A federal judge in California has put the proposed Nexstar Media Group acquisition of Tegna on hold, preventing the deal from moving forward until antitrust claims are resolved. The ruling by Judge Troy Nunley of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California marks a significant development in a closely watched fight over consolidation in local television and broadcast markets.

The challenge comes from DirecTV and a coalition of eight state attorneys general, who argue the merger would lessen competition and ultimately raise costs or reduce choices for consumers and distributors.

Another publisher has joined the fast-growing line of plaintiffs testing how copyright law applies to generative AI. U.S. News World Report has sued OpenAI in the Southern District of New York, alleging the company used its content without authorization to train AI models and generate outputs that compete with or diminish the value of the publisher’s work. The case, U.S. News World Report, L.P. v. OpenAI, Inc. et al, adds another closely watched dispute to a litigation trend that is rapidly becoming one of the most consequential battles in technology and media law.

At a high level, these cases raise a core question: when AI developers ingest large volumes of copyrighted material to train models, does that qualify as lawful fair use, or does it require permission and compensation? Publishers bringing these suits generally argue that model training and AI-generated summaries or reproductions exploit protected expression and threaten traffic, subscriptions, and licensing markets.