Hollow ring / Target practice / Help line

Hollow ring. Social media is not just speech; it is a community of hazardous platforms, argued law professor Tim Wu in a New York Times commentary.
■ Content-crafting A.I. algorithms are entitled to free-speech protections, Vanderbilt University professors concluded in a law review article.
■ The bombardment of A.I. fake images about the war in Iran has created a cascade of disinformation and chaos online, The New York Times reported.
■ Big tech has reversed course in the battle between the artificial intelligence company Anthropic and the Pentagon, according to an analysis in The Guardian.

Ruling transmitted. Kari Lake, as head of the U.S. Agency for Global Media, did not have legal authority to dismantle the Voice of America, a federal judge has ruled.
■ The Pentagon, without explanation, has barred photographers from attending Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s Iran war briefings.
■ Comments from Hegseth make it clear that the Trump administration is not eager to show the war’s human cost, the Associated Press reported.
■ FCC Chairman Brendan Carr has threatened to revoke the licenses of broadcasters over what he sees as “news distortions” in Iran war coverage.

■ Free Speech Center Director Ken Paulson explains why the FCC chairman’s licensing threats over the content of war reporting would be a clear violation of the First Amendment.

Target practice. Activist Mahmoud Khalil has declared in a Fox News commentary that the U.S. government targeted him over his political speech, and warns that it can happen to anyone.
■ Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ executive order to designate Muslim groups as terrorist organizations has been temporarily blocked by a federal judge.
■ House Republicans largely have remained silent as some representatives ramp up public anti-Muslim comments, NPR reported.
■ Noncitizen academics have challenged Trump administration immigration policies, claiming that they violate their First Amendment rights.

■ The Justice Department has dropped criminal charges against a U.S. combat veteran who burned the American flag in protest last year.

Kid stuff? A first grader’s Black Lives Matter drawing is at the center of a yearslong First Amendment legal fight in California.
■ A civil liberties group in Montana has asked the state’s Supreme Court to reconsider a 2003 decision to help with a 2026 free-speech case.
■ The Florida Federation of College Republicans has disbanded its University of Florida chapter after an internal investigation found misconduct concerning alleged antisemitism.

■ Americans can learn much about religious freedom today from founding father James Madison.

Help line. The Pentagon may seek to punish The Washington Post under its new reporting restrictions of journalists over the newspaper’s “tip box,” which solicited information from readers.
■ President Trump is still going after the press in court as his lawsuits keep growing, according to Politico.
■ Government officials say that ICE agents did have a valid warrant before detaining journalist Estefany Rodriguez in Nashville and taking her into custody.
■ After a story about an Eagle Scout project went awry, a Jackson, Wyo., newspaper has settled a $25 million defamation lawsuit.
■ Acclaimed foreign correspondent John F. Burns has passed away at 81.

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Incite insight / Empire building / Trial run

Incite insight. The chaos in Minneapolis illustrated that the phrase “peaceably to assemble” in the First Amendment protects expression, but not incitement, professor Jeffrey McCall explained in a commentary for The Hill.
■ Dozens of protesters were cited or arrested after an anti-ICE demonstration in Minnesota turned violent.

■ The Department of Justice announced that 30 more people have been indicted for alleged involvement in a January protest at a Minnesota church.
■ First Amendment groups vow to fight for the release of a special counsel report on President Trump’s classified-documents case despite a judge’s ruling sealing it.

■ A judge is expected to order that Greenpeace pay an expected $345 million in damages connected to North Dakota pipeline protests from 2016 and 2017.

Empire building. If Larry and David Ellison can close a deal to buy Warner Bros. Discovery, they would influence every corner of news, tech, and entertainment, The New York Times reported.
■ Staffers at CNN and CBS News fear “a disaster” if the Paramount-Warner Bros. merger is approved, according to The Guardian.
■ The Trump administration is looking to override editorial-freedom protections for federally funded news groups that broadcast overseas, The New York Times reported.
■ Federal authorities are barred from searching the electronic devices seized from a Washington Post reporter’s home, a judge has ruled.
■ Press-freedom violations against journalists in January and February reached record numbers for the first two months of any year, the Freedom of the Press Foundation reported.

Unfair and imbalanced? President Trump’s plan to manipulate news coverage by applying a consumer protection law to media companies may be legally creative but it is democratically dangerous, said the editorial board of The New York Times.
■ Following the Stephen Colbert-James Talarico “barred” interview on CBS, here is what you need to know about the equal-time rule.
■ It might seem excessive, but government free speech does allow a U.S. president to name things after himself, The Conversation reported.
■ A slavery exhibit in Philadelphia, ordered removed by the Trump administration, is being reinstalled following a U.S. district judge’s ruling.

Trial run. While a court case regarding the addictive nature of its social-media app continues, Instagram will start notifying parents when their children use the platform to search for items relating to self-harm, parent company Meta announced.
■ New York City bills designed to combat hate crimes by establishing buffer zones outside houses of worship are sparking a free-speech debate. 
■ The Associated Press published its rationale for describing the Iran conflict as a war.

■ Prison-style censorship is making its way into the general public, asserted an incarcerated writer and activist for The Intercept.
■ A U.S. appeals court has cleared the way for Louisiana to require the posting of the Ten Commandments in public schools.

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Bully tactics / In focus? / No easy fix

Bully tactics. Press groups have called the Trump administration’s crackdown on journalists’ sources “chilling,” Axios reported.

■ President Trump’s attacks on the media to hide the truth threatens press freedom, declared People for the American Way’s president Svante Myrick in The Hill.
■ The Department of Homeland Security is using subpoenas against tech companies to get information that exposes anti-ICE social media accounts.

■ DHS Secretary Kristi Noem and Attorney General Pam Bondi have been sued for allegedly censoring a citizen-created Facebook group and app that reported on real-time ICE operations.

■ Requirements that ICE agents use body-cameras could backfire, allowing the government to track protesters, according to congressional Democratic leaders.

In focus? The ombudsman for Stars and Stripes said in a recent interview that there is cause for concern about the Defense Department’s push to “refocus content” in the military news publication.
■ The United States is not a free country if there is no free speech, contended Politico founder Susan B. Glasser in a New Yorker commentary.
■ Sen. Mark Kelly’s First Amendment rights were “trampled” by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in an attempt to punish him over a video to military personnel reminding them that they can refuse illegal orders, a federal judge has ruled.

■ After a lengthy search, free-speech group PEN America has chosen new leadership.
■ Free-speech lawsuits connected to the killing of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk continue five months after his death, NPR reported.

Excess access. The landmark trial over potentially addictive social-media platforms began with Instagram and You Tube executives testifying that excessive use does not equal addiction.
■ Tech reporter Cecilia Kang described what is at stake for tech giants in a short video by The New York Times.
■ NetChoice examined whether Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 still protects users from censorship online.
■ While it draws regulatory scrutiny and global censure, Elon Musk’s A.I. chatbot Grok has grown its U.S. market share.

It’s complicated. A Pew Research poll has found that Americans believe that following the news is essential, but they have different ideas on where to get it.
■ Journalist Don Lemon pleaded not guilty to church-protest charges in a Minnesota federal courtroom.
■ An immigration court has blocked the DHS-planned deportation of a Tufts University Turkish graduate student.
■ A U.S. appeals court affirmed that computer code used in the manufacturing of “ghost guns” is not protected by the First Amendment.

No easy fix. If Jeff Bezos really wants to build back what he has torn down at The Washington Post, he should look at the reinventions of five major U.S. dailies, according to author and journalism professor Dan Kennedy.
■ The Federal Trade Commission has been hit with a lawsuit from the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression for its targeting of NewsGuard’s news-rating system.
■ The American Civil Liberties Union has announced a settlement in a federal lawsuit over the unlawful targeting and questioning of photojournalists at the U.S.-Mexico border.
■ After a lengthy public-records challenge, a Tennessee appeals court has ruled that the writings of a school shooter can be released publicly.

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Lemon pledge / Kari on / Nip and Tuck

Lemon pledge. CNN’s Brian Stelter examined whether the arrests of Don Lemon and Georgia Fort in connection with a Minnesota church protest is really a case about chilling journalism. Lemon vowed not to be silenced.
■ Lemon’s arrest has raised questions about First Amendment-protected boundaries inside and outside of a house of worship.
■ Cellphone videographers are now a vital part of the news ecosystem, making Alex Pretti’s murder an attack on press freedom, contends Freedom of the Press Foundation’s Seth Stern.
■ Federal prosecutors cannot review material seized from a Washington Post reporter’s home during an FBI search, a judge has ruled.

■ Alabama has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to end First Amendment protections for panhandling. 

State media? Social media, once viewed as a tool that ordinary citizens could use to counteract the excesses of the powerful, is now helping government suppress dissent, according to a report by Popular Information.
■ TikTok has agreed to settle a landmark social media addiction lawsuit that is set to begin after jury selection this week, the Associated Press reported.
■ Under a new ownership structure in the United States, TikTok is experiencing challenges of censorship claims, technical problems, and app deletions.
■ A ruling in a case involving a student who posted memes of his school principal on Instagram has served to strengthen free-speech protections for Tennessee high schools, asserted journalism professor Mark Harmon in a Tennessee Lookout commentary.

Kari on. While overseeing the Voice of America, Kari Lake’s use of the government-owned network to promote President Trump may be in violation of federal law and policies.
■ Stars and Stripes must maintain its core mission of truth-telling, not present information that flatters authority, argued Rufus Friday, executive director of the Center for Integrity in News Reporting.
■ In a court filing, the Pentagon defended its policy that puts restrictions on news organizations that require them to comply or lose press access.
■ Free speech, “inherently fraught with bias,” needs a reset in America, declared Sheldon H. Jacobson, a computer science professor, in a commentary for The Hill.

A bigger ban. Summer Boismier protested against an Oklahoma book ban, lost her teacher’s license, and is now fighting a legal battle to return someday to the classroom, the New York Times reported.
■ Unsealed court records show that the Trump administration targeted students for criticizing Israel, according to a Mother Jones report.
■ A UMass Amherst student, suspended for protesting on campus, has filed a lawsuit against the university claiming his First Amendment rights were violated.
■ Under state law, the email list of a school superintendent’s newsletter must be made public, the Ohio Supreme Court has ruled.

Nip and Tuck. A new book seeks to explain the unraveling of conservative journalist Tucker Carlson, arguably the most contentious media personality of the Trump age.
■ CBS News chief Bari Weiss told her staff that if the network does not alter its current strategy for delivering the news, “We’re toast.”
■ The USA Today Co. now owns both Detroit newspapers after it acquired the 153-year-old Detroit News and retained its staff.
■ A new court ruling may make it harder for the University of Alabama to defend its reasoning for shutting down two student magazines.

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Finger tip / Being the news / Saving face

Finger tip. The suspension of President Trump’s heckler at a Ford plant visit served as a reminder that free speech can get you into trouble at work.
■ Minnesota’s governor and the Minneapolis mayor are being investigated by the Justice Department for allegedly conspiring to impede law enforcement efforts through public statements that they made. Critics say it is retaliation for free speech.
■ Government censorship of free speech and academic freedom on U.S. college campuses, powered by a full-blown ideological campaign against higher education, reached unprecedented heights in 2025, a new PEN America report has found.

■ A federal judge presiding over a hearing concerning Trump administration detentions denounced cabinet members for “not honoring the First Amendment.”

Control issues. Federal agents in Minneapolis cannot arrest peaceful protesters or use crowd-control tools against them, a federal judge has ruled.
■ Sen. Mark Kelly filed a lawsuit against the Pentagon claiming that attempts to punish and censure him after his participation in a video telling U.S. troops they have the right to resist unlawful orders are “unconstitutional.”
■ President Trump is considering an executive order to bar other networks from showing other college football games during televised coverage of the annual Army-Navy game.

■ The BBC has asked a Florida court to toss out President Trump’s $10 billion defamation suit against the broadcaster.
■ A jury has found that a Tennessee high-school student’s suspension for sharing memes of his school’s principal on Instagram violated the First Amendment.

Being the news. When CBS News editor Bari Weiss told her producers “We need to be the news,” she succeeded, but not in the way she hoped, according to The New York Times.
■ The White House warned CBS News that if it did not run a Trump interview “in full” it would be sued, The New York Times reported.
■ CBS aired a “60 Minutes” report Sunday on deportations that it had abruptly pulled a month ago.

■ The MAGA plan to take over television is just getting started, according to Jim Rutenberg in an extensive report for The New York Times Magazine.

■ Tennessee prison officials must grant expanded press access to state-run executions, a judge has ruled.

Loyal to a fault? Applicants for jobs with Stars and Stripes are being asked if they agree with Trump administration policies, raising concerns about the news outlet’s editorial independence.
■ Press advocates have condemned the Pentagon’s push to take editorial control of Stars and Stripes.
■ U.S. journalists are facing war-zone conditions covering conflicts here at home, concluded Editor & Publisher in a report.
■ The highly unusual raid on the home of a Washington Post journalist has press-freedom champions worried it could chill future reporting efforts.

■ A professor at the University of Pennsylvania explained in The Conversation why the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s closure exposes a growing threat to democracy.

Saving face. Bowing to pressure, Elon Musk’s X will restrict the ability to use its A.I. chatbot Grok in generating explicit images of real people.
■ A Texas teachers union has sued the state over the “wave of retaliation” against public school employees that included investigations and dismissals over Charlie Kirk-related social media comments.

■ An Alabama public library lost state funding after it refused to move several books deemed “sexually explicit” by the state’s library service board, including The Handmaid’s Tale, out of its teen section.
■ Funding cuts have forced PBS to shut down its weekend newscasts.
■ Cleveland State University is facing a free-speech lawsuit after shutting down its student-run campus radio station.

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Trump-tested / Hordes of haters / Pronouncement?

Trump-tested. A CNN 2025 timeline traced the year that President Trump tested the First Amendment and put protesters, journalists, law firms, and universities in the crosshairs.
■ Last year represented the roughest year for journalists and quite possibly the deadliest as well, according to the Associated Press.

■ Nora Benavidez, a media-policy expert, explained how she found nearly 200 attempts at censorship by the Trump administration in a New York Times essay.
■ Secretary of State Marco Rubio has warned American tourists that they may be arrested in Europe for old social media posts, Fox News reported.

Hordes of haters. Technological change historically has been unsettling for a lot of Americans, but A.I. has created a whole new level of fear and loathing, wrote Evan Gorelick for The New York Times.
■ During a CNBC interview, an Israeli billionaire’s call to limit the First Amendment and for democratic nations to take control of social media platforms enraged many conservatives online.
■ In 2026, legal experts anticipate federal judges and the U.S. Supreme Court will confront cases that may alter the boundaries of protected expression in the digital age.
■ Peaceful disagreement is the necessary element for free speech to exist on college campuses, reasoned a University of Illinois professor in a commentary for The Hill.

Pronouncement? Courts across the country have discovered that weighing whether school pronoun policies are constitutional is a complicated issue, USA Today reported.
■ Mandatory anti-racism training violated the First Amendment rights of two Missouri school employees because it required self-censorship, a divided U.S. appeals court has ruled.

■ An appeals court has ruled that the city of Nashua, N.H., violated a couple’s constitutional right to fly a flag on the city’s “Citizen Flag Pole” for a second time.
■ A federal court ruled that a Texas law requiring government contractors to certify that they are not engaged in boycotts of Israel is unconstitutional, thereby protecting the First Amendment right to boycott.

Rebooting CBS. Bari Weiss, the new CBS News editor-in-chief, is embroiled in controversy over her decision-making ahead of the updated “Evening News” rollout, The Guardian reported.
■ Jimmy Kimmel “thanked” Donald Trump and Sam Altman for helping him win the Critics Choice award for best talk show.
■ Betty Boop has joined the list of intellectual property in the public domain as her 95-year U.S. copyright expired.

■ The Freely Fest, a music festival organized by the Freedom Forum to celebrate First Amendment freedoms, is coming to Nashville in April, featuring the Killers, T-Pain, and Janelle Monae.

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ICE capades / No words / Pulling data

ICE capades. This holiday season, church Nativity scenes have become protest sites as parishioners use zip ties, ICE masks and signs to express outrage over immigration raids.

■ After his first year back in office, President Trump has contradicted his commitments to free speech, Brian Stelter contends in a CNN analysis.

■ The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal on a Texas book ban that allows local officials to remove from public libraries materials deemed objectionable.
■ Arkansas has become the first state to cut ties with PBS, its public-television station opting to rebrand with more local content as Arkansas TV.
■ Supreme Court justices appeared to back Republicans after hearing oral arguments in a lawsuit over campaign-finance restrictions.

 
No words. In the wake of terminations after Charlie Kirk’s killing, faculty members on college campuses across Appalachia are self-censoring in an effort to please university administrators and the politicians who control funds, WUOT, an NPR affiliate, reported.
■ A new national survey asserting that 90 percent of college undergrads see speech as violence is on shaky ground, says Ken Paulson, director of the Free Speech Center at Middle Tennessee State University.
■ A Turkish student at Tufts University who penned a critical opinion piece in response to her school’s response to Israel and the war in Gaza can resume research and teaching, a federal judge has ruled.
■ A federal judge ordered the University of Florida to reinstate a law student it had expelled for anti-Jewish online posts and research papers.
■ In the fights over the teaching of race and gender in college classes, professors are taking the brunt of the hits, The Hill reported.
 
Pulling data. A Trump administration plan to vet visa applicants’ social media, phone, and email histories is being labeled “censorship pure and simple” by free-speech advocates, The Guardian reported.
■ Are religious charter schools constitutional? Ilya Shapiro, a constitutional-studies scholar, tackled the question that Supreme Court justices recently side-stepped.
■ Tennessee Rep. Andy Ogles’ social media posts prompt some Democratic county judges to ask for increased courthouse security measures.
■ A speaker with a history of critical and derogatory comments at Orange County board meetings did not have his constitutional rights violated by a language rule, a judge ruled.
 
Who’s the boss? The takeover bid of CNN’s parent company, Warner Bros. Discovery has left the news network in management limbo, the Associated Press reported.
■ Disney announced it would buy a $1 billion stake in OpenAI, making it the first major Hollywood company to collaborate with an artificial intelligence firm.
■ An Oregon judge blocked a Trump administration proposal to criminalize loud noise during protests outside federal buildings.
■ Journalists shared their experiences covering immigration enforcement in a climate of fear with the Freedom of the Press Foundation.
■ John Noble Wilford, a New York Times reporter who covered the 1969 moon landing, has died at 92.

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Laying track / Beet it / Mags tagged

Laying track. The Trump administration’s new website that supposedly tracks media bias while offering up a “hall of shame” is simply a desperate gimmick, posited Margaret Sullivan in The Guardian. 
■ Major news outlets have hammered back at the White House over accusations of journalistic misconduct published in the administration’s new searchable webpage.
■ Citing First Amendment rights, The New York Times has sued the Pentagon over its press-access restrictions, arguing that they are unlawful and unconstitutional.

■ An ICE-tracking app developer has sued Attorney General Pam Bondi, claiming she censored his free speech by pressuring Apple to remove it.

■ The Trump administration is formally cracking down on issuing visas to fact checkers and content moderators.

Balancing act. Incoming New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani will be facing a First Amendment challenge of protecting both free-speech rights of protesters and the religious-freedom rights of the city’s Jewish population.
■ The U.S. Supreme Court could revive a First Amendment suit from a sidewalk preacher who broke a Mississippi city’s protest ordinance by shouting at concertgoers.
■ Court Justices likely will side with abortion opponents in a First Amendment challenge to a New Jersey investigation into whether a faith-based pregnancy center misled people to discourage abortions.
■ The Justice Department has appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court to block an immigration judge’s free-speech lawsuit that may have consequences for federal workers.

Beet it. In the wake of a lawsuit by the First Amendment Coalition, a California county board of supervisors has agreed not to pursue a subpoena that sought the identities of anonymous critics on Facebook.
■ Concluding that X had violated its digital rulebook concerning misinformation and hate speech, the European Commission fined Elon Musk’s social media app the equivalent of $140 million.
■ In the wake of controversies surrounding the death of Charlie Kirk, it is important to remember that free speech is a constitutional principle, not a conditional privilege, explained professor and sociologist Samuel J. Abrams.
■ Book publishers are challenging Tennessee Secretary of State Tre Hargett’s orders to audit children’s collections and eliminate books that deal with gender identity.

Mags tagged. The University of Alabama has suspended publication of separate student-run magazines for black and female students, saying the two were not compliant with federal DEI guidance.
■ American teens overwhelmingly dislike and distrust news media, according to results of a survey conducted by the News Literacy Project.
■ One-time “CBS Evening News” anchor Connie Chung condemned her former employer in an interview, declaring that greed has caused the network to “crash into crumbles.”
■ House Rep. Jamie Raskin has demanded that CBS News provide more information about how it edited a “60 Minutes” interview with President Trump.
■ Nonprofit news outlets fear that selling ads would jeopardize their tax-exempt status, but IRS records show that is rarely the case.

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Let's be frank / Order up / Worth what?

Let’s be frank. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said President Trump called a reporter “piggy” because of his frankness.
■ Donald Trump’s “piggy” insult is stoking more outrage than usual, wrote Rachel Leingang in analysis published in The Guardian.

■ The Oval Office media access fight between Trump and The Associated Press is being argued in a federal appeals court.

■ The executive editor of The Associated Press explained in an editorial why the news organization is standing up for every American’s right to speak freely.

Order up. A federal judge ruled that a UFO-inspired burger stand mural in Salina, Kan., is protected under the First Amendment.
■ Attempts to hang the Ten Commandments in Texas public schools have created a clash of beliefs among parents, teachers, and students.
■ The U.S. Supreme Court declined to take up a religious-liberty dispute over the broadcasting of a pregame prayer through a stadium loudspeaker at a Christian school in Florida. It left intact the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals finding that the state High School Athletic Association’s use of the speaker constituted government speech and that the school’s rights were not violated.

■ NPR has settled its legal dispute with the Corporation for Public Broadcasting for $36 million after it accused the CPB of bowing to pressure from President Trump to cut off its funding.

■ A California climate-related financial reporting law that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce claimed violated companies’ First Amendment rights was paused by a U.S. appeals court.

NYC’s new AOC. Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani has quickly become the top target of conservative media, and the attacks are drawing comparisons to Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
■ The MAGA-sphere had trouble processing the Mamdani-Trump White House meeting on podcasts and social media feeds.

■ Federal prosecutors now want to make it illegal to possess anarchist magazines and pamphlets, declared the Freedom of the Press Foundation’s director of advocacy in The Intercept.

■ The undermining of public libraries by Tennessee’s secretary of state is misguided and unnecessary, contended Ken Paulson, director of the Free Speech Center at Middle Tennessee State University.

Worth what? Two months after Charlie Kirk’s assassination a government-backed campaign has led to firings, suspensions, and other actions against more than 600 people who believed they were exercising their First Amendment rights.
■ Florida officials have defended taking action against public employees for comments in the aftermath of Kirk’s killing.
■ Authorities in Tennessee have dropped a felony charge against a man who was jailed for more than a month for a Facebook post.

■ A University of Virginia professor examined in The Conversation how free-speech protections collided with paranoia over communist infiltration during the Red Scare.

Getting chummy. Jeffrey Epstein emails have shed new light on the delicate relationship between reporters and their sources, the Associated Press reported.

■ A Kansas small-town newspaper that was subjected to a controversial raid by law enforcement officers in 2023 has received an apology and a $3 million judgment.

■ Freelance journalists and protesters have sued the Trump administration claiming federal officers’ use of force at a Portland, Ore., rally violated their First Amendment rights.
■ Covering the activities of ICE agents in Los Angeles has meant huge risks for independent reporters, according to the Los Angeles Public Press.

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Fear 101 / Half empty / Hard-pressed

Fear 101. Potentially lawless hardball tactics against California universities by the Trump administration is affecting free speech on campuses, a federal judge has determined.
■ Citing “protected speech” under the First Amendment, a federal jury in Virginia has acquitted a man who used social media posts to call for President Trump’s assassination.
■ A woman who distributed leaflets disclosing the home address of White House official Stephen Miller has found herself investigated by law enforcement agencies and mired in a First Amendment battle.

■ A federal appeals court sided with a parents’ group and ruled that an Ohio school district cannot enforce its gender-pronoun policy.

Force out. An extensive injunction that would restrict federal agents’ use of force against protesters and reporters was issued by a federal judge in Chicago.
■ As federal prosecutors take a hard line against protesters in Los Angeles, nearly 20 percent of their charges have been dismissed or resulted in acquittals, NBC News reported.
■ An Arab-American group has sued the state of California over a new antisemitism law that it says violates free-speech rights.
■ The U.S. Supreme Court rejected an appeal by a former Kentucky official who sought to overturn the high court’s 2015 same-sex marriage ruling.

Half empty. More than half of the Americans who responded to a new poll said the Trump administration is not committed to protecting constitutional rights and freedoms.
■ The unwanted change to out-of-office emails of Education Department employees blaming Democrats for the government shutdown by Trump administration officials was a violation of their First Amendment rights, a federal judge ruled.
■ After a much-publicized censorship battle, a fired Indiana University student newspaper adviser has filed a lawsuit against the school, claiming the dismissal violated his constitutional rights.
■ A professor at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, has filed a First Amendment lawsuit stemming from her suspension over comments about the death of Charlie Kirk.
■ Citing political pressure around a Charlie Kirk social media post, a dismissed dean has sued Middle Tennessee State University.

Hard-pressed. Conservative activist Laura Loomer, who routinely has been called out for making false claims, announced that she was granted a press credential to work in the Pentagon.
■ A North Carolina GOP spokesperson, citing ties to President Trump, allegedly made attempts to persuade news outlet ProPublica to not publish a story on a prominent state judge, The Washington Post reported.

■ Top officials at the British Broadcasting Corp. have resigned over evidence that a documentary on President Trump’s Jan. 6, 2021, speech in Washington included some misleadingly edited clips.
■ The White House has barred reporters from accessing the West Wing office of Trump administration communications staff.
■ Sen. Ted Cruz blasted “frightened” Republicans for not condemning Tucker Carlson over his podcast interview with white nationalist Nick Fuentes.

No laughing matter. Donald Trump’s list of hosts serving late-night “illegal” comedy continues to grow, as does concern for free-speech defenders, suggested MSNBC’s Steve Benen.
■ The Washington Post has examined newly appointed editor in chief Bari Weiss’ first month of running CBS News.
■ With the online video and posted transcript of the full 73-minute interview with President Trump on “60 Minutes,” viewers caught a rare look inside the news show’s editing process.
■ A consortium of news outlets has made a legal challenge to Tennessee’s restrictions on press access to state executions.

■ An online news service has been launched in Nashville where young journalists will shine a light on current events that are relevant to their peers.

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