#political-pressure

#political-pressure

The University of Arkansas has reversed its decision to hire Emily Suski as its new law school dean for reportedly joining a group of other law professors in filing an amicus brief at the U.S. Supreme Court in support of transgender student athletes. The University of Arkansas, which announced Suski's new role on Jan. 9, said on Wednesday that it was moving in a "different direction" after receiving "feedback from key external stakeholders about the fit between Professor Suski and the university's vacancy,"

They pay testament to Powell's integrity, and unwavering commitment to the public interest, calling him a respected colleague who is held in the highest regard by all who have worked with him. Trump has repeatedly criticised Powell, whom he appointed in 2018, for failing to cut interest rates fast enough. But the clash between the two men took a dramatic turn earlier this week when Powell issued a strongly worded video statement, saying he was being prosecuted by the US Department of Justice.

However, this year, the pendulum has swung violently in the opposite direction. Essentially, leadership told many of us to "reword or avoid any mention of DEI," be leery of explicitly mentioning the communities most harmed by inequality or inequity in our work, and avoid citing who is committing the harm out of fear of retribution. Many of us knew the backlash to the media industry's embrace of DEI during the pandemic was brewing.

In a tense and unusually divided meeting, the U.S. Federal Reserve decided to cut interest rates by 0.25 percentage points to a range of 3.5% to 3.75%. This is the third consecutive rate cut since September, as concerns about a deteriorating labor market outweigh fears of rising inflation. The final meeting of the year also yielded new economic forecasts and offered some clues about the Fed's roadmap for 2026.

Nonprofits are facing a political environment where essential missions are under attack and public funding is disappearing. The Trump administration has made it far more difficult for many nonprofits to continue receiving government support. Organizations whose missions or values run afoul of those of the White House and its allies in Congress, especially those connected to LGBTQ+ rights, immigration, racial equity, women's rights, voting rights, international relief, and the ever-present boogeyman of DEI, are facing the greatest funding pressures.

The team is just nine people out of more than 2,000 who work at Anthropic. Their only job, as the team members themselves say, is to investigate and publish quote "inconvenient truths" about how people are using AI tools, what chatbots might be doing to our mental health, and how all of that might be having broader ripple effects on the labor market, the economy, and even our elections.

The resignations of BBC director-general Tim Davie and CEO of BBC News Deborah Turness over dishonest editing of a speech in 2021 by U.S. President Donald Trump raise several disturbing questions. These concern the effectiveness and integrity of the BBC's internal editorial procedures for investigating complaints, and the pressure being brought to bear on the BBC by conservative political and media forces in the United Kingdom.

The chasm is widening between NPR and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the nonprofit that funneled federal dollars to public media until Congress killed that funding earlier this year. NPR's legal team privately questioned the CPB's longtime chief executive, Patricia Harrison, under oath earlier this month, according to the radio network's legal filings, and is scheduled to do so publicly at a court hearing Tuesday morning.

In a meeting with English Department faculty on Oct. 22, TCU provost Floyd Wormley cited financial reasons for the change, asserting that political pressure "had no influence" on the decision to merge the Women and Gender Studies and Comparative Race and Ethnic Studies Departments into the English Department. But some faculty aren't convinced. They say the move follows a decline in institutional support for the disciplines as the university faces immense pressure to eliminate any and all programming related to gender, race and ethnicity.

n FBI agent was relieved of duty for declining to arrange a perp walk of the bureau's former director, James Comey, in front of news media cameras after Comey was federally charged last month, four people briefed on the matter said on Friday. Reuters could not immediately determine how or when senior FBI officials wanted to stage bringing Comey into the bureau's Washington field office.

The sequence of events here could not be clearer, because it was all done in plain view. Carr leaned on broadcasters to take down Kimmel. They did that, sometimes even directly citing Carr while doing so, and then Carr celebrated with a fun GIF. That sure seems like a pretty clear case of the government pressuring companies to censor speech. And it's not like Trump is even trying to hide it.

The president has never done well with criticism, constantly going after news organizations and private companies and individuals perceived to be insufficiently supportive or ingratiating. "This is the environment that we're all operating in, and we've known this for a while, where, whether it's legitimate or not, you have the government as an actor trying to control and shape coverage through a combination of means, one of which is threats," the news anchor said.

Back in the 90s and 2000s, much ink was spilled as the major networks grappled for ratings in the now-quaint real estate of post-11PM programming. Johnny Carson retired. David Letterman jumped to CBS. Conan O'Brien was plucked from obscurity, eventually handed The Tonight Show, and then had it essentially clawed back by Jay Leno for a few more years of appalling hackwork.

"Don't mess up my beach, girl," New Yorker and comedian Ilana Glazer pleaded to Gov. Kathy Hochul in late July in an Instagram reel with over 46,000 likes. Glazer wants the governor to reject the Northeast Supply Enhancement (NESE) project, which would build a natural gas pipeline that would start in Pennsylvania and end in New York City's beachfront community, the Rockaways, with a 17-mile stretch below the ocean floor.

The United States Department of Justice plans to investigate Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, with a top official informing Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell of the probe and encouraging him to remove her, Bloomberg News has reported.