The Trump White House yesterday posted a manipulated photo of Nekima Levy Armstrong, a Minnesota civil rights attorney who was arrested after protesting in a church where a pastor is allegedly also an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) official.

Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem posted what seems to be the original photo of Armstrong being led away by an officer yesterday morning. A half hour later, the official White House X account posted an altered version in which Armstrong's face was manipulated to make it appear that she was crying.

"The White House shared an AI-edited photo of Nekima, depicting her in tears and scared when, in actuality, she was poised, determined, and unafraid," NAACP President and CEO Derrick Johnson said yesterday.

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A federal judge today ordered the US government to stop searching devices seized from the house of a Washington Post reporter. It may be only a temporary reprieve for the Post and reporter Hannah Natanson, however. Further proceedings will be held on whether the search can resume or whether the government must return the devices.

Natanson herself isn't the subject of investigation, but the FBI executed a search warrant at her home and seized her work and personal devices last week as part of an investigation into alleged leaks by a Pentagon contractor. The Post filed a motion to force the return of the reporter's property, and a separate motion for a standstill order that would prevent review of the seized devices until the court rules on whether they must be returned.

"Almost none of the seized data is even potentially responsive to the warrant, which seeks only records received from or relating to a single government contractor," a Post court filing today said. "The seized data is core First Amendment-protected material, and some is protected by the attorney-client privilege."

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The Federal Communications Commission today issued a warning to late-night and daytime talk shows, saying these shows may no longer qualify for an exemption to the FCC's equal-time rule. Because the FCC is chaired by vocal Trump supporter Brendan Carr, changing how the rule is enforced could pressure shows into seeking out more interviews with Republican candidates.

The public notice providing what the FCC calls "guidance on political equal opportunities requirement for broadcast television stations" appears to be part of the Trump administration's campaign against alleged liberal bias on broadcast TV. Carr, who has eroded the FCC's historical independence from the White House, previously pressured ABC to suspend Jimmy Kimmel and threatened ABC’s The View with the equal-time rule.

The Carr FCC's public notice today said that federal rules "prevent broadcast television stations, which have been given access to a valuable public resource (namely, spectrum), from unfairly putting their thumbs on the scale for one political candidate or set of candidates over another." These rules come from "the decision by Congress that broadcast television stations have an obligation to operate in the public interest—not in any narrow partisan, political interest," the Carr FCC said.

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When shadow library Anna's Archive lost its .org domain in early January, the controversial site's operator said the suspension didn't appear to have anything to do with its recent mass scraping of Spotify.

But it turns out, probably not surprisingly to most people, that the domain suspension resulted from a lawsuit filed by Spotify, along with major record labels Sony, Warner, and Universal Music Group (UMG). The music companies sued Anna's Archive in late December in US District Court for the Southern District of New York, and the case was initially sealed.

A judge ordered the case unsealed on January 16 "because the purpose for which sealing was ordered has been fulfilled." Numerous documents were made public on the court docket yesterday, and they explain events around the domain suspension.

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Verizon has started enforcing a 365-day lock period on phones purchased through its TracFone division, one week after the Federal Communications Commission waived a requirement that Verizon unlock handsets 60 days after they are activated on its network.

Verizon was previously required to unlock phones automatically after 60 days due to restrictions imposed on its spectrum licenses and merger conditions that helped Verizon obtain approval of its purchase of TracFone. But an update applied today to the TracFone unlocking policy said new phones will be locked for at least a year and that each customer will have to request an unlock instead of getting it automatically.

The "new" TracFone policy is basically a return to the yearlong locking it imposed before Verizon bought the company in 2021. TracFone first agreed to provide unlocking in a 2015 settlement with the Obama-era FCC, which alleged that TracFone failed to comply with a commitment to unlock phones for customers enrolled in the Lifeline subsidy program. TracFone later shortened the locking period from a year to 60 days as a condition of the Verizon merger.

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Netflix agreed to pay all cash for Warner Bros. Discovery, amending its $72 billion deal in an attempt to fight off Paramount's hostile takeover bid.

Netflix originally agreed to buy the company with a mix of cash and stock. To sweeten the offer for shareholders, Netflix and Warner Bros. today announced that Netflix will pay all cash instead. If successful, Netflix's purchase will include HBO Max, WB Studios, and other assets.

The price is unchanged at $27.75 per share, and Warner Bros. is targeting an April 2026 shareholder vote. The original plan was for Netflix to buy each Warner Bros. share with $23.25 in cash and $4.50 in Netflix stock.

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The operator of WorldCat won a default judgment against Anna's Archive, with a federal judge ruling yesterday that the shadow library must delete all copies of its WorldCat data and stop scraping, using, storing, or distributing the data.

Anna's Archive is a shadow library and search engine for other shadow libraries that was launched in 2022. It archives books and other written materials and makes them available via torrents, and recently expanded its ambitions by scraping Spotify to make a 300TB copy of the most-streamed songs. Anna's Archive lost its .org domain a couple of weeks ago but remains online at other domains.

Yesterday's ruling is in a case filed by OCLC, a nonprofit that operates the WorldCat library catalog on behalf of member libraries. OCLC alleged that Anna’s Archive “illegally hacked WorldCat.org” to steal 2.2TB of data.

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Verizon has received all approvals it needs for a $9.6 billion acquisition of Frontier Communications, an Internet service provider with about 3.3 million broadband customers in 25 states. Verizon said it expects to complete the merger on January 20.

The last approval came from the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), which allowed the deal in a 5–0 vote yesterday. There were months of negotiations that resulted in requirements to deploy more fiber and wireless infrastructure, offer $20-per-month Internet service to people with low incomes for the next decade, and other commitments, including some designed to replace the DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) policies that Verizon had to end because of demands by the Trump administration.

"The approval follows extensive public participation, testimony from multiple parties, and negotiated settlement agreements with consumer advocates and labor organizations," the CPUC said yesterday.

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Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and 10 other Democratic members of Congress today urged the Federal Trade Commission to investigate Trump Mobile's broken promises related to Trump phone delivery dates and claims that it is "made in the USA."

The request isn't likely to get very far. Trump declared early in his second term that independent agencies like the FTC may no longer operate independently from the White House, and FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson has backed Trump's claim of authority over historically independent agencies. The Supreme Court appears likely to approve Trump's firing of an FTC Democrat, giving him expanded power over the agency.

The letter, led by Warren and other lawmakers, was sent to Ferguson. "We write today regarding questions about false advertising and deceptive practices by Trump Mobile, and to seek information on how the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) intends to address any potential violations of consumer protection law given the inherent conflicts of interest presented by the company’s relationship to President Donald Trump," the letter said.

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The FBI searched a Washington Post reporter's home and seized her work and personal devices as part of an investigation into what Attorney General Pam Bondi called "illegally leaked information from a Pentagon contractor."

Executing a search warrant at the Virginia home of reporter Hannah Natanson on Wednesday morning, FBI "agents searched her home and her devices, seizing her phone, two laptops and a Garmin watch," The Washington Post reported. "One of the laptops was her personal computer, the other a Washington Post-issued laptop. Investigators told Natanson that she is not the focus of the probe."

Natanson regularly uses encrypted Signal chats to communicate with people who work or used to work in government, and has said her list of contacts exceeds 1,100 current and former government employees. The Post itself "received a subpoena Wednesday morning seeking information related to the same government contractor," the report said.

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President Trump asked Elon Musk to get Starlink working more reliably in Iran to thwart the Iranian government's Internet shutdown. Starlink operator SpaceX was apparently already working on the problem before Trump reached out to Musk.

Iran severed Internet connections and phone lines last week as the government conducted a violent crackdown on anti-government demonstrators, according to numerous reports, which say that thousands of people have been killed.

Starlink hasn't been completely disabled. The government's jamming technology has reportedly caused Starlink packet loss of anywhere from 30 to 80 percent.

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The Federal Communications Commission is letting Verizon lock phones to its network for longer periods, eliminating a requirement to unlock handsets 60 days after they are activated on its network. The change will make it harder for people to switch from Verizon to other carriers.

The FCC today granted Verizon's petition for a waiver of the 60-day unlocking requirement. While the waiver is in effect, Verizon only has to comply with the CTIA trade group's voluntary unlocking policy. The CTIA policy calls for unlocking prepaid mobile devices one year after activation, while devices on postpaid plans can be unlocked after a contract, device financing plan, or early termination fee is paid.

Unlocking a phone allows it to be used on another carrier's network. While Verizon was previously required to unlock phones automatically after 60 days, the CTIA code says carriers only have to unlock phones "upon request" from consumers. The FCC said the Verizon waiver will remain in effect until the agency "decides on an appropriate industry-wide approach for the unlocking of handsets."

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The Supreme Court will hear a case that could invalidate the Federal Communications Commission's authority to issue fines against companies regulated by the FCC.

AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile challenged the FCC's ability to punish them after the commission fined the carriers for selling customer location data without their users’ consent. AT&T convinced the US Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit to overturn its fine, while Verizon lost in the 2nd Circuit and T-Mobile lost in the District of Columbia Circuit.

Verizon petitioned the Supreme Court to reverse its loss, while the FCC and Justice Department petitioned the court to overturn AT&T's victory in the 5th Circuit. The Supreme Court granted both petitions to hear the challenges and consolidated the cases in a list of orders released Friday. Oral arguments will be held.

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SpaceX today received US permission to launch another 7,500 second-generation Starlink satellites, bringing its total authorization to 15,000 Gen2 satellites including those previously approved.

"Under this grant, SpaceX is authorized to construct, deploy, and operate an additional 7,500 Gen2 Starlink satellites, bringing the total to 15,000 satellites worldwide," the Federal Communications Commission announced today. "This expansion will enable SpaceX to deliver high-speed, low-latency Internet service globally, including enhanced mobile and supplemental coverage from space."

The FCC gave SpaceX permission for the first set of 7,500 satellites in December 2022. The agency deferred action on the rest of the second-generation constellation at the time and limited the first batch to certain altitudes, saying it needed to "address concerns about orbital debris and space safety" before approving the full bunch.

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Italy fined Cloudflare 14.2 million euros for refusing to block access to pirate sites on its 1.1.1.1 DNS service, the country's communications regulatory agency, AGCOM, announced yesterday. Cloudflare said it will fight the penalty and threatened to remove all of its servers from Italian cities.

AGCOM issued the fine under Italy's controversial Piracy Shield law, saying that Cloudflare was required to disable DNS resolution of domain names and routing of traffic to IP addresses reported by copyright holders. The law provides for fines up to 2 percent of a company's annual turnover, and the agency said it applied a fine equal to 1 percent.

The fine relates to a blocking order issued to Cloudflare in February 2025. Cloudflare argued that installing a filter applying to the roughly 200 billion daily requests to its DNS system would significantly increase latency and negatively affect DNS resolution for sites that aren't subject to the dispute over piracy.

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The Federal Communications Commission plans to authorize a new category of wireless devices in the 6 GHz Wi-Fi band that will be permitted to operate at higher power levels than currently allowed. The FCC will also consider authorizing higher power levels for certain wireless devices that are only allowed to operate indoors.

The FCC said it scheduled a vote for its January 29 meeting on an order "to create a new category of unlicensed devices... that can operate outdoors and at higher power than previously authorized devices." These so-called Geofenced variable power (GVP) devices operating on the 6 GHz band will "support high data rates suitable for AR/VR, short-range hotspots, automation, and indoor navigation," and "overcome limitations of previous device classes by allowing higher power and outdoor mobility," the FCC said. They will be required to work with geofencing systems to avoid interference with fixed microwave links and radio astronomy observatories.

FCC Chairman Brendan Carr attributed the FCC's planned action to President Trump in a press release titled, "President Trump Unleashes American Innovation With 6 GHz Win." That's consistent with Carr's relatively new stance that the FCC takes orders from the president, despite his insisting during the Biden era that the FCC must operate independently from the White House.

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The Warner Bros. Discovery board has unanimously voted to rebuff Paramount's $108.4 billion offer and urged shareholders to reject the hostile takeover bid. The board is continuing to support Netflix's pending $82.7 billion purchase of its streaming and movie studios businesses along with a separate spinoff of the Warner Bros. cable TV division.

Warner Bros. called the Paramount bid "illusory" in a presentation for shareholders today, saying the offer requires an "extraordinary amount of debt financing" and other terms that make it less likely to be completed than a Netflix merger. It would be the largest leveraged buyout ever, "with $87B of total pro forma gross debt," and is "effectively a one-sided option for PSKY [Paramount Skydance] as the offer can be terminated or amended by PSKY at any time," Warner Bros. said.

The Warner Bros. presentation touted Netflix's financial strength while saying that Paramount "is a $14B market cap company with a 'junk' credit rating, negative free cash flows, significant fixed financial obligations, and a high degree of dependency on its linear business." The Paramount "offer is illusory as it cannot be completed before it is currently scheduled to expire," Warner Bros. said.

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A Federal Communications Commission proposal to let state and local prisons jam contraband cell phones has support from Republican attorneys general and prison phone companies but faces opposition from wireless carriers that say it would disrupt lawful communications. Groups dedicated to Wi-Fi and GPS also raised concerns in comments to the FCC.

"Jamming will block all communications, not just communications from contraband devices," wireless lobby group CTIA said in December 29 comments in response to Chairman Brendan Carr's proposal. The CTIA said that "jamming blocks all communications, including lawful communications such as 911 calling," and argued that the FCC "has no authority to allow jamming."

CTIA members AT&T and Verizon expressed their displeasure in separate comments to the FCC. "The proposed legal framework is based on a flawed factual premise," AT&T wrote.

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The primary domain of Shadow library Anna's Archive was taken offline, with annas-archive.org being put under the serverHold status. While Anna's Archive recently made waves with a massive "backup" of Spotify, the shadow library's operator said the music pirating doesn't appear to be connected to the .org domain suspension. Anna's Archive remains available at several other domains.

Anna's Archive launched in 2022 in response to the US Department of Justice seizure of domains used by e-book pirate site Z-Library. Acting as a shadow library and a search engine for other shadow libraries, Anna's Archive aims to archive books and other written materials and make them widely available via torrents. Its data sets have also been heavily used by AI companies to train large language models.

In addition to mirroring shadow libraries such as Sci-Hub, Library Genesis, and Z-Library, Anna's Archive made a major move into music pirating two weeks ago with an announcement that it scraped Spotify and made a 300TB copy of the most streamed songs. Despite that development, the person behind Anna's Archive said the domain suspension doesn't seem to be related to the Spotify scraping.

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