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Wall Street Journal:
Russia frees Evan Gershkovich, RFE/RL reporter Alsu Kurmasheva, and others as part of a prisoner swap involving 24 prisoners and at least six countries — Release of 32-year-old American from Russia secured as part of largest East-West prisoner swap since Cold War
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Wall Street Journal:
A detailed timeline of Evan Gershkovich's arrest and release and the months of negotiations involving spy agencies, billionaires, politicians, and his mother — The secret negotiations to free The Wall Street Journal's Evan Gershkovich unfolded on three continents, involving spy agencies …
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Washington Post, @davidgura@threads.net, Mediaite, New York Times, New York Post, New Yorker, The Hill, Fox News, The Sun, ABC7, Semafor, @efindell, Associated Press, Florida Phoenix, Reuters, @Nonilex@masto.ai, Jamie Heller on LinkedIn, Ben Eisen on LinkedIn, @mikeisaac, Slate, NPR, Radio Free Europe/Radio … and Talking Biz News
Wall Street Journal:
WSJ Editor Emma Tucker thanks the Biden administration, other governments, especially Germany's, and Evan Gershkovich in the effort to release him and others — Today is a joyous day for the safe return of our colleague Evan Gershkovich, who left a Russian aircraft moments ago in Turkey's capital …
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Bill Donahue / Billboard:
Court filings: AI startups Suno and Udio respond to copyright lawsuits from major music labels, saying their use of proprietary music to train AI is fair use — In their first responses to the sweeping copyright lawsuits that could define AI music, lawyers for Suno and Udio don't exactly hold back.
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Suno, TechCrunch, 404 Media, Axios, Deadline, TorrentFreak, Reuters, CMU and Rolling Stone, more at Techmeme »
Kate Conger / New York Times:
Don Lemon sues Elon Musk and X, arguing Musk refused to pay him after a $1.5M/year exclusive X content deal fell apart; Lemon did not sign a formal contract — The former CNN reporter said in a lawsuit that X had refused to pay him after a testy interview with its billionaire owner.
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Ciara Linnane / MarketWatch:
Gannett Q2: revenue down 4.8% YoY to $639.8M, vs. $645M est., $13.7M net income, vs. $12.7M loss in Q2 2023, digital subs revenue up 22.3%; GCI closed down ~8% — Digital revenue rose 6.2% to account for 44% of all revenue — Gannett Co. Inc.'s stock shed early losses to trade down 10% Thursday …
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Providence Business News and Gannett
David Shepardson / Reuters:
A US appeals court blocks the FCC's reinstatement of net neutrality rules, saying broadband providers are likely to succeed in a legal challenge — A U.S. appeals court on Thursday blocked the Federal Communications Commission's reinstatement of landmark net neutrality rules …
James Hibberd / The Hollywood Reporter:
Amazon MGM Studios names Colin Jost as host of its new Jeopardy spinoff show, Pop Culture Jeopardy; production starts in September — The ‘Saturday Night Live’ star has been cast as the host of Prime Video's new ‘Jeopardy!’ series. — Colin Jost's new TV gig: Jeopardy! host.
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Deadline, AV Club, Rolling Stone, LateNighter, Consequence, TVLine and TV Insider
Murad Hemmadi / The Logic:
Email: Google is adding a 2.5% “Canada DST fee” for ads served in Canada starting October 1 to cover “part of the costs” of new digital services tax legislation — The search giant will start taking an additional 2.5 per cent “Canada DST fee” beginning in October …
Discussion:
Chris Krewson on LinkedIn, @muradhem, All The Way Up Media, Chuck Lapointe on LinkedIn and r/PPC
Noah Shachtman / Vanity Fair:
Entertainment news outlets like Pop Base, the Shade Room, and more have been posting nonstop about Kamala Harris, and her campaign aims to leverage the coverage — Celeb-news-only accounts like Pop Crave are suddenly coconut-pilled, posting religiously about the Harris campaign to their millions of followers.
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@noahshachtman, @dougheye and Cartoons Hate Her
Alex Weprin / The Hollywood Reporter:
Apple reports Q3 revenue from Services, which includes Apple TV+ and Apple Music, rose 14% YoY to $24.21B, vs. $23.96B estimated, an all-time record — The company is seeing double digit year growth in its services division, which includes Apple TV+.
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Variety, CNBC, The Information, Apple, Deadline, BGR and 9to5Mac, more at Techmeme »
Lucas Manfredi / The Wrap:
Roku reports Q2 revenue up 14% YoY to $968.2M vs. $935.3M estimated, a net loss of $33.95M vs. $107.6M in Q2 2023, and 83.6M streaming households, up 2M from Q1 — Shares rose over 6% in after-hours trading as the company posted a smaller than expected loss of 24 cents per share and better than expected revenue of $968 million
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