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Boston station dropping "Fox" name from newscast

mroach via Flickr CC

Boston's local Fox affiliate, WFXT (Channel 25) Fox 25 News, will be dropping "Fox" from its newscast name since the national brand name of Fox News has negatively impacted the local station, according to The Boston Globe. It has been independently produced since 2014, when it was acquired by Cox Media Group, and will go by "Boston 25 News" starting April 24.

The liability: It is located in liberal Boston, with a decidedly liberal audience — Massachusetts has gone blue since 1988 — but 41% of Boston-area news consumers believed local Fox 25 was conservative despite running impartial newscasts. Plus, the station has recently reported declining ratings. Other local Fox affiliates in Tennessee, Oklahoma, and Florida will not be changing their names.

WFXT General Manager Tom Raponi said the decision does not reflect the fact that Fox News is dealing with the public perception of sexual harassment allegations against anchor Bill O'Reilly and former CEO Roger Ailes.

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OIG: HHS misused millions of dollars intended for public health threats

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The U.S. Office of Special Counsel alerted the White House and Congress on Wednesday of an investigation that found the Department of Health and Human Services misused millions of dollars that were budgeted for vaccine research and public health emergencies for Ebola, Zika and now the COVID-19 pandemic.

Why it matters: The more than 200-page investigation corroborated claims from a whistleblower, showing the agency's violation of the Purpose Statute spanned both the Obama and Trump administrations and paid for unrelated projects like salaries, news subscriptions and the removal of office furniture.

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John Kerry: U.S.-China climate cooperation is a "critical standalone issue"

President Biden's special climate envoy John Kerry said Wednesday that the U.S. must deal with China on climate change as a "critical standalone issue," but stressed that confronting Beijing's human rights and trade abuses "will never be traded" for climate cooperation.

Why it matters: The last few years have brought about a bipartisan consensus on the threat posed by China. But as the world's largest greenhouse gas emitter, China will be a vital player if the world is going to come close to reining in emissions on the scale needed to meet the Paris Agreement goals of limiting warming to 2°C above pre-industrial levels.

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Zach Dorfman of the Aspen Institute, author of Codebook
47 mins ago - World

In cyber espionage, U.S. is both hunted and hunter

Illustration: Eniola Odetunde/Axios

American outrage over foreign cyber espionage, like Russia's SolarWinds hack, obscures the uncomfortable reality that the U.S. secretly does just the same thing to other countries.

Why it matters: Secrecy is often necessary in cyber spying to protect sources and methods, preserve strategic edges that may stem from purloined information, and prevent diplomatic incidents.

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