By Ann E. Marimow, washingtonpost.com, 7-31-18 The Washington region’s transit system can bar religious messages on its buses and trains and in its stations, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday as it upheld Metro’s policy prohibiting issue-oriented advertisements. The ruling in Metro’s favor from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit [...]

By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable Online, 7-25-18 The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit has declined to overturn the FCC's restoration of the UHF discount on the grounds that the parties challenging it – Free Press, Prometheus Radio – did not have standing to bring the challenge. That could be a big [...]

By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable Online, 7-12-18 A politically divided FCC has voted 3-1 to launch a revamp of its children's television rules. Those are the 1996 rules that implement the Children's Television Act, which obligated TV stations to air educational and informational children's TV programming. The FCC is proposing to eliminate the requirements [...]

By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable Online, 6-29-18 Limited-government groups want the FCC to limit the mandates in its enforcement of children's programming legislation dating from the early 1990s, while a prominent kids TV group sees it slightly differently, while agreeing changes are needed. The FCC is tentatively proposing to eliminate a number of children's TV [...]

By Mark Sherman, AP, washingtonpost.com, 6-27-18 The Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that government workers can’t be forced to contribute to labor unions that represent them in collective bargaining, dealing a serious financial blow to Democratic-leaning organized labor. The court’s conservative majority, re-empowered by Justice Neil Gorsuch, scrapped a 41-year-old decision that had allowed states to [...]

By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable Online, 6-26-18 A majority of respondents to a new poll said they don't trust Facebook with their personal data and an even larger majority say "large internet and technology companies" should be more heavily regulated. That is according to a national telephone poll of 1,001 registered voters conducted June [...]

By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable Online, 6-25-18 Network neutrality activists have been playing up doom-and-gloom scenarios of internet service providers blocking, throttling or engaging in paid prioritization with impunity, now that FCC rules against those practices are gone. But the matter is not quite so black and white, or in this case black and [...]

By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable Online, 6-21-18 The FCC is tentatively proposing to eliminate a number of children's TV rules, and seeks comment on changing others, tentatively concluding that educational and informational programming does not have to be at least a half-hour in length and regularly scheduled. The agency also proposes cutting the frequency [...]

By Robert Barnes, washingtonpost.com, 6-14-18 The Supreme Court on Thursday struck down Minnesota’s ban on wearing “political” apparel to polling places, saying that the state’s intentions may be good but that its law was too broad and open to differing interpretations. The 7-to-2 decision, written by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., was careful not [...]

By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable Online, 6-12-18 A federal district court has ruled that AT&T and Time Warner can get together, making the Trump administration's Justice Department the loser in the high-profile legal case. That came in a highly anticipated announcement by D.C. District Court Judge Richard Leon, who had signaled weeks ago that [...]