Brian Fung

The Justice Department’s renewed effort to thwart AT&T’s merger with Time Warner rests on claims that a federal judge misunderstood “fundamental principles of economics,” according to court documents. Asking a federal appeals court to swiftly consider their case against the telecom giant, government lawyers said Judge Richard Leon of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia erred by rejecting “basic bargaining economics” when he ruled to allow the $85 billion deal in June.

The Justice Department filed an appeal challenging its loss in the AT&T-Time Warner antitrust trial. AT&T completed its $85 billion acquisition of Time Warner a few weeks ago after a federal judge rejected the Justice Department’s argument that the deal would be anti-competitive. “My guess is that the government is going to try to show that a lot of important evidence was rejected by the judge, and the judge put too much weight on the testimony of the merging parties," said Gene Kimmelman, a former Justice Department antitrust official who now leads Public Knowledge. 

Despite being awash in tech start-ups and the latest innovations, San Francisco has a surprising lack of connectivity. As many as 1 in 8 people  — more than 100,000 residents — don’t subscribe to home Internet, city officials say. To close that digital divide, the local government has come up with an entrepreneurial solution: Build a high-speed network of its own that could compete with the likes of AT&T and Comcast. If the estimated $1.9 billion proposal is approved, San Francisco would become the biggest U.S.

Having your voice heard at the Federal Communications Commission could soon cost you hundreds of dollars, according to congressional Democrats who oppose a looming rule change. But that may not be the case after all, a review of the FCC proposal shows.

AT&T’s wireless customers are expected to pay almost $1 billion in new fees every year to the company after it increased a monthly “administrative fee” this spring in a move that went largely unnoticed, according to an industry analyst. The analyst, Walt Piecyk of BTIG, initially estimated that AT&T could pocket roughly $800 million more annually from the higher fee, before revising that figure upward to $970 million once he learned that the fee hike will also affect tablets and smartwatches on AT&T’s network, not just cellphones.

The AT&T/Time Warner case could be decided any number of ways. Judge Richard Leon could rule in the government's favor, forcing AT&T to abandon the deal or to sell off key assets such as Turner or DirecTV to move forward. Judge Leon could side with AT&T, saying there is no threat to competition and allowing the deal to proceed unimpeded. In that scenario, AT&T would not be required to divest anything or make any other concessions and could close the deal by June 18.

With the network neutrality rules coming off the books, how is your Internet experience likely to change? Here's what you need to know:

[Analysis] The ruling that President Trump violated the constitutional rights of Americans when he blocked some of his Twitter followers after they criticized him politically raises many more questions about the extent of those First Amendment obligations. President Trump cannot legally block his Twitter followers for political reasons, the judge ruled, because that would amount to “viewpoint discrimination” by a government official in a public forum. 

President Donald Trump's decision to block his Twitter followers for their political views is a violation of the First Amendment, a federal judge ruled May 23, saying that President Trump's effort to silence his critics is not permissible under the US Constitution because the digital space in which he engages with constituents is a public forum. The ruling rejects administration arguments that the First Amendment does not apply to President Trump in this case because he was acting as a private individual.

Three days after President Donald Trump was sworn into office, AT&T turned to his personal attorney, Michael Cohen, for help on a wide portfolio of issues pending before the federal government — including the company’s proposed merger with Time Warner.