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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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Manuel Roig-Franzia / Washington Post:
Vladimir Kara-Murza, one of the journalists released after being held by Russia, wrote some of his Pulitzer-winning WaPo columns from Moscow's detention center — The Russian journalist, author and opposition politician won a Pulitzer Prize for columns written at a Moscow detention center.
Discussion:
Wall Street Journal, Radio Free Europe/Radio … and Washington Post
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
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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, @suno_ai_, Engadget, CMU, Axios, Reuters, 404 Media, TorrentFreak, Rolling Stone and Deadline, more at Techmeme »
Todd Spangler / Variety:
A US district court judge throws out a jury verdict ordering the NFL to pay $4.7B+ to Sunday Ticket subscribers, finding the verdict was unsupported by evidence — The NFL got a major call overturned: A federal judge Thursday threw out a jury's $4.7 billion award to subscribers …
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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, Chuck Lapointe on LinkedIn, All The Way Up Media, @muradhem and r/PPC
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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Adweek, The Verge, UPI, MediaPost, Variety, The Guardian, The Daily Beast, CBS News, Engadget, Financial Times, Rolling Stone, CNN, Page Six, Reuters, Los Angeles Times, Vibe, The Wrap, The Hill, TVLine, Bloomberg, Quartz, TMZ.com, Mediaite, @kurtwag8@threads.net, Newser, The Hollywood Reporter, Barrett Media, Business Insider, TVNewsCheck and Deadline, more at Techmeme »
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.
Discussion:
@noahshachtman, @dougheye and Cartoons Hate Her
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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AV Club, Deadline, Rolling Stone, Consequence, LateNighter, TVLine and TV Insider
Variety:
About 500 actors and other SAG-AFTRA members picketed outside WB Games in Burbank over contract protections for workers amid the growth of AI — In a replay of last year's strike, hundreds of actors picketed Thursday outside WB Games in Burbank, demanding protection from artificial intelligence.
Discussion:
Reuters, Deadline, Associated Press, BBC and Los Angeles Times
Akash Sriram / Reuters:
Snap reports Q2 revenue up 16% YoY to $1.24B vs. $1.25B est., DAUs up 9% YoY to 432M, and forecasts Q3 revenue below expectations; SNAP drops 15%+ after hours — Snap (SNAP.N) forecast current-quarter sales and adjusted core earnings below market expectations on Thursday as the Snapchat owner grapples …
Discussion:
The Information, Ad Age, Bloomberg, Snap Inc. and Deadline, more at Techmeme »
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 …
Discussion:
Providence Business News and Gannett
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+.
Discussion:
CNBC, Variety, Media Play News, The Information, Apple, BGR, 9to5Mac and Deadline, more at Techmeme »
Annie Palmer / CNBC:
Amazon misses Q2 estimates, reporting $147.98B in revenue vs $148.56B expected, $12.8B in ad revenue vs $13B estimated, and gives weaker-than-expected guidance — Amazon missed on revenue in its second-quarter earnings report on Thursday and issued a weaker-than-expected forecast for the current period.
Discussion:
Wall Street Journal, The Wrap, Quartz and Variety, more at Techmeme »
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 …
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