Literary legal news: February 7, 2025

Here's how literature and the law have been intersecting in the news recently.

• Kelly Jensen tracks legislative efforts to undermine recently passed anti-book-ban bills as the lead item in her weekly roundup of book bans and challenges (Book Riot).

• The Guardian and Entertainment Weekly both have updates on the Neil Gaiman content being canceled or ended early, in the wake of multiple allegations of sexual assault against the author; some, but not all, of the entities that have cut ties with him have addressed the accusations, which Gaiman denies. 

• Jury selection has begun in the trial of Hadi Matar, charged with with attempted murder and assault in the August 2022 knife attack on writer Salman Rushdie; Matar has pleaded not guilty (BBC).