Hannity says Fox sponsors being targeted
NEWYORK — Sean Hannity says a media watchdog is guilty of “liberal fascism” for targeting advertisers on his Fox News Channel show, as one company announced Wednesday that it would no longer hawk its wares there.
The Chicago-based Cars.com said it had been “watching closely” and recently decided to suspend its backing of Mr. Hannity.
Mr. Hannity, the sole survivor from Fox’s once stable and powerful prime-time lineup, has been a strong backer of President Donald Trump and believes the president is under attack from media and opponents who want to destroy him. On Wednesday, Mr. Hannity said he would no longer talk about a discredited story involving a murdered Democratic National Committee chairman after speaking to the man’s family, and after Fox had earlier retracted an online story it had written about the case.
Uncertaintyover whether Mr.Hannity would defy his network’sbosses over the storyled to big ratings on Wednesday.The show reached2.5 million viewers, or50 percent more than it hadfor the same night a year earlier,the Nielsen company said.
Miss. violating law?
JACKSON, Miss. — Mississippi is violating the federal law that enabled the state to rejoin the union after the Civil War, a civil rights group alleged Tuesday in a lawsuit over school funding.
Thelawsuit filed by the SouthernPoverty Law Center on behalf off our AfricanAmerican mothers with children in public elementary schoolsasks a federal judge to forcethe state’s leaders to complywith the 1870 law, whichsays Mississippi must neverdeprive any citizen of the“school rights and privileges” described in its 1868 constitution.
Thatlaw still obligates Mississippito provide a “uniform systemof free public schools” forall children, the SPLC said. Instead, Mississippi has repeatedly watered down education protection sin its first post-CivilWar constitution eversince, as part of what the lawsuit calls a white supremacist effort to prevent the educationof blacks.
Nude photo bill passes
WASHINGTON —The House has unanimously approved legislation that makes ita crime for U.S. service membersto distribute intimatephotos or videos of peoplewithout first getting their consent.
Themeasure is a direct responseto a nude-photo sharingscandal that has rocked theMarine Corps. Lawmakersvoted 418-0 to pass the bill Wednesday.
Also in the nation ...
California health officials are still awaiting lab-test results on some of the nachocheese sauce confiscated from a gas station, but said Tuesday they believe botulism contamination that killedone person and sickenednine others was limited toa single, opened bag of the sauce .... The House on Wednesday passed a Republicanbacked measure reversing an Environmental Protection Agency requirement that thosespraying pesticides on ornear rivers and lakes must file for a permit.