deal

Fox Corporation has agreed to acquire the streaming platform Roku Inc. in a deal valued at $22 billion, the companies announced Monday.

The deal will combine the Murdoch family’s media assets, which include its news, sports and broadcast channels, with the San Jose-based streaming platform that reaches 100 million consumers globally.

The acquisition would give Fox access to consumer households at a time when the traditional pay-TV universe continues its slow decline as viewers move away from cable and satellite services to video streaming. Fox already owns the free ad-supported streaming service Tubi, which recently became profitable.

“This is a defining moment for Fox and a natural extension of the deliberate and focused strategy we have been executing for nearly a decade,” Fox Corp. Executive Chair Lachlan Murdoch said in a statement.

By owning Roku, Fox gets access to data from the 100 million households connected to the service, which can be used to better target audiences with advertising. The combination would also make Fox less dependent on traditional pay TV platforms for the distribution of its channels.

According to Nielsen data, 21% of all internet-connected TV viewing comes through Roku. The Roku Channel, which carries 500 ad-supported streaming networks, accounts for 3% of all TV viewing.

An image of a Roku branded TV.

(Roku)

Research firm Emarketer projects ad revenues of $3.57 billion for Roku this year, up 19% from last year.

Lloyd Grief, chief executive of the Los Angeles investment bank Greif & Co., said Roku would have been challenged to compete against far better capitalized competitors in the streaming business and that a sale was “inevitable.”

For Fox, the proposed deal makes them a larger player in the digital advertising business. Emarketer senior analyst Ross Benes said the Roku business will “more than double,” the company’s revenues in that area.

“It remains to be seen how well the combination of a digitally innovating streaming company will mesh with a media conglomerate rooted in legacy assets,” Benes said.. “But the strategy makes sense and it jibes with the continual consolidation that’s occurring in streaming.”

Fox sold its TV and movie production assets to Walt Disney Co. in 2018. Rather than invest heavily in scripted entertainment to compete with emerging streaming companies, Fox decided to concentrate on sports and news.

The Roku deal will put Fox deeper into the distribution network. Over its history, the company has held stakes in satellite TV provider DirecTV and Sky TV.

The companies said they are committed to keeping Roku as a “partner-friendly” platform that carries program services that compete with Fox. Brian Wieser, a consultant at Madison and Wall said that might require some convincing.

“Other content owners may still need Roku’s distribution, but they may be less comfortable with the idea that one of their competitors controls an increasingly important part of the streaming interface,” Wieser wrote in his note on the proposed deal.

Roku shareholders will receive a combination of cash and Fox Corporation stock valued at $160 a share.

The companies say they expect cost savings of $400 million in the combined entity.

Roku was founded in 2002 by Anthony Wood, a British digital entrepreneur. The company launched a streaming device, the Roku player, in 2008. Within six years, the company sold more than 10 million devices, as the popularity of streaming video rapidly grew.

Fox Corp. shares were down 10 to 15% on news of the deal, trading around $55.57 Monday morning. Roku shares were down slightly to $142.

Times staff writer Wendy Lee contributed to this report.

Governments across the world have welcomed the tentative deal between the US and Iran to end the war, calling it a major diplomatic breakthrough. But Israeli politicians have been quick to criticise it, claiming it would undermine Israel’s security.

Israeli journalist Gideon Levy says the US-Iran announcement represents a personal defeat for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his ambitions against Iran and Lebanon. His relationship with US President Donald Trump could also be at risk if Israel jeopardises the deal.

EXPLAINER

US President Donald Trump and Iranian leaders say a deal has been agreed to end more than 100 days of war that killed thousands.

United States President Donald Trump and Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi said on Sunday that they had reached an initial deal to end the war and to resume traffic through the Strait of Hormuz.

Trump said the deal allows for toll-free shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, which has been largely closed since the US and Israel launched an assault on Iran on February 28.

“The Deal with the Islamic Republic of Iran is now complete,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Sunday.

The US and Iran will sign a memorandum of understanding in Switzerland on Friday, said the prime minister of Pakistan, whose country has served as a mediator.

Monday marks 108 days since the war began, with the US and Israel’s attacks on Iran. Here is what’s happening:

What we know about the deal

• The content of the agreement, which follows weeks of fraught negotiations and periodic threats from Trump of new hostilities unless Iran reaches a deal, remained unclear.
• Strait of Hormuz to reopen: Iran’s semi-official Mehr news agency said the draft deal called for reopening the Strait of Hormuz within 30 days under Iranian arrangements. Trump, who turned 80 on Sunday, said the deal allows for toll-free shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, which has been largely closed since the US and Israel launched an assault on Iran on December 28.
• Frozen assets to be released: Iran’s Mehr news agency reported that the US would release $12bn in frozen assets to Iran before the start of negotiations.
• Iran’s enriched uranium: In an interview with The New York Times on Sunday, Trump said Washington was still negotiating whether Iran would suspend its enrichment for 20 years. Trump hinted that he might settle for a 15-year suspension, but said he did not want to negotiate via the press.
• Israel has not commented: There has been no official comment from Israel about the peace agreement.

In Iran

• The secretariat of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council said on Monday that the deal with the US includes the immediate suspension of hostilities on all fronts. “Based on the agreements reached, the war and military operations on all fronts, including Lebanon, will end immediately and permanently as of tonight, and in addition, the naval blockade against Iran will end immediately and completely,” it said in a statement.

In the US

• Democrats slam Trump over war: While Democratic lawmakers welcomed the deal, they criticised the Trump administration’s decisions pertaining to the war. Senator Chris Coons of Delaware said that while the deal moves the situation in the “right direction”, several questions remain. He warned that competing interpretations of what was agreed upon could pose risks. Senator Chris Murphy, who serves on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said the deal is a “surrender to Iran” but that the US should be “glad about it because every day this insane, illegal war continues, we get weaker”.

In Lebanon

• Trump rebukes Israeli attack on Beirut: On Sunday, shortly before the deal was announced by Trump, Israel launched an air attack on Beirut. Trump angrily blamed Israel for delaying the deal’s signing after launching this attack. In an expletive-laden phone interview with US news outlet Axios, Trump fumed about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, saying: “I was so pissed off. I let him know.”

Global response

• Western leaders praise deal: UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer said he was ready to aid the further technical talks between the US and Iran, adding that he hopes the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz will stabilise energy markets.
• French President Emmanuel Macron also praised the deal and said Paris would support the Lebanese government.
• European Union chief Antonio Costa welcomed a deal between the US and Iran to end the Middle East war, adding that the bloc was ready to contribute to a strategy for “lasting peace”.
• UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said it was a “critical step” towards resolving the war in the Middle East.

Global economy

• Oil prices drop: Oil prices slipped to their lowest since March on Monday, with global benchmark Brent crude futures falling $4.08, or 4.7 percent, to $83.25 a barrel by 04:15 GMT. US West Texas Intermediate was at $80.53, down $4.35, or 5.1 percent. Both contracts fell to their lowest levels since March 10 on Monday after tumbling more than 3 percent on Friday.
• Asian markets soar: Markets in Japan soared, more than 5 percent up; in South Korea, they were up 5.3 percent; in Taiwan, they were up 2.4 percent. In Shanghai, they were up 1.3 percent; and in Hong Kong, they were up half a percent; while in Indonesia, they were up 2.07 percent; and in the Philippines, they were up 5.2 percent.

The US and Iran say they have reached a deal to end fighting on all fronts and open the Strait of Hormuz. Al Jazeera’s Osama Bin Javaid explains how both sides are claiming victory, even as tough negotiations over the details still lie ahead.

WASHINGTON — President Trump said Sunday that the United States and Iran have reached a framework agreement to end the war in the Middle East, a breakthrough in months of negotiations aimed at ending the conflict.

The deal, described by diplomats as a memorandum of understanding, commits Tehran to forgo the development or acquisition of nuclear weapons in exchange for helping reopen the Strait of Hormuz, and the paced release of its assets frozen overseas, upon the signing of the deal Friday in Switzerland.

Trump said he has also authorized “the immediate removal of the United States Naval blockade” on Iranian imports.

“Ships of the World, start your engines. Let the oil flow!” Trump wrote in a social media post Sunday evening. It was the president’s 80th birthday.

The full details of the agreement have not been released. Many details — including how Tehran would give up, destroy or dilute its fissile material, or whether Iran would continue treating the international strait as its sovereign waters — will continue to be negotiated in the coming days.

Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said Sunday that mediators are planning to hold a series of meetings this week to “lay the foundation for the technical talks and the official signing ceremony.”

“We would like to thank the United States of America and the Islamic Republic of Iran for their commitment to finding a diplomatic solution to the conflict,” Sharif wrote in a post on X.

The Associated Press reported that negotiations on outstanding issues like Iran’s nuclear program would continue over the next 60 days, according to two senior Pakistani officials who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Vice President JD Vance told Fox News that the White House is “still figuring out the logistics” on whether he or Trump will attend the signing ceremony.

“What we know is that we have a lot of work to do, but a very big win for the American people tonight,” Vance said.”We are just going to keep on working at it, keep on driving energy prices down, keep on ensuring that region of the world is less than a basket case and finally, and most importantly, celebrate, that we can say with confidence Iran will never have a nuclear weapon.”

Iran’s deputy foreign minister, Kazem Gharibabadi, confirmed the agreement on state television but said Iran would not start implementing it until it was signed on Friday. He said the deal followed over 14 hours of talks in Tehran with a representative from Qatar, another mediator.

Iranian state TV showed a banner asserting: “US was forced to sign an agreement to end the war.”

Iran’s commitment to refrain from pursuing nuclear weapons would simply repeat a vow Iran has made several times before, including in its signing of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and its nuclear deal brokered with international powers under the Obama administration over 10 years ago.

Iran has 972 pounds of uranium that is enriched up to 60% purity, a short, technical step from weapons-grade levels of 90%, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency. Under the 2015 international agreement with Iran abandoned by the first Trump administration, Iran’s uranium enrichment was capped at less than 4%, monitored by IAEA inspectors.

The vagueness of the new agreement, the demand for further negotiations to flesh out its details, and the pacing of sanctions relief for Iran are all likely to draw criticism of the president, who launched his political career in 2015 by attacking President Obama’s newly signed nuclear deal as a historically bad agreement.

That deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, followed two years of painstaking negotiations that were predicated on a similar, yet more detailed framework, called the JCPOA.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said in a Sunday morning interview on CBS’ “Face the Nation” that the the difference between the JCPOA and how the Trump administration is handling negotiations is the “threat of military force.”

“The huge difference is we did this from a position of strength,” Hegseth said. “That military might will stay as long as necessary.”

And, as in 2015, Israeli leadership across the political aisle remains deeply skeptical of the agreement, pronouncing they will not be bound by a deal to which they are not a party.

In a phone interview with the New York Times on Sunday afternoon, Trump called Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister of Israel, a “very difficult guy.”

“To be honest with you, he should be very thankful to us for doing this. Because if Iran had a nuclear weapon, Israel wouldn’t be around for two hours,” Trump said.

Since the U.S.-Israeli attacks on Iran that started the war Feb. 28, there have been 3,468 confirmed deaths in Iran, according to independent monitors. In addition, 13 U.S. service members have been killed, and the Israeli war with Hezbollah has killed 2,679 in Lebanon as well as 23 Israelis, including eight civilians.

Dan Perry: The US ‘may pretend’ that Israel can’t attack Hezbollah ‘in order to get this deal done’. Israeli affairs analyst Dan Perry explains how the US, Israel and Iran may react as they get closer to a potential agreement.

Israel has bombed the southern suburbs of Beirut, saying it targeted Hezbollah ‘infrastructure’ in response to cross-border fire. The strikes come as Israel continues to violate a supposed ceasefire with incursions and daily bombardment in southern Lebanon. Trump has said a deal to end the war on Iran will be signed on Sunday.

June 13 (UPI) — President Donald Trump and Pakistan have said that a memorandum of understanding extending the cease-fire between the United States and Iran will be virtually signed Sunday, though Iran has not confirmed the meeting.

Trump posted on Truth Social at 12:45 p.m. EDT Saturday: “The Deal is scheduled to get signed tomorrow, and immediately after it is signed, the Hormuz Strait is OPEN TO ALL.”

He also posted a screenshot of a Saturday morning tweet by Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif: “We are closer to a peace deal than ever before. With finalization expected in the next 24 hours, Pakistan is preparing for the electronic signing of the peace deal immediately after, followed by technical level talks next week.”

The Pakistani foreign minister confirmed that the signing was set for Sunday, Axios reported.

But Iran said there were no talks planned for Sunday. Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Esmail Baghaei said there were no plans for an Iranian negotiating team to travel to Geneva or elsewhere in the next day or two, according to IRIB, Iran’s state broadcaster, The New York Times reported. While Iran could also sign electronically, it’s unclear if the signing event will happen.

One of the main reasons the signing will be virtual is that Vice President JD Vance, who has been negotiating the peace deal, wouldn’t be able to go to the signings and be back in the United States before Trump leaves for the G7 summit in France Monday, Axios said.

Also, Sunday is the president’s 80th birthday and the day of the UFC fight on the White House lawn.

United States President Donald Trump has said an initial agreement to end the US-Israeli war with Iran is “scheduled to get signed tomorrow”.

But that announcement, made on Trump’s Truth Social account on Saturday, contradicts an earlier statement by Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei.

In remarks carried by Iran’s IRNA news agency, Baghaei said a memorandum of understanding would not be signed on Sunday and that negotiators are not planning to travel immediately to Geneva, Switzerland, in preparation for such an event.

According to Baghaei, a signing could happen “in the coming days”.

Hours later, Trump wrote, “The Deal is scheduled to get signed tomorrow, and immediately after it is signed, the Hormuz Strait is OPEN TO ALL.” Sunday marks Trump’s 80th birthday.

In recent days, Iran and the US have repeatedly contradicted each other when describing the details of the anticipated agreement, even as both sides have broadly signalled that a deal was closer than ever before.

Still, no terms have been officially released, with US and Iranian officials on Friday stressing that the agreement had not been finalised.

Beyond opening the Strait of Hormuz, Trump said in Saturday’s post that the agreement would be a “A WALL TO NO NUCLEAR WEAPON!” and that “no money would exchange hands”.

Trump also maintained that “at the appropriate time, when all is calm, we will go in and get the Nuclear Dust”, referring to Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium.

But speaking on Iran’s Press TV on Friday, Iranian ⁠⁠Foreign ⁠⁠Minister Abbas Araghchi said the initial memorandum of understanding would only be a launch point for negotiations about the future of Iran’s nuclear programme.

He added that the signing would result in an immediate pause in fighting, but that Iran and Oman would continue to administer the Strait of Hormuz.

The issue of lifting foreign sanctions against Iran and unfreezing the country’s assets would be discussed following the signing of the memorandum of understanding, Araghchi said.

From threats to diplomacy

The latest flurry of diplomacy came after the US and Iran traded strikes for two days this week, threatening to end a pause in fighting that has persisted since April 8.

The US and Israel launched the war on Iran on February 28, amid ongoing indirect talks on the future of Iran’s nuclear programme.

The US and Israel had also launched a 12-day war on Iran in 2025, during another round of nuclear talks.

Iranian officials have said that deep distrust towards the US has slowed the progress towards creating a lasting agreement to bring the current war to an end.

Trump, meanwhile, has repeatedly pledged to reach a deal that would surpass the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), struck under his Democratic rival, former President Barack Obama.

That agreement, from which Trump unilaterally withdrew in 2018, saw Tehran agree to limit its nuclear programme and allow for international inspections in exchange for sanctions relief.

For years, Iran has maintained that it is building a nuclear programme for civilian use only and is not seeking a nuclear weapon.

In his post on Truth Social, Trump again pledged that any deal reached would be more stringent than the JCPOA.

“Our relationship with Iran is a much different and better one than previous Administrations have had,” he said.

“Hopefully, this process will all work out quickly, easily, and smoothly,” he added.

“If it doesn’t, we have the ultimate alternative, hopefully never to be used again!” he wrote, without elaborating on what his threat meant.

Henry Ensher, a former US ambassador, says the US–Iran agreement is not a final settlement but only the start of a process, with many ways it could still go wrong.

Israel has continued to attack Lebanon, despite Iran saying it was included in a potential memorandum of understanding with the US. Fresh forced displacement orders were issued on Saturday morning, following Israeli bombardment throughout Friday night on towns and villages in the south.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Paramount wants to finalize its purchase by September.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

June 12 (UPI) — Iran said it had yet to make a final decision on an agreement with the United States to end the war, despite U.S. President Donald Trump saying it was a done deal that could be signed as early as this weekend.

Speaking on Thursday night, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei said Tehran was reviewing a proposal brokered by Qatar and Pakistan but dismissed reports agreement had been reached as “speculation,” adding that “nothing has been finalized.”

“So far, Iran has not reached a final conclusion on the agreement. Whenever we reach a conclusion that the text of the [memorandum of] understanding is in the interest of the Iranian nation, we will announce it.

“The status of negotiations was clear to us from the beginning and a major part of the text had been finalized, but the Americans kept changing their positions,” said Baqaei who stressed Iran would never retreat from or compromise “on what it defines as its red lines.”

Baqaei’s comments came hours after Trump called off planned large-scale strikes against Iran, including Kharg Island, from which 90% of Iran’s crude oil exports are shipped, saying the Iranian leadership, and other regional powers, had approved “final points” of a deal to end the war.

“Based on the fact that discussions with the Islamic Republic of Iran have been brought to the highest level of Iranian leadership and approved, I have, as President of the United States of America, cancelled the scheduled strikes and bombings against Iran this evening,” Trump said Thursday afternoon.

Trump later said the deal was “subject to finalization of documents, which should get done, over the next few days” and that there would “probably” be a signing ceremony, with Europe the most likely location.

The status of the Strait of Hormuz was also in contention with an announcement by U.S. Central Command that the key shipping route was not controlled by Iran and was “open for transit” to all vessels not in breach of the U.S. blockade of Iran, contradicted by Baqaei.

“The Strait of Hormuz remains closed due to illegal U.S. actions,” he said.

Trump has stated an agreement to end the fighting was imminent on multiple occasions since a cease-fire, originally for two weeks, came into force on April 28.

The deal being negotiated is a memorandum of understanding extending the cease-fire for 60 days to allow larger negotiations on the main issues, including Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium and its nuclear program.

Oil prices reacted strongly to the developments overnight with both Brent crude, the international benchmark, and West Texas Intermediate, falling sharply in the global market. The Brent contract for August delivery was down $3.83 a barrel at $86.54 in mid-morning trade in London on Friday while American crude for July delivery was changing hands at $83.88 a barrel, down $3.83.

Wall Street and Asian markets rally on hopes for an end to the US-Israel war on Iran.

Stock markets have surged following US President Donald Trump’s announcement that he called off planned strikes against Iran and a peace deal with Tehran is imminent.

Wall Street’s benchmark S&P500 index finished nearly 1.8 percent higher on Thursday, ending a three-day streak of losses for the biggest single-day gain since April.

The tech-focused Nasdaq Composite jumped 2.5 percent, while the older, blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average gained about 1.9 percent.

The rally continued in the Asia Pacific on Friday, with markets in Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Australia racking up gains.

South Korea’s Kospi, the best-performing major index this year, surged more than 8 percent in morning trading, while Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 rose as much as 4 percent.

Taiwan’s TAIEX gained about 2.4 percent, and Australia’s ASX 200 rose about 1.8 percent.

In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng Index was up more than 1 percent.

Brent crude, the primary international benchmark for oil prices, fell about 1 percent to below $89.50 a barrel on hopes for a return to normality in the Strait of Hormuz, which in peacetime carries about one-fifth of global energy supplies.

The market rebound came after Trump on Thursday suggested that a deal to end the war on Iran could be signed as soon as this weekend.

“We just made a great settlement of the war with Iran… subject to finalisation of documents,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office of the White House.

Iran has not publicly confirmed Trump’s claims, but a Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman told reporters a memorandum of understanding with the US is “under consideration”.

“For the rally to be sustained, investors will want to not only see the actual deal being signed, but a complete reopening of the Strait of Hormuz,” Khoon Goh, head of Asia research for ANZ Bank, told Al Jazeera.

“Only then will we see the gains extend.”

Fabien Yip, a market analyst at the online broker IG Group in Sydney, Australia, said the rally reflected a “meaningful easing of geopolitical risk”, as well as anticipation over Friday’s market debut of SpaceX, set to be the largest of its kind in history.

“The broader read on today’s Asian follow-through is that dip-buying interest remains genuine,” Yip told Al Jazeera.

“That matters for how you characterise what’s happened over the past week.

“This looks less like a structural break in the bull market and more like a healthy reset after a rapid, near-straight-line advance, the kind of consolidation that can potentially extend a rally’s longevity.”

The Ellison family-controlled Harbor Lights Entertainment has sold its Showcase Cinemas theater chain to a major European cinema group in a $30-million deal.

Belgium-based Kinepolis will soon operate 13 cinemas across the United States. Seven are in Massachusetts, four in New York, one in Ohio and one in Rhode Island.

David Ellison, who is now in charge of Paramount Skydance, acquired National Amusements last year from the Redstone family. He renamed the company Harbor Lights. National Amusements was the start of Redstone’s media empire, which at one point included control of CBS, Paramount and Viacom.

Paramount is in the process of acquiring Warner Bros. Discovery in a $111-billion deal. Under the proposal, Ellison has said the two studios will release 30 films per year. But he and his team would also have to make $6 billion in cuts and take on $79 billion in deal debt.

The deal is awaiting regulatory approval, but officials in several state states recently announced plans to try to block the merger. The potential lawsuit would seek to challenge the proposed merger on antitrust grounds, arguing it would decrease competition, lower wages and lead to widespread job losses.

With the sale of the theaters, Kinepolis will add 164 screens to its portfolio. The company was formed in 1997 and currently operates 63 cinemas in Europe and nearly 60 theaters in the U.S. and Canada.

The newly acquired theaters welcomed about 4 million visitors and generated more than $90 million in revenue last year.

“This acquisition allows us to expand our market position in the U.S. from Michigan to the East Coast with an asset and a team that enable us to implement Kinepolis’ operational model and corporate strategy, ultimately enhancing the experience for moviegoers in these markets,” Eddy Duquenne, Kinepolis’s chief executive, said in a statement.

The company said Showcase Cinemas would retain its name. It expects the acquisition to be complete by the end of the summer.

Times staff writer Wendy Lee contributed to this report.

World governing body Fifa has struck a landmark deal with global players’ union Fifpro that means players will be represented when major decisions affecting the game are agreed.

Faced with a number of separate legal claims around player welfare, Fifa has agreed a memorandum of understanding with Fifpro, which it says “marks [a] paradigm shift in governance of professional football, with transfer system and player welfare standards”.

For the first time, Fifpro will have a veto over key areas of the game’s governance and also observer access, with speaking rights, at the powerful Fifa Council, the decision-making body of global football.

Fifa says it has struck the deal on the condition that all legal proceedings against it, initiated by Fifpro, are withdrawn.

In October 2024, Fifpro filed an “abuse of dominance” claim against Fifa around the overcrowded match calendar.

Earlier this week, former France midfielder Lassana Diarra reached a settlement, external in his damages claim, initially for 65 million euros (£56.1m), against Fifa and the Belgian Football Association after his contract was cancelled by Russian club Lokomotiv Moscow and he was subsequently denied a transfer to Charleroi in 2014.

One of the key elements of the agreement is that players will have greater protection from what are regarded as abusive practices, including forcing them to train on their own, withholding passports or abusing registration procedures.

In those circumstances, players will be able to cancel their contracts and still receive the payments they are due under those contracts, claim compensation for justifiable expenses and potentially demand an extra six months’ pay in damages.

Clubs that fail to respect their contractual obligations will face swifter and more effective sporting and financial consequences.

Fifpro president Sergio Marchi said: “This agreement represents an important step forward for football. Ensuring that players and their representatives have a meaningful voice in decisions affecting their careers is not only beneficial for footballers, but for the game as a whole.”

Speaking at the Azteca Stadium in Mexico City a day before the World Cup begins, Fifa president Gianno Infantino hailed the agreement.

“It’s about unity, about bringing everyone together,” he said.

“We’ve always been having dialogues. Now, sometimes you don’t agree, when you don’t agree, well, you can go and say it to everyone, or you can sit down and discuss and see what makes sense.

“So, we signed a memorandum of understanding with Fifpro, everything is agreed.”