Tag: books and reading

Exclusive: Bob Woodward releasing new audiobook ‘The Trump Tapes’ with eight hours of recorded interviews | CNN Politics

Washington
CNN
—

During a December 2019 Oval Office interview with then-President Donald Trump, Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward asked whether his bellicose rhetoric toward North Korean leader Kim Jong Un had been intended to drive Kim to the negotiating table.

“No. No. It was designed for whatever reason, it was designed. Who knows? Instinctively. Let’s talk instinct, okay?” Trump said. “Because it’s really about you don’t know what’s going to happen. But it was very rough rhetoric. The roughest.”

Trump then instructed his aides to show Woodward his photos with Kim at the DMZ. “This is me and him. That’s the line, right? Then I walked over the line. Pretty cool. You know? Pretty cool. Right?” the president said.

Trump on his interactions with Kim

Trump’s take on his relationship with Kim – and his admission that he didn’t have a broader strategy behind the threats he made about having a “much bigger” nuclear button – are part of a new audiobook that Woodward is releasing. Titled, “The Trump Tapes,” the book contains the 20 interviews Woodward conducted with Trump from 2016 through 2020.

CNN obtained a copy of the audiobook ahead of its October 25 release, which includes more than eight hours of the journalist’s raw interviews with Trump interspersed with Woodward’s commentary.

Simon & Schuster

The interviews offer unvarnished insights into the former president’s worldview and are the most extensive recordings of Trump speaking about his presidency — including explaining his rationale for meeting Kim, his relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin, and Trump’s detailed views of the US nuclear arsenal. The audio also shows how Trump decided to share with Woodward the letters Kim wrote to him – the letters that helped spark the DOJ investigation into classified documents Trump took to Mar-a-Lago.

“And don’t say I gave them to you, okay?” Trump told Woodward.

Woodward said in the book’s introduction that he is releasing the recordings in part because “hearing Trump speak is a completely different experience to reading the transcripts or listening to snatches of interviews on television or the internet.”

He describes Trump as “raw, profane, divisive and deceptive. His language is often retaliatory.”

“Yet, you will also hear him engaging and entertaining, laughing, ever the host. He is trying to win me over, sell his presidency to me. The full-time salesman,” Woodward said. “I wanted to put as much of Trump’s voice, his own words, out there for the historical record and so people could hear and judge and make their own assessments.”

Most of the interviews were conducted for Woodward’s second Trump book, “Rage,” which revealed that Trump told Woodward on February 7, 2020, that Covid-19 was “deadly stuff” but still downplayed it publicly.

While the blockbuster revelations were published in Woodward’s book, the audio clips of the interviews are a stark reminder of how Trump acted as president and provide a candid look into Trump’s thinking and motivations as he gears up for another potential run for the White House in 2024.

In the interviews, Trump shares his views about the strongmen he admires – including Kim, Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan – and reveals his overarching conviction that he’s the smartest person in the room.

In a June 2020 interview, which followed the nationwide protests over George Floyd, Woodward asked Trump whether he had help writing his speech in which Trump declared himself the “president of law and order.”

“I get, I get people. They come up with ideas. But the ideas are mine, Bob. The ideas are mine,” Trump told Woodward in a June 2020 interview. “Want to know something? Everything is mine. You know, everything. Every part of it.”

The 20 interviews contained in the audiobook begin in March 2016, when Woodward and his then-Washington Post colleague Robert Costa interviewed Trump while he was a presidential candidate. The rest of the interviews were conducted in 2019 and 2020.

Trump on process of writing his speeches

In the December 2019 interview, Woodward questioned Trump about North Korea’s nuclear program, prompting the president to boast about US nuclear weapons capabilities while seemingly revealing a new – and likely highly classified – weapons system, which was one of the more eye-raising episodes from “Rage.”

Woodward says that he never could establish what Trump was referring to, though he notes that Trump’s comment reaffirmed the “casual, dangerous way” the former president treated classified information.

“I have built a weapons system that nobody’s ever had in this country before,” Trump told Woodward. “We have stuff that you haven’t even seen or heard about. We have stuff that Putin and Xi have never heard about before.”

Throughout the interviews, Trump references his relationship with Putin, blaming the FBI’s investigation into Russia’s election interference for ruining his chances to improve the relationship between the two countries.

“I like Putin. Our relationship should be a very good one. I campaigned on getting along with Russia, China and everyone else,” Trump said in a January 2020 interview. “Getting along with Russia is a good thing, not a bad thing, all right? Especially because they have 1,332 nuclear f***ing warheads.”

In a moment of rare self-reflection, Trump noted that he had better relationships with leaders “the tougher and meaner they are.”

“I get along very well with Erdogan, even though you’re not supposed to because everyone says what a horrible guy. But you know for me it works out good,” Trump said in a January 2020 interview.

“It’s funny, the relationships I have, the tougher and meaner they are, the better I get along with them. You know?” he continued. “Explain that to me someday, okay. But maybe it’s not a bad thing. The easy ones are the ones I maybe don’t like as much or don’t get along with as much.”

Woodward’s audiobook also includes never-before-heard interviews with Trump’s then-national security adviser Robert O’Brien, his deputy Matthew Pottinger, as well as behind-the-scenes audio with Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner.

During a call with Woodward in February 2020, Trump hands the phone over to Kushner to set up interviews with other Trump advisers.

“What I heard from the president is basically that I now work for you, so I will make myself available around that schedule and I will make sure I get you a good list,” Kushner said.

Jared Kushner on plans for Woodward to talk to other Trump advisers

“I want you to know I have no illusions that you work for me. I know you work for Ivanka, right?” Woodward joked.

Kushner laughed. “Okay, fine, you get it. You get it. That’s probably why you’re Bob Woodward. That’s true.”

Throughout the recordings, a cast of Trump advisers, allies and family – including Donald Trump Jr., Melania Trump, Sen. Lindsey Graham, Hope Hicks and others – can be heard in the background. The audio gives an inside glimpse of Trump’s inner circle, like an exchange from 2016 when Trump was asked whether he expects government employees to sign non-disclosure agreements, and his son chimed in.

“I’m not getting next week’s paycheck until I sign one,” Donald Trump Jr. joked.

Donald Trump Jr. on signing non-disclosure agreements

In the epilogue of “The Trump Tapes,” Woodward declares that his own past assessments critical of Trump’s presidency did not go far enough. In “Rage,” Woodward wrote, “Trump is the wrong man for the job.”

Now, Woodward says, “Trump is an unparalleled danger. The record now shows that Trump has led — and continues to lead — a seditious conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election, which in effect is an effort to destroy democracy.”

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October 18, 2022
‘Interview with the Vampire’ has an undying legacy. Look inside its TV rebirth | CNN

CNN
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It’s been nearly half a century since “Interview with the Vampire” was published, leaving its mark on popular culture. Penned by the late Anne Rice, the book became the first of the “Vampire Chronicles,” which include 12 follow-up novels. “Interview” itself was adapted into a 1994 feature film starring Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise, while a loose “Queen of the Damned” adaptation hit theaters in 2002.

Now TV audiences can revisit “Interview with the Vampire” in a new series on AMC Sunday night. Beloved characters like Louis, Lestat and Claudia are back – albeit with some updates to their stories.

“We have these books that have literally been played in everybody’s head a million times, and then there’s this movie that has grafted that onto another generation of people,” said executive producer and writer Rolin Jones, who acknowledged feeling a “push and pull of how to be reverential and how to make sure that you’re not going to be boring for the people that already know these stories quite well.”

Jones and production designer Mara LePere-Schloop spoke with CNN about reimagining “Interview with the Vampire” for television and keeping the adaptation supernatural, sensual and sumptuous, in line with the source material.

Bringing “Interview with the Vampire” to TV involved building a “universe,” said Jones, who kept the other “Vampire Chronicles” in mind while planning everything from character details to the bigger picture. (Lestat, played by Sam Reid, saw some “rewriting” in the later books, as Jones observed – starting with a more fleshed out backstory in the second novel, 1985’s “The Vampire Lestat.”)

The titular interview takes place in the present day; the 1994 film, its screenplay written by Rice, also placed the interview in then-modern times. Like the novel, the new “Interview with the Vampire” is centered on Louis, who shares how he became a vampire with Daniel Molloy, a character first introduced to readers as an unnamed young reporter.

This Daniel, portrayed by Eric Bogosian, is an older seasoned journalist, but he’s essentially “the same guy,” Jones said. The show alludes to an earlier interview between Daniel and Louis from the ’70s – a callback to the novel.

Louis, played by Jacob Anderson, has some new origins. In previous iterations, he was the owner of a plantation near New Orleans in the late 1700s, which is when he met Lestat. The new Louis, still prone to periods of melancholy, guilt and self-loathing, is a Black brothel owner in early 20th century New Orleans when his story begins.

The changes made were partially the result of wanting to focus on a “time period that was as exciting aesthetically as the 18th century was without digging into a plantation story that nobody really wanted to hear now,” said Jones. He noted that the character’s lineage can still be traced back to “plantation money” and that his original occupation did not particularly come up as a point of “self-reflection” in the novels.

Another significant character update involves Claudia – just 5 years old when she was made into a vampire in the novel, though she was portrayed by an 11-year-old Kirsten Dunst in the film. AMC’s adaptation ages Claudia further by making her 14 at the time of her transformation. This doesn’t make her any more prepared for the internal turmoil that sets in.

As actor Bailey Bass said in a featurette shared on the show’s Twitter account, this Claudia has to “deal with the emotions of a 19-year-old, then a 30-year-old, then 40-year-old, while still being stuck in this 14-year-old young body.”

The decision to age Claudia was made in part due to concerns about filming certain scenes, especially those with more “adult” connotations. Child labor laws were another factor.

“If I wanted to make Claudia on this show, I need as many hours of shooting with the actor who plays that as possible,” Jones said. “And if I put anybody that was younger than 18 in there, I would have limited hours.”

For LePere-Schloop, who read Rice’s novels as a teen and credits them somewhat with drawing her to New Orleans, her home of two decades, the changes in the TV series are not antithetical to the author’s work. After Rice died, her assets were donated to an archive at Tulane University in New Orleans, said LePere-Schloop, who met with the archivist while the series was filming.

“Some of the things she was discovering was that Anne was writing short stories and other interpretations of the ‘Chronicles’ where Louis was a woman, or there are other fluidity things happening,” she said. “Even within Anne’s own writing, there’s a history of kind of playing with time, place and person.”

The series was filmed in New Orleans, once Rice’s longtime home and an integral part of “Interview with the Vampire.” Immersing the viewer in the updated setting required a good amount of research.

“We’re now talking about a period of New Orleans that has been talked about a lot, but isn’t very well documented in images or hasn’t been captured in film and television, and that’s the period of Storyville (the red-light district),” LePere-Schloop said. “Culturally, it’s had such an impact on the city.”

As a New Orleans resident, she knew that “when a place is done wrong, you hear it in town.” So she relied on various resources, including the expertise of local historian Richard Campanella.

“He worked with us to capture things that he knew from oral histories and anecdotal stories that he had documented through time of elements of Storyville,” LePere-Schloop said.

The production incorporated New Orleans’ very real history, as well as key locations within the city, in addition to building new sets – like the one for Storyville – to bring viewers into this version of Louis’ and Lestat’s world.

“Anne used the city as research and reference,” LePere-Schloop said. “We were lucky enough to be able to film at the actual house that Anne wrote Lestat’s townhouse to be in the novels. Her inspiration for that house is a living museum and we got to use that as the exterior house.”

Creating the inside of the house, albeit on a stage, was also great fun, she said, noting that the original source of inspiration has “really incredible design details” like a skylight (which was worked into the script) and crown molding.

Different design aesthetics were used to show the passage of time while the vampires remain unchanged. The sets also served as a reflection of the characters, from the art Lestat brings over to New Orleans from Europe to the depressed state the vampires’ home falls into when things go awry.

“It’s an emotional landscape as much as a physical one,” Jones said.

LePere-Schloop wanted to avoid depicting a cliché New Orleans onscreen – and similarly, she wanted to avoid vampire clichés, opting against painting everything “bordello red” or putting Gothic arches everywhere. But for all the historical details adopted by the behind-the-scenes team, there are touches (including added saturation during the final coloring process, Jones said) that feel less natural.

While thinking up the palette for the show, LePere-Schloop turned to a book from her childhood – “The Rainbow Goblins” – which contained “beautiful, oversaturated” illustrations and helped her land on a more dynamic backdrop. The world Louis and Lestat occupy is “sexier” and “vivacious,” she said, compared to early depictions of vampires in film, which tended to be understated and “crumbling.”

Even with some changes to the original storylines, the “Interview with the Vampire” team did not ignore the source material – rereading and “seeing what was in the crevices and the cracks” helped them make the show, Jones said.

There are subtle references to characters from later novels and even a quick shoutout to Rice’s Mayfair witches (also the subject of an upcoming AMC series). Characters that did not appear in the film do appear here. And – perhaps the most important detail for the diehard fans – Lestat and Louis are lovers, in a move that takes the famed subtext of Rice’s earlier vampire novels and simply turns it into text.

What “Interview with the Vampire” hinted at in the ’70s was progressive for its time, Jones said, adding that by the “later books, it’s as if there was this great romance that was never really written, but we all kind of agree it happened.”

While Jones did not sugarcoat some of the more toxic “dish-throwing” aspects of the vampires’ relationship, he saw tremendous opportunity in how he could depict it in an updated adaptation.

Between Rice’s writings and the 1994 film, which has its fans and critics alike, Jones acknowledged that the series’ main cast “had big ghosts behind them.” But he praised Anderson – who he pointed out is in nearly every scene – and Reid for their stamina, as well as the range of their performances.

As far as the viewers are concerned?

“I’d like them to be surprised. For those who know it really well and love it, I want them to stick with it for seven (episodes) and if they’re still angry, that’s cool,” Jones said. “But hopefully, I made something exciting and thrilling for them.”

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October 2, 2022
New Iowa law restricts gender identity education, bans books with sexual content | CNN Politics

Washington
CNN
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Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds signed a sweeping bill into law Friday that will restrict education about gender identity and sexual orientation and ban books with certain sexual content from school libraries, as well as require schools to notify parents if their child asks to use a new name or pronoun.

Iowa is just one of several Republican-led states to pass laws strengthening what advocates often describe as “parental rights” over the past few years.

The controversial movement, which critics argue is aimed at limiting the rights of LGBTQ and other marginalized students, emerged as a top issue for the national Republican Party during the Covid-19 pandemic and is expected to play a key role during the 2024 election cycle.

The Human Rights Campaign, a civil rights organization, likened Iowa’s parental rights law to legislation enacted in Florida last year that opponents dubbed “Don’t Say Gay.” The Florida law banned certain instruction about sexual orientation and gender identity in the classroom and set off a social and political firestorm.

Iowa state Sen. Ken Rozenboom, chair of the education committee, has said that the parental rights bill “matches up with what most schools are doing now.”

“But we need to rein in those schools that believe that ‘the purpose of public education is to teach [students] what society needs them to know.’ We must put parents back in charge of their children’s education,” he wrote in his newsletter in March.

Iowa has passed several new laws this year addressing parents’ rights. In March, Reynolds signed into law a ban on gender-affirming care for minors, as well as a law that makes it easier for families to use taxpayer dollars to send their children to private K-12 schools regardless of their income.

The new Iowa law, also known as SF 496, touches on a range of education-related issues.

It prohibits instruction relating to gender identity or sexual orientation to students in kindergarten through sixth grade.

The law also requires school administrators to notify parents if their child “requests an accommodation” related to their gender identity, including using a name or pronoun that is different than the one “assigned to the student in the school district’s registration forms or records.”

When it comes to books, the law puts restrictions on school libraries for students in kindergarten through 12th grade. The libraries can only have books deemed “age-appropriate,” which, according to the law, excludes any materials with “descriptions or visual depictions of a sex act.”

School employees found to be in repeated violation of some of these provisions could face disciplinary action, according to the law.

Similar laws restricting what books are allowed in libraries have recently gone into effect in other states, including Florida, Missouri and Utah.

“Vague language in the laws regarding how they should be implemented, as well as the inclusion of potential punishments for educators who violate them, have combined to yield a chilling effect,” according to a report published in April by PEN America, a nonprofit that works to defend free expression and tracks book bans.

Laws like the one in Florida give incentives to teachers, media specialists and school administrators to proactively remove books from shelves, the report said.

There were more book bans across the country during the fall 2022 semester than in each of the prior two semesters, according to PEN America. The bans were most prevalent in Texas, Florida, Missouri, Utah and South Carolina.

About one-third of the titles banned are books about race or racism or feature characters of color. About 26% of the titles have LGBTQ+ characters or themes.

“Those children tell us all the time that finding books that reflect their experiences and answer questions they would never ask adults is lifesaving for them,” said Deborah Caldwell-Stone, director of the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom and executive director of the Freedom to Read Foundation.

The past year has brought an escalation to the book ban movement, with many state lawmakers introducing legislation that could have an impact on what’s available at public and school libraries.

“We’re looking at over 31 bills that oppose some kind of restriction on the ability of librarians to create collections that serve the needs of every student or attempt to censor books based on one group’s opinion,” Caldwell-Stone added.

There are at least 62 “parental rights” bills that have been introduced in 24 states this year, according to FutureEd, a think tank at Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy.

Most have yet to become law. But last year, six bills were signed by governors – two in Florida, two in Arizona and one each in Georgia and Louisiana.

Many of the bills focus on parents’ right to know what their children are learning in classrooms, particularly around issues of race and gender.

The Republican-controlled US House passed its own “Parents Bill of Rights” bill in March, though the Senate is not expected to take up the legislation.

Overall, a record number of anti-LGBTQ bills have been introduced this year. Some focus on education, but others concern health care, bathroom access and drag performances.

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April 12, 2021
Sarah Silverman sues OpenAI and Meta alleging copyright infringement | CNN Business

CNN
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Comedian Sarah Silverman and two authors are suing Meta and ChatGPT-maker OpenAI, alleging the companies’ AI language models were trained on copyrighted materials from their books without their knowledge or consent.

The pair of lawsuits against OpenAI and Facebook-parent Meta were filed in a San Francisco federal court on Friday, and are both seeking class action status. Silverman, the author of “The Bedwetter,” is joined in filing the lawsuits by fellow authors Christopher Golden and Richard Kadrey.

A new crop of AI tools has gained tremendous attention in recent months for their ability to generate written work and images in response to user prompts. The large language models underpinning these tools are trained on vast troves of online data. But this practice has raised some concerns that these models may be sweeping up copyrighted works without permission – and that these works could ultimately be served to train tools that upend the livelihoods of creatives.

The complaint against OpenAI claims that “when ChatGPT is prompted, ChatGPT generates summaries of Plaintiffs’ copyrighted works—something only possible if ChatGPT was trained on Plaintiffs’ copyrighted works.” The authors “did not consent to the use of their copyrighted books as training material for ChatGPT,” according to the complaint.

The complaint against Meta similarly claims that the company used the authors’ copyrighted books to train LLaMA, the set of large language models released by Meta in February. The suit claims that much of the material used to train Meta’s language models “comes from copyrighted works—including books written by Plaintiffs—that were copied by Meta without consent, without credit, and without compensation.”

The suit against Meta also alleges that the company accessed the copyrighted books via an online “shadow library” website that includes a large quantity of copyrighted material.

Meta declined to comment on the lawsuit. OpenAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The legal action from Silverman isn’t the first to focus on how large language models are trained. A separate lawsuit filed against OpenAI last month alleged the company misappropriated vast swaths of peoples’ personal data from the internet to train its AI tools. (OpenAI did not respond to a request for comment on the suit.)

In May, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman appeared to acknowledge more needed to be done to address concerns from creators about how AI systems use their works.

“We’re trying to work on new models where if an AI system is using your content, or if it’s using your style, you get paid for that,” he said at an event.

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April 12, 2021
Thousands of authors demand payment from AI companies for use of copyrighted works | CNN Business

Washington
CNN
—

Thousands of published authors are requesting payment from tech companies for the use of their copyrighted works in training artificial intelligence tools, marking the latest intellectual property critique to target AI development.

The list of more than 8,000 authors includes some of the world’s most celebrated writers, including Margaret Atwood, Dan Brown, Michael Chabon, Jonathan Franzen, James Patterson, Jodi Picoult and Philip Pullman, among others.

In an open letter they signed, posted by the Authors Guild Tuesday, the writers accused AI companies of unfairly profiting from their work.

“Millions of copyrighted books, articles, essays, and poetry provide the ‘food’ for AI systems, endless meals for which there has been no bill,” the letter said. “You’re spending billions of dollars to develop AI technology. It is only fair that you compensate us for using our writings, without which AI would be banal and extremely limited.”

Tuesday’s letter was addressed to the CEOs of ChatGPT-maker OpenAI, Facebook-parent Meta, Google, Stability AI, IBM and Microsoft. Most of the companies didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. Meta, Microsoft and Stability AI declined to comment.

Much of the tech industry is now working to develop AI tools that can generate compelling images and written work in response to user prompts. These tools are built on large language models, which are trained on vast troves of information online. But recently, there has been growing pressure on tech companies over alleged intellectual property violations with this training process.

This month, comedian Sarah Silverman and two authors filed a copyright lawsuit against OpenAI and Meta, while a proposed class-action suit accused Google of “stealing everything ever created and shared on the internet by hundreds of millions of Americans,” including copyrighted content. Google has called the lawsuit “baseless,” saying it has been upfront for years that it uses public data to train its algorithms. OpenAI did not previously respond to a request for comment on the suit.

In addition to demanding compensation “for the past and ongoing use of our works in your generative AI programs,” the thousands of authors who signed the letter this week called on AI companies to seek permission before using the copyrighted material. They also urged the companies to pay writers when their work is featured in the results of generative AI, “whether or not the outputs are infringing under current law.”

The letter also cites this year’s Supreme Court holding in Warhol v Goldsmith, which found that the late artist Andy Warhol infringed on a photographer’s copyright when he created a series of silk screens based on a photograph of the late singer Prince. The court ruled that Warhol did not sufficiently “transform” the underlying photograph so as to avoid copyright infringement.

“The high commerciality of your use argues against fair use,” the authors wrote to the AI companies.

In May, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman appeared to acknowledge more needs to be done to address concerns from creators about how AI systems use their works.

“We’re trying to work on new models where if an AI system is using your content, or if it’s using your style, you get paid for that,” he said at an event.

– CNN’s Catherine Thorbecke contributed to this report.

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April 12, 2021
Judge blocks Arkansas law criminalizing libraries and bookstores for providing ‘harmful’ books to minors | CNN Politics

CNN
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A federal judge on Saturday temporarily blocked portions of an Arkansas law that would have made it a crime for librarians and bookstores to provide minors with materials deemed “harmful” to them.

The law, signed by Republican Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders in March, would have held librarians and book vendors criminally liable for knowingly making available to minors material that would appeal “to a prurient interest in sex.” Under the law, the material would also have to lack “serious literary, scientific, medical, artistic, or political value” and be “patently offensive” under community standards.

The law, known as Act 372, would have taken effect Tuesday but will now remain blocked while the case plays out.

A group of libraries, librarians, several bookstores and publishing groups – including the Arkansas Library Association and the Central Arkansas Library System – filed a lawsuit last month arguing that a section of the law violated the First Amendment. The plaintiffs also challenged another section of the law that would have allowed individuals to challenge libraries over a material’s “appropriateness.”

The plaintiffs argued that the law could make way for the removal of libraries’ “young-adult” and “general” collections with sexual content. They also said it could even lead to a ban of all persons under the age of 18 from entering public libraries and bookstores, due to “the risk of endless criminal prosecution.”

Providing banned materials under the law to a minor would be a Class A misdemeanor and punishable by up to a year of jail or a $2,500 fine.

US District Judge Timothy L. Brooks of the Western District of Arkansas, an Obama appointee, ultimately agreed in his preliminary injunction, citing concerns about potential violations of the First and 14th amendments.

He described the law’s definition of “appropriateness” as “fatally vague,” arguing that it would be too challenging to enforce the law without infringing on constitutionally protected speech. Material deemed “harmful” for the youngest minors may be appropriate for the oldest minors or adults, Brooks said.

A spokeswoman for Sanders said the governor continues to support the law despite the ruling.

“The governor supports laws that protects kids from having access to obscene content and the idea that Democrats want kids to receive material that is literally censored in Congressional testimony is absurd and only appropriate in the radical left’s liberal utopia,” Sanders communications director Alexa Henning said in a statement to CNN.

The ruling is subject to appeal. CNN has reached out to Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin, a Republican, regarding potential next steps.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Arkansas, which represented some of the plaintiffs, welcomed the judge’s injunction.

“It’s regrettable that we even have to question whether our constitutional rights are still respected today. The question we had to ask was – do Arkansans still legally have access to reading materials?” Holly Dickson, the executive director of ACLU Arkansas, said in a statement. “Luckily, the judicial system has once again defended our highly valued liberties. We are committed to maintaining the fight to safeguard everyone’s right to access information and ideas.”

Dickson previously called Act 372 “an Arctic breeze on librarians across Arkansas.”

The plaintiffs included 17-year-old Hayden Kirby, who said in a statement that the law would limit her ability to “explore diverse perspectives.” Kirby said she spent time in the library every day throughout middle school.

“To restrict the spaces I’ve accessed freely throughout my life is outrageous to me,” she previously said in a statement. “I want to fight for our rights to intellectual freedom and ensure that libraries remain spaces where young Arkansans can explore diverse perspectives.”

The American Library Association said in a report earlier this year that there were 1,269 demands to censor library books and resources across the country in 2022, marking the highest number of attempted book bans since the association began compiling the data more than 20 years ago.

Free speech organization PEN America found book bans rose during the first half of the 2022-2023 school year, in large part due to state laws in Texas, Florida, Missouri, Utah and South Carolina – which accounted for almost a third of the bans, according to the report from April.

A new law signed in Texas last month banning books containing sexual content that is “patently offensive” was decried by opponents as potentially harmful to childrens’ education.

Last month, President Joe Biden announced he plans to appoint a new federal coordinator to address the increase in book bans enacted across different states.

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April 12, 2021
Amazon axes bookseller Book Depository as it cuts costs | CNN Business

London
CNN
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Amazon plans to shut down global online book store Book Depository after almost two decades.

The UK-based bookseller, bought by Amazon in 2011, announced Wednesday that it would cease operations on April 26, but that customers could still place orders until midday UK time on that day.

The company will continue to provide support to customers with their orders until June 23, Book Depository said in a statement on its website.

Founded in the United Kingdom in 2004, Book Depository sells over 20 million books, and offers free delivery — with no minimum spend — to more than 120 countries, according to its website.

The bookseller’s closure comes as Amazon

(AMZN) is making drastic cuts to its workforce to reduce costs.

In January, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy announced in a blog that the company would slash more than 18,000 roles globally, citing “uncertain” economic conditions and its rapid hiring over the past few years.

“We are working to support those who are affected and are providing packages that include a separation payment, transitional health insurance benefits, and external job placement support,” Jassy wrote in the blog.

Then, in March, the company said it would cut a further 9,000 jobs.

It is not clear how many layoffs will come from the closure of Book Depository. The bookseller did not respond to a CNN request for comment.

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April 12, 2021
How Disney maneuvered to save its Florida kingdom, leaving DeSantis threatening retaliation | CNN Politics

CNN
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In his yearlong battle with Disney, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has repeatedly leaned on the element of surprise in his attempts to outmaneuver the entertainment giant and its army of executives, high-priced lawyers and politically connected lobbyists.

“Nobody can see this coming,” DeSantis told a top Republican legislative leader as they planned a move against Disney last year, he recalled in his new book.

But when Disney finally struck back and thwarted, for now, a DeSantis-led state takeover of its long-standing special taxing district, it was the Republican governor who was seemingly caught off guard. The same February morning Disney pushed through an agreement with the district’s outgoing board that secured control of its development rights for decades to come, DeSantis had declared to cameras and supporters, “There’s a new sheriff in town.”

Now, weeks after DeSantis signed legislation intended to give the state power over Disney’s district, the company appears still in control of the huge swaths of land around its Orlando-area theme parks. Newly installed DeSantis allies overseeing the district are gearing up for a protracted legal fight while the governor has ordered an investigation. DeSantis on Thursday disputed that he had been outflanked by Disney and vowed further actions that could include taxes on its hotels, new tolls around its theme parks and developing land near its property.

“They can keep trying to do things, but, ultimately, we’re gonna win on every single issue involving Disney. I can tell you that,” the second-term governor said during an event at the conservative Hillsdale College in Michigan.

The unlikely fracturing of Florida’s relationship with its most iconic business started during the contentious debate last year over state legislation to restrict certain classroom instruction on sexuality and gender identity. Disney’s then-CEO, Bob Chapek, facing pressure from his employees, reluctantly objected to the bill, leading DeSantis to criticize the company. When DeSantis signed the legislation into law, Disney announced it would push for its repeal. DeSantis then targeted Disney’s special governing powers.

For DeSantis, who has built a political brand by going toe-to-toe with businesses he identifies as “woke,” the latest twist threatens to undermine a central pillar of his story as he lays the groundwork for a likely presidential campaign. An entire chapter of his new autobiography is devoted to Disney, and the saga is well-featured in the stump speech he has delivered around the country in recent weeks.

In Florida’s capital of Tallahassee, some veteran Republican operatives, exhausted by DeSantis’ high-profile cultural fights, are tickled that Disney appears to have one-upped the governor, a GOP source said. Meanwhile, allies of former President Donald Trump, the front-runner for the 2024 GOP nomination, have seized on the move to poke holes in DeSantis’ narrative, with MAGA Inc. PAC spokesman Taylor Budowich tweeting that the governor “just got out-negotiated by Mickey Mouse.” Other potential GOP contenders and Republicans have publicly raised objections to DeSantis’ targeting of a private business.

“Disney gave him a lot of rope,” said John Morgan, an influential Orlando-area trial lawyer and Democratic donor who is often complimentary of DeSantis. “They obviously tried to resolve it, but there was no stopping him because DeSantis wanted the fight. Disney always knew it had that trump card.”

Morgan’s legal career was inspired by his family’s failed attempts to sue the special district after his brother was paralyzed while working as a Disney lifeguard. But Morgan learned through that episode the difficulties of challenging a corporate titan.

“In the end, they were never going to lose this,” Morgan said.

What remains unanswered is how DeSantis appeared unaware of Disney’s maneuvering after spending the past year fixated on punishing and embarrassing the company.

As DeSantis plotted in secret, Disney moved in the open.

Its development agreement was approved over the course of two public meetings held two weeks apart earlier this year, both noticed in the local Orlando newspaper and attended by about a dozen residents and members of the media. No one from the governor’s office was present at either meeting, according to the meeting minutes.

“You spend all that energy and attention on Disney, and then no one minds the store?” said Aaron Goldberg, an author and Disney historian. “Disney was playing chess, and DeSantis was playing checkers.”

DeSantis’ office told CNN in a statement that it was first alerted to Disney’s efforts to thwart the state takeover of its special taxing district on March 18 by the district’s lawyers. Yet, the governor remained quiet until March 29, when his new appointees to Disney’s oversight board first made the public aware of the arrangement, drawing national attention and an outpouring of snickering from his detractors.

According to DeSantis’ office, Disney was pushing for silence. In a statement to CNN, Ray Treadwell, DeSantis’ chief deputy general counsel, accused Disney lobbyist Adam Babington of petitioning the governor’s office to help keep its agreement under wraps when the new board met on March 29.

“I made quite clear to him and the other Disney representatives that the validity of any such last-minute agreement would likely be challenged,” Treadwell said in the statement.

Disney and Babington did not respond to multiple requests for comment. In a previous statement, the company said, “All agreements signed between Disney and the District were appropriate, and were discussed and approved in open, noticed public forums in compliance with Florida’s Government in the Sunshine law.”

The episode is illustrative of the potential pitfalls of seeking to score political points against a big corporation fighting on its home turf. Addressing the controversy during a call with shareholders Monday, Disney CEO Bob Iger signaled he wouldn’t back away from the fight, calling DeSantis’ actions “not just anti-business, but it sounds anti-Florida.”

“A lot of us anticipated Disney would strike back and not allow its powers be taken away without some kind of response,” said Richard Foglesong, author of “Married to the Mouse: Walt Disney World and Orlando.”

“It must have been ticklish on Disney’s part that it wasn’t noticed initially,” he said.

When DeSantis first clashed with Disney last year, Foglesong signed a copy of his book that a DeSantis political ally intended to hand to the governor. Through an unvarnished lens, the book chronicles the Reedy Creek Improvement District – the special government body that state lawmakers created in 1967 to give Disney the power to develop and then control nearly every facet of its theme park empire – and the local officials who paid a political price for challenging the House of Mouse.

DeSantis’ office wouldn’t say if he had read the book. Foglesong said there’s a message in its pages that DeSantis should have heeded: “Simply don’t count Disney out.”

Last May, as DeSantis began to feature his battles with Disney in political speeches, two state officials quietly met with top administrators at Reedy Creek.

By then, DeSantis had already enacted a new law that would eventually eliminate the special taxing district. But it was also clear that the law wasn’t a tenable long-term outcome. It was possibly illegal, unless the state wanted to pay off the district’s outstanding debt, estimated at $1 billion. Meanwhile, bond rating agencies were threatening a downgrade, and nearby local governments expressed little interest in taking on the maintenance and services for the district’s 25,000 sprawling acres around Disney’s Orlando-area theme parks.

The visit by Treadwell and Ben Watkins, the state’s seasoned bond director, lasted about an hour. From the Reedy Creek side, the meeting was a positive step toward an amicable stalemate, according to sources with knowledge of the meeting, one that would largely continue Disney’s unique powers with some concessions while still allowing DeSantis to claim victory.

But the DeSantis administration broke off communications after the meeting, the sources said.

DeSantis’ office for months declined to say what would come next, but Watkins, in an August appearance on “The Bond Buyer” podcast, laid out a proposed framework for taking over Reedy Creek. It involved stripping the district of longstanding but never-used authorities, such as to build a nuclear power plant and to acquire property through eminent domain. But he hinted at a takeover of Reedy Creek’s board, which throughout its history had been occupied by people with close ties to Disney.

“The other thing that I would expect is a reconsideration of how the board of Reedy Creek is appointed and qualified to serve, to be appointed by state leadership with a broader interest across the spectrum of interest, across the state,” Watkins said.

The timing of the next move remained secret until January 6, when DeSantis’ office posted on the Osceola County government website its intent to seek legislation to overhaul Reedy Creek. In Florida, changes to a special district must be published for the public to see at least 30 days in advance. Disney was on the clock.

The company then prepared a draft developer’s agreement for Reedy Creek board members to approve that would guarantee Disney’s development rights for the next 30 years, a source with knowledge of the arrangement said. Twelve days after the state’s notice was published online, Reedy Creek published its own notice in the Orlando Sentinel for a meeting to consider the Disney draft. The board intended to vote, the notice said, on an agreement that would affect “a majority of the land located within the jurisdictional boundaries of Reedy Creek Improvement District.”

The Reedy Creek board held two public hearings on the development agreement, as required by Florida law, on January 25 and February 8.

DeSantis appeared in Central Florida just as the board gave final approval to the agreement on February 8. At the same time, state lawmakers were meeting in Tallahassee in a special session to pass DeSantis’ takeover of Reedy Creek, which included a provision that gave him the power to pick all five of the district’s board members. Neither DeSantis nor the Republican lawmakers advancing the legislation made statements indicating awareness of the votes taking place inside the district.

Instead, DeSantis, speaking an hour after the Reedy Creek board handed Disney the requested powers, declared that the company was “no longer going to have self-government” and teased that the new board might push for more Disney World discounts for Florida residents.

Goldberg, the author of several books on Disney, said the company in its history has repeatedly demonstrated that it knows its special arrangement better than the government that gave it to them. Indeed, the morning after Florida state Rep. Randy Fine introduced DeSantis’ bill to sunset Reedy Creek last year, the Republican legislator instructed staff to order Goldberg’s book “Buying Disney’s World” and directed them to “Read today,” according to emails obtained by CNN.

“With Disney, there is always a Plan B, something in the works from the jump in case things went wrong with the state,” Goldberg told CNN.

On February 27, DeSantis signed the bill giving him the power to pick all five members on the Reedy Creek board and named his appointees, including an influential donor, the wife of the state’s GOP leader and a former pastor who has pushed unfounded conspiracies about gay people.

Historically, the Reedy Creek board oversaw a fire department, water systems, roadways and building inspections around the Disney theme parks and could issue bonds and take on debt for long-term infrastructure programs. But DeSantis suggested that the new board could also influence Disney’s entertainment offerings.

“When you lose your way, you know, you gotta have people that are going to tell you the truth, and so we hope that they can get back on,” DeSantis said at the signing. “But I think all these board members very much would like to see the type of entertainment that all families can appreciate.”

However, a month later, the new board revealed it was effectively powerless.

“This essentially makes Disney the government,” new board member Ron Peri said during the March 29 meeting.

In addition to giving away oversight of Disney development, the outgoing board also agreed not to use any of Disney’s “fanciful characters” like Mickey Mouse – until “21 years after the death of the last survivor of the descendants of King Charles III, king of England,” according to a copy of the deal included in the February 8 meeting packet.

The reference to the British monarch is a contracting tactic known as the “royal lives clause,” intended to avoid rules against perpetual agreements. While relatively common legalese, its inclusion raised eyebrows. In the halls of the Florida Capitol, people have murmured “God save the king” to each other in passing, the GOP source said.

In a letter ordering the state inspector general to investigate the agreement, DeSantis accused the outgoing board of “inadequate notice” and a “lack of consideration.”

“These collusive and self-dealing arrangements aim to nullify the recently passed legislation, undercut Florida’s legislative process, and defy the will of Floridians,” DeSantis wrote.

But it’s unclear how DeSantis can regain the advantage against a company with unlimited resources at its disposal and a seemingly ironclad legal agreement. Iger, in his remarks to shareholders this week, said the company “always appreciated what the state has done for us” and reaffirmed its commitment to growing its massive footprint there over the next decade with plans to invest $17 billion in Disney World.

“Disney looked at this and said, ‘We have the law on our side, we can protect ourselves, and we’re going to do it,’” said Danaya C. Wright, a University of Florida law professor. “It’s perfectly reasonable to do it. There might be a desire to take on larger issues. But you start messing with one of the major economic engines of the state, they’re going to circle the wagons.”

Since the March 29 meeting, DeSantis’ administration has also stripped Reedy Creek – now called the Orange County Tourism Oversight District – of its authority to inspect Disney’s 600 pools, a source told CNN. A spokeswoman for DeSantis didn’t respond to a CNN inquiry about pool oversight, but DeSantis said Friday that state agencies would conduct inspections on Disney’s properties.

Speaking in Michigan on Thursday, DeSantis suggested more retribution is coming.

“All I can say is that story’s not over yet,” he said. “Buckle up.”

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April 12, 2021
Brittney Griner writing memoir on Russian detainment | CNN Politics

CNN
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Brittney Griner, the WNBA star who was freed from Russia late last year after being wrongfully detained, is writing a memoir due out next spring.

“After an incredibly challenging 10 months in detainment, I am grateful to have been rescued and to be home. Readers will hear my story and understand why I’m so thankful for the outpouring of support from people across the world,” Griner said in a news release Tuesday from publisher Alfred A. Knopf.

The two-time Olympic gold-medalist spent nearly 300 days in Russian custody after being detained in February 2022 and sentenced to nine years in prison under drug-smuggling charges after authorities in the country found cannabis oil in her luggage. Griner, who the US State Department deemed wrongfully detained, was released last December in a prisoner swap that involved Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout.

Griner had for years played on a Russian women’s basketball team during the WNBA off-season and was detained in a Moscow airport as she traveled to rejoin the team.

“That day was the beginning of an unfathomable period in my life which only now am I ready to share,” she said in the news release. “The primary reason I traveled back to Russia for work that day was because I wanted to make my wife, family, and teammates proud.”

Her detainment spotlighted the salary caps WNBA players face in the US – which has pushed athletes to go overseas to earn more during their off-seasons.

She will make her return to the WNBA next season after signing a one-year deal in February with the Phoenix Mercury.

The book announcement comes after Russian authorities last month detained Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who the US State Department deemed wrongfully detained on Monday. Detained American Paul Whelan has also been held in Russian custody since 2018.

“By writing this book, I also hope to raise awareness surrounding other Americans wrongfully detained abroad,” Griner said.

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April 12, 2021