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9:10 PM ET, December 15, 2017

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 Top News: 
Dave McNary / Variety:
Star Wars: The Last Jedi opened with a box-office gross of $45M, the second-largest Thursday preview in North America, behind The Force Awakens  —  The Force remains unstoppable as Disney-Lucasfilm's “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” opened with $45 million on Thursday night.
Michael Wolff / Hollywood Reporter:
A look at the dynamics among Rupert Murdoch and his children, and how their business interests may have influenced the Disney deal  —  When the media titan unloads the bulk of Fox to Disney rather than letting it pass to his heirs, it proves he has always has had a favorite Murdoch — himself.
RELATED:
Yashar Ali / HuffPost:
Ten current and former Fox News on-air staffers say they faced harassment by execs and talent, refuting Rupert Murdoch's dismissal of allegations as “nonsense”  —  The media mogul said claims of rampant sexual harassment at the network are “nonsense.”
Tom Kludt / CNNMoney:
Trump congratulated Rupert Murdoch on Disney deal; there's no admission or denial he spoke with Murdoch ahead of the deal to confirm Murdoch would keep Fox News
RELATED:
David Folkenflik / NPR:
Disney-Fox deal gives Disney controlling Hulu stake, a Sky stake, a network of local sports cable channels; Fox gets to cash out and resolve succession plans
Mark Sweney / The Guardian:
Post-merger, “New Fox” to include live news, sports, and the Fox brand, as a return to “our roots as a lean, aggressive, challenger brand”, per Lachlan Murdoch
The Walt Disney Company:
Disney to acquire 21st Century Fox, including stakes in Sky and Hulu, after spinoff of certain businesses like Fox News, for $52.4B in stock
Ryan J. Reilly / HuffPost:
Assistant US Attorney Rizwan Qureshi calls journalist's knowledge of terms “black bloc” and “kettle” suspicious in Trump inauguration felony cases  —  The U.S. government told a D.C. jury that six people — including a photographer and two medics — “agreed to destroy your city.”
Shruthi Muraleedharan / Facebook:
Facebook debuts Snooze, a News Feed feature to temporarily unfollow a person, Page, or group for 30 days  —  One of our core News Feed values is giving people more control.  Over the next week, we're launching Snooze, which will give you the option to temporarily unfollow a person, Page or group for 30 days.
Tony Romm / Recode:
A coalition of state attorneys general, led by the New York AG, pledge to sue the FCC for repealing net neutrality rules  —  States like Washington and New York are gearing up to fight the FCC's recent repeal  —  The United States is about to go to war with itself over net neutrality.
Isaac Stone Fish / Washington Post:
After China's Integrated Whale Media bought a majority stake in Forbes in 2014, several cases of editorial meddling have raised questions about independence  —  When a Chinese company buys a major American magazine, does the publication censor its coverage of China?
Rebecca Leber / Mother Jones:
Environmental Protection Agency signed a no-bid $120K contract with Republican opposition research firm Definers Corp., to help track and shape press coverage  —  It promises “war room” style media monitoring. … Using taxpayer dollars, the Environmental Protection Agency has hired …
David Shepardson / Reuters:
Sources: FCC to fine Sinclair Broadcasting $13.3M after it failed to disclose programming that aired on local TV stations was sponsored by a cancer institute  —  WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Federal Communications Commission plans to fine Sinclair Broadcasting Corp $13.3 million after it failed …
Steve Dent / Engadget:
YouTube debuts 360-degree YouTube VR app on Steam in early access for HTC Vive, but users of the beta are reporting several problems from bugs to crashes  —  There's a lot of VR content out there, but much of it is for one platform or another — what works on Gear VR may not on Daydream, the HTC Vive or the Oculus Rift.
more at Techmeme »
Casey Newton / The Verge:
Snap launches Lens Studio, a Mac and Windows app that lets users build their own AR lenses  —  Let a thousand hot dogs bloom  —  Snap's second official app is a tool that lets you design and build augmented reality lenses for Snapchat.  The company today announced Lens Studio, a design app for Mac and Windows desktop computers.
 
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Jason Koebler / Motherboard:
Motherboard and Vice to build and document a Brooklyn community internet that will connect to NYC mesh network and will not rely on a traditional ISP
 

 
From Techmeme:

Wall Street Journal:
Gina Raimondo says holding back China in the chips race is a “fool's errand”, and investment, more than export controls, will keep US ahead of Beijing

Timothy B. Lee / Ars Technica:
Exploring the scaling challenges of transformer-based LLMs in efficiently processing large amounts of text, as well as potential solutions, such as RAG systems

Reuters:
Albania bans TikTok for a year from January 2025, part of a broader plan to make schools safer following the killing of a 14-year-old near a school in November
 
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