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Shooting at Michigan splash pad leaves 'nine, maybe 10 victims': authorities
Gunfire erupted at a splash pad in the Detroit suburb of Rochester Hills, leaving as many as 10 people wounded, authorities said.
Penguin Random House announced its bid to acquire Simon & Schuster in November 2020. The deal -- combining two of the top five book publishers in the United States -- normally would have taken effect by now. But the U.S. Justice Department is standing in the way, and an antitrust trial is set to begin on Monday.
Judge Florence Pan of the US District Court in Washington, D.C. will hear about three weeks of oral arguments. The government says, in its pre-trial brief, that the publisher combo "would further entrench the largest publishing giant in the United States (and the world) and give the merged company control of nearly half of the market to acquire anticipated top-selling books from authors."
The publishers say that "after the merger, the market dynamic will be just the same" and reject the arguments that authors will suffer.
"The closely watched case holds major implications for a publishing industry that has been grappling with consolidation for years," Publishers Weekly reporter Andrew Albanese writes. "It also looms as a key test for the government amid growing calls for more vigilant antitrust enforcement, and in the wake of a stinging defeat in 2018 in its bid to block the massive $85 billion merger between AT&T and Time Warner."
Other publishing houses argue that the merger would be anticompetitive. But the government bears the burden of proof. "The lawsuit will test whether the government can mount more antitrust cases targeting the effects of corporate concentration on how much workers — in this case, writers of major books — get paid," the NYT's overview of the lawsuit notes.
The judge is expected to rule in November...
Simon & Schuster (which, full disclosure, was the publisher of my most recent book) is going to be sold by Paramount Global one way or another. Speculation abounds about potential private equity bidders. But for now, the buyer is Penguin Random House, and S&S CEO Jonathan Karp (who previously spent 16 years at PRH) said in a recent memo to staffers that "we, and our authors, will benefit greatly from becoming a part of this superb publishing company."
>> "Regardless of the outcome," Karp wrote, there will be a new owner, and "the best and most important thing we can do is to remain focused on achieving excellence on behalf of our authors and their books, assured in our purpose..."
>> Vanity Fair's Joe Pompeo (whose book publisher is HarperCollins, which reportedly lost out on the bidding for S&S) reports that "the witness list is a who's who of publishing bosses, power agents, and authors," including Stephen King...
>> "An appearance at some point by King, whose works are published by Simon & Schuster, will be a highly unusual for an antitrust trial and will draw wide attention," the AP's Marcy Gordon writes in this great explainer...
>> Another big antitrust trial is getting underway in DC on Monday: The government is also trying to block insurer UnitedHealth Group from buying Change Healthcare. "The cases represent a conscious strategy by the Justice Department to expand the frontiers of merger enforcement," the WSJ says...
Gunfire erupted at a splash pad in the Detroit suburb of Rochester Hills, leaving as many as 10 people wounded, authorities said.
The Edmonton Oilers' offence exploded in Game 4 to beat the Florida Panthers 8-1.
Canadians would get more than $1 billion in unclaimed benefits each year through an automatic tax filing system, according to a report published by the Parliamentary Budget Officer (PBO).
Donald Trump blamed immigrants for stealing jobs and government resources as he courted separate groups of Black voters and hardcore conservatives in battleground Michigan on Saturday.
The owner of a northern Ont. camp is continuing to clean up after an intense storm that prompted a tornado warning Thursday ripped through the area breaking his dock and downing trees.
The City of Calgary declared a local state of emergency Saturday morning in response to the latest developments in a major water main break that is impacting the city.
Toronto police are appealing for witnesses and information as they deploy a “significant amount of resources” into the investigation of the fatal shooting of a 16-year-old boy in Scarborough on Saturday afternoon.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says he has concerns with how conclusions were gathered in a spy watchdog report.
London put on a display of birthday pageantry Saturday for King Charles III, a military parade that marked the Princess of Wales ' first public appearance since her cancer diagnosis early this year.
Fancy Pokket owner Mike Timani has decided to create a 220-foot long flat bread to celebrate its 35th anniversary.
If certain goals that are in the Paris Climate Accord aren't met, the existence of polar bears in the Hudson Bay may come to an end.
In an attempt to invite one of the most popular recording artists in the world to the land of living skies – the City of Swift Current has offered to rename itself in honour of Taylor Swift.
More than a dozen dogs arrived by Cargojet early Thursday morning to the People for Animal Wellbeing Shelter to find a permanent place to call home in New Brunswick.
Peggy's Cove, N.S., is one of the most famous locations in the Maritimes. Recent visitors were treated to more than just the iconic landmark.
Hundreds of fans lined up to meet the Trailer Park Boys in Dartmouth, N.S., Tuesday, as Ricky, Bubbles and Julian promoted their new brand of potato chips.
Car break-ins plague Canadians across the country, but instead of worrying about theft, a northern Ontario woman is cleaning up a big mess that she says will not be covered by insurance after a black bear broke into her Honda Civic and took a nap.
Members of a Hutterite colony in southern Alberta have potentially built the world's tallest structure made of Popsicle sticks.
A dog who spent the first three-and-a-half years of his life suffering and almost a year at a shelter has found his forever home, according to the BC SPCA.