Good morning, it's Thursday, August 20. ABC and Disney are suing the FCC, calling the agency's license crackdown a direct attack on the First Amendment — and one of the agency's own commissioners agrees.

Also in today's issue: 45 million acres at risk, Canada tariffs on ice, TPS protections collapse, Meta meets the jury.

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The first line of Disney's lawsuit against the federal government reads like something from a constitutional law textbook, not a corporate filing: "Government censorship is deeply un-American." What's remarkable isn't that a company wrote it. It's that one of the FCC's own commissioners agrees.

Here's what this means for you. If the FCC — the Federal Communications Commission, the agency that regulates television and radio — can threaten a broadcast license because it doesn't like what a news anchor said, then every local TV station in America just got a message. Your evening news, the weather report, the investigation into your city council — all of it airs because the station holds a federal license. If that license becomes a lever for political pressure, the stories that get told will start to change. Not with a bang. Quietly.

Now look — let's walk through how we got here, because the details matter. In April, FCC Chairman Brendan Carr — appointed by President Trump — ordered ABC's eight owned-and-operated stations to file early license renewals. That hasn't happened in nearly 50 years. These licenses don't expire until 2028 to 2031. Disney was given just 30 days to complete paperwork that normally takes months. The FCC says the review is about corporate diversity programs and the public interest. ABC's 46-page complaint, filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, tells a very different story.

The lawsuit alleges the agency has waged a "retaliatory campaign" against the network over editorial choices that angered the president — including monologues by late-night host Jimmy Kimmel, who was briefly suspended in September 2025 under FCC pressure and reinstated after a national backlash, and commentary on the daytime show "The View." ABC says it has responded to more than 600 FCC requests and produced over 13,000 pages of documents. And here's where things start to get complicated: ABC had already paid $16 million in December 2024 to settle a defamation claim Trump brought against the network. That settlement didn't buy peace. It bought more scrutiny.

Here's the thing about broadcast licensing. The public airwaves belong to the American people. Stations get to use them in exchange for serving the public interest. That standard has always been vague — deliberately so, to keep it flexible. But it was never meant to work as a loyalty test. It was never designed to reward friendly coverage and punish criticism. The moment it becomes that, it stops being a standard and starts being a cudgel.

What makes this case even more striking is what happened Wednesday. Commissioner Anna Gomez — the FCC's lone Democrat — publicly backed the lawsuit against her own agency. She told NPR that the FCC has been waging "a campaign of censorship and control" and said Disney "has found its courage." When a regulator's own member says the agency has crossed the line, that is not a partisan talking point. That is an institutional alarm bell.

The First Amendment case will play out over months. But the damage may already be spreading. CBS, NBC, and every local affiliate in the country are watching. So are Meta, Google, and every media company that has struck deals with Trump's legal team. The question is the same one for all of them: if Disney — one of the most powerful media companies on earth — needed a federal lawsuit just to defend its license, what chance does a local station in Omaha or Tucson have?

This is bigger than one network fighting one agency. This is about whether the government gets to decide what journalism looks like — and what happens to the outlets that don't fall in line.

45 million acres of protected national forest could be opened to road building and logging under a proposal the Trump administration filed Tuesday. The plan would repeal the 2001 "roadless rule" — a Clinton-era policy that blocks development on undeveloped forest land across 37 states. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins called the rule "overly restrictive." But a July 2026 University of Washington study published in PLOS Water found these forests protect drinking water supplies for roughly 25 million Americans. The Center for Biological Diversity called the proposal the largest rollback of public lands protection in American history. Public comment is open through September 21 — and when the government took comments last fall, 99% of more than 625,000 responses opposed the repeal.

President Trump paused 50% tariffs on $20 billion in Canadian imports less than two hours before their Wednesday deadline, citing a tentative deal. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney confirmed "substantial progress" but said "important work" remains. A White House proclamation listed Canadian commitments on alcohol, dairy, and motor vehicle exports — but Canada has not confirmed those specific terms. The tariffs would have been the first use of Section 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930, a rarely invoked law that lets the president impose up to 50% duties on any country the White House says is discriminating against U.S. commerce. For now, the $880 billion annual trade relationship has a three-day window. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce warned that if talks fail, the tariffs would "drive up costs for U.S. families" and risk 13 million American jobs tied to North American trade.

A federal judge on Tuesday lifted the final legal block on ending Temporary Protected Status — TPS, a program that lets people from countries deemed unsafe live and work legally in the U.S. — for more than 5,000 Ethiopian immigrants. It was the last judicial barrier standing. TPS has now been terminated for 13 of 17 designated countries since Trump returned to office. DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin warned recipients to "leave now or be deported." Separately, CBS News reported that the administration has been secretly deporting Mexican citizens to Guatemala and Honduras instead of returning them to Mexico — even though Mexico accepts all its nationals. Mexico's Foreign Ministry formally rejected the practice. Researchers at the Washington Office on Latin America called the move unprecedented and "almost entirely punitive."

A landmark trial opened Tuesday in Oakland federal court, with 29 U.S. states accusing Meta of deliberately designing Facebook and Instagram to addict children. The states allege the platforms fueled anxiety, depression, and suicide among young users — and that Meta collected data on children under 13 without parental consent, violating the federal Children's Online Privacy Protection Act. Former Meta safety engineer Arturo Béjar testified as the first witness, telling the jury that child safety was "not a meaningful priority" at the company. The trial before Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers is expected to last six weeks. Meta denied the allegations. The states are seeking up to $1.4 trillion in penalties and changes to how the platforms operate.

That's the potential penalty 29 states are seeking from Meta in a landmark federal trial that opened this week in Oakland. The states allege Facebook and Instagram were deliberately designed to hook children — and a former company engineer testified Tuesday that the company chose growth over safety at nearly every turn.

P.S. Should the FCC be able to pull a license over editorial choices? Hit Reply — one word is enough.