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If you always seem to be the one covered in itchy red mosquito bites while your friends remain untouched, you’re not imagining it. Research shows that about 20% of people consistently attract more mosquito attention than others, and scientists are still working to figure out why this is. 

Dear Friend of Press Freedom,

For 171 days, Rümeysa Öztürk has faced deportation by the United States government for writing an op-ed it didn’t like, and for 90 days, Mario Guevara has been imprisoned for covering a protest.

Our newsletters are taking a short break next week, but we’ll be back. Explore our archive for more press freedom stories.

Take action to stop attacks on journalists and transparency

People often ask how to support the causes we fight for other than donating. Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) has a new action center to allow you to do just that by writing or calling members of Congress to tell them that the public cares about press freedom.

This week we launched the first two actions — one to tell lawmakers to stop the decimation of the Freedom of Information Act and the other to encourage them to do something (besides the same old empty expressions of concern) about the massacre of journalists in Gaza. We plan to expand the action center, including by taking on locally targeted initiatives. Please use this easy, new tool to help us make a difference — and still donate if you can, of course.

CBS’s real bias monitor is Donald Trump

CBS announced this week that it’s hiring Kenneth Weinstein — a career partisan — as its “bias ombudsman.” FPF Director of Advocacy Seth Stern wrote for The Guardian that while CBS has a constitutional right to monitor bias as it sees fit, it’s a different story when the government gets involved.

The creation of the ombudsman role was one of many capitulations CBS’s owners made to the Trump administration to persuade the Federal Communications Commission to approve the Paramount-Skydance merger. And based on comments from the administration, it fully intends to use its foothold inside CBS’s newsroom to bend its reporting to its liking. Read more here.

‘Cop City’ case’s threat to press freedom persists despite win

Federal attacks on free speech are rightfully getting most of the headlines, but Georgia’s unprecedented attempt to prosecute dozens of “Stop Cop City” protesters as members of a racketeering enterprise was as frivolous as the worst of the Trump administration’s antics.

This week’s dismissal of conspiracy charges against these opponents of the Atlanta police training facility is welcome news. But it’s alarming that these charges lingered over 61 people’s heads for two years. Their ordeal likely isn’t over, and neither is the chilling effect on journalism and whistleblowing that the case has caused. Read more here.

Will 9/11 records be declassified?

Next year marks the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, and “a substantial body of records” about the event remains classified.

In theory, these records should automatically be declassified when they turn 25 in 2026. But this won’t happen with the 9/11 records, just as it hasn’t happened with other historically significant records, like the John F. Kennedy assassination records, which the public had to wait over 60 years to read.

It doesn’t have to be this way. Read more in The Classifieds.

Judge isn’t buying excuses for attacks on LA reporters

A group of journalists and others won a preliminary injunction in federal court on Sept. 11, 2025, placing new restrictions on the Los Angeles Police Department’s violent tactics while policing protests. The day before, they won a similar order against the Department of Homeland Security.

U.S. District Judge Hernán Vera outlined the decades-long history of press freedom abuses at protests in LA and said that “the First Amendment demands better.” We couldn’t agree more. Read more from FPF’s U.S. Press Freedom Tracker.

What we’re reading

Investigative reporter told to stop contacting police in California city (U.S. Press Freedom Tracker). You’d think police would’ve learned to stop messing with journalist Ben Camacho after the City of Los Angeles had to cut him a check for wasting his time with a frivolous lawsuit for publishing public records that they gave him.

China didn’t want you to see this video of Xi and Putin. So Reuters deleted it (The Intercept). When news outlets don’t resist censorship, “journalism’s independence “sinks to the lowest common denominator whenever news of global importance breaks in a country governed by a repressive regime,” Stern told The Intercept.

A tipping point at CBS News (Columbia Journalism Review). An alarming account of corporate meddling in CBS News’ editorial decisions, under new and old ownership alike, to appease the Trump administration and avoid criticizing Israel. And with CBS’s ownership now looking to buy CNN’s parent company, it’s unlikely to stop.

Cindy Cohn is leaving EFF, but not the fight for digital rights (WIRED). A giant in the civil liberties field! We all owe a debt of gratitude to Cindy Cohn for her indelible leadership at the Electronic Frontier Foundation for so many years (and for being our legal counsel at FPF since our founding in 2012).

Kansas prisons reject newspaper subscriptions, blindsiding publishers and cutting off information (Kansas Reflector). We can’t wait to hear Kansas prison officials explain how newspaper subscriptions threaten incarcerated people’s safety.

Boos of Donald Trump heard on ABC’s broadcast of US Open. Good (USA Today). Shame on the U.S. Tennis Association for demanding broadcasters to censor crowd reactions to Trump’s attendance of the U.S. Open men’s tennis final in New York on Sunday.

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Lenny Kravitz’s fourth studio album, Circus, is celebrating its 30th anniversary, and to mark the occasion, the rocker is set to release a digital deluxe edition of the album.“Circus was a pivotal…

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While scrolling through Instagram on Friday, you may have gotten upset when you saw a photo of Elton John in a hospital bed with both his legs in casts, as…

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A Venezuelan woman, who authorities say was in the country illegally, has been sentenced in connection with a wrong-way crash that killed an 11-year-old boy.

FAA says Flight 2574 safely returned about 8:10 a.m. It had been scheduled to take off at 8 a.m.

ST. LOUIS COUNTY, Mo. — Human remains found in the Columbia Bottom Conservation Area have been positively identified as Steven Reed, 41, of the 600 block of West Canterbury Road in St. Louis, authorities have confirmed. Reed was reported missing under an Endangered Person Advisory issued on August 21, 2025. The remains were discovered on Sept. 8, 2025, at approximately 11:46 a.m. in the 800 block of Strodtman Road within the conservation area, according to the St. Louis County Police Department. Detectives from the Bureau of Crimes Against Persons are actively investigating the case. At this time, the cause of death has not been determined. Authorities have not released additional details as the investigation remains ongoing. The St. Louis County Police Department encourages anyone with information about the case to contact investigators at 636-529-8210. Tips can also be submitted anonymously through CrimeStoppers at 1-866-371-TIPS (8477), with the possibility of a reward.

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Steven Marion, 34, wore tan prison clothes and was shackled as he briefly spoke in court about the crime while several of his family members looked on.

We’ve been tracking the growing judicial revolt against the Supreme Court’s shadow docket nonsense, from individual district judges getting snarky in footnotes to anonymous judges speaking to reporters. But what happened Thursday at the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals crosses into entirely new territory: a full en banc panel of federal judges openly criticizing the […]

ST. CHARLES COUNTY, Mo. — The St. Charles County Police Department has closed its investigation into the disappearance of 18-year-old Logan Hummel after his body was recovered from the Missouri River, officials announced Friday, Sept. 12, 2025. Hummel was reported missing on Sept. 3, 2025, the same day authorities received reports of a person standing on the ledge of the Veterans Memorial Bridge. When law enforcement arrived, the individual was no longer present, and witnesses believed the person had jumped into the river. Search and rescue efforts were immediately launched but initially yielded no results. During the investigation, police located a vehicle known to have been driven by Hummel and contacted his immediate family. Authorities believed Hummel was the individual seen on the bridge who had entered the river. Earlier this week, a body was found in the Missouri River near the Chain of Rocks Bridge and was subsequently identified as Hummel. With this confirmation, the

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Endrina Bracho, 34, stood shackled in front of a judge while she gave a tear-filled apology before she was sentenced.

EAST ST. LOUIS – U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) and U.S. Representative Nikki Budzinski (D-IL-13), along with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), today hosted a Community Day for Metro East residents to learn more about the latest updates on flood mitigation and water infrastructure improvements throughout Cahokia Heights, East St. Louis and the region. Duckworth and Budzinski met with residents, shared their efforts at the federal level to bring funding and oversight to water infrastructure projects throughout the region and received status updates on ongoing improvement projects from USACE and local officials. Photos from today’s event are available on the Senator’s website. “For years I’ve been working to bring awareness to the longstanding flooding and environmental issues that plague this region and bring in more funding and oversight,” Duckworth said. “It took decades of neglect, lack of investment or resources and environmenta

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The accreditation from the American Correctional Association is optional, but St. Louis County will keep trying to obtain it, a spokesman for the county said.

WASHINGTON — A Friday lawsuit from a civil rights group accused the Trump administration of bypassing deportation restrictions on immigrants slated for removal by sending them to Ghana and having the West African nation deport them to their countries of origin, despite credible findings they could face harm there. The move violates not only the […]

Silverio Villegas-Gonzalez “refused to follow law enforcement's commands and drove his car” at officers, striking one of the ICE agents, dragging him “a significant distance,” a DHS statement said. “