Associated Press

A new analysis finds the nation's health care overhaul deserves a place in advertising history as the focus of extraordinarily high spending on negative political TV ads that have gone largely unanswered by the law's supporters.

The report, released by nonpartisan analysts Kantar Media CMAG, estimates that $445 million was spent on political TV ads mentioning the law since the enactment of the Affordable Care Act in 2010. Spending on negative ads outpaced positive ones by more than 15 to 1.

As the November midterm elections approach, the picture looks much the same, Wilner said, although a few pro-Democratic ads are countering with messages supporting the health law and a few pro-Republican ads have gone from a flat-out call for repeal to a message of replacing the law with "free-market solutions." In the 2014 congressional races, 85 percent of the anti-Obama ads were also anti-"Obamacare" ads, the analysis found.

In some competitive races, 100 percent of the pro-Republican TV ads aimed at Democrats contained anti-health law messages. Since 2010, an estimated $418 million was spent on 880,000 negative TV spots focusing on the law, compared to $27 million on 58,000 positive spots, according to the analysis. Nearly all of the spending was on local TV stations, in races ranging from state offices such as treasurer and governor to Congress and the presidential election.

Thirteen leading news organizations are challenging the Federal Aviation Administration's ban on journalists' use of drones, saying it violates First Amendment protection for news gathering.

The organizations, including The Associated Press, filed a brief with the National Transportation Safety Board in support of aerial photographer Raphael Pirker.

Pirker was fined by the FAA for flying a small drone near the University of Virginia to make a commercial video in October 2011. He appealed the fine to the safety board, which hears challenges to FAA decisions.

President Vladimir Putin has mocked the Internet as a CIA project and pledged to protect Russia's interests online.

The Kremlin has been anxious to exert greater control over the Internet, which opposition activists -- barred from national television -- have used to promote their ideas and organize protests. Russia's parliament passed a law requiring social media websites to keep their servers in Russia and save all information about their users for at least half a year.

Also, businessmen close to Putin now control Russia's leading social media network, VKontakte.

US newspaper industry revenue fell in 2013, as increases in circulation revenue weren't high enough to make up for shrinking demand for print advertising, an industry trade group said.

The Newspaper Association of America said revenue fell 2.6 percent to $37.6 billion in 2013. Circulation revenue rose 3.7 percent to $10.9 billion, the second straight year of growth. Advertising revenue fell 6.5 percent to $23.6 billion.

Dish Network will reimburse Washington state customers about $2 million for a surcharge officials called deceptive, but the satellite TV provider denied wrongdoing in the agreement announced by the state attorney general's office.

The Colorado-based company also will give existing customers who were charged the fee cash credit or access to free programming and pay the state nearly $570,000.

Dish denies the fee was illegal or deceptive, saying the state raised its business tax and the company was informing customers why prices were going up by listing a "Washington surcharge" on bills. Dodge said the company decided to settle with the state to avoid a court fight.

Several private newspapers in Myanmar printed black front pages to protest the recent arrests and sentencing of journalists, in the latest sign the country's media climate is worsening.

The black front pages -- which included a protest message -- in the influential Daily Eleven newspaper, its Sports journal and other papers follow a court decision in which a video journalist for Democratic Voice of Burma was sentenced to one year imprisonment for trespassing and obstructing a civil servant while doing a story on education.

"We are publishing the black front page in protest against the sentencing of the DVB reporter and also to oppose the recent harassment of journalists," Wai Phyo, chief editor of the Daily Eleven newspaper, told The Associated Press.

The president and CEO of The Associated Press says journalists around the world are "increasingly under attack" by people trying to influence and control the news.

Gary Pruitt touched on the recent death of AP photojournalist Anja Niedringhaus. She was killed in Afghanistan, and her colleague Kathy Gannon was seriously wounded. The women were covering the run-up to the country's elections.

Pruitt says the increased dangers to reporters and the growing secrecy of governments make journalists' jobs more challenging but also more important.

Reaching the nation's 55 million Latinos has become gospel for mainstream media giants, but capturing this fast-growing, mostly US-born audience is proving tricky to networks and websites.

For every success story there is a flop. One challenge: Many in the audience today are second- and third-generation Latinos, and often they eschew a Latino-only box, even as they crave more stories that include them.

Booze may be an oft-mentioned topic when Kathie Lee Gifford and Hoda Kotb are hosting the fourth hour of the "Today" show, but one alcoholic beverage they won't be talking about is Gifford's new wine line.

Gifford said NBC has asked her not to plug her new Gifft chardonnay and red blend on the show.

"They let me announce it and then they've asked us to please not discuss it right now," Gifford said. "We're in the middle of the big takeover of a major corporation. I think they just want to be -- and rightfully so -- very careful. Everybody wants to dot i's and cross t's and you notice the wine is still sitting there but they've just asked me to be a little careful while they're under great scrutiny and I'm happy to do that."

A representative for "Today" said, "We love and support Kathie Lee and as always, we let her comments speak for themselves."

In July 2010, Joe McSpedon, a US government official, flew to Barcelona to put the final touches on a secret plan to build a social media project aimed at undermining Cuba's communist government.

McSpedon and his team of high-tech contractors had come in from Costa Rica and Nicaragua, Washington and Denver. Their mission: to launch a messaging network that could reach hundreds of thousands of Cubans. To hide the network from the Cuban government, they would set up a byzantine system of front companies using a Cayman Islands bank account, and recruit unsuspecting executives who would not be told of the company's ties to the US government.

McSpedon didn't work for the CIA. This was a program paid for and run by the US Agency for International Development, best known for overseeing billions of dollars in US humanitarian aid.

The plan was to develop a bare-bones "Cuban Twitter," using cellphone text messaging to evade Cuba's strict control of information and its stranglehold restrictions over the Internet. In a play on Twitter, it was called ZunZuneo -- slang for a Cuban hummingbird's tweet. Documents show the US government planned to build a subscriber base through "non-controversial content": news messages on soccer, music, and hurricane updates. Later when the network reached a critical mass of subscribers, perhaps hundreds of thousands, operators would introduce political content aimed at inspiring Cubans to organize "smart mobs" -- mass gatherings called at a moment's notice that might trigger a Cuban Spring, or, as one USAID document put it, "renegotiate the balance of power between the state and society."