Trump megadonor gives SCOTUS opening to overturn landmark press freedom case
www.courthousenews.com

... First Amendment advocates warn that eliminating such protections for the press could turn libel lawsuits into weapons of political suppression.

Casino mogul and Trump megadonor Steve Wynn has created an opening for the Supreme Court to overturn a six-decade-old press freedom ruling.

It's an opening that several justices have been searching for -- and one that conservative Justice Clarence Thomas has even explicitly requested in his writings from the bench.

For 61 years, New York Times v. Sullivan has allowed the press to report on public figures without the threat of costly libel suits. A bedrock of modern libel law and one of the Supreme Court's most significant First Amendment rulings, the landmark 1964 decision says public officials must show actual malice to prevail in a libel suit.

More recently, some conservative legal scholars and media critics have pushed to overturn Sullivan to make it easier to sue the press.

Wynn says the Supreme Court should use his lawsuit against the Associated Press to do so. ...

Paramount to Turn Over Records on Skydance Deal Amid Standoff With FCC
www.hollywoodreporter.com

... A Delaware court ruled that Paramount must produce records that could lay the groundwork for more lawsuits from investors challenging the deal as the company contends with a new FCC commissioner who's signaled his intent on holding up the merger.

To Paramount, Skydance appeared to be the ideal buyer for the company when it announced the $8 billion megadeal last year: big enough for its name to have cachet in Hollywood, with a founder boasting ties to deep pockets, but small enough for the merger not to raise red flags with antitrust enforcers. And to sweeten the pot, the David Ellison-led firm proposed paying a premium on voting shares owned by Shari Redstone. It was supposed to be smooth sailing.

Six months later, Paramount is fighting a multifront battle amid a political firestorm sparked by President Donald Trump's efforts to consolidate control over the press to get the deal across the finish line. On one side is Brendan Carr, an animated FCC commissioner and Trump loyalist who's asserted his authority over parts of the merger by leveraging the agency's control over the transfer of broadcast licenses. On the other is a growing contingent of investors who suspect that Redstone enriched herself at their expense. ...

So, that $20 billion is beginning to look more like a bribe request from Pres Trump to allow the merger to go through, than anything resembling a fine.

Longtime Alaska writer reflects on Alaska's history of aviation fatalities (2023)
alaskapublic.org

... Eugene "Buzzy" Peltola Jr.'s fatal plane crash on Tuesday is yet another point in Alaska's grim aviation statistics.

A 2021 investigation from ProPublica and Unalaska public radio station KUCB found that since 2016, 42% of U.S. deaths from small aircraft crashes occurred in Alaska, up from 26% in the early 2000s.

"I don't think we ever really want to accept it, though, because we know that there are ways to make aviation safer," said longtime Alaska journalist and writer Charles Wohlforth.

High-profile Alaskans aren't immune; many political figures and their loved ones have died in crashes. In 1972, a small plane carrying then-Congressman Nick Begich, then-U.S. House Majority Leader Hale Boggs, a staffer and a pilot disappeared in the Portage area.

In 1994, Alaska Department of Public Safety Deputy Commissioner Claude Swackhammer and a state trooper died in a plane crash near Haines.

In 2010, Alaska's longest-serving U.S. senator, Ted Stevens, was among five people killed when a floatplane crashed north of Dillingham. He had survived a plane crash in Anchorage in 1978 that killed his first wife and four others.

In 2020, state Rep. Gary Knopp was among the seven people killed in a midair collision on the Kenai Peninsula. ...