The US District Court for the Western District of Arkansas today declared Arkansas Act 372 unconstitutional in an opinion indicating that the law is overbroad and void for vagueness, and permanently enjoined its enforcement. The Arkansas law would have subjected librarians and bookstore owners to criminal prosecution for making materials available on library and bookstore shelves that could be deemed harmful to younger minors and conceivably available for younger minors to view, and mandated a library book challenge procedure in public libraries whereby individuals may challenge books based on “appropriateness” (an undefined term not based on constitutional standards). In addition, review boards would have been allowed or even invited to engage in viewpoint and content-based discrimination. The ruling came in response to the suit filed by a coalition of plaintiffs that included local Arkansas libraries, as well as authors, publishers, booksellers, librarians, and readers.

Nordstrom, Inc. announced it has signed a definitive agreement under which Erik, Pete, Jamie Nordstrom and other members of the Nordstrom family and El Puerto de Liverpool, S.A.B. de C.V. will acquire all of the outstanding common shares of Nordstrom not already beneficially owned by the Nordstrom Family and Liverpool in an all-cash transaction valued at approximately $6.25 billion on an enterprise basis. Following the close of the transaction, the Nordstrom Family will have a majority ownership stake in the Company. Under the terms of the agreement, Nordstrom common shareholders will receive $24.25 in cash for each share of Nordstrom common stock they hold. The merger consideration represents a premium of approximately 42% to the Company's unaffected closing common stock price on March 18, 2024, the last trading day prior to media speculation regarding a potential transaction. In addition, the Board intends to authorize a special dividend of up to $0.25 per share (based on Nordstrom's cash on hand) immediately prior to and contingent on the close of the transaction. Upon completion of the transaction, Nordstrom will become a private company.

Foxtel, which has transformed into a digital and streaming leader in sports and entertainment content under News Corp management, will join DAZN, a global provider of sports streaming, giving international exposure to Australian sport, while bringing Australian sports fans greater access to programming from across the globe. Under the terms of the agreement, shareholder loans in the amount of A$578 million outstanding and owing to News Corp will be repaid in full in cash at closing. Foxtel’s current debt will be refinanced at closing and transfer with Foxtel, and News Corp will hold a minority equity interest in DAZN of approximately 6% as well as one seat on its Board of Directors. Telstra Group Ltd (“Telstra”) will also sell its minority interest in Foxtel, have its shareholder loans of A$128 million repaid, and take a minority stake in DAZN of approximately 3%. The proposed transaction values Foxtel at an enterprise value of A$3.4 billion, representing more than 7x fiscal 2024 Foxtel EBITDA.

The purchase could be finalized in January. “At Hearst Connecticut Media Group, we recognize the Republican-American as a pillar of journalistic excellence and a vital voice for the communities it serves,” says Mike DeLuca, group publisher and president of Hearst Connecticut Media Group. DeLuca continues, “We are committed to preserving the rich legacy of the Republican-American while enhancing its reach and resources for the benefit of readers and advertisers across Connecticut.”

“Our second quarter results demonstrate that our efforts to transform our operations are working. The Federal Express segment delivered operating profit growth despite several headwinds, including the continued weak U.S. domestic demand environment as well as the expiration of our U.S. Postal Service contract,” said Raj Subramaniam, FedEx Corp. president and chief executive officer. “I am proud of the team for continuing to deliver solid service to our customers throughout the Peak season, as we create a more flexible, efficient, and intelligent network.” Consolidated operating results were negatively affected by lower-than-expected FedEx Freight revenue and profit, as sustained weakness in U.S. industrial production continued to pressure less-than-truckload industry demand. The lower FedEx Freight results were mostly offset by cost reduction benefits at Federal Express from DRIVE program initiatives and higher base yields at each transportation segment.

Total revenues across all categories for October 2024 were up 8.3% as compared to October 2023, coming in at $1.4 billion. Year-to-date revenues were up 7.1%, at $12.1 billion for the first ten months of the year. Trade (Consumer Books) revenues were up 7.3% in October at $1.1 billion. In terms of physical paper format revenues during the month of October, in the Trade (Consumer Books) category, Hardback revenues were up 8.8%, coming in at $487.9 million; Paperbacks were up 6.2%, with $321.4 million in revenue; Mass Market was up 11.7% to $10.1 million; and Special Bindings were up 1.5%, with $27.2 million in revenue. Year-to-date Trade revenues were up 6.9% at $7.9 billion for the first ten months of the year. Hardback revenues were up 7.5%, coming in at $2.9 billion; Paperbacks were up 3.8%, with $2.7 billion in revenue; Mass Market was down 16.2% to $101.1 million; and Special Bindings were up 4.3%, with $187.4 million in revenue.

McClatchy has completed its merger with accelerate360 and formed a new entity called McClatchy Media Company (MMC), which it claims reaches 100 million unique visitors per month. Announced in August, the merger combines McClatchy's 30 news products, including The Miami Herald, The Kansas City Star, The Sacramento Bee and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, and accelerate360's lifestyle brands such as Us Weekly, Woman's World and Soap Opera Digest. “The combination creates many opportunities to leverage our digital platform at scale, provide additional original content offerings to consumers, and targeted audience access to our marketing partners,” says Tony Hunter, chairman and chief executive officer of MMC.

Torstar, Postmedia, The Globe and Mail, The Canadian Press, and CBC/Radio-Canada filed a legal action against OpenAI. News media companies invest hundreds of millions of dollars into reporting Canadians’ critical stories, undertaking investigations and original reporting, and distributing media in both official languages in every province and territory across this country. The content that Canadian news media companies produce is fact-checked, sourced and reliable, producing trusted news and information by, for, and about Canadians. This requires significant investment, and the content produced by news media companies is copyrighted. News Media Companies welcome technological innovations. However, all participants must follow the law, and any use of intellectual property must be on fair terms.

Net sales for the first quarter increased 7.5 percent, to $60.99 billion from $56.72 billion last year. Net income for the quarter was $1,798 million, $4.04 per diluted share, compared to $1,589 million, $3.58 per diluted share, last year. This year’s results included a tax benefit of $100 million, $0.22 per diluted share, related to stock-based compensation. Last year’s results included a tax benefit of $44 million, $0.10 per diluted share, also related to stock-based compensation. Costco currently operates 897 warehouses, including 617 in the United States and Puerto Rico, 109 in Canada, 41 in Mexico, 36 in Japan, 29 in the United Kingdom, 19 in Korea, 15 in Australia, 14 in Taiwan, seven in China, five in Spain, two in France, and one each in Iceland, New Zealand and Sweden. Costco also operates e-commerce sites in the U.S., Canada, the U.K., Mexico, Korea, Taiwan, Japan and Australia.

With two weeks remaining before Christmas Day (Wednesday, Dec. 25), the U. S. Postal Service today reports exceptional service performance during the peak holiday rush and expects continued success throughout the season, including the busiest week of the year — the week just before Christmas. Through the substantial progress the Postal Service has made under its 10-year Delivering for America plan — a $40 billion investment aimed at modernizing and reinvigorating the organization — USPS has met the challenge of the year’s peak surge in mail and package volume with expanded processing capabilities, optimized transportation strategies, enhanced operational precision and the dedication of more than 640,000 employees nationwide. The continued transformation of the Postal Service has led to significant cost savings, increased service reliability and enhanced service performance. Currently, 98 percent of the nation’s population receives their mail and packages in an average of 2.6 days.

Hearst Magazines today announced the acquisition of MotorTrend Group, a Warner Bros. Discovery business, comprised of MotorTrend and a diversified portfolio of automotive digital, direct-to-consumer, social, print and live-event brands. The announcement was made by Steven R. Swartz, president and CEO of Hearst; Debi Chirichella, president of Hearst Magazines; and Alex Wellen, CEO and president of MotorTrend Group, whose auto-focused brands include MotorTrend, Hot Rod, Roadkill, Automobile, among others. Terms were not disclosed. MotorTrend Group will expand Hearst’s collection of brands for car enthusiasts and buyers providing even more up-to-the-minute content, commerce and community. MotorTrend Group’s vast portfolio embodies car culture from electric vehicles to timeless classic customs, reaching over 30 million users every month. Its robust events business draws approximately 500,000 passionate enthusiasts every year to iconic experiences such as HOT ROD Drag Week, Roadkill Nights and the Japanese Automotive Invitational at Pebble Beach.

“Adobe delivered record FY24 revenue, demonstrating strong demand and the mission-critical role Creative Cloud, Document Cloud and Experience Cloud play in fueling the AI economy,” said Shantanu Narayen, chair and CEO, Adobe. “Our highly differentiated technology platforms, rapid pace of innovation, diversified go-to-market and the integration of our clouds position us for a great year ahead.” “Adobe drove FY24 records of $21.51 billion in revenue, $8.06 billion in cash flows from operations and $19.96 billion in RPO,” said Dan Durn, executive vice president and CFO, Adobe. “Adobe’s strategy, AI innovation and massive cross-cloud opportunity position us well for 2025 and beyond.”

Good morning, Chairman Comer, Ranking Member Raskin, and Members of the Committee. I appreciate the opportunity to once again discuss the significant progress the U.S. Postal Service is making in accomplishing the objectives identified in the Delivering for America plan. When I agreed to take on the role as Postmaster General, the nation was in the beginning of a pandemic and the Postal Service was in an organizational crisis, facing a diverse array of challenges that put the organization on an accelerating and near-term trajectory to financial and service collapse. The Postal Service had lost almost $90 billion, was projected to lose another $200 billion over the next 10 years and was about to run out of cash before the year end.

Box, Inc., the leading Intelligent Content Management platform and Adobe announced a partnership that will redefine how digital media is managed, created and shared in the enterprise. Adobe Express will be generally available as the default image editor in Box, empowering every Box user to easily create more engaging content without leaving Box’s secure platform. Adobe Express brings the best of Adobe’s industry-leading creative tools into an app everyone can use. Features in Adobe Express powered by Adobe Firefly generative AI are designed to be safe for business so enterprises can deploy them broadly – with confidence. With the new capabilities generally available through the Adobe Express integration, Box enterprise customers will have the ability to empower millions of individuals and teams to create the content they need for their jobs quickly and easily. Using the Adobe Express integration in Box, marketers can edit images for their next campaign, HR teams can customize compelling training content, and sales teams can develop high-impact content for their next pitch – all within their secure Box workflows, enhancing Box’s Intelligent Content Management solution.

Third Quarter Highlights: *Macy’s First 50 locations delivered third consecutive quarter of comparable sales growth, up 1.9%. *Bloomingdale’s reported comparable sales growth of owned and owned-plus-licensed-plus-marketplace of 1.0% and 3.2%, respectively. *Bluemercury reported comparable sales growth of 3.3%. “Our third quarter results reflect the positive momentum we are building through our Bold New Chapter strategy,” said Tony Spring, chairman and chief executive officer of Macy’s, Inc. “We are encouraged by the consistent sales growth in our Macy's First 50 locations and the strong performance of Bloomingdale's and Bluemercury. Quarter-to-date, comparable sales continue to trend ahead of third quarter levels across the portfolio. Looking ahead, we remain committed to achieving sustainable, profitable growth for Macy’s, Inc.”

*High-single digit revenue growth in Learning from favorable market conditions and AI licensing. *Low single digit revenue growth in Research from solid demand to publish and modest improvement in Research Solutions offsetting a large year-over-year swing in legacy print and licensing revenue. *Continued strong margin improvement and EPS growth. *GAAP Results: Revenue of $427 million vs. $493 million in prior year due to foregone revenue from divested businesses, Operating Income of $64 million (+39%). “ Continuous improvement is a way of life for us now, and it’s beginning to pay off in our quality growth and margin expansion,” said Matthew Kissner, Wiley President and CEO. “Learning has had a good year so far, both Academic and Professional, and Research delivered low-single digit growth with leading indicators and favorable comparisons signaling a better second half ahead. Additionally, we continue to see interest from tech companies and other corporate LLM developers for our high-value content and data to train and commercialize AI models.”

The Association of American Publishers announced the final resolution of Hachette Book Group v. Internet Archive, after Internet Archive declined to file a cert petition with the U.S. Supreme Court by the December 3, 2024 deadline. We are pleased that the Second Circuit’s September 4, 2024 opinion stands as the eloquent legal ending to this case, as it draws extensively on Supreme Court precedent and will be broadly impactful to other controversies, including artificial intelligence cases. “After five years of litigation, we are thrilled to see this important case rest with the decisive opinion of the Second Circuit, which leaves no room for arguments that ‘controlled digital lending’ is anything more than infringement, whether performed by commercial or noncommercial actors, or aimed at authorship that is creative or factual in nature. As the Court recognized, the public interest—and the progress of art and science that is the mandate of the Constitution’s copyright clause—is served best when authors and their publisher licensees can decide the terms on which they make their works available. We are indebted to Hachette, HarperCollins, Penguin Random House, Wiley, their authors, and the many amici in this case who stood up for copyright, without which we would be a less inspired and less informed society.”

Savvas Learning Company, a next-generation K-12 learning solutions leader, is pleased to announce that its Texas myView Literacy has been approved by the Texas State Board of Education (SBOE) for inclusion on the state’s new list of high-quality instructional materials (HQIM) for K-5 English language arts and reading and Spanish language arts and reading. Combining powerful Science of Reading-based instruction with engaging student-centered practice opportunities, Texas myView Literacy is a full-subject (core), evidence-based instructional program for grades K–5 designed to develop strong readers and writers. Savvas developed its Texas-specific myView Literacy, which is also available in Spanish as miVisión Lectura, to support educators and improve student academic outcomes while also aligning with all of the state’s educational standards, known as the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) with phonics components included.

Savvas Learning Company, a next-generation K-12 learning solutions leader, today released findings from its first annual Savvas Educator Index, revealing administrators are more optimistic than teachers about the future of the teaching profession, student motivation, and the role of AI in the classroom. However, the national survey also shows agreement among educators on solutions to close the optimism gap and enhance student success. The 2024 Savvas Educator Index is designed to understand educators’ perspectives on key issues shaping K-12 education today. Its findings reflect insights from a nationwide survey of more than 1,600 K-12 educators, including teachers as well as school and district administrators.

The British Columbia Maritime Employers Association has locked out more than 700 supervisors at ports throughout British Columbia. At the same time, a strike at the Port of Montreal, the biggest port in eastern Canada, continues to cause problems. The strike has already led to partial closures, affecting 40% of the port’s container traffic. Shipping delays could quickly add up, potentially disrupting important international shipments and creating significant economic challenges for global businesses and consumers. The West Coast ports are essential, managing about $576 million in daily trade and serving as a key part of North America’s ports, railroads, and trucking network. However, a long-lasting strike could seriously disrupt this system, causing problems across the supply chain.

Cyber Monday 2024 results overtook totals from the same day in 2023 to reach the highest U.S. online sales for any day historically, once again beating projections, according to Adobe Analytics data. Adobe Analytics had projected U.S. consumers would spend $13.2 billion online on Cyber Monday 2024, which already would have been a record. Then, consumers exceeded that by $100 million, spending $13.3 billion on Cyber Monday this year. That’s 7.3% more than they spent in 2023.

The United States Postal Service released its 2024 Post-Election Analysis Report, outlining the agency's steps to process more than 99.22 million ballots in the 2024 general election. The full report can be read here: 2024 Post-Election Analysis Report. “In 2024, the Postal Service once again admirably performed our role of efficiently and effectively delivering the nation’s ballots,” said Postmaster General Louis DeJoy. “As we continue to transform the nation’s postal network to better meet the demands of the modern mailing and shipping customer, we stand ready to work with policymakers at all levels to make the nation’s effective vote by mail process even stronger.” The Postal Service’s success in 2024 was the result of a deepened focus on operational precision and integrated communications, the engagement of the USPS Election and Government Mail Services team and execution of longstanding, proven operational processes and procedures, including extraordinary measures.

The Postal Regulatory Commission will conduct a hearing at PRC offices on December 4, 2024, at 10 am regarding planned changes to the Postal Service’s processing and transportation networks. Docket No. N2024-1. The hearing will also be streamed for persons interested in remote viewing of the hearing. Information on attending the hearing and registration deadlines, is provided below and in the Commission’s filing at: https://prc.arkcase.com/api/prc-dockets/filing/downloadFile?fileId=226594&inline=true In-person attendance: 901 New York Avenue, Suite 200. Washington, DC 20236. Remote viewing: www.youtube.com/@thepostalregulatorycommiss9709. Reporters and media outlets should rsvp to Gail Adams at: gail.adams@prc.gov. Registration deadline: The deadline to register for attendance is December 2, 2024.