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  • Gloria Steinem Fast Facts | CNN

    Gloria Steinem Fast Facts | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Here’s a look at the life of writer and activist Gloria Steinem.

    Birth date: March 25, 1934

    Birth place: Toledo, Ohio

    Birth name: Gloria Marie Steinem

    Father: Leo Steinem, an antique dealer

    Mother: Ruth (Nuneviller) Steinem

    Marriage: David Bale (2000-2003, his death)

    Education: Smith College, B.A., 1956

    Steinem’s paternal grandmother, Pauline Perlmutter Steinem, was the president of the Ohio Woman Suffrage Association.

    Breast cancer survivor.

    Did not spend a full year in school until age 12.

    1956-1958 – Lives in India on a Chester Bowles Fellowship.

    1960 – Moves to New York and begins working at Help! magazine.

    September 1, 1962 – One of her first feature articles is published by Esquire magazine.

    1963 – Works undercover as a “Bunny” at the Playboy Club in New York and then writes an exposé about the poor pay and working conditions.

    1968 – Helps found New York magazine, and begins writing features and political columns including, “The City Politic.”

    1969 – Begins writing and speaking about feminism after attending a meeting held by a women’s movement group that addressed the issue of abortion.

    May 6, 1970 – Testifies before the United States Senate in support of the Equal Rights Amendment.

    1971 – Co-founds the National Women’s Political Caucus, which works to increase the number of women in the political field.

    1972 – Co-founds Ms. Magazine, the first feminist magazine, and the first to be created and operated entirely by women.

    1973 – Co-founds the Ms. Foundation for Women.

    November 18-21, 1977 – Organizes and attends the National Women’s conference in Texas. The conference is the first to be backed by the US government, and its purpose was proposing recommendations for widespread gender equality.

    1983 – Steinem’s collection of essays “Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions” is published.

    1992 – Steinem’s book “Revolution from Within: A Book of Self-Esteem” is published.

    1992 – Co-founds Choice USA (now URGE: Unite for Reproductive & Gender Equity), along with Julie Burton and Kristina Kiehl.

    April 22, 1993 – Celebrates the first “Take Our Daughters To Work Day,” an educational program created by the Ms. Foundation to give girls a voice and presence in the workplace.

    1993 – Inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame.

    January 12, 1993 – Co-produces the movie for television “Better off Dead” an examination of the parallels between abortion and the death penalty.

    1996 – Creates the Women and AIDS Fund with the Ms. Foundation to support women living with HIV/AIDS.

    2005 – Co-founds the Women’s Media Center with Jane Fonda and Robin Morgan.

    2006 – Steinem’s book “Doing Sixty & Seventy” is published.

    August 15, 2011 – The HBO documentary, “Gloria: In Her Own Words,” airs.

    2013 – Steinem is a subject in the PBS documentary, “Makers,” a project that aims to record the stories of women who “made America.”

    November 20, 2013 – Is awarded a Presidential Medal of Freedom by US President Barack Obama.

    October 19, 2015 – Pens an op-ed in The Guardian declaring her support for 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

    October 27, 2015 – Her memoir, “My Life on the Road,” is published.

    February 5, 2016 – Steinem makes a controversial comment on “Real Time with Bill Maher,” saying young women are supporting Senator Bernie Sanders in the presidential race because “the boys are with Bernie.” She later apologizes and claims her comment was misinterpreted.

    May 10, 2016 – Steinem’s television show “WOMAN” premieres on VICELAND.

    October 18, 2018 – The Off-Broadway production, “Gloria: A Life,” officially opens at the Daryl Roth Theatre.

    October 29, 2019 – Steinem’s book “The Truth Will Set You Free, But First It Will Piss You Off!” is published.

    June 15, 2020 – Steinem and S. Mona Sinha co-write a New York Times letter to the editor opposing the elimination of civil rights protections for transgender healthcare.

    September 30, 2020 – ”The Glorias,” a film is based on Steinem’s memoir “My Life on the Road,” premieres.

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  • Breakthrough Women Fast Facts: Business, Education, US Government and Sports | CNN

    Breakthrough Women Fast Facts: Business, Education, US Government and Sports | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Here is a look at women in business, education, government and sports who have broken through the glass ceiling and become the first in their respective positions in the United States.

    1739 – Elizabeth Timothy is the first woman newspaper publisher, of the South Carolina Gazette.

    1867-1919 – Madam C.J. Walker is the first woman to become a self-made millionaire. Her business develops and sells hair care products for Black women.

    1934 – Lettie Pate Whitehead is the first woman to serve as a director of a major corporation, the Coca-Cola Company.

    1967 – Isabel Benham is the first female partner at a Wall Street bond house, R.W. Pressprich & Co.

    1972 – Juanita Kreps becomes the first woman to serve as a director of the New York Stock Exchange. In 1977, she is the first woman appointed secretary of Commerce.

    1972 – Katharine Graham is the first woman to be CEO of a Fortune 500 company, the Washington Post.

    July 1999 – Carly Fiorina is the first woman to serve as CEO of a Fortune 20 company, Hewlett-Packard.

    October 1999 – Martha Stewart is the first woman to become a self-made billionaire. Her creative home brand includes books, a magazine, home furnishings and entertaining and gardening TV shows.

    2011 – Beth Mooney is the first woman to serve as CEO of a top 20 US bank, KeyCorp.

    2013 – Mary Barra is the first woman to serve as CEO of a major automaker, General Motors.

    September 10, 2020 – Citigroup names Jane Fraser as CEO, the first woman to lead a major US bank.

    December 12, 2022 – The Wall Street Journal names Emma Tucker as its next editor. Tucker will be the first woman to head the newspaper.

    1648 – Margaret Brent of Maryland appears before a court to request the right to vote. She is considered the first woman to practice law.

    July 16, 1840 – Catherine Brewer is the first in a group of 11 women to earn bachelor’s degrees, graduating from Wesleyan College in Macon, Georgia.

    1849 – Elizabeth Blackwell is the first woman to receive a medical degree. She earns a M.D. from the Geneva Medical College in New York.

    1866 – Lucy Hobbs is the first woman to receive a doctorate in dental surgery, graduating from the Ohio College of Dental Surgery.

    1869 – Arabella Mansfield is admitted to the Iowa State Bar, becoming the first woman admitted to a state bar.

    1870 – Ada Kepley graduates from Union College of Law in Chicago and is the first woman to earn a law degree.

    1873 – Ellen Swallow Richards, the first woman admitted to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, earns a degree in chemistry.

    1877 – Helen Magill becomes the first woman to earn a Ph.D., when she graduates from Boston University.

    1872 – Victoria Claflin Woodhull becomes the first woman presidential candidate in the United States when she is nominated for the Equal Rights Party.

    April 4, 1887 – Susanna Madora Salter is the first woman elected mayor of a US town, Argonia, Kansas.

    1916 – Jeannette Rankin of Montana is the first woman elected to Congress. She serves just one term and then is elected again in 1940 for one term. During this time, she votes against participation in both World War I and World War II.

    November 21, 1922 – Rebecca Felton is the first woman to serve in the US Senate. She is appointed by Georgia’s governor who wanted to win over female voters after his initial opposition to the Nineteenth Amendment giving women the right to vote. She serves 24 hours in this temporary vacancy during the session break.

    January 5, 1925 – Nellie Tayloe Ross is the first woman to serve as a governor of a state, Wyoming. In May 1933, she also becomes the first woman to serve as director of the US Mint.

    1928 – Genevieve R. Cline is the first woman appointed as a US federal judge. She is nominated to the US Customs Court by President Calvin Coolidge.

    1932 – Hattie Wyatt Caraway is the first woman elected to the US Senate. She wins a special election after taking her late husband’s seat by appointment. She serves Arkansas in the Senate for nearly 14 years.

    1933 – Frances Perkins is the first woman to be appointed US secretary of labor, making her the first woman to serve on a presidential cabinet. She is largely responsible for crafting much of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “New Deal” labor and Social Security legislation.

    1948 – Margaret Chase Smith of Maine is the first woman to win election to both houses of Congress. (She was elected to the House in 1940.) Her landmark legislation is the Armed Services Integration Act (giving women in the military full status).

    June 21, 1949 – Georgia Neese Clark is the first woman to be named Treasurer of the United States. She is appointed by President Harry S. Truman.

    1949 – Helen “Eugenie” Anderson is the first woman to serve as a United States ambassador. Under President Truman, Anderson serves as the ambassador to Denmark. Later, she also becomes the first woman to sign a diplomatic treaty, and the first woman to sit on the United Nations Security Council.

    1960 – Oveta Culp Hobby becomes the first secretary of health, education, and welfare. Later, she is also the first director of the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) and the first woman to receive the US Army Distinguished Service Medal.

    1964 – Margaret Chase Smith is the first woman placed in nomination for president of the United States by a major political party. At the Republican National Convention, she loses the nomination to Barry Goldwater.

    1977 – Juanita Kreps is the first woman appointed secretary of commerce. In 1972, she was the first woman to serve as a director of the New York Stock Exchange.

    December 6, 1979 – Shirley Hufstedler is sworn in as the first secretary of Education.

    September 25, 1981 – Sandra Day O’Connor takes her seat as the first woman on the US Supreme Court. She was appointed by President Ronald Reagan.

    1983 – Elizabeth Dole becomes the first woman to serve as secretary of Transportation.

    1984 – Geraldine Ferraro is the first woman nominated for vice president of the United States by a major party, at the Democratic National Convention in San Francisco.

    1990 – Dr. Antonia Novello is the first woman (and the first Hispanic person) to be appointed as US surgeon general.

    January 21, 1993 – Hazel R. O’Leary is confirmed as the first woman to serve as US secretary of energy. She’s also the first African American to serve in that role.

    March 11, 1993 – Janet Reno is confirmed as the first woman to serve as US attorney general.

    August 5, 1993 – Sheila Widnall is confirmed by the Senate to serve as secretary of the Air Force, the first woman to serve as secretary of a branch of the US military.

    January 23, 1997 – Madeleine Albright is sworn in as the first woman to serve as US secretary of state. She was nominated by President Bill Clinton.

    December 17, 2000-2005 – Condoleezza Rice is the first woman to serve as national security adviser, to President George W. Bush.

    January 2001 – Gale Norton becomes the first woman to serve as US secretary of the interior, and Ann Veneman is the first woman to serve as US secretary of agriculture. Both were nominated by President George W. Bush.

    2001 – Fran Mainella is the first woman to be appointed director of the US National Park Service.

    2007 – Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) becomes the first woman to serve as speaker of the House of Representatives.

    2008 – Sarah Palin is the first woman to run for vice president as a Republican.

    2008 – Ann Dunwoody is the first woman to receive a rank of four-star general in the US Army.

    2009 – Janet Napolitano becomes the first woman to serve as US secretary of homeland security. Previously, Napolitano had been the first female chair of the National Governors Association and the first woman to serve as the attorney general of Arizona.

    February 2014 – Janet Yellen becomes the first woman to chair the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.

    September 2014 – Megan Smith is the first woman to be appointed as US chief technology officer.

    February 2015 – Megan Brennan becomes the first woman to serve as US postmaster general.

    May 13, 2016 – Air Force General Lori Robinson is appointed to lead US Northern Command, becoming the nation’s first female combatant commander.

    July 26, 2016 – Hillary Clinton is the first US woman to lead the ticket of a major party. She secures the Democratic nomination at the national convention in Philadelphia.

    September 14, 2016 – Carla Hayden is sworn in as the first female librarian of Congress.

    May 17, 2018 – Gina Haspel is confirmed as the first female director of the CIA.

    December 7, 2018 – Beth Kimber becomes the first woman to lead the CIA’s Directorate of Operations.

    June 29, 2019 – Maj. Gen. Laura Yeager becomes the first woman to lead a US Army infantry division.

    December 31, 2020 – Pelosi’s office announces the appointment of Rear Adm. Margaret Grun Kibben as chaplain of the House of Representatives — the first woman to serve in the role in either chamber.

    January 25, 2021 – Janet Yellen is confirmed as the first female Treasury secretary.

    October 19, 2021 – Dr. Rachel Levine is sworn in as the first female four-star admiral for the US Public Health Service Commissioned Corps. Levine is also the first openly transgender four-star officer across the nation’s eight uniformed services.

    January 20, 2021 – Kamala Harris is sworn in as vice president of the United States, making her America’s first female, first Black and first South Asian vice president.

    November 19, 2021 – US President Joe Biden temporarily transfers power to Harris while he is under anesthesia for a routine colonoscopy. Harris becomes the first woman with presidential power.

    December 15, 2021 – Keechant Sewell is selected as the next New York City police commissioner, leading the nation’s largest police department. She becomes the first woman to lead the NYPD in its 176-year history. Her appointment begins in January 2022.

    December 1, 2022 – Admiral Linda Fagan becomes the first woman to lead a branch of the armed forces, as the 27th commandant of the US Coast Guard.

    November 2, 2023 – Admiral Lisa Franchetti becomes the first woman to lead the Navy and the first woman in the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

    READ MORE: Women Presidential and Vice Presidential Candidates: A Selected List from the Center for American Women and Politics.

    1997 – Dee Kantner and Violet Palmer become the first women to serve as referees in the NBA.

    April 8, 2015 – Sarah Thomas becomes the first female to be a full-time NFL referee.

    February 2, 2020 – Katie Sowers, offensive assistant for the San Francisco 49ers football team, becomes the first woman to coach in the Super Bowl.

    July 20, 2020 – Alyssa Nakken, the first female coach on a Major League Baseball staff in league history, becomes the first woman to coach on the field during a major league game. Nakken coached first base during an exhibition game between the San Francisco Giants and Oakland A’s.

    November 13, 2020 – The Miami Marlins announce the hiring of Kim Ng as the team’s new general manager, making her the first woman GM in Major League Baseball history. She is believed to be the first woman hired as a GM to lead a professional men’s sports team in any North American major league.

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  • Dozens of news organizations condemn police raid on Kansas newspaper and call for seized materials to be returned | CNN Business

    Dozens of news organizations condemn police raid on Kansas newspaper and call for seized materials to be returned | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    Dozens of news organizations on Sunday condemned a police raid on a Kansas newspaper and its publisher’s home, sending a letter to the local police department’s chief urging him to immediately return all seized materials.

    The four-page letter, sent by the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press to Marion Police Chief Gideon Cody, was signed by 34 news and press freedom organizations, including CNN, The Associated Press, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times and others.

    “Newsroom searches and seizures are among the most intrusive actions law enforcement can take with respect to the free press, and the most potentially suppressive of free speech by the press and the public,” the letter said.

    The Marion County Record’s co-owner and publisher, Eric Meyer, believes Friday’s raid was prompted by a story published Wednesday about a local business owner. Authorities countered they are investigating what they called “identity theft” and “unlawful acts concerning computers,” according to a search warrant.

    “Based on public reporting, the search warrant that has been published online, and your public statements to the press, there appears to be no justification for the breadth and intrusiveness of the search —particularly when other investigative steps may have been available — and we are concerned that it may have violated federal law strictly limiting federal, state, and local law enforcement’s ability to conduct newsroom searches,” the letter said.

    Computers, cell phones, and other materials were seized during the raid at the Marion County Record, Meyer confirmed to CNN. The search warrant identified a list of items law enforcement officials were allowed to seize, including “documents and records pertaining to Kari Newell,” the business owner who was the subject of the story, Meyer said.

    Newell told CNN the Marion County Record unlawfully used her credentials to get information that was available only to law enforcement, private investigators and insurance agencies.

    Chief Cody was not able to provide details on Friday’s raid, saying it remains an ongoing criminal investigation – but offered a justification.

    “I believe when the rest of the story is available to the public, the judicial system that is being questioned will be vindicated,” Cody told CNN in a statement. “I appreciate all the assistance from all the state and local investigators along with the entire judicial process thus far.”

    But the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press said the police department should give back the items to the paper and its reporters.

    “We urge you to immediately return the seized material to the Record, to purge any records that may already have been accessed, and to initiate a full independent and transparent review of your department’s actions.”

    – CNN’s Sarah Moon contributed to this report

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  • Cormac McCarthy, among America’s greatest authors, dies at 89 | CNN

    Cormac McCarthy, among America’s greatest authors, dies at 89 | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Cormac McCarthy, long considered one of America’s greatest writers for his violent and bleak depictions of the United States and its borderlands in novels like “Blood Meridian,” “The Road” and “All the Pretty Horses,” died on Tuesday, according to his Penguin Random House publisher Alfred A. Knopf. He was 89.

    McCarthy died of natural causes at his home in Santa Fe, New Mexico, Knopf said.

    Over a nearly 60-year career, McCarthy – hailed by the late literary critic Howard Bloom as the “true heir” of Herman Melville and William Faulkner – wrote a dozen novels, many of them critically celebrated if not commercial hits, though he would eventually achieve both. For years, he wrote while living on grants, most notably the MacArthur “genius grant,” which he was awarded in 1981.

    Despite accolades, McCarthy remained relatively obscure for much of his career; as recently as 1992, 27 years after his first book was published, the New York Times Book Review said he “may be the best unknown novelist in America.”

    Both before and since, McCarthy was seen and portrayed in the media as reclusive, eschewing the kind of book tours, signings, interviews and lectures other renowned writers would see as professional obligations. But McCarthy famously abhorred talking about his books, which principally featured male characters and profuse violence, as well as sparse punctuation.

    Still, he was a “writer’s writer,” the Times reported, with a cult following and a reputation “far out of proportion to his name recognition or sales.”

    “I never had any doubts about my abilities,” McCarthy told the Times in one of his few interviews. “I knew I could write. I just had to figure out how to eat while doing this.”

    That obscurity changed with “All the Pretty Horses,” the first installment of his “Border Trilogy,” which became a bestseller and won the 1992 National Book Award, at last marrying the critical acclaim he’d enjoyed with mainstream success.

    His Pulitzer Prize-winning novel “The Road,” which followed a father and son traveling through a post-apocalyptic America, further catapulted McCarthy to popularity, thanks in part to Oprah Winfrey selecting the novel for her book club. McCarthy, in turn, granted Oprah his first and only television interview.

    “The Road” was also one of several of McCarthy’s books adapted for film, most notably the Coen Brothers’ adaptation of “No Country for Old Men,” which won four Academy Awards, including best picture.

    The author was born Charles McCarthy Jr. on July 20, 1933, in Providence, Rhode Island. His family moved when he was still young to Knoxville, Tennessee, where his father was an attorney for the Tennessee Valley Authority. His was a relatively comfortable childhood, one that played out on a plot of wooded land in a large white house with maids.

    “We were considered rich,” he told the Times, “because all the people around us were living in one- or two-room shacks.”

    For all his later literary achievements, McCarthy was not a voracious reader in his childhood or adolescence. It wasn’t until he served in the US Air Force after dropping out of the University of Tennessee that McCarthy began reading extensively, in his barracks while stationed in Alaska, he told the Times.

    He would later move to Chicago, where he finished his first novel and in 1961 married his first wife, Lee Holleman, with whom he had a son. They soon divorced.

    That novel, “The Orchard Keeper,” was published in 1965, after shepherding by the famous Random House editor Albert Erskine, who also edited Faulkner. Erskine, who died in 1993, would go on to edit McCarthy for two decades despite the fact, Erskine admitted to the Times, that McCarthy’s books never sold.

    “Outer Dark” followed in 1968 and “Child of God” in 1973, after a stint in Ibiza and McCarthy’s subsequent return to Tennessee with his second wife, Annie DeLisle. But still, they lived in “total poverty,” DeLisle once said, “bathing in the lake.”

    “Someone would call up and offer him $2,000 to come speak at a university about his books,” DeLisle told the New York Times. “And he would tell them that everything he had to say was there on the page. So we would eat beans for another week.”

    But McCarthy didn’t become a writer to make money, instead “maybe simply, because I can do it,” he told the Maryville-Alcoa Times, a Tennessee newspaper, in 1971. “There are a lot of easier ways to make money. I could sell tickets to people and let them watch while I was run over by a truck.”

    His next novel, “Suttree,” was published in 1979. McCarthy was awarded the MacArthur Fellowship two years later, giving him financial security to focus on writing. McCarthy left DeLisle and used the money to abscond to the Southwest, where he spent the next several years steeped in research for “Blood Meridian, or the Evening Redness in the West,” published in 1985.

    The historically based novel – widely regarded as McCarthy’s masterpiece – follows a brutal gang of scalp hunters as they journey across the Southwest, massacring Apache and members of the Mexican Army.

    “All the Pretty Horses” was published in 1992 and was followed over years by “The Crossing” and “Cities of the Plain,” which together comprise “The Border Trilogy” – in all a more idyllic ode to the region that recounted the adventures of two young cowboys.

    “No Country for Old Men” in 2005 received a less positive critical reception than McCarthy’s earlier novels, though its standing improved with time. The book, which the author began as a screenplay, did well as a movie under the direction of Joel and Ethan Coen, with the talents of Tommy Lee Jones and Josh Brolin, as well as Javier Bardem as the fearsome but unforgettable killer Anton Chigurh, a role that won Bardem Academy Award for best supporting actor.

    McCarthy’s attention turned away from the American West for 2006’s “The Road.” The book, dedicated to his then-young son – he had by then divorced and remarried again – was conceived on a trip to El Paso, Texas, he told Winfrey, as he looked out the hotel window one night.

    “I just had this image of these fires up on the hill and everything being laid waste, and I thought a lot about my little boy,” he said, and wrote a couple pages. Revisiting the idea several years later, he realized those pages were the beginning of a book about a man and his son traveling through that ashen landscape while staving off the threat of cannibals.

    The book wrote itself, he said, in a few weeks’ time.

    The ensuing years were quiet ones, with little in the way of new material. By this time, McCarthy was spending much of his time at the Santa Fe Institute in New Mexico, an independent research group of mostly scientists where he eventually became a lifetime trustee.

    McCarthy, whose interest in the sciences was well-documented, enjoyed the company of the physicists, biologists and geologists at the institute, and it was there he was often seen writing on his Olivetti typewriter, working on his next novels, “The Passenger” and “Stella Maris,” released just six weeks apart in 2022.

    The books dealt with the same story from different perspectives and featured a female main character as McCarthy’s dearth of well-developed women protagonists in his writing had long been a point of criticism. After being married three times, he told Oprah, “I don’t pretend to understand women.”

    But he alluded to the twin novels and their story’s female protagonist in an interview with the Wall Street Journal in 2009, saying, “I was planning on writing about a woman for 50 years. I will never be competent enough to do so, but at some point you have to try.”

    As for the lavish amounts of violence in his work, McCarthy told Vanity Fair in 2005 he didn’t know what resonated with him about that theme, only that he felt death was the principal motif at the heart of all our lives.

    “Death is the major issue in the world. For you, for me, for all of us,” he said. “It just is. To not be able to talk about it is very odd.”

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  • India and China are kicking out each others’ journalists in the latest strain on ties | CNN Business

    India and China are kicking out each others’ journalists in the latest strain on ties | CNN Business

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    Hong Kong
    CNN
     — 

    India and China are fast heading toward having few or no accredited journalists on the ground in each others’ country – the latest sign of fraying relations between the world’s two most populous nations.

    New Delhi on Friday called on Chinese authorities to “facilitate the continued presence” of Indian journalists working and reporting in the country and said the two sides “remain in touch” on the issue.

    Three of the four journalists from major Indian publications based in China this year have had their credentials revoked by Beijing since April, a person within India’s media with first-hand knowledge told CNN.

    Meanwhile, Beijing last week said there was only one remaining Chinese reporter in India due to the country’s “unfair and discriminatory treatment” of its reporters, and that reporter’s visa had yet to be renewed.

    “The Chinese side has no choice but to take appropriate counter-measures,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said at a regular briefing when asked about a Wall Street Journal report, which first reported on the recent ejections of journalists from both sides.

    The situation is the latest flashpoint in the fractious relationship between the nuclear-armed neighbors, which has deteriorated in recent years amid rising nationalism in both countries and volatility at their contested border.

    The reduction of journalists – which includes both those from China’s government-run state media and major Indian outlets – is likely to further degrade those ties and each countries’ insight into the other’s political and social circumstances, at a time when there is little room for misunderstandings.

    Tensions between the two have remained heightened after a long-standing territorial dispute erupted into a deadly clash in Aksai Chin-Ladakh in 2020. India’s defense minister in April accused China of violating existing border agreements and “eroding the entire basis” of bilateral relations.

    It’s also not the first time that journalists have been caught in geopolitical cross-hairs in recent years.

    China accused the US of “political crackdown” in 2020 after Washington cut the number of Chinese nationals allowed to work in Chinese state media bureaus in the US, citing a “surveillance, harassment, and intimidation” of foreign reporters in China and a need to “level” the playing field.

    Beijing hit back by expelling journalists from several major US newspapers. Both sides also imposed visa limitations on each others’ media organizations.

    The number of foreign reporters in China has dwindled in recent years, following the American newspaper expulsions, Beijing’s intimidation of reporters with Australian outlets, and long delays in visa approvals within an increasingly restrictive and hostile media environment for foreign reporters.

    On Sunday, Xinhua published a first-person account from Hu Xiaoming, the state agency’s New Delhi bureau chief since 2017, describing the “torment” of Chinese reporters’ “visa hassle” in India.

    “The Indian government’s brutal treatment has put enormous psychological pressure on Chinese journalists in India,” wrote Hu, who said the Indian government rejected his visa renewal in March on the grounds that he had stayed in the country too long.

    Due to India’s visa policy, Xinhua’s New Delhi branch “now has only one journalist working with a valid visa,” the article said.

    A spokesperson for India’s Ministry of External Affairs on Friday declined to comment on the number of Chinese journalists in the country when asked in a regular briefing.

    “All foreign journalists, including Chinese journalists, have been pursuing journalist activities in India, without any limitations or difficulties in reporting,” spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said.

    Bagchi did not confirm that any Indian reporters had lost accreditation in China, but said such reporters had faced difficulties doing their jobs there.

    The Hindu newspaper in April ran an article saying China’s Foreign Ministry had decided to “freeze” the visa of its Beijing correspondent Ananth Krishnan, as well as that of a second journalist, Anshuman Mishra of Indian public broadcaster Prasar Barahti.

    When asked about the measures at that time, a Chinese Foreign Ministry official said Beijing was responding to “unfair” treatment of its reporters in recent years, including requiring the Xinhua reporter to leave in March. That situation followed another in 2021, when a reporter for state-run CGTN with a valid visa was told to leave, the official said.

    Beijing has not said if there are other Chinese reporters with valid India visas currently outside India

    China maintains tight control of its state media, which it views as a vehicle to spread its propaganda messaging overseas.

    A Western correspondent who is among many waiting for a visa into China said the situation facing Indian reporters was “in keeping with a pattern we’ve seen in the past few years of connecting the approval of journalist visas in China to the granting of visas for state media reporters in other countries, and to bilateral relations more broadly.”

    India, on the other hand, has come under increasing scrutiny for what some observers see as shrinking press freedoms and censorship.

    Earlier this year, Indian authorities raided BBC newsrooms in New Delhi and Mumbai, citing allegations of tax evasion, weeks after the country banned a documentary from the British broadcaster that was critical of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s alleged role in deadly riots more than 20 years ago.

    The latest situation with both countries’ reporters “boils down to the complete erosion of trust between both governments,” said Manoj Kewalramani, a fellow for China studies at the Takshashila Institution in Bengaluru.

    Because Chinese reporters are working for state media outlets, New Delhi is also likely looking at them as “state actors,” according to Kewalramani.

    If New Delhi was not approving their reporter visas, as Beijing claimed, this could be an example of India’s strategy to “impose costs” on China that do not involve military escalation, but can still put pressure on Beijing to return to the status quo along the border, he said.

    Since the 2020 clash there, India has taken several steps to push back against China, including banning social media platform TikTok and other well-known Chinese apps, saying they pose a “threat to sovereignty and integrity,” while also moving to block Chinese telecoms giants Huawei and ZTE from supplying its 5G network.

    Amid concerns in New Delhi of China as an increasingly powerful regional force, the Indian government has also bolstered its relationship with the United States, including via the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, or Quad – a grouping of Japan, US, India and Australia widely seen as a counterweight to an increasingly assertive China.

    China last month boycotted a Group of 20 (G20) tourism meeting hosted by India in the Himalayan territory of Jammu and Kashmir, citing its opposition “to holding any kind of G20 meetings in disputed territory.” India and Pakistan both claim the disputed Kashmir region in its entirety.

    A regional bloc that has provided a forum for China and India to meet – the Shanghai Cooperation Organization – will meet this summer, but virtually, according to an announcement from this year’s host India, ruling out what would have been the next expected opportunity for an in-person, face to face between Modi and Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

    When it comes to the journalists’ on-the-ground presence, fewer Indian reporters in China will be a blow to more nuanced understanding of the country in India – and could also have a negative impact on Beijing, Kewalramani said.

    “For the longest time, Beijing has been telling the Indian government and Indian people to have an independent view of China (separate from) looking through the Western prism,” he said.

    “If you are going to deny our reporters access to the country, how do we develop that independent perspective?”

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  • Prince Harry gives tense testimony in historic courtroom battle against British media | CNN Business

    Prince Harry gives tense testimony in historic courtroom battle against British media | CNN Business

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    London
    CNN
     — 

    Prince Harry has become the first senior British royal to give evidence on a witness stand in 132 years, as his bitter fight against the UK’s tabloid press came to a head in tense courtroom showdown on Tuesday.

    Harry is suing a big British newspaper group, Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN), alleging the publisher’s journalists hacked his phone and used other illicit means to gather information about his life between 1996 and 2009.

    Follow live updates from the courtroom here.

    As the landmark hearing got underway at the High Court in London, Prince Harry answered questions in a measured, almost hushed tone. He appeared nervous at first, and was at one point asked to raise his voice.

    He faced forensic and detailed questioning from MGN’s lawyer, Andrew Green who probed him on the specifics of his claims and occasionally left him scrambling to recall sections of his written statement or find pieces of evidence.

    But the Duke of Sussex brought to court an overriding argument that he has previously made on television programs and in podcast interviews: that the media’s intrusion and tactics caused him significant distress and wrecked some of his closest relationships.

    And he increasingly asserted himself as the testimony wore on, clashing at times with the publisher’s lawyer as they dissected reams of press coverage and legalese.

    “Some editors and journalists do have blood on their hands” for the distress caused to him, Harry told the court at one point – and “perhaps, inadvertently death,” he added, in reference to his mother Princess Diana.

    Here’s what we learned as Harry began giving evidence on Tuesday.

    Tuesday’s courtroom session touched on dozens of snippets from Harry’s youth, repeated aloud in court as the prince and MGN’s lawyer parsed over the fine details of several news articles.

    Harry’s diagnosis with the “kissing disease,” also known as mono; his teenage trips to the pub; his broken thumb and a back injury sustained in a game of polo; his gap year afternoons on the beach; and Princess Diana’s trips to collect him from school – all were all the subject of stories entered into evidence, and each was dissected by Green and the duke.

    Overall, the prince alleges that about 140 articles published in titles belonging to Mirror Group contained information gathered using unlawful methods, and 33 of those articles have been selected to be considered at the trial.

    In the courtroom on Tuesday, Harry said that “every single article has caused me distress.”

    “All of these articles played an important role – a destructive role – in my growing up,” Harry said. The newspapers in question were on constantly display “in every single palace, unfortunately,” while he was growing up. At school, fellow students and others would read the articles, he said. Harry described the level of coverage as “incredibly invasive.”

    Green began by attempting to establish whether Harry remembered reading the articles in question at the time of publication. When the duke conceded he could not always recall, Green pressed him on how he could realistically argue they could have affected him so strongly. It was a theme to which Green would often return.

    In a written statement entered into the court record on Tuesday, Harry expressed concern that his conversations with family and friends may have been intercepted. He noted that he and his brother, Prince William, “naturally discussed personal aspects of our lives as we trusted each other with the private information we shared.”

    He said private information about his life was raised on voicemails left on the phones of his father Charles and his mother Diana.

    Prince Harry at his school, Eton, in 2003. The period being examined in the trial covers Harry's teenage years and his early 20s.

    Harry said that he would discuss “private and sensitive matters regarding our family and personal lives” on voicemails left on the phone of the then Kate Middleton, now the Princess of Wales, he said. The Duke listed a number of other friends with whom he had been in contact, including the late TV presenter Caroline Flack, in his witness statement.

    He said he recalled “unusual mobile activity” relating to his voicemails that he dismissed at the time, but now alleges was caused by phone hacking.

    “I remember on multiple occasions hearing a voicemail for the first time that wasn’t ‘new’,” he wrote. “I would simply put it down to perhaps a technical glitch, as mobile phones were still relatively new back then, or even just having too many drinks the night before (and having forgotten that I’d listened to it).”

    Also in his written statement, Harry argued that the press actively tried to ruin his relationships. “I always felt as if the tabloids wanted me to be single, as I was much more interesting to them and sold more newspapers,” Harry wrote.

    “Whilst they would, of course, report on my successes in life, it seemed to me that they took far greater pleasure in knocking me down, time and time again,” he added.

    Harry claimed that papers would go about that task by putting “strain” on his relationships and creating distrust between him and his partners. He spoke regularly about one of his former girlfriends, Chelsy Davy, alleging journalists would find out about flight details to photograph her at airports, and would book rooms in the same hotels as the couple when they were on vacation.

    The duke evidently believes that continues to be the case since his marriage to Meghan, Duchess of Sussex. “This twisted objective is still pursued to this day even though I’m now married,” he wrote.

    There was a throng of media outside the court on Tuesday.

    The atmosphere in court was occasionally tense. “Are we not, Prince Harry, in the realms of total speculation,” Green asked Harry at one point on Tuesday, after an exchange over a story about the teen prince breaking his thumb. Green had quizzed the duke about which specific illicit means of newsgathering Harry was alleging.

    “I’m not the one who wrote the article,” Harry replied.

    “No, but you’re the one who’s bringing the claim,” Green said.

    Earlier in the morning, when discussing Harry’s use of a landline phone to talk to his mother from school, Harry suggested that either that phone or Diana’s could have been hacked.

    “That’s just speculation you’ve come up with now,” Green said in response.

    The exchanges between Harry and Green ultimately settled into a predictable pattern; when a new article was brought up, Green would press Harry on how he could know that the information was obtained illegally, and not through typical means.

    Harry would often respond that he couldn’t fathom how information would have made its way into newspapers without illicit involvement. And he would repeatedly assert that the journalists who wrote the stories, not the subject of the stories, should answer questions about their sourcing.

    There were times during the back-and-forth between Harry and Green when the prince appeared uncomfortable or unaware of the minutiae of his case.

    Harry at one point joked that he was being put through a “workout” by having to repeatedly reach for bundles of evidence, stacked in folders beside him.

    Green offered to arrange for someone to help the prince navigate the evidence, and Harry would often reply “if you say so,” when Green sought to establish details of the articles the prince’s team entered into evidence.

    After a brief mid-morning recess, the judge asked Harry to raise his voice to ensure he could be heard throughout the courtroom, telling the duke that a number of observers in the courtroom had struggled to hear him.

    The questioning was far more intense and detailed than anything Harry has experienced in the many television and podcast interviews he has given on the topic of press intrusion.

    And Green sought to poke a number of holes in Harry’s argument, including that Harry was initially unaware of several specific stories, or that details in those stories could not have come through phone hacking as they had already been reported by other outlets.

    In a lengthy witness statement and over the course of an hours-long testimony, the Duke of Sussex touched on a number of topics. They included:

    The British government: Harry criticized the current Conservative government in his written testimony, in particular for what he described as an overly close relationship with the media.

    “On a national level as, at the moment, our country is judged globally by the state of our press and our government – both of which I believe are at rock bottom,” Harry wrote.

    He added that Rishi Sunak’s government “clearly have no appetite” for press regulation, “because their friends in the press said so.”

    Piers Morgan: The British broadcaster was the editor of The Mirror from 1995 to 2004, and has been intensely critical of the duke and his wife, Meghan, in recent years. “The thought of Piers Morgan and his band of journalists earwigging into my mother’s private and sensitive messages … makes me feel physically sick,” Harry wrote in his evidence.

    He claimed that, in response to his lawsuit, “myself and my wife have been subjected to a barrage of horrific personal attacks and intimidation from Piers Morgan,” suggesting that Morgan has taken the stance “in the hope that I will back down.”

    Morgan has been unapologetic about his criticism of the pair, calling them “repulsive narcissistic hypocrites” in one December tweet.

    The Queen’s concerns: Harry said he had recently learned that Queen Elizabeth II had a member of her staff secretly fly to Australia in 2003, and stay in a house down the road from where Harry was staying on his gap year.

    “She was concerned about the extent of the coverage of my trip and wanted someone I knew to be nearby, in case I needed support,” Harry wrote.

    At the time Harry had been photographed on the beach with friends – photos that Harry claims must have been obtained illicitly, because he did not understand how any journalists would know he was there.

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  • Oklahoma governor calls on officials to resign over recording of racist and threatening remarks | CNN

    Oklahoma governor calls on officials to resign over recording of racist and threatening remarks | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    The governor of Oklahoma is calling on four McCurtain County officials to resign after they allegedly participated in a secretly recorded conversation that included racist remarks about lynching Black people and talking about killing journalists.

    The McCurtain Gazette-News over the weekend published the audio it said was recorded following a Board of Commissioners meeting on March 6.

    The paper said the audio of the meeting was legally obtained, but the McCurtain County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement that it was illegally recorded and is investigating. The sheriff’s office also said it believes the recording had been altered.

    “I am both appalled and disheartened to hear of the horrid comments made by officials in McCurtain County,” Gov. Kevin Stitt said in a statement Sunday. “There is simply no place for such hateful rhetoric in the state of Oklahoma, especially by those that serve to represent the community through their respective office. I will not stand idly by while this takes place,” the statement said.

    The governor called for the immediate resignations of McCurtain County Sheriff Kevin Clardy, District 2 Commissioner Mark Jennings, sheriff’s investigator Alicia Manning and jail administrator Larry Hendrix. He also said he would ask the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation to look into the case.

    McCurtain County is in southeastern Oklahoma, about 200 miles from Oklahoma City.

    The recording was made hours after Gazette-News reporter Chris Willingham filed a lawsuit against the sheriff’s office, Manning and the Board of County Commissioners, alleging they had defamed him and violated his civil rights, the newspaper reported.

    In the recording, Manning spoke of needing to go near the newspaper’s office and expressed concern about what would happen if she ran into Willingham, the Oklahoman reported, citing additional reporting from the Gazette-News.

    According to the Oklahoman report, Jennings said, “Oh, you’re talking about you can’t control yourself?” and Manning replied: “Yeah, I ain’t worried about what he’s gonna do to me. I’m worried about what I might do to him. My papaw would have whipped his a**, would have wiped him and used him for toilet paper … if my daddy hadn’t been run over by a vehicle, he would have been down there.”

    Jennings replied that his father was once upset by something the newspaper published and “started to go down there and just kill him,” according to the Gazette-News.

    “I know where two big, deep holes are here if you ever need them,” Jennings allegedly said. Clardy, the sheriff, allegedly said he had the equipment.

    “I’ve got an excavator,” Clardy is accused of saying during the discussion. “Well, these are already pre-dug,” Jennings allegedly said.

    In other parts of the recording, officials expressed disappointment that Black people could no longer be lynched, according to the paper.

    CNN has not been able to verify the authenticity of the recording or confirm who said what. CNN has reached out to all four county officials for comment.

    The Oklahoma Sheriffs’ Association voted Tuesday to suspend the membership of Clardy, Manning and Hendrix, the group’s executive director told CNN.

    Willingham and his father, Bruce Willingham, the paper’s publisher, have been advised to temporarily leave town, CNN affiliate KJRH reported.

    “For nearly a year, they have suffered intimidation, ridicule and harassment based solely on their efforts to report the news for McCurtain County,” Kilpatrick Townsend, the law firm representing the Willingham family, told CNN in a statement.

    The McCurtain County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement Monday that there is an “ongoing investigation into multiple significant violations” of the Oklahoma Security of Communications Act, which makes it “illegal to secretly record a conversation in which you are not involved and do not have the consent of at least one of the involved parties.” It also said the recording has yet to be “duly authenticated or validated.”

    “Our preliminary information indicates that the media released audio recording has, in fact, been altered. The motivation for doing so remains unclear at this point. That matter is actively being investigated,” the statement said.

    The Oklahoma Attorney General’s Office has received an audio recording and is investigating, Communications Director Phil Bacharach said.

    The FBI wouldn’t confirm or deny whether it was involved in the investigation, with spokesperson Kayla McCleery saying it is agency policy not to comment.

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  • Before Las Vegas mass shooting, a friend of the gunman implored him not to ‘shoot or kill innocent people,’ newspaper reports | CNN

    Before Las Vegas mass shooting, a friend of the gunman implored him not to ‘shoot or kill innocent people,’ newspaper reports | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    A friend of Stephen Paddock, who carried out the deadliest mass shooting in modern US history in Las Vegas in 2017, said in letters that he was concerned about Paddock committing a shooting and asked him not to “shoot or kill innocent people,” according to writings obtained by the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

    Ten letters, which were obtained through a public records request, were “found in late November 2017 by the new owners of an abandoned office building in Mesquite, Texas,” according to FBI records, the newspaper reported. CNN has requested the records.

    “I can get someone for you who can help you,” Jim Nixon, Paddock’s friend, wrote in a letter dated May 27, 2017, according to the newspaper. “Please don’t go out shooting or hurting people who did nothing to you. I am concern [sic] about the way you are talking and believe you are going to do something very bad. Steve please please don’t do what I think you are going to do.”

    In October 2017, Paddock opened fire on a massive crowd of concertgoers from a window of the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino, killing 58 people in the initial shooting and injuring about 500 others. In the years after the massacre, two more victims have /died of shooting-related injuries.

    Paddock sent nine of the letters to Nixon between 2013 and June 2017, according to the report.None were shared in their entirety by the Review-Journal.

    Nixon told CNN he exchanged letters with Paddock about two or three times a year.

    They first met “around 2010 or 2011” in Virginia and developed a “good relationship,” he said. Nixon said after they became acquainted, he invited Paddock to Nevada to go fishing at Lake Mead and off-road biking in the desert.

    Nixon said there were never any problems with their relationship, but later Paddock became “bitter at the system” and started “talking a lot about death.” Paddock mentioned “going postal,” which made Nixon concerned about Paddock’s well-being, Nixon told CNN.

    Nixon asked in a letter from August 2014 about a statement Paddock allegedly made about executing an upcoming plan, the Review-Journal said.

    “You said in (3) years you would be ready and that your plan would show up in Nevada, California, Illinois, Texas, New York and other cities,” the Review-Journal reported one letter said. “What do you mean?”

    In another letter dated March 2, 2017, Nixon wrote: “You must going [sic] on a hunting trip with all those guns you are stockpiling,” according to the newspaper.

    “You are a good person and I want you to know that I am concern [sic] about you and your wellbeing,” Nixon wrote in the letter dated May 27, 2017, the Review-Journal reported. “I believe you are lying to me and you are going to hurt someone or kill someone. You sound like a real mad man on the phone tonight.”

    Nixon told CNN that he never conveyed his concerns about Paddock to authorities because “he didn’t know [Paddock] was going to do anything” and “couldn’t read [Paddock’s] mind.”

    Nixon said he didn’t believe Paddock did it when the first reports identifying the suspect surfaced. But when authorities was confirmed it was Paddock, he said he thought, “Damn, that fool.”

    About 22,000 people were attending a country music festival across the street from the Mandalay Bay on October 1, 2017, when Paddock opened fire. Witnesses said the gunfire last 10 to 15 minutes. Paddock, 64, took his own life before law enforcement officers knocked down his door, officials said.

    Authorities at the time said they found 23 guns in the room, and 24 more at his two homes.

    Investigators have for years searched for a motive. Recently, the FBI released a trove of documents that indicate he may have harbored resentment over how casinos treated him and other high rollers.

    The heavily redacted documents – which include hundreds of pages of investigation records, evidence inventories and interviews with people who knew Paddock – also provide a fuller picture of the gunman’s obsessive gambling habits.

    Still, the investigative documents never arrive at a definitive motive.

    The FBI opened its investigation the day after the massacre at the Route 91 Harvest music festival and closed it more than a year later, announcing it had found no clear motive for Paddock’s attack.

    Though the FBI said in 2019 that Paddock’s actions were not driven by a grievance against any particular casino or hotel, one fellow gambler interviewed by investigators after the attack said Paddock had become angry about how casinos generally dealt with VIP players.

    The gambler, whose name is redacted, told the FBI that Paddock was “upset at the way casinos were treating him and other high rollers” and that he believed the frustration could have caused the gunman to “snap,” according to the documents.

    The gambler said that while casinos typically treated high rollers to perks like free cruises and flights, he believed the venues’ approach to such players had changed in the years leading up to the shooting, including banning them from some hotels or casinos, the documents said.

    Paddock had been banned from three casinos he frequented in Reno, Nevada, the gambler said.

    The gambler also believed the Mandalay Bay “was not treating Paddock well because a player of his status should have been in a higher floor in a penthouse suite.”

    Due to the redactions, it is unclear how the gambler knew Paddock.

    In order to become the priority player he believed he was, Paddock had spent – and lost – exorbitant amounts of money at casinos, according to people interviewed by the FBI.

    The fellow gambler told investigators that Paddock had a bankroll of about $2 million to $3 million, the documents said.

    He would regularly play for six to eight hours a day at casinos, and sometimes as many as 18 hours a day, the gambler said.

    Investigators also spoke with a woman who worked at the Tropicana Las Vegas casino and resort – just down the Strip from the Mandalay Bay – who said Paddock would visit about every three months, according to the documents.

    She described Paddock as a “prolific video poker player” who would only want to discuss gambling when they talked, the documents said.

    During a three-day stay at the casino in September 2017, Paddock lost $38,000, she told the FBI.

    Real estate agents told CNN in 2017 that Paddock said his income came from gambling and that he gambled about $1 million a year. He paid $369,022 in cash for the home they sold him in 2014, the agents said.

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  • Hundreds of newspapers drop ‘Dilbert’ comic strip after racist tirade from creator Scott Adams | CNN Business

    Hundreds of newspapers drop ‘Dilbert’ comic strip after racist tirade from creator Scott Adams | CNN Business

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    New York
    CNN
     — 

    Newspapers across the country dropped the “Dilbert” comic strip over the weekend after the creator of the satirical cartoon went on a racist tirade, calling Black Americans a “hate group” and suggesting that White people should “get the hell away” from them.

    The USA Today Network, which operates hundreds of newspapers, said it had pulled the plug on the long-running comic strip. The Washington Post and The Plain Dealer also in Cleveland said they would no longer carry the comic.

    The move came after Scott Adams, the cartoonist behind “Dilbert,” effectively encouraged segregation in a shocking rant on YouTube. His comments came in response to a poll from the conservative firm Rasmussen Reports that said 53% of Black Americans agreed with the statement, “It’s OK to be White.”

    The Anti-Defamation League has noted that the phrase emerged on the infamous message board 4chan in 2017 as a trolling campaign and has a “long history” in the white supremacist movement.

    “If nearly half of all Blacks are not OK with White people – according to this poll, not according to me, according to th is poll – that’s a hate group,” Adams said Wednesday on his YouTube show “Real Coffee with Scott Adams.”

    “I don’t want to have anything to do with them,” Adams added. “And I would say, based on the current way things are going, the best advice I would give to White people is to get the hell away from Black people, just get the f**k away … because there is no fixing this.”

    Adams has since said on Twitter that he was only “advising people to avoid hate” and suggested that the cancellation of his cartoon signals that free speech in America is under assault.

    Andrews McMeel Syndication, the company that distributes “Dilbert,” did not immediately respond to a CNN request for comment.

    The newspapers that have cut the comic strip have been clear with readers.

    “Scott Adams, creator of the Dilbert comic strip, went on a racist rant this week … and we will no longer carry his comic strip in The Plain Dealer,” wrote Chris Quinn, editor of the paper. “This is not a difficult decision.”

    “We are not a home for those who espouse racism,” Quinn added. “We certainly do not want to provide them with financial support.”

    Gannett, which publishes the USA Today Network of newspapers, tweeted that it aims to “lead with inclusion and strive to maintain a respectful and equitable environment for the diverse communities we serve nationwide.”

    The Washington Post said it had also pulled the comic strip from the newspaper.

    “In light of Scott Adams’s recent statements promoting segregation, The Washington Post has ceased publication of the Dilbert comic strip,” it said.

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  • DOJ sues Google over its dominance in online advertising market | CNN Business

    DOJ sues Google over its dominance in online advertising market | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

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

    The move marks the Biden administration’s first blockbuster antitrust case against a Big Tech company. The eight states joining the suit include California, Colorado, Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Tennessee and Virginia.

    The fresh complaint significantly escalates the risks to Google emanating from Washington, where lawmakers and regulators have frequently raised concerns about the tech giant’s power but have so far failed to pass new legislation or regulations that might rein in the company or its peers.

    For years, Google’s critics have claimed that the company’s extensive role in the ecosystem that enables advertisers to place ads, and for publishers to offer up digital ad space, represents a conflict of interest that Google has exploited anticompetitively.

    In Tuesday’s complaint, a copy of which was viewed by CNN, the Justice Department alleged that Google actively and illegally maintained that dominance by engaging in a campaign to thwart competition. Google gobbled up rivals through anticompetitive mergers, the US government said, and bullied publishers and advertisers into using the company’s proprietary ad technology products.

    As part of the lawsuit, the US government called for Google to be broken up and for the court to order the company to spin off at least its online advertising exchange and its ad server for publishers, if not more.

    Google, the US government alleged, “has corrupted legitimate competition in the ad tech industry by engaging in a systematic campaign to seize control of the wide swath of high-tech tools used by publishers, advertisers, and brokers, to facilitate digital advertising. Having inserted itself into all aspects of the digital advertising marketplace, Google has used anticompetitive, exclusionary, and unlawful means to eliminate or severely diminish any threat to its dominance over digital advertising technologies.”

    The suit was filed in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.

    Tuesday’s suit marks the federal government’s second antitrust complaint against Google since 2020, when the Trump administration sued over Google’s alleged anticompetitive harms in search and search advertising. That case is still ongoing. Google has also been the target of antitrust litigation by state and private actors.

    In a statement, Google said the DOJ suit “attempts to pick winners and losers in the highly competitive advertising technology sector.”

    “DOJ is doubling down on a flawed argument that would slow innovation, raise advertising fees, and make it harder for thousands of small businesses and publishers to grow,” a Google spokesperson said, adding that a federal judge last year knocked down a claim that Google colluded with Facebook in a separate antitrust suit led by the state of Texas. That judge also ruled, however, that a number of monopolization claims in the Texas case could move forward.

    The lawsuit is a frontal assault against Google’s massive, primary business of advertising. Google generated $209 billion in advertising revenue in 2021, according to its annual report, a figure representing more than 80% of its total revenue. By comparison, the next largest giant in online advertising, Facebook-parent Meta, generated $115 billion in 2021.

    Third-party estimates suggest that Google and Facebook accounted for the majority of US digital ad revenues, hitting a peak around 2017, with Google taking about a third of the market. Since then, however, others including Amazon have begun encroaching on that business.

    The US complaint echoes concerns that have prompted similar antitrust investigations in the United Kingdom and in the European Union.

    Google not only controls the platform publishers use to sell online ad inventory, the Justice Department alleged Tuesday, but also the advertising tools marketers use to claim that inventory and the exchange that facilitates those transactions.

    “Google’s pervasive power over the entire ad tech industry has been questioned by its own digital advertising executives,” the complaint said, “at least one of whom aptly begged the question: ‘[I]s there a deeper issue with us owning the platform, the exchange, and a huge network? The analogy would be if Goldman or Citibank owned the NYSE.’”

    Tuesday’s complaint marks an opening salvo against Big Tech by DOJ’s antitrust chief, Jonathan Kanter. Kanter has spent months laying the groundwork for a broader offensive against the tech industry’s most dominant companies, reflecting commitments by President Joe Biden and others in the US government to hold powerful firms accountable. Under Kanter, Justice Department antitrust officials have pushed to bring more cases to trial as well as to prosecute cases involving unconventional legal theories.

    In 2020, House lawmakers released a 450-page report finding that Google, along with Amazon, Apple and Facebook, hold “monopoly power” in key business segments. The report was the result of a 16-month investigation in which congressional staff reviewed corporate documents and interviewed the tech industry’s many customers and rivals. It concluded, among other things, that Google was uniquely positioned to benefit from its powerful role in the online ad industry.

    “With a sizable share in the ad exchange market and the ad intermediary market, and as a leading supplier of ad space, Google simultaneously acts on behalf of publishers and advertisers, while also trading for itself,” the report said.

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  • Illinois governor signs extensive ban on firearms and high-capacity magazines | CNN Politics

    Illinois governor signs extensive ban on firearms and high-capacity magazines | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Illinois’ Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker on Tuesday signed legislation that enacts an extensive ban on firearms as well as high-capacity magazines in the state.

    The new law caps the sale of high-capacity ammunition magazines, bans “switches” that allow handguns to fire rounds automatically and “extends the ability of courts to prevent dangerous individuals from possessing a gun through firearm restraining orders,” the governor’s office said in a news release.

    The ban goes into effect immediately and will not require those who currently own such weapons to relinquish them, though people who already possess semi-automatic rifles will be required to register their ownership.

    “No Illinoisan, no matter their zip code, should have to go through life fearing their loved one could be the next in an ever-growing list of victims of mass shootings. However, for too long, people have lived in fear of being gunned down in schools, while worshipping, at celebrations or in their own front yards,” Pritzker said in a statement. “This legislation will stop the spread of assault weapons, high-capacity magazines, and switches and make our state a safer place for all.”

    The bill passed in a 34-20 vote in the state’s Senate on Monday and 68-41 in the House Tuesday, largely along party lines, before heading to Pritzker’s desk. Both chambers are controlled by Democrats.

    “This assault weapons ban is a step in the right direction, to improve safety for Illinois’ families and law enforcement but there’s no magic fix, no single law that will end gun violence once and for all. So, we must keep fighting, voting and protesting to ensure future generations will only have to read about massacres like Highland Park, Sandy Hook or Uvalde in their history books,” Pritzker said on Tuesday.

    In the Highland Park shooting, which took place at a Fourth of July parade in the Chicago suburb last year, the suspect allegedly fired more than 70 rounds into a crowd, killing seven people and injuring dozens more. The high-powered rifle that was used in the shooting was described by authorities as “similar to an AR-15” and was legally purchased.

    Several Republicans objected to the new law. State Rep. Dave Severin issued a statement in which he specifically criticized the registration requirement and supported legal challenges, while another representative, Charlie Meier, said the legislation “won’t prevent gang violence from occurring in our cities, however, it will unfortunately diminish law-abiding gun owners the right to protect themselves and their family at home.”

    Pritzker, who marked the start of his second gubernatorial term with Tuesday’s ban, has also signed legislation in the past to combat gun violence.

    In May 2022, the governor signed HB 4383, which prohibits individuals from selling or possessing so-called “ghost guns,” self-assembled firearms often put together with parts sold online, and ensures all firearms are serialized, allowing law enforcement to better trace them.

    Pritzker later signed HB4729 in June of last year, which requires the Department of Public Health to develop and implement a two-year public awareness campaign focused on safe gun storage.

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  • A Wall Street Journal reporter was handcuffed by police while standing outside a Chase Bank. The newspaper is demanding answers | CNN Business

    A Wall Street Journal reporter was handcuffed by police while standing outside a Chase Bank. The newspaper is demanding answers | CNN Business

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    New York
    CNN
     — 

    The Wall Street Journal is demanding answers from the Phoenix Police Department after an officer detained and handcuffed one of its reporters outside a Chase Bank — an incident that press freedom advocates say raises First Amendment concerns and mirrors a larger, growing hostility from local law enforcement toward journalists across the country.

    The incident between The Journal reporter Dion Rabouin and the Phoenix officer occurred in late November, but just became public his week after ABC affiliate KNXV reported on the matter. In a statement, The Journal said that it is “deeply concerned” with how its reporter was treated and has asked the Phoenix Police Department to conduct an investigation.

    “No journalist should ever be detained simply for exercising their First Amendment rights,” The Journal said.

    A version of this article first appeared in the “Reliable Sources” newsletter. Sign up here for the daily digest chronicling the evolving media landscape

    In response, the Phoenix Police Department — which is being probed by the Department of Justice to determine whether its officers retaliate against people “for conduct protected by the First Amendment” — stressed to me that the incident occurred on private property, but that the department had nonetheless shared concerns raised by the paper with the Professional Standards Bureau andthat an investigation is underway.

    At the crux of this particular matter is a rather innocent act of journalism. While visiting family in Arizona for the Thanksgiving holiday, Rabouin attempted to interview passersby on a sidewalk outside a Chase branch for an ongoing story about savings accounts, he told the Phoenix affiliate.

    Representatives from the bank approached him and asked what he was doing and Rabouin said he identified himself as a journalist. Rabouin said he was never asked to leave, but an officer soon arrived on the scene.

    Rabouin said he volunteered to simply stop reporting from the scene, but video captured by a bystander shows the responding officer handcuff him, put him in the back of a police vehicle, and even threaten to shove him in if he did not comply. The video shows Rabouin repeatedly identified himself as a reporter for The Journal, but the officer did not appear to care. The bystander who began recording the incident was also threatened with arrest.

    Ultimately, after about 15 minutes, when other officers showed up, Rabouin was allowed to walk free. A representative for Chase told me Thursday that the bank did apologize to Rabouin over the incident. But the local police department has thus far refrained from doing so.

    In a letter dated December 7 from Journal Editor-In-Chief Matt Murray to Phoenix Police Department Interim Chief Michael Sullivan, the editor described the officer’s conduct as “offensive to civil liberties,” and demanded to know what steps the department will take to “ensure that neither Mr. Rabouin nor any other journalist is again subjected to such conduct.” The Journal told me Thursday that Murray has not received a response from Sullivan.

    For press freedom advocates, the incident is representative of countless others that take place around the US each year. According to the US Press Freedom Tracker, at least 218 journalists have been arrested in the country since 2020.

    Bruce Brown, the executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, told me in a statement that “the alarming number of incidents we’ve seen over the last several years where police have detained, arrested, or assaulted journalists who were doing their jobs threatens to chill this kind of essential newsgathering.”

    Brown added, “It’s time for the law enforcement community to hold itself accountable for its actions. The Phoenix Police Department can start now.”

    The Committee to Protect Journalists has also sounded the alarm over the incident. Katherine Jacobsen, the organization’s US and Canada program director, told me the detention of Rabouin “highlights a very real threat faced by reporters – especially local reporters – across the country.” Jacobsen went on to say that it is “disheartening to see acts of hostility toward journalists working in the United States.”

    Through a spokesperson, Rabouin declined to comment to me on Thursday. But he did post one tweet about the matter.

    “Thanks to everyone who has reached out to offer support,” Rabouin wrote. “We’re hoping to hear back from the chief or someone at the department soon.”

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  • Hugh Jackman’s frenemy dynamic with Ryan Reynolds will bleed into ‘Deadpool 3’: ‘They ‘hate each other’ | CNN

    Hugh Jackman’s frenemy dynamic with Ryan Reynolds will bleed into ‘Deadpool 3’: ‘They ‘hate each other’ | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Hugh Jackman is sharing details on how his best-known character, grisly mutant X-Man Wolverine, will interact with Ryan Reynolds’s wisecracking Deadpool in the upcoming “Deadpool 3.”

    In a recent Empire Film podcast, Jackman said the two characters are a “zero” in terms of compatibility, calling them “opposites” and saying that they “hate each other” – all of which will make for some really good odd-couple type humor in the movie.

    “He’s annoyed by him,” he said on the podcast. “[Wolverine is] frustrated by [Deadpool and] wants to be a million miles away from him or wants to punch him in the head. Unfortunately, he can’t be a million miles away from him in this movie, so I’m probably going to punch him in the head a lot.”

    The dynamic also mirrors Jackman’s interactions with Reynolds offscreen, as the friends share a long-running gag of pretending to dislike each other on social media, often mocking or ridiculing one another for a laugh.

    Jackman has (astonishingly) been portraying Wolverine, also known as Logan, since the year 2000, when the first “X-Men” movie came out.

    He has donned the adamantium claws almost a dozen times since, even helping to introduce Reynolds as Deadpool/Wade Wilson (in an early and unsuccessful iteration) in 2009’s “X-Men Origins: Wolverine.”

    The “Son” actor’s last go-round as Wolverine came in 2017’s well-received “Logan,” which wrapped up the character’s storyline in a neat and according to him, “perfect” way, nabbing an Oscar nomination for best adapted screenplay in the process.

    Jackman made it clear in the podcast that the new film takes place firmly before the events of “Logan,” so that it won’t change that movie’s timeline for the fan-favorite character.

    He had previously said that “Logan” would be his last time playing Wolverine, which of course is no longer the case. In the podcast, he was actually able to pinpoint the exact date this summer when he had a change of heart.

    “It was August 14th, I remember driving, and it came to me like that, I just thought, this is going to be so much fun. I’ll probably have more fun on that movie than anything I’ve ever done,” he said.

    Ryan Reynolds in 'Deadpool 2'

    Even still, Jackman said the process for training to become Wolverine – a character he identifies as being farthest from who he really is as a person – gets harder every time, but that this time around, he has some extra motivation.

    “I just get the added incentive of taking Ryan Reynolds out every day. So I really want to be in good shape for that, so I can enjoy it!”

    “Deadpool 3” is due in theaters in November of 2024.

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  • Inside Christine McVie’s and Stevie Nicks’ decades-long friendship | CNN

    Inside Christine McVie’s and Stevie Nicks’ decades-long friendship | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Throughout the various personal turmoils for which the members of Fleetwood Mac are known, one relationship buoyed the band for decades: the friendship between its two frontwomen, Christine McVie and Stevie Nicks.

    McVie joined the band in 1970 during one of its early lineup changes and for years was its only woman. When Nicks was added to the lineup in 1975, the two became fast friends.

    Theirs was not a competitive relationship, but a sisterly one – both women were gifted songwriters responsible for crafting many of the band’s best-known tunes. Though the two grew apart in the 1980s amid Nicks’ worsening drug addiction and the band’s growing internal tension, they came back together when McVie returned to Fleetwood Mac in 2014.

    At a concert in London, shortly before McVie officially rejoined the band, Nicks dedicated the song “Landslide” to her “mentor. Big sister. Best friend.” And at the show’s end, McVie was there, accompanying her bandmates for “Don’t Stop.”

    “I never want her to ever go out of my life again, and that has nothing to do with music and everything to do with her and I as friends,” Nicks told the Minneapolis Star-Tribune in 2015.

    On Wednesday, McVie, the band’s “songbird,” died after a brief illness at age 79. Below, revisit McVie’s and Nicks’ years-long relationship as bandmates, best friends and “sisters.”

    The story of Nicks joining Fleetwood Mac is legend now: Band founder and drummer Mick Fleetwood wanted to recruit guitarist Lindsey Buckingham, who stipulated that he would only join if his girlfriend and musician Nicks could join, too. McVie cast the deciding vote, and the rest is history.

    “It was critical that I got on with her because I’d never played with another girl,” McVie told the Guardian in 2013. “But I liked her instantly. She was funny and nice but also there was no competition. We were completely different on the stage to each other and we wrote differently too.”

    Throughout the band’s many personal complications – McVie married and divorced Fleetwood Mac bassist John McVie and had an affair with the band’s lighting director, while Nicks had rollercoaster romances with Buckingham and Fleetwood – they were each other’s center.

    “To be in a band with another girl who was this amazing musician – (McVie) kind of instantly became my best friend,” Nicks told the New Yorker earlier this year. “Christine was a whole other ballgame. She liked hanging out with the guys. She was just more comfortable with men than I had ever been.”

    The two protected each other, Nicks said, in a male-dominated industry: “We made a pact, in the very beginning, that we would never be treated with disrespect by all the male musicians in the community.

    “I would say to her, ‘Together, we are a serious force of nature, and it will give us the strength to maneuver the waters that are ahead of us,’” Nicks told the New Yorker.

    “Rumours” was the band’s greatest success to date when it was released in 1977. But the band’s relationships with each other were deteriorating, save for the one between McVie and Nicks. While the pair were enduring breakups with their significant others, Nicks and McVie spent their time offstage together.

    The Guardian asked McVie if she was trying to offset the band’s tumult with her songs on “Rumours,” including the lighthearted “You Make Lovin’ Fun” and optimistic “Don’t Stop.” She said she likely had been.

    As multiple members’ drug use intensified, the band’s dynamic grew tense. McVie distanced herself from the group in 1984 amid her bandmates’ addictions, telling the Guardian she was “just sick of it.” Nicks, meanwhile, was becoming dependent on cocaine.

    After Fleetwood Mac was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1998, Christine McVie (third from left) quit the band.

    McVie told Rolling Stone that year that she’d grown apart from Nicks: “She seems to have developed her own fantasy world, somehow, which I’m not part of. We don’t socialize much.”

    In 1986, Nicks checked into the Betty Ford Center to treat her addiction, though she later became addicted to Klonopin, which she said claimed years of her life. She quit the prescription drug in the 1990s.

    After recording some solo works, McVie returned to Fleetwood Mac for their 1987 album “Tango in the Night,” and two of her songs on that record – “Little Lies” and “Everywhere” – became major hits. But Nicks departed the band soon after, and the band’s best-known lineup wouldn’t officially reunite until 1997 for “The Dance” tour and subsequent live album.

    The reunion was short-lived: After the band was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1998, McVie officially quit Fleetwood Mac, citing a fear of flying and exhaustion of life on the road.

    In the 2010s, after more than a decade of retirement, McVie toyed with returning to performing. She officially rejoined Fleetwood Mac after calling Fleetwood himself and gauging what her return would mean for the group.

    “Fortunately Stevie was dying for me to come back, as were the rest of the band,” she told the Arts Desk.

    In 2015, a year after she’d rejoined Fleetwood Mac, McVie hit the road with her bandmates. Touring with the group was tiring but fun, the first time they’d performed together in years.

    “I’m only here for Stevie,” she told the New Yorker that year.

    Christine McVie (left) and Stevie Nicks perform together at Radio City Music Hall in 2018.

    Nicks concurred: “When we went on the road, I realized what an amazing friend she’d been of mine that I had lost and didn’t realize the whole consequences of it till now,” she told the Minneapolis Star-Tribune in 2015.

    During that tour, McVie wore a silver chain that Nicks had given her – a “metaphor,” McVie told the New Yorker, “that the chain of the band will never be broken. Not by me, anyways. Not again by me.”

    McVie told the Arts Desk in 2016 that she and Nicks were “better friends now than (they) were 16 years ago.”

    Touring with Buckingham and Fleetwood could quickly get tumultuous for Nicks, McVie said, due to their shared history. “But with me in there, it gave Stevie the chance to get her breath back and not have this constant thing going on with Lindsey: her sister was back,” she said.

    Their mutual praise continued: In 2019, McVie said Nicks was “just unbelievable” onstage: “The more I see her perform on stage the better I think she is. She holds the fort.”

    When their 2018-2019 tour ended, though – without Buckingham, who was fired – the band “kind of broke up,” McVie told Rolling Stone earlier this year. She added that she didn’t speak with Nicks as often as she did when they toured together.

    As for a reunion, McVie told Rolling Stone that while it wasn’t off the table, she wasn’t feeling “physically up for it.”

    “I’m getting a bit long in the teeth here,” she said. “I’m quite happy being at home. I don’t know if I ever want to tour again. It’s bloody hard work.”

    News of McVie’s death rattled Nicks, who wrote that she had only found out McVie was sick days earlier. She called McVie her “best friend in the whole world since the first day of 1975.”

    On her social media accounts, Nicks shared a handwritten note containing lyrics from the Haim song “Hallelujah,” some of which discusses grief and the loss of a best friend.

    “See you on the other side, my love,” Nicks wrote. “Don’t forget me – Always, Stevie.”

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  • Oklahoma governor calls on officials to resign over recording of racist and threatening remarks | CNN

    Oklahoma governor calls on officials to resign over recording of racist and threatening remarks | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    The governor of Oklahoma is calling on four McCurtain County officials to resign after they allegedly participated in a secretly recorded conversation that included racist remarks about lynching Black people and talking about killing journalists.

    The McCurtain Gazette-News over the weekend published the audio it said was recorded following a Board of Commissioners meeting on March 6.

    The paper said the audio of the meeting was legally obtained, but the McCurtain County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement that it was illegally recorded and is investigating. The sheriff’s office also said it believes the recording had been altered.

    “I am both appalled and disheartened to hear of the horrid comments made by officials in McCurtain County,” Gov. Kevin Stitt said in a statement Sunday. “There is simply no place for such hateful rhetoric in the state of Oklahoma, especially by those that serve to represent the community through their respective office. I will not stand idly by while this takes place,” the statement said.

    The governor called for the immediate resignations of McCurtain County Sheriff Kevin Clardy, District 2 Commissioner Mark Jennings, sheriff’s investigator Alicia Manning and jail administrator Larry Hendrix. He also said he would ask the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation to look into the case.

    McCurtain County is in southeastern Oklahoma, about 200 miles from Oklahoma City.

    The recording was made hours after Gazette-News reporter Chris Willingham filed a lawsuit against the sheriff’s office, Manning and the Board of County Commissioners, alleging they had defamed him and violated his civil rights, the newspaper reported.

    In the recording, Manning spoke of needing to go near the newspaper’s office and expressed concern about what would happen if she ran into Willingham, the Oklahoman reported, citing additional reporting from the Gazette-News.

    According to the Oklahoman report, Jennings said, “Oh, you’re talking about you can’t control yourself?” and Manning replied: “Yeah, I ain’t worried about what he’s gonna do to me. I’m worried about what I might do to him. My papaw would have whipped his a**, would have wiped him and used him for toilet paper … if my daddy hadn’t been run over by a vehicle, he would have been down there.”

    Jennings replied that his father was once upset by something the newspaper published and “started to go down there and just kill him,” according to the Gazette-News.

    “I know where two big, deep holes are here if you ever need them,” Jennings allegedly said. Clardy, the sheriff, allegedly said he had the equipment.

    “I’ve got an excavator,” Clardy is accused of saying during the discussion. “Well, these are already pre-dug,” Jennings allegedly said.

    In other parts of the recording, officials expressed disappointment that Black people could no longer be lynched, according to the paper.

    CNN has not been able to verify the authenticity of the recording or confirm who said what. CNN has reached out to all four county officials for comment.

    The Oklahoma Sheriffs’ Association voted Tuesday to suspend the membership of Clardy, Manning and Hendrix, the group’s executive director told CNN.

    Willingham and his father, Bruce Willingham, the paper’s publisher, have been advised to temporarily leave town, CNN affiliate KJRH reported.

    “For nearly a year, they have suffered intimidation, ridicule and harassment based solely on their efforts to report the news for McCurtain County,” Kilpatrick Townsend, the law firm representing the Willingham family, told CNN in a statement.

    The McCurtain County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement Monday that there is an “ongoing investigation into multiple significant violations” of the Oklahoma Security of Communications Act, which makes it “illegal to secretly record a conversation in which you are not involved and do not have the consent of at least one of the involved parties.” It also said the recording has yet to be “duly authenticated or validated.”

    “Our preliminary information indicates that the media released audio recording has, in fact, been altered. The motivation for doing so remains unclear at this point. That matter is actively being investigated,” the statement said.

    The Oklahoma Attorney General’s Office has received an audio recording and is investigating, Communications Director Phil Bacharach said.

    The FBI wouldn’t confirm or deny whether it was involved in the investigation, with spokesperson Kayla McCleery saying it is agency policy not to comment.

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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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  • 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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  • 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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  • 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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  • 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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