Washington Post

A pastor in Alabama said he received a voice mail Nov 14 from a man falsely claiming to be a reporter with The Washington Post and seeking women “willing to make damaging remarks” about Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore in exchange for money.  The call came days after The Post reported on allegations that Moore initiated a sexual encounter with a 14-year-old girl nearly four decades ago, sparking calls by leading Republicans for him to abandon his campaign for the U.S. Senate in a special election to be held Dec. 12.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Nov 14 again revised his account of what he knew about the Trump campaign’s dealings with Russians, acknowledging for the first time that he recalled a meeting where a foreign policy adviser mentioned having contacts who could possibly broker a meeting between then-candidate Donald Trump and Russian President Vladi­mir Putin. Testifying before the House Judiciary Committee, Sessions said he now remembered adviser George Papadopoulos saying in March 2016 that he knew people who might be able to help arrange a Trump-Putin meeting.

Facebook and Google told federal election officials they are open to greater oversight over the lucrative business of online political advertising, a shift for the tech giants who acknowledged recently that their ad platforms were exploited by Russian operatives during and after the 2016 election. Google even took a step further than its rivals telling regulators that they should create a broad rule that would ban foreign entities from buying any kind of political ad aimed at influencing voters, not just the ones that mention candidates.

Targeted ads that seem to follow you everywhere online may soon be doing the same on your TV.  The Federal Communications Commission is poised to approve a new broadcast standard that will let broadcasters do something cable TV companies already do: harvest data about what you watch so advertisers can customize pitches. The prospect alarms privacy advocates, who say there are no rules setting boundaries for how broadcasters handle personal information. The FCC doesn’t mention privacy in the 109-page proposed rule that is scheduled for a vote by commissioners Nov 16.