■ Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has ordered Texas colleges to revise their free-speech policies in an effort to curb what he described as a “sharp rise in antisemitic speech.”
■ A Georgia superior court judge rejected Donald Trump’s First Amendment challenge in his election-interference case.
■ Trump publicly declared that it would be “a great honor” to be jailed for violating the gag order in his hush-money trial.
■ The former president’s legal claims about political speech are full of hot air, declared the author of “How to Read the Constitution -- and Why” in a commentary for The Hill.
Nun sense. A multimillion-dollar marketing blitz has engaged Sister Monica Clare and others to preach that TikTok is a force for good.
■ In an apparent show of Republican support for Elon Musk’s X, Missouri’s attorney general has filed a lawsuit against progressive watchdog group Media Matters, reported The Guardian.
■ Israel’s prime minister is reportedly using a new national-security law in an attempt to shut down news network Al Jazeera in the country.
■ A federal judge dismissed a First Amendment lawsuit by a Minnesota physician and former GOP candidate for governor against the state medical board.
■ The former president’s legal claims about political speech are full of hot air, declared the author of “How to Read the Constitution -- and Why” in a commentary for The Hill.
Nun sense. A multimillion-dollar marketing blitz has engaged Sister Monica Clare and others to preach that TikTok is a force for good.
■ In an apparent show of Republican support for Elon Musk’s X, Missouri’s attorney general has filed a lawsuit against progressive watchdog group Media Matters, reported The Guardian.
■ Israel’s prime minister is reportedly using a new national-security law in an attempt to shut down news network Al Jazeera in the country.
■ A federal judge dismissed a First Amendment lawsuit by a Minnesota physician and former GOP candidate for governor against the state medical board.
Finding false. Convinced that viral lies threaten democracy, a cadre of defamation lawyers are working to stem the tide of political disinformation one payout or apology at a time.
■ Despite 15 years of calls for anti-SLAPP legislation in one North Carolina county, the bills never made it out of initial committees.
■ Police have continued to arrest journalists and the Freedom of the Press Foundation continues its push to understand why.
■ A reporter’s arrest on the campus of Vanderbilt University echoed a disgraceful Civil Rights-era incident there, J. Holly McCall asserted in a Tennessee Lookout commentary.
Break the silence. Former CBS News reporters Catherine Herridge and Sharyl Attkisson, whose departures were called into question, are scheduled to speak at an April 11 House Judiciary Committee hearing on protecting journalists and their sources.
■ U.S. journalist Evan Gershkovich marked a year in Russian prisons while the Biden administration reported that it continues to push for his release.
■ A college newspaper in Iowa stepped up and purchased two struggling weeklies in a commitment to slow growing news deserts in rural areas of the country.
■ The third lawsuit stemming from an August 2023 raid on a small Kansas newspaper that sparked a widespread outrage has been filed in federal court.
Saving grace. Limiting the number of meals a local church can serve to unhoused residents of Brookings, Ore., was a violation of religious-freedom rights, a federal judge ruled.
■ Opponents of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act signed into law by Iowa’s governor contended that it opens the door to discrimination.
■ The third lawsuit stemming from an August 2023 raid on a small Kansas newspaper that sparked a widespread outrage has been filed in federal court.
Saving grace. Limiting the number of meals a local church can serve to unhoused residents of Brookings, Ore., was a violation of religious-freedom rights, a federal judge ruled.
■ Opponents of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act signed into law by Iowa’s governor contended that it opens the door to discrimination.
■ A facial-hair ban for prison guards amounts to religious discrimination, the U.S. Justice Department has declared.
■ A fight to protect the dignity of Michelangelo’s David has raised questions about freedom of expression.
■ A fight to protect the dignity of Michelangelo’s David has raised questions about freedom of expression.
