NEW YORK (AP) — The antitrust trial of Live Nation and Ticketmaster resumed Monday in a New York federal court with three dozen states remaining in the case a week after the Justice Department settled its claims and withdrew.
Judge Arun Subramanian greeted jurors in Manhattan federal court by asking them if they had heard any news about the trial in the week in which it was suspended after one week of testimony.
After no jurors raised hands, he told them Arkansas, Nebraska and South Dakota had settled claims and were no longer part of the case.
Testimony then resumed with an attorney for the remaining states questioning Jay Marciano, the chief executive of AEG Presents, which is Live Nation's chief competitor.
For a time last week, it seemed the trial might not proceed at all. The states requested a mistrial after U.S. government lawyers said they'd reached a tentative settlement. After the judge urged the states to negotiate for several days with attorneys for Live Nation, the states withdrew their mistrial request and Subramanian said the trial would resume Monday.
On Friday, lawyers for the states indicated that seven states were well on their way to joining the federal government's planned settlement, but the judge said any state that had not reached a final signed deal by Monday would remain in the case until they did.
As the trial resumed, 36 states and the District of Columbia continued to press claims that Live Nation Entertainment and its ticketing subsidiary, Ticketmaster, are blocking competition and driving up prices for fans. They say this was done through threats, retaliation and other tactics to control virtually every aspect of the industry, from concert promotion to ticketing.
Lawyers for Live Nation and Ticketmaster have tried to show jurors that the entertainment and ticketing business is more complicated than the states are portraying it and that it's impossible to monopolize an industry that is largely controlled by artists, sports teams and venues that set prices and decide how tickets are sold.
The Justice Department said last week that it settled its case after winning concessions from Live Nation that would open up some ticketing to rival ticketing companies and ultimately lower prices for consumers. Numerous states criticized the deal, saying the federal government failed to get enough concessions from the company.
FILE - The seal of the Dept of Justice is shown on the podium, Aug. 1, 2023, at an office of the Department of Justice in Washington. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)
FILE - The Ticketmaster logo is seen along the sideline of the field before an NFL football game, Sept. 15, 2024, in Jacksonville, Fla. (AP Photo/Phelan M. Ebenhack, File)
NEW YORK (AP) — Teresa Younger's term leading the Ms. Foundation, the first national philanthropy run by women and for women, has spanned the #MeToo movement and the rollback of national abortion rights and is now ending during Donald Trump's second presidency.
“We are currently not in the best shape,” Younger said, of the pursuit for political equality for everyone, part of the Ms. Foundation's mission. But even as she prepares to step down from her role as CEO in June, Younger said she is not walking away from the fight.
“I believe feminism is still alive and well," Younger said in an interview with The Associated Press. "In fact, it has been the one thing that has been the preservation of democracy and our constitutional rights in some way over the past 12 years.”
As CEO, Younger took on domestic abuse by professional football players, expanded the foundation's investments in grassroots groups in the South and Midwest and raised more than $100 million for its endowment. In 2018, the foundation embraced a strategy to advocate for resources to go to girls and women of color. Younger said that change was a long time coming, but it resonated differently under her leadership as a Black and Indigenous woman.
“The institution was explicit in our strategic plan to say that we want to center women and girls of color as a point of inclusion, not exclusion," Younger said. "And now we are sitting in a spot where quote-unquote DEI is looked at as bad. And we refuse to accept that.”
As part of that strategic shift, the foundation produced a 2020 report called, “Pocket Change: How Women and Girls of Color Do More with Less,” which is a call to other philanthropic funders to change not just what they fund but how.
The research identified that charitable foundations granted about $356 million to women and girls of color in 2017, which represents less than 0.05% of funds granted out in 2018 by foundations.
But beyond highlighting this tiny investment in some of the country's most marginalized people, the report revealed major misalignments between funders and groups led by women of color. For example, many of these nonprofits use multiple strategies, providing child care and diapers alongside their advocacy for reproductive justice. Meanwhile, funders may separate grantmaking by population, strategy or issue, and may only want to fund part of their activities.
The report calls for foundations to provide flexible, long-term funding, to align their strategies with the groups they fund, to solicit feedback from grantees and to support intermediaries who are well connected with these groups.
This has long been the role that women's funds and Ms. Foundation have played within philanthropy. They both support grassroots groups that serve marginalized populations, and pioneer new ways of funding and working with those groups, which some other funders then adopt as best practices.
The earliest women's funds in the U.S. started in the 1970s, with Ms. Foundation being the first national funder to support women's groups and feminist movements. It was founded in 1973 by Gloria Steinem, Patricia Carbine, Letty Cottin Pogrebin and Marlo Thomas.
Sunny Fischer, one of the founders of the Chicago Foundation for Women, said the women who started it around 1983 wanted to serve women differently than how many large social service organizations were at the time.
Rather than telling women experiencing domestic violence to go back and save their marriages, she said, “There were new groups that were trying to help women where they were, to really understand what was going on in the home," and to give them safer choices about what they could do if they were in an abusive situation.
Lucia Woods Lindley, a photographer and an heir of a wealthy Nebraska family whose fortune came from telecommunications and coal, was another founder of CFW, who Fischer remembered as "a great planner."
In 2023, Ms. Foundation announced that Woods Lindley had left them $50 million in her estate, the largest gift it had ever received. It made up almost half the $106 million the foundation ultimately raised for its endowment.
In an interview at the time, Younger said Ms. Foundation had not expected the gift from Woods Lindley to be so large.
“She trusted and believed that Ms. (Foundation)’s role as the national public women’s foundation was critical to the thought leadership that needed to happen in philanthropy around feminism and around challenging the field and around growing and asking the right kinds of questions,” Younger said.
Overall, the amount of money controlled by women’s funds remains tiny compared to the assets of major foundations and the largest individual philanthropists. One exception is Melinda French Gates, who has committed billions to benefit women and girls.
The Women’s Philanthropy Institute at the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy has tracked giving to women and girls and found that over 10 years, the proportion of overall philanthropic support they've received has risen from 1.59% in 2012 to 2.04% in 2023, with an increase to 2.18% in 2022.
“The vast majority of philanthropic dollars are going to the general population and based on need rather than identity,” said Jacqueline Ackerman, the institute's director, but she said they track giving to historically underfunded groups in order to reveal whether those trends are changing.
Ms. Foundation plans to announce Younger's replacement later this spring and Younger has not yet said what is next for her. Speaking with emotion, Younger said she has loved the work she's done with the foundation but is confident it will benefit from new leadership.
“I want to look back and see somebody who’s built on what I’ve been able to do and take it to the next level,” she said. “And I will sit back with pride in what they are able to accomplish.”
Associated Press coverage of philanthropy and nonprofits receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content. For all of AP’s philanthropy coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/philanthropy.
FILE - Ms. Foundation President and CEO Teresa Younger, right, and Gloria Steinem pose at the Ms. Foundation's Women of Vision Awards at the Ziegfeld Ballroom, May 16, 2023, in New York. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP, File)
