Washington Post

[Commentary]  Not only has voter participation in local elections fallen to dangerously low levels, but the health of local newspapers, traditional watchdogs for the most direct and abundant form of government in the United States, has also been deteriorating. The Republican Party — yes, the same party whose leader derides the media as “fake news” and “the enemy of the people”  — should be particularly alarmed.

The Justice Department plans to alert the public to foreign operations targeting US democracy under a new policy designed to counter hacking and disinformation campaigns such as the one Russia undertook in 2016 to disrupt the presidential election. The government will inform American companies, private organizations and individuals that they are being covertly attacked by foreign actors attempting to affect elections or the political process. “Exposing schemes to the public is an important way to neutralize them,” said Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein.

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.

President Donald Trump attacked the European Union for fining Google $5 billion for harming its competitors, tweeting that the incident proved the regional bloc has “taken advantage of the U.S., but not for long!” To President Trump, the fine appeared to serve as the latest evidence of Europe’s exploitation of the United States on a variety of matters, including trade and nations’ contributions to defense spending, and it came a day after he threatened “tremendous retribution,” particularly on European-made cars, if the EU doesn’t change its trade policies. The EU’s penalty stood in stark c

President Donald Trump lashed out anew at the news media, suggesting that reporters are slanting their coverage of his relationship with Russian President Vladi­mir Putin with the aim of provoking a possible war. “The Fake News Media wants so badly to see a major confrontation with Russia, even a confrontation that could lead to war,” the president wrote amid a series of morning tweets.

Lawmakers are turning up the pressure on Google and Amazon to reconsider their ban on a powerful anti-censorship technique used by millions of people worldwide to bypass restrictions on Internet access.