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.