approval

The U.S. Justice Department has cleared the way for Paramount Skydance’s $111-billion purchase of Warner Bros. Discovery — a major milestone that moves David Ellison closer to his goal.

After a months-long review, Justice Department antitrust regulators on Friday concluded the combination would not violate federal anticompetition laws. Approval had been expected because President Trump — who has friendly ties with Ellison and his father, tech billionaire Larry Ellison — favors the deal.

The government stopped short of asking Paramount to make concessions or divestitures.

Buying Warner Bros. would allow Paramount — Hollywood’s smallest major company — to bulk up with such prestigious properties as HBO, CNN, HGTV and Food Network. Those would be combined with properties Paramount already owns, including CBS, Comedy Central, Nickelodeon and MTV.

The deal would put two historic film studios and two prominent news organizations under the same roof. It would give Paramount four streaming services, including HBO Max, and dozens of cable channels.

In its four-page closing statement, the Justice Department emphasized that career antitrust regulators — not political appointees — had performed a rigorous review, sifting through some two million documents the government received from dozens of sources, including third-party organizations.

They conducted meetings and deposed senior-level executives and other witnesses.

“These investigative efforts all led to the same conclusion: the film and television industry is highly dynamic, and the proposed transaction is not likely to harm competition or American consumers,” Justice Department regulators wrote in their summary.

Regulators zeroed in on three potential areas of concern. They looked at whether the merger would give Paramount too much power in the streaming video-on-demand market; the traditional linear television channel space; as well as in “studio development, production, or distribution of films for theatrical release,” the Justice Department said.

Competition in streaming would not be crimped, according to the regulators.

“To the contrary, the combined firm is likely to increase competition by offering consumers a more robust competitive alternative to the larger [streaming] offerings,” they wrote.

The antitrust division also found that theatrical distribution and opportunities for creators, including writers and actors, would not be harmed as long as the combined company maintained current production levels.

Ellison has promised to continue releasing 30 films a year with a combined Warner Bros.-Paramount studio. He also has said he would protect the HBO brand.

The proposed merger is controversial because many in Hollywood fear it will bring thousands of job losses, which was the result of past consolidations, including Walt Disney Co.’s 2019 takeover of Fox entertainment properties. More than 5,000 entertainment industry workers, including Jane Fonda, J.J. Abrams, Javier Bardem and Mark Ruffalo, have signed an open letter calling for the merger to be blocked.

There’s a political dimension as well. Paramount’s standing with the Trump administration (Paramount+ is set to televise Sunday’s UFC fight spectacle at the White House to celebrate Trump’s birthday as part of the company’s relationship with the UFC) has given left-leaning groups pause.

They worry about collapsing CNN and CBS News into one unit, particularly after all the turmoil that has ensued at CBS News since the Ellison family bought Paramount in August and installed Bari Weiss as CBS News editor in chief.

This month witnessed a dramatic shakeup at the iconic “60 Minutes,” with top executives and three well-known correspondents tossed out.

“We’ve already seen how far Paramount and the Ellison family are willing to go to diminish a once-proud network and news organization like CBS,” Craig Aaron, co-chief executive of the progressive group Free Press, said in a statement. His group fears the Ellisons would “do worse if they get their hands on Warner Bros., HBO, CNN and all the rest.”

Paramount, for its part, said it was grateful for “the Department of Justice’s thorough review of this transaction, as well as the work of the other agencies that have completed their reviews and provided clearance to date.”

“This deal is pro-competitive, resulting in a stronger company better positioned to compete against dominant technology platforms in an industry increasingly defined by intense competition for audiences, talent, technology, and investment,” Paramount said. “We remain focused on completing the transaction as soon as possible and delivering its benefits to consumers, creators, and the entertainment industry as a whole.”

Paramount wants to finalize its purchase by September.

With Friday’s victory, Paramount is staying on that timetable, but regulators in Europe and Britain have opened their own regulatory investigations and are expected to make their own determinations in the coming months.

Separately, California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta and other state attorneys general have been scrutinizing the proposed merger, and are widely expected to file a lawsuit, perhaps as early as this month, to try to block it.

Paramount applied for Justice Department approval in December — more than two months before it edged out Netflix in the Warner sweepstakes.

In its statement, the Justice Department said it began its review last fall when it was clear Warner Bros. was in play. Regulators said they were familiar with Warner’s businesses, because the division had scrutinized four other mergers involving the company, dating back to the disastrous AOL-Time Warner merger in 2001.

Paramount’s deal would mark the third time Warner has changed hands in the last decade. AT&T bought the company in 2018 and then sold it to the smaller Discovery four years later. That deal left Warner Bros. burdened by debt, setting the stage for the Ellison takeover.

Justice Department approval could complicate efforts by Bonta and other state attorneys general to block the deal. Should Bonta or others sue, they would have to convince a judge that the nation’s top antitrust regulators failed to make a proper finding despite their lengthy review.

That may pose a high bar for the state officials, who are facing political pressure to stop the deal.

“State AGs must block this merger,” U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said in a statement Friday, adding that the Justice Department’s approval was “terrible news for every American who doesn’t want Trump-aligned billionaires to control what they watch and how much they pay.”

The Justice Department said state attorney general offices had participated in its investigation, which allowed federal and state officials “to share information with each other and for the States to attend and participate in the [antitrust] Division’s depositions.”

Last month, David Ellison appeared before the regulators in a two-hour session.

Paramount’s Chief Legal Officer Makan Delrahim, who previously served as the nation’s top antitrust regulator during the first Trump administration, also was busy quarterbacking Paramount’s outreach with regulators.

Since its creation more than a century ago, the Los Angeles Bureau of Street Lighting has been in the lamppost business and little else.

But in recent months, the little-known city agency has found itself pulled into a fierce debate over L.A.’s relationship with Flock Safety, a surveillance technology company that has been criticized for supplying data used to enable the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.

In L.A., Flock operates dozens of automated license plate readers, which allow authorities to scan for vehicles that have been reported stolen or are registered to known fugitives, tracking their movements throughout the city.

The devices are often mounted on municipal light poles, which makes the Bureau of Street Lighting responsible for their installation.

Reports that Flock has shared license plate data with federal authorities, including U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, have prompted dozens of mostly smaller cities across the country to end their relationship with the company. But in L.A. it still has found willing customers, including the LAPD.

Hundreds of emails obtained by The Times through public records requests reveal how LAPD boosters, homeowner associations and elected officials have engaged in a months-long campaign to pressure the Bureau of Street Lighting to speed up installations of the plate readers.

Flock, headquartered in Atlanta, said that it contracts with roughly 5,000 U.S. law enforcement agencies nationwide, and that its technology complies with a California law that limits what information can be shared with federal authorities. A company spokesperson said that Flock’s technology is “built around transparency, accountability, and local control.”

“Our customers own and control their data, which is deleted after 30 days by default,” the spokesperson, MoMo Zhou, said in a statement to The Times. “Our platform includes safeguards like audit trails to help ensure accountability at every step. Every day, Flock supports communities across the country in addressing crime and locating missing people.”

The Bureau of Street Lighting, with 177 employees and a relatively modest budget of $49.4 million, would seem an unlikely player in the broader debate over police surveillance. It is primarily tasked with repairing and fortifying the city’s more than 210,000 streetlamps — a frequent target of copper wire thieves — and maintaining its network of electrical vehicle charging stations.

The push to put up more plate readers has come amid calls for greater transparency around the Los Angeles Police Department’s dealings with Flock. In March, the Police Commission asked the department to report back on what information the company’s scanners collect and share. In recent months, the commission declined to approve donations of Flock cameras.

Members of the Stop LAPD Spying Coalition held a news conference to express opposition to Flock Safety, a license plate reader, ahead of a Los Angeles Board of Police Commissioners meeting on March 3, 2026.

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

The commission ordered its inspector general to conduct an audit of the LAPD’s use of license plate reader technology, with the findings expected to be released in the summer.

Recently, Councilmember Ysabel Jurado introduced a motion urging the commission to “refrain from entering into any new Memoranda of Understanding, Contracts, or other Agreements, or implement any pilot programs with Flock Safety or its affiliates.” LAPD officials said last month that the city attorney’s office has been working on drawing up a formal contract with Flock.

Behind the scenes, though, the pressure to work with Flock has been ratcheting up from other council offices and community groups.

When a representative from Councilmember Katy Yaroslavsky’s office emailed the streetlighting bureau urging speed, she received a response that said the installation process shouldn’t be rushed because some city light poles can’t support the weight of a Flock reader, which is normally powered by a solar panel.

“The last thing we need is to have a pole fall onto someone or something if there are high winds,” the bureau’s Clinton Tsurui wrote in the June 4, 2025, email.

In another exchange, Tsurui expressed frustration with a colleague who had offered what he thought was an overly optimistic timetable for installing new plate readers.

He wrote: “smh, promising things we can’t do is going to catch up with us one day.”

The Los Angeles Police Foundation, a nonprofit group that has long bankrolled equipment for the LAPD and offered other support, has criticized delays in installing the Flock devices. Last year, the foundation facilitated the donation of dozens of Flock cameras, most of which ended up in affluent neighborhoods on the city’s Westside and in the San Fernando Valley.

Records show that in May 2025, Dana Katz, the foundation’s executive director, reached out to the mayor’s office with a request to waive permit and rental fees associated with installing the new readers. Katz wrote in an email that the extra expense of around $2,000 per device were “cost prohibitive and detrimental to public safety.”

Katz also pointed out that in some places, there are no city-owned poles on which to mount the devices — but offered a possible solution.

“Flock has its own pole that has been accepted by the County of Los Angeles for these situations, and we would like the City to accept the use of them, too,” she wrote to Robert Clark, the city’s then-deputy mayor of public safety.

A few of L.A.’s historic streetlights stand outside the Bureau of Street Lighting’s office near Virgil Avenue and Santa Monica Boulevard.

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

Katz wrote Clark again on Aug. 6 to ask why officials were estimating a six-to-12-month wait for approval of new Flock readers on public property in the neighborhoods of Cheviot Hills and Brentwood Park, where there were no existing city poles to mount them. She noted that the county’s engineering department had already approved the company’s poles, and asked Clark whether there was a way for the city to “piggyback on these other entities’ approvals in order to speed this up so that these neighborhoods don’t have to wait so long for help in preventing these home invasions?”

In the following weeks, Katz’s emails took on an increasingly urgent tone. In one of her last messages, email records show, she told an aide she expected more help than the mayor’s office was offering.

“With all due respect, the answers you have provided are completely generic and do not provide any guidance and direction as to how we can expedite this process,” she wrote.

She added: “I’ve said it before, and I will say it again — these delays are harmful to public safety.”

A spokesperson for the mayor’s office told The Times that ultimately neither Clark nor the aide intervened on the Los Angeles Police Foundation’s behalf.

Email records show Flock’s courtship of the bureau dates at least to spring 2024, when the company agreed to donate two of its plate readers to help combat copper thefts.

Tsurui emailed LAPD Capt. Celina Robles to say that the company’s executives had requested an in-person meeting with the bureau and the LAPD “to discuss the benefits of this product and how it can benefit the city moving forward.”

On June 24, 2024, a lobbyist from the D.C. firm Modern Fortis emailed Bureau of Street Lighting Executive Director Miguel Sangalang seeking to “explore a public-private partnership” between Flock and the city. Sangalang took another meeting to discuss Flock a few months later with former City Councilmember Joe Buscaino, who after leaving City Hall had gone to work for Ballard Partners, a powerful Florida-based lobbying firm.

In January 2025, after wildfires devastated Pacific Palisades, Altadena and other areas, Flock stepped in again. The company agreed to donate more than 50 plate readers, free of charge for six months, to the wealthy Palisades area, where residents and law enforcement officials were on high alert about potential theft.

A Flock Safety automated license plate reader in Costa Mesa.

(Courtesy of the city of Costa Mesa)

In the days and weeks that followed, city and police officials continued to pepper the bureau about speeding up the approval process.

On Jan. 21, 2025, records show, Cmdr. Randall “Randy” Goddard of the LAPD’s Information Technology Bureau wrote streetlighting officials to say that the Palisades community “could use a big favor from your department.”

LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell “fully supports this and has been working with the City Attorney’s office to finalize the terms,” Goddard wrote.

Switzerland forward Breel Embolo has had his Esta authorisation approved and can travel to the United States to join up with the rest of his team-mates as they prepare for the 2026 World Cup.

Embolo did not travel with the Swiss squad on Tuesday because his Esta – an automated system that determines if an international visitor is eligible to enter the US without a traditional visa – had been placed under review.

“We have just been informed that Breel Embolo’s visa has been approved,” said a statement from the Switzerland football federation.

“He will therefore be able to travel to the United States. He is expected to join the team on Friday evening.”

The review of Embolo’s Esta related to a Swiss court ruling about an altercation Embolo was involved in in Basel in 2018.

The 29-year-old, who has scored 23 goals in 85 games for his country and played in the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, was convicted in 2023 of making multiple threats and handed a suspended fine.

After the verdict was upheld on appeal, Swiss media reported in April that the Stade Rennais forward had decided not to take the case to the Federal Court, making the judgement final.

He attended an appointment at the US Embassy in Bern on Wednesday prior to receiving approval.

Switzerland will be based in San Diego for the World Cup, which will be held across Canada, Mexico and the US, and will begin their campaign against Qatar on 13 June in Santa Clara.

Their other Group B games will be against Bosnia and Herzegovina in Inglewood on 18 June and co-hosts Canada in Vancouver on 24 June.

US and Iranian negotiators have reached a memorandum of understanding on a proposed 60-day ceasefire extension, according to US sources, but the deal still requires President Donald Trump’s approval.

Iran were expected to fly from Turkiye to Arizona to continue World Cup 2026 preparations but will switch to Mexico.

Iran will base ‌their squad in the Mexican border city of Tijuana ⁠during this ⁠year’s World Cup after football’s world governing body FIFA approved a request to move their training camp from Arizona, ⁠the head of Iran’s football federation said on Saturday.

“We will be based in the Tijuana camp, which is near the Pacific ⁠Ocean and on the border between Mexico and the United States,” Iran’s Football Federation President Mehdi Taj said in a video posted on its Telegram social media account.

Taj added that the switch would help ‌avoid visa-related complications following the US-Israel war on Iran, and that the squad would be able to fly directly to Mexico with Iran Air.

Iran will play their first two Group G matches in Los Angeles, against New Zealand on June 15 and Belgium on June 21, ⁠before facing Egypt in Seattle on June 26.

“The ⁠total distance between us and the venue of our games in Los Angeles is 55 minutes by flight,” Taj said, adding that Tijuana was closer to their ⁠match venues than the team’s previously planned camp in Arizona.

Iran has faced uncertainty for months ⁠over travel and security arrangements for the ⁠World Cup, which will be cohosted by the United States, Canada and Mexico, and had asked for their games to be moved from the US.

Iranian officials said this month that their players and staff had yet to receive US ‌visas, less than a month before the start of the tournament. They began visa applications during their stay in Turkiye for pre-tournament training.

Taj said FIFA had been asked for guarantees over visas, security ‌and ‌the treatment of the Iranian delegation.

Iran are due to play Gambia in a friendly on May 29 before coach Amir Ghalenoei names his final 26-man World Cup squad by FIFA’s June 1 deadline.

The World Cup is from June 11 to July 19.

WASHINGTON — Senate Republicans on Wednesday again blocked Democratic legislation that would halt President Trump’s war with Iran, but the number of GOP senators voting against the war grew.

Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska voted against the war for the first time since it began at the end of February. Two other Republicans, Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Rand Paul of Kentucky, also voted against the war, as they had done previously.

The war powers legislation ultimately failed to advance 49-50, with Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania the only Democrat to oppose it, yet the close tally reflected growing unease with Trump’s war. Several other Republican senators have signaled they want Congress to weigh in on the direction of the conflict.

“There will be a day — and it might be soon, I believe — where this Senate will say to the president, ‘Stop this war,’” Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia, who has spearheaded his party’s tactic of forcing repeated votes on the war, said before the vote.

Even if it passes the Senate, a war powers resolution would have a slim chance of passing the House and would also certainly be vetoed by Trump. But Democrats say the votes are about building political pressure on the president either to withdraw from the conflict or seek congressional authorization to wage the war.

Trump officials downplay role for Congress

The White House, meanwhile, has asserted that it does not need congressional authorization for the war and has circumvented legal requirements to gain approval from Congress to continue the military campaign. It claims that it has “terminated” hostilities with Iran because the U.S. has entered a ceasefire.

That posture has created tension between the Republican-controlled Congress and the White House because presidents under the War Powers Resolution of 1973 are required to obtain authorization from Congress after 60 days of engaging in a conflict.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told lawmakers this week that the U.S. could start attacking Iran again without the White House seeking congressional approval. He told Murkowski during a hearing on Tuesday that the Trump administration believes it has “all the authorities necessary.”

Murkowski voiced skepticism about that argument. She pointed to the troops and war ships deployed to the region, saying, “It doesn’t appear that hostilities have ended.”

GOP leaders back the war, but unease grows

Republican leadership has continued to back the war with Iran, arguing that the stalemate in the Strait of Hormuz that has blocked most commercial shipping puts more economic pressure on Iran than it does on the U.S.

“Iran’s economy is on life support. Its leadership is eliminated,” said Sen. John Barrasso, the No. 2 Republican in leadership, during a floor speech Wednesday.

He also argued that the Democratic effort on the war is all about undermining Trump. Forcing the issue just as he arrived in China for a summit would “pull out the rug from under him,” Barrasso said.

Still, Republicans are also growing uneasy about the high gas prices, especially as the November elections draw near.

Sen. Mike Rounds, a Republican from South Dakota, said Wednesday he’d prefer that the two branches of government work out the constitutional issues instead of a congressional war powers vote or a potential challenge in court.

The two sides should sit down together and say “we have shared constitutional responsibilities,” Rounds said.

Democrats plan to keep forcing weekly votes on war powers resolutions and are looking ahead to put limitations on Trump during the debate over annual legislation that authorizes and funds the military.

Sen. Jeff Merkley, an Oregon Democrat who sponsored Wednesday’s resolution, told reporters that he believes there is an “erosion of support, erosion of enthusiasm, an increase in skepticism” about the war from Republicans.

Groves writes for the Associated Press.

The Virginia Supreme Court on Friday struck down a voter-approved Democratic congressional redistricting plan, delivering another major setback to the party in a nationwide battle against Republicans for an edge in this year’s midterm elections.

The court ruled that the state’s Democratic-led legislature violated procedural requirements when it placed the constitutional amendment on the ballot to authorize the mid-decade redistricting. Voters narrowly approved the amendment April 21, but the court’s ruling renders the results of that vote meaningless.

“This violation irreparably undermines the integrity of the resulting referendum vote and renders it null and void,” the court said in its opinion.

Democrats had hoped to win as many as four additional U.S. House seats under Virginia’s redrawn U.S. House map as part of an attempt to offset Republican redistricting done elsewhere at the urging of President Donald Trump. That ruling, combined with a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision severely weakening the Voting Rights Act, has supercharged the Republicans’ congressional gerrymandering advantage heading into this year’s midterm elections.

Legislative voting districts typically are redrawn once a decade after each census to account for population changes. But Trump started an unusual flurry of mid-decade redistricting last year when he encouraged Republican officials in Texas to redraw districts in a bid to win several additional U.S. House seats and hold on to their party’s narrow majority in the midterm elections.

California responded with new voter-approved districts drawn to Democrats’ advantage, and Utah’s top court imposed a new congressional map that also helps Democrats. Meanwhile, Republicans stand to gain from new House districts passed in Florida, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio and Tennessee. They could add even more after the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in the Voting Rights Act case, which has prompted some other Republican states to consider redrawing their maps in time for this year’s elections.

Virginia currently is represented in the U.S. House by six Democrats and five Republicans who were elected from districts imposed by a court after a bipartisan redistricting commission failed to agree on a map after the 2020 census. The new districts could have given Democrats an improved chance to win all but one of the state’s 11 congressional seats.

Under the Demcoratic-drawn map, five districts would have been anchored in the Democratic stronghold of northern Virginia, including one stretching out like a lobster to consume Republican-leaning rural areas. Revisions to four other districts across Richmond, southern Virginia and Hampton Roads would have diluted the voting power of conservative blocs in those areas. And a reshaped district in parts of western Virginia would have lumped together three Democratic-leaning college towns to offset other Republican voters.

The state Supreme Court’s seven justices are appointed by the state legislature, which has toggled back and forth between Democratic, Republican and split control over recent years. Legal experts say the body doesn’t have a set ideological profile

The case before the court focused not on the shape of the new districts but rather on the process the General Assembly used to authorize them.

Because the state’s redistricting commission was established by a voter-approved constitutional amendment, lawmakers had to propose an amendment to redraw the districts. That required approval of a resolution in two separate legislative sessions, with a state election sandwiched in between, to place the amendment on the ballot.

The legislature’s initial approval of the amendment occurred last October — while early voting was underway but before it concluded on the day of the general election. The legislature’s second vote on the amendment occurred after a new legislative session began in January. Lawmakers also approved a separate bill in February laying out the new districts, subject to voter approval of the constitutional amendment.

Judicial arguments focused on whether the legislature’s initial approval of the amendment came too late, because early voting already had begun for the 2025 general election.

Attorney Matthew Seligman, who defended the legislature, argued that the “election” should be defined narrowly to mean the Tuesday of the general election. In that case, the legislature’s first vote on the redistricting amendment occurred before the election and was constitutional, he told judges.

An attorney for the plaintiffs, Thomas McCarthy, argued that an “election” should be interpreted to cover the entire period during which people can cast ballots, which lasts several weeks in Virginia. If that’s the case, he told justices, then the legislature’s initial endorsement of the redistricting amendment came too late to comply with the state constitution.

In January, a judge in rural Tazewell County, in southwestern Virginia, ruled that lawmakers failed to follow their own rules for adding the redistricting amendment to a special session last fall. Circuit Judge Jack Hurley Jr. also ruled that lawmakers failed to initially approve the amendment before the public began voting in last year’s general election and that the state had failed to publish the amendment three months before the election, as required by law. As a result, he said, the amendment is invalid and void.

The Virginia Supreme Court placed Hurley’s order on hold and allowed the redistricting vote to proceed before hearing arguments on the case.

Lieb writes for the Associated Press.

The 60-day clock for President Trump to seek congressional approval for further military actions against Iran was stopped by the April 7 ceasefire, a senior White House official claimed to The War Zone Friday morning. As we previously noted, the president faced a deadline today under the War Powers Resolution of 1973 to obtain permission from Congress to continue fighting.

The White House decision comes as the now-paused war is at a stalemate, with both sides believing they can outlast the other. Meanwhile, Trump is considering options for a new round of strikes while Iranians say they have presented new plans for working toward a peace deal.

“For War Powers Resolution purposes, the hostilities that began on Saturday, February 28 have terminated,” the official told us, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the matter. “Both parties agreed to a two-week ceasefire on Tuesday, April 7 that has since been extended. There has been no exchange of fire between U.S. Armed Forces and Iran since Tuesday, April 7.”

The administration’s statement today follows War Secretary Pete Hegseth’s Congressional testimony yesterday that “the 60-day clock pauses or stops in a ceasefire.”

Under the War Powers Resolution, the use of armed forces should be terminated within 60 days unless Congress has declared war or voted to approve a 30-day extension. Since Trump formally notified Congress about the Iran war on March 2, that deadline fell today. Even though several other presidents have simply ignored the War Powers Resolution, the Trump administration is now arguing that the measure doesn’t really apply to their operation just yet.

It remains unclear how or if Congress will react. It adjourned yesterday for a week-long recess. On Thursday, the Senate rejected the latest of many resolutions intended to halt the war, The Washington Post noted. 

Republican lawmakers appear to be deferring to Trump on the issue of the War Powers Resolution. Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., told The Associated Press on Thursday that he doesn’t plan on a vote to authorize force in Iran or otherwise weigh in.

“I’m listening carefully to what the members of our conference are saying, and at this point I don’t see that,” Thune said.

Republican Sen. Kevin Cramer of North Dakota said he’d vote for an authorization of war if Trump asked for it. But he questioned if the War Powers Act, passed during the Vietnam War era as a way for Congress to claw back its power, is even constitutional.

“Our founders created a really strong executive, like it or not like it,” Cramer said.

Venezuela has spent three months measuring the exact moment when a collective expectation begins to turn into disappointment. The monthly surveys conducted by AtlasIntel and Bloomberg for LatAm Pulse Venezuela, fielded in February, March, and April 2026, document a political process with a name, a direction, and a speed. What they show is unequivocal: Delcy Rodríguez is not consolidating a transitional government. She is managing one that is eroding by disguising that transition rather than carrying it out.

This is not a collapse in her popularity, but a clear downward trend is already visible.

The numbers are precise. In February, 37% of Venezuelans approved of Rodríguez’s performance. By April, that figure had fallen to 31.4%. Disapproval rose from 44.3% to 47.1%. In absolute terms, the gap between those who approve and those who disapprove widened from 7 to nearly 16 points in 90 days.

The most revealing data point is not approval but performance evaluation. Those rating her government as “excellent or good” dropped from 23.4% to 16.2%. That share did not migrate into outright rejection. It moved into the “average” category, which grew from 34.7% to 45.3% and is now dominant. That shift suggests disappointment more than anger, and the former is far harder to reverse than open rejection.

The segment that once supported Rodríguez is the one moving the most. A first conclusion is that the management of expectations created on January 3 is not working. Almost 120 days into her time in power, people are not really buying the narrative.

To understand why these segments are shifting, the economic data must be read in parallel. In February, 78% of Venezuelans believed the country would improve over the next six months. That was the optimism of the historical moment, the expectation unleashed on January 3. Three months later, that optimism has dropped 23 points. Today, 55% still expect improvement.

According to these figures, public perceptions of the opposition remain intact.

Meanwhile, reality has not moved: 77% still rate the country’s economic situation as bad. The labor market is perceived as equally deteriorated. The Consumer Confidence Index fell from +14.7 in February to -1.9 in April. The expectations index dropped from +58.3 to +34.6.

The gap between what was expected and what is being experienced is the engine behind everything else. And that gap does not weigh equally on everyone. That vulnerable Venezuelan who, even in crisis, continued to rely on Chavismo out of necessity, obligation, or support (the lower-income, less-educated, a beneficiary of the Patria system who gave Rodríguez the benefit of the doubt) also expected that the post–January 3 shift would be felt in their pocket, their job, their daily life. Three months later, they do not feel it.

Chavismo and the opposition

The leadership approval ranking measured by AtlasIntel completes the picture. María Corina Machado holds a positive image among 56% of participants without losing a point in three months, with a +30 net rating. Edmundo González stands at 49% with +24 points. According to these figures, public perceptions of the opposition remain intact.

The contrast with the Chavista bloc is stark. No government figure has a positive net rating. Diosdado Cabello stands at -52 points, Jorge Rodríguez at -51, and Nicolás Maduro at -46. Rodríguez is the “least negative” within the bloc at -30, but still deeply in negative territory. The Chavista leadership, without exception, occupies extremely high rejection levels, a clear reflection of how the public views anything associated with Maduro.

Ruling is easy when you control the entire State. Legitimizing power requires improving people’s lives. That is the debt the public is now charging to Rodríguez.

Venezuela is moving from the expectations born on January 3 toward reality. And the reality is that Rodríguez’s government is not being perceived as the solution—it is increasingly being identified as the continuation of the problem left behind by Maduro. AtlasIntel identifies corruption as the country’s number one issue for 53% of respondents. The weakening of democracy ranks third at 32.8%. The public does not confuse management with change.

Rodríguez has not lost her critics, a majority that was never with her. What she is losing is politically more costly: her believers. Those who, without being part of the opposition, expected something to change. Those who gave her the benefit of the doubt at the peak of collective expectation Venezuela had not seen in years. That movement, which is quiet and without headlines, is what AtlasIntel’s data captures month after month with a clarity that official discourse cannot conceal.

AtlasIntel sampling

The data for this analysis comes from a random digital recruitment survey (Atlas RDR) conducted among 4,629 Venezuelans between April 24 and 28, 2026. Like all digital polling in Venezuela, the method carries a known structural bias: it overrepresents populations with active internet access, implying a relative underrepresentation of rural areas, older adults, and lower-income sectors without stable connectivity. Absolute figures should be interpreted with caution.

However, the instrument’s real value lies not in a snapshot but in its month-to-month tracking. If the bias is constant (as it is in this case, given that the digital profile captured remains structurally the same each month) then movements between measurements reflect real changes in opinion. A miscalibrated thermometer still detects a fever. And what this three-month series detects is unequivocal: erosion is real, sustained, and advancing among the segments Rodríguez could least afford to lose.

Managing power is relatively simple when the instruments of the State are in hand. Legitimizing it requires improving people’s lives. That is the debt these three months of surveys are charging to Rodríguez’s government.

If this continues, her own base could withdraw its support in the worst possible way: through the disappointment of those making a final bet on trust after years of having lost it. That kind of disappointment does not reverse, and may represent a more dangerous political rupture than outright rejection.

Chavismo wants to remain in control. But time is charging the opportunity for change that people saw on January 3. If that change does not arrive, it will be demanded. Without elections, it will be very difficult for them to claim to represent the country’s leadership before a population that no longer believes in them. Elections are necessary and urgent. Can chavismo avoid them?

“Implementing the U.S. blockade is not without risk, and itself is hostilities. Given the fragility of the ceasefire and President Trump’s own messaging about resuming strikes on Iran, there is a risk that they may need to use force, and they have been and remain in hostilities,” she continued.

Ever-growing power conferences are the driving force behind an impending expansion of the NCAA men’s and women’s basketball tournaments, which ESPN reported could be formalized within weeks and begin next season.

The field would grow from 68 teams to 76 that would include eight additional at-large teams in each tournament. The current First Four — eight teams playing four games — would expand to 12 games played by 24 teams at two sites on the first Tuesday and Wednesday of the tournament. The traditional 64-team bracket would begin Thursday as usual.

Mid-majors likely are tempering any celebration. The change might not mean more invitations to the Big Dance for underdogs because the NCAA and its media partners favor large, established schools with large, established fan bases for viewership and revenue.

The Power Four — the Big Ten, SEC, Big 12 and ACC — plus the Big East comprise 79 schools and continue to add rather than subtract. Even teams with conference records under .500 are usually considered more desirable additions to March Madness than mid-major potential Cinderellas.

Power conference teams play more highly regarded opponents than do mid-majors, who often struggle to schedule top opponents. That’s called strength of schedule, and advanced metrics such as KenPom, NET and Wins Above Bubble usually favor power conference schools.

It’s a bit too soon to start listing schools that likely would make the cut next March after missing out in recent years. The NCAA cautioned that the expansion is not official — yet.

“Expanding the basketball tournaments would require approval from multiple NCAA committees, including the men’s and women’s basketball committees, and no final recommendation or decisions have been made at this time,” the NCAA said in a statement.

Those final steps have been initiated, and one anonymous source told ESPN that approval by those committees “are just formalities.”

The women’s tournament would include the same expansion — and likely also favor the addition of teams from the power conferences.

Only 22 percent of US voters back the president’s performance on the cost of living, Reuters/Ipsos survey suggests.

United States President Donald Trump’s approval rating has dropped to its lowest point since he returned to the White House, sinking to 34 percent amid economic uncertainty and the US-Israel war on Iran, a Reuters/Ipsos poll suggests.

The poll, released on Tuesday, also showed that only 22 percent of respondents back Trump’s performance on the cost of living. Affordability has been a top issue for US voters.

The Iran war, which saw Tehran block most shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, has sent energy prices soaring across the world and fuelled inflation in the US.

The Reuters poll was conducted April 24-27, and it surveyed 1,014 US adults.

It comes months before the midterm elections in November when Trump’s Republican Party will have to contend with the US president’s abysmal job approval ratings as it tries to retain control of the Senate and House of Representatives.

Trump continues to enjoy near-unanimous support from Republicans in Congress despite growing criticism of the war on Iran by some right-wing commentators and podcasters.

The conflict has also been unpopular with US voters, including a sizeable Republican constituency.

A Marquette Law School survey released last week suggested that only 32 percent of voters approve of Trump’s handling of the war.

The number rose to 65 percent among Republican respondents, but it still showed significant dissent within the party on the issue.

A separate Associated Press-NORC poll last week reported similar findings – Trump’s overall approval rating at 33 percent, support for the war at 32 percent and his handling of the economy at 30 percent.

The US and Iran reached a two-week ceasefire on April 8 that Trump extended indefinitely, but tensions remain high in the region.

Duelling blockades in the Gulf – Iran shutting down the Strait of Hormuz and the US laying a naval siege on Iranian ports – have caused global energy supply issues to persist despite the truce.

In the US, the average price of 1 gallon (3.8 litres) of petrol is currently at $4.17, up from less than $3 before the war.

Still, Trump has suggested that he is comfortable with the status quo, claiming repeatedly that the Iranian economy is crumbling and that time is on his side.

“Iran has just informed us that they are in a ‘State of Collapse,’” the US president wrote in a social media post on Tuesday.

“They want us to ‘Open the Hormuz Strait,’ as soon as possible, as they try to figure out their leadership situation (Which I believe they will be able to do!)”

It’s not clear how or why Iran, which is currently refusing to hold direct negotiations with the US without it lifting the naval blockade, would inform Trump that its own economy is collapsing.