posing as young teen girls lurking online, sliding into phones and gaming devices of unsuspecting kids. >> in 2022, there were over 7,000 sextortion cases against children in america. in my experience, in fact, i would think that number is well over 100,000 cases that have not been reported. >> reporter: their tactics, friendly and flirty at first, enticing victims into sending a nude pic, then flipping the script, demanding payment under a threat they'll expose those explicit photos to the world. especially family and friends. >> the goal is to ramp up that stress. it's also how they're getting a lot of young kids across the country to take their own lives. >> reporter: the fbi tells abc

news more than 20 kids have died by suicide directly because of sextortion. >> these people are professional con artists. every day i told my son i loved him. and in 19 1/2 hours, they convinced him otherwise. it's a mind game. >> reporter: in november 2022, james died by suicide after dm'ing over instagram with someone he thought was a teenage girl. conversation eventually moved over to a video chat. >> she asked him if he would like to view her unclothed. he said yes. she undressed. then she said, "okay, your turn." he did it too. >> reporter: but she revealed herself to be an extortionist. she said the screen grab of james would end up online unless he paid her $6,000 with the untraceable method of gift cards. like james, jordan demay seemed

to have everything going for him. star athlete, homecoming king in marquette, michigan. >> jordan was a very happy guy. he was always dancing or singing, listening to music. he had a lot of friends. >> reporter: but last year, he, too, had a chance encounter on instagram. >> it started out with the supposed girl saying, hey, we have some friends in common. >> reporter: that girl with the handle "dani roberts" enticing jordan to send her a nude photo, then demanding money. "i have screen shot all your followers and tags, can send these nudes to everyone, and also send your nudes to your family and friends until it goes viral. all you have to do is cooperate with me, and i won't expose you." jordan asks, "how much?" dani, "$1,000." jordan, a victim of sextortion, now spiraling. "i'll kill myself right now

because of you." "good," dani replies, "do that fast." he eventually centi money. >> $300? >> another transaction for $20, $30, that's all i have, i can't pay anymore. they kept pushing and pushing. they were building his compromise the photo, with other photos of his friends and family and parents, threatening to send it out to them and keep putting the pressure on him. they never gave him a single minute to think. >> reporter: six torturous hours from that first message -- >> he shot himself with a firearm in his bed. it was obviously total shock. i think i even said that to him when he was there. it was like, "why?" as soon as i called 911, i called jennifer. >> and he said, "jordan's gone."

and i said, "no, no, no." >> reporter: then jordan's girlfriend, kyla, started receiving menacing messages. >> and i randomly happened to see a direct message on instagram with photos. one explicit photo of jordan. and i felt like i had to respond. "who are you? why do you have these photos?" it was a random account that looked like a teenage girl. they threatened to send these photos to my family and my friends. and i was panicked. i was terrified. why are you doing this? >> reporter: kyla sought help. she told her parents, who went to the police. >> they were able to get her phone and follow the ip address.

at that point, it's a matter of officers starting to follow the bread crumbs. >> reporter: eight months later, a major break in the case. >> two of the men charged after the jordan demay extortion death will make their first appearance in a u.s. courtroom. >> dani roberts, as we've alleged, is a fictitious name. the perpetrators in this case secured a hacked instagram account. they found an image of an attractive young woman that they found online. they attributed it to this account. and they made up a name. >> reporter: it turns out jordan wasn't up against just one scammer, but six of them. all located halfway around the world in lagos, nigeria. >> we're seeing a majority of the cases recently leading us back to western africa. specifically, nigeria. >> today we are announcing the successful extradition of two

nigerian nationals who ran an international sextortion ring. samuel ogashi, age 22, and samson ogashi, age 20. >> reporter: the brothers have pled not guilty and are currently awaiting trial here in the u.s. >> two families are going to be destroyed because of this. there's another mother somewhere in nigeria missing her two sons. and it's really unfortunate that both families are in this situation. because of this senseless act and $300. >> reporter: for emotional support, call or text 988 at the anonymous suicide and crisis lifeline. >> phil: for trevor's full report, including how the fbi is cracking down on sextortion scammers, stream the full episode of "impact by nightline" available now on hulu. when we come back, musician, comedian, wordsmith. we sit down with artist reggie watts.

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think bigger.

you got two jacks. and then my grand slam. i signed a ball for you. okay. and it says papa i love you. why did you do that? because you've taught me everything about baseball. oh hunny bunny, that's so sweet. (♪) (♪)

♪ >> phil: welcome back. reggie watts says his creativity comes from taking everything he likes and jumbling it all together. anyone who's seen him perform understands what he means by that. he sat down with "nightline" coanchor juju chang. reggie's talent on full display in this t.e.d. talk, take a look. ♪ ♪ ♪

>> juju: welcome, reggie. >> thank you. thanks for having me. >> juju: sarah silverman called you someone you can't put in a box. you've also been described as a noise wizard jazz clown. >> oh, yes, yes. >> juju: that's good. you take languages, you take music, you take sounds and you turn them into performance art. where in that fertile brain of yours does this all come from? >> well, you know, it started years ago. no, i -- i think as a little kid, i was interested in mimicking. if i liked something, i would milk it. if i listened to the radio and heard olivia newton-john, for jen z people, "let's get physical," i would imitate it. i'd try to get her range and tonality. i was fascinated with mill cree. i think that's what led to me essentially sampling everything i love and jumbling it together.

>> juju: what inspires you? can you give us a sample? >> british period pieces. it's like when people are like, i don't know why you're doing what you're doing, i'm just going around, doing what i'm doing, if you don't do what i'm doing, you do what you already did. i love the sound of accents and languages or even fake languages. [ speaking in a non-english language ] >> juju: that's a fake language? >> that's a fake language. >> juju: you've added author, "great falls, montana: fast times, post-punk weirdos, and coming home again." this is a love letter to your hometown. why center it in your life so autobiographically? >> it was one of the most important times my life. arguably everyone's coming of age-time is important. >> juju: your father is african, your mother is white, french.

you describe racial slurs in the midst of play dates? >> yes. that would happen. it was hurtful for sure. but i don't know, like not too long after experiencing a few of those -- and i'll say, it wasn't often, often. some people probably would have treated me with some kind of a racialness involved it in, but i didn't -- i chose not to engage with it. >> >> juju: what about this idea that in other spheres you weren't considered black enough? >> yes, i know. classic hybrid life. hybrid life! #hybridlife. >> juju: my kids are biracial, they live the hybrid life. ♪ give me the hybrid life ♪ i enjoy it. what i enjoy about it is that you kind of have to figure out who you are. you have to meet people halfway. you can't expect to walk into a situation, have people immediately understand you. so you do have to put in a little work. >> juju: where does the comedy

come into it? what, if any, are the messages? >> one of the hardest times i laughed, it was with my parents watching "the muppet show." my parents thought there was something wrong with me, i was laughing so hard for so long. so silliness, absurdity, really hit me. i love absurdity and silliness. everything that's happening right now, i love questioning reality and blowing it up through an absurdist lens rather i'm adisabilitied to it. >> juju: how does that kind of comedy sit in our life and times right now, in our world that feels so troubled and divided? >> absurdity is the only thing that will save us. absurdity is the only thing that takes you out of the way that you're thinking about something, blows it up, shows it to you in a humorous way that's not related to the trauma of it. >> juju: what's next for you? >> my goal is to do whatever i want, whenever i want, release it whenever i want. >> juju: that should be everyone's goal. reggie watts, thank you.

artist outside the box. thank you for joining us. >> namaste. >> phil: our thanks s s to juj reggie. when we come back, an about a abba's "dancing queen" and the other top pop songs according to billboard. ♪ you are the dancing queen young and sweet only 17 ♪ ♪ dancing queen feel the heat from the tambourine ♪ ah mornings! cough? congestion? i'm feeling better. all in one and done with new mucinex kickstart. headache? better now. new mucinex kickstart gives all-in-one and done relief with a morning jolt of instant cooling sensation. it's comeback season. the right age for neutrogena® retinol?

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yeah, there's a lot of risk out there. huh ♪ hey, is this thing hard to learn? nah, it's easy. huh. you know, i think i'm going to ride it home. good thing you chose u.s. bank to manage and grow your money. with our 24/7 support at least you're not taking chances with your finances. yeah, i think i'm gonna need a chair. oh, ohhhh. ♪ >> phil: finally tonight, billboard has released its 500 top pop songs of all-time.

it's a list already inspiring much discussion and some dissent. their top ten include some of the biggest songs and artists in music history. michael jackson's "billie jean." abba's "dancing queen." the beatles' "i wanna hold your hand." at number one, whitney houston's "i wanna dance with somebody." ♪ yeah, i wanna dance with somebody with somebody who loves me ♪ but the song at number eight on the list garnering the most controversy. carly rae jepsen's "call me maybe." ♪ i just met you and this is crazy ♪ ♪ but here's my number call me maybe ♪ >> phil: does the song deserve to be in such heady company? you be the judge. ♪ here's my number call me maybe ♪ >> phil: that's "nightline." you can watch all our full episodes on hulu. we'll see you right back here tomorrow night. thanks for staying up with us. good nig,