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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.
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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, 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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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
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 …
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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+.
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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, Variety and Quartz, 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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