Washington Post

Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Nov 14 again revised his account of what he knew about the Trump campaign’s dealings with Russians, acknowledging for the first time that he recalled a meeting where a foreign policy adviser mentioned having contacts who could possibly broker a meeting between then-candidate Donald Trump and Russian President Vladi­mir Putin. Testifying before the House Judiciary Committee, Sessions said he now remembered adviser George Papadopoulos saying in March 2016 that he knew people who might be able to help arrange a Trump-Putin meeting.

Facebook and Google told federal election officials they are open to greater oversight over the lucrative business of online political advertising, a shift for the tech giants who acknowledged recently that their ad platforms were exploited by Russian operatives during and after the 2016 election. Google even took a step further than its rivals telling regulators that they should create a broad rule that would ban foreign entities from buying any kind of political ad aimed at influencing voters, not just the ones that mention candidates.

Targeted ads that seem to follow you everywhere online may soon be doing the same on your TV.  The Federal Communications Commission is poised to approve a new broadcast standard that will let broadcasters do something cable TV companies already do: harvest data about what you watch so advertisers can customize pitches. The prospect alarms privacy advocates, who say there are no rules setting boundaries for how broadcasters handle personal information. The FCC doesn’t mention privacy in the 109-page proposed rule that is scheduled for a vote by commissioners Nov 16.

[Commentary] Some supporters of U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore have come right out and said they do not believe four women who claim the Alabama Republican pursued them when they were teenagers and he was in his 30s.

[Commentary] Much has been written about the challenges facing the news business in the Internet and social media age. But recent research helps explain why local news outlets have struggled so mightily — and what that means for citizen engagement in local politics and elections. 1) Local news isn’t popular; 2) Audiences have shifted to national sources; 3) Local newsrooms are shrinking their staffs and their coverage; and 4) As local news declines, Americans stay away from local elections — even for members of Congress.

A new era of cutting-age technology begins Nov 13 at the United States Supreme Court, as the public for the first time will be able to access briefs and other case documents on the court’s website. Unimpressed? Perhaps the reader, in the waning second decade of the 21st century, thinks such an innovation might have been implemented, say, many years ago, as it was for the rest of the federal courts. “The courts will often choose to be late to the harvest of American ingenuity,” Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote when announcing the online project at the end of 2014.