Saudi digital payments company barq announced the close of a series A funding round worth $329.5 million, at a valuation of $1.85 billion, marking a new milestone that reflects the growth the company has achieved since its launch. The funding round cements its position among the fastest-growing fintech companies in Saudi Arabia and the region.
The round saw participation from Noon Investments, Sohar International Bank, and M20 Fund, a step that reflects investor confidence in barq’s trajectory and future potential, and underscores the appeal of the investment opportunities emerging in the fintech sector across the Kingdom and the region.
The round follows a standout growth journey for barq, which has now surpassed 15 million users within two years, from more than 210 nationalities, alongside the expansion of its ecosystem of digital financial services and solutions — reflecting the growing demand for the company’s products and its ability to build a broad user base within a record period of time.
The value of funds processed has also surpassed SR440 billion ($117.2 billion), an indicator that reflects the scale of activity barq has achieved and the widening use of its digital financial services since launch.
Based on its valuation, barq has become one of the fastest companies in the region to reach unicorn status, and among the fastest globally within the fintech sector, reflecting the pace of growth the company has achieved within a short period since its launch.
The funding round will support barq’s next phase of growth, by strengthening operational efficiency, accelerating the development of products and services, investing in new financial and technology solutions, and expanding into new regional and international markets — contributing to delivering a more advanced and accessible digital financial experience for users.
This achievement comes at a time when Saudi Arabia’s fintech sector is undergoing exceptional development, driven by continued progress in financial and digital infrastructure, a supportive regulatory environment, the targets of Saudi Vision 2030, and the Saudi Central Bank’s efforts to advance digital payments and support innovation in financial services.
The close of the round marks a major milestone in barq’s journey, reflecting its ability to move within a short period from a phase of rapid growth to building a broad-scale digital financial platform, underpinned by a growing user base, an increasing volume of operations, and expansion ambitions aimed at strengthening its presence in the fintech sector at both the regional and international levels.
KHARTOUM: The World Food Programme’s funding for Sudan — the world’s largest hunger crisis — has fallen by about half this year, its acting head told Reuters, as war drives more people into hunger while the regional crisis raises prices and aid budgets plummet.
Speaking from the Darfur region after a trip across the country, acting Executive Director Carl Skau said that while access had represented humanitarians’ largest obstacle in the past, now “we have (a) presence that we are not fully utilising because of the lack of funding.”
The gap to sustain current operations was just short of $300 million, he said.
This year, we’re about half what we were in terms of funding last year, says Carl Skau, Acting executive director of The World Food Programme
“This year, we’re about half what we were in terms of funding last year,” Skau said. Last year, the agency received $645 million, but almost three-quarters into this year funding is only at $206 million.
The war between Sudan’s army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces has devastated wide swathes of the country, displacing up to 14 million people, ruining harvests and decimating the economy.
Almost 20 million people face hunger in Sudan, but budget cuts have forced the agency to focus efforts on the 5 million most in need, of whom it has recently scaled up to reach 4 million people.
Even then, the organization, the UN’s largest by budget, is forced to make difficult decisions.
In Tawila, North Darfur, the makeshift home to about 1 million people, the agency is able to reach everyone monthly but with only a half ration that covers two weeks’ food, Skau said.
“It’s not clear how they really are surviving the other two weeks,” he said.
In El-Obeid, the central Sudanese city where about 1 million and counting have sought refuge since the start of the war in April 2023, the agency is only able to provide help to those who arrived in the past several months.
“We are providing, but less and less. A year ago it was better because of resources,” Skau said.
agency recently began providing aid in the city of Al-Fashir, once home to 1 million people, where an RSF attack last year, “bore the hallmarks of genocide,” according to investigators. Skau said, “there is little sign of life having returned.”
His organization is not the only one struggling as major donors reduce aid. The International Organization for Migration said on Monday that emergency relief supplies for hundreds of thousands of people displaced by the war could run out within weeks unless donors step in with urgent funding.
The UN agency said supplies of shelter materials, sanitation items and emergency household goods are expected to run out by the end of September. The aid system itself can only keep functioning until December without more money.
Aid groups like IOM are struggling with funding shortfalls after the Trump administration — the US was previously the world’s biggest aid donor — cut billions of dollars in foreign assistanceto UN agencies and charities over the past year. Other major donor countries have also cut aid budgets, citing tight finances and higher defense spending.
“We simply can’t turn our back on the people of Sudan,” IOM Director General Amy Pope said in a statement, adding: “The entire humanitarian system could collapse within weeks if we don’t act now.”
IOM says 8.6 million people remain displaced within Sudan, while another 4.9 million have returned to their homes. The agency says it needs $15 million to keep the aid pipeline running for the rest of the year, supporting about 305,000 people. Without it, more than 100 humanitarian organizations would struggle to quickly deliver lifesaving aid.
Europe’s answer to OpenAI has just become considerably better funded.
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The Paris-based company Mistral AI announced its Series D on Tuesday, three years after being seeded, with the memory chip giant Samsung leading alongside the EU-backed Scaleup Europe Fund, managed by EQT, and existing investor PSG Equity.
The step up is steep.
Mistral was valued at €11.7 billion in 2025 after a €1.7 billion Series C led by Dutch chipmaker ASML, meaning the company has almost doubled its valuation in a year.
Much of the money is going into concrete rather than code. CEO Arthur Mensch announced the funding would build out data centres and computing capacity that Mistral can rent to others but that will also ensure autonomy.
“Long term, the plan is to fully rely on capacity that we are building ourselves, and so that means that the amount of compute that we own is going to grow around 100% in the next five years,” Mensch said, adding that the company would train “bigger and faster models.”
Mistral is already spending €4 billion on data centres across France and Europe, with one facility running outside Paris and another under construction in Sweden.
It raised further debt financing in March for the same purpose, and Microsoft has agreed to fund capacity from its European network, built around thousands of Nvidia chips.
Both Microsoft and Nvidia are also investors in Mistral, with the latter also adding exposure in this funding round.
The company says more than 125 enterprises across 20 countries use its technology, and Mistral projects it will pass a billion in annual recurring revenue by the end of 2026.
Europe lags behind in the AI race
Despite the news, Europe continues to critically lag behind in the global AI race.
Mistral’s valuation sits far below OpenAI and Anthropic, and Europe’s wider AI sector remains a fraction of the American one, with enterprise adoption across the bloc running at around 13.5%.
Other European contenders exist but are smaller.
Germany’s Aleph Alpha focuses on government and regulated industries rather than competing at the frontier, while Helsing has grown quickly in defence applications, and Switzerland’s Apertus offers fully open models and training data.
Brussels is trying to close the gap.
The InvestAI initiative carries a €200 billion headline commitment, and in July the Commission opened tenders for up to seven AI gigafactories, aiming to unlock more than €30 billion in investment, though those sites are not expected to operate until next year or 2028.
Thirteen smaller AI factories are already being built across seven EU countries.
The AI Act became applicable in August, but its toughest obligations were pushed back by the digital omnibus agreed in May, with high-risk rules now landing in December 2027 and August 2028, a delay Brussels framed as making the policy more innovation-friendly.
The anti-immigration Reform UK party said two of its senior officials had stepped down on Friday, following allegations that they were secretly filmed appearing to discuss ways to circumvent UK electoral laws on foreign donations.
The far-right party, whose popularity has soared in the past two years, is already embroiled in several other funding scandals involving its leader Nigel Farage. On Friday, it announced an internal probe into the latest case, which was brought to light by a Channel 4 investigation.
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Reform is currently holding its annual party conference in Birmingham, central England.
Here’s what we know about the foreign funding claims and how they could affect British politics.
What did the Channel 4 investigation show?
Channel 4, an independent broadcaster, aired footage of senior Reform officials Dan Jukes and James Orr meeting with undercover reporters who were posing as prospective Reform backers from the United States.
In one instance during the programme, which was broadcast on Thursday night, footage was shown of Jukes appearing to talk about a proposal for Reform to receive a 500,000-pound ($675,000) donation from one of the men, who was presenting himself as an American financier, through his son, who he said lives in the UK.
The “son” was actually another journalist from investigative group Verbatim, which recorded the exchange.
In separate footage, Orr appeared to discuss a plan for the US donor to fund opinion polls for Reform UK rather than donating the money directly.
He told the undercover reporter that “we just don’t have British-resident donors, British entities, that would support us”.
During the investigation, Verbatim reported that Reform officials arranged for the US donor to pay more than 30,000 pounds ($40,500) to fund three opinion polls, without disclosing the source of the funds.
Channel 4 said it had verified the findings from Verbatim, an offshoot of the Centre for Climate Reporting.
What are the UK’s rules against foreign funding for political parties?
Under UK electoral law, political parties may only accept donations from British voters or UK-registered businesses. Donations from individuals or organisations based overseas are strictly forbidden.
In a statement on Friday, a UK Electoral Commission spokesperson said political parties must report all “permissible donations” they accept exceeding 11,180 pounds ($15,120) and all “impermissible donations” exceeding 500 pounds ($676).
“Parties are responsible for ensuring their internal processes and controls are fit for purpose,” the spokesperson said. “Information about any potential attempt to evade the controls on donations is for the police to consider.”
How has Reform responded to the allegations?
Following the programme’s broadcast, Reform initially issued a statement denying any wrongdoing and claiming the allegations were a hoax.
In a later statement, however, the party said it was conducting an internal probe and that Orr and Jukes had stepped down pending its outcome.
Orr, the party’s policy head, said he had agreed to step down temporarily and would “cooperate fully” with the investigation.
Jukes, Farage’s long-term aide, denied any wrongdoing but said he had “stepped back from politics in order to clear my name”.
Advisor Dan Jukes speaks to UK Reform party leader Nigel Farage [File: Hollie Adams/Reuters]
Farage accused the undercover journalists of “entrapment” and told broadcaster LBC, “they got a couple of our contractors to say things that perhaps should not have been said”.
“And as a result of that, you know, they have been removed this morning. And yeah, you know, I’m not happy about it,” Farage said.
“The party has broken no laws, the party has not taken any dodgy money or anything like that whatsoever,” Farage insisted.
Will Reform face legal consequences?
It remains to be seen. The UK’s ruling Labour Party has written to the police asking them to investigate possible criminal offences.
The Metropolitan Police said it was aware of the allegations in the broadcast and would assess any information provided to them.
This does not amount to the formal launch of an investigation.
Why does this matter?
The latest donation scandal is another blow for Reform, which has seen its place as the UK’s most popular party slip in opinion polls in recent months.
Last year, polling by YouGov suggested that Reform had become the most popular political party, and would likely win a UK general election if one had been held then. At that point, Labour was trailing far behind in the polls – projected to win just 27.3 percent of parliamentary seats, compared with Reform’s 41.7 percent. The former ruling Conservative Party stood at just 7 percent.
But a poll this week by YouGov showed Reform now tied with the UK’s left-wing Labour Party with 23 percent support each. The Conservatives have caught up with 20 percent.
This is not the first funding scandal Reform has grappled with, either. In July, Farage dramatically stepped down as Member of Parliament for Clacton amid allegations, also revealed in the UK media, that convicted fraudster George Cottrell, 32, recruited and paid three staff to work on Farage’s social media before the 2024 general election and has continued to allow Farage to use a five-storey Georgian townhouse he rented near Buckingham Palace.
Farage ultimately re-won his seat in Clacton at a by-election but still faces the prospect of a parliamentary inquiry into undeclared funding of 5 million pounds ($6.7m) from Thailand-based billionaire and crypto investor Christopher Harborne, who paid for Farage’s personal security before he announced his candidacy in the 2024 general election. So far, Farage denies all wrongdoing.
This week, Farage told the BBC that the parliamentary inquiry was unfair. He said there was a “wilful attempt, and it’s gone on now for months, to say that everything to do with Reform, that every individual involved with Reform is somehow a crook”.
This is evidence of “the establishment in a very coordinated way fighting back”, he claimed.
However, Justin Fisher, professor of political science at Brunel University of London, told Al Jazeera Reform’s latest donation scandal would further hurt Farage’s standing both within and outside his party, and could cost Reform votes in the next elections.
“If this was an isolated incident, then Reform would probably be able to brush it off,” said Fisher. “But it comes on top of serious questions about a donation to Nigel Farage, and a donation to Reform which allegedly had overseas links. This all contributes to a narrative which Reform is having great difficulty avoiding.”
Resignations come after documentary alleges party arranged for overseas company to fund polling.
Published On 4 Sep 20264 Sep 2026
Two officials from Britain’s Reform UK have stepped down amid the latest in a series of funding scandals for the far-right political party.
Party officials James Orr and Dan Jukes announced on Friday that they would step down, following the broadcast of an investigative television documentary. The party, which has seen support slide amid numerous reports regarding infringement of party donation rules, said it would launch a probe into the latest allegations.
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The undercover investigation by Channel 4 News alleged that the Reform UK officials breached political donation rules by arranging to have polling paid for by an overseas company.
In the documentary, Jukes is seen suggesting to an undercover reporter how to evade electoral law to make donations to the party from abroad.
Sitting at the table, Party leader Nigel Farage says all is “above board” as the reporter tells him that he has been in talks with Orr for some time.
The resignation of long-term Farage aide Jukes, and Reform’s head of policy Orr, comes on the eve of the party’s annual conference.
Farage – who has been dogged by questions over money received on a personal basis as well as by Reform in recent months – insisted on Friday in a radio interview that the party has “broken no laws”.
However, he added, “entrapped conversations don’t look good, and that’s why we’ve [launched the party investigation]”.
A spokesperson for London’s Met Police said it was “aware of media reporting … involving political party donations and an alleged breach of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 relating to polling”.
The ruling Labour Party, as well as the opposition Liberal Democrats, said they had reported Reform to the police following the revelations, which the anti-immigration party initially dismissed as a “hoax”.
Farage sought to hit back by accusing other political parties of “selling peerages”.
“In the world of political funding, all sorts of things have been done over decades that are wrong,” he asserted. “We as a party have done nothing wrong. A couple of our contractors have said things that shouldn’t have been said.”
Amid the series of funding scandals to have hit Reform in recent months, the disclosure of an undeclared personal gift of 5 million pounds ($6.7m) to Farage by cryptocurrency billionaire Christopher Harborne has done the most damage so far.
Both criminal and parliamentary investigations into Harborne’s donations – he has also given Reform more than 25 million pounds ($33.6m) – are continuing.
Scrutiny is focused on Tether, Harborne’s cryptocurrency, which has been widely linked to drug cartels, fraud and human trafficking.
Amid the storm, Farage made international headlines by resigning his parliamentary seat to prompt a by-election, in which he cast himself as taking on “the establishment”.
With other major parties dismissing the move as a stunt and refusing to put up candidates, the populist leader won comfortably, although the nearly 10,000 votes achieved by his closest rival, “intergalactic space warrior” Count Binface, illustrated significant opposition.
WASHINGTON — The House passed a short-term measure Tuesday to fund the federal government into early December, a move designed to avoid a chaotic shutdown as lawmakers campaign for reelection.
Lawmakers needed to act before the fiscal year concludes at the end of September to avoid a funding lapse. They were determined not to bump up against that deadline during the campaign season following this past year’s historic shutdowns.
The House passed the bill by a vote of 370-48. The Senate has already overwhelmingly approved the measure, so it now moves to President Donald Trump’s desk for his signature.
“It gives the nation and our constituents certainty, certainty that the government will remain open, certainty that our service members will be paid,” said Rep. Tom Cole, the Republican chairman of the House Appropriations Committee.
A record 43-day shutdown occurred last fall when the two parties disagreed on renewing an expiring tax credit that lowers the cost of health coverage obtained through Affordable Care Act marketplaces. Then came the shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security, which lasted 76 days before lawmakers agreed to fund much of the department but not its immigration enforcement operations.
Lawmakers were wary of a repeat before voters go to the polls. They also blamed the other party for the recent impasses.
“We’re going to avoid the threat of another Democratic shutdown,” House Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters in advance of the vote.
Rep. Rosa DeLauro, the lead Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, encouraged her Democratic colleagues to vote for the measure during a closed-door meeting Tuesday morning.
She said the bill was much improved from the product that passed the House earlier this summer on a mostly party-line basis. For example, she said it prevents the Department of Homeland Security from transferring funds to the Border Patrol, and it delays a proposed rule that would give political appointees in the Trump administration more authority to stop federal grants from going out for programs they view as not in line with the president’s agenda. Those changes were made when the Senate approved its version of the bill.
Democrats fear the administration will use the proposed regulation on grants to steer money away from Democratic-led states. DeLauro called the delay an important first step, but said more must be done to block the policy from taking effect.
“Whether a community receives disaster relief should not depend on who they voted for in the last election,” DeLauro said.
The short-term measure funds federal agencies generally at current levels through Dec. 11. It will give lawmakers more time to find compromise on a full-year measure, though that will likely be quite difficult.
Republicans are seeking hundreds of billions of dollars in additional spending for the military while cutting most non-defense programs. Democrats say that’s a non-starter and insist on a bipartisan approach that treats domestic programs with parity.
WASHINGTON — House lawmakers return to Washington on Monday with a short to-do list after five weeks back in their home districts. The first order of business is likely a vote on a stopgap spending bill designed to keep the federal government fully funded through early December, removing the possibility of a shutdown before the midterm elections.
With election season getting underway, votes are also expected on measures designed to amplify the GOP’s messaging strategy going into November, most notably a resolution condemning socialism. Republicans are trying to tie the Democratic Party in general to the democratic socialist candidates who have succeeded this year in running for office.
Another item that could make its way onto the agenda is a Senate-passed bill that imposes sanctions on key segments of the Russian economy and allows President Donald Trump to impose steep tariffs on goods imported from countries that buy the vast majority of Russian oil and gas. The effort led by the late Sen. Lindsey Graham aims to deprive Russian President Vladimir Putin of revenue used to finance the war against Ukraine.
The bill passed 86-11 in the Senate. House passage would send the bill to Trump’s desk for his signature. However, some key House Democrats oppose the bill. The bill grants Trump sweeping new tariff authorities that some lawmakers fear could be used to punish allies rather than foes.
A vote on the bill is not scheduled this week, but proponents are working to have it taken up before lawmakers leave Washington to focus solely on their reelection campaigns.
The return to Washington also brings a renewed focus on improper behavior by lawmakers as the House will have its first chance to act on a recommendation from the House Ethics Committee to censure Rep. Chuck Edwards, R-N.C., for engaging in persistent unprofessional and inappropriate conduct toward two young female aides in his congressional office.
Edwards implores colleagues to reject censure vote
Edwards has disputed the committee’s conclusion that he failed to adhere to the spirit of the rules prohibiting sexual harassment and unwanted advances to House staffers. He points to the committee’s conclusion that found no evidence he “engaged in sexual activity or explicitly propositioned any individual under his employ.”
Edwards said he was not asking lawmakers to approve of every gift, compliment or social interaction, but to distinguish between conduct that someone might find unconventional and conduct that actually establishes sexual harassment.
“Individual acts that were not themselves prohibited were gathered together, assigned the most damaging possible interpretation, and then used collectively to support a conclusion far more serious than the underlying evidence,” Edwards wrote in a letter to colleagues first reported by NOTUS.
The committee said Edwards provided the two staffers with lavish and recurrent gifts, made comments regarding their dress and appearance, invited them to intimate dinners and vacations, sent notes regarding his effusive affection and invited them to other activities as a way to spend time together.
A vote to censure registers the House’s deep disapproval of a lawmaker’s conduct that does not meet the threshold for expulsion. Edwards dropped his reelection plans after the committee’s report came out.
Avoiding another shutdown
House Speaker Mike Johnson is expected to tee up the funding bill early in the week. The bill underwent some significant changes in the Senate, which made it more palatable for Democrats. It delays a proposed rule from the Office of Management and Budget that would give political appointees more power over the distribution of federal grants. It also includes language to ensure the administration can’t transfer funds to the Border Patrol.
But a provision that delays for one month a federal ban on intoxicating hemp THC products has prompted criticism from many GOP lawmakers. As a result, GOP leaders will likely place the bill on a fast-track process that avoids a separate procedural vote. Suspension bills require a two-thirds vote to pass, meaning a significant number from both parties need to support the measure for it to pass and advance to Trump’s desk.
Lawmakers are anxious to avoid the possibility of a shutdown as voters weigh their options going into November. The funding bill passed by a 90-6 vote in the Senate, showing that lawmakers from both political parties want to avoid a repeat of the two historic shutdowns that occurred this past year.
A new plan by California lawmakers to help fund the state’s struggling journalism organizations could advance in the coming days but faces an uncertain future.
Assembly Bill 2222 would create refundable tax credits for California local news organizations based on the number of journalists they employ, which in practice would provide direct cash infusions to participating newsrooms.
The bill, introduced by Assemblymember Christopher M. Ward (D-San Diego) earlier this year, is the latest effort to provide a lifeline for the news industry. There has been much talk both in California and globally about government support for journalism. But this is potentially the largest relief plan to date, with the state tax board estimating it would make more than $40 million available to newsrooms annually. The bill passed the Assembly and needs approval from the Senate to reach the governor’s desk.
Publishers, journalists and their unions have long argued that online search and social media platforms are harming the journalism business by eating up advertising revenue while publishing content they don’t pay for.
Previous attempts by California lawmakers focused on forcing Google, Meta and other platforms to pay their share, but this proposal has a unique solution to funding the program.
Ward described the bill as an important step in keeping a strong press corps in California, which he said is more important than ever in an era of digital misinformation.
Ward said the bill would “strengthen democracy” and “keep the lights on” in newsrooms. He cited President Trump’s own attacks on the press. “We thought, ‘What more can California do to help support them?’” he said.
Trump’s efforts to strip public radio and television stations of federal funds and the steep downward profit-losing trend for commercial newsrooms has meant, Ward said, that newsrooms have severely scaled back operations. Rural areas in particular have altogether lost their news sources, with many forced to shut down.
The amount of advertising to local newspapers declined by 82% — a $40 billion drop — since 2000, Pew Research Center said in 2023. And almost 40% of all local U.S. newspapers have vanished, according to an annual report on the state of local news put out by Northwestern University’s Medill journalism school.
A report last year by data firm Muck Rack and Rebuild Local News, a nonprofit advocating for government help for the journalism sector that is sponsoring AB 2222, estimates there has been a 75% decline in the number of local journalists per 100,000 of population in the U.S. since 2002.
The law, if approved, would work by assigning a “job retention credit” of $20,000 per journalist for up to five positions, and after that $15,000 for every additional journalist. Part-time positions would be awarded half-credits. It also stacks an additional $15,000 credit for each new hire, to incentivize expanding journalist headcounts.
To pay for the credits, the bill would amend California’s tax code to align with a little-discussed component of Trump’s “Big Beautiful” tax bill that expanded taxes on some companies by eliminating a deduction for executive salaries of over $1 million annually.
It is common practice for the state to consider aligning its tax code with the federal structure to make filing taxes easier and administering them more cheaply. But California has not yet sought to adopt this federal tax expansion.
As a tax measure, AB 2222 requires approval from a supermajority two-thirds of the Legislature, no easy task in an election year and with a fast-approaching deadline for lawmakers to approve bills Monday, which marks the end of this year’s legislative session.
The California Taxpayers Assn. and groups representing business interests such as the California Chamber of Commerce oppose the bill because it raises taxes on employers that they argue already face billions of dollars in new taxes. They contend that the higher costs will be passed along to consumers, and they also take issue with funneling a new funding source to a niche industry without going through the budget process.
“Financing an industry-specific tax credit with a tax increase on an unrelated group of taxpayers is an unsound way to budget,” the taxpayers association wrote in its letter of opposition.
Republican lawmaker Carl DeMaio of San Diego has vocalized his opposition in discussions of the bill, criticizing the idea of providing funding to outlets that make political endorsements. DeMaio did not provide a response to a request for comment about his current position on the proposal.
The bill’s backers are hopeful it will wriggle through this legislative session and land on the governor’s desk.
Yet they are not sure whether Newsom will sign it. In the past, Newsom has been reluctant to greenlight laws that tinker with the state budget after those fiscal discussions conclude in the first half of the calendar year.
The governor’s finance office issued an analysis opposing the bill for not including a cap on the tax credits, thus creating “unlimited fiscal liability to the state,” and argued the bill mainly subsidizes existing activity rather than encouraging the creation of new jobs.
An analysis by the state’s Franchise Tax Board — the agency that levies personal and corporate income taxes — found that the funding stream would bring $29 million in new revenue to the state’s general fund in the 2026-27 year and $58 million the following year.
Meanwhile, the estimated amount of the tax credit for local news organizations would be $19 million the first year and $43 million the second year. After accounting for the tax credits as well as the administrative costs, the budget would still see a net increase of $10 million and $15 million in those years.
“It’s fully paid for,” said former state senator Steven Glazer, who is a passionate proponent of the bill. Glazer during his Senate term pushed similar legislation that was ultimately shelved in a deal with tech giants.
In recent years California lawmakers have also weighed tax credits for Hollywood jobs. In June, lawmakers approved a major expansion of the funding allocated each year to the state’s film and television tax credit program, moving to raise that cap to $750 million from $330 million. The legislature is also considering a bill that would provide some $100 million in annual funding to post-production work.
The newsroom bill is designed specifically so as to be as neutral as possible on the medium — whether print newspapers, digital news sites, ethnic media or television broadcasters — as well as the business model of the newsroom — whether for-profit, nonprofit or publicly subsidized. The point is to prevent the government from having strong influence or being able to pick winners and losers in the industry, said Matt Pearce, a director of policy for bill sponsor Rebuild Local News, which successfully backed similar legislation in Illinois.
“You have practically the whole range of the local news world represented in some form. Big, little, independent,” Pearce said.
Pearce formerly worked as a reporter at The Times, and served as president of Media Guild of the West, the union that represents Times journalists.
The bill is also supported by the California News Publishers Assn., of which the Los Angeles Times is a member.
