Scopes at 100 / Lesson plan / Betting man

Scopes at 100. A century ago, the ‘‘most famous trial in America’’ helped tackle questions about free speech and freedom of religion. They remain today.
■ After waiving a press-freedom defense, Paramount’s settlement with President Trump is examined by Ken Paulson, director of the Free Speech Center at Middle Tennessee State University.
■ A senior editor at MSNBC says in an opinion piece that he is both proud of America and ashamed of what has happened to it.

■ Next term, the U.S. Supreme Court will review whether federal spending limits on campaign finances violates the First Amendment.

Access impact. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld a Texas law blocking children under the age of 18 from online porn sites.

■ The Supreme Court’s decision came while a federal court was considering another age-verification case.
■ First Amendment advocates express concern that government can require Americans to identify themselves before viewing constitutionally protected pornographic material.

■ Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has raised concerns that courts are misapplying the First Amendment in cases regarding political speech.
■ The high court ruled that Maryland parents can pull their children out of public-school classrooms where LGBTQ+ storybooks are being used in lessons.

Lesson plan. To survive, universities must acknowledge the importance of civic friendship, contended the authors of an opinion piece in The Washington Post.
■ A federal judge heard testimony from professors and students before ruling on whether the University of Alabama’s anti-DEI law violates the First Amendment.
■ Punishing universities for their viewpoints is unconstitutional, director Thomas A. Berry argued for the Cato Institute.

New suit. Efforts by President Trump to deport pro-Palestinian activists are being challenged in federal court.
■ A man barred from publicly evangelizing in Mississippi could have his case heard by the nation’s highest court.
■ A group of authors have asked major publishers to promise that “they will never release” books that were created by artificial intelligence.
■ The First Amendment implications of AI-generated speech should be recognized by federal courts, according to the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression.

Betting man. Google and PayPal made him rich, now Michael Moritz is placing his money on the news business.
■ Kari Lake’s take on the fate of Voice of America: ‘‘Scrap the whole thing and start over.”

■ An immigration judge grants bond for a Spanish-language journalist who was arrested covering Atlanta protests.

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Targeting / Face up / Silent Voice

Targeting. President Trump vowed to be a First Amendment champion but now free speech is measurably under attack, according to an analysis by The Guardian.
■ Texas legislators are on the verge of rolling back a 2019 law that protected campus speech.
■ Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian-rights activist and legal permanent resident of the United States, won his freedom despite the efforts of Homeland Security Investigations, The Intercept reported.
■ As millions peacefully rally against authoritarianism, the Trump administration wrongly portrays the protests as threats, a political science professor explained in The Conversation.

Face up. Mask-wearing protesters that drew the ire of the president have sparked a debate that tests free-speech rights. 

■ A First Amendment group has sued the city of Los Angeles and its police department over its officers’ violating the press rights of journalists covering immigration protests.
■ Journalism advocates have questioned whether reporters are becoming targets of law enforcement while covering demonstrations.
■ A Spanish-language journalist documenting immigration raids in Atlanta was taken away and detained by ICE agents.

Striking Ten. Louisiana’s law for requiring the display of the Ten Commandments in public schools was ruled “plainly unconstitutional” by a U.S. court of appeals judicial panel. 
■ Likely facing a legal challenge, the governor of Texas signed a bill stipulating that public schools display the Ten Commandments.

■ Families in Arkansas have filed a lawsuit challenging a state measure requiring display of the Ten Commandments in classrooms.
■ The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear an appeal from a faith-based pregnancy center over releasing sensitive information.

Silent Voice. More than 600 Voice of America employees were given layoff notices, effectively shutting down the news outlet that has served listeners since World War II.
■ On social media, Donald Trump has attacked the press on average once a day for the last decade, according to the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker.
■ Oil companies have been citing free speech when fighting lawsuits that accuse them of spreading misinformation about climate change.
■ Four experts in artificial turf on playgrounds and sports fields were sued for defamation before a planned discussion about potential health risks for children even took place.

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Road work / No redress / Backfired

Road work. The soon-to-be lone Democrat on the FCC has embarked on a “First Amendment Tour” to speak out against President Trump’s threats on free-speech rights.
■ The latest White House travel ban undercuts free speech and restricts the flow of information and ideas, creative-expression groups have declared.

■ Were First Amendment protections ignored in President Trump’s decision to send troops to quell protests in California?

■ Trump has asked Congress to eliminate $1.1 billion earmarked for public broadcasting.

Gulf widens. The free-speech battle with the Trump administration produced an incremental loss for The Associated Press at the hands of the three-judge U.S. Court of Appeals.
■ The latest attempt by President Trump to block international students from attending Harvard University has been halted by a federal judge.
■ A report by The Intercept detailed how the Trump administration’s attempt to search Instagram accounts of Columbia University student protesters was blocked by federal judges on First Amendment grounds.
■ Americans expressed concern that government efforts to regulate artificial intelligence may lead to limits on free speech, according to poll results from FIRE (Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression).

No redress. A Massachusetts student’s “Only two genders” T-shirt appeal has been rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court.
■ Supreme Court justices sided with a Wisconsin Catholic charity in a religious-rights tax case.
■ Federal agencies cannot punish Catholic health-care providers that refuse for religious reasons to assist transgender patients, a federal judge has ruled.
■ Four states have used the First Amendment right of petition to get the Food and Drug Administration to lift its restrictions on abortion pills.

Backfired. President Trump’s retribution crusade against Harvard University, law firms, and others, is ironically being thwarted in large part by a 2024 NRA First Amendment decision.
■ Florida’s ban on social media accounts for young children has been delayed by a federal judge.
■ A push by Texas lawmakers to ban social media for those under 18 failed to become law before the state legislative session ended.
■ A University of California-San Francisco professor has sued the university, alleging that her 2024 suspension over Gaza comments she made online violated her First Amendment rights.

Win some, lose some. It is much more than bad luck that makes some hometown newspapers disappear, a university researcher found.
■ A Pentagon reporter for One America News discovered there were limits to expressing her opinions.

■ ABC News has suspended news correspondent Terry Moran following online comments where he called Trump official Stephen Miller a “world-class hater.”

■ Purdue University announced it has ceased distribution assistance for The Exponent, the school’s 135-year-old campus newspaper.
■ Ronnie Dugger, the crusading editor of a small but influential Texas publication, has died at 95.

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Free country? / Art speech / Prez vs. prez

Free country? The biggest threat from the Trump administration is the push to silence the speech of political adversaries, declared law professor Jessica Levinson in an MSNBC commentary.
■ Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has implemented new press restrictions at the Pentagon, NPR reported.

■ Press-freedom organizations have launched a network to give legal assistance, resources, and training to U.S. journalists and newsrooms.

■ An ad campaign against an airline that operates flights for deportees has set off a free-speech legal fight.

Unprotected bots. In a trial over the cause of a teen’s death, a judge ruled against an argument that AI chatbots have free-speech rights.
■ Two major daily newspapers published summer reading lists that were filled with AI-generated imaginary book titles.
■ In an era of banned books, a wave of new shop owners has embraced independent bookselling, the Associated Press reported.
■ A patron-led challenge over the removal of books from a Texas library was struck down by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

■ A Colorado couple was found guilty in a cross-burning hoax that was meant to generate voter sympathy for a mayoral candidate.

Art speech. After three years of legal wrangling, a U.S. District judge ruled that a New Hampshire bakery’s rooftop mural is a constitutional display.
■ A rare tie vote in the U.S. Supreme Court has ended Oklahoma’s efforts to create the nation’s first religious charter school.

■ Texas is one step closer to having the Ten Commandments displayed in all public-school classrooms.

■ Court justices ordered the Maine Legislature to restore the votes of a representative who was censured for identifying a transgender teen athlete online.

■ A new Tennessee law is a deliberate threat to the First Amendment, a senior legal fellow at Vanderbilt University contended in a Tennessee Lookout commentary.

Breaking news… literally. Nine months pregnant, a local TV news anchor did the morning newscast after labor contractions began and her water broke.
■ President Trump again blasted Harvard University over international students just days after a federal judge declared his administration’s ban on enrolling foreign students was unconstitutional.
■ The Trump administration cannot fight censorship with censorship, declared the executive vice president of FIRE (Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression).

■ Columbia University’s acting president heard boos and shouts of “Free Mahmoud” during her commencement speech.

■ A Nevada school district has been sued by the ACLU for failing to adhere to a law allowing students to wear certain regalia at graduation ceremonies.

Prez vs. prez. Tensions with President Trump, clashes over editorial principles with Paramount, led to the resignation of CBS News president Wendy McMahon.
■ In case you missed it, the publisher of The New York Times penned an opinion piece declaring that a free people need a free press.
■ School newspapers from opposite ends of the country teamed up to heal from wildfires by getting individual stories out.
■ Archives from punk rock fanzine Maximum Rocknroll have been donated to the Center for Popular Music at Middle Tennessee State University.

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Freed-om / Bear witness / Fighting back

Freed-om. The Tufts University doctoral student incarcerated for writing an op-ed on the school’s failure to condemn Israel’s war in Gaza has been released from federal custody.
■ A federal judge in Boston questioned whether non-citizens have the same free-speech protections as U.S. citizens.
■ President Donald Trump’s attack on a fundraising platform for Democratic candidates violates the First Amendment, an Amherst College professor explained in The Hill.

■ The Trump administration's hostility towards journalists is getting tougher and louder, the Associated Press reported.

No game. A civil lawsuit filed in Florida could determine whether AI chatbots share the same free-speech rights that people do.
■ The president has targeted Mexican drug cartels but now he’s also after the musicians who sing about them.

■ A Michigan school’s insistence that a third-grade student remove a hat adorned with the image of an AR-15 rifle and the message, “Come and take it,” did not violate any free-speech rights.
■ The elimination of public-records staff at health agencies has threatened access to government data under the Freedom of Information Act.

Bear witness. Media companies, including the Associated Press, argued in a federal lawsuit that an Indiana ban on reporters at state-sanctioned executions is unconstitutional.
■ Pope Leo XIV, in his first public meeting with media members, called for “the precious gift of free speech” to be protected.

■ Journalists have to band together in defending the First Amendment, a University of Iowa professor proposed in a PEN America commentary.
■ Funding for public and nonprofit media outlets is being threatened by an executive order from President Trump.

Censorial hammer time. A free-speech double-standard is hiding in plain sight on library shelves, postulated conservative author Connor Boyack.
■ North Dakota’s Republican governor has vetoed bills that would further restrict library content and create a private-school voucher program.
■ The Ten Commandments can go up, and pride flags will come down, after Alabama lawmakers approved a slew of conservative-sponsored bills.
■ Chief Justice John Roberts has emerged as a swing vote in whether the U.S. Supreme Court will allow the nation’s first publicly funded religious charter school.

Fighting back. A former White House reporter is leading the charge to save Voice of America and calling on media to resist attacks from the Trump administration.
■ Can the far-right coverage of One America News fuel Voice of America? Kari Lake thinks so.
■ Axios has compiled a winning list of 2025 Pulitzer Prizes in journalism.

■ Sen. Bernie Sanders has asked Paramount’s Shari Redstone not to settle a Trump lawsuit against CBS News.
■ Kenneth Walker, whose reporting on apartheid South Africa for ABC’s “Nightline” helped the show win an Emmy, has died.

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Free spirited / Time-tested / Monopoly money

Free spirited. Americans largely believe freedom of the press is important, but fewer believe the press is actually free, according to a new study by the Pew Research Center.
■ Harvard University contended in a lawsuit against the federal government that a $2.2 billion funding freeze violated its First Amendment rights.
■ Environmental groups have sued the Trump administration for violating their free-speech rights through frozen or canceled climate initiatives.
■ Seattle police officers who attended the Jan. 6, 2021, rally at the nation’s Capitol have petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to keep their names out of public records related to the insurrection.

Actions speak louder than words. President Trump once declared that free speech mattered but he has undermined it instead, asserted a Miami University professor in a commentary.
■ Pro-Hamas speech – or any speech that Americans might hate – remains protected by the First Amendment, affirmed retired constitutional lawyer Stephen Rohde.

■ A Tennessee town’s ordinance that limits the number of flags and signs that residents can display is getting pushback from the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression.
■ The Justice Department has rescinded Biden-era protections for reporters in leak investigations, opening the door for subpoenas, search warrants, and court orders.

Time-tested. After being “tested and attacked,” journalists were celebrated without a comedian or a sitting president at the annual White House Correspondents’ Association dinner.
■ The dismantling of Voice of America by the Trump administration has been blocked by a federal judge.
■ A jury has ruled that The New York Times did not libel former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.

■ Donald Trump’s actions against the press are detailed and explained by John R. Vile, dean of the Honors College at Middle Tennessee State University.

Monopoly money. Google acted illegally in monopolizing its online advertising technology, a judge has ruled.
■ A federal judge struck down as unconstitutional an Ohio law limiting social media use for children under 16.
■ A federal court ruled against a Maine lawmaker who was censured by state representatives for posting remarks about a transgender athlete on social media.

■ Philip Sechler, senior counsel for a conservative Christian legal advocacy group, has a First Amendment argument for allowing a Catholic charter school in Oklahoma and will bring it to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Ticking down? Whether through corporate pressure or corporate cowardice, pessimism has befallen CBS’ storied weekly news show “60 Minutes,” opined Erik Wemple, The Washington Post’s media critic.
■ Correspondent Scott Pelley gave an unusual on-air rebuke on “60 Minutes” to parent company Paramount days after the show’s executive producer resigned.

■ Herbert Gans, a groundbreaking media analyst and author who wrote about the local impact of government policy, has died.
■ Former Village Voice editor Karen Durbin, a fierce advocate of sexual liberation who pushed the weekly to cover women’s issues, has passed away at age 80.

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Swing shift / Beg pardon / Bro cast

Swing shift. President Donald Trump has the hallowed ground of freedom of speech shifting under our feet, according to an NPR special report.
■ Meta’s social media dominance is being challenged by the Federal Trade Commission in a landmark monopoly case.
■ A legal expert explained the consequences of repealing “the law that built the internet,” otherwise known as Section 230. 
■ Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. promised “radical transparency” before gutting Freedom of Information Act offices across the federal landscape.

‘Removability finding.’ An immigration judge has ruled that Columbia University graduate and permanent resident Mahmoud Khalil can be deported based on “beliefs, statements, or associations.”
■ Free-speech advocates issued warnings that student deportations, detentions, and visa revocations should worry every American.
■ Poynter’s Kelly McBride has detailed how NPR covers national protests while it fields complaints about its coverage.
■ Fearing legal repercussions and professional consequences, student journalists are resigning and are removing their names from published articles.

Beg pardon. Alabama’s anti-panhandling laws are unconstitutional and begging is protected speech, a federal appeals court has ruled.
■ Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp signed a religious-freedom bill in part fulfilling a goal of the state GOP leaders since 2015.
■ A federal judge has sided with President Trump in allowing immigration enforcement actions in houses of worship.

■ The buffer zone for protesters at the Karen Read trial does not violate the First Amendment, a federal judge has ruled.

Home bound? Foreign journalists working for U.S.-backed media fear returning to their repressive homelands in the wake of funding cuts.
■ Harvard professors have sued the Trump administration over federal funding cuts that they say would violate their First Amendment rights.
■ A federal judge ordered the White House to reinstate full access to The Associated Press for covering presidential events.

Bro cast. California Gov. Gavin Newsom has a potential way for Democrats to connect with young male voters: his podcast.
■ A Delaware judge ruled that Newsmax made defamatory statements in 2020 about Dominion Voting Systems and that the case now would proceed to a trial by jury.
■ A former Mississippi governor has his defamation suit against a local news outlet dismissed by a county circuit court judge.
■ More than five dozen media and press-freedom groups have joined to fight a Trump administration executive order they say threatens free expression.

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On their heels / Book 'em / En garde

On their heels. Only two months into President Trump’s second term, the news industry is being attacked from all directions in a concerted effort to discredit and obstruct journalism.
■ The Trump administration has been blocked from firing Voice of America staff by a federal judge.

■ A Republican congresswoman told CBS News that a Voice of America shutdown would cede international airwaves to foreign dictators.
■ Led by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican lawmakers targeted “biased” PBS and NPR at congressional hearing.
■ Lawyers for The Associated Press have urged a federal judge to reinstate the news agency’s access to the White House press pool.

Whisked away. In Donald Trump’s America anyone seemingly can be nabbed off the street and vanish simply for writing an opinion piece, reasoned reporter Jonah Valdez in The Intercept.
■ A Tufts University doctoral student was seized by masked officers and flown 1,500 miles away to an ICE Processing Center.
■ A 21-year-old lawful permanent resident has sued the Trump administration in an effort to avoid deportation.
■ The Trump administration has proposed the vetting of social media profiles of green-card applicants who already are living in the United States.

Book ‘em. Texas lawmakers want to impose criminal penalties on schoolteachers and librarians who provide literature to students deemed to contain sexually explicit content.
■ In a Politico Q&A, a national security insider explained the “insane” Signal chat leak in which a journalist was added to a war-plans group.
■ The North Dakota ruling in a rural county courtroom against Greenpeace in the Standing Rock case is a threat to free speech, argued directors for Greenpeace and the ACLU in an opinion piece in The Guardian.
■ The interim president of Columbia University has resigned days after she announced the overhaul of campus rules for protests and student discipline.

Beliefs system. An Oklahoma push to teach religion in public schools could undo the longtime understanding of the separation of church and state.

■ The U.S. Supreme Court has heard arguments about whether Wisconsin violated First Amendment religious protections by denying tax exemptions for religiously affiliated groups.

■ A federal appeals court has heard arguments in a free-speech lawsuit that challenges an Ohio school district policy on gender pronouns.
■ Students at Texas A&M University sued to keep an annual on-campus drag show and were victorious.

En garde. Media-misinformation rating firm NewsGuard has a defamation suit levied against it thrown out by a U.S. district judge.
■ A former meteorologist who was the victim of deepfakes has backed a Tennessee bill to criminalize the AI-generated files.
■ Comedian Amber Ruffin, who has lampooned Washington politics, has been removed from the White House Correspondents’ Association annual dinner along with all comedic performances.
■ Max Frankel, the former New York Times executive editor who spent nearly a half-century with the newspaper, has died.
■ The founder and editor of Mother Jones magazine, Jeffrey Bruce Klein, is dead at age 77.

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Speechless / Listen up / Gut punch

Speechless. Following the arrest of Mahmoud Khalil, First Amendment advocates agree that they have never seen freedom of speech under attack as it has been during the first months of President Donald Trump’s second term.
■ Secretary of State Marco Rubio rejected the notion that the detainment of former Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil is about First Amendment rights.

■ In the “land of the free” we do not punish speech, explained Ken Paulson, director of the Free Speech Center at Middle Tennessee State University, in a recent perspective.
■ Trump’s crackdown on student protesters has sent shock waves across the campuses of U.S. universities.

Liar, liar? If Elon Musk really champions free speech, he should choose his words more carefully while working for the government, asserted David Keating in a USA Today opinion piece.
■ A federal judge ruled that Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) must respond to public records requests under the Freedom of Information Act.

■ The nation celebrates Sunshine Week while the sun appears to be setting on government transparency in Florida. 
■ Harvard researchers, claiming their First Amendment rights were violated, have sued the Trump administration for pulling their work from a government website.
■ Previously blocked portions of President Trump’s executive orders targeting DEI programs were reinstated by a federal appeals court.

Listen up. Animal-rights group PETA wants to hear monkey “communications” at the National Institute of Mental Health, and has filed a lawsuit claiming that listeners of speech have the same First Amendment rights as speakers do.
■ The U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear another free-speech case involving conversion therapy bans for LGBTQ+ children.
■ Supreme Court justices rejected a religious discrimination case by a California fire captain who claimed he was fired over his Christian faith.
■ The estate of Gene Hackman has asked a state district court in New Mexico to block the public release of documents or images from the investigation of the actor’s death.

Sharp decline. With civil liberties under attack by the Trump administration, the United States has been added to a global human-rights watchlist.
■ In his book Murder the Truth  author David Enrich examined the Trump administration’s campaign against the First Amendment.

■ Trump is snubbed at the Gridiron Club Dinner as the annual presidential "toast" goes to the First Amendment instead.

■ Idaho has become the 35th state to enact an anti-SLAPP law protecting free speech by curtailing frivolous lawsuits.

Gut punch. Voice of America is one of several media outlets gutted by President Trump’s executive order to dismantle federal agencies.
■ The concept of viewpoint discrimination is explained as tensions between Trump and journalists continue to spike.
■ Former Fox News producer has her sexual assault lawsuit against a former anchor and correspondent dismissed by a federal judge.
■ John Feinstein, one of the country’s foremost sports writers and author of the innovative A Season on the Brink, has died unexpectedly at age 69.

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How far? / Saving Sullivan / Anchors away

How far? President Donald Trump’s sweeping attack on freedom of expression threatens the First Amendment rights of private groups and individuals, The Washington Post reported.
■ Owner Jeff Bezos reportedly told staff that The Washington Post would no longer publish opinion pieces that failed to support and defend personal liberties and free markets.
■ U.S. Supreme Court justices refused to hear cases from abortion foes that contend limiting anti-abortion demonstrations near clinics violates their First Amendment rights.

■ A Trump administration immigration policy allowing agents to make arrests in churches was blocked by a federal judge.

Handpicking hand-wringing. The White House has always had a contentious relationship with the press but the takeover of the press pool is a brazen attack on the First Amendment, declared MSNBC’s Symone Sanders-Townsend.
■ After being barred from President Trump’s media events over its refusal to refer to the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America, The Associated Press has sued the administration.
■ The AP’s losing its White House access violated the First Amendment, which states that government cannot use its power to punish people for what they have said or written, asserted Ken Paulson, director of the Free Speech Center at Middle Tennessee State University.
■ The Supreme Court declined to hear a challenge from conservative college students that school policy on bias reporting violated their free-speech rights.

■ PEN America denounced Trump’s executive order declaring English as the United States’ official language, calling it “a fundamental affront to the founding democratic ideals of this country.”

Saving Sullivan. If MAGA billionaire Steve Wynn succeeds in getting the landmark New York Times Co. v. Sullivan decision overturned, “we will have lost freedom of the press,” opined MSNBC senior editor Anthony L. Fisher in a recent commentary.
■ The Massachusetts student who was banned from wearing a “There are only two genders” shirt at school could get a boost from a presidential executive order as his lawyers push the Supreme Court to hear his case.
■ LGBTQ+ advocates explained in a report by Nashville's WPLN why they do not mind that Tennessee’s “drag ban” is here to stay.

■ Explicit license plates are not considered protected speech, the Tennessee Supreme Court has ruled, upholding a state ban.

Wired for politics. The editorial director of tech-focused news outlet Wired acted on an idea that technology was intersecting politics and the subsequent reporting paid off even before Elon Musk latched onto the president.
■ Demonstrators have been arrested at anti-Musk protests outside Tesla dealerships across the nation.
■ Thousands gathered at scores of national parks to protest the Trump administration’s firing of nearly 1,000 park service employees.
■ A Pennsylvania town that prohibited police officers and other public employees from displaying “Thin Blue Line” flags violated the First Amendment, a federal appeals court has ruled.

Anchors away. Recent departures of career television journalists could be part of a traditional cycle but also may signal fallout from the slow decline in relevance of TV news, Variety reported.
■ A Mississippi judge vacated her order, widely condemned by free-press advocates, that a local newspaper remove an editorial criticizing local officials.
■ Reporter and podcaster Meribah Knight, who chronicled the efforts of Nashville mothers pushing for gun reform following a school shooting there, has been honored with the National Press Foundation’s 2024 Reporting on Women in Politics Award.
■ West Virginia senators voted to dismantle one of the nation’s strictest school vaccination policies by giving exemptions to families that say mandated inoculations conflict with their religious beliefs.

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