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9:05 AM ET, May 12, 2026

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 Top News: 
Todd Spangler / Variety:
Byron Allen is taking a majority stake in BuzzFeed, investing $120M, and will become CEO; Jonah Peretti will move to a new role as president of BuzzFeed AI  —  BuzzFeed announced it has entered into a transaction agreement with Allen Family Digital, an affiliate of Byron Allen's family office …
Wall Street Journal:
Sources: Trump privately complained to acting AG Todd Blanche about media leaks tied to the Iran war; the WSJ has received subpoenas for records of reporters  —  President Trump privately complained to acting Attorney General Todd Blanche about media leaks in the wake of the Iran war last month …
Scott Nover / Washington Post:
President Trump nominates Kari Lake, whom he tasked with dismantling USAGM and VOA, as US ambassador to Jamaica; a judge ruled in March she illegally ran USAGM  —  Lake was tasked with dismantling the U.S. Agency for Global Media and Voice of America, and became embroiled in contentious legal battles.
Jess Weatherbed / The Verge:
Spotify celebrates its 20th anniversary with a Wrapped-like experience that features “never-before-shared data” going back to when users first joined Spotify  —  The company will include ‘never-before-shared data’ as part of its 20th anniversary celebrations.
Sara Fischer / Axios:
CNN launches the CNN Weather app, its first standalone lifestyle product since its digital strategy overhaul in 2025, available for free to iOS users in the US  —  CNN on Tuesday launched its new weather app in the U.S., marking its first standalone lifestyle product since management overhauled digital strategy last year.
Discussion: @sarafischer
Luke Barr / ABC News:
The US DOJ charges Eileen Wang, the mayor of Arcadia, CA, with acting as an illegal foreign agent for China; Wang worked on a website called U.S. News Center  —  Eileen Wang agreed to plead guilty, the Justice Department said.  —  City of Arcadia, councilmember, Eileen Wang attends …
Eliot Chen / The Wire China:
Six years after a US-China tit-for-tat cycle of journalist expulsions, the number of US journalists in China is dwindling, making it harder to cover the country  —  When President Donald Trump travels to China next week for his summit with Xi Jinping, a swarm of reporters will accompany his entourage.
Todd Spangler / Variety:
Netflix launches a website saying it has invested $135B+ in films and TV over the past decade, contributing $325B+ to the global economy and creating 425K+ jobs  —  What's good for Netflix is... good for the world?  —  In January 2016, the streaming giant expanded its service …
New York Times:
A look at Israel's efforts to influence Eurovision, as some broadcasters pushed to ban Israel from the music competition and threatened to boycott the event  —  Israel's efforts to influence Eurovision's vote were broader and started years earlier than previously known.  —  TIMES INVESTIGATION
Bill Adair / Nieman Lab:
A look at the NYT's Wirecutter, which increased its staff from ~80 in 2019 to 180 today and more than tripled its traffic to 15M monthly readers in recent years  —  “One thing we've never figured out how to do is make a video of an air purifier test because it is so boring.
Ruth Fowler / Wired:
A Hollywood writer recounts working as an “AI trainer” for companies like Mercor, as AI gig work becomes the “new waiting tables” for entertainment workers  —  For screenwriters like me—and job seekers all over—AI gig work is the new waiting tables.
 
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 More News: 
Max Tani / Semafor:
Julie K. Brown's special Pulitzer citation after a previous snub shows how the awards are struggling to keep up with public sentiment and shifting media habits
Emma Roth / The Verge:
Some high-profile publications have migrated from Substack to rivals like Ghost and Beehiiv citing Substack's high fees and increased focus on social features
Alison Weissbrot / Adweek:
WPP US president Michael Houston will step down and transition to a new role as senior adviser; WPP will not backfill Houston's role
Yash Roy / Bloomberg:
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy faces criticism for filming a reality show for The Great American Road Trip, sponsored by companies regulated by the DOT
 Earlier Picks: 
Jonathan Stempel / Reuters:
Texas AG Ken Paxton sues Netflix for allegedly spying on consumers by collecting their data without consent, and designing its platform to be addictive
David Folkenflik / NPR:
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution CEO Andrew Morse steps down after a three-and-a-half-year tenure, to be succeeded by Cox Media executive Paul Curran
Daniel Thomas / Financial Times:
Sony Music Group, via its JV with Singapore's wealth fund GIC, agrees to buy Recognition Music Group's catalogue of 45K+ songs from Blackstone in a ~$4B deal
Joe Flint / Wall Street Journal:
Letter to Disney CEO Josh D'Amaro: the FCC's Democratic commissioner Anna Gomez says ABC has been a victim of a “coordinated campaign of censorship and control”
 

 
From Techmeme:

Anthropic:
Anthropic details its progress toward recursive self-improvement, and its implications, and says 80%+ of the code merged into its codebase is authored by Claude

Cloudflare:
Cloudflare acquires VoidZero, the company behind Vite, Vitest, Rolldown, Oxc, and Vite+ frameworks, and says the projects will stay open source

Ted Chiang / The Atlantic:
A look at AI consciousness debates; LLM conversations are cleverly disguised examples of sentence continuation, but that doesn't deny how impressive LLMs can be
 
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