From a New York Times story by Alexandra Alter and Elizabeth A. Harris headlined “Judge Blocks Merger of Penguin Random House and Simon & Schuster”:

A federal judge blocked on Monday a bid by Penguin Random House, the biggest book publisher in the United States, to buy one of its main rivals, Simon & Schuster, in a significant victory for the Biden administration, which is trying to expand the boundaries of antitrust enforcement.

The judge, Florence Y. Pan, who heard the case in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, said that the Justice Department had demonstrated that the merger might “substantially” harm competition in the market for U.S. publishing rights to anticipated top-selling books.