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California regulators have approved the sale of Cox Communications to cable giant Charter Communications — the final hurdle in a marathon review to clear the $34.5-billion cable consolidation.

With Thursday’s sign-off by the California Public Utilities Commission, the mammoth merger is expected to close next week.

The deal will make Charter’s Spectrum the dominant broadband internet and cable television service in Southern California, with millions of customers scattered throughout Santa Barbara, Bakersfield, Los Angeles, Palos Verdes Estates, Newport Beach, Irvine, Riverside and San Diego.

Charter’s acquisition of Cox, unveiled 15 months ago, will solidify Charter’s status as the nation’s largest cable company, eclipsing Philadelphia-based Comcast Corp., which serves San Francisco and other Northern California communities.

“This transformative deal will benefit millions of consumers who will soon have access to greater value and opportunities to save, including our fully converged mobile-broadband bundle savings guarantee, combined with our industry-leading Customer Commitment and the 100% U.S.-based sales and service employees Spectrum is known for,” Charter said in a statement.

After weeks of behind-the-scenes wrangling, the CPUC voted unanimously to approve two settlement agreements with Charter that allow the merger to move forward. The agency attached conditions that it hopes will protect consumers and expand broadband access.

“This decision secures significant commitments that will benefit Californians through expanded affordable broadband options, major infrastructure investments, improved customer protections, and meaningful support for digital inclusion,” Commissioner Matthew Baker, who helped negotiate the agreements, said in a statement.

Federal regulators approved the deal months ago, as had other state regulators.

“This proceeding was a heavy lift for everyone,” Commissioner Darcie L. Houck acknowledged during Thursday’s hearing, which was held in San Francisco.

Through the settlements, Houck said she hoped Charter would address a disparity in which low-income residents are often stuck with higher phone and internet bills than residents in more affluent areas. Higher-income neighborhoods often benefit from increased competition as multiple providers jockey for business.

“There are many areas of the state that do have low-income communities that are paying higher costs for telecommunication services,” Houck said. “I’m hopeful that the provisions in this settlement agreement will help ensure more equity in pricing.”

Atlanta-based Cox has long been viewed as a lucrative prize. In addition to serving coastal communities in Southern California, it also has customers in growing population hubs such as Las Vegas, Phoenix and Tucson.

To win CPUC approval, the Stamford, Conn.-based cable giant agreed to offer more affordable packages for low-income residents, including several tiers of the California LifeLine service, for up to five years.

Advocates had pushed for a longer commitment.

Charter promised to invest $30 million in education and awareness initiatives in California, including community outreach and digital literacy training. In addition, Charter agreed to spend at least $275 million on upgrades to its equipment in its existing Spectrum service area — including completing a 1-gigabit service buildout — within three years.

The company also must provide free broadband and Wi-Fi service for dozens of eligible community centers, including schools and libraries.

Spectrum will be required to provide automatic bill credits for customers for qualifying service outages that last at least two hours. And the company must honor eligible “price for life” service agreements held by some residential subscribers.

Charter Chief Executive Chris Winfrey has told investors that his firm was aiming to close the merger this month. Several commissioners noted the looming deadline as they opted for the settlement that Baker helped negotiate.

Regulators said the two companies generate more than $10 billion in revenue from their California customers. In addition to serving more than 5 million homes, they also provide telephone service to 1.5 million subscribers in the state.

California regulators have approved Charter’s $34.5-billion purchase of Cox Communications.

(Kevin Dietsch / Getty Images)

After the deal closes, Cox customers will be switched to Spectrum service, most likely by mid-September. They should also get SportsNet LA — the Dodgers’ television channel — as part oftheir lineups.

For more than a decade, Cox has refused to carry the channel, owned by the Dodgers organization, due to its high license fee — leading to one of the television industry’s longest blackouts.

British regulators on Thursday cleared tech scion David Ellison’s $111-billion deal to buy Warner Bros. Discovery — the latest international agency to find the blockbuster combination of TV channels and historic film studios wouldn’t dampen competition.

Britain’s Competition and Markets Authority and the government’s culture minister separately reviewed Paramount Skydance’s proposed Warner acquisition, which is facing significant turbulence in the U.S. as California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta leads a coalition of state attorneys general who are battling to try to unravel the mammoth deal.

“The evidence shows that, after the merger, Paramount will continue to face sufficient competition in the various areas it operates in, including the production and distribution of films and TV content, the supply of children’s channels to pay-TV providers and the supply of streaming services,” the authority said in a statement.

Earlier this summer, Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Lisa Nandy said she was weighing whether to intervene by launching an in-depth investigation into potential harms that could result from the proposed Paramount-Warner Bros. combination.

Nandy opted not to issue an “intervention notice” after striking an agreement with Paramount that provides “assurances and legally-binding commitments” that the company would not abuse its market clout.

The authority’s approval was significant because Paramount owns CBS News, children’s channel Nickelodeon and Channel 5, one of the largest over-the-air television broadcasters in the United Kingdom.

Warner Bros. Discovery owns HBO, CNN, Cartoon Network and TNT Sports, which broadcasts the Olympics, Champions League and Premier League soccer matches.

Ellison and his team now have won clearances from 66 antitrust regulators, including the U.S. Department of Justice, and regulators in Australia, Germany, France, Italy, China and Canada, among others. The European Commission also approved the deal last month.

“These clearances recognize that the combination of Paramount and WBD will enhance consumer choice and enable a creative-first company to invest in more projects and bring stories to audiences worldwide,” Paramount said in a statement.

Still, the deal is stalled in the U.S.

Bonta and his fellow Democrat state attorneys general have won early victories in their court battle, and a federal judge this week scheduled a March trial — months later than Paramount had hoped — to determine whether the merger would violate the century-old U.S. Clayton Antitrust Act.

Paramount is facing a June 4 deadline to finalize the deal or pay Warner a $7-billion break-up fee.

Bonta and the 11 other state attorneys general, including from New York, Colorado and Oregon, have alleged the merger of two major film studios would give Paramount-Warner Bros. more than 25% of the wide-release theatrical film market. Their lawsuit contends the combined company would own too many cable TV channels — more than 50, including CNN, TBS, HGTV and Comedy Central.

The Writers Guild of America has separately sued to block the transaction, claiming the combination of two historic studios would reduce opportunities and pay for writers.

Ellison, in a guest essay this week, blamed politics for the U.S. friction. “The issue is whether I can be trusted as a steward of Warner’s CNN,” Ellison wrote in his op-ed in the New York Times.

Bonta, in a recent interview with The Times, denied his lawsuit was motivated by politics, saying it was a “meat-and-potatoes” antitrust case.

More than 5,000 entertainment industry workers, including such high-profile stars as Jane Fonda, Ben Stiller, Bryan Cranston and Mark Ruffalo, signed an open letter early this year, calling on Bonta to thwart the merger. The group alleged the transaction would weaken Hollywood with “fewer opportunities for creators, fewer jobs across the production ecosystem, higher costs, and less choice for audiences.”

Britain’s competition authority found the combined company would still encounter competition from Universal Pictures, Disney and Sony Pictures Entertainment and “a range of other smaller studios.”

In addition, the CMA factored in the competition brought by streaming services to traditional forms of movie and TV distribution — one of Paramount’s key arguments.

“Paramount is grateful to the CMA for its constructive engagement and its review of the transaction,” Paramount said in its statement. “These conclusions further demonstrate the misguided and gerrymandered market definitions relied upon by the US state AGs in their antitrust complaint in California.”

When major disasters strike, Americans are routinely waiting weeks — or even months — to receive presidential approval for aid. And if they live in a state that didn’t support President Trump, chances are greater that aid will be denied.

Since taking office last year, Trump has approved about 65 requests for major disaster declarations and denied more than two dozen others from states, tribes or territories seeking federal financial assistance following hurricanes, tornadoes, storms, floods and fires.

Trump has taken longer on average to approve disaster requests than any other president, according to an Associated Press analysis of data dating back to 1989, when a federal law setting new parameters for disaster determinations was implemented. And no other president has such a disparity in denials between states that supported him politically and those that did not.

The delays and denials come as Trump’s administration contemplates a makeover of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which administers disaster aid. Major disaster declarations are intended for events that are beyond the resources of state and local governments.

Trump is saying yes to Republicans more than Democrats

During his second term, Trump has denied a greater percentage of disaster requests than any president dating to 1989. Those denials have not been evenly distributed among states.

Trump has approved 80% of the disaster requests from Republican governors but only about 60% from Democratic governors, according to the AP’s analysis of FEMA data.

The discrepancy is even more apparent when analyzing major disaster declarations based on presidential elections. Trump has approved more than three-fourths of the requests from states that voted for him in the 2024 election but less than half the requests from states that did not. Although there are federal criteria for disaster aid, decisions ultimately are at the president’s discretion.

A batch of denials earlier this month included four Democratic states — Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York and Rhode Island — seeking federal aid for a February snowstorm.

“The President’s denial is part of a pattern of extreme partisanship as he tries to shift a heavier economic burden onto blue states. Disaster aid should be merit-based, not politicized,” Rhode Island’s Democratic U.S. Senate and House members said in a joint statement.

White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said in a statement that “there is no politicization to the President’s decisions on disaster relief.”

During his first term, Trump actually approved a greater share of requests from states that had opposed him than those that supported him.

Yet no other president had such a wide partisan divide in disaster declarations as currently exists under Trump. Obama approved 87% of the disaster requests from Democratic governors during his second term and 79% from Republican governors, but Obama’s approval rate was identical for states that voted for and against him.

When requests are denied, individuals, insurers and local governments are left to shoulder the costs themselves.

Trump is waiting longer to declare disasters

Since Trump assumed office last year, it’s taken him an average of a month and a half to approve major disaster declarations after receiving a request from the governor or chief executive of a state, territory or tribe, the AP found. Because it can take several weeks after a disaster for officials to inspect the damage and submit a request, the total wait time often has exceeded two months.

By comparison, Trump approved major disaster requests in an average of about three weeks during his first term, a pace similar to President Joe Biden. Their predecessors — Presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Clinton and George H.W. Bush — all had average disaster approval times of less than two weeks.

All presidents have taken longer to approve some requests. But that’s become the norm in Trump’s second term. Of Trump’s approvals, 70% have taken at least a month — up from about one-quarter of requests during Trump’s first term and Biden’s administration, and fewer than 10% under their predecessors.

Jackson said that Trump conducts a more thorough review than any administration before him, “ensuring American tax dollars are used appropriately and efficiently by the states to supplement — not substitute — their obligation to respond to and recover from disasters.”

The longer the approval process takes, the longer people must wait to receive federal aid for daily living expenses, temporary lodging and home repairs. Delays in major disaster declarations also can hamper recovery efforts by local officials uncertain whether they will receive federal reimbursement for cleaning up debris and rebuilding infrastructure.

FEMA nominee is pledging faster decisions

FEMA has had four different temporary leaders since Trump took office in January 2025. One of those, Cameron Hamilton, is awaiting Senate confirmation as the agency’s permanent director.

During a Senate committee hearing last month, Hamilton said he would try to speed up disaster declaration decisions and reimbursements. He also pledged to ensure that FEMA is objective, fair and reasonable in reviewing disaster declaration requests and making recommendations to the president.

Hamilton, a former Navy SEAL, had been fired as FEMA’s acting director in May 2025 after publicly disagreeing with Trump’s idea of dismantling the agency. His reemergence signals that Trump now may support changes to FEMA instead of an outright elimination of the agency.

Panel’s recommendations could lead to more denials

A council appointed by Trump has recommended a series of changes to FEMA that would shift greater responsibility to states, potentially reducing the number of major disaster declarations and the amount of federal money paid out.

The council suggested revised criteria to qualify for presidential declarations, including a prerequisite of annual minimum expenditures by states, territories and tribes.

Another recommendation, which would require congressional approval, would reduce the federal government’s share of the disaster aid from a minimum of 75% to 50% of the costs, leaving state and local governments more to cover. For governments approved for assistance, federal funding could get there quicker — within 30 days of a federal disaster declaration, instead of waiting months or years for reimbursements that are based on proof of expenditures.

For individuals, the council recommended consolidating several different types of aid into one payment targeted for those whose homes are uninhabitable.

Lieb and Wildeman write for the Associated Press.

SAG-AFTRA members overwhelmingly approved a four-year TV and film deal with major studios including Netflix, Disney and Warner Bros. Discovery on Thursday night, increasing minimum wages and addressing concerns about the use of AI performers.

The deal, which was expected to be approved, received the support of 91% of SAG-AFTRA members who voted on the agreement, which starts July 1 and ends June 30, 2030. The union represents 160,000 performers, including actors, stunt performers and influencers.

“This agreement builds on the foundation members fought to establish and carries that work into the next chapter of our industry,” said SAG-AFTRA President Sean Astin in a statement. “It delivers meaningful gains in compensation, strengthens protections around artificial intelligence and digital identity, reinforces the long-term security of members’ benefit plans and recognizes the realities of how performers work today.”

Under the new deal, the length of the agreement between SAG-AFTRA and major studios represented by the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers expands from three years to four years.

It also boosts minimum wage by 3% annually, increases contributions to the health plan by 1% and expands the bonus to the union’s Success Bonus Distribution Fund based on residuals that performers get for popular streaming programs.

The contract also addresses concerns about the growing use of artificial intelligence in TV and film and its impact on actor jobs. Last year, many actors spoke out about Tilly Norwood, a computer-generated “actor” and whether synthetic characters like her could threaten their livelihoods. Some performers have also advocated for getting paid if their likenesses are used to create such characters made through AI systems.

Not all members were in favor of the contract, saying it did not go far enough in protecting performers against AI.

“It normalizes the use of AI replicas and synthetic performers rather than drawing a firm line protecting human performers and their jobs,” said Chuck Slavin, a background actor and performer.

Slavin, a former New England local board member, ran against Astin for SAG-AFTRA president last year.

Producers agreed to “a principle strongly favoring human performances” and that producers would only use a synthetic if it “brings significant additional value to the motion picture.” If a producer decided to use a synthetic in a role that could be done by a human, they would need to notify the union and bargain in good faith.

Additionally, the contract merges the pension plans of the Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, which were previously separate but combined in 2012 to form SAG-AFTRA.

Their health plans were consolidated in 2017, but the pensions have remained separate . That was a major sticking point with members, some of whom couldn’t qualify for benefits as their contributions were split between two plans. Studios agreed to boost their overall contributions to the combined plan by 1%.

SAG-AFTRA’s deal comes after the Writers Guild of America members also approved an agreement with the AMPTP in April.

The groups were able to agree on contracts this year, without striking as they did in 2023.

“SAG-AFTRA’s leadership brought a genuine commitment to partnership, and together with the WGA agreement, these deals demonstrate what is possible when the industry works toward practical solutions that support its long-term stability,” AMPTP said in a statement.

The Directors Guild of America began negotiations with AMPTP last month, with its contract expiring on June 30.

Staff writer Cerys Davies contributed to this report.