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The Outline reports that on 13 June, television reporters were asked not to conduct

[...] video or audio interviews without prior permission from the senator being interviewed and the Senate Rules Committee.

The directive was rescinded the same day.

In possibly related news, the Senate is considering a bill (PDF) (unformatted HTML) which would repeal Medicaid-related taxes. It was tabled as the Senate's version of H.R. 1628 (non-Cloudflare link) through the reconciliation process, under which debate is time-limited. Four Republican senators have expressed opposition to the bill; all other Republican senators, but no Democrats, are likely to support it.

A candidate for the House of Representatives, when questioned about the proposed legislation, pleaded guilty assaulting a reporter; the candidate was elected the day after the attack.

additional coverage (some are opinion):

• Washington Examiner (about tax bill)
• Los Angeles Times (letters to the editor about tax bill)
• Politico (about tax bill)
• NBC News (about tax bill)
• Washington Times (about tax bill)
• Associated Press via Paducah Sun (about tax bill)
• The Federalist (opinion)
• Denver Post (about TV ban)
• Politico (about TV ban)
• Washington Post (about TV ban)
• The Guardian (about TV ban)
• Washington Post (about tax bill and TV ban)
• Washington Post (earlier story about tax bill and TV ban)
• Bloomberg (about tax bill)

related stories:
FCC Guards Eject Reporter
Reporter Arrested for "Yelling Questions" at HHS Secretary Tom Price

The Hollywood Reporter interviewed an actor and several members of the crew of Star Wars (later retitled Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope). They reminisced on the production of the film, which was released in May of 1977.

Around the 50th anniversary of the sinking of the USS Liberty, the Modesto Bee and the Port Huron Times Herald interviewed surviving crew members. The Intercept published two classified documents (NSFW for U.S. government employees):

The first document, a formerly unreleased NSA classification guide, details which elements of the incident the agency still regarded as secret as of 2006. The second lists a series of unauthorized signals intelligence disclosures that “have had a detrimental effect on our ability to produce intelligence against terrorist targets and other targets of national concern.” Remarkably, information relevant to the attack on the Liberty falls within this highly secret category.

A recent investigative study by the Citizen Lab connects Russian actors to the practice of stealing, negatively altering and then releasing documents in an effort to damage the personal reputation of government officials, candidates and journalists in dozens of countries.

—SC Magazine

New evidence of a global espionage campaign involving email phishing attacks and leaked falsified documents emerged on Thursday, with clues suggesting the Russian government might have been involved.

[...]

In the incident Citizen Lab examined, documents obtained through a phishing operation in October 2016 that targeted the email account of U.S. journalist David Satter were selectively modified in an apparent attempt to discredit Satter and his work and then posted online. Satter has reported on Russia for decades and was expelled from the country in December 2013.

—CBC

On October 7, Satter received a phishing email designed to look like it was coming from Google, claiming someone had stolen his password and that he should change it right away.

As with seen with other phishing attacks targeting people affiliated with the Hillary Clinton campaign that led to the DNC leaks of last year, the email, however, didn't come from Google. It was actually from a group of hackers known as Fancy Bear, or APT28, whom many believe work for Russia's military intelligence, the GRU.

—Motherboard

The operation against the journalist led us to the discovery of a larger phishing operation, with over 200 unique targets spanning 39 countries (including members of 28 governments). The list includes a former Russian Prime Minister, members of cabinets from Europe and Eurasia, ambassadors, high ranking military officers, CEOs of energy companies, and members of civil society.

[...] we considered the Tiny.cc shortcodes found in the October 5 and 7 phishing emails sent to David Satter. Using these as a starting point, we enumerated approximately 4000 adjacent shortcodes for each, and then examined the target web addresses to which these short links redirected. From this large list, we extracted all of the associated destination links [...] which redirected to the malicious phishing domain [...]

—the report

additional coverage:

• Citizen Lab blog
• Hack Read
• Just Security
• Wired
• Valley News

related stories:
Bellingcat: Russian Military Involved in Downing of Flight MH17
A One-Man Intelligence Agency

The 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals ruled to give Wikimedia a chance to legally challenge the NSA’s mass surveillance as being unconstitutional. The government has previously argued that the NSA’s Upstream warrantless spying is authorized under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. [...]

The ruling yesterday reversed a lower court’s ruling which found Wikimedia, which publishes the internet behemoth Wikipedia, couldn’t prove the NSA’s “Upstream” surveillance program was secretly monitoring its communications, vacuuming the communications right off the internet backbones – even with leaked Snowden documents showing Wikipedia as an NSA target.

[...] due to the sheer size of Wikimedia, the judges found that the NSA probably had seized at least some of their communications.

—Computerworld (hyperlinks in original)

“Wikimedia has plausibly alleged that its communications travel all of the roads that a communication can take, and that the NSA seizes all of the communications along at least one of those roads,” U.S. Circuit Judge Albert Diaz wrote. “Thus, at least at this stage of the litigation, Wikimedia has standing to sue for a violation of the Fourth Amendment. And, because Wikimedia has self-censored its speech and sometimes forgone electronic communications in response to Upstream surveillance, it also has standing to sue for a violation of the First Amendment.”

—Courthouse News Service

further reading:
Wikipedia article on Upstream
Wikipedia article on Albert Diaz

additional coverage:

• Just Security (opinion)
• New York Times
• Just Security
• EFF press release (EFF is one of the plaintiffs)
• Ars Technica
• The Hill
• Associated Press via The Telegraph (Macon, Georgia, USA)

previous stories:
US Spies Still Won't Tell Congress the Number of Americans Caught in Dragnet
Judge Tosses Wikimedia’s Anti-NSA Lawsuit Because Wikipedia It Isn’t Big Enough
Wikipedia's Lawsuit Against NSA Internet Vacuum has First Day in Court
Deeper Dive into EFF's Motion on Backbone Surveillance

[...] As the time for the interview neared, Gianforte came into the room. We exchanged pleasantries and made small talk about restaurants and Bozeman.

During that conversation, another man — who we now know is Ben Jacobs of The Guardian — walked into the room with a voice recorder, put it up to Gianforte's face and began asking if he had a response to the newly released Congressional Budget Office report on the American Health Care Act. Gianforte told him he would get to him later. Jacobs persisted with his question. Gianforte told him to talk to his press guy, Shane Scanlon.

At that point, Gianforte grabbed Jacobs by the neck with both hands and slammed him into the ground behind him. Faith, Keith and I watched in disbelief as Gianforte then began punching the reporter.

—Fox News (archive link)

26 May 06:12 GMT update:

"When you make a mistake, you have to own up to it. That's the Montana way," Gianforte said. "Last night, I made a mistake, and I took an action that I can't take back, and I'm not proud of what happened. I should not have responded in the way that I did, and for that I am sorry."

"I should not have treated that reporter that way. And, for that, I'm sorry, Mr. Ben Jacobs," Gianforte said [...]

—Business Insider

additional coverage:

• The Guardian (see Youtube link for audio)
• NPR
• USA Today
• CNN
• The Virginian-Pilot

related stories:
FCC Guards Eject Reporter
Reporter Arrested for "Yelling Questions" at HHS Secretary Tom Price

Fox's WTTG-TV interviewed a "former DC homicide detective and Fox News contributor" about the murder of Democratic National Committee staff member Seth Rich. According to the story, the former detective-contributor said that Mr. Rich had exchanged e-mails with Wikileaks. The story was echoed by Breitbart News and the Washington Times. Rich's family and the interviewee cast doubt upon it. WTTG-TV posted "an important clarification" (archived copy) about the recantation. Breitbart News, Infowars and the Washington Times (not to be confused with the Seattle Times) had carried the story as originally presented. World Net Daily, under the headline "News media blackout over Seth Rich revelations," had observed that

The story that many conservative media considered a “bombshell” Tuesday didn’t even register as a blip on the screens of CNN, ABC and CBS.

Right Wing Watch made a similar observation:

In recent days a report from Washington D.C.’s Fox affiliate on the death of Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich has dominated the conservative media world, including Fox News, Breitbart, InfoWars, and the Drudge Report, while most other outlets are covering the ever-increasing number of White House scandals.

From an archived copy of the story:

A federal investigator who reviewed an FBI forensic report -- generated within 96 hours after DNC staffer Seth Rich's murder -- detailing the contents Rich's computer said he made contact with WikiLeaks through Gavin MacFadyen, a now-deceased American investigative reporter, documentary filmmaker, and director of WikiLeaks who was living in London at the time.

        "My investigation up to this point shows there was some degree of email exchange between Seth Rich and WikiLeaks."
        - Rod Wheeler, former DC homicide investigator

"I have seen and read the emails between Seth Rich and WikiLeaks," the federal investigator told Fox News, confirming the MacFadyen connection. He said the emails are in possession of the FBI, while the stalled case is in the hands of the Washington Police Department.

The revelation is consistent with the findings of Rod Wheeler, a former DC homicide detective and Fox News contributor and whose private investigation firm was hired by a third party on behalf of Rich's family to probe the case.

—Fox News (archive link)

A report on Monday evening claimed to find links between slain DNC staffer Seth Rich and WikiLeaks. But Rich's family told BuzzFeed News, "[W]e see no facts, we have seen no evidence, we have been approached with no emails."

—BuzzFeed News

[...] Wheeler told CNN he had no evidence to suggest Rich had contacted Wikileaks before his death.

Wheeler instead said he only learned about the possible existence of such evidence through the reporter he spoke to for the FoxNews.com story.

—CNN Money

[...] Wheeler himself admitted he had "never seen the emails directly." Furthermore, his claims of "evidence" were based on the fact that an unnamed federal investigator had told him he saw the emails between Seth and WikiLeaks but that when he went to the police with concerns, he had been "shut down" and the investigation was being impeded by "a high-ranking official at the DNC."

—Haaretz

additional coverage:

• Media Matters for America
• Infowars
• Heavy
• Washington Times (earlier story)
• Breitbart News
• Breitbart News
• Breitbart News
• Washington Times
• The Guardian
• Mic
• Newsweek
• The Independent
• 1011 News
• The Week

previous story:
WikiLeaks Announces $20k Bounty For Murderer(s) of DNC Staffer

You were (spoilers) warned. Now it begins. The Garden Bridge has gone down in flames!

• Evening Standard
• The Guardian
• Washington Post
• Curbed
• Motherboard
• BBC News

According to Fox News via Twitter,

.@POTUS has proclaimed May 1 to be 'Loyalty Day' #ProudAmerican

They also have a story about the proclamation (archived copy).

Wikipedia has this to say about the event:

The holiday was first observed in 1921, during the First Red Scare. It was originally called "Americanization Day" [...]

During the Second Red Scare, it was recognized by the U.S. Congress on April 27, 1955, and made an official reoccurring holiday on July 18, 1958 (Public Law 85-529). President Dwight D. Eisenhower proclaimed May 1, 1955, the first observance of Loyalty Day.

This year it is being observed on 30 April in Bradley, Illinois; on 29 April in Kansas City, Kansas; on 7 May in Brandon, South Dakota; on 1 May in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (pay-walled) and on 28 April in Brinnon, Washington. Loyal Americans, mark your calendars!

Update: on 29 April .@POTUS held a "Saturday night rally in Harrisburg." The Los Angeles Times reported:

When Trump hammered the media, people in the crowd turned around to jeer and boo at reporters typing in their laptops in the press area on the arena floor.

The Swedish prime minister, who wrote in February

Sweden? Terror attack? What has he been smoking? Questions abound.

now says

I commented to @cnni on the terror attack in central Stockholm earlier today. Now it's confirmed that four are dead.

after a beer lorry was stolen and crashed into a department store.

update: The Local has more details.