Latest news with #PulitzerPrize
Time of India
6 hours ago
- Time of India
US journalist arrested and charged with possessing child sex abuse material
Thomas LeGro Thomas LeGro, an award-winning Washington Post journalist, has been charged for allegedly possessing child pornography on Friday, after being arrested following a search at his home, the United States Department of Justice (DoJ) announced on Friday. According to a DoJ press release , videos depicting child sexual abuse material were found in LeGro's work laptop. "FBI agents executed a search warrant at LeGro's residence and seized several electronic devices. A review of his work laptop revealed a folder which contained 11 videos depicting child sexual abuse material," the Justice Department said. "During the execution of the search warrant, agents observed what appeared to be fractured pieces of a hard drive in the hallway outside the room where LeGro's work laptop was found," it added. The case against the Washington Post journalist was brought as part of the Department of Justice's Project Safe Childhood, a February 2006 initiative designed to protect children from online exploitation and abuse. Under, Project Safe Childhood, which is led by the US attorney offices, authorities at various levels (federal, state, local) locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the Internet, as well as identify and rescue victims. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Adidas Three Shorts With 60% Discount, Limited Stock Available Original Adidas Shop Now Undo Washington Post reacts In a statement, The Washington Post stated that it 'understands the severity of these allegations, and the employee has been placed on leave,' but declined to comment further. LeGro, 48, has worked at The Post for 18 years in two stints since 2000, was part of a Post team which won a Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting in 2018 for coverage of the Senate candidacy of Roy Moore of Alabama. He faces a maximum penalty of 20 years.
New York Post
7 hours ago
- Politics
- New York Post
Washington Post journalist busted by DC US Attorney Jeanine Pirro for allegedly possessing child porn
A Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post journalist was arrested and charged after authorities allegedly discovered child porn on his work computer, DC US Attorney Jeanine Pirro announced Friday. Thomas Pham LeGro, a 48-year-old video editor at the news outlet, was taken into custody on Thursday after FBI agents raided his Washington, DC, home and discovered a folder on his work laptop which contained 11 videos depicting child sexual abuse material, according to Pirro's office. FBI agents also discovered 'fractured pieces of a hard drive in the hallway outside the room where LeGro's work laptop was found,' during the execution of the search warrant. Legro made his first appearance in District Court of Washington, DC, on Friday and has a detention hearing scheduled for next Wednesday. 3 LeGro was part of a team that won the Pulitzer Prize in 2017 for coverage of Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore. Tom LeGro/LinkedIn The journalist, who has worked at the Washington Post for 18 years, faces a maximum of 20 years in prison if convicted. A heavily redacted FBI affidavit against LeGro claims the reporter was linked to multiple E-Gold accounts in 2005 and 2006. E-Gold was a digital payment service that ceased operations after the feds accused the company in 2007 of laundering money for child pornographers. The affidavit notes that the FBI received court approval to monitor LeGro's internet account in May. LeGro's worked in the Washington Post's sports department from 2000-2006 and then left to become a reporter and producer for 'PBS NewsHour' before returning to WaPo in 2013, according to his biography. 3 The charges were announced by Pirro on Friday. AFP via Getty Images 3 LeGro has worked at the Washington Post for 18 years. Christopher Sadowski As a member of WaPo's video department, he was part of a team of reporters that won a prestigious Pulitzer Prize in 2017 for coverage of former Alabama Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore. Moore threatened to sue the Washington Post that year after the outlet published allegations that he romantically pursued a 14-year-old girl when he was in his 30s, which he vehemently denied. A spokesperson for the Washington Post said Legro has been placed on leave. 'The Washington Post understands the severity of these allegations, and the employee has been placed on leave,' the outlet said in a statement.
Express Tribune
7 hours ago
- Business
- Express Tribune
Meta wins copyright lawsuit
A US judge on Wednesday handed Meta a victory over authors who accused the tech giant of violating copyright law by training Llama artificial intelligence on their creations without permission. District Court Judge Vince Chhabria in San Francisco ruled that Meta's use of the works to train its AI model was "transformative" enough to constitute "fair use" under copyright law, in the second such courtroom triumph for AI firms this week. However, it came with a caveat that the authors could have pitched a winning argument that by training powerful generative AI with copyrighted works, tech firms are creating a tool that could let a sea of users compete with them in the literary marketplace. "No matter how transformative (generative AI) training may be, it's hard to imagine that it can be fair use to use copyrighted books to develop a tool to make billions or trillions of dollars while enabling the creation of a potentially endless stream of competing works that could significantly harm the market for those books," Chhabria said in his ruling. Tremendous amounts of data are needed to train large language models powering generative AI. Musicians, book authors, visual artists and news publications have sued various AI companies that used their data without permission or payment. AI companies generally defend their practices by claiming fair use, arguing that training AI on large datasets fundamentally transforms the original content and is necessary for innovation. "We appreciate today's decision from the court," a Meta spokesperson said in response to an AFP inquiry. "Open-source AI models are powering transformative innovations, productivity and creativity for individuals and companies, and fair use of copyright material is a vital legal framework for building this transformative technology." In the case before Chhabria, a group of authors sued Meta for downloading pirated copies of their works and using them to train the open-source Llama generative AI, according to court documents. Books involved in the suit include Sarah Silverman's comic memoir The Bedwetter and Junot Diaz's Pulitzer Prizewinning novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, the documents showed. "This ruling does not stand for the proposition that Meta's use of copyrighted materials to train its language models is lawful," the judge stated. "It stands only for the proposition that these plaintiffs made the wrong arguments and failed to develop a record in support of the right one." Market harming? A different federal judge in San Francisco on Monday sided with AI firm Anthropic regarding training its models on copyrighted books without authors' permission. District Court Judge William Alsup ruled that the company's training of its Claude AI models with books bought or pirated was allowed under the "fair use" doctrine in the US Copyright Act. "Use of the books at issue to train Claude and its precursors was exceedingly transformative and was a fair use," Alsup wrote in his decision. "The technology at issue was among the most transformative many of us will see in our lifetimes," Alsup added in his decision, comparing AI training to how humans learn by reading books. The ruling stems from a class-action lawsuit filed by authors Andrea Bartz, Charles Graeber, and Kirk Wallace Johnson, who accused Anthropic of illegally copying their books to train chatbot Claude, the company's ChatGPT rival. Alsup rejected Anthropic's bid for blanket protection, ruling that the company's practice of downloading millions of pirated books to build a permanent digital library was not justified by fair use protections.
Telegraph
7 hours ago
- Politics
- Telegraph
Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post journalist arrested over child abuse images
A Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post photo-journalist has been arrested and charged with possessing child abuse images on his computer. Thomas Pham LeGro, 48, appeared before a federal judge in Washington DC on Friday where he was detained ahead of a bail hearing next week. The FBI said agents had executed a search warrant at Mr LeGro's residence on Thursday and seized a number of electronic devices. It said that after examining his work laptop agents found a 'folder that contained 11 videos depicting child sexual abuse material'. The agency added that while carrying out the search, agents spotted what appeared to be 'a broken pieces of a hard drive in the hallway outside the room where Mr LeGro's work laptop was found'. In its report of the arrest, the Post said that in charging papers, the FBI wrote that Mr LeGro was linked to an account identified in 2005 'as part of an investigation into E-Gold, a payment company used by child pornography websites'. LeGro 'placed on leave' by newspaper The newspaper said he had worked for the Post in two stints over the course of 18 years. The Post's website says: 'In 2018, Tom LeGro was part of a team of Post reporters who were awarded a Pulitzer Prize for coverage of the Senate candidacy of Roy Moore and a subsequent effort to discredit The Post's reporting.' It added: 'As Deputy Director of Video, Tom oversees an award-winning team of video journalists who work across the newsroom, including in National, Climate, Metro, Style and Technology. Tom joined Video in 2013.' There was no immediate response from the Washington Post to an inquiry from The Telegraph. It was not clear whether Mr LeGro had retained a lawyer or had a chance to enter a plea. In a brief statement, the Washington Post said it 'understands the severity of these allegations, and the employee has been placed on leave'.
Hindustan Times
8 hours ago
- Hindustan Times
Who is Thomas Pham LeGro and what did Washington Post editor do? Details on pornography charges
Thomas Pham LeGro, an award-winning journalist with The Washington Post, was charged Friday with possession of child pornography, according to a press release from the U.S. Department of Justice. Washington Post editor Thomas Pham LeGro is facing child pornography charges(X) The 48-year-old journalist was the subject of an FBI investigation, which led to the execution of a search warrant at his home on June 26. During the search, federal agents seized several electronic devices. 'A review of LeGro's work laptop revealed a folder that contained 11 videos depicting child sexual abuse material,' the press release stated. 'During the execution of the search warrant agents observed what appeared to be fractured pieces of a hard drive in the hallway outside the room where LeGro's work laptop was found.' Read More: Donald Trump says terminating trade talks with Canada over digital services tax, warns of new tariff 'This case is being investigated by the FBI Washington Field Office's Child Exploitation and Human Trafficking Task Force, which is composed of FBI agents, along with other federal agents and detectives from northern Virginia and the District of Columbia. The task force is charged with investigating and bringing federal charges against individuals engaged in the exploitation of children and those engaged in human trafficking,' it added. Who is Thomas Pham LeGro? According to Fox5DC,Thomas Pham LeGro joined The Washington Post in 2013 as a video editor on the breaking news desk. By 2015, he had been promoted to senior producer, overseeing the International, Style, and Technology teams. In 2017, LeGro was part of the Post team that received a Pulitzer Prize for its coverage of the Senate candidacy of Roy Moore. In 2021, he was named executive producer, leading the outlet's Politics, National, International, and Technology video teams. His accolades include a Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting in 2018 (as part of a team) and an Edward R. Murrow Award for investigative journalism.
