Al's Morning Meeting

ABC News has admitted that it paid accused murderer Casey Anthony $200,000 in exchange for exclusive rights to video and photos. The network denies that the payments also included agreements for interviews. 

The revelation came Thursday in an Orlando court hearing aimed at trying to determine if Anthony is broke and needs financial help to mount a defense.

The ABC News payments were made in August 2008 while Casey Anthony was under investigation but not yet charged with the first-degree murder of her toddler, Caylee Anthony. A grand jury indicted the mother in October 2008.

ABC stations have repeatedly aired the images and video but have not, until now, revealed the long-rumored financial arrangement behind them. Anthony's lawyers told the judge about the ABC payment in a closed door hearing last fall. Thursday, the judge ordered the information be made public in open court.

Read on to hear what Poynter's Kelly McBride and Jill Geisler think about ABC's payment.

There is not as much red-hot interest in global warming as you might think.

When it comes to the environment, Americans are most concerned about water, according to a new Gallup survey. But it is also interesting that Americans are generally less worried about all environmental issues than they were a year ago. Gallup said that for some environmental issues, the percentage of Americans who "worry a great deal" has dropped to a 20-year low. You can click here to see a breakdown of people's environmental concerns.

Of the eight environmental issues mentioned, water-related issues were the top three; global warming was at the bottom. Gallup said it could be that economic issues have squeezed environmental issues out of our list of things to worry about for now.

Read on to find out how Americans ranked their environmental concerns.

U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan is proposing that college teams with a graduation rate lower than 40 percent be banned from post-season play.

This would mean that 12 teams in the NCAA tournament would not be on the court.

USA Today reported:

Read on to find out about the disparity in graduation rates between white and black players.  

Your office copy machine might do more than just make photocopies. WBZ-TV in Boston reported that some copy machines store electronic versions of everything they copy on an internal hard drive:


Read on to find out what other factors taxpayers might consider when they copy their tax returns.

I can imagine that at this morning's editorial meeting there might not be a lot of folks clamoring to cover the FCC's new broadband plan to be released today. But maybe they should.

Years from now, we might remember this as the day we finally got moving to make the United States a world leader in online, especially wireless connnectivity.

The FCC meeting, which you can watch live online, is scheduled to take place from 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. ET.

Read on to find out how the broadband issue will touch just about every reader, viewer, listener and online user.