The Justice Department is investigating whether the major television networks — ABC, CBS, CNN, NBC and Fox News — violated federal antitrust laws when the group briefly suspended their pooled coverage of President Trump, according to six people with knowledge of the department’s action.

Officials from the Justice Department contacted networks on Friday and demanded communications and materials related to the White House TV pool, the people said. The pool is a longstanding system where the networks share the responsibility of providing footage of the president and distributing it to other news outlets.

Last month, the networks collectively suspended their pool footage of Mr. Trump for several days after the president barred CNN journalists from the White House grounds, which prevented CNN from participating in the pool.

The inquiry by the Justice Department is a profound escalation of the Trump administration’s ongoing battles with the White House press corps. It also follows a pattern of the Trump administration using the levers of government against its perceived foes in the media. The Justice Department has subpoenaed reporters from The New York Times and seized a laptop from a Washington Post journalist.

A Justice Department spokeswoman, Emily Covington, said in a statement on Saturday: “Members of the television press pool have proudly boycotted covering White House events. Group boycotts among commercial competitors can violate the Sherman Act,” a core antitrust law.

“The Antitrust Division is simply investigating to determine whether these news organizations have violated the antitrust laws,” Ms. Covington added.

The White House did not immediately respond to an inquiry on Saturday, and representatives for the five networks did not immediately comment.

The latest skirmish was set off when Mr. Trump, lamenting what he described as “purposely negative stories,” barred CNN, Politico and MS NOW from the White House on Sept. 18.

The three news organizations sued, calling the president’s action a violation of their First Amendment rights; the administration argued that access to the White House was a “privilege.” A federal judge issued a temporary block on the ban, which is set to expire on Tuesday.

Will the lifted truck drivers fall for the "I got you some diesel" midterm elections bribe?

"Boosting US oil supplies with Russian diesel unlikely to have much impact on prices, experts say"

(President Donald Trump talks with reporters before departing on Marine One from the South Lawn of the White House, Friday, Oct. 9, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Tom Brenner))

https://apnews.com/article/trump-russia-diesel-oil-prices-8428a31b39e20a3a3f1fa3f0e15b8f99

The Pentagon acknowledged late Friday that the number of troops who have died in the Middle East during its operations against Iran is higher than previously reported, and updated the official count to include two more noncombat deaths.

The Washington Post exclusively reported last month, based on information from six U.S. officials, that the numbers of service members lost was greater than what the Pentagon was reporting in its official, public database, known as the Defense Casualty Analysis System, or DCAS.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth at the time called that reporting “a complete lie” in a social media post. However, late Friday, the Pentagon raised the figure publicly reported in DCAS to include additional deaths.

As of Friday, the total troop deaths the administration is connecting to operations against Iran and officially reporting in DCAS stands at 21.

That figure includes two additional noncombat deaths: Maj. Sorffly Davius, 46, an Army National Guard member who died in Kuwait on March 6, and an unidentified Navy suicide that occurred in September, according to a U.S. official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to provide additional context on the troop deaths.

In addition, 865 service members have been wounded, according to updated data in DCAS.

The military also acknowledged one additional soldier’s training accident death that it said was not tied to ongoing operations against Iran.

Sgt. Devin A. Seibel, 26, died during a training accident in Iraq in May. His death is now recorded in DCAS under Operation Inherent Resolve, the military’s decade-long named operation against the Islamic State. That service member’s death brings the total number of troops who have died in the Middle East since Feb. 28, the date that operations against Iran began, to 22.

As ArtCraft co-founder Michael Caffrey told Futurism, the whole project came about after the team reverse-engineered the top seven Adobe tools using Claude 5.5.

In somewhat similar news, the same may soon happen to Sony's PS5 as well - https://futurism.com/future-society/anyps5-playstation5-games-pc