A federal judge on Thursday ruled that the Defense Department is violating his earlier order to restore access to the Pentagon for reporters, a setback in the administration's efforts to impede the work of journalists.

U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman sided with The New York Times for the second time in a month. He had earlier said the Pentagon's new credential policy violated journalists' constitutional rights to free speech and due process. On Thursday, he said Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's team had tried to evade his March 20 ruling by putting in new rules that expel all reporters from the building unless guided by escorts.

"The department simply cannot reinstate an unlawful policy under the guise of taking 'new' action and expect the court to look the other way," Friedman wrote. Friedman had ordered Pentagon officials to reinstate the press credentials of seven Times reporters and stressed that his decision applies to "all regulated parties." The Pentagon building serves as the headquarters for U.S. military operations.

Defense Department spokesperson Sean Parnell said it disagrees with the ruling and intends to appeal. Parnell said in a social media post that the department has "at all times" complied with judge's orders, reinstating journalists' credentials and issuing "a materially revised policy that addressed every concern" identified by the judge.

"The Department remains committed to press access at the Pentagon while fulfilling its statutory obligation to ensure the safe and secure operation of the Pentagon Reservation," he wrote.

Times attorney Theodore Boutrous said Thursday's ruling "powerfully vindicates both the Court's authority and the First Amendment's protections of independent journalism."

In October, reporters from mainstream news outlets walked out of the building rather than agree to the new rules. The Times sued the Pentagon and Hegseth in December to challenge the policy.

President Donald Trump has fought against the press on several levels since returning to his second term, suing The Times and Wall Street Journal, and cutting funding for public radio and television because he did not like their coverage. At the same time, he frequently talks to the media and responds to reporters who call him on his cell phone.

In a series of briefings on the Iran War, Hegseth has frequently ignored or insulted legacy media reporters let in to cover the events, while concentrating on questions from friendly conservative media.

Times attorneys accused the Pentagon of violating the judge's March 20 order, "both in letter and spirit" with its revised policy. The newspaper said that Pentagon was also trying to impose unprecedented rules dictating when reporters can offer anonymity to sources.

Friedman said that the access the Pentagon made available to permit holders "is not even close to as meaningful as the broad access" they previously had.

Government lawyers said the Pentagon's revised policy fully complies with the judge's directives. Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell has said the administration would appeal Friedman's March 20 decision.

The Pentagon Press Association, which includes Associated Press reporters, said the Pentagon's interim policy preserves provisions that Friedman deemed to be unconstitutional while also adding new restrictions on credential holders.

"In effect," Justice Department attorneys wrote, "Plaintiffs ask this Court to expand the Order to prohibit the Department from ever addressing the security of the Pentagon through a press credentialing policy with conditions that may address similar topics or concerns as the enjoined conditions. The Order does not say that, and this Court should not read it to say that."

A jury convicted a Wisconsin man of election fraud and identity theft for requesting the ballots of Republican state Assembly Speaker Robin Vos and Democratic Racine Mayor Cory Mason without their consent.

Jurors in Racine County on Tuesday found Harry Wait guilty of two misdemeanor election fraud charges and one felony identity theft charge following a two-day trial. He was acquitted of a second count of identity theft.

Wait leads a group that makes false election claims, including that Wisconsin's elections are riddled with fraud and that President Donald Trump won the 2020 election. Trump lost Wisconsin in 2020 by about 21,000 votes.

Wait admitted in 2022 that he requested Vos' and Mason's ballots to try to prove that the state's voter registration system is vulnerable to fraud. Wait told The Associated Press at the time that he wasn't surprised he was charged.

"You got to expect to pay some costs sometimes when you are trying to work for the public good," he said.

His efforts drew praise from Republican U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson in 2022, who called Wait a "white hat hacker."

After the verdict, Wait told WTMJ that he "would do it again." "I tested the system and the system failed," he said.

A sentencing date has not been set. Wait's attorney Joe Bugni did not respond to an email Wednesday asking whether he would appeal.

Wait, 71, faces up to six years in prison on the felony conviction and up to a year in jail on each of the misdemeanor convictions.

His conviction comes after a jury in 2024 found a former Milwaukee election official guilty of misconduct in office after she obtained three military absentee ballots using fake names and Social Security numbers in 2022. Like Wait, Kimberly Zapata argued that she was trying to expose vulnerabilities in the state's election system.

Zapata was fined $3,000 and sentenced to one year probation.

Intel Corp. agreed to buy McAfee Inc. for $7.68 billion, its biggest-ever acquisition, adding security software to its chipmaking arsenal.

McAfee investors will receive $48 a share in cash, Santa Clara, California-based Intel, the world’s largest chipmaker, said in a statement today. That’s 60 percent more than McAfee’s closing price yesterday. Both boards have unanimously approved the deal, Intel said.

The acquisition of McAfee, which trails Symantec Corp. in security software, will give Intel an advantage over other chip companies that must use outside security programs, said Hans Mosesmann, an analyst at Raymond James Associates in St. Petersburg, Florida. The deal also helps Intel expand beyond PCs as Chief Executive Officer Paul Otellini is trying to break into mobile handsets and grow in other portable devices.

“Their ability to be successful in the non-PC market, and even in the PC market, is going to depend more on system solutions, and security is becoming a really big deal,” said Mosesmann. “The security threats that are out there are not going away -- you could argue that they are going to get worse - - and having a tightly coupled hardware and software is a strategic advantage.”

There were eight new law firm combinations announced in the United States in the first quarter of the year, with three of them involving Philadelphia law firms, according to consultancy Altman Weil’s MergerLine Web site.

Newtown Square-based Altman Weil said data show a continuing slowdown of mergers that began in 2009.

“Although we’re seeing a lot more interest in mergers and acquisitions behind the scenes this year, it will take some time for law firms to shift gears from the internal crisis management focus of 2009 back to an outwardly facing, strategic stance,” Altman Weil principal Tom Clay said. “There will be a ramp-up period in the next few quarters before we see the pace of deal-making increase significantly.”

Of the eight law firm combinations announced this year, all involved the acquisition of firms with fewer than 50 lawyers, and five were acquisitions of firms with under 10 lawyers.

The largest acquisition of the first quarter was 245-lawyer, Morristown N.J.-based McElroy Deutsch’s acquisition of 45-lawyer Pepe & Hazard, based in Hartford, Conn. McElroy Deutsch entered the Philadelphia market in 2006 through the acquisition of Monteverde McAlee & Hurd.

RCN, the cable operator, said on Friday that it has agreed to sell itself to the private equity firm ABRY Partners for $1.2 billion, including debt, as the leveraged buyout industry continues to get back to business.

ABRY, a media and telecom specialist based in Boston, will pay $15 a share in cash, a 22 percent premium over Thursday’s closing price.

Private equity firms have been more active this year as they finally put their billions of dollars in untapped funds to use. Earlier this week, Bain Capital agreed to pay $1.63 billion to acquire a unit of Dow Chemicals, and last week CKE Restaurants reached an accord to sell itself to THL Partners for $928 million.
One of the main enablers for the upswing in private equity activity has been the opening up of the credit markets and the willingness of banks to lend to riskier transactions again. ABRY said that it has lined up financing from SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, General Electric’s GE Capital and Societe Generale, among other firms.

Shares in RCN, which provides cable TV and broadband services in the Washington, Philadelphia, New York City, Boston and Chicago areas, have risen about 185 percent over the past 12 months ended Thursday.

Berkshire Hathaway Inc., the company that agreed to buy Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp. in its biggest takeover, accepted a lower-than-usual breakup fee in a sign Warren Buffett expects no one will top his bid.

Berkshire will receive $264 million if Burlington, the biggest U.S. railroad, cancels the agreement, according to a filing yesterday. That’s less than 1 percent of the deal’s value including net debt and compares with the 2 percent to 3 percent that is typical of these deals, said Elizabeth Nowicki, a professor at Tulane University Law School.

“Berkshire recognizes there’s a very, very small chance Burlington is going to have the desire or the opportunity to back out,” Nowicki, who is a former mergers and acquisitions lawyer at New York-based Sullivan & Cromwell LLP, said in an interview. “In this difficult economy, I doubt the Burlington board is going to have other bidders wanting to acquire them.”

Buffett, who built Berkshire over more than four decades, is taking on debt and spending the company’s cash as the economic crisis curbs expansion at some U.S. firms. Berkshire agreed to pay $26 billion for the 77.4 percent of Fort Worth, Texas-based Burlington it didn’t already own and assume $10 billion in net debt.

Officials at the Washington-based Hogan & Hartson law firm and London-based Lovells said Thursday that they are discussing a possible merger, a move that would make the combined entity one of the largest law firms in the world, with 2,500 lawyers and 40 offices.

Both firms specialize in similar practice areas -- mergers and acquisitions, initial public offerings, litigation and other corporate transactions. A merger, officials said, would allow them to increase market share and become a global powerhouse in three of the most important financial markets in the world: the United States, Europe and Asia.

"In order to play at the top tier of the legal profession, you need breadth and depth in all three of these geographic markets, and you need to be at the top of the markets," said Peter Zeughauser, chairman of the Zeughauser Group, which is advising Lovells on the proposed merger. The new firm would "draw more clients and more top talent to service that work," he said.

The management teams at Hogan & Hartson and Lovells are expected to make a unanimous recommendation to the partners of the firms, who have the final say on the proposal, officials said. Documents detailing the merger will be sent to partners next week, officials said. If they approve the proposal in December, as is expected, the merger would go into effect in May.