A redesigned USA Today was on newsstands on Friday, and the redesign owes a big debt to the aesthetics and customs of the Internet, Christine Haughney reports. The USA Today Web site, which will be unveiled this weekend, has been redesigned to resemble an e-reader, with a smoother scroll from page to page. The twist, however, is that the abundance of information on the Internet has largely taken away what made the national newspaper special 30 years ago. The moves are part of a broader rethinking by USA Today's parent company, Gannett, to consolidate the news gathering of its TV and newspaper assets.
The amateurish anti-Muslim video that, when translated into Arabic and posted on YouTube, led to furious pr otests in the Middle East appeared to be the work of a shadowy man with a criminal record, Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, write Adam Nagourney and Serge F. Kovaleski. Mr. Nakoula was sentenced to prison in a check-kiting scheme in 2010 and served about a year. In the course of producing the video â€" “The Innocence of Muslims†- in the remote hills of Los Angeles County, Mr. Nakoula apparently used a series of pseudonyms in his dealings with fellow backers and some of the actors. Outside of his house, 20 miles south of Los Angeles, members of the news media were encamped, but there was no response to knocks at the door.
- The decision by YouTube to block “The Innocence of Muslims†in Libya and Egypt in light of the violence there was seen as a potentially significant move for YouTube's parent, Google. The only reasons YouTube will take down a video, Claire Cain Miller reports, is if it is hate speech, violates its terms of service, or in response to valid court o rders or government requests; YouTube said it had determined that under its own guidelines, the video was not hate speech. These decisions highlights the outsize role a company like Google has in the Internet Age.
- In Afghanistan, the government pressured Internet service providers to block sites that hosted the video in an effort to hold off violent protests there, Alissa J. Rubin reported. By early evening, YouTube was blocked, and the government wrote to ask Google to take down the video. It was unclear late Thursday whether the decision to block the video in Egypt and Libya would extend to Afghanistan as well.
A French magazine published a paparazzi's topless photos of Kate Middleton, the wife of Prince William, taken as she was sunbathing in Provence, Alan Cowell and John F. Burns report. The appearance of the photos in Closer magazine drew a strong rebuke from the British royal family that invoked the death of Princess Diana, the prince's mo ther, who was killed in a car crash in Paris as photographers were in pursuit. The images of Ms. Middleton were not, initially at least, published in Britain, where newspapers have been under official scrutiny related to a phone hacking scandal.
The Hollywood Reporter looked at the decision to ban the sale of large sodas and other sugary drinks by New York's Board of Health through the prism of movie theater owners, who by some estimates make up to 40 percent of their profit from concessions, with soda and candy the two most popular items. The Reporter notes that the ban â€" the first in the country - comes as movie ticket sales have slowed down.
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