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Tag: iab-media industry

  • Meta threatens to pull news content in California if bill to pay publishers passes | CNN Business

    Meta threatens to pull news content in California if bill to pay publishers passes | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, threatened to remove news from its social media sites in California if the state passes a bill requiring big tech companies to pay news outlets for their content.

    In a statement posted on Twitter, Andy Stone, Meta’s communications director, called California’s Journalism Preservation Act “a slush fund that primarily benefits big, out-of-state media companies under the guise of aiding California publishers.”

    “The bill fails to recognize that publishers and broadcasters put their content on our platform themselves and that substantial consolidation in California’s local news industry came over 15 years ago, well before Facebook was widely used,” Stone said.

    The bill, sponsored by Assemblymember Buffy Wicks, D-Oakland, requires digital companies such as Google and Facebook to pay local news publishers a “journalism usage fee” whenever their news content is used or posted on those platforms. The bill also requires news publishers to invest 70% of usage fee profits into journalism jobs.

    “This threat from Meta is a scare tactic that they’ve tried to deploy, unsuccessfully, in every country that’s attempted this,” Wicks said in a statement. “It’s egregious that one of the wealthiest companies in the world would rather silence journalists than face regulation.”

    According to a spokesperson for Wicks, the bill is due for a vote in the California State Assembly on Thursday.

    The bill has garnered praise from some of the largest journalism unions in California, including Media Guild of the West and Pacific Media Workers Guild. In a joint letter, the two unions called Meta and Google “powerful landlords overseeing an ever-expanding slum of low-quality information, happy to collect advertising rents from struggling tenants while avoiding paying for upkeep.”

    However, the bill also has its detractors. Free Press Action, a non-profit media advocacy organization, has criticized the bill as doing “nothing to support trustworthy local reporting and would instead pad the profits of massive conglomerates.”

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  • Elon Musk’s weekend antics could only further crumble Twitter’s brand value | CNN Business

    Elon Musk’s weekend antics could only further crumble Twitter’s brand value | CNN Business

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    New York
    CNN
     — 

    Under Elon Musk, Twitter has antagonized multiple major news organizations by labeling them state-funded media, appears to have eased restrictions on Russian government accounts and made crude jokes on the front of its headquarters and on Musk’s own Twitter display name.

    And that’s just this weekend.

    Musk’s antics, which only seem to have escalated this month, threaten to further erode Twitter’s brand value. For months, the company has struggled to retain advertisers and supplement its declining ad business — which previously comprised 90% of its annual revenue — by convincing users to pay up for its Twitter Blue subscription service.

    Musk, who is on the hook for large payments to lenders after buying the company for $44 billion, including with significant debt, must either coax hesitant advertisers back to the platform or boost its subscription business -— or both. But his recent erratic moves may only complicate those turnaround efforts.

    Late last week, Twitter faced backlash for labeling NPR as a “state-affiliated media” organization akin to foreign propaganda outlets such as Russia’s RT and Sputnik, in an apparent violation of its own policies. NPR CEO John Lansing called Twitter’s move “unacceptable,” and said the organization is “supported by millions of listeners.”

    Following the pushback, Twitter changed NPR’s label to “government funded media,” and applied the same designation to British broadcaster BBC over the weekend. Twitter has not given a definition for what it considers “government funded media,” but the BBC pushed back on the label, saying it is independent and “funded by the British public through the license fee.”

    The moves risk alienating some of the best-known media organizations in the world and undermining what has long been a key selling point for the platform: its role as a central hub for news. NPR, in particular, has not tweeted from its main account in nearly a week.

    While Twitter labeled some news accounts as state-funded, it also appears to have removed some restrictions on Russian government accounts that had been put in place following the outset of Russia’s war in Ukraine, again prompting outrage among some users.

    Musk commented on the decision in a tweet Sunday saying: “I’m told Putin called me a war criminal for helping Ukraine, so he’s not exactly my best friend. All news is to some degree propaganda. Let people decide for themselves.”

    Twitter, which laid off much of its media relations team last year, did not respond to a request for comment.

    The controversial moves come as Twitter continues to face significant business challenges. Analysis firm Similarweb last week reported that traffic to Twitter’s ad portal was down nearly 19% year-over-year in March. Many major advertisers have halted spending on Twitter since Musk’s takeover over concerns about increased hate speech on the platform and massive cuts to the company’s workforce.

    Musk has said Twitter is working to improve the platform’s ad targeting to increase value for advertisers. “But all the while there have been distractions,” said Scott Kessler, technology sector lead at research firm Third Bridge, adding that there are “significant questions about the direction that the company is going.” At the same time, online ad spending broadly has contracted over concerns about the economy.

    Against that backdrop, Musk’s Twitter has made several head-scratching announcements this month, some of which might only add to its challenges.

    Musk previously frustrated some of Twitter’s celebrity users, who have long been a key selling point for the platform, with a promise to remove blue checkmarks from accounts who had been verified under Twitter’s previous system. But it didn’t exactly go to plan — instead of removing checks from all previously verified users, Twitter appeared to target a single account belonging to the New York Times.

    Days later, Twitter’s home button was temporarily replaced with doge, the meme representing the cryptocurrency dogecoin, which Musk has promoted. The company also briefly restricted Twitter users from sharing links to a rival platform, upsetting users, including one who had previously reported the so-called Twitter files using documents provided by Musk.

    As if to underscore his unique and questionable impact on the brand, the “Chief Twit” has also apparently been keeping busy with changes to Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters. Last week, photos began spreading of a piece of plastic covering the “w” in the sign on the front of the company’s office.

    At nearly midnight on Sunday, Musk tweeted that the company’s landlord “says we’re legally required to keep sign as Twitter & cannot remove ‘w,’ so we painted it background color,” alongside a photo of the “w” painted white against a white background, leaving a more asinine word in its place. “Problem solved!” Musk tweeted.

    If only the same could be said for the platform’s business troubles.

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  • Jill Biden to travel to Paris to commemorate US rejoining UNESCO after Trump exit | CNN Politics

    Jill Biden to travel to Paris to commemorate US rejoining UNESCO after Trump exit | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    First lady Dr. Jill Biden will travel to Paris next week to celebrate the US rejoining UNESCO, according to senior administration officials, in a visit that will highlight the national security imperative of American involvement in such coalitions and emphasize the role of US leadership in the world.

    President Joe Biden is deploying the first lady, a top surrogate, to commemorate the occasion that reverses a Trump-era decision as he seeks to reassure allies that “America’s back” and signal the White House’s reaffirmed commitment to the organization.

    The US withdrew from UNESCO – the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization – during the Trump administration, with the State Department at the time citing anti-Israel bias and mounting membership dues owed to the international body. The organization promotes cooperation in education, science, culture, and communication, and also designates “world heritage” sites.

    Then-US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley, now a GOP presidential candidate, said at the time the organization’s “extreme politicization had become a chronic embarrassment.”

    Dr. Biden, a senior administration official said, will attend and deliver remarks at a UNESCO flag raising ceremony on Tuesday and greet UNESCO Director General Audrey Azoulay.

    A second senior Biden administration official heralded the decision to rejoin the organization as “a milestone that really signifies the return of our leadership in a vital international space.”

    “When we don’t show up in these organizations, other countries will fill the void. And in an era of increasing geopolitical competition, competitors are working hard at the UN to shape the global agenda,” the second senior official said, adding, “If we aren’t in the room, we can’t push back.”

    The US absence from UNESCO, the official said, was “harming our interests” since the decision to withdraw in 2017, noting that the organization has also “made much-needed reforms.”

    A third senior official noted that having the US at the UNESCO table will give the administration influence on “international standards and shared global understanding on issues like protection of World Heritage, the ethics of emerging technology, press freedom, and … education.” New top US priorities for the group, that official said, include investments on Holocaust education, the preservation of cultural heritage in Ukraine, journalist safety and STEM education focused in Africa for women and girls, and artificial intelligence.

    “The Biden administration is committed to playing a leadership role in multilateral venues where our interests, our security and prosperity can be protected and promoted. UNESCO is precisely one of those venues where we believe the benefits of engagement are well worth the investment,” the third official said.

    President Biden has often sought to communicate to US allies in the aftermath of his predecessor’s “America First” presidency that the US will reassert a leading role in what he casts as the battle between democracy and autocracy. Of course, former President Donald Trump is currently leading in GOP primary polling, with posing serious questions ahead for the future of critical US alliances following the 2024 presidential election.

    The first lady is set to depart Washington for Paris on Sunday evening, arriving Monday morning. She will meet with Mrs. Brigitte Macron, spouse of French President Emmanuel Macron, on Tuesday. Dr. Biden will also visit Mont Saint Michel, a UNESCO World Heritage site, and pay her respects to fallen World War II US service members at the Brittany American Cemetery in Normandy during her trip abroad.

    CORRECTION: This story has been updated to correct the timing of Dr. Jill Biden’s meeting with Brigitte Macron.

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  • US designates Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich as wrongfully detained by Russia | CNN Politics

    US designates Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich as wrongfully detained by Russia | CNN Politics

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    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    The US State Department on Monday officially designated Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich as wrongfully detained by Russia.

    “Today, Secretary Blinken made a determination that Evan Gershkovich is wrongfully detained by Russia,” State Department principal deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel said in a statement.

    The designation gives further backing to the assertions by the US government and the Wall Street Journal that the espionage charges against the reporter are baseless. It will empower the Biden administration to explore avenues such as a prisoner swap to try to secure Gershkovich’s release.

    His case will now be handled at the State Department through the Office of the Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs, which has played a key role in the release of US citizens held hostage and wrongfully detained around the world.

    Both of the Americans who have been recently brought home from Russia – Trevor Reed and Brittney Griner – had been designated as wrongfully detained and were freed in prisoner swaps.

    Paul Whelan, who has been imprisoned in Russia for more than four years on espionage charges that he and the US government deny, has also been declared wrongfully detained.

    In his statement, Patel said the “U.S. government will provide all appropriate support to Mr. Gershkovich and his family.”

    “We call for the Russian Federation to immediately release Mr. Gershkovich,” he said. “We also call on Russia to release wrongfully detained U.S. citizen Paul Whelan.”

    The editor in chief and publisher of the Wall Street Journal on Monday said they “are doing everything in our power to support Evan and his family and will continue working with the State Department and other relevant U.S. officials to push for his release.”

    “He is a distinguished journalist and his arrest is an attack on a free press and it should spur outrage in all free people and governments around the world,” the statement from Emma Tucker and Almar Latour said.

    Gershkovich was detained in late March and formally charged with espionage last Friday. As of Monday, officials at the US Embassy in Moscow had not been granted consular access to Gershkovich.

    “It is a violation of Russia’s obligations under our consular convention and a violation against international law,” Patel said at a State Department briefing Monday. “We have stressed the need for the Russian government to provide this access as soon as possible.”

    The official determination that Gershkovich is wrongfully detained comes after a bureaucratic process played out within the US government.

    US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said last week they were “very deliberately but expeditiously” carrying out that process, but “in (his) own mind, there’s no doubt that he’s being wrongfully detained by Russia.”

    The arrest of the journalist – the first of its kind in Russia since the Cold War – prompted the top US diplomat to make a rare call to his Russian counterpart.

    “Secretary Blinken conveyed the United States’ grave concern over Russia’s unacceptable detention of a U.S. citizen journalist,” a State Department readout of the April 2 call said.

    That call was only the third time that Blinken has spoken with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov since the war in Ukraine began, and all of those conversations have discussed detained US citizens. The two spoke in person for the first time since the war broke out on the sidelines of the G20 foreign ministers meeting in India last month, and Blinken said he raised the issues of the war, Russia’s suspension of its participation in the New START nuclear agreement, and Whelan’s ongoing detention.

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  • Google is building an AI tool for journalists | CNN Business

    Google is building an AI tool for journalists | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    Google is developing an artificial intelligence tool for news publishers that can generate article text and headlines, the company said, highlighting how the technology may soon transform the journalism industry.

    The tech giant said in a statement that it is looking to partner with news outlets on the AI tool’s use in newsrooms.

    “Our goal is to give journalists the choice of using these emerging technologies in a way that enhances their work and productivity,” a Google spokesperson said, “just like we’re making assistive tools available for people in Gmail and in Google Docs.”

    The effort was first reported by The New York Times, which said the project is referred to internally as “Genesis” and has been pitched to The Times, The Washington Post and News Corp, which owns The Wall Street Journal.

    Google’s statement did not name those media companies but said the company is particularly focusing on “smaller publishers.” It added that the project is not aimed at replacing journalists nor their “essential role … in reporting, creating, and fact-checking their articles.”

    The new tool comes as tech companies, including Google, race to develop and deploy a new crop of generative AI features into applications used in the workplace, with the promise of streamlining tasks and making employees more productive.

    But these tools, which are trained on information online, have also raised concerns because of their potential to get facts wrong or “hallucinate” responses.

    News outlet CNET had to issue “substantial” corrections earlier this year after experimenting with using an AI tool to write stories. And what was supposed to be a simple AI-written story on “Star Wars” published by Gizmodo earlier this month similarly required a correction. But both outlets have said they will still move forward with using the technology.

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  • Top moments from the White House Correspondents’ dinner | CNN Politics

    Top moments from the White House Correspondents’ dinner | CNN Politics

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    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    President Joe Biden joked about a range of topics at the White House Correspondents’ dinner on Saturday but struck a serious tone as he called for the release of wrongfully detained Americans abroad.

    The annual dinner, hosted inside the Washington Hilton, drew thousands of guests in support of freedom of the press, something Biden called “the pillar of a free society, not the enemy.”

    Here are the top moments from this year’s dinner.

    Biden used the opportunity to address a crowd gathered to support freedom of the press to send a clear message: “Journalism is not a crime.”

    He began his remarks on a serious note and immediately addressed the wrongful detentions of American journalists Evan Gershkovich in Russia and Austin Tice in Syria, reassuring the room full of journalists and the families of the detainees that his administration is committed to bringing them home.

    “I promise you, I’m working like hell to get them home,” Biden said.

    In attendance Saturday evening was Brittney Griner, the WNBA star who was freed from Russia late last year after being wrongfully detained. Biden and First Lady Jill Biden held a pull-aside meeting with Griner and her wife at the event, per the White House pool.

    The president and First Lady also met privately with the family of Gershkovich, a Wall Street Journal reporter that the US State Department has deemed “wrongfully detained” in Russia. Several journalists in attendance wore pins to urge his release.

    The daughter of jailed Russian opposition figure Alexey Navanly, Dasha Navalnaya, told CNN earlier Saturday the White House Correspondents’ dinner represents an especially important event for those who are wrongfully detained because “America as a country represents freedom of speech, freedom of political expression.”

    Comedian Roy Wood Jr., known for his role on Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show,” did not hold back in his roast of Washington politics Saturday evening, saving jabs for both parties.

    He immediately addressed the classified documents found in Biden’s Delaware home, telling the president as he stepped aside from the podium, “Real quick, Mr. President. I think you left some of your classified documents up here.”

    Wood also pointed to protests in France in response to the government raising the retirement age. “Meanwhile in America, we have an 80-year-old man begging us for four more years of work,” he quipped, alluding to Biden’s reelection bid.

    But the comedian went on to dub former President Donald Trump the “king of scandals.”

    “Keeping up with Trump scandals is like watching Star Wars movies,” he said. “You got to watch the third one to understand the first one, then you got – you can’t miss the second one because it’s got Easter eggs for the fifth one.”

    Watch: Iconic moments from past White House Correspondents’ dinners

    Biden’s jokes, meanwhile included a number of quips aimed at his predecessor’s recent scandals.

    He joked that he was offered $10 to keep his remarks under ten minutes. “That’s a switch, a president being offered hush money,” he joked in reference to Trump’s indictment in an alleged hush money scheme.

    Biden also poked fun at Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is likely to be top candidate for the GOP presidential nomination if he enters the 2024 race.

    “I had a lot of Ron DeSantis jokes ready, but Mickey Mouse beat the hell out of me, he got there first,” Biden said.

    Disney filed a lawsuit against the governor and his oversight board earlier this week, accusing him of punishing the company for exercising its free speech rights with his political influence.

    The White House Correspondents’ dinner honored several journalists for their impactful work last year, including CNN’s Phil Mattingly for his coverage of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s visit to Washington and Politico’s publishing of the Supreme Court draft opinion that would later overturn Roe v. Wade.

    While Biden also applauded the journalists for their work, he poked fun at their tough questioning.

    “I get that age is a completely reasonable issue, it’s on everybody’s mind,” he said, referring to his reelection bid. “By everyone I mean the New York Times.”

    Biden also joked about how he dodges the media’s questions. “In a lot of ways, this dinner sums up my first two years in office: I’ll talk for 10 minutes, take zero questions and cheerfully walk away.”

    In recent weeks, the media industry has taken several hits – from high-profile terminations to layoffs, something Wood addressed head on.

    “The untouchable Tucker Carlson is out of a job,” Wood said, referring to the anchor’s departure from Fox News, which prompted applause.

    “Okay, some people celebrate it,” he responded. “But to Tucker’s staff, I want you to note that I know what you’re feeling. I work at the Daily Show, so I too have been blindsided by the sudden departure of the host of a fake news program.”

    Saturday’s event saw a number of celebrities in attendance, including model and TV personality Chrissy Teigen and her husband, singer John Legend.

    Actress Julia Fox posed with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer while actress Rosario Dawson and actors Liev Schreiber and Billy Eichner all took turns on the red carpet.

    During the event, identical twin brothers Drew and Jonathan Scott, who host “Property Brothers” on HGTV, drew big laughs as their sketch-style video showcased how they would renovate the White House.

    “We’ve been doing this a long time and we think we know how to turn the White House into the White Home,” the pair said in video.

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  • Blinken says US is ‘engaged with Syria’ in efforts to free missing journalist Austin Tice | CNN Politics

    Blinken says US is ‘engaged with Syria’ in efforts to free missing journalist Austin Tice | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    The United States is “engaged with Syria, engaged with third countries” to try to bring detained journalist Austin Tice home, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Wednesday.

    “We are extensively engaged with regard to Austin, engaged with Syria, engaged with third countries, seeking to find a way to get him home. And we’re not going to relent until we do,” Blinken said in remarks at a Washington Post event on World Press Freedom Day.

    Tice was taken hostage in Syria in 2012. President Joe Biden declared last year that the US government knows “with certainty that he has been held by the Syrian regime” and called on Damascus to cooperate on efforts to release him.

    The government of Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad has not publicly acknowledged they are detaining Tice. The US does not have diplomatic relations with the Syrian regime and has voiced opposition to rapprochement with Assad.

    Blinken did not provide details about the engagements to bring Tice home. White House and State Department officials would not confirm a report from the Wall Street Journal that US officials had held talks with Syrian officials in Oman.

    “We cannot confirm any specific meetings past or present. As you know in general meetings and negotiations to secure the release of wrongfully detained Americans, that is incredibly sensitive,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said at a White House briefing. “We want to be really, really careful and mindful and don’t want to confirm any specific conversation from the past or in the present.”

    CNN reported last August that the Biden administration had direct engagements with the Syrian government in an effort to secure Tice’s release. In 2020 under the Trump administration, Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs Roger Carstens secretly traveled to Damascus and met with Assad regime officials.

    Austin Tice’s mother Debra Tice told CNN Monday that she thinks that the administration is committed to bringing her son home but “they stumble over what needs to be done.” She said she had no doubt that her son would walk free.

    Biden paid tribute to Austin Tice and other wrongfully detained Americans, including Evan Gershkovich and Paul Whelan in Russia, in remarks at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner on Saturday.

    A number of family members of wrongfully detained Americans – many of whom have joined forces in an organization called the “Bring Our Families Home” campaign – as well as those who had been freed from detention gathered in Washington, DC, this week to seek a meeting with the president and call on the US government to do more to secure the release of their loved ones.

    “Although our loved ones are wrongfully detained and held hostage abroad, including China, including Russia, including Iran, Syria, the United Arab Emirates and Venezuela, our voices are stronger together,” said Harrison Li, the son of Kai Li, who is detained in China.

    “Although each case has its own idiosyncrasies, we all need the same things: for President Biden to meet with us, and to use all tools to bring them home,” he said.

    “We have asked for a meeting with the president for so long now that I frankly don’t know how else to ask or what else to say,” Hannah Sharghi, whose father Emad Shargi is detained in Iran, said at a news conference Wednesday.

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  • Timeline: The special counsel inquiry into Trump’s handling of classified documents | CNN Politics

    Timeline: The special counsel inquiry into Trump’s handling of classified documents | CNN Politics

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    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    The federal criminal investigation into former President Donald Trump’s potential mishandling of classified documents escalated in stunning fashion this week with Trump’s indictment.

    The indictment hasn’t been unsealed yet, so details of the charges aren’t publicly available. But the investigation – led by Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith – revolves around sensitive government papers that Trump held onto after his White House term ended in January 2021. The special counsel has also examined whether Trump or his aides obstructed the investigation.

    Federal authorities have recovered more than 325 classified documents from Trump. He has voluntarily given back some materials, his lawyers turned over additional files after a subpoena, and the FBI found dozens of classified records during a court-approved search of his Mar-a-Lago home last summer.

    Trump has denied all wrongdoing and claims the investigation is a politically motivated sham, intended to derail his ongoing campaign to win the Republican 2024 nomination and return to the White House.

    Here’s a timeline of the important developments in the blockbuster investigation.

    An official from the National Archives and Records Administration contacts Trump’s team after realizing that several important documents weren’t handed over before Trump left the White House. In hopes of locating the missing items, NARA lawyer Gary Stern reaches out to someone who served in the White House counsel’s office under Trump, who was the point of contact for recordkeeping matters. The missing documents include some of Trump’s correspondence with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, as well as the map of Hurricane Dorian that Trump infamously altered with a sharpie pen.

    In a taped conversation, Trump acknowledges that he still has a classified Pentagon document about a possible attack against Iran, according to CNN reporting. The recording, which was made at Trump’s golf club in New Jersey, indicates that Trump understood that he retained classified material after leaving the White House. The special counsel later obtained this audiotape, a key piece of evidence in his inquiry.

    NARA grows frustrated with the slow pace of document turnover after several months of conversations with the Trump team. Stern reaches out to another Trump attorney to intervene. The archivist asks about several boxes of records that were apparently taken to Mar-a-Lago during Trump’s relocation to Florida. NARA still doesn’t receive the White House documents they are searching for.

    After months of discussions with Trump’s team, NARA retrieves 15 boxes of Trump White House records from Mar-a-Lago. The boxes contained some materials that were part of “special access programs,” known as SAP, which is a classification that includes protocols to significantly limit who would have access to the information. NARA says in a statement that some of the records it received at the end of Trump’s administration were “torn up by former President Trump,” and that White House officials had to tape them back together. Not all the torn-up documents were reconstructed, NARA says.

    NARA asks the Justice Department to investigate Trump’s handling of White House records and whether he violated the Presidential Records Act and other laws related to classified information. The Presidential Records Act requires all records created by a sitting president to be turned over to the National Archives at the end of their administration.

    NARA informs the Justice Department that some of the documents retrieved from Mar-a-Lago included classified material. NARA also tells the department that, despite being warned it was illegal, Trump occasionally tore up government documents while he was president.

    On April 7, NARA publicly acknowledges for the first time that the Justice Department is involved, and news outlets report that prosecutors have launched a criminal probe into Trump’s mishandling of classified documents. Around this time, FBI agents quietly interview Trump aides at Mar-a-Lago about the handling of presidential records as part of their widening investigation.

    The FBI asks NARA for access to the 15 boxes it retrieved from Mar-a-Lago in January. The request was formally transmitted to NARA by President Joe Biden’s White House Counsel’s office, because the incumbent president controls presidential documents in NARA custody.

    The Justice Department sends a letter to Trump’s lawyers as part of its effort to access the 15 boxes, notifying them that more than 100 classified documents, totaling more than 700 pages, were found in the boxes. The letter says the FBI and US intelligence agencies need “immediate access” to these materials because of “important national security interests.” Also on this day, Trump lawyers ask NARA to delay its plans to give the FBI access to these materials. Trump’s lawyers say they want time to examine the materials to see if anything is privileged, and that they are making a “protective assertion of executive privilege” over all the documents.

    Trump’s lawyers write again to NARA, and ask again that NARA postpone its plans to give the FBI access to the materials retrieved from Mar-a-Lago.

    Debra Steidel Wall, the acting archivist of the United States, who runs NARA, informs Trump’s lawyers that she is rejecting their claims of “protective” executive privilege over all the materials taken from Mar-a-Lago and will therefore turn over the materials to the FBI and US intelligence agencies, in a four-page letter.

    The Justice Department subpoenas Trump, demanding all documents with classification markings that are still at Mar-a-Lago. At some point after receiving the subpoena, Trump asks his lawyer Evan Corcoran if there was any way to fight the subpoena, but Corcoran tells him he has to comply, according to notes Cochran took and later gave to investigators. Also after getting the subpoena, Trump aides are captured on surveillance footage moving document boxes into and out of a basement storage room – which has become a major element of the obstruction investigation.

    News outlets report that investigators subpoenaed NARA for access to the classified documents they retrieved from Mar-a-Lago. The subpoena is the first public indication of the Justice Department using a grand jury in its investigation.

    As part of the effort to comply with the subpoena, Corcoran searches a Mar-a-Lago storage room and finds 38 classified documents. According to a lawsuit that the former president later filed, Trump invites FBI officials to come to Mar-a-Lago to retrieve the subpoenaed materials.

    Federal investigators, including a top Justice Department counterintelligence official, visit Mar-a-Lago to deal with the subpoena for remaining classified documents. The investigators meet with Trump’s attorneys, including Corcoran, and look around the basement storage room where the documents were stored. Trump briefly stops by the meeting to say hello to the officials, but he does not answer any questions. Corcoran hands over the 38 classified documents that he found. Trump lawyer Christina Bobb signs a sworn affidavit inaccurately asserting that there aren’t any more classified documents at Mar-a-Lago.

    Trump’s attorneys receive a letter from federal investigators, asking them to further secure the room where documents are being stored. In response, Trump aides add a padlock to the room in the basement of Mar-a-Lago.

    Federal investigators serve a subpoena to the Trump Organization, demanding surveillance video from Mar-a-Lago. Trump’s company complies with the subpoena and turns over the footage. CNN has reported that this was part of an effort to gather information about who had access to areas at the club where government documents were stored.

    The FBI executes a court-approved search warrant at Mar-a-Lago – a major escalation of the investigation. The search focused on the area of the club where Trump’s offices and personal quarters are located. Federal agents found more than 100 additional classified documents at the property. The search was the first time in American history that a former president’s home was searched as part of a criminal investigation.

    Trump sends a message through one his lawyers to Attorney General Merrick Garland, saying he has “been hearing from people all over the country about the raid” who are “angry,” and that “whatever I can do to take the heat down, to bring the pressure down, just let us know,” according to a lawsuit he later filed. Hours later, after three days of silence, Garland makes a brief public statement about the investigation. He reveals that he personally approved the decision to seek a search warrant, and that the Justice Department will continue to apply the law “without fear or favor.” Garland also pushes back against what he called “unfounded attacks on the professionalism of the FBI and Justice Department.”

    Federal Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart approves the unsealing of the Mar-a-Lago search warrant and its property receipt, at the Justice Department’s request and after Trump’s lawyers agree to the release. The warrant reveals the Justice Department is looking into possible violations of the Espionage Act, obstruction of justice and criminal handling of government records, as part of its investigation.

    Trump files a federal lawsuit seeking the appointment of a third-party attorney known as a “special master” to independently review the materials that the FBI seized from Mar-a-Lago. In the lawsuit, Trump’s lawyers argue that the Justice Department can’t be trusted to do its own review for potentially privileged materials that should be siloed off from the criminal probe.

    In a major ruling in Trump’s favor, Federal District Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee, grants Trump’s request for a special master to review the seized materials from Mar-a-Lago. She says the special master will have the power to look for documents covered under attorney-client privilege and executive privilege.

    The Justice Department appeals Cannon’s decision in the special master case.

    Cannon appoints senior Judge Raymond Dearie to serve as the special master and sets a November 30 deadline for the Brooklyn-based federal judge to finish his review of the seized materials.

    A maintenance worker drains the swimming pool at Mar-a-Lago, which ends up flooding a room where there are computer severs that contain surveillance video logs, according to CNN reporting. It’s unclear if the flood was accidental or on purpose, and it’s possible that the IT equipment wasn’t damaged, but federal prosecutors found the incident to be suspicious.

    Former Trump administration official Kash Patel testifies before the federal grand jury in the classified documents investigation. A Trump loyalist, Patel had publicly claimed that Trump declassified all the materials that ended up at Mar-a-Lago, even though there is no evidence to back up those assertions.

    Garland announces that he is appointing special counsel Jack Smith to take over the investigation.

    A federal appeals court shuts down the special master review of the documents that the FBI seized from Mar-a-Lago. The appeals panel rebuked Cannon’s earlier decisions, writing that she essentially tried to “interfere” with the criminal probe and had created a “special exception” in the law to help Trump.

    Trump attorney Timothy Parlatore testifies before the special counsel’s grand jury, where he described how Trump’s lawyers scoured his properties for classified materials. He later left Trump’s legal team.

    Trump’s legal team searches four of his properties in Florida, New York and New Jersey for additional classified material. They find two more classified files in a Florida storage unit, and give them to the FBI. Around this time, Trump’s team also finds additional papers with classification markings at Mar-a-Lago, and they give those materials to the Justice Department. They also turn over a laptop belonging to a Trump aide who had copied those documents onto the computer, not realizing they were classified.

    A string of key witnesses testify before the special counsel’s grand jury in Washington, DC. This includes Trump administration officials Robert O’Brien and Ric Grenell, who handled national security and intelligence matters; Margo Martin, a communications aide who continued working for Trump after he left the White House; and Matthew Calamari Sr. and his son, Matthew Calamari Jr., longtime Trump employees who oversee security for the Trump Organization.

    In response to a new subpoena from the special counsel, Trump’s lawyers turn over some material related to a classified Pentagon document that he discussed at a recorded meeting in 2021. However, Trump’s team wasn’t able to find the specific document – about a potential US attack on Iran – that prosecutors were looking for.

    Corcoran, the lead Trump attorney, testifies before the grand jury in Washington, DC. This occurred after a federal judge ordered him to answer prosecutors’ questions, ruling that attorney-client privilege did not shield his discussion with Trump because Trump might been trying to commit a crime through his attorneys. Corcoran later recused himself from handling the Mar-a-Lago matter.

    The first public indications emerge that the special counsel is using a second grand jury in Miami to gather evidence. Multiple witnesses testify in front of the Miami-based panel, CNN reported.

    Trump lawyers meet with senior Justice Department officials – including special counsel Smith – to discuss the Mar-a-Lago investigation. The sitdown lasted about 90 minutes, and Trump’s team raised concerns about the probe, which they have called an “unlawful” and “outrageous” abuse of the legal system.

    News outlets report that the Justice Department recently sent a “target letter” to Trump, formally notifying him that he’s a target of the investigation into potential mishandling of classified documents.

    News outlets report that Trump has been indicted in connection with the classified documents investigation. Trump also says in a social media post that the Justice Department informed his attorneys that he was indicted – and called the case a “hoax.”

    This story has been updated with additional developments.

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  • Meta begins blocking news access on its platforms in Canada | CNN Business

    Meta begins blocking news access on its platforms in Canada | CNN Business

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    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    Meta has begun to remove news content from Facebook and Instagram in Canada, the social media giant said Tuesday, in response to recently passed legislation in the country that requires tech companies to negotiate payments to news organizations for hosting their content.

    As a result of the move — which Meta had previously said would occur before the law takes effect — Meta’s Canadian users will no longer be able to click on links to news articles posted to Facebook and Instagram.

    The changes began Tuesday and will roll out gradually over the coming weeks, said Meta spokesperson Andy Stone.

    The decision comes amid a global debate over the relationship between news organizations and social media companies about the value of news content, and who gets to benefit from it.

    Google has also announced that it plans to remove news content from its platforms in Canada when the law takes effect, which could happen by December.

    The Canadian legislation, known as Bill C-18, was given final approval in June. It aims to support the sustainability of news organizations by regulating “digital news intermediaries with a view to enhancing fairness in the Canadian digital news marketplace.”

    It comes after the passage of a 2021 Australian law that the tech platforms initially opposed by warning it would similarly force them to remove news content. Since then, the platforms have reached voluntary agreements with a range of news outlets in that country.

    Like-minded proposals have been introduced around the world amid allegations that the tech industry has decimated local journalism by sucking away billions in online advertising revenues.

    In May, Meta also threatened to remove news content from California if the state moved ahead with a revenue-sharing bill. The legislation was put on hold last month.

    And at the federal level, the US Senate in June advanced a bill that would grant news organizations the ability to jointly negotiate for a greater share of advertising revenues against online platforms, thanks to a proposed antitrust exemption for publishers and broadcasters.

    In a blog post Tuesday, Meta said the Canadian legislation “misrepresents the value news outlets receive when choosing to use our platforms.”

    “The legislation is based on the incorrect premise that Meta benefits unfairly from news content shared on our platforms, when the reverse is true,” the blog post said. “News outlets voluntarily share content on Facebook and Instagram to expand their audiences and help their bottom line.”

    Canadian users of Meta’s platforms will still be able to access news content online by visiting news outlets’ websites directly or by signing up for their subscriptions and apps.

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  • E. Jean Carroll and Donald Trump rest their cases in civil rape trial, but Trump could still testify | CNN Politics

    E. Jean Carroll and Donald Trump rest their cases in civil rape trial, but Trump could still testify | CNN Politics

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    New York
    CNN
     — 

    Attorneys for E. Jean Carroll and Donald Trump rested their respective cases in the battery and defamation trial against the former president in Manhattan federal court on Thursday evening.

    Carroll, a former magazine columnist, alleges Trump raped her in the Bergdorf Goodman department store in the mid-1990s and then defamed her when he denied her claim, said she wasn’t his type and suggested she made up the story to boost sales of her book. Trump has denied all wrongdoing.

    While resting his case means Trump legally waived his right to testify in his own defense, District Judge Lewis Kaplan left a window for Trump to change his mind over the weekend.

    Kaplan ruled that Trump’s legal team has until 5 p.m. Sunday to petition the court to reopen the defense case for the sole purpose of allowing Trump to testify. The judge said he ordered the precautionary measure in light of Trump’s public comments made earlier Thursday suggesting he would make an appearance in court before the trial ended.

    Trump, who has not appeared in the courtroom at any point during the trial, told reporters in Ireland on Thursday he’ll “probably attend” the trial.

    “I have to go back for a woman that made a false accusation about me, and I have a judge who is extremely hostile,” Trump said in Doonbeg, Ireland, according to Reuters.

    During a sidebar on Thursday afternoon, Trump’s attorney tried repeatedly to reassure Kaplan that his client would not take the stand and implied that the judge has an idea of what it’s like representing the former president.

    “I know you understand what I am dealing with,” Joe Tacopina told the judge, according to a court transcript.

    If Trump does not change his mind, the parties are set to give closing arguments to the jury at 10 a.m. on Monday.

    Carroll’s legal team put on 11 witnesses in her case including the writer herself over seven trial days.

    Republican panelist: Trump’s glorification of accused Jan 6 rioters is “disgusting.”

    Earlier Thursday the jury saw more clips of Trump’s video-recorded deposition taken last October for this case in which Trump vehemently denies Carroll’s rape allegations against him.

    “She’s accusing me of rape, a woman that I have no idea who she is. It came out of the blue. She’s accusing me of rape – of raping her, the worst thing you can do, the worst charge. And you know it’s not true too. You’re a political operative also. You’re a disgrace. But she’s accusing me and so are you of rape, and it never took place,” Trump said on video, addressing Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan.

    Trump stood by his social media posts published in 2019 and 2022 denying Carroll’s accusations and confirmed he personally wrote them.

    At one point during the deposition, Trump held a well-known black and white photo of himself, E Jean Carroll, her former husband news anchor John Johnson, and Trump’s then-wife Ivana.

    Trump recognized Johnson and recalled thinking he was good at his television job, but then mistook Carroll for his other ex-wife Marla Maples.

    “That’s Marla, yeah. That’s my wife,” he said.

    After the attorneys corrected him, Trump said the photo was blurry.

    He acknowledged the photo suggests he met Carroll at least once but said it must have been very brief at an event and he does not remember or know her.

    “I still don’t know this woman. I think she’s a whack job. I have no idea. I don’t know anything about this woman other than what I read in stories and what I hear. I know nothing about her,” the former president said.

    “She’s a liar and she’s a sick person in my opinion, Really sick. Something wrong with her,” Trump said during another point in the deposition.

    screengrab maggine haberman

    Haberman: Trump is personally bothered by the E. Jean Carroll case

    Carroll’s attorney asked Trump about his comments regarding Carroll, Jessica Leeds and Natasha Stoynoff all not being “his type.”

    He stood by the statements each time he was asked. At one point he said, “the only different between me and other people is I’m honest.”

    He also told Carroll’s attorney she’s not his type. “You wouldn’t be a choice of mine either to be honest,” Trump said.

    He also said he felt like he had a right to insult the women who’ve accused him falsely.

    “I don’t want to be insulting but when people accuse me of something I think I have a right to be insulting because they’re insulting me,” Trump said.

    The jury watched Trump view the “Access Hollywood” tape during his deposition. He didn’t appear to noticeably react as it was played.

    When asked about the tape he said it’s already been “fully litigated” and, “it’s locker room talk, I don’t know, it’s just the way people talk.”

    Former local news anchor Carol Martin testified Thursday that she remembers Carroll confiding in her soon after the alleged assault by Trump in the mid-1990s.

    Martin testified under direct examination that she didn’t remember when exactly it happened, but she knew it was some time while the two were working at the same cable network between 1994 and 1996.

    By Martin’s account the two friends had finished taping their respective shows and Carroll asked if she could come over Martin’s home near the studio. They talked in her kitchen for about an hour, Martin testified, and Carroll was “frenzied.”

    Carroll’s “effect was anxious and excitable, but she can be that way sometimes so that part wasn’t as different but what she was saying didn’t make any sense at first.” The conversation was not linear, Carroll started her account saying, “You won’t believe what happened to me the other night,” Martin recalled.

    “And I didn’t know what to expect,” Martin said she felt at the time. Carroll repeatedly said, “Trump attacked me,” according to Martin.

    “I think she said ‘he pinned me’ and I still didn’t know what she meant,” Martin testified.

    Martin testified that she told Carroll she shouldn’t tell anyone her story. “Because it was Donald Trump and he had a lot of attorneys and I thought he would bury her is what I told her,” Martin said.

    “I have questioned myself more times than not over the years. I am not proud that that’s what I told her in truth but she didn’t contest,” Martin added.

    During cross-examination, Tacopina read through a series of messages Martin has sent friends, many to Carroll, speaking negatively about Trump for years since he first ran for the presidency.

    Martin testified that as “very liberal feminist women,” they frequently discussed politics including their dislike for Trump. “We would often talk about ways to change the climate or work on issues of interest to us,” Martin testified.

    Tacopina also read the jury several messages Martin sent to friends and family about Carroll’s lawsuit against Trump that appeared to criticize Carroll. “She’s gonna sue when adult victims of rape law is passed in New York State or something. WTF that’s the defamation case and DOJ oversight or something. It’s gone to another level and not something I can relate to. For her, sadly, I think this quest has become a lifestyle,” Martin wrote in one text.

    Martin responded in court that at the time she sent the messages she was dealing with serious matters in her own personal life that affected her feelings toward Carroll’s situation. She testified that the texts do not reflect her current feelings.

    A marketing expert commissioned by Carroll testified it would take up to $2.7 million to run an effective marketing campaign to repair her reputation just from the damage of Trump’s October 12, 2022, comments denying her allegations.

    Northwestern University Professor Ashlee Humphreys said that Trump’s statement at issue in this trial reached somewhere between 13.7 and 18 million impressions.

    Humphreys and a team of researchers evaluated the post first published on Truth Social and how it spread across mediums like other social media platforms, websites and cable and network broadcast television.

    In a series of calculations Humphreys said about 21% of the people who viewed the statement in some capacity – about 3.7 to 5.6 million people – likely believed Trump. The analysis did not consider the effects of previous statements Trump made about Carroll.

    On cross examination Humphreys acknowledged that she did not consider damage done to Trump by Carroll’s statements against him.

    This story has been updated with additional developments.

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  • Senate Judiciary advances journalism bargaining bill targeting Big Tech | CNN Business

    Senate Judiciary advances journalism bargaining bill targeting Big Tech | CNN Business

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    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    The Senate Judiciary Committee advanced legislation on Thursday that would give news organizations the power to jointly bargain against Meta, Google and other online platforms for a greater share of online advertising revenue.

    The legislation would create an antitrust exemption allowing radio and TV broadcasters, as well as small news outlets with fewer than 1,500 employees, to “band together” and arrest the decline of local journalism in cities and states across the country, said its lead co-sponsors, Minnesota Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar and Louisiana Republican Sen. John Kennedy.

    The concept, a version of which became law in Australia in 2021 and since been proposed in numerous countries, has been vigorously opposed by tech giants who in some cases have threatened to pull news content from their platforms over the legislation.

    Meta and Google didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

    The measure cleared the committee by a vote of 14-7. But it faces an uncertain future on the Senate floor.

    One member of the committee, California Democratic Sen. Alex Padilla, voted against the bill Thursday and vowed to block any future floor vote on the legislation until lawmakers make several changes.

    Padilla said the legislation doesn’t do enough to ensure that actual journalists in local newsrooms will benefit from the bargaining, as opposed to hedge funds and publication owners. He also raised concerns that the bill as written could allow online platforms such as Google to charge individual internet users each time they attempt to share or click on a link to a news article, a practice Padilla warned would be harmful to the internet.

    “This bill, as written, does nothing to guarantee the protection or pay of the journalists and media workers that we’re claiming to try to protect,” Padilla said. “For us to ignore them while claiming to be fighting for them is absurd.”

    Several other senators echoed Padilla’s remarks on Thursday, including Democratic Sens. Jon Ossoff, Peter Welch and Cory Booker.

    Kennedy and Klobuchar argued that the bill — which had previously passed out of the committee during the last Congress, in 2022 — is urgently necessary in light of the closure of thousands of local newspapers nationwide since the rise of online platforms.

    “We have small towns in all of our states with news organizations that cover everything from what’s happening in the city council to reports of the local high school football and volleyball games to informing citizens that a flood is coming,” Klobuchar said. “That kind of reporting … is being undermined right now because, in a very tough market, these news reporters and news organizations are not getting the share of the revenue that they should get.”

    Kennedy urged colleagues to set aside their other views on tech platforms and news media.

    “This bill is not about whether or not you like social media,” Kennedy said. “This bill is not about whether or not you like what is happening in American news media today. This bill is about creative content. That’s all it’s about. And whether we respect creative content and value it, or whether we do not.”

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  • Ron DeSantis is targeting the free speech protections that might save Fox News | CNN Politics

    Ron DeSantis is targeting the free speech protections that might save Fox News | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    As Fox News faces legal peril over its coverage of Donald Trump’s 2020 election lies, one of its most featured Republicans, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, is trying to gut the free speech protections that may ultimately save the network from financial ruin.

    DeSantis and his GOP allies in the state legislature have proposed a sweeping overhaul to defamation laws here that would make it far easier to sue news organizations in Florida. The legislation, fashioned to punish media outlets over their coverage of conservatives, would turn the state into a battleground over the future of the First Amendment.

    But in doing so, DeSantis has sparked warnings from the right that his attempts to target the mainstream media will result in headaches for conservative outlets as well. Among the most vulnerable, opponents have said, could be the media organizations that have done the most to promote DeSantis amid his ascent in the GOP.

    “I understand the emotion behind this bill, but you cannot legislate on emotion and this bill is a sword that will cut both ways,” said Trey Radel, a former Republican colleague of DeSantis in the US House who hosts a weeknight radio show on a Florida Fox News affiliate. “This bill has the potential to stifle, if not shut down, center right media and conservative talk radio.”

    The legislation as introduced takes direct aim at the landmark US Supreme Court ruling in New York Times v. Sullivan, which created a higher barrier for public figures to sue for defamation. The decision has been a bedrock of US media law since the case was decided in 1964, protecting news outlets from expensive lawsuits for mistakes made during the course of reporting by requiring plaintiffs to prove the reporter or outlet demonstrated “actual malice” when publishing erroneous information about a public figure.

    Fox News has leaned heavily on the ruling in defending itself from Dominion Voting Systems’ $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit. Dominion in its lawsuit has alleged Fox “recklessly disregarded the truth” during its 2020 presidential election coverage by pushing various pro-Trump conspiracies about the company’s voting technology.

    Fox attorneys cited New York Times v. Sullivan five times in its March 7 court filing asking for a summary judgment. In public statements, the network has repeatedly insisted it is protected by the precedent set in that case.

    “Despite the noise and confusion generated by Dominion and their opportunistic private equity owners, the core of this case remains about freedom of the press and freedom of speech, which are fundamental rights afforded by the Constitution and protected by New York Times v. Sullivan,” Fox News Media said in one such recent statement.

    But if Florida Republicans get their way, those protections would be eroded. House Speaker Paul Renner acknowledged last week that the bill his chamber is considering “is designed to challenge current constitutional law” and “tee up a court case.” The push comes as two of the Supreme Court’s more conservative justices, Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch, have openly expressed a willingness to revisit the high court’s ruling in Sullivan, with Thomas calling the court’s libel precedent “policy-driven decisions masquerading as constitutional law.”

    DeSantis has for years quietly eyed going after the media’s First Amendment protections, first floating legislation targeting libel laws in December 2021, according to emails obtained by CNN. Stephanie Kopelousos, the governor’s director of legislative affairs, sent draft bill language to the office of the state Senate president, though it was not filed for the 2022 legislative session.

    His intentions became public last month at an unusually staged event during which DeSantis, seated behind a studio desk like a news anchor with “TRUTH” emblazoned on a screen behind him, signaled his willingness to turn Florida into a test case to challenge Sullivan.

    “It’s our view in Florida that we want to be standing up for the little guy against some of these massive media conglomerates,” DeSantis said.

    But that was several weeks before Dominion unleashed a trove of embarrassing text messages and testimony from Fox executives and personalities that suggested they knowingly aired Trump’s false claims about the 2020 election.

    Adding to the intrigue is the lengths to which the conservative network and others owned by Rupert Murdoch, have gone to promote DeSantis ahead of his likely bid for president. In between regular appearances on Fox programming, DeSantis in recent weeks has played catch with “Fox & Friends’” Brian Kilmeade, sat down with TalkTV’s Piers Morgan in the governor’s mansion, toured his hometown with the New York Post’s Salena Zito and granted a rare newspaper interview to David Charter of the Times of London – all reporters who work in Murdoch’s media empire. The New York Post declared the Republican governor “DeFUTURE” after his resounding reelection victory in November.

    Fox News declined to comment. But the Wall Street Journal, another Murdoch-owned outlet, recently published an op-ed by Trump’s former Attorney General Bill Barr criticizing other media outlets for their “gleeful” coverage of Fox’s “setback” instead of standing up for the protections created by Sullivan. In a plea that seemed aimed at DeSantis’ efforts, Barr urged conservatives with power not to attempt to weaken libel laws.

    “For the foreseeable future, we will likely be on the wrong side of the culture-setting consensus,” he wrote. “There are precious few conservative news outlets as it is. Why make them more vulnerable to the multitude of left-wing plaintiffs’ lawyers?”

    Republican state Rep. Alex Andrade, the sponsor of the Florida House bill, said he would “take Justice Thomas and Justice Gorsuch over Bill Barr every day of the week.” Andrade contended that libel laws have become so one-sided, “If you’ve been egregiously defamed by a media outlet, in 2023 you have almost no opportunity for actual recourse.”

    Andrade said he planned to tweak the bill to address some of the blowback before its next committee stop, but otherwise intended to charge ahead. The bill’s next vote is not yet scheduled.

    “The majority of the concerns are not based in reality,” Andrade said.

    Under the Florida bill, the definition of a public figure is narrowed significantly and it puts more onus on an individual to verify a defamatory allegation before publishing. Editing video in a misleading way could be considered defamation in this bill. It also allows someone to sue wherever the material is accessed – in today’s digital world, that could be anywhere in the state – which opponents say will lead to “venue shopping” for favorable judges. Courts must assume any statement made by an anonymous source is false, the bill says, which free speech advocates say would have a chilling effect on whistleblowers.

    The bill, which was also introduced in the state Senate with some modifications, has attracted an astounding array of opponents that cross the political spectrum. At a House committee hearing last week, the conservative Americans for Prosperity and the more progressive American Civil Liberties Union both testified against it. Brendon Leslie, the founder of the Florida Voice, a DeSantis-friendly conservative media outlet, warned on Twitter that progressive donors would flood conservative media with lawsuits if the bill became law. Bobby Block, executive director of the Florida First Amendment Foundation, called the bill a “blunt instrument” that has made commentary-heavy evangelical and conservative broadcast stations “incredibly nervous.” US Rep. Cory Mills, a Republican from Central Florida, wrote in a letter to state GOP legislative leaders that he was “gravely concerned that (the bills) violate free speech rights.”

    Though Sullivan is primarily known for protecting news organizations, the bill could make it easier to sue local bloggers, people who post web comments and other online speakers, opponents have warned.

    “It doesn’t just hurt … what’s been referred to as the legacy media,” said Carol LoCicero, a lawyer who has represented The Villages Daily Sun, a newspaper published by the conservative owners of The Villages retirement community. “It hurts people from all points of view. It hurts individuals. Frankly, it will hurt politicians as they’re campaigning for office and making statements about their opponents.”

    DeSantis, though, is so far undeterred. He told reporters last week that he didn’t think the bill would “cause much of a difference in terms of free speech.”

    “I do think it may cause some people to not want to put out things that are false, that are that are smearing somebody’s reputation,” he said.

    Legal experts are skeptical that the bill will be upheld even if it passes. Other Supreme Court justices have so far not shown the same enthusiasm as Thomas and Gorsuch for reviewing its precedent in Sullivan. Dave Heller, deputy director of the Media Law Resource Center, said the proposed legislation is “breathtaking in its hostility toward a free press” and Mark Lerner, an attorney who represented Newsmax in a libel dispute, called the measure “unconstitutional” and said its proponents “who think they’re championing conservative voices may be surprised that it chills them.”

    Radel, the former congressman and radio host, said conservative outlets might not survive the legal costs they could face while legal challenges move through the court system.

    “That type of scorched earth policy is going to destroy conservative talk in Florida in the meantime,” he said. “I work for a privately owned broadcasting group that will not be able to afford a barrage of lawsuits before we wait for it to go before the Supreme Court.”

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  • Universal Music Group calls AI music a ‘fraud,’ wants it banned from streaming platforms. Experts say it’s not that easy | CNN Business

    Universal Music Group calls AI music a ‘fraud,’ wants it banned from streaming platforms. Experts say it’s not that easy | CNN Business

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    New York
    CNN
     — 

    Universal Music Group — the music company representing superstars including Sting, The Weeknd, Nicki Minaj and Ariana Grande — has a new Goliath to contend with: artificial intelligence.

    The music group sent urgent letters in April to streaming platforms, including Spotify

    (SPOT)     and Apple Music, asking them to block artificial intelligence platforms from training on the melodies and lyrics of their copywritten songs.

    The company has “a moral and commercial responsibility to our artists to work to prevent the unauthorized use of their music and to stop platforms from ingesting content that violates the rights of artists and other creators,” a spokesperson from Universal Music Group, or UMG, told CNN. “We expect our platform partners will want to prevent their services from being used in ways that harm artists.”

    The move by UMG, first reported by the Financial Times, aims to stop artificial intelligence from creating an existential threat to the industry.

    Artificial intelligence, and specifically AI music, learns by either training on existing works on the internet or through a library of music given to the AI by humans.

    UMG says it is not against the technology itself, but rather AI that is so advanced it can recreate melodies and even musicians’ voices in seconds. That could possibly threaten UMG’s deep library of music and artists that generate billions of dollars in revenue.

    “UMG’s success has been, in part, due to embracing new technology and putting it to work for our artists — as we have been doing with our own innovation around AI for some time already,” UMG said in a statement Monday. “However, the training of generative AI using our artists’ music … begs the question as to which side of history all stakeholders in the music ecosystem want to be on.”

    The company said AI that uses artists’ music violates UMG’s agreements and copyright law. UMG has been sending requests to streamers asking them to take down AI-generated songs.

    “I understand the intent behind the move, but I’m not sure how effective this will be as AI services will likely still be able to access the copyrighted material one way or another,” said Karl Fowlkes, an entertainment and business attorney at The Fowlkes Firm.

    No regulations exist that dictate on what AI can and cannot train. But last month, in response to individuals looking to seek copyright for AI-generated works, the US Copyright Office released new guidance around how to register literary, musical, and artistic works made with AI.

    “In the case of works containing AI-generated material, the Office will consider whether the AI contributions are the result of ‘mechanical reproduction’ or instead of an author’s ‘own original mental conception, to which [the author] gave visible form,’” the new guidance says.

    The copyright will be determined on a case-by-case basis, the guidance continued, based on how the AI tool operates and how it was used to create the final piece or work.

    The US Copyright Office announced it will also be seeking public input on how the law should apply to copywritten works the AI trains on, and how the office should treat those works.

    “AI companies using copyrighted works to train their models to create similar works is exactly the type of behavior the copyright office and courts should explicitly ban. Original art is meant to be protected by law, not works created by machines that used the original art to create new work,” said Fowlkes.

    But according to AI experts, it’s not that simple.

    “You can flag your site not to be searched. But that’s a request — you can’t prevent it. You can just request that someone not do it,” said Shelly Palmer, Professor of Advanced Media at Syracuse University.

    For example, a website can apply a robots.txt file that works like a guardrail to control which URL’s “search engine crawlers” can access a given site, according to Google. But it is not a full stop, keep-out option.

    Grammy-winning DJ and producer David Guetta proved in February just how easy it is to create new music using AI. Using ChatGPT for lyrics and Uberduck for vocals, Guetta was able to create a new song in an hour.

    The result was a rap with a voice that sounded exactly like Eminem. He played the song at one of his shows in February, but said he would never release it commercially.

    “What I think is very interesting about AI is that it’s raising a question of what is it to be an artist,” Guetta told CNN last month.

    Guetta believes AI is going to have a significant impact on the music industry, so he’s embracing it instead of fighting it. But he admits there are still questions about copyright.

    “That is an ethical problem that needs to be addressed because it sounds crazy to me that today I can type lyrics and it’s going to sound like Drake is rapping it, or Eminem,” he said.

    And that is exactly what UMG wants to avoid. The music group likens AI music to “deep fakes, fraud, and denying artists their due compensation.”

    “These instances demonstrate why platforms have a fundamental legal and ethical responsibility to prevent the use of their services in ways that harm artists,” the UMG statement said.

    Music streamers Spotify, Apple Music and Pandora did not return request for comment.

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  • TV and film writers are fighting to save their jobs from AI. They won’t be the last | CNN Business

    TV and film writers are fighting to save their jobs from AI. They won’t be the last | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    By any standard, John August is a successful screenwriter. He’s written such films as “Big Fish,” “Charlie’s Angels” and “Go.” But even he is concerned about the impact AI could have on his work.

    A powerful new crop of AI tools, trained on vast troves of data online, can now generate essays, song lyrics and other written work in response to user prompts. While there are clearly limits for how well AI tools can produce compelling creative stories, these tools are only getting more advanced, putting writers like August on guard.

    “Screenwriters are concerned about our scripts being the feeder material that is going into these systems to generate other scripts, treatments, and write story ideas,” August, a Writers Guild of America (WGA) committee member, told CNN. “The work that we do can’t be replaced by these systems.”

    August is one of the more than 11,000 members of the WGA who went on strike Tuesday morning, bringing an immediate halt to the production of some television shows and possibly delaying the start of new seasons of others later this year.

    WGA is demanding a host of changes from the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), from an increase in pay to receiving clear guidelines around working with streaming services. But as part of their demands, the WGA is also fighting to protect their livelihoods from AI.

    In a proposal published on WGA’s website this week, the labor union said AI should be regulated so it “can’t write or rewrite literary material, can’t be used as source material” and that writers’ work “can’t be used to train AI.”

    August said the AI demand “was one of the last things” added to the WGA list, but that it’s “clearly an issue writers are concerned about” and need to address now rather than when their contact is up again in three years. By then, he said, “it may be too late.”

    WGA said the proposal was rejected by AMPTP, which countered by offering annual meetings to discuss advancements in the technology. August said AMPTP’s response shows they want to keep their options open.

    In a document sent to CNN responding to some of WGA’s asks, AMPTP said it values the work of creatives and “the best stories are original, insightful and often come from people’s own experiences.”

    “AI raises hard, important creative and legal questions for everyone,” it wrote. “Writers want to be able to use this technology as part of their creative process, without changing how credits are determined, which is complicated given AI material can’t be copyrighted. So it’s something that requires a lot more discussion, which we’ve committed to doing.”

    It added that the current WGA agreement defines a “writer” as a “person,” and said “AI-generated material would not be eligible for writing credit.”

    The writers’ attempt at bargaining over AI is perhaps the most high-profile labor battle yet to address concerns about the cutting-edge technology that has captivated the world’s attention in the six months since the public release of ChatGPT.

    Goldman Sachs economists estimate that as many as 300 million full-job jobs globally could be automated in some way by the newest wave of AI. White-collar workers, including those in administrative and legal roles, are expected to be the most affected. And the impact may hit sooner than some think: IBM’s CEO recently suggested AI could eliminate the need for thousands of jobs at his company alone in the next five years.

    David Gunkel, a professor at the department of communications at Northern Illinois University who tracks AI in media and entertainment, said screenwriters want clear guidelines around AI because “they can see the writing on the wall.”

    “AI is already displacing human labor in many other areas of content creation—copywriting, journalism, SEO writing, and so on,” he said. “The WGA is simply trying to get out-in-front of and to protect their members against … ‘technological unemployment.’”

    While film and TV writers in Hollywood may currently be leading the charge, professionals in other industries will almost certainly be paying attention.

    “There’s certainly other industries that need to be paying close attention to this space,” said Rowan Curran, an analyst at Forrester Research who focuses on AI. He noted that digital artists, musicians, engineers, real estate professionals and customer service workers will all feel the impact of generative AI.

    “Watch this #WGA strike carefully,” Justine Bateman, a writer, director and former actress, wrote in a tweet shortly after the strike kicked off. “Understand that our fight is the same fight that is coming to your professional sector next: it’s the devaluing of human effort, skill, and talent in favor of automation and profits.”

    AI has had a place in Hollywood for years. In the 2018 “Marvel Avengers Infinity Wars” film, the face of Thanos – a character played by actor Josh Brolin – was created in part with the technology.

    Crowd and battle scenes in films including the “Lord of the Rings” and “Meg” have utilized AI, and the most recent Indiana Jones used it to make Harrison Ford’s character appear younger. It’s also been used for color correction, finding footage more quickly during post production and making improvements such as removing scratches and dust from footage.

    But AI in screenwriting is in its infancy. In March, a “South Park” episode called “Deep Learning,” was co-written by ChatGPT and the tool was highly focused on in the plot (the characters use ChatGPT to talk to girls and write school papers).

    August said writers are largely willing to play ball with tools, as long as they’re used as launching pads or for research and writers are still credited and utilized throughout the production process.

    “Screenwriters are not luddites, and we’ve been quick to use new technologies to help us tell our stories,” August said. “We went from typewriters to word processors happily and it increased productivity. …. But we don’t need a magical typewriter that types scripts all by itself.”

    Because large language models are trained on text that humans have written before, and find patterns in words and sentences to create responses to prompts, concerns around intellectual property exist, too. “It is entirely possible for a [chatbot] to generate a script in the style of a particular kind of filmmaker or scriptwriter without prior consent of the original artist or the Hollywood studio that holds the IP for that material,” Gunkel said.

    For example, one could prompt ChatGPT to generate a zombie apocalypse drama in the style of David Mamet. “Who should get credited for that?” August said. “What happens if we allow a producer or studio executive to come up with a treatment or pitch or something that looks like a screenplay that no writer has touched?”

    For now, the legal landscape remains very much unsettled on the matter, with regulations lagging behind the rapid pace of AI development. In early April, the Biden administration said it is seeking public comments on how to hold artificial intelligence systems like ChatGPT accountable.

    “We can’t protect studios from their own bad choices,” August said. “We can only protect writers from abuses.”

    The strike, and the demands around AI specifically, come at a time when both the writers and the studios are feeling financial pain.

    Many of the businesses represented by AMPTP have seen drops in their stock price, prompting deep cost cutting, including layoffs. The need to manage costs, combined with addressing the fallout from the strike, might only make the companies feel more pressure to turn to AI for scriptwriting.

    “In the short term, this could be an effective way to circumvent the WGA strike, mainly because [large language models], which are considered property and not personnel, can be employed for this task without violating the picket line,” Gunkel said. Such an “experiment” could also show production studios whether it’s possible “to get by with less humans involved,” he said.

    But Joshua Glick, a visiting professor of film and electronic arts at Bard University, believes such a move would be ill-advised.

    “It would be a pretty aggressive and antagonistic move for studios to move forward with AI-generated scripts in terms of getting writers to come to the negotiating table because AI is such a crucial sticking point in the negotiations,” said Glick, who also co-created Deepfake: Unstable Evidence on Screen, an exhibition at the Museum of the Moving Image in New York.

    “At the same time, I think the result of those scripts would be pretty mediocre at best,” he said.

    However the studios react, the issue is unlikely to go away in Hollywood. Film and TV actors’ contracts are up in June, and many are worried about how their faces, bodies and voices will be impacted by AI, August said.

    “As writers, we don’t want tools to replace us but actors have the same concerns with AI, as do directors, editors and everyone else who does creative work in this industry,” he added.

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  • EU officials accuse Google of antitrust violations in its ad tech business | CNN Business

    EU officials accuse Google of antitrust violations in its ad tech business | CNN Business

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    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    Google’s advertising business should be broken up, European Union officials said Wednesday, alleging that the tech giant’s involvement in multiple parts of the digital advertising supply chain creates “inherent conflicts of interest” that risk harming competition.

    The formal accusations mark the latest antitrust challenge to Google over its sprawling ad tech business, following a lawsuit by the US Justice Department in January that also called for a breakup of the company.

    The EU Commission has submitted its allegations to Google in writing, officials said, kicking off a legal process that could potentially end in billions of dollars in fines in addition to a possible breakup that could impact part of its core advertising business.

    The commission alleges that since 2014, Google has unfairly boosted its own proprietary ad exchange — the online auction house known as AdX that matches advertisers and publishers — through its simultaneous ownership of some of the most popular ad tools for publishers and advertisers.

    For example, the commission claims, advertisers who used Google’s ad buying tools frequently had their purchases routed to AdX instead of to rival ad exchanges.

    Meanwhile, Google’s publisher-facing tools unfairly gave AdX a leg up over rival ad exchanges, the commission alleged, because Google’s publisher tools gave AdX competitive bidding information that the exchange could use to help advertisers win an auction.

    One proposed solution by the commission would spin off Google’s ad exchange and publisher tools from the ad-buying tools it provides to advertisers.

    “@Google controls both sides of the #adtech market: sell & buy,” tweeted Margrethe Vestager, the commission’s top competition official. “We are concerned that it may have abused its dominance to favour its own #AdX platform. If confirmed, this is illegal.”

    In a statement, Dan Taylor, Google’s vice president of global ads, said the EU’s probe “focuses on a narrow aspect of our advertising business,” that the company opposes the commission’s preliminary conclusions and that Google plans to “respond accordingly.”

    “Our advertising technology tools help websites and apps fund their content, and enable businesses of all sizes to effectively reach new customers. Google remains committed to creating value for our publisher and advertiser partners in this highly competitive sector,” Taylor said.

    A Google spokesperson told CNN Wednesday that the company has only just received the commission’s complaint and that it will take time to review the commission’s claims. Google also added that it will oppose calls for a breakup.

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  • Inside the long and winding road to Trump’s historic indictment | CNN Politics

    Inside the long and winding road to Trump’s historic indictment | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    The New York grand jury hearing the case against Donald Trump was set to break for several weeks. The former president’s lawyers believed on Wednesday afternoon they had at least a small reprieve from a possible indictment. Trump praised the perceived delay.

    Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg had other plans.

    Thursday afternoon, Bragg asked the grand jury to return an historic indictment against Trump, the first time that a current or former US president has been indicted. The surprise move was the final twist in an investigation that’s taken a long and winding road to the history-making charges that were returned this week.

    An indictment had been anticipated early last week – including by Trump himself, who promoted a theory he would be “arrested” – as law enforcement agencies prepared for the logistics of arraigning a former president. But after the testimony of Robert Costello – a lawyer who appeared on Trump’s behalf seeking to undercut the credibility of Trump’s former attorney and fixer Michael Cohen – Bragg appeared to hit the pause button.

    Costello’s testimony caused the district attorney’s office to reassess whether Costello should be the last witness the grand jury heard before prosecutors asked them to vote on an indictment, multiple sources told CNN.

    So they waited. The next day the grand jury was scheduled to meet, jurors were told not to come in. Bragg and his top prosecutors huddled the rest of the week and over the weekend to determine a strategy that would effectively counter Costello’s testimony in the grand jury.

    They called two additional witnesses. David Pecker, the former head of the company that publishes the National Enquirer, appeared on Monday. The other witness, who has still not been identified, testified on Thursday for 35 minutes in front of the grand jury – just before prosecutors asked them to vote on the indictment of more than 30 counts, the sources said.

    Trump and his attorneys, thinking Bragg might be reconsidering a potential indictment, were all caught off-guard, sources said. Some of Trump’s advisers had even left Palm Beach on Wednesday following news reports that the grand jury was taking a break, the sources added.

    After the indictment, Trump ate dinner with his wife, Melania, Thursday evening and smiled while he greeted guests at his Mar-a-Lago club, according to a source familiar with the event.

    The Manhattan district attorney’s investigation into Trump has been ongoing for years, dating back to Bragg’s predecessor, Cy Vance. Its focus shifted by mid-2020 to the accuracy of the Trump Org.’s financial statements. At the time, prosecutors debated legal theories around the hush money payments and thought they were a long shot. At several points, the wide-ranging investigation seemed to have been winding down – to the point that prosecutors resigned in protest last year. One even wrote a book critical of Bragg for not pursuing charges against Trump released just last month.

    The specific charges against Trump still remain under seal and are expected to be unveiled Tuesday when Trump is set to be arraigned.

    There are questions swirling even among Trump critics over whether the Manhattan district attorney’s case is the strongest against the former president amid additional investigations in Washington, DC, and Georgia over both his efforts to overturn the 2020 election and his handling of classified documents at his Florida resort.

    Trump could still face charges in those probes, too, which are separate from the New York indictment.

    But it’s the Manhattan indictment, dating back to a payment made before the 2016 presidential election, that now sees Trump facing down criminal charges for the first time as he runs again for the White House in 2024.

    It was just weeks before the 2016 election when Cohen, Trump’s then-lawyer, paid adult film actress Stormy Daniels $130,000 to keep silent about an alleged affair with Trump. (Trump has denied the affair.) Cohen was later reimbursed $420,000 by the Trump Organization to cover the original payment and tax liabilities and to reward him with a bonus.

    That payment and reimbursement are keys at issue in the investigation.

    Cohen also helped arrange a $150,000 payment from the publisher of the National Enquirer to Karen McDougal to kill her story claiming a 10-month affair with Trump. Trump also denies an affair with McDougal. During the grand jury proceedings, the district attorney’s office has asked questions about the “catch and kill” deal with McDougal.

    When Cohen was charged by federal prosecutors in New York in 2018 and pleaded guilty, he said he was acting at the direction of Trump when he made the payment.

    At the time, federal prosecutors had determined they could not seek to indict Trump in the scheme because of US Justice Department regulations against charging a sitting president. In 2021, after Trump left the White House, prosecutors in the Southern District of New York decided not to pursue a case against Trump, according to a recent book from CNN senior legal analyst Elie Honig.

    But then-Manhattan District Attorney Vance’s team had already picked up the investigation into the hush money payments and begun looking at potential state law violations. By summer 2019, they sent subpoenas to the Trump Org., other witnesses, and met with Cohen, who was serving a three-year prison sentence.

    Vance’s investigation broadened to the Trump Org.’s finances. New York prosecutors went to the Supreme Court twice to enforce a subpoena for Trump’s tax records from his long-time accounting firm Mazars USA. The Trump Org. and its long-time chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg were indicted on tax fraud and other charges in June 2021 for allegedly running an off-the-books compensation scheme for more than a decade.

    Weisselberg pleaded guilty to the charges last year and is currently serving a five-month sentence at Rikers Island. Prosecutors had hoped to flip Weisselberg to cooperate against Trump, but he would not tie Trump to any wrongdoing.

    Disagreements about the pace of the investigation had caused at least three career prosecutors to move off the investigation. They were concerned that the investigation was moving too quickly, without clear evidence to support possible charges, CNN and others reported last year.

    Vance authorized the attorneys on the team to present evidence to the grand jury near the end of 2021, but he did not seek an indictment. Those close to Vance say he wanted to leave the decision to Bragg, the newly elected district attorney.

    Bragg, a Democrat, took office in January 2022. Less than two months into his tenure, two top prosecutors who had worked on the Trump case under Vance abruptly resigned amid a disagreement in the office over the strength of the case against Trump.

    On February 22, 2022, Bragg informed the prosecution team that he was not prepared to authorize charges against Trump, CNN reported. The prosecutors, Carey Dunne and Mark Pomerantz, resigned the next day.

    In his resignation letter, Pomerantz said he believed Trump was guilty of numerous felonies and said that Bragg’s decision to not move forward with an indictment at the time was “wrong” and a “grave failure of justice.”

    “I and others believe that your decision not to authorize prosecution now will doom any future prospects that Mr. Trump will be prosecuted for the criminal conduct we have been investigating,” Pomerantz wrote in the letter, which was reviewed by CNN.

    At that point, the investigation was focused on Trump’s financial statements and whether he knowingly misled lenders, insurers, and others by providing them false or misleading information about the value of his properties.

    Prosecutors were building a wide-ranging falsified business records case to include years of financial statements and the hush money payments, people with direct knowledge of the investigation told CNN. But at the time, those prosecutors believed there was a good chance a felony charge related to the hush money payment would be dismissed by a judge because it was a novel legal theory.

    Dunne and Pomerantz pushed to seek an indictment of Trump tied to the sweeping falsified business records case, but others, including some career prosecutors, were skeptical that they could win a conviction at trial, in part because of the difficulty in proving Trump’s criminal intent.

    Despite the resignations of the prosecutors on the Trump case, Bragg’s office reiterated at the time that the investigation was ongoing.

    “Investigations are not linear so we are following the leads in front of us. That’s what we’re doing,” Bragg told CNN in April 2022. “The investigation is very much ongoing.”

    At the same time that Bragg’s criminal investigation into Trump lingered last year, another prosecution against the Trump Org. moved forward. In December, two Trump Org. entities were convicted at trial on 17 counts and were ordered to pay $1.6 million, the maximum penalty, the following month.

    Trump was not personally charged in that case. But it appeared to embolden Bragg’s team to sharpen their focus back to Trump and the hush money payment.

    Cohen was brought back in to meet with Manhattan prosecutors. Cohen had previously met with prosecutors in the district attorney’s office 13 times over the course of the investigation. But the January meeting was the first in more than a year – and a clear sign of the direction prosecutors were taking.

    As investigators inched closer to a charging decision, Bragg was faced with more public pressure to indict Trump: Pomerantz, the prosecutor who had resigned a year prior, released a book about the investigation that argued Trump should be charged and criticized Bragg for failing to do so.

    “Every single member of the prosecution team thought that his guilt was established,” Pomerantz said in a February interview on “CNN This Morning.”

    Asked about Bragg’s hesitance, Pomerantz said: “I can’t speak in detail about what went through his mind. I can surmise from what happened at the time and statements that he’s made since that he had misgivings about the strength of the case.”

    Bragg responded in a statement saying that more work was needed on the case. “Mr. Pomerantz’s plane wasn’t ready for takeoff,” Bragg said.

    Prosecutors continued bringing in witnesses, including Pecker, the former head of American Media Inc., which publishes the National Enquirer. In February, Trump Org. controller Jeffrey McConney testified before the grand jury. Members of Trump’s 2016 campaign, including Kellyanne Conway and Hope Hicks, also appeared. In March, Daniels met with prosecutors, her attorney said.

    And Cohen, after his numerous meetings with prosecutors, finally testified before the grand jury in March.

    The second week of March, prosecutors gave the clearest sign to date that the investigation was nearing its conclusion – they invited Trump to appear before the grand jury.

    Potential defendants in New York are required by law to be notified and invited to appear before a grand jury weighing charges.

    Behind the scenes, Trump attorney Susan Necheles told CNN she met with New York prosecutors to argue why Trump shouldn’t be indicted and that prosecutors didn’t articulate the specific charges they are considering.

    Trump, meanwhile, took to his social media to predict his impending indictment. In a post attacking Bragg on March 18, Trump said the “leading Republican candidate and former president of the United States will be arrested on Tuesday of next week.”

    “Protest, take our nation back,” Trump added, echoing the calls he made while he tried to overturn the 2020 election.

    Trump’s prediction would turn out to be premature.

    Trump’s call for protests after a potential indictment led to meetings between senior staff members from the district attorney’s office, the New York Police Department and the New York State Court Officers – who provide security at the criminal court building in lower Manhattan.

    Trump’s lawyers also made a last-ditch effort to fend off an indictment. At the behest of Trump’s team, Costello, who advised Cohen in 2018, provided emails and testified to the grand jury on Monday, March 20, alleging that Cohen had said in 2018 that he had decided on his own to make the payment to Daniels.

    Costello’s testimony appeared to delay a possible indictment – for a brief time at least.

    During the void, Trump continued to launch verbal insults against Bragg, calling him a “degenerate psychopath.” And four Republican chairmen of the most powerful House committees wrote to Bragg asking him to testify, which Bragg’s office said was unprecedented interference in a local investigation. An envelope containing a suspicious white powder and a death threat to Bragg was to delivered to the building where the grand jury meets – the powder was deemed nonhazardous.

    The grand jury would not meet again until Monday, March 27, when Pecker was ushered back to the grand jury in a government vehicle with tinted windows in a failed effort to evade detection by the media camped outside of the building where the grand jury meets.

    Pecker, a longtime friend of Trump’s who had a history of orchestrating so-called “catch and kill” deals while at the National Enquirer, was involved with the Daniels’ deal from the beginning.

    Two days after Pecker’s testimony, there were multiple reports that the grand jury was going into a pre-planned break in April. The grand jury was set to meet Thursday but it was not expected to hear the Trump case.

    Instead, the grand jury heard from one last witness in the Trump case on Thursday, whose identity is still unknown. And then the grand jury shook up the American political system by voting to indict a former president and 2024 candidate for the White House.

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  • The largest newspaper publisher in the US sues Google, alleging online ad monopoly | CNN Business

    The largest newspaper publisher in the US sues Google, alleging online ad monopoly | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    Gannett, the largest newspaper publisher in the United States, is suing Google, alleging the tech giant holds a monopoly over the digital ad market.

    The publisher of USA Today and more than 200 local publications filed the lawsuit in a New York federal court on Tuesday, and is seeking unspecified damages. Gannett argues in court documents that Google and its parent company, Alphabet, controls how publishers buy and sell ads online.

    “The result is dramatically less revenue for publishers and Google’s ad-tech rivals, while Google enjoys exorbitant monopoly profits,” the lawsuit states.

    Google controls about a quarter of the US digital advertising market, with Meta, Amazon and TikTok combining for another third, according to eMarketer. News publishers and other websites combine for the other roughly 40%. Big Tech’s share of the market is beginning to erode slightly, but Google remains by far the largest individual player.

    That means publishers often rely at least in part on Google’s advertising technology to support their operations: Gannett says Google controls 90% of the ad market for publishers.

    Michael Reed, Gannett’s chairman and CEO, said in a statement Tuesday that Google’s dominance in the online advertising industry has come “at the expense of publishers, readers and everyone else.”

    “Digital advertising is the lifeblood of the online economy,” Reed added. “Without free and fair competition for digital ad space, publishers cannot invest in their newsrooms.”

    Dan Taylor, Google’s vice president of global ads, told CNN that the claims in the suit “are simply wrong.”

    “Publishers have many options to choose from when it comes to using advertising technology to monetize – in fact, Gannett uses dozens of competing ad services, including Google Ad Manager,” Taylor said in a statement Tuesday. “And when publishers choose to use Google tools, they keep the vast majority of revenue.”

    He continued: “We’ll show the court how our advertising products benefit publishers and help them fund their content online.”

    The legal action from Gannett comes as Google faces a growing number of antitrust complaints in the United States and the European Union over its advertising business, which remains its central moneymaker.

    EU officials said last week that Google’s advertising business should be broken up, alleging that the tech giant’s involvement in multiple parts of the digital advertising supply chain creates “inherent conflicts of interest” that risk harming competition.

    Earlier this year, the Justice Department and eight states sued Google, accusing the company of harming competition with its dominance in the online advertising market and similarly calling for it to be broken up.

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