Week In Review
- Elissa D. Hecker - Editor
- Oct 13
- 14 min read
By Christine Coleman
Edited by Elissa D. Hecker
Entertainment
Judge Dismisses Drake’s Lawsuit Over Kendrick Lamar’s ‘Not Like Us’
Drake’s court battle with his own record label for releasing a diss track by Kendrick Lamar that accused him of pedophilia has met a premature end. Federal judge Jeannette A. Vargas in New York dismissed the defamation and harassment lawsuit brought by Drake, calling “Not Like Us” the “metaphorical killing blow” in “perhaps the most infamous rap battle in the genre’s history,” while ruling that its lyrics constituted “nonactionable opinion,” meaning that it could not be found as defamatory.
Kristi Noem Attacks Zach Bryan’s New Lyrics About ICE
Kristi Noem, the secretary of homeland security, criticized new lyrics by the country music star Zach Bryan, warning that ICE “is going to come bust down your door.” The musician pushed back, saying that his lyrics had been “misconstrued.” This is the latest flashpoint in an increasingly bitter clash between conservatives and popular entertainers over the Trump administration’s immigration policies.
Why Arguments About Free Speech Don’t Apply to the Riyadh Comedy Festival
The American comics who performed at the Riyadh Comedy Festival have been returning home and explaining why they participated. Although they have framed their participation as a matter of open expression, they are vague about how much dissent is possible in Saudi Arabia
Arts
Prime Video Scrubs Guns From James Bond Artwork, and 007 Fans Are Shaken
Amazon has quietly scrubbed away the firearms that 007 brandishes in the promotional artwork for the classic films. After noticing the changes, fans took to social media to ridicule the move and accuse Amazon of “woke”-inspired censorship. Many worried that the changes presaged more extreme moves from the tech giant, which acquired creative control of the Bond franchise in February.
Bob Ross’s ‘Happy Little’ Paintings Will Be Auctioned to Benefit Public TV
Bob Ross’ estate announced that 30 original paintings by the television host and artist will be available for sale beginning next month through the auction house Bonhams. The proceeds will benefit public television stations across the country that have been grappling with the Trump administration’s cancellation of $1.1 billion in funding for public media.
MacArthur Foundation Announces 2025 ‘Genius Grant’ Winners
Ttwenty-two people in a broad spectrum of the arts and sciences were awarded the MacArthur Foundation fellowship, popularly known as the “genius grant”. Honorees, described by the foundation as exceptionally creative people with a record of significant accomplishments and the potential for continued achievement, receive $800,000 over five years.
The Shutdown Closes Smithsonian Museums, Shutting Out Tourists
The 21 museums operated by the Smithsonian Institution, many of them top tourist attractions in Washington, were closed morning as the federal government shutdown stretched into its second week.
San Francisco Wants to Destroy a 96-Year-Old’s Defining Artwork
The city of San Francisco has proposed to replace the Vaillancourt Fountain with native landscaping, picnic areas, and other amenities would be met with applause. However, its supporters say destroying the Vaillancourt Fountain would be erasing history and modern architecture, and counter to the city’s reputation for being weird.
Librarian Fired in Books Dispute to Receive $700,000 Settlement
A library director in Wyoming who was fired two years ago because she refused to remove books with sexual content and L.G.B.T.Q. themes from a library’s children and young adult sections was awarded $700,000 in a settlement. Terri Lesley, the former director of the Campbell County Public Library in Gillette, Wyo., filed a federal lawsuit in April for defamation and the violation of her civil rights against the county, its board of commissioners, the library board and individual members of both government boards.
Shein Chose Paris for Its First Boutique. Paris Isn’t Pleased.
As the Chinese online fast-fashion retailer Shein prepares to open a physical space in Paris’ iconic BHV Marais department store, France pushes to stem the company’s presence in the country. Employees at BHV Marais quit their cash registers for a few hours and gathered outside to protest the opening of a 1,000-square-meter space for Shein. Many denounced what they said was the incursion into France of a low-cost Chinese competitor that used cheap labor and violated environmental and human rights standards in making its clothes.
Sports
What to Know About the Battle for a Casino License in New York City
Four contenders remain in the running for three casino licenses that New York State could award before the end of the year, paving the way for the first full-scale gambling house in the New York City region. It would be the realization of a long-held dream of the gambling industry to break into the largest metropolitan area in the United States, a global tourism destination that has just about everything except Las Vegas-style table games and slots.
Tennis players accused of doping will receive financial and legal support from authorities
Tennis players who test positive for banned substances will receive financial and legal support for their cases from the sport’s anti-doping authority, the International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) announced. Any player investigated for breaching the sport’s anti-doping or anti-corruption rules will receive financial assistance, confidential third-party counseling, and additional free legal support.
Unsealed document details abuse allegations against Dolphins’ Tyreek Hill
In a newly unsealed document in the divorce case between Miami Dolphins wide receiver Tyreek Hill and his estranged wife Lakeeta Vaccaro, Hill has been accused of several instances of domestic violence. Though filed in September, the document was only made public after six news outlets requested the court to unseal the records.
Newsletter, Image, Likeness Vol. 153: The College Sports Commission Is The Most Damning Indictment Of College Sports' Governance Crisis
“The College Sports Commission stands as perhaps the most damning indictment of college athletics' governance crisis. Not because it's failing, but because it was designed by the very people now abandoning it.”
Former Kentucky swim coach accused of sexual violence deemed ‘permanently ineligible’ from coaching
The U.S. Center for SafeSport has ruled that former Kentucky swimming coach Lars Jorgensen is permanently ineligible from coaching. The misconduct found was an intimate relationship involving a power imbalance; physical misconduct; retaliation; sexual harassment; and sexual misconduct.
In women’s sports, athletes losing their periods was long considered normal. Not anymore
The origins of the misconception that elite sports might require missed periods are multifaceted. There’s the historic lack of scientific research into, and education around, menstrual health and its influence on sporting success; bygone or unrealistic ideals of elite sporting physiques; a dearth of education among coaches and athletes; and the historic taboo of discussing sexual health openly. This had led to repercussions for athletes that can include long-term health implications and the curtailing of some careers altogether. There is hope, however, for a more informed future and a greater understanding of how knowledge of the menstrual cycle can be an elite athlete’s “superpower.”
Cole Palmer has trademarked ‘Cold Palmer’. What does it mean for him (and Chelsea)?
Chelsea and England playmaker Cole Palmer has successfully trademarked the term ‘Cold Palmer’. Palmer’s application, submitted to the UK government’s Intellectual Property Office in November, was approved. Palmer’s successful application includes an exhaustive list of products that he intends to sell using the trademarked term: soaps, bath salts, food snacks, razor blades, mobile phone covers, drones, underwater vehicles, stationery, toys, Christmas crackers, and teddy bears.
Technology/Media
Is Your Book in the Anthropic Settlement Class? Find Out and File a Claim
The court granted preliminary approval of the settlement in Bartz v. Anthropic on September 25, 2025, and authors can now search the official Works List on www.anthropiccopyrightsettlement.com to confirm whether their books are part of the class and file their Claim Form to receive compensation.
ORDER DENYING MOTION TO DISMISS FIRST AMENDED COMPLAINT (Concord v. Anthropic)
Judge Eumi K. Lee for the District Court for the Northern District of California has denied Anthropic’s motion to dismiss music publisher Concord’s complaint against them.
How Right-Wing Influencers Are Shaping the Guard Fight in Portland
President Trump and his administration are amplifying the voices of pro-White House podcasters and streamers eager to ratify the president’s description of Oregon’s largest city as a “hellscape.”
Sora, Not Sorry: OpenAI Backtracks on Opt-Out Copyright Policy
Just three days after launching Sora 2 with a policy that let users create videos featuring copyrighted characters unless rightsholders explicitly opted out, OpenAI has reversed course. The company announced that it will move to an opt-in model requiring permission before copyrighted characters can appear in Sora 2 videos.
Paramount Buys The Free Press, Ushering in a New Era at CBS News
In a move that is expected to shake up the broadcast news landscape, CBS’s owner, Paramount, said that it was buying The Free Press, an upstart digital news site founded by Bari Weiss, and appointing her as the editor in chief of CBS News. The acquisition puts one of the country’s most traditional news institutions under the editorial guidance of a journalist who rose to fame in part by critiquing old-line media institutions that she deemed timid and untrustworthy.
Inside Hegseth’s Effort to Limit Press Access at the Pentagon
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is at odds with the news media to a degree unseen in modern times. Under his leadership, the department has removed national news outlets from a shared media workspace and made it available to conservative outlets instead; has scaled back reporters’ ability to roam Pentagon corridors; and is imposing a set of restrictions outlining causes for the revocation of correspondents’ press passes. The Defense Department is falling in line with a policy of hostility toward news organizations that spans the Trump administration.
Crypto Investor Known as ‘Bitcoin Jesus’ Reaches Deal With Prosecutors
Roger Ver, a prominent cryptocurrency investor, has reached a tentative agreement with the Justice Department to table a criminal tax fraud case that federal prosecutors brought against him last year. Under the terms of the deferred-prosecution agreement, Ver would pay $48 million to the government. Under the deal, the charges would eventually be dropped if Ver complied with the terms of the agreement. The case is poised to become the latest example of how the Trump administration has systematically dismantled a yearslong government crackdown on the crypto industry, a sector rife with fraud, scams and theft.
Rutgers Expert on Antifa Flees to Spain After Death Threats
Dr. Mark Bray, a Rutgers University expert on antifa, fled the United States with his family night in the wake of death threats that followed President Trump’s push to characterize the left-wing antifascist movement as a domestic terrorist organization.
General News
Highlights of the Conversion Therapy Argument at the Supreme Court
The Supreme Court’s conservative majority seemed poised to rule for a Christian therapist who says her free speech rights have been violated by a Colorado law barring mental health professionals from seeking to change a minor’s sexual orientation or gender identity. The Court’s decision, expected by June, will have implications for the more than 20 other states that have similar laws. In a lively argument lasting about 90 minutes, the justices debated whether the so-called conversion therapy covered by Colorado’s law causes harm to minors.
Federal Judges, Warning of ‘Judicial Crisis,’ Fault Supreme Court’s Emergency Orders
More than three dozen federal judges have told The New York Times that the Supreme Court’s flurry of brief, opaque emergency orders in cases related to the Trump administration have left them confused about how to proceed in those matters and are hurting the judiciary’s image with the public. The striking and highly unusual critique of the nation’s highest court from lower court judges reveals the degree to which litigation over Trump’s agenda has created strains in the federal judicial system.
Federal Judge Temporarily Blocks Troop Deployment in Chicago Area
A federal judge temporarily blocked National Guard operations in the Chicago area, saying that the Trump administration’s version of events was “simply unreliable” and that deploying troops anywhere in the state would “only add fuel to the fire.” The judge said that “I have seen no credible evidence that there is a danger of a rebellion in the state of Illinois,” rejecting one of the administration’s stated reasons for the deployment.
Appeals Court Allows Federalized National Guard, but Retains Block on Chicago Deployment
A federal appeals court ruled that National Guard troops could remain in Illinois under federal control, but left in place a ruling by a district court judge that bars those troops from being deployed into the streets over the objections of Gov. JB Pritzker of Illinois and other top Democrats in the state.
National Guard Troops Begin to Trickle Into Memphis
Two weeks after a federal task force began patrolling the western Tennessee city, National Guard troops from the state have now arrived.
White House Signals It May Try to Deny Back Pay to Furloughed Federal Workers
Trump signaled that hundreds of thousands of furloughed federal workers may not automatically receive back pay once the government reopens. This is prompting renewed fears that the administration might try to circumvent federal law and maximize the pain of the shutdown. The president’s comments contradicted the administration’s own guidance that furloughed employees would receive retroactive pay shortly after Congress strikes a funding deal.
Trump Says Federal Layoffs Have Begun During Government Shutdown
Trump said that his administration had started a new round of federal layoffs, as he seized on the government shutdown to cull the civil work force and pressure Democrats into accepting his fiscal demands. The layoffs appeared to target more than 4,000 employees across seven major federal departments, according to the administration, which revealed its plans in a filing to a federal court that is considering the legality of the cuts. That filing also hinted at the possibility of additional dismissals if the closure in Washington continues.
Trump Administration Is Bringing Back Scores of C.D.C. Experts Fired in Error
The Trump administration raced to rescind layoffs of hundreds of scientists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who were mistakenly fired night in what appeared to be a substantial procedural lapse.
Not Even Congress Knows How Much Money DOGE Cut
As DOGE’s work has been obscured by crude accounting and White House maneuvers, it’s impossible to know how much DOGE and its allies actually did cut from the budget or even what happened to that money. Outside budget experts can’t nail down a number. Even congressional appropriators, the people who decide how federal funds should be spent in the first place, don’t know. The public may never have a clear answer.
Pressed on Justice Department polarization, Bondi goes on the attack.
Attorney General Pam Bondi’s approach to fielding hostile questions posed by Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee about the perceived political weaponization of the Justice Department was simple and brutal. Bondi attempted to cast more than four hours of stonewalling senatorial queries about decisions on her watch as an aggrieved defense of Trump, herself, and other administration appointees. Bondi’s calculated bombast at the oversight hearing reflected an effort across the Trump administration to flip potentially damaging moments of public accountability into opportunities to savage political opponents.
As Trump’s Justice Dept. Pursues His Enemies, an Ally Goes on Trial
Xinyue Lou (aka Daniel), a zealous Trump supporter, is accused of funneling foreign campaign donations to Trump’s campaign by recruiting straw donors to give money on behalf of a an unnamed Chinese national who wanted to attend an event at Mar-a-Lago and take a photo with Trump. The president has said the justice system has been used against him and his supporters.
James Indictment Mirrors Her Civil Case Against Trump in Miniature
The Justice Department’s criminal case against the New York attorney general, Letitia James, carries echoes of the civil fraud case she brought against the president. The indictment, less than a month after Trump publicly exhorted the Justice Department to pursue James, accuses her of violating a mortgage agreement on a Virginia house she purchased in 2020 by using it as a rental property.
Trump Fires Black Officials From an Overwhelmingly White Administration
There has been a series of firings of black officials from high-profile positions in an overwhelmingly white administration that has banished all DEI programs across the federal government. While there are no statistics on firings by race, an examination of the people Trump is appointing to fill those and other jobs shows a stark trend. Of the president’s 98 Senate-confirmed appointees to the administration’s most senior leadership roles in its first 200 days, only two are black.
Kash Patel Fires Two F.B.I. Agents Who Worked on Trump Investigation
F.B.I. Director Kash Patel fired two agents who were identified as having worked with Jack Smith, the special counsel who led the federal investigations into Trump. The agents worked in a special unit of the bureau’s Washington field office. They had not been formally accused of misconduct, nor had they been the subject of investigations. As he has done with other firings, Patel cited Article II of the Constitution and his right to fire anyone he chooses without cause.
An Immense Solar Project Just Got Canceled Under Trump
An enormous solar power project, Esmeralda 7, in the Nevada desert that would have been one of the world’s largest has been canceled, according to the Interior Department. The reason for the cancellation was not immediately clear, but the project appeared to be the latest casualty of the Trump administration’s efforts to thwart the construction of solar and wind energy projects on millions of acres of public lands, predominantly in the American West.
Johnson & Johnson Ordered to Pay $966 Million in Latest Talc Lawsuit
A Los Angeles jury ordered Johnson & Johnson to pay $966 million to the family of Mae Moore, a California woman who died from mesothelioma, a rare and aggressive cancer, after the company was found liable in a lawsuit claiming its baby powder products cause cancer.
Treasury Defends Lawfulness of Minting a $1 Trump Coin
The Trump administration defended its plan to mint a $1 coin bearing the image of the president despite the fact that an 1866 law dictates that only the deceased can appear on U.S. currency.
The E.P.A. Followed Up on an Unusual Request About Abortion Pills
Senior officials at the Environmental Protection Agency directed scientists over the summer to assess whether the government could develop methods for detecting traces of abortion pills in wastewater, a practice sought by anti-abortion activists seeking to restrict the medication. The highly unusual request appears to have originated from a letter sent from 25 Republican members of Congress to Lee Zeldin, the E.P.A. administrator, asking the agency to investigate how the abortion drug mifepristone might be contaminating the water supply.
M.I.T. Rejects a White House Offer for Special Funding Treatment
M.I.T. became the first university to reject an agreement that would trade support for the Trump administration’s higher education agenda in exchange for favorable treatment. The proposal was sent to nine universities and would require colleges to cap international student enrollment, freeze tuition for five years, adhere to definitions of gender and prohibit anything that would “belittle” conservative ideas. In a letter to the Trump administration, M.I.T.’s president, Sally Kornbluth, wrote that the university has already freely met or exceeded many of the standards outlined in the proposal, but that she disagrees with other requirements it demands, including those that would restrict free expression.
Report on Soros Cited by Justice Dept. Does Not Show Funding for Terrorism
When the Justice Department urged federal prosecutors last month to investigate the billionaire George Soros, it cited a report by a conservative watchdog group, Capital Research Center, that accused the liberal megadonor of financing groups to be “tied to terrorism or extremist violence.” However, the report does not show evidence that Soros’ network knowingly paid for its grantees to break the law, which legal experts said would be necessary to build a criminal case. Instead, it focuses largely on what the Soros network’s grantees said, not what they did.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/10/us/politics/george-soros-justice-dept.html?searchResultPosition=1
Big Investors Await Windfall From Trump’s Argentina Bailout
The Trump administration moved forward with its bailout of Argentina, making a direct purchase of pesos and finalizing terms of a $20 billion lifeline, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said. The terms and conditions of the economic support package were not announced, but Bessent said the funds would come in the form of a currency swap with Argentina’s central bank. Big global investors have been anxiously awaiting the details of the bailout, which critics have said will benefit wealthy fund managers at a time when American farmers are struggling and the U.S. government is shut down.
Hostages and Palestinian Prisoners Are Freed as Trump Hails ‘Historic Dawn’ in Mideast
The last hostages in Gaza were returned to Israel on Monday and nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners were freed from Israeli jails as part of a cease-fire that Trump hailed as “the end of the war” in an address to cheering members of Israel’s Parliament. However, the agreement that has left many unanswered questions over whether Israel and Hamas can reach a lasting peace, and over the future of Gaza as well as the health of the hostages.
María Corina Machado of Venezuela Is Awarded the Nobel Peace Prize
The Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado, who built a powerful social movement challenging the country’s authoritarian president and has been living in hiding since last year, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. The Norwegian Nobel Committee praised “her tireless work promoting democratic rights for the people of Venezuela and for her struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy.”
Peru Ousts President Amid Crime Surge
President Dina Boluarte of Peru was swiftly impeached and removed from office by Congress, after a brazen shooting at a cumbia concert and mounting frustration over her failure to curb rampant crime prompted the parties that had long sustained her to withdraw their support.
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