Names and faces
■ James Murdoch, the son of News Corp founder Rupert Murdoch, resigned from the family-controlled publisher’s board over content appearing in its newspapers, which include the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post.
“My resignation is due to disagreements over certain editorial content published by the Company’s news outlets and certain other strategic decisions,” James Murdoch wrote Friday in a brief letter to News Corp’s board that the company made public. The resignation was effective Friday. James is known as the more liberal Murdoch brother. His more conservative sibling, Lachlan, is the heir apparent to New Corp Executive Chairman Rupert and is co-chairman of News Corp. Lachlan is also executive chairman and CEO of Fox Corp, home to conservative news network Fox News, the Fox broadcast and sports networks and local TV stations. New York-based News Corp also publishes major papers in Australia and the U.K. and owns the HarperCollins book publisher. In a statement provided by a News Corp spokesman, Rupert and Lachlan said, “We’re grateful to James for his many years of service to the company. We wish him the very best in his future endeavors.” James has previously criticized News Corp’s editorial decisions and said he disagreed with Fox News coverage. In January, he and his wife, through a spokesperson, said they were disappointed with the denial of the link to climate change in coverage of Australia’s destructive wildfires in News Corp-owned papers in Australia. More than 280 Wall Street Journal employees also recently sent a letter to the paper’s publisher criticizing the Opinion section, saying it published inaccuracies and undermined the paper with readers and sources.
■ Finland’s Prime Minister Sanna Marin announced Sunday that she has married her long-time partner, eight months after becoming the head of government. Marin, 34, said on her Instagram account that she married Markus Raikkonen on Saturday and posted a picture of the couple in their wedding attire with a bunch of white flowers. Finland’s government said on its website that the wedding took place at Kesaranta, the prime minister’s official residence. It said the couple’s family and closest friends attended. Marin and Raikkonen have been together for 16 years and have a 2½-year-old daughter, the government said. Marin, a Social Democrat who has been a prolific user of social media and a keen advocate for environmental issues, became Finland’s prime minister in December. At the time, she was the world’s youngest serving head of government — a distinction she lost a few weeks later with the return to power of Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz, who turns 34 later this month.