company

LEAVENWORTH, Kan. — Leavenworth, Kan., occupies a mythic space in American crime, its name alone evoking a shorthand for serving hard time. The federal penitentiary housed gangsters Al Capone and Machine Gun Kelly — in a building so storied that it inspired the term “the big house.”

Now Kansas’ oldest city could soon be detaining far less famous people, migrants swept up in President Trump’s promise of mass deportations of those living in the U.S. illegally.

The federal government has signed a deal with the private prison firm CoreCivic Corp. to reopen a 1,033-bed prison in Leavenworth as part of a surge of contracts U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has issued without seeking competitive bids.

ICE has cited a “compelling urgency” for thousands more detention beds, and its efforts have sent profit estimates soaring for politically connected private companies, including CoreCivic, based in the Nashville area and another giant firm, the Geo Group Inc., headquartered in southern Florida.

That push faces resistance. Leavenworth filed a lawsuit against CoreCivic after it tried to reopen without city officials signing off on the deal, quoting a federal judge’s past description of the now-shuttered prison as a “hell hole.” The case in Leavenworth serves as another test of the limits of the Republican president’s unusually aggressive tactics to force migrant removals.

To get more detention beds, the Trump administration has modified dozens of existing agreements with contractors and used no-bid contracts. One pays $73 million to a company led by former federal immigration officials for “immigration enforcement support teams” to handle administrative tasks, such as helping coordinate removals, triaging complaints or telling ICE if someone is a risk to community safety.

Just last week, Geo Group announced that ICE modified a contract for an existing detention center in southeastern Georgia so that the company could reopen an idle prison on adjacent land to hold 1,868 migrants — and earn $66 million in annual revenue.

“Never in our 42-year company history have we had so much activity and demand for our services as we are seeing right now,” said CoreCivic CEO Damon Hininger during an earnings call last month with shareholders.

A tax-cutting and budget reconciliation measure approved last month by the House includes $45 billion over four years for immigrant detention, a threefold spending increase. The Senate is now considering that legislation.

Declaring an emergency to expedite contracts

When Trump started his second term in January, CoreCivic and Geo had around 20 idle facilities, partly because of sentencing reforms that reduced prison populations. But the Trump administration wants to more than double the existing 41,000 beds for detaining migrants to at least 100,000 beds and — if private prison executives’ predictions are accurate — possibly to more than 150,000.

ICE declared a national emergency on the U.S. border with Mexico as part of its justification for authorizing nine five-year contracts for a combined 10,312 beds without “Full and Open Competition.”

Only three of the nine potential facilities were listed in ICE’s document: Leavenworth, a 2,560-bed CoreCivic-owned facility in California City and an 1,800-bed Geo-owned prison in Baldwin, Mich.

The agreement for the Leavenworth facility hasn’t been released, nor have documents for the other two sites. CoreCivic and Geo Group officials said last month on earnings calls that ICE used what are known as letter contracts, meant to speed things up when time is critical.

Charles Tiefer, a contract expert and professor emeritus of law at the University of Baltimore Law School, said letter contracts normally are reserved for minor matters, not the big changes he sees ICE making to previous agreements.

“I think that a letter contract is a pathetic way to make big important contracts,” he said.

A Kansas prison town becomes a priority

CoreCivic’s Leavenworth facility quickly became a priority for ICE and the company because of its central location. Leavenworth, with 37,000 residents, is only 10 miles to the west of the Kansas City International Airport. The facility would hold men and women and is within ICE’s area of operations for Chicago, 420 miles to the northeast.

“That would mean that people targeted in the Chicago area and in Illinois would end up going to this facility down in Kansas,” said Jesse Franzblau, a senior policy analyst for the National Immigrant Justice Center.

Prisons have long been an important part of Leavenworth’s economy, employing hundreds of workers to guard prisoners held in two military facilities, the nation’s first federal penitentiary, a Kansas correctional facility and a county jail within six miles of city hall.

Resistance from Trump country

The Leavenworth area’s politics might have been expected to help CoreCivic. Trump carried its county by more than 20 percentage points in each of his three campaigns for president.

But skeptical city officials argue that CoreCivic needs a special use permit to reopen its facility. CoreCivic disagrees, saying that it doesn’t because it never abandoned the facility and that the permitting process would take too long. Leavenworth sued the company to force it to get one, and a state-court judge issued an order requiring it earlier this month.

An attorney for the city, Joe Hatley, said the legal fight indicates how much ill will CoreCivic generated when it held criminal suspects there for trials in federal court for the U.S. Marshals Service.

In late 2021, CoreCivic stopped housing pretrial detainees in its Leavenworth facility after then-President Biden, a Democrat, called on the U.S. Department of Justice to curb the use of private prisons. In the months before the closure, the American Civil Liberties Union and federal public defenders detailed stabbings, suicides, a homicide and inmate rights violations in a letter to the White House. CoreCivic responded at the time that the claims were “false and defamatory.”

Vacancies among correctional officers were as high as 23%, according to a Department of Justice report from 2017.

“It was just mayhem,” recalled William Rogers, who worked as a guard at the CoreCivic facility in Leavenworth from 2016-20. He said repeated assaults sent him to the emergency room three times, including once after a blow to the head that required 14 staples.

The critics have included a federal judge

When Leavenworth sued CoreCivic, it opened its lawsuit with a quote from U.S. District Court Judge Julie Robinson — an appointee of President George W. Bush, a Republican — who said of the prison: “The only way I could describe it frankly, what’s going on at CoreCivic right now is it’s an absolute hell hole.”

The city’s lawsuit described detainees locked in showers as punishment. It said that sheets and towels from the facility clogged up the wastewater system and that CoreCivic impeded the city police force’s ability to investigate sexual assaults and other violent crimes.

The facility had no inmates when CoreCivic gave reporters a tour earlier this year, and it looked scrubbed top to bottom and the smell of disinfectant hung in the air. One unit for inmates had a painting on one wall featuring a covered wagon.

During the tour, when asked about the allegations of past problems, Misty Mackey, a longtime CoreCivic employee who was tapped to serve as warden there, apologized for past employees’ experiences and said the company officials “do our best to make sure that we learn from different situations.”

ICE moves quickly across the U.S.

Besides CoreCivic’s Leavenworth prison, other once-shuttered facilities could come online near major immigrant population centers, from New York to Los Angeles, to help Trump fulfill his deportation plans.

ICE wants to reopen existing facilities because it’s faster than building new ones, said Marcela Hernandez, the organizing director for the Detention Watch Network, which has organized nationwide protests against ICE detention.

Counties often lease out jail space for immigrant detention, but ICE said some jurisdictions have passed ordinances barring that.

ICE has used contract modifications to reopen shuttered lockups like the 1,000-bed Delaney Hall Facility in Newark, N.J., and a 2,500-bed facility in Dilley, Texas, offering no explanations why new, competitively bid contracts weren’t sought.

The Newark facility, with its own history of problems, resumed intakes May 1, and disorder broke out at the facility Thursday night. Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, a Democrat who previously was arrested there and accused of trespassing, cited reports of a possible uprising, and the Department of Homeland Security confirmed four escapes.

The contract modification for Dilley, which was built to hold families and resumed operations in March, calls its units “neighborhoods” and gives them names like Brown Bear and Blue Butterfly.

The financial details for the Newark and Dilley contract modifications are blacked out in online copies, as they for more than 50 other agreements ICE has signed since Trump took office. ICE didn’t respond to a request for comment.

From idle prisons to a ‘gold rush’

Private prison executives are forecasting hundreds of millions of dollars in new ICE profits. Since Trump’s reelection in November, CoreCivic’s stock has risen in price by 56% and Geo’s by 73%.

“It’s the gold rush,” Michael A. Hallett, a professor of criminal justice at the University of North Florida who studies private prisons. “All of a sudden, demand is spiraling. And when you’re the only provider that can meet demand, you can pretty much set your terms.”

Geo’s former lobbyist Pam Bondi is now the U.S. attorney general. It anticipates that all of its idle prisons will be activated this year, its executive chairman, George Zoley, told shareholders.

CoreCivic, which along with Geo donated millions of dollars to largely GOP candidates at all levels of government and national political groups, is equally optimistic. It began daily talks with the Trump administration immediately after the election in November, said Hininger.

CoreCivic officials said ICE’s letter contracts provide initial funding to begin reopening facilities while the company negotiates a longer-term deal. The Leavenworth deal is worth $4.2 million a month to the company, it disclosed in a court filing.

Tiefer, who served on an independent commission established to study government contracting for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, said ICE is “placing a very dicey long-term bet” because of its past problems and said ICE is giving CoreCivic “the keys to the treasury” without competition.

But financial analysts on company earnings calls have been delighted. When CoreCivic announced its letter contracts, Joe Gomes, of the financial services firm Noble Capital Markets, responded with, “Great news.”

“Are you hiding any more of them on us?” he asked.

Hollingsworth and Hanna write for the Associated Press. Hanna reported from Topeka, Kan. AP writers Joshua Goodman in Miami and Morgan Lee, in Santa Fe, N.M., contributed to this report.

Hollywood’s workforce just needed to “survive ’til ’25.” That was last year’s hopeful mantra for entertainment industry pros battered by layoffs and limited film and TV production.

But now as the year approaches its halfway point, a bleaker saying seems apt: “Exist ’til ’26.”

Rosy projections of a robust recovery this year have not materialized. If anything, the downturn, at least in terms of employment at the studios, has continued.

In recent weeks, three media and entertainment giants — Walt Disney Co., Warner Bros. Discovery and Paramount Global — have said they will lay off staffers. Disney cut several hundred employees in the U.S. and abroad, while Paramount shed hundreds of its domestic workforce and Warner Bros. eliminated several dozen positions.

It is yet another sign that the industry is still recovering from the effects of the pandemic and the dual writers’ and actors’ strikes of 2023, while also trying to navigate the changing media landscape.

As people continue to cut the cord and viewership of traditional broadcast television declines — taking with it valuable ad dollars — companies are reallocating resources to their streaming platforms. They’re cutting back on spending after massive investments during the so-called streaming wars. And now, economic uncertainty from President Trump’s tariffs has rattled the markets, creating a difficult overall business environment.

“We’re going through this squeezing of our ecosystem in Hollywood,” said J. Christopher Hamilton, a practicing entertainment attorney and a professor at Syracuse University who focuses on the business of media. Companies are “trying to find a new normal, adjust to the financial pressures that the global economy is under and also figure out what is the smartest business model and path forward.”

It’s a far cry from the hints of optimism some in the industry had toward the end of last year. With the strikes finally in the rearview mirror, and delayed films debuting in theaters and production slowly coming back, the thought was “we’re out of the strikes, we’ll be able to go back to the market, sell and buy,” Hamilton said.

Instead, many of the recent conversations he’s had with clients and media executives have been centered on fear and uncertainty. People will tell him that it’s hard to sell a TV show, or that they don’t know if their job will be around in two weeks. The international market has also become more favorable to local content, meaning U.S.-made shows are now heavily competing with homegrown series.

“It’s a horrible time in the business from the content creation, content production standpoint,” Hamilton said. “People don’t want to take risks. They’re fearful of losing their jobs.”

The idea of “survive ’til ’25” was always a myth, said Stephen Galloway, dean of Chapman University’s Dodge College of Film and Media Arts. The issues the industry is facing are long term and disruptive.

“The industry is retrenching,” he said. “And there’s going to be a shake-up that lasts for quite a while.”

The continued decline of linear TV is one issue nearly all studios are grappling with. Though viewership is down and can drag on a company’s stock price, traditional broadcast TV still makes money, making it important to manage costs and generate profit for as long as possible.

That also means job cuts in those areas.

Disney’s layoffs hit its film and television marketing teams, television publicity, casting and development as well as corporate financial operations. Warner Bros. cut employees from its cable TV channels. While Paramount did not disclose the departments affected by the layoffs, its co-chief executives acknowledged in a note to staff that the decision came as the company navigates “continued industry-wide linear declines.”

Linear TV’s struggles have led media companies to spin off their traditional television assets, including cable networks, into separate entities. Santa Monica-based Lionsgate got the ball rolling in 2023 when it said it would sever its film and TV studio business from its pay cable unit Starz, a transaction that was completed this year.

Late last year, Comcast Corp. said it would make a new company consisting of its cable channels, including CNBC, MSNBC and USA Network. Then on Monday, Warner Bros. said it too would split into two publicly traded companies — one entity called Streaming & Studios and a second called Global Networks, that would consist of its cable channels such as CNN, TNT and Discovery.

The Warner Bros. split is “an acknowledgment that the idea of building something big enough to compete in the streaming war didn’t work,” said Peter Murrieta, a writer and deputy director of the Sidney Poitier New American Film School at Arizona State University. Moreover, Netflix’s dominance in the streaming space has made many companies reevaluate their plans.

“There were already signs pointing to the unsustainability of the number of shows and the number of streamers,” he said. “It’s the aftereffects of trying to compete at the streaming level and thinking that’s the future. Resources were put there, and now they have to retrench.”

Disney Chief Executive Bob Iger has said as much in comments to Wall Street, acknowledging that the House of Mouse pumped out too many shows and movies to compete against Netflix.

The company has since pulled back amid Iger’s call to focus on quality over quantity and to reach profitability in its streaming services, which it achieved last year. The company’s latest job postings now include a number of openings for software engineers.

The larger economic environment, too, is of concern to those in Hollywood. In addition to industry-specific concerns about artificial intelligence and the decline of traditional TV and cable, the entertainment business is also grappling with domestic and global financial uncertainty. Paramount’s executives cited the “dynamic macro-economic environment” in its note to employees.

“Right now, there is an absolute sense of terror among people in the business that they’ll be out of a job, that the old models aren’t working, that they won’t earn what they once did,” said Galloway of Chapman. “They’re not wrong to be afraid. I think they’re wrong to be as afraid as they are because it’s a retrenchment, and it’s a retrenchment following a gigantic expansion.”

White-collar jobs in other industries are also being threatened by technological change, greater investment in AI and retrenchments after pandemic-era hiring sprees. Earlier this year, tech companies such as payment firm Square, Meta, Google and Workday said they would lay off employees.

But Hollywood has always been a boom-and-bust industry, Galloway said, noting that in times of change, new opportunities always arise. Jobs in virtual production or AI are becoming more numerous. As studios cut back on their staff, they will still need producers to shepherd shows and films, said Susan Sprung, chief executive of the Producers Guild of America trade group.

“These companies aren’t getting out of the business of producing great programming, movies and television,” she said. “If you don’t have as large of an executive team that can help supplement that, it makes it even more important that you have good producers working on every one of your projects.”

While the current environment is tough, the industry has always been difficult, and people in this business are resourceful and intentional about their work, said Murrieta of Arizona State.

Though it is a trying time, he said, “there’s got to be hope.”

Media giant Paramount Global is trying to avoid a streaming future without Cartman, Stan, Kyle and Kenny.

As Paramount struggles to complete a key merger, the company is in the midst of a protracted negotiation to extend one of its biggest and most important franchises: the long-running foulmouthed cartoon “South Park.”

Paramount’s $900-million overall deal with “South Park” creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker doesn’t expire for another two years. New episodes run first on Paramount’s basic cable network Comedy Central.

But efforts to renew that venture and bring the show to the Paramount+ streaming service have hit a major snag, according to three people familiar with the discussions who were not authorized to speak publicly.

The situation highlights deep tensions and disagreements as a trio of executives try to manage Paramount until the company’s sale to David Ellison’s Skydance Media, which has the right to approve or deny large deals such as the “South Park” pact under covenants made with Paramount.

Paramount leaders are desperate to lock down “South Park’s” streaming rights in the U.S. and abroad. They’ve long been frustrated by a licensing arrangement made six years ago by the previous regime that sent “South Park” to rival HBO Max, owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. That deal expires this month.

“South Park” is one of Paramount’s most important shows. Along with “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart,” the four boys and their celebrity-skewering ways put Comedy Central on the map for basic cable viewers, taking on hot-button issues from Scientology and the War on Terror to the royal family and the Trump administration.

During a May earnings call, Paramount co-Chief Executive Chris McCarthy — who runs Paramount’s media networks as well as Showtime and MTV Entertainment Studios — told investors that “South Park” episodes would begin streaming on Paramount+ in July.

However, Paramount hasn’t nailed down the streaming rights to “South Park,” according to the three people familiar with the conversations. Since earlier this year, Paramount has made at least one offer to Parker and Stone as an early extension of their overall deal.

The company also wants to secure rights to stream the 333 episodes of “South Park” on Paramount+.

Some of the knowledgeable people expect “South Park” distribution fees to be valued at more than $200 million a year.

But Skydance hasn’t signed off, believing the deals to be too rich, according to the sources. Paramount executives believe the show is worth the big bucks, given the show’s enduring popularity and legacy.

Representatives for Paramount and Skydance declined to comment.

Hollywood agent Ari Emanuel, whose firm WME represents Parker and Stone, defended Paramount and Skydance’s handling of the situation on Friday by phone.

“Nobody has rejected anything. They are just doing their analysis,” Emanuel told The Times in a brief interview. “We’ve got offers from other distributors. Everybody wants this show.”

Skydance’s $8-billion takeover of Paramount has been in a holding pattern for months as the two companies wait for federal regulators’ approval. Skydance, backed by tech mogul Larry Ellison and RedBird Capital Partners, is eager to take over the storied media company.

They intend to bring increased financial rigor to Paramount’s operations, other sources have said. Paramount and Skydance have told Wall Street the deal will bring $2 billion in cost savings, with half of that coming in the first year.

Deadlines are looming. The new season, the program’s 27th, is scheduled to debut July 9 on Comedy Central.

Unless Paramount strikes a deal with the creators by June 23, the company risks losing the franchise’s streaming rights because Parker and Stone could shop the show to other interested streamers, such as Netflix, Amazon Prime Video or Hulu. However, sources cautioned that negotiations could go past the June deadline and that the parties expect a deal to get done.

Represented by their longtime attorney Kevin Morris, who is leading the current negotiations, the duo carved out the internet rights nearly two decades ago. They formed a joint venture with Paramount (then known as Viacom) called South Park Digital Studios. That decision proved highly lucrative for Parker and Stone, also known for the hit Broadway musical “The Book of Mormon.”

Paramount runs the joint venture with Stone and Parker, sharing control of the streaming rights to the show that launched in 1997 on Comedy Central, although the duo can veto streaming deals they find unfavorable.

Companies are typically not supposed to wade too deeply into another firm’s affairs. Federal antitrust laws prohibit so-called gun-jumping, when an acquiring company begins calling the shots before a deal’s official closure. But Paramount agreed to accept Skydance’s input on big-ticket expenditures while the two sides wait for the deal to close.

The “South Park” streaming rights negotiations also have been complicated by a lawsuit brought two years ago by Warner Bros. Discovery. That company accused Paramount of violating terms of its 2019 licensing pact for “South Park,” after Warner paid about $540 million for the show’s streaming rights.

Paramount and the “South Park” creators developed specials featuring the four animated boys in a fictional Colorado mountain town to stream exclusively on Paramount+. Warner argued the move violated its licensing deal. HBO Max declined to comment.

Two years after the HBO Max deal, Paramount struck a new accord with Parker and Stone for $900 million, sealing their partnership and ensuring new episodes of “South Park” would be made. That deal runs to 2027, although Paramount executives have offered to extend that arrangement for several years.

Paramount has long intended to shift the show to Paramount+ as soon as the HBO Max deal expires.

The various parties have long envisioned a scenario where domestic and international rights would be shared by at least two different streaming services. Although neither partner would have exclusive rights, the current trend in television is for studios to maximize revenue to help pay for expensive programs, like “South Park,” while maintaining some streaming rights.

Paramount also has been dealing with another crisis that has been complicated by the Skydance merger. The company has sought to settle President Trump’s $20-billion lawsuit claiming subsidiary CBS News deceptively edited a “60 Minutes” interview with then-Vice President Kamala Harris, an allegation CBS denies.

Trump’s case hasn’t been resolved, and the Federal Communications Commission has been slow to review Skydance’s proposed takeover of Paramount, extending the deal review.

The Skydance transaction has been pending at the FCC since last fall, leaving Paramount executives in limbo.

Alleging widespread and egregious violations of housing and tenant laws, Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta sued Southern California real estate tycoon Mike Nijjar in Los Angeles County Superior Court on Thursday.

In the lawsuit, Bonta accused Nijjar, family members and their companies of subjecting tenants to vermin infestations and overflowing sewage, overcharging them and violating anti-discrimination laws.

The suit says that Nijjar is one of California’s largest landlords, operating multibillion dollars in holdings. Nijjar family companies, commonly known as PAMA Management, own 22,000 rental units, primarily in low-income neighborhoods in Southern California.

The suit follows a more than two-year California Department of Justice investigation into Nijjar’s holdings, Bonta said.

“PAMA and the companies owned by Mike Nijjar and his family are notorious for their rampant, slum-like conditions — some so bad that residents have suffered tragic results,” Bonta said in a statement. “Our investigation into Nijjar’s properties revealed PAMA exploited vulnerable families, refusing to invest the resources needed to eradicate pest infestations, fix outdated roofs and install functioning plumbing systems, all while deceiving tenants about their rights to sue their landlord and demand repairs.”

Bonta is seeking penalties against Nijjar and his family business entities, restitution for tenants, disgorgement of ill-gotten gains and injunctive relief barring Nijjar and PAMA from continuing unlawful business practices.

A representative for Nijjar said he forcefully rejects the claims in the lawsuit.

“The allegations in the complaint are false and misleading, and its claims are legally erroneous,” Nijjar attorney Stephen Larson said in a statement. “We look forward to demonstrating in court that Mr. Nijjar and his companies are not only compliant with the law, but they provide an extraordinary service to housing those disadvantaged and underserved by California’s public and private housing markets.”

Nijjar’s real estate empire has long been on authorities’ radar.

In 2020, LAist detailed wide-ranging dangerous conditions at Nijjar’s properties dating back years, including a fire at a PAMA-owned mobile home in Kern County that resulted in the death of an infant. The mobile home was not permitted for human occupancy, according to the report and Bonta’s lawsuit. Two years later, The Times wrote a series of stories about Chesapeake Apartments, a sprawling 425-unit apartment complex in South L.A., where Nijjar’s tenants complained of sewage discharges, regular mold and vermin infestations and shoddy repairs. Chesapeake had the most public health violations of any residential property in L.A. County over the previous five years, according to a Times analysis at the time.

Prior attempts at accountability for Nijjar and his companies have been spotty and ineffective. After the 2016 mobile home fire that killed the infant in Kern County, the California Department of Real Estate revoked the licenses associated with Nijjar’s company at the time. In response, Nijjar and family members reorganized their business structure, the suit said.

The L.A. city attorney’s office resolved a nuisance abatement complaint against PAMA at Chesapeake in 2018, only for the widespread habitability problems to emerge. A similar case filed by the city attorney’s office against a PAMA property in Hollywood remains in litigation more than three years after it was filed. In the meantime, Nijjar’s companies have settled multiple habitability lawsuits filed by residents.

Bonta said that PAMA has taken advantage of lax and piecemeal accountability efforts and its low-income tenants’ vulnerability. Most residents, he said, have low or fixed incomes with few alternatives other than to endure the shoddy conditions in their rentals.

The lawsuit alleges that the habitability problems at PAMA properties are “ongoing business practices” — the result of decisions to make cheap repairs rather than necessary investments in maintenance, the use of unskilled handymen, lack of staff training and failure to track tenant requests.

“Nijjar and his associates have treated lawsuit after lawsuit and code violation after code violation as the cost of doing business and have been allowed to operate and collect hundreds of millions of dollars each year from families who sleep, shower, and feed their children in unhealthy and deplorable conditions,” Bonta said. “Enough is enough.”

Besides tenants’ living conditions, the suit alleges Nijjar and PAMA have induced residents into deceptive leases, discriminated against tenants on public assistance programs and issued unlawful rent increases.

The suit contends PAMA’s leases attempt to invalidate rights guaranteed under law, including the opportunity to sue and make repairs the landlord neglected and deduct these costs from the rent. The company has told Section 8 voucher holders that there are no units available when others are being rented to applicants without vouchers, the complaint said.

The case alleges that PAMA has violated California’s rent cap law on more than 2,000 occasions. The law limits rent increases to 5% plus inflation annually at most apartments. PAMA, the suit says, shifted mandatory shared utility costs, which used to be paid by the landlord, onto tenants’ bills in an attempt to evade the cap. The combination of the new utility costs and rent hikes resulted in total increases of up to 20%, more than double the allowable amount, according to the suit.

As looming fear over ongoing ICE raids in the greater Los Angeles area continues, one group of music enthusiasts is using their platform to call out for more visibility and support from famed artists — underscoring tense conversations about influence in the Latino music scene.

Since 2021, the “Agushto Papá” podcast — founded and hosted by Jason Nuñez, Diego Mondragon and Angel Lopez— has played a key role in chronicling the rise of música Mexicana by giving up-and-coming artists a platform to showcase their talent and personalities. Popular genre acts like Xavi, Eslabon Armado, Becky G, DannyLux, Ivan Cornejo and more have appeared on their YouTube channel, which has amassed over 635,000 subscribers to date.

However, on Monday, the trio strayed away from their standard entertainment content, uploading an Instagram reel reflecting disappointment over ICE sweeps, which have targeted communities of Paramount, Huntington Park, Santa Ana and other predominantly Latino communities.

“It’s super unfortunate to see what’s happening within our Latino community,” Nuñez states in the clip. “I think it’s very important that we stay united and spread as much awareness as possible.”

The video initially highlighted efforts by Del Records, who are providing free legal assistance to members of the community who are facing deportation orders; earlier this year, the Bell Gardens label was caught in a web of guilty court verdicts due to their links to cartels. Still, the label is one of the few Latino-led music entities outspoken about providing resources for affected individuals, “but I definitely think they shouldn’t be the only ones,” added Nuñez in the video.

Podcast co-host Lopez prompted viewers to tag their favorite artist in the comment section if they would like for them to speak up, he said, “I think it’s fair and just that [artists] show some of that love back to the community that’s in need and that is hurting.”

“I think that [artists] do play a big role because I think we see them as role models or leaders in our community,” said Lopez in a Tuesday interview with The Times. “These are times when we need those leaders to speak up and for us and people that maybe can’t speak up as well.”

The topic of immigration hits close to home for two of the members; Nuñez and Mondragon are both DACA recipients and openly discuss their unique experience on the podcast. The Obama-era program, which provides temporary relief from deportation and work authorization, has also come under attack in recent years by Trump-appointed judges and is currently recognized as unlawful by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, although application renewals remain.

“I feel betrayed because with [“Agushto Papá”], we have a lot of artists and companies and labels reach out to us to promote albums, tours,” said Mondragon. “We’ve actually reached out to some of these companies [and] they’ve been ignoring us.”

While Mondragon won’t disclose names, he says that many individuals have not spoken out because, “their artists are not born in the U.S.” To that he quips, “We don’t have papers as well, and we’re still using our platform.”

There’s a sense of betrayal, the group says, especially given how various artists and labels came out to support Californians during the January wildfires, “but now when it comes down to bringing awareness to things that are happening to their people, it’s just unfair that they’re keeping quiet,” says Nuñez.

Still, the “Agushto Papá” podcast is not alone in this sentiment; if you scroll across the comment sections of trending música Mexicana acts, you’ll likely come across comments asking them why they’re staying silent about recent sweeps, which immigration-leaders say have totaled at least 300 people.

“I think my big let down is that these companies/artists are vocal about their culture, their heritage, their ethnicity every chance they get, but now I feel like they’re picking and choosing only when it matters,” said Lopez.

In days following public demonstrations and protests, several Mexican American artists have vocalized their support of the immigrant communities including big acts like Ivan Cornejo, Becky G, and Chiquis.

On Tuesday, the boisterous San Bernardino band Fuerza Regida, uploaded a statement to their 9.1 million followers, sharing support for the Latino community. The podcast trio later thanked in a follow-up video.

“There’s still a lot of artists that are staying silent and we hope by this week they speak out about what’s going on,” states Mondragon in the video, urging artists to spread awareness, or perhaps, if they’re bold, front a portion of their millions to the community, even if it means opting for first class instead of their private jet, he says.

Meredith Hayden, a New York-based social media influencer and cookbook author, didn’t start out wanting to create comforting content.

But that’s exactly what resonated with audiences.

She went viral a few years ago by posting about her “day in the life” as a private chef in the Hamptons. Now she has a large following on YouTube for her Wishbone Kitchen brand and her “Dinner With Friends” video series, where she shows herself setting up relaxing dinner parties, making French-style hot chocolate and re-creating a cozy coffee shop at home.

You might see her online wearing pajamas or in bed with her dog while talking to the camera. She doesn’t edit out the parts where she messes up the recipe, saying her fans appreciate the flubs. Hayden, who recently completed a tour for “The Wishbone Kitchen Cookbook,” said she isn’t necessarily going for a vibe, at least not intentionally, despite the clear Ina Garten influence.

“This is really just how I live my life,” Hayden, 29, said by phone. “I am glad it comes across as comforting, because I’m definitely someone who gravitates more towards ‘comfort content’ myself.”

“I’m not planning on watching ‘Severance,’” she added, saying she gravitates toward more wholesome, grounded content, such as home makeover shows of the non-competitive variety.

That personal preference aligns with a broader trend among young adult viewers, according to recent data from United Talent Agency, the Beverly Hills representation firm. The company’s data and insights group, UTA IQ, compiled stats suggesting that many younger consumers are leaning toward material that soothes the nerves and acts as a warm blanket, rather than ratcheting up the anxiety.

“Comfort content” is like popping a Lorazepam (though not in the excessive dose Parker Posey’s character takes in “The White Lotus”) or CBD gummy at the end of the day. The trend is playing out across TV, streaming, literature and social media, said UTA IQ executive Abby Bailey.

She sees it in the rise of #CleanTok videos (totaling 49 billion views last year), in which people do mundane household chores, as well as robust streaming viewership of nostalgic low-intensity sitcoms including “Brooklyn Nine-Nine” and the successful February debut of a new CBS soap opera, “Beyond the Gates.”

“Somber themes, intellectual depth, cultural satires — those have always defined prestige entertainment, and it’s left many to discount the value and the viewership of this more lighthearted, comforting programming,” Bailey told The Times. “But as audiences are prioritizing their well-being and taking brain-breaks from the weight of the world, the definition of what’s capital ‘I’ important in entertainment is shifting.”

The changing attitudes are particularly noticeable in the young adult entertainment space, which several years ago was dominated by postapocalyptic teen dramas such as “The Hunger Games” and the “Divergent” series.

More than half (58%) of U.S. adults ages 18 to 30 say TV shows and movies depicting young adults have become too dark and heavy, according to UTA IQ’s April poll of more than 1,000 people. More than 70% said they want to see lighter and more joyful TV shows with young people.

That’s not to say that the upcoming season of the dark and sexually explicit “Euphoria” won’t be successful or that the next “Hunger Games” film won’t work at the box office. That type of content still has its place, even as tastes evolve. But studios and streamers appear to be noticing the audience’s shifting habits.

Examples are popping up in the young adult space on streaming services, including Tubi’s 2024 sports romance movie “Sidelined: The QB & Me,” which is getting a sequel. The Netflix teen drama “My Life With the Walter Boys” was recently renewed for a third season, ahead of its Season 2 premiere.

There are plenty of other opportunities now for young people to take mental breaks on the couch, from the rise of “cozy gaming” to the crossover appeal of “healing fiction,” a genre of whimsical books from Japan and Korea that have taken off elsewhere. Olympic diver Tom Daley, who went viral when he was photographed knitting between his events in Tokyo, created a competition show called “Game of Wool” that will debut on Channel 4 in the U.K.

Some millennial parents have turned to gentler, less overstimulating TV shows from decades ago — think “Arthur” and “Clifford the Big Red Dog” — to co-view with their young children.

Comfort content is certainly nothing new. The term brings to mind the idyllic autumnal walkways of Stars Hollow, the fictional small town from “Gilmore Girls,” as well as just about anything on the Hallmark Channel, which has enough of a following to justify its own $8-a-month subscription streaming service.

But there may be a reason the category is finding renewed purchase in trying times. Bailey hears that theme from consumers who just aren’t in the mood for any more nail-biters. “Time and time again, I get people saying, ‘I just can’t bring myself to watch anything serious,’” Bailey said. “‘Like, all I want to do is watch Bravo.’”

Stuff we wrote

Studio splitsville

As expected, Warner Bros. Discovery will split into two companies, separating its streaming and studios businesses from the struggling television networks business, the New York-based media giant said Monday.

The Streaming & Studios company will consist of the film and TV studios as well as HBO and HBO Max. The Global Networks company (which is taking on much of the debt) will have CNN, Discovery and other channels.

The divorce is aimed to be completed by mid-2026. Afterward, Warner Bros. Discovery Chief Executive David Zaslav will be CEO of the streaming and studios group, while Chief Financial Officer Gunnar Wiedenfels will run the networks.

The firm previously foreshadowed this move by restructuring its operations along similar lines.

Warner Bros. Discovery thus joins Comcast’s NBCUniversal, which is sweeping basic cable networks, including MSNBC and USA, into a new separate entity called Versant. It’s widely speculated that Paramount Global — if and when the Skydance deal happens — will also eventually unload declining legacy networks.

The breakups reflect an ongoing reality — linear television is in big trouble. The struggles of the cable bundle have continued to weigh on studio finances, with customers moving rapidly to on-demand services.

Indeed, if anyone thought the entertainment business’ bloodletting was over after last year’s series of layoffs, Walt Disney Co. and Warner Bros. Discovery disabused them of that notion in recent days.

Disney slashed several hundred employees on June 2. An actual number was not disclosed, but the cuts are significant, coming after Bob Iger embarked on a plan to reduce staff by 8,000 two years ago following his return as chief executive.

The latest layoffs hit film and television marketing teams, television publicity, casting and development as well as corporate financial operations. The cuts happen to land as the company is celebrating huge box office results from “Lilo & Stitch.”

The new downsizing comes amid Disney’s efforts to pare down its production pipeline after binge-spending during the streaming wars. The reduction corresponds to Disney’s efforts to focus on quality over quantity while also cutting costs.

A couple days after Disney’s layoffs, Warner Bros. Discovery cut staff from its cable television channels business. Those Warner Bros. Discovery reductions were smaller in scale (eliminating fewer than 100 roles), but the message to the industry couldn’t be clearer. Comcast’s NBCUniversal has also undergone layoffs.

The question is: What comes next? Many expect the cast-off Warner and NBCUniversal networks to merge at some point, with Paramount channels perhaps joining them one day.

Finally …

Listen: Turnstile’s new album “Never Enough” is out. Also, The Beths have a new tune. Sabrina Carpenter’s latest has already been declared the “song of the summer.”

LEOPOLD, Ind. — On the ceiling of Abbie Brockman’s middle school English classroom in Perry County, the fluorescent lights are covered with images of a bright blue sky, a few clouds floating by.

Outside, the real sky isn’t always blue. Sometimes it’s hazy, with pollution drifting from coal-fired power plants in this part of southwest Indiana. Knowing exactly how much, and what it may be doing to the people who live there, is why Brockman got involved with a local environmental organization that’s installing air and water quality monitors in her community.

“Industry and government is very, very, very powerful. It’s more powerful than me. I’m just an English teacher,” Brockman said. But she wants to feel she can make a difference.

In a way, Brockman’s monitoring echoes the reporting that the Environmental Protection Agency began requiring from large polluters more than a decade ago. Emissions from four coal-fired plants in southwest Indiana have dropped 60% since 2010, when the rule took effect.

That rule is now on the chopping block, one of many that President Trump’s EPA argues is costly and burdensome for industry.

But experts say dropping the requirement risks a big increase in emissions if companies are no longer publicly accountable for what they put in the air. And they say losing the data — at the same time the EPA is cutting air quality monitoring elsewhere — would make it tougher to fight climate change.

Rule required big polluters to say how much they are emitting

At stake is the Greenhouse Gas Reporting program, a 2009 rule from President Obama’s administration that affects large carbon polluters like refineries, power plants, wells and landfills. In the years since, they’ve collectively reported a 20% drop in emissions, mostly driven by the closure of coal plants.

And what happens at these big emitters makes a difference. Their declining emissions account for more than three-quarters of the overall, if modest, decline in all U.S. greenhouse gas emissions since 2010.

The registry includes places not usually thought of as big polluters but that have notable greenhouse gas emissions, such as college campuses, breweries and cereal factories. Even Walt Disney World in Florida, where pollution dropped 62% since 2010, has to report along with nearly 10,600 other places.

“We can’t solve climate change without knowing how much pollution major facilities are emitting and how that’s changing over time,” said Jeremy Symons, a former EPA senior climate advisor now at Environmental Protection Network, an organization of ex-EPA officials that monitors environmental policies. The group provided calculations as a part of the Associated Press’ analysis of impacts from proposed rule rollbacks.

Symons said some companies would welcome the end of the registry because it would make it easier to pollute.

Experts see a role for registry in cutting emissions

It’s not clear how much the registry itself has contributed to declining emissions. More targeted regulations on smokestack emissions, as well as coal being crowded out by cheaper and less polluting natural gas, are bigger factors.

But the registry “does put pressure on companies to … document what they’ve done or at least to provide a baseline for what they’ve done,” said Stanford University climate scientist Rob Jackson, who heads Global Carbon Project, a group of scientists that tally national carbon emissions yearly.

Gina McCarthy, a former EPA administrator under Obama, said the registry makes clear how power plants are doing against each other, and that’s an inducement to lower emissions.

“It is money for those companies. It’s costs. It’s reputation. It’s been, I think, a wonderful success story and I hope it continues.”

The potential end of the reporting requirement comes as experts say much of the country’s air goes unmonitored. Nelson Arley Roque, a Penn State professor who co-authored a study in April on these “monitoring deserts,” said about 40% of U.S. lands are unmonitored. That often includes poor and rural neighborhoods.

“The air matters to all of us, but apparently 50 million people can’t know or will never know’’ how bad the air is, Roque said.

EPA seeks to cancel money to fund some air monitoring

The EPA is also trying to claw back money that had been earmarked for air monitoring, part of the termination of grants that it has labeled as targeting diversity, equity and inclusion. That includes $500,000 that would have funded 40 air monitors in a low-income and minority community in the Charlotte, N.C., area.

CleaneAIRE NC, a nonprofit that works to improve air quality across the state that was awarded the grant, is suing.

“It’s not diversity, equity and inclusion. It’s human rights,” said Daisha Wall, the group’s community science program manager. “We all deserve a right to clean air.”

Research strongly links poor air quality to diseases like asthma and heart disease, with a slightly less established link to cancer. Near polluting industries, experts say what’s often lacking is either enough data in specific locations or the will to investigate the health toll.

Indiana says it “maintains a robust statewide monitoring and assessment program for air, land and water,” but Brockman and others in this part of the state, including members of Southwestern Indiana Citizens for Quality of Life, aren’t satisfied. They’re installing their own air and water quality monitors. It’s a full-time job to keep the network of monitors up and running, fighting spotty Wi-Fi and connectivity issues.

Fighting industry is a sensitive subject, Brockman added. Many families depend on jobs at coal-fired power plants, and poverty is real. She keeps snacks in her desk for the kids who haven’t eaten breakfast.

“But you also don’t want to hear of another student that has a rare cancer,” she said.

Walling, Borenstein, Bickel and Wildeman write for the Associated Press. AP writer Matthew Daly contributed to this report from Washington.

Benedict Corpuz has always been a “day one” type of person when it comes to fueling his video game habit.

Beginning in his high school years, the 45-year-old flight attendant from Kent, Wash., has tried to get his hands on new Nintendo systems on the day of their release, whether it was the Nintendo 64 or its less popular successor, the GameCube. The new Nintendo Switch 2 was no different. He lined up at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday at the Federal Way Best Buy in Washington, was allowed in the store at 9:01 p.m. and was back in his car with the coveted item — which he had preordered — by 9:13 p.m.

“It’s a good feeling to be one of the first,” he said. “I just really enjoy playing the games.”

Demand for the roughly $450 handheld device, which officially launched Thursday, was high as eager shoppers like Corpuz waited in line for hours to acquire the newest iteration of the Switch, which launched eight years ago to robust sales. “Let the games begin!” Nintendo of America posted on social media, showcasing photos of excited customers holding up their Switch 2 devices.

By afternoon in Los Angeles, there were reports of the devices selling out at some retailers, a clear indication of the console’s success. Shortages were reported in a number of international markets. The last time a console release generated so much attention was in 2020, when Sony’s PlayStation 5 and Microsoft’s latest Xbox were released during the same month.

“Realistically, it’s going to be sold out for quite a while,” Michael Pachter, a managing director at Wedbush Securities, said of the new Switch. “By January, maybe they’ll get supply and demand in balance.”

The popular device, which introduces several new games including “Mario Kart World,” will provide a boost to the global video game and game services market, which is expected to grow 1% to $201 billion this year, according to estimates from London-based Ampere Analysis. Video games are a massive business in entertainment, with gross revenues far exceeding annual worldwide box office ticket sales for movies, for example.

Console sales alone are projected to hit $16.5 billion this year, up from $13.4 billion in 2024.

Ronald Santa-Cruz, a research manager at Ampere, estimates that Switch 2 will sell 13.6 million units in 2025, and attributes its popularity to a large install base of Switch users ready to upgrade, improved performance and capabilities to support higher fidelity games, and the loyalty of fans to Nintendo’s franchises, which include “Super Mario Bros.” and “The Legend of Zelda.”

The original Switch, which launched in 2017, saw sales soar for Nintendo during the COVID-19 pandemic as people looked for ways to entertain themselves at home. Nintendo said it has sold 152 million units of Nintendo Switch hardware as of March 31.

Before launching the Switch, Nintendo’s future was uncertain. The video game pioneer, based in Kyoto, Japan, had struggled to compete in the intense consoles market against the likes of Sony and Microsoft, said Rob Enderle, principal analyst with advisory services firm Enderle Group. Nintendo’s onetime chief rival, Sega Corp., stopped making and selling consoles in 2001 after a series of failures.

But the Switch heralded a turnaround. Its hybrid design, which allowed for on-the-go playing, broadened its appeal beyond the typical console gamers.

“Back before the Switch, it was really kind of unclear whether Nintendo was going to survive,” Enderle said, adding that the Switch was different enough from the other offerings and portable. “The end result is it allowed them to restore their market opportunity. But without the Switch, I think they would have gone under.”

Nintendo is forecasting that Switch 2 hardware sales will total 15 million units in its fiscal year, with the goal of reaching the sales that the company had with the first Switch in the 10-month period from its launch in March 2017, said Shuntaro Furukawa, president of Nintendo Co. Ltd. in a briefing last month. Furukawa said that the tariff situation in the U.S. and the possibility of a recession did not reduce the company’s forecast.

“Our first goal is to get off to the same start we did with Nintendo Switch, and we are working to strengthen our production capacity so we can respond flexibly to demand,” Furukawa said.

“We appreciate the positive response from our fans,” Nintendo said in a statement, declining to share launch-day sales numbers.

Nintendo said it supplied its retail partners with “a significant amount of products for launch” and encouraged anyone who didn’t get a Switch 2 during preorder to visit their favorite retailers.

“We’ll work hard to replenish our retail partners with a steady stream of product as we make every effort to meet demand,” Nintendo said.

Nintendo of America President Doug Bowser told CBS News on Thursday that the company has been “delighted with the demand we’ve seen thus far” and that preorders sold out in a “very quick period of time.”

While the Switch is off to a strong start, its future pricing remains uncertain as the Trump administration imposes tariffs. Despite the uncertainty, analysts said that they think demand will remain strong for the device.

Published on
06/06/2025 – 6:42 GMT+2

ADVERTISEMENT

In three hours on Thursday, shares in Elon Musk’s electric vehicle company plunged by more than 14% in a stunning wipeout, as investors dumped their holdings amid a bitter war of words between the president and the world’s richest man.

By the end of the trading day, $150 billion (€139bn) of Tesla’s market value had been erased — more than what it would take to buy all the shares of Starbucks and hundreds of other big publicly traded US companies.

The disagreement started over the president’s budget bill, then quickly turned nasty after Musk said that Trump wouldn’t have been elected without his help. Trump then implied that he may turn the federal government against Musk’s companies, including Tesla and SpaceX.

“The easiest way to save money in our Budget, Billions and Billions of Dollars, is to terminate Elon’s Governmental Subsidies and Contracts,” Trump wrote on his social messaging service Truth Social. “I was always surprised that Biden didn’t do it!”

The drop on Thursday partially reversed a big run-up in the eight weeks since Musk confirmed that Tesla would be testing an autonomous, driverless “robotaxi” service in Austin, Texas, this month.

Investors fear Trump might not be in such a rush to usher in a future of self-driving cars in the US, and that could hit Tesla.

“The whole goal of robotaxis is to have them in 20 or 25 cities next year,” Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives, said. “If you start to heighten the regulatory environment, that could delay that path.”

He added that there’s a fear Trump is not going to play ‘Mr Nice Guy’ anymore.

However, Trump’s threat to cut government contracts could be aimed more at another of Musk’s businesses, SpaceX. The privately held rocket company has received billions of dollars for sending astronauts and cargo to the International Space Station, providing launches and doing other work for NASA. The company is currently racing to develop a mega-rocket for the space agency to send astronauts to the Moon next year.

A subsidiary of SpaceX, the satellite internet company Starlink, appears to also have benefited from Musk’s once-close relationship with the president.

On a trip with Trump to the Middle East last month, Musk announced that Saudi Arabia had approved Starlink for aviation and maritime use. Though its not clear how much politics has played a role, a string of other recent deals in Bangladesh, Pakistan, India and elsewhere has followed, as Trump has threatened tariffs and sent diplomats scrambling to please the president.

One measure of SpaceX’s success: A private financing round followed by a private sale of shares in recent months reportedly valued it at $350 billion (around €325bn), up from an estimated $210 billion (about €195.3bn) a year ago.

Now all that is possibly in danger. Tesla shares got an even bigger lift from Musk’s close relationship with Trump, initially at least.

After the presidential election in November, investors rushed into the stock, adding more than $450 billion (€418.5bn) to its value in a few weeks. The belief was that the company would see big gains as Trump eased regulatory oversight of Tesla. They also bet that the new administration would embrace Musk’s plans for millions of cars on US roads without drivers behind the wheel.

After hitting an all-time high on 17 December, the shares retreated as Musk’s time as head of a government cost-cutting group led to boycotts and a hit to Tesla’s reputation. They’ve recently popped higher again after Musk vowed to focus more on Tesla and its upcoming driverless taxi launch.

Now investors aren’t so sure, a worry that has translated into big paper losses in Tesla stock held by Musk personally.

WASHINGTON — President Trump’s friendship and political alliance with Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, who fueled Trump’s campaign with record amounts of cash before working at the White House by his side until last week, appears to be over, with both men leveling searing criticism against one another in a sharp public feud.

Musk had been criticizing the Trump administration over its signature legislation, known as the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” for its projected impact on the national debt throughout last week. But his calls to “kill the bill” on Wednesday prompted Trump, speaking to media from the Oval Office, to respond in kind.

“Elon and I had a great relationship, I don’t know if we will anymore,” Trump said Thursday. “And he hasn’t said bad things about me personally, but I’m sure that’ll be next. But I’m very disappointed in Elon.”

Musk, responding on his social media platform, X, took credit for Trump’s election victory. The billionaire entrepreneur, whose companies also include SpaceX and Tesla, contributed over $280 million to Trump and other Republicans during the 2024 presidential campaign.

“Without me, Trump would have lost the election, Dems would control the House and the Republicans would be 51-49 in the Senate,” Musk wrote. “Such ingratitude.”

The exchange broke open a feud that had been simmering for weeks out of public view. In private, Musk had relayed concerns over the bill to the president, while expressing disagreement with several other policies, including the establishment of an artificial intelligence campus in the Middle East and Trump’s announcement of global tariffs.

“I agree with much of what the administration does, but we have differences of opinion,” Musk said in a more muted tone last week, speaking in an interview with CBS.

“You know, there are things that I don’t entirely agree with. But it’s difficult for me to bring that up in an interview because then it creates a bone of contention,” he added. “So then, I’m a little stuck in a bind, where I’m like, well, I don’t wanna, you know, speak up against the administration, but I also don’t wanna take responsibility for everything this administration’s doing.”

In the Oval Office, Trump said he believed that Musk had turned on him after he rejected Musk’s recommendation for the head of NASA, a position that could benefit SpaceX, Musk’s spaceship company. He also said that Musk opposed provisions of Trump’s megabill that would phase out tax credits for electric vehicles.

“Elon knew the inner workings of this bill better than almost anybody sitting here. Better than you people. He knew everything about it — he had no problem with it. All of a sudden he had a problem, and he only developed the problem when he found out that we’re going to have to cut the EV mandate, because that’s billions and billions of dollars,” Trump said.

“People leave my administration and they love us, and at some point, they miss it so badly, and some of them embrace it, and some of them actually become hostile,” Trump added. “I don’t know what it is.”

But Musk denied he had been shown the bill, responding on X that he wouldn’t mind if the EV provisions remain in the text so long as others, which he said would balloon annual deficits, are cut.

“This bill was never shown to me even once and was passed in the dead of night so fast that almost no one in Congress could even read it!” Musk wrote. “Keep the EV/solar incentive cuts in the bill, even though no oil & gas subsidies are touched (very unfair!!), but ditch the MOUNTAIN of DISGUSTING PORK in the bill.”

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office released an assessment on Wednesday estimating that the “big, beautiful bill,” which has passed the House and is under consideration in the Senate, would add $2.4 trillion to the national debt over the next decade, and result in 10.9 million Americans losing health insurance coverage over the same period.

At the beginning of the administration, Trump put Musk in charge of the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, a White House program that intended on cutting federal spending and reducing the deficit. Musk’s tenure in the role, designated as a special government employee, ended last week.

On X, Musk posted a collection of past remarks from Trump warning against growing deficits and congressional actions increasing the debt ceiling, adding, “where is this guy today?”

“Either you get a big and ugly bill or a slim and beautiful bill,” Musk added. “Slim and beautiful is the way.”

Warner Bros. Discovery is the latest media company to shed employees from its cable TV channels, with several dozen positions jettisoned Wednesday.

The layoffs, confirmed by an executive not authorized to comment publicly, are aimed at improving efficiency across the company as cable TV revenues sink because of cord-cutting.

The moves at Warner Bros. Discovery come two days after the Walt Disney Co. implemented a bloodletting across its film and television marketing teams, television publicity, casting and development as well as corporate operations.

The cuts at Disney numbered in the hundreds. The figure for Warner Bros. Discovery is much smaller than that, though an exact number was not disclosed.

Warner Bros. Discovery’s movie and TV production studios and streaming operation, soon to go back to its earlier name, HBO Max, will not be hit by the cutbacks.

The cuts come as Warner Bros. Discovery is said to be pondering a possible spinoff of its declining cable TV assets, which include its Turner channels, Discovery Networks, HGTV and Food Network, similar to what Comcast is doing with its NBCUniversal cable outlets (with the exception of Bravo).

Comcast is putting MSNBC, CNBC, the Golf Channel, USA Network and other outlets into a new company called Versant, separating the mature businesses from the rest of the company as it focuses on streaming.

Warner Bros. Discovery recently reorganized into two business units. The entertainment giant last year took a $9.1-billion writedown to reflect the declining value of its TV networks.

The cuts at Warner Bros. Discovery come just a day after a rare shareholder rebuke of its executive pay packages, a sign of growing unhappiness with the company’s financial performance.

A majority of Warner Bros. Discovery shareholders voted against the 2024 compensation package given to Chief Executive David Zaslav and other executives at the company’s recent annual meeting, according to a regulatory filing.

Almost 60% of the votes cast came in against the 2024 executive pay package at the company, according to a regulatory filing Tuesday. The vote is nonbinding, and thus symbolic.

Eight Mile Style, a company that owns some of Eminem’s most popular songs, is suing social media giant Meta over alleged copyright infringement.

The lawsuit, filed in a federal court in Michigan, accuses the Menlo Park-based tech company of storing, reproducing and distributing Eminem’s music without obtaining the license to do so.

Eight Mile Style, which is based in Ferndale, Mich., is seeking at least $109 million from Meta and a court order to stop several alleged forms of copyright infringement.

Music is a big part of social media. On Meta’s platforms such as Facebook and Instagram, people add music in photos and videos they share publicly or with their friends and family.

But the way social media has changed the way people listen to and discover new songs has also sparked concerns from artists about whether they’re fairly compensated.

“Meta’s years-long and ongoing infringement of the Eight Mile Compositions is another case of a trillion (with a ‘T’) dollar company exploiting the creative efforts of musical artists for the obscene monetary benefit of its executives and shareholders without a license and without regard to the rights of the owners of the intellectual property,” the lawsuit said.

Meta said in a statement that it has licenses with thousands of partners globally and an “extensive” global licensing programs for music on its platforms.

“Meta had been negotiating in good faith with Eight Mile Style, but rather than continue those discussions, Eight Mile Style chose to sue,” the company said in an email.

Eight Mile Style owns and controls 243 compositions recorded by Eminem, a rapper and music producer that has created popular hits such as “Lose Yourself.” Meta did remove some of these songs including “Lose Yourself” from its music libraries, but other versions of the music including a piano instrumental cover and a karaoke version still remain on the platform, according to the lawsuit.

Meta not only allowed users who upload these songs to infringe on copyright but knowingly stored and reproduced them in its music libraries so users can use the music in videos and photos, the lawsuit alleges. Users have added Eminem’s music in millions of videos that have been viewed billions of times, according to the lawsuit.

Meta also unsuccessfully tried to obtain a license for Eminem’s songs as part of negotiations with the digital music royalty company Audiam even though the firm didn’t have the authority to give them that license.

“Meta executives have actively encouraged such rampant infringement in order to attract as many users as possible to, among other things, make advertising on their services more profitable for themselves,” the lawsuit said.

More than 3 billion people use one of Meta’s apps daily, and the company makes billions of dollars every quarter from advertising.

In the first three months of this year, Meta’s revenue reached $42.31 billion, an increase of 16% year-over-year. The company’s net income jumped by 35% to $16.6 billion in the first quarter.

This isn’t the first time Meta has faced legal issues over the use of Eminem’s music. In 2013, Eight Mile Style sued Facebook, alleging the social network used the Eminem song “Under the Influence” for an ad without their consent.

A majority of Warner Bros. Discovery shareholders voted against the 2024 compensation package given to Chief Executive David Zaslav and other executives at the company’s annual meeting Monday, according to a regulatory filing.

Almost 60% of the votes cast came in against the 2024 executive pay package at the company, according to a regulatory filing Tuesday. The vote is nonbinding.

In a statement, the board said it “takes the results of the annual advisory vote on executive compensation seriously,” adding it “looks forward to continuing its regular practice of engaging in constructive dialog with our shareholders.”

Zaslav, 65, earned $51.9 million last year in salary, stock awards and other compensation. Shares of Warner Bros. declined 7.1% in 2024, while the S&P 500 index gained 23%.

Warner Bros. reported first-quarter financial results that missed Wall Street’s estimates last month. The company recently reorganized into two business units, fueling speculation it may split off cable TV networks like CNN and TNT into a separate company. The entertainment giant took a $9.1 billion writedown to reflect the declining value of its traditional TV networks last year.

Zaslav, who merged Discovery with WarnerMedia in 2022 to create Warner Bros. Discovery, has drawn criticism during his tenure as CEO. He recently changed the name of the company’s Max streaming service back to HBO Max after an unsuccessful brand overhaul. The company also announced it is launching a new online video service built around CNN, three years after canceling the short-lived CNN+ streaming service.

Miller writes for Bloomberg.

The PG rating has made a major comeback in Hollywood.

It’s strange to remember now, but during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic — when studios were sending many of their family-friendly movies straight to streaming services — there were serious conversations in the movie business about whether youngsters and their parents would ever return to theaters in full force.

Streaming was just too convenient and affordable, compared with a Saturday outing of two parents and 2 1/2 kids, the logic went.

But in recent years, the family audience has proved to be a bulwark for the theatrical movie business.

Disney’s live-action “Lilo & Stitch” topped the domestic box office again over the weekend with $63 million in ticket sales, for a total of $280 million so far. It beat the latest “Mission: Impossible” and the new “Karate Kid: Legends,” both rated PG-13. As of Sunday, “Lilo & Stitch” had crossed $610 million globally.

Warner Bros. and Legendary’s “A Minecraft Movie,” also rated PG, has amassed $423 million in the U.S. and Canada, the best of the year so far. Adding international grosses, its global tally is $947 million.

Nine PG-rated movies have been released in more than 2,000 locations this year, up from six during the same period in 2024, according to industry estimates. Those movies have accounted for 41% of ticketing revenue in the U.S. and Canada this year, compared with 21% a year ago. (The Pixar megahit “Inside Out 2” was released in mid-June of 2024.)

Family films are a boon to studios and theaters at a time when other categories — such as comic book films and one-off dramas and comedies — have been less reliable than they were in the past.

And there’s more to come, including Universal’s “How to Train Your Dragon” remake, Pixar’s “Elio” and DreamWorks Animation’s “The Bad Guys 2.”

Importantly, many of these movies are coming one after the other, which is essential if the industry hopes to re-create the moviegoing habit for current and future generations, especially as social media, YouTube and video games claim more of young people’s attention.

“One of the things that I think the industry has struggled with over the last number of years is just having a regular cadence of movies in the theater,” said Michael O’Leary, head of the trade group Cinema United (formerly the National Assn. of Theatre Owners). “If you’re a young person, and there’s a six-month gap between movies, there’s a lot of things going on, and your attention wanes.”

The focus on PG-rated content stands in contrast with a few years ago, when the PG-13 rating was widely seen as the way to include a broad, “four-quadrant” audience: men, women, old and young. A PG rating tagged a new release as more of a kids movie. PG-13, the label for Marvel and DC movies, had more of a cool factor for teens and young adults.

O’Leary has a theory for why things have shifted, and it has to do with the media consumption habits of today’s very young, known as Generation Alpha, or those who came after Gen Z.

Kids now are more than just digitally native.

They’re aware of new movies and TV shows coming out, in part because of exposure to social media at an earlier age compared with past generations of children. Parents will naturally be more comfortable taking their 7- and 8-year-olds to something like “Minecraft,” because they’re less likely to be presented with objectionable content.

The Motion Picture Assn.’s rating system, though sometimes fraught and misunderstood, is meant as a guide for parents.

“Younger people are inundated with more and more content at an earlier age, and they’ve become, in some ways, more discriminating connoisseurs of what they want to see,” O’Leary said.

Surely there are some parents who take their kids to the movies less often now after the pandemic with the proliferation of at-home entertainment options. But overall, family movies are leading the industry. If the pandemic proved anything, it’s that if you’re a parent, you really can’t spend all your time in the house.

Gen Z — now anywhere from 13 to 28 years old — is clearly doing its part. According to a recent NRG survey, 37% of Gen Zers say they go to the movies more than six times a year, up from 29% who agreed with that statement in February 2023.

Adults, too, might be interested in seeing more PG content in theaters, particularly in the American heartland.

Angel Studios’ animated Jesus film “The King of Kings” performed well (though somewhat ironically, most of Angel’s live action movies are PG-13).

The post-pandemic recovery of the family audience hit a big milestone in 2023 with Illumination’s “The Super Mario Bros. Movie,” which grossed more than $1.36 billion worldwide. That was followed by the success of 2024 sequels such as “Inside Out 2,” “Moana 2,” “Despicable Me 4” and “Mufasa: The Lion King,” which all benefited from multigenerational appeal.

The blockbuster Broadway adaptation “Wicked” was also rated PG, which helped make it a family moviegoing event.

Now, the category is again on a hot streak. Industry analyst David A. Gross declared in a recent edition of his FranchiseRe newsletter, “the production pipeline is full and any loss of audience to streaming during the pandemic is over.”

What hasn’t come back as strongly? Most notably, superhero pictures — one of the pillars of moviegoing for the last couple decades. Before the pandemic, the industry averaged seven superhero movies a year, and those would drive billions of dollars in global revenue, Gross said. Lately, the genre has been significantly thinner and far less consistent.

R-rated horror movies are thriving (look at “Sinners” and “Final Destination Bloodlines”), but other adult-oriented movies are hit and miss.

Increasingly, when studios want to draw a mass audience, that means going younger.

Stuff we wrote

Number of the week

What’s the magic number that will allow Paramount’s $8-billion merger with Skydance to go through?

The Wall Street Journal reported that Paramount was willing to part with $15 million to settle President Trump’s lawsuit against the company over edits to its pre-election “60 Minutes” interview with Kamala Harris.

No surprise, that’s apparently not enough. Trump’s team wants more, the Journal reported. The president wants $25 million and an apology from CBS News, a source told the paper.

Trump’s critics, journalists and 1st Amendment experts say the lawsuit is basically a shakedown. Some anti-Trump lawmakers say a settlement by Paramount could amount to an illegal bribe.

Paramount is awaiting merger approval from the FCC, which is tasked with reviewing the transfer of broadcast licenses. Sources have told my colleague Meg James that the FCC approval process has been bogged down.

The company stresses that it sees the legal dispute and the FCC review as separate issues. No one believes Trump sees them that way.

On Monday, Paramount said it would add three new board members.

Finally …

There’s been an unreal amount of good TV on lately. I’ve been catching up on Nathan Fielder’s “The Rehearsal,” and often can’t believe what I’m seeing.

Also, Marc Maron is ending his podcast after 16 years. I’ve linked to various episodes in this newsletter. Here’s one I’m looking forward to catching up with.

Joanna Miller was 10 — no, “10 and three-quarters,” she clarifies — when she lost her grandfather. Even then, in December 1966, she shared him with the world.

For Miller’s grandad was Walt Disney, a name that would emblazen one of the largest entertainment conglomerates in the world, and come to signify uniquely American storytelling, family-friendly optimism and the creation of the modern theme park. Front-page stories across the globe announced his death, hailing him as a “world enchanter,” “amusement king” and “wizard of fantasy.”

But to Miller, he was just “grampa.”

She peppers stories about Disney in her conversations, often going down tangents as she recalls heartwarming moments. Such as the Christmas season when Disney, despite having access to Hollywood’s most renown artists, put Miller’s drawings on a holiday card. “The bad art we were doing when we were 6 years old? He treated them like they were great works,” she says.

She pauses, a tear forming in her eye. “He was just the greatest guy. The best guy.”

Jennifer Goff, from left, Tammy Miller, Joanna Miller, Walter Miller and Chris Miller speak onstage during the Walt Disney Family Museum’s second annual gala at Disney’s Grand Californian in November 2016 in Anaheim. Joanna has become vocal that her grandfather, Walt Disney, never wanted to be immortalized as a robotic figurine.

(Joe Scarnici / Getty Images for the Walt Disney Family Museum)

Miller is, to put it mildly, protective of Disney. So is the Walt Disney Co., and as Disneyland Resort’s 70th anniversary in July approaches, both share a goal — to remind audiences of the man behind the corporate name. Last fall the company announced that an audio-animatronic of Disney would grace the opera house on Main Street, U.S.A., long home to “Great Moments With Mr. Lincoln.” The new show, “Walt Disney — A Magical Life,” will give parkgoers a sense of “what it would have been like to be in Walt’s presence,” Disney Experiences Chairman Josh D’Amaro explained at the announcement.

The way Miller sees it, it’s an abomination.

“Dehumanizing,” she wrote in a Facebook post that went viral among Disney’s vast fandom. Calling the figure a “robotic grampa,” she wrote, “People are not replaceable. You could never get the casualness of his talking.” She also argued staunchly that Disney was against such mechanical immortalization.

Interior of the Illinois Pavilion at the New York World’s Fair, May 15, 1964, where an animatronic of Abraham Lincoln was unveiled.

(Bob Goldberg / Associated Press)

She stands by the post — she’s one of the few, she says, to have seen the animatronic in the fake flesh — but also nervously laughs as she reflects on the attention it has brought her. Miller has long lived a private life, noting she considers herself shy — she declined to be photographed for this story — and says repeatedly it pains her to take a stand against the Walt Disney Co. She frets that the company will take away her access to the park, granted as part of an agreement when her father, the late Ron W. Miller, stepped down as CEO in 1984.

Roy Disney, left, and Ron Miller check over film strips in the editing room in 1967 at Disney’s film studio in Burbank. The family sold naming and portrait rights of Walt Disney in 1981 to the company.

(Associated Press)

But as Miller sees it, she has to speak up. “He’s ours,” Miller says of Disney. “We’re his family.”

Most robotic figures in Disney parks represent fictional characters or overly-saturated political personalities, such as those in Florida’s Hall of Presidents, which includes President Trump and living former presidents. Few speak and most are limited to statuesque movements. And unlike an attraction in which the company has full narrative control, such as a Pirates of the Caribbean, “Walt Disney — A Magical Life” represents real life and a person who happens to have living, vocal descendants.

And real life is complicated.

“When you get older,” Miller says, sometimes when things go wrong in life, “you just start to get pissed off. And you get tired of being quiet. So I spoke up on Facebook. Like that was going to do anything? The fact that it got back to the company is pretty funny.”

Get back to the company it did, as Miller soon found herself having an audience with Walt Disney Co. CEO Bob Iger.

These days, Miller is in the midst of remodeling Disney’s first L.A. home in Los Feliz, a craftsman bungalow owned in the 1920s by his uncle Robert and aunt Charlotte, who let Disney stay with them when he came from the Midwest. Miller envisions the house hosting events, perhaps workshops and artist talks for arts education nonprofit Ryman Arts.

Its feel is of a mini museum. In the garage sits a Mercedes Benz, the last vehicle Disney owned. Black-and-white images of Disney furnish the walls, decorative “Fantasia” dishware shares space with vintage toys in a glass-doored cabinet, and animation artwork, waiting to be framed, is laid out on one of the beds.

“I have been thinking a lot about this house and what it means,” Miller says. “I wouldn’t be here. Grampa wouldn’t have met granny. This all started because people were helping out grampa. Aunt Charlotte was making peanut brittle in this house that they sold at Disneyland. So this house, there would not be Disney company if it weren’t for this house.”

Miller’s relationship with the company has wavered over the decades. She’s more excited to share memories of Disney than recall the tumultuous corporate period when her father oversaw the behemoth company. On Saturdays, Disney would often bring her and her siblings to the studio. There, they had the run of the place, cruising around the backlot in their very own mini-cars designed for Disneyland’s Autopia ride. Those visits largely ended when Disney died, as her father dedicated his weekends to golf.

Championing Disney, and preserving his legacy, runs in her family. Her mother, Diane, who died in 2013, was the guiding force behind the foundation of San Francisco’s Walt Disney Family Museum. Miller, who long sat on the board, said the idea of creating an animatronic of Disney is not new, and was once considered for the museum.

“When we started the museum, someone said, ‘Hey, let’s do Walt as an animatronic,’” Miller recalls. “And my mom: ‘No. No. No. No.’ Grampa deserves new technology for this museum, but not to be a robot himself.” Her mother, says Miller, “wanted to show him as a real human.”

As American film producer and studio executive Walt Disney talks on the telephone, his wife, Lillian,, plays with three of their grandchildren, Joanna, Tamara and Jennifer in January 1962 in Anaheim. The couple are in their apartment above the Disneyland fire station.

(Tom Nebbia / Corbis via Getty Images)

Miller says she first heard of Disneyland’s animatronic last summer, a few weeks before D’Amaro announced the attraction at the fan convention D23. The show will follow a similar format to the Lincoln attraction, in which a film plays before the animatronic is revealed. Lincoln, for instance, stands and gives highlight’s of the president’s speeches, doing so with subtle, realistic movements. Disney, promises the company, will be even more lifelike, with dialogue taken from his own speeches. D’Amaro said “A Magical Life” had the support of the Disney family, singling out Disney’s grandnephew Roy P. Disney, who was in the audience.

Miller stresses that she does not speak for her five siblings or other descendants, but as she wrote in a letter to Iger, “I do speak for my grandfather and my mother.” Shortly after her Facebook post, Miller was invited to see the figure and meet with Iger and members of Walt Disney Imagineering, the secretive creative team responsible for theme park experiences.

“He was very kind,” Miller says of Iger. “He let me do my spiel.”

But she wasn’t swayed. She says she asked him to create a set of guidelines on how the company would portray Disney, and Iger promised to protect his legacy. “But I don’t think he has. They’re different people. He’s a businessman, grampa was an artist.”

Imagineering and Disneyland discussed the project at a media event in April, but the animatronic was not shown, nor were pictures revealed. Imagineering did display an early sculpt used in modeling the robot to show the care taken in crafting Disney. The sculpt depicts Disney in 1963, when he was 62. One could detect age spots on Disney’s hands and weariness around his eyes.

Miller recalls her reaction when she saw the figure.

“I think I started crying,” Miller says. “It didn’t look like him, to me.”

There are at least two Walt Disneys. There’s the company founder, Mickey Mouse designer and Disneyland creator who, later in life, visited millions of Americans via their television sets on the weekly “Disneyland” show and became known as “Uncle Walt.” Then there’s the man Miller knew, a grandfather who exists to the rest of us only via stories.

Sometimes these public-private personalities overlapped, such as the moments Disney would be paraded down Disneyland’s Main Street with Miller and her siblings in tow. Miller pulls out a photo showing her face buried in her lap as she tried to hide from Disney’s adoring fans. Or the times fans caught Miller looking out from Disney’s Main Street apartment, a place where she spent many nights as a child and that still stands today.

She recalls Disney stopping to talk to people at the park. “It was the dearest thing,” she says. He would take photos with fans and sign autographs. “I never ever saw him not be less than tickled and honored that people loved him so much.”

Imagineers argue that the two Walt Disneys are being lost to history.

“Why are we doing this now?” said longtime Imagineer Tom Fitzgerald. He cited two reasons, the first being Disneyland’s 70th anniversary. “The other: I grew up watching Walt Disney on television. I guess I’m the old man. He came into our living room every week and chatted and it was very casual and you felt like you knew the man. But a lot of people today don’t know Walt Disney was an individual.” The company also says that animatronic technology has advanced to a point it can do Disney justice.

Miller is sympathetic to Imagineering’s arguments. It’s clear she holds tremendous respect for the division, believed to have been the aspect of the company Disney held dearest to his heart. She gushes about Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge, the most recent major addition to Disney’s original park. “It’s amazing,” Miller says.

Yet she doesn’t buy into the theory that the company is simply out to preserve Disney’s legacy. If that were the case, she argues, then episodes of his weekly “Disneyland” show would be available on streaming service Disney+.

Worse, she worries an animatronic will turn Disney into a caricature. The robotic Lincoln works, says Miller, because we lack filmed footage of him. She wishes the company had abandoned the animatronic and created an immersive exhibit that could have depicted Disney in his park.

“I strongly feel the last two minutes with the robot will do much more harm than good to Grampa’s legacy,” Miller wrote in her letter to Iger. “They will remember the robot, and not the man.”

Portrait of American movie producer, artist and animator Walt Disney as he sits on a bench in the 1950s in his Disneyland in Anaheim.

(Gene Lester / Getty Images)

Miller has a number of letters and emails of support, some from former Imagineers, but has crossed out their names before handing them to a journalist. Most contacted for this story didn’t return calls or emails, or declined to speak on the record, noting their current business relationships with the Walt Disney Co. The legacy of Disney is “precious yet vulnerable,” said one such source, refusing to give a name because they still work with the company. “Isn’t it honorable when a granddaughter defends her grandfather? There’s nothing in it for her.”

Miller says she simply wants the company to respect Disney’s wishes — that he never be turned into a robot.

“In all our research, we never found any documentation of Walt saying that,” Imagineer Jeff Shaver-Moskowitz said in April. “We know that it’s anecdotal and we can’t speak to what was told to people in private.”

And therein lies a major hurdle Miller faces. Those who Miller says knew of Disney’s preferences — her mother, her father and Imagineers he was closest to, including confidant and former Imagineering chief Marty Sklar — are all dead. That leaves, unless someone else comes forward, only her.

Miller, however, is realistic. Her family’s biggest mistake, she argues, was selling the rights to Disney’s name, likeness and portrait to the company in 1981 for $46.2 million in stock.

It leaves the family little to zero say in how Disney is preserved in the park, although Imagineering says it has worked closely with the Walt Disney Family Museum and those descendants who are currently on the museum board in constructing the animatronic show.

But there’s one thing the Walt Disney Co. can’t control, and that’s Miller’s voice — and her memories.

On their trips to Disneyland, Miller’s grandfather was happy to stop for autographs, but he also signed — in advance — the pages of an office pad. When the crowds became a bit much, he would hand a park-goer an inscribed piece of paper.

“After 10-15 minutes,” Miller recalls, “he would say, ‘Hey, I’m with the grandkids today, and we have things to do.’”

With its sale to Skydance Media still beyond its reach, Paramount Global has nominated three new directors to bolster its small board, which has been racked with drama and churn since early last year.

The debt-laden New York-based company currently has only five board members, including controlling shareholder Shari Redstone, who serves as chairwoman. The Redstone family holds nearly 77% of Paramount’s voting shares, giving the heiress tremendous sway.

In a proxy filing Monday, Paramount asked shareholders to elect seven directors at its July 2 annual meeting. The slate includes Redstone and three recruits: attorney Mary Boies (a member of the firm led by her husband David Boies); Silicon Valley venture capital executive Charles E. Ryan ; and former Massachusetts trial court judge Roanne Sragow Licht.

In addition to Redstone, three longtime board members — Linda M. Griego, Susan Schuman and Barbara M. Byrne — will stand for reelection.

Board member Judith A. McHale has decided to step down.

The company has grappled with a series of setbacks since it announced its sale to tech scion David Ellison’s Skydance Media last July.

The company took a $6-billion write-down on its cable television networks business, in yet another sign that Hollywood is reckoning with the ongoing deterioration of the traditional television business.

Leading independent director Charles Phillips left the board in October. His exit came six months after three other directors — Rob Klieger, Nicole Seligman and Dawn Ostroff — abruptly departed as the panel was struggling over terms of Redstone’s planned Paramount sale.

In late October, President Trump filed a lawsuit in Texas over his dismay with edits of a “60 Minutes” interview of then-Vice President Kamala Harris in the closing weeks of the election. FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, a Trump appointee, opened an inquiry to determine whether the edits rose to the level of news distortion.

Trump doubled the amount of damages he was seeking to $20 billion.

Paramount has been defending against the lawsuit. In a court filing last week, Trump’s lawyers asserted the president suffered “mental anguish” due to the “60 Minutes” broadcast.

Redstone’s desire to settle Trump’s suit over the “60 Minutes” edits has carved deep divides within the company.

1st Amendment experts have called Trump’s lawsuit frivolous; CBS News executives and other journalists believe it is a shakedown to exploit the vulnerable company that is desperate to have the FCC approve the sale to Skydance.

The ruckus over the edits contributed to the departure of two top CBS News executives. Wendy McMahon, the president of CBS News and Stations, stepped down under pressure last month. In April, “60 Minutes” executive producer Bill Owens departed.

Redstone has expressed her dissatisfaction with CBS News’ coverage of the Israel-Hamas war.

Last month, three Democrat U.S. senators warned Redstone that the company could face allegations of bribery if they write a big check to mollify Trump in an effort to facilitate the FCC’s review of the Skydance takeover. The Wall Street Journal has reported that Paramount offered Trump $15 million to make the lawsuit go away, but he declined.

It’s been nearly 11 months since Paramount agreed to be sold to Skydance in an $8-billion deal that would inject $1.5 billion in capital into Paramount’s battered balance sheet.

Paramount has not revised its guidance on when it expects the deal to close — but the contractual deadline is early October.

As part of its proxy statement, the company again detailed the compensation packages — totaling $148 million to the top three executives and ousted Chief Executive Bob Bakish, who received compensation valued at $87 million. Co-CEO George Cheeks was paid $22.2 million. His counterparts Brian Robbins and Chris McCarthy were paid $19.6 million and $19.5 million, respectively, according to the filing.

Walt Disney Co. launched another deep round of layoffs on Monday, notifying several hundred Disney employees in the U.S. and abroad that their jobs were being eliminated amid an increasingly difficult economic environment for traditional television.

People close to the Burbank entertainment giant confirmed the cuts, which are hitting film and television marketing teams, television publicity, casting and development as well as corporate financial operations.

The move comes just three months after the company cut 200 workers, including at ABC News in New York and Disney-owned entertainment networks. At the time, the division said it was cutting its staff by 6% amid shrinking TV ratings and revenue for traditional television.

Disney declined to specify how many workers were losing their jobs. The cutbacks come after Disney Chief Executive Bob Iger acknowledged to Wall Street that Disney had been pumping out too many shows and movies to compete against Netflix. The programming build-up accelerated as the company prepared to launch Disney+ in late 2019, and it bulked up its staff to handle the more robust pipeline.

But the company since has retrenched, recognizing the need to focus on creating high-quality originals that meet Disney’s once lofty standards.

ABC News shed about 40 employees last October. The company’s TV stations also lost staff members.

The ABC television network and Disney-owned entertainment channels have seen dramatic audience defections as consumers switch to streaming services, including Netflix, Paramount+ and Disney+.

Hollywood trade site Deadline first reported the news.

In a significant retrenchment, media mogul Byron Allen has retained investment banking firm Moelis & Co. to sell his network-affiliate television stations after spending more than $1 billion to scoop up outlets in smaller markets.

The Allen Media Group announced the news Monday morning. It owns nearly two dozen stations, including in Northern California near Redding, as well as Honolulu; Flint, Mich.; Madison, Wis.; and Tupelo, Miss.

The company needs to pay down debt, Allen said in a statement.

Allen’s firm declined to provide details on its finances.

The Los Angeles firm has spent big bucks during the last six years buying stations with a goal of becoming the largest independent television operator in the U.S. Many of Allen’s stations have standing in their markets with programming from one of the Big Four broadcast networks: ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox.

“We have received numerous inquiries and written offers for most of our television stations and now is the time to explore getting a return on this phenomenal investment,” Allen, chairman and chief executive, said in a statement. “We are going to use this opportunity to take a serious look at the offers, and the sale proceeds will be used to significantly reduce our debt.”

Allen Media Group, which was founded by Allen in 1993, also owns a dozen television channels, including the Weather Channel.

The Los Angeles entrepreneur and former stand-up comedian had been steadily expanding his empire for more than a decade.

However, the television advertising market has become increasingly challenged in recent years as media buyers shift their budgets to digital platforms where they are more likely to find younger consumers. The television advertising market has become more strained with the addition of streaming services, including Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and Paramount+ competing with legacy stations for dollars.

A decade ago, Allen brought a high-profile $20-billion lawsuit against two of the nation’s largest pay-TV distributors, Comcast and Charter Communications, alleging that racism was the reason his small TV channels were not being carried on those services.

The case ultimately reached the U.S. Supreme Court and was legally significant because it relied on the historic Civil Rights Act of 1866, which was enacted a year after the Civil War ended and mandated that Black citizens “shall have the same right … to make and enforce contracts … as is enjoyed by white citizens.”

But the Supreme Court struck down many of Allen’s arguments. In a 9-0 decision in March 2020, the high court said it was not enough for a civil rights plaintiff to assert that his race was one of several factors that motivated a company to refuse to do business with him. Instead, the person must show race was the crucial and deciding factor.

Last month, CBS picked up his show “Comics Unleashed with Byron Allen” to run at 12:35 a.m.

When Domingo Hindoyan, the Venezuelan chief conductor of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, made his debut with L.A. Opera last November with “Roméo et Juliette,” Times classical music critic Mark Swed called it “a coup for the company.” Swed also wondered if it was a “signal that he is a candidate to succeed Music Director James Conlon, who steps down in 2026?”

It turns out Swed was right.

On Friday, L.A. Opera announced that Hindoyan has been named the company’s Richard Seaver Music Director. He will succeed Conlon, the longtime music director who joined the company in 2006 and announced last year that he will step down at the end of the 2026 season. Conlon will take on the newly created role of conductor laureate.

In a statement, Hindoyan said he was deeply honored to become only the third music director in the company’s nearly 40-year history. “From the first rehearsal, I felt a strong connection to the extraordinary musicians, staff, and spirit of this company,” he said. “It is a privilege to follow Maestro James Conlon, whose legacy has shaped L.A. Opera into what it is today — a dynamic and ambitious institution.”

After considering “dozens” of candidates from around the world, L.A. Opera President and CEO Christopher Koelsch said he was “struck by the fluidity of his technique and the clarity and command of his musical ideas” after seeing Hindoyan at the Berlin State Opera in 2016. “His deeply collaborative nature and generous spirit in rehearsal make him a favorite among singers, who are inspired by the space he creates for musical risk-taking and expressive freedom.” Koelsch also praised Hindoyan’s “deep rapport with musicians and audiences alike.”

Hindoyan, 45, is originally from Caracas, Venezuela, and began his career as a violinist. Like departing Los Angeles Philharmonic Music Director Gustavo Dudamel, he attended Venezuela’s renowned public music education program known as El Sistema.

In addition to his role as chief conductor of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, a role he has held since 2021, Hindoyan has served as principal guest conductor for the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra; he has conducted opera productions at New York City’s Metropolitan Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Berlin State Opera, Vienna State Opera, Paris Opera, Royal Swedish Opera, Dresden Semperoper, Madrid’s Teatro Real and Barcelona’s Gran Teatre del Liceu.

In a statement, Conlon said he was happy to pass the baton to someone who shares his passion for opera.

“Domingo is an artist of exceptional depth and imagination, and I know the company will welcome him warmly,” Conlon said.

Hindoyan’s five-year contract will begin July 1, 2026, and continue through the 2031 season. According to a Facebook post from Hindoyan, the new role in L.A. will run concurrently with his position with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra.

Hindoyan, son of Venezuelan violinist Domingo Garcia, a former president of the Orquesta Sinfónica Venezuela, is married to the soprano Sonya Yoncheva, who’s singing at the Metropolitan Opera in Tchaikovsky’s “The Queen of Spades.” (Performances are scheduled on Wednesday and Saturday.) The couple has two children and lives in Switzerland.

In late April, the album “Tchaikovsky: Souvenir de Florence & Symphony No. 6 ‘Pathetique,’” from Hindoyan and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, was released.

OK, which focus group asked for soap made from Sydney Sweeney’s dirty bathwater? Because y’all are in trouble.

In announcing the limited-edition Sydney’s Bathwater Bliss product Thursday, boutique soap company Dr. Squatch said on social media that it exists because “y’all wouldn’t stop asking” for Soap á la Sweeney after the actor did a viral ad for the company last October. “And Sydney said, ‘Let’s do it.’”

So whoever “y’all” is should have to stay up late writing apologies to the rest of us. In cursive.

The soap is said to smell like Sweeney’s childhood homeland, the Pacific Northwest, so anyone who has a warm and innocent association with that area’s pine, Douglas fir and earthy moss essence is likely to have that completely ruined. Of course, if you associate those scents with the parfum de décolleté et de parties féminines — that’s some kind of French for the “scent of cleavage and lady parts” — this soap should make perfect sense.

“Nice humiliation ritual you’ve got going here,” X user @AzBeto1997 tweeted Friday about the soap, which the company swears includes bathwater that has actually touched Sweeney’s naked body. “Way to demean and diminish your customer base. If it were a joke it’d be funny.”

“Weird and gross. I’ve enjoyed the pine tar soap for several years now, but this is goodbye. Enjoy your bath water fetishist customers,” user @MarvinOMars wrote.

“I guarantee you most straight men find the Sydney Sweeney soap thing pretty gross,” @UnderstanderArt said. “She’s not appealing to all straight men with it, but a very particular group that I want nothing to do with.”

Over on Instagram, comments about the limited run of 5,000 bars of soap, on sale next week, seemed more charitable. One poster said the Dr. Squatch marketing department and Sweeney “need an award for this. Hilarious and awesome.”

“We’re not going to heaven, but this is close enough,” another wrote.

“Never will I be in a greater state of absolute bliss than whilst I use this holy concoction, in the form of a bar of soap, to rub across my body,” wrote a third.

Some comments invoked the infamous bathtub scene from “Saltburn.” Many alluded to masturbation. A lot of them were seriously hilarious. All of them suggested in their own quiet ways that the fall of Western civilization was imminent.

“This bar is bizarre, unexpected, and intended to get guys to think more deeply about the ingredients in the products they are putting on their bodies,” said John Ludeke, the Dr. Squatch executive who heads the company’s global marketing department.

So buy the soap, don’t buy the soap, we really don’t care. Remember, this is the same company that insured Nick Cannon’s testicles for $10 million.

Irish Spring, here we come.