Two press freedom groups that own shares in Paramount Skydance are demanding to see the company’s books and internal documents, citing allegations that the company’s leaders may have promised favors to the White House to win approval for Paramount’s deal to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery.
The letter, sent Thursday to Paramount chief legal officer Makan Delrahim, says that media reports alleging that Paramount owner David Ellison and others promised favors to the Trump administration “create credible concern that Paramount leadership has offered, solicited, or effectuated a corrupt exchange,” which the groups argue would “constitute a breach of fiduciary duties” and open the company up to a “range of potential civil and criminal penalties.”
The letter cites Delaware law that allows stockholders to inspect the company’s books and records “for any proper purpose.”
Paramount declined to comment on the letter.
Among the issues raised in the letter are promises reportedly made by David Ellison and his father, Oracle billionaire Larry Ellison, that they would make “sweeping” changes at the news network CNN, which is owned by Warner Bros. Discovery.
The Ellison family acquired Paramount, which includes CBS and the storied Melrose Avenue film studio, last summer.
The letter cites changes implemented in CBS since their acquisition, including their decision to end late night television house Stephen Colbert’s show days after he characterized a settlement Paramount reached with Trump as a “big fat bribe.”
Under Ellison’s ownership, the letter says, numerous high-profile reporters have left the network and its ratings have dropped to “historic lows.”
Larry Ellison, who is backing the financing of Paramount’s proposed takeover of Warner, reportedly told White House officials that Paramount would “implement the CBS playbook” at CNN if the merger is approved, and remove anchors and commentators at the cable news network that Trump doesn’t like, according to the letter.
The effort comes just two weeks after Warner Bros. Discovery shareholders overwhelmingly approved the proposed merger. Investors have supported the Larry Ellison family takeover, which would become the biggest Hollywood merger in nearly a decade. The deal would pay Warner stockholders $31 per share — four times the stock price a year ago.
The letter was written on behalf of the Freedom of the Press Foundation, which develops secure communication tools for journalists and tracks violations of press freedom, and Reporters Without Borders, which tracks press freedom globally.
The organizations are being represented by former federal prosecutor Brendan Ballou, who established the Public Integrity Project this year to challenged alleged government corruption, as well as Delaware attorney Ronald Poliquin.
The missive, which could be a precursor to a lawsuit, opens another avenue of attack against the controversial $111-billion deal, which would transform the smaller Paramount into an industry titan.
With Warner Bros. Discovery, the Ellisons would also control HBO, TBS and the vast film and TV library of Warner Bros., which includes the Harry Potter, DC Comics, and Scooby-Doo, in addition to CNN.
Paramount, led 43-year-old David Ellison, wants to finalize its Warner Bros. takeover by the end of September. President Trump favors the deal; he has long agitated for changes at CNN.
Politicians, unions and progressive groups separately have pressed California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta to scrutinize the proposed merger, hoping that he brings an antitrust lawsuit in an attempt to upend the deal.
More than 4,000 film industry workers, including Ben Stiller, Bryan Cranston, Ted Danson, J.J. Abrams, Jane Fonda and Kristen Stewart, have signed an open letter imploring Bonta and other regulators to block the merger. The group lamented the proposed tie-up, saying it “would reduce the number of major U.S. film studios to just four.”
Opponents fear the consolidation would lead to massive layoffs and diminish the quality of programming that Warner Bros., CNN and HBO are known for.
Hollywood has sustained thousands of layoffs over the last seven years since Walt Disney Co. swallowed Fox’s entertainment assets in another huge merger. In addition, the film production economy hasn’t recovered from shutdowns during the 2023 labor strikes. An estimated 42,000 entertainment industry jobs were lost from 2022 and 2024.
On Thursday, 34 California Democrats in Congress also sent a letter to Bonta, encouraging him to look closely at the merger.
The deal is expected to become one of the largest leveraged buyouts ever.
Ballou, who is working with the press freedom groups, previously served as a Justice Department special counsel with expertise in private equity transactions.
He resigned from the Justice Department in January 2025 when Trump returned to office. In his book, “Plunder: Private Equity’s Plan to Pillage America,” Ballou examined large leveraged buyouts and found that many of which resulted in bankruptcies.
BEIRUT — A dozen U.S. Democratic Senators have called for the U.S. Central Command to answer questions about American coordination with Israel in declaring broad “ evacuation zones ” in Lebanon and Iran, alleging that the practice may violate international law.
The letter underlines how the Democratic Party — both its leaders and the base — has grown increasingly critical of Israel.
Since the beginning of the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran and the latest Israel-Hezbollah war in Lebanon, the Israeli military has regularly issued maps covering large areas of territory along with warnings telling all residents of the zones to flee. Israel had previously used a similar approach in Gaza.
The senators said the sweeping warnings have “been used to permanently displace people and destroy homes and towns” and that some civilians who refused to leave their homes in the areas have been killed by subsequent strikes.
The 12 senators led by Vermont Sen. Peter Welch, in a letter dated May. 4 to CENTCOM chief Adm. Brad Cooper that was provided to The Associated Press, state that Israel’s practice of unilaterally declaring mass evacuation warnings in Lebanon and Iran “likely contravene international laws the United States has helped develop around humane warfare.”
The other signatories include senators Bernie Sanders of Vermont, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Sen. Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin.
The letter asked the CENTCOM chief whether U.S. forces have coordinated military targets with Israeli forces during the recent war with Iran, whether they provided assistance or intelligence helping Israel’s military to impose the evacuation zones in Lebanon and Iran, and whether CENTCOM signed off on U.S. military support for the targeting of people or infrastructure in the evacuation zones. It also asked whether the U.S. military has reviewed the legality of the practice.
The Israeli military declined to comment when asked about the letter. CENTCOM did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In the past, Israel has said the evacuation maps aim to keep civilians out of harm’s way. It says Hezbollah has positioned fighters, tunnels and weapons in civilian areas across southern Lebanon, from which it has launched hundreds of drones and missiles — without warning — into northern Israel.
A shift in the party stance
Observers said the move is part of a larger shift in the stance of Democratic Party leaders on U.S. military assistance to Israel. Democrats have also been critical of the Trump administration’s entry into the war on Iran alongside Israel.
The letter came nearly three weeks after more than three dozen Democrats supported an effort by Sanders to block arms sales to Israel, signaling a growing discontent in the party with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the wars in Gaza and Iran.
The two resolutions to block U.S. sales of bulldozers and bombs to Israel were opposed by all Republicans and rejected 40-59 and 36-63.
Jon Finer, former deputy national security adviser under President Joe Biden, said the recent steps by Democratic senators reflect a “growing concern about Israeli conduct of various wars that cause civilian harm and U.S. complicity in that” across the spectrum within the Democratic Party.
Asked why the Democratic Party is taking these steps now and not at the time when the war in Gaza and the Israel-Hezbollah war broke out — when the Democratic Biden administration was in power — Finer said: “our operational integration with Israel appears to be growing, which is part of it, but the truth is the Democratic base has been moving in this direction for some time and Washington has been catching up.”
Andrew Miller, a former senior official on Israel and Palestinian Affairs at the State Department, said the letter “represents a shift among congressional Democrats moving from questions of the legality of Israeli military operations to concerns about the complicity of the U.S. military.”
“It demonstrates that Democrats are taking international law very seriously and that is a welcome development,” Miller said.
The evacuation zones
Israel has issued dozens of evacuation warnings in Lebanon since the latest Israel-Hezbollah war began on March 2. Over 1 million people in Lebanon have fled their homes during the war.
Israel has also issued similar warnings for Iranians, both during the 12-day Israel-Iran war last year and during the U.S.-Israeli war launched on Iran on Feb. 28. In one case last year they warned 300,000 people in Tehran, Iran’s capital, to evacuate.
On Wednesday, the Israel military’s Arabic-language spokesperson Avichay Adraee issued an evacuation warning to residents of 12 villages in southern Lebanon saying Hezbollah is using them to launch attacks. The warnings came despite a ceasefire that has been nominally in place since April 17, although Israel and Hezbollah have been carrying daily attacks since then.
The senators said the declaration of evacuation zones does not absolve Israeli and U.S. forces “from the absolute legal responsibility to determine that each individual person or civilian facility targeted by drones, jets, and gunfire is, in fact, a military target.” It said the use of the zones has been linked to “the deaths of thousands of civilians,” describing them as “kill zones.”
In response to questions by the AP last month, the Israeli military said it issues warnings by phone, text, radio broadcast, social media and leaflets dropped from the air, in accordance with the “principles of distinction, proportionality and feasible precautions” under international law.
Mroue writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Julia Frankel contributed to this report from Jerusalem.
Weekly insights and analysis on the latest developments in military technology, strategy, and foreign policy.
It’s hard for me to comprehend that it’s really been a decade. TWZ went live 10 years ago today. Nearly 11,000 articles later, we are still here and growing faster than ever.
While the site has evolved immensely over the years, our mission remains the exact same: to provide uniquely deep insights into the world of military technology and strategy, while tying those perceptions into the broader foreign policy context when applicable. It is our laser focus on this mission, along with our unique style of analysis, open source investigative abilities, and distinct voice that has differentiated us and will hopefully continue to do so for many years to come.
To say the least, it has been such a wild ride and it flew by way too fast. From covering multiple wars to spearheading the conversation on the threat posed by lower-end drones to being the first news outlet that has the ability to task an imaging satellite, it’s absolutely wild all the stuff we covered in those 11,000 articles. The truth is, producing this site every day has been the hardest thing I have ever done, and also the most rewarding. I have edited every single article ever posted here, aside from maybe a dozen. This has not been a job, it’s been something of a way of life. It’s not just my place of work, it’s my passion. And I never would have had such a rare opportunity to make this crazy dream a reality without the help of somanypeople. Even when it was just my byline on every article at the beginning, it took a village to make TWZ the truly special place it quickly became.
I want to thank…
First off, our readers. You guys keep me going.
I have never gloated publicly about the massive audience this site has, but after 10 years, I think context matters here. TWZ averages around eight million page views a month these days, but that number has been as high as 16 million, depending on what is going on in the world. For the topics we cover, we touch a lot of screens.
In fact, I do not know of a larger site in this category in terms of audience, not even close really, but that’s not what’s important. It’s where that traffic comes from that matters. With remarkable consistency over many years, roughly half of that readership at any given moment comes straight to the homepage. Yes, around 50% of TWZ’s traffic are people literally typing in the URL or hitting their bookmarks. We do not rely on Google or social media or other referrers to stay alive. This is not normal. This incredible loyalty and trust, over all these years, from readers all over the world, is quite possibly the thing I am most proud of.
My goal has always been to have our team available to our readers directly, via our email, posted at the bottom of every article, or on X, among other avenues. From this has come great leads, fascinating personal stories, and friendships with remarkable individuals, some of whom we have lost along the way.
Our commenting community is like a unicorn from another planet in how special and rare it is. Nothing like it exists on any news-like site that I know of. TWZ gets thousands upon thousands of comments a week. Our open discussion Bunker Talk weekend segments do on average well over 4,000 comments each. The vast majority of these people are the heart and soul of our audience. They have helped create an informative, hilarious, engaging, thoughtful and sometimes bizarre (mostly in a great way) online community in a world where that concept is rapidly evaporating outside of massive social media sites. Yes, this part of our site is an incredible feature, but it’s also a testament to how different TWZ is and how much passion exists amongst our readership.
Other sites like to talk about reader engagement. Most of that is smoke and mirrors. At TWZ, it’s anything but. All you have to do is look at the comments section to see just how strong it is for us. And not on some Reddit thread or Facebook group, but right here on our own website.
Amazing.
The bottom line here is that without all of you, everyone who clicked, shared, commented, emailed, tweeted and everything else, TWZ would never have lasted. And even on my worst day here, I pinch myself that I have the opportunity to do what I do and the freedom to do it with such a great team of people, both in terms of staff and readers. So thank you all from the bottom of my heart for giving me this incredible gift. To be able to immerse one’s self in a topic they care so much about and to get paid to produce the exact site I always wanted to read, it’s just so incredible.
Next, I want to thank my team. There is no site on earth that covers military technology and strategy across all domains — air, sea, land, and space, sprinkled with a little cyber — and that also ties it all together in a neat geopolitical bow. We do all this with a tiny but extremely dedicated editorial team of fivepeople.
I often get asked by colleagues from other outlets how big our team is. When I tell them, they cannot believe it. The reaction is always the same. They totally reject the idea. It’s always a shocked response. They have no idea how we do this, at this tempo, with this depth, across such a massive topic set, and do so with such authority. Well, I am going to tell you all the secret of how:
An unmatched work ethic and a true passion for the subject matter.
Nobody that works here is just hanging their shingle so they can leap on to the next best thing. Nobody here just fell into this topic by chance after graduating journalism school. This is a passion project. Everyone here has that passion. So, yes, we are huge nerds. It’s from this place, this love for what we do and deep curiosity for what we cover, that the articles you read here emanate daily.
Nearly every article, even those with a single byline, have been molded in some way by other members of the team. We work as a fully integrated unit at all times. There are no stove pipes. It’s all about how can we execute the story the best way possible for our readers. We all work together to do this moment to moment. It’s an extremely fast moving (crushingly at times), highly charged, and, well, intense (and exciting) environment. This crew has to recreate the wheel every single day and do it to TWZ standards of depth and accuracy. Not easy!
Our focus on open source intelligence means massive amounts of info has to be fuzed together in very short periods of time. It’s far harder than it looks, but we make it happen by pulling on the collective talents of the whole team. TWZ staff have sacrificed a lot at times to accomplish our mission and they have done it without complaint. I can’t thank them enough for all their hard work and for how seriously they take our mission in order to make this place what it is.
Next, I want to thank our ownership and management. We all read the horror stories near daily of what it’s like working in the modern media industry. The misery that my colleagues have experienced at so many outlets simply has not been the reality for us at TWZ.
No company is perfect, far from it, but Recurrent has supported TWZ consistently over the years, through thick and thin. They have always been there when they are needed and, most importantly, they have been absent when they are not. THIS is the magic sauce.
They don’t screw with our program. They stay out of the way so we can operate to the best of our potential, as defined by us. Much of TWZ’s success is thanks to them letting our staff live in a purely creative space nearly all the time and not meddling with our work. There is no corporate busy work. They allow us to keep laser focused on making the magic happen and use their abilities to make sure we can keep doing it without worry. I am so thankful for this. It is such a rare thing these days.
Our CEO Andrew Perlman and Recurrent Military’s General Manager Kathy Torres-Pummill are truly the best I have ever worked with. We are incredibly lucky to have such an amicable ownership and management situation where our goals are so well aligned.
Finally, I want to thank our advertisers and sponsors, large and small, and our sales team who is the nexus between them and TWZ.
Our sponsors have been incredibly understanding of our editorial standards and have been willing to work in unconventional ways at times to get their message across in the best way that is also really interesting for our readers. While editorial lives in a separate universe from our ad team, we have always had the ability to veto anything and have worked to make anything we put on the site to be as interesting to our great audience as possible. By and large our advertisers really get this and have gone the extra mile to work within that vision. We thank them for their continued support. We also thank our incredibly patient and creative sales team, led by Phil Hladky, for all their hard work, love, and respect for this brand. They are the unsung heroes of the TWZ team. We would not be here without them either.
Looking forward
Now, for what’s to come. This year is a big one for TWZ. And when I say TWZ, I mean it! The War Zone will be referred to exclusively by our staff and in branding as solely TWZ going forward — just like how it has long been referred to by our readers. That change has been ongoing for years, but since the site launched on its own URL two and half years ago under TWZ.com, it’s time we formalize it. So, you have probably noticed the logos on the homepage and our social media channels have already changed over the weekend. We figured everyone has called it TWZ in our community for nearly 10 years now, we should make it official!
We are also making a big push into video with the fantastic Jamie Hunter at the helm. This will include two major segments that have already been established on our channel. First off is our Special Access series, which puts TWZ in the field with the technologies we write about and with those who build and operate them. We see a huge opportunity with YouTube to bring TWZ’s unique voice and expertise to this concept, and Jamie has already begun with some fantastic installments — but just wait for what’s to come! We also have our Showtime segment, which provides great interviews and insights on leading-edge capabilities from major industry expos and conventions.
This is just the start, other segments are on the horizon.
Please hit subscribe on YouTube, if you haven’t already. You can check out a sampling of Special Access here:
Inside The Air Force’s Elite Ghost Tanker Unit
Private F-5 Adversaries Take The Fight To Navy Fighter Pilots
And of Showtime here:
Will The X-BAT Stealth Fighter Drone Change The Air Combat Game?
The H-60 Black Hawk Gunship Evolves With New Wings And Weapons
We will be launching a subscription service very soon, too. Wait, I know what you are thinking! ‘You are paywalling TWZ?!?!’ As many of you know, I have worked very hard to keep this site free to all and it will continue to be that way for the foreseeable future.
The initial subscription offering will be a supporter tier. I get asked every day, ‘how can I support your work? Where is your Patreon?!’ Well, now you can directly support us and get some features along with it, the biggest being a nearly ad free (ad light) experience. YES! After all these years, this most requested feature is coming to TWZ. This will limit advertising to one ad per article and those will only be from our direct sponsors. Oftentimes there will be none at all.
So, if you want to support us directly, and enjoy a nearly ad free experience, this will be the way you can do it. More tiers will come later on with added features, but there is no pressure to join. You can still enjoy TWZ just as you have been for all these years.
We will also be expanding the team. We are looking for a couple key individuals to really evolve certain areas of our coverage. We just hired Ian Ellis-Jones as our head of audience development, and he is also our guy for interpretive graphics and short-form open source intelligence posts. You will see a new section popping up in the near future featuring these posts, some of which you have already seen on the site. This lighter format will allow us to cover visual topics in new ways. Ian is also rapidly evolving our social media strategy, so TWZ will be showing up in more places than ever before.
These are just some of the new features that are in the works that we can talk about, but there will be others, including new ways I can interact with you more directly and more regularly. More to come on all that. While the future is remarkably bright for TWZ, everything has been built on the foundation you, the readers, have helped us lay.
Once again, from all of us, thank you so much for the last 10 wonderful years.
Was it more fun to watch the Dodger offense return to form or to watch spoiled kid Pete Crow-Armstrong strike out four times on Saturday?
Certainly in the long run, Dodger success is much more important to this engaged fan than the serial failure of a young player still playing like a rookie after two years. Can you just imagine the screaming and cursing those Cubs fans watching on TV over PCA’s performance? I hope Pete appreciates that attention.
David Gene Echt Torrance
Please explain to Dave Roberts that you don’t try a sacrifice bunt when you know the Marlins then automatically walk Shohei Ohtani. Nonsensical.
Fred Wallin Westlake Village
Ah, yes, it’s that time of the baseball season, when the L.A. faithful panic over early losses, while other fanbases talk trash and pile on — despite knowing they’ll once again be playing late into October. Call it the Dodger Blue-print.
Kylie Jenner is being sued by a second housekeeper who alleges she suffered cruel and unusual treatment while working for the beauty mogul.
Just a week after one woman on Jenner’s cleaning staff sued her, claiming her co-workers harassed and discriminated against her, another housekeeper has come out with allegations. The woman says the “Keeping Up With the Kardashians” star didn’t intervene while she suffered abuse from fellow staff, despite the housekeeper slipping the reality star a letter pleading for help.
Juana Delgado Soto filed a lawsuit against Kylie Jenner, Kylie Jenner Inc., staff supervisor Itzel Sibrian, Tri Star Services and La Maison Family Services on Wednesday alleging racial discrimination, harassment, failure to pay wages, failure to prevent or remedy harassment and discrimination, and more.
A representative for Jenner declined to comment Thursday, noting that the reality star had not yet seen the lawsuit.
According to the lawsuit, obtained by The Times, Soto began working for Jenner in May 2019. She alleges that meal and rest breaks were withheld from her for the first few years of her employment, but that the severity of the abuse and harassment ramped up in late 2023, when Sibrian became her direct supervisor. Soto says that, in 2024, she filed a complaint with Human Resources after Sibrian allegedly mocked and humiliated her for her accent, immigration status and race and called her stupid. Sibrian was temporarily removed because of the complaint and then reinstated, and according to the suit, she set out to retaliate against Soto for filing a complaint by reducing her hourly wage, assigning unreasonable workloads and changing her schedule.
In her lawsuit, Soto says that, as she prepared to leave work on her birthday, Sibrian threatened that she would be fired if she didn’t stay late and told her “no one cares about your birthday, Kylie is having a dinner.” Soto says she missed her own surprise party.
In late 2024, housekeeping supervisors Patsy and Elsy, who are referred to in the first lawsuit against Jenner as well, by their first names only, stepped into their leadership roles. Soto alleges that under Patsy and Elsy, she was denied adequate time off to grieve after the sudden death of her brother, and was told to “report to work immediately.” While she was working, she alleges, staff members “whispered that [Soto] was lying about her brother’s death and kept forcing her to pick up trash they purposely threw on the ground.” She further claims she was harassed when she requested time off to attend her brother’s funeral Mass.
In April 2025, the suit alleges that, after repeated failures by management to address Soto’s concerns, she wrote a long letter to Jenner detailing the harassment, discrimination and retaliation and placed it on Jenner’s massage bed immediately before her massage.
According to the suit, Soto wrote, “I need to express just how terribly I am mentally abused” and “I really apologize for letting you know about all these situations, I know you wouldn’t allow this to happen, if you were aware of it.”
Soto alleges that the following day she was threatened with termination and instructed never to contact Jenner again. “Defendants told her she was no longer allowed to look at Kylie, smile at Kylie and if she saw Kylie she would have to ‘disappear.’”
Soto further alleges that, after she left the letter for Jenner, her supervisors required her to leave the premises when Jenner was present, restricted her restroom access, forced her to clean the doghouse and prohibited her from drinking water at the residence, calling it “Kylie’s water.”
In August 2025, Soto sent a text message to her supervisors, writing, “I am sorry, I cannot do this anymore, every day you guys mistreat me, and I have bitten all my nails off, I cannot sleep at nights, and I always have anxiety because of the way you guys treat me. No matter what I did no one helped me.”
Soto is seeking an unspecified amount of punitive and compensatory damages.
“My client alleges multiple employment & labor law violations by Kylie Jenner and her affiliated companies, and I commend her for the courage to come forward and seek accountability, recognizing that taking the first step is often the most difficult,” Soto’s attorney Della Shaker told The Times. Shaker also represents Angelica Hernandez Vasquez, who filed a suit against Jenner on April 17.
Vasquez’s lawsuit says she was subjected to “severe and pervasive harassment” while employed by the makeup magnate from September 2024 to August 2025.
Vasquez, who states that she is a Salvadoran woman and practicing Catholic, alleges she was humiliated by fellow staff members and belittled because of her race, country of origin, religion and immigration status. Jenner was not personally accused of bullying behavior in the filing brought by Vasquez.
Today I watched as Shohei Ohtani, the day after pitching seven innings, go 0 for 5 with two strikeouts while grounding into a double play. The sample size, at this point, has to be large enough for Dave Roberts and the Dodgers’ management to discuss the elephant in the room with their lead-off batter. He should not bat when he pitches, and he should have a day off after he pitches.
It could also be argued that he should not be the lead-off batter — his average and on-base percentage are lower than, say, Hyeseong Kim, who is also faster and would be a distraction for an opposing pitcher as a threat to steal. It would also give someone for Shohei to drive in if he dropped down the order a spot or two. If baseball is a numbers exercise, then the Dodgers need to do the math.
Peter Maradudin Burlingame
I have seen enough of Kyle Tucker to know the Dodgers lineup of Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman, Will Smith, Tucker, Teo Hernández, Max Muncy, Andy Pages and Hyeseong Kim needs to be changed. Kim has better defense and is a base-stealer. Freeman is not a switch hitter since he can’t hit from the right side. Also, no lefty in the bullpen knows how to throw a screwball?
WASHINGTON — Amid growing national security concerns, the FBI said Tuesday that it has launched a broad investigation in the deaths or disappearances of at least 10 scientists and staff connected to highly sensitive research, including four from the Los Angeles area.
“The FBI is spearheading the effort to look for connections into the missing and deceased scientists. We are working with the Department of Energy, Department of War, and with our state and state and local law enforcement partners to find answers,” the agency said in a statement.
The FBI’s announcement comes after the House Oversight Committee announced that it would investigate reports of the disappearance and deaths of the scientists, sending letters seeking information from the agencies involved in the federal inquiry as well as NASA, which owns the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Cañada Flintridge, where three of the missing or dead scientists worked.
“If the reports are accurate, these deaths and disappearances may represent a grave threat to U.S. national security and to U.S. personnel with access to scientific secrets,” Reps. James Comer (R-Ky.), chairman of the committee, and Eric Burlison (R-Mo.) wrote in the letters.
President Trump told reporters last week that he had been briefed on the missing and dead scientists, which he described as “pretty serious stuff.” He said at the time that he expected answers on whether the deaths were connected “in the next week and a half.”
Michael David Hicks, who studied comets and asteroids at JPL, was the first of the scientists who disappeared or died. He died on July 30, 2023, at the age of 59. No cause of death was disclosed.
A year later, JPL physicist Frank Maiwald died at 61, with no cause of death disclosed.
Two other Los Angeles scientists are part of the string of deaths and disappearances.
On June 22, 2025, Monica Jacinto Reza, a materials scientist at JPL, disappeared while on a hike near Mt. Waterman in the San Gabriel Mountains.
On Feb. 16, Caltech astrophysicist Carl Grillmair was fatally shot on the porch of his Llano home. The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s department arrested Freddy Snyder, 29, in connection with the shooting. Snyder had been arrested in December on suspicion of trespassing on Grillmair’s property.
There is no evidence at this point that the deaths and disappearances, which occurred over a span of four years, are connected.
A spokesperson for NASA, which owns JPL, said in a statement on X that the agency is “coordinating and cooperating with the relevant agencies in relation to the missing scientists.
“At this time, nothing related to NASA indicates a national security threat,” agency spokesperson Bethany Stevens wrote. “The agency is committed to transparency and will provide more information as able.”
Representatives from Caltech did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Reed Hastings, who helped launched Netflix from a fledgling DVD mail-order business into a global streaming juggernaut, plans to exit the company after nearly three decades.
Hastings will leave the company he co-founded to focus on philanthropy and other efforts, the streaming company announced said Thursday.
Hastings, who serves as chairman of the Los Gatos company’s board, told Netflix he will not stand for reelection when his term expires in June, Netflix said in a letter to shareholders timed to its fiscal first-quarter earnings.
He said the commitment of Netflix Co-Chief Executives Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters was “so strong that I can now focus on new things.”
Peters described Hastings, 65, as the company’s “biggest champion,” and that he “is a part of our DNA.”
Sarandos called Hastings a “true history maker,” saying in a statement that Hastings’ “selfless, disciplined leadership style” will continue to shape Netflix’s path ahead.
Hastings’ exit was not unexpected as his role in the company diminished after he stepped aside as co-chief executive of Netflix in 2023.
During his tenure, Hastings oversaw the substantial growth of the streaming colossus. Today, Netflix has a market cap of about $455 billion, more than double that of the Walt Disney Co.
“My real contribution at Netflix wasn’t a single decision; it was a focus on member joy, building a culture that others could inherit and improve, and building a company that could be both beloved by members and wildly successful for generations to come,” Hastings said in a statement.
For the first quarter of 2026, Netflix reported nearly $12.3 billion of revenue, up 16% compared to the same time period a year ago. Operating income grew 18% to $3.9 billion for the three-month period ending March 31.
Both figures were ahead of the company’s guidance, a feat the streamer attributed to slightly higher than expected subscription revenue.
The company reported net income of $5.3 billion, up more than 80% compared to the $2.9 billion it recorded during the same period last year. Earnings per share was $1.23, up from 66 cents last year.
Netflix said it continues to expect 2026 revenue ranging from $50.7 billion to $51.7 billion, with an operating margin of 31.5%.
The earnings release and the Hastings announcement came after markets closed.
Netflix shares closed at $107.79, virtually unchanged. After hours, the shares dropped more than 8% to $98.26. They have climbed about 18% this year.
The Los Gatos-based company had previously secured an $82.7-billion deal to buy Warner Bros. studios and streaming services in December but it withdrew from the bidding war in late February after Paramount Skydance offered $31 a share. As part of the switch, Netflix was paid a $2.8-billion termination fee.
“Warner Bros. would have been a nice accelerant for our strategy, but only at the right price,” Netflix said in its investor letter. “We have multiple ways to achieve our goals (including producing, licensing, and partnering) and we’re constantly seeking to allocate our resources to the most attractive opportunities to maximize the value we are delivering to our members.”
Before Reed Hastings revolutionized the global entertainment business, he sold Rainbow vacuum cleaners door-to-door during his gap year between high school and Bowdoin College, where he earned his bachelor’s degree in mathematics.
During his sales pitch, Reed would first clean a homeowner’s carpet with their vacuum and then demonstrate how to clean using a Rainbow. The job helped hone his ability to understand customers, a core foundation of Netflix’s user-driven, candor-obsessed culture.
After Bowdoin and before he earned his master’s degree in computer science at Stanford, Hastings served in the Peace Corps (he also did a stint in the Marines) teaching high school math in Swaziland (now Eswatini).
“Once you have hitchhiked across Africa with ten bucks in your pocket, starting a business doesn’t seem too intimidating,” he told Time magazine.
While those experiences helped shape Hasting’s business sense, it was a late fee for a video that became the catalyst for launching Netflix, upending the way viewers consumed content and disrupting how Hollywood does business.
As the story goes, Hastings had misplaced a VHS tape of “Apollo 13” racking up a hefty $40 charge.
It was 1997 and his company Pure Software had just been acquired. It dawned on him that a gym membership offered a better business model, than the average video store — where you paid a set fee for the month and you could work out as much or as little as you liked. He thought, why not apply that to the movie rental business?
Netflix, began in Scotts Valley, Calif., as a mail-order business. Customers paid a tiered monthly fee to rent DVDs online which were delivered by mail.
The business exploded racking up millions of customers as it jettisoned the post office to an internet-based business. As the business accelerated across the world it also expanded, creating original content such as award-winning blockbusters such as “Stranger Things” and “House of Cards.”
The company’s innovation extended internally too. Hastings became known for implementing a unique and controversial culture of radical transparency, where employee evaluations are brutally candid and average performances can be grounds for termination.
The Clippers’ season has come to an end but better than anyone expected. No consolation but a great job by head coach Tyronn Lue for guiding the Clippers from a disastrous 6-21 start and finishing with more than 40 wins.
Coach Lue led the team, overcoming major obstacles throughout the season with a player investigation, injuries, internal strife and major roster changes at the trade deadline. As usual for Clipper fans, wait till next year.
Wayne Muramatsu Cerritos
The Clippers are the NBA’s version of Stealers Wheel’s “Stuck in the Middle With You.” Yes, they have had 15 straight seasons of playing .500 or better, and owner Steve Ballmer has brought them respectability, but for their entire 56-year existence — which has contained many clowns and jokers — they still have never [attained] their goal of winning (or even reaching) the NBA Finals.
Nike has been refused a trademark for Bronny James‘ “b9” logo that appears on shoes have been worn in games by the second-year Lakers player and are being sold by the sports apparel giant.
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office notified Nike of its decision with a letter of refusal earlier this week, citing “likelihood of confusion” with an already-registered mark by the Back9 Golf Apparel company.
“Applicant’s mark, B9, is confusingly similar to the registered mark, B9,” the refusal letter states. “The marks are similar in appearance, sound, and commercial impression. In addition, the marks are essentially phonetic equivalents and, thus, sound similar. Similarity in sound alone may be sufficient to support a finding that the compared marks are confusingly similar.”
Nike did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Times.
The James logo features a lowercase “b” with a “9” embedded in the center (where a hole normally would be). The Back9 logo has a capital “B” and a “9” of the same size next to each other. The logos are in different fonts.
In its trademark application, filed on Feb. 27, Nike had indicated the intention of using the logo on seemingly all types of athletic apparel, including footwear, headwear, shirts, pants, shorts and jackets. Polo shirts and golf caps were listed among the many specific examples of possible uses.
The refusal letter notes the use of similar or identical language in the description of goods in Back9’s trademark application, which was filed in May 2021 and approved a year later.
“The overriding concern is not only to prevent buyer confusion as to the source of the goods, but to protect the registrant from adverse commercial impact due to use of a similar mark by a newcomer,” the letter states. “Therefore, any doubt regarding a likelihood of confusion determination is resolved in favor of the registrant.
“Here, because the marks are similar and the goods are related and/or legally identical, there is a likelihood of confusion as to the source of applicant’s goods, and registration is refused pursuant to Section 2(d) of the Trademark Act.”
Nike has until July 13 to appeal the decision.
The Lakers, seeded No. 4 in the Western Conference, start their opening-round playoff series against the No. 5 Houston Rockets on Saturday at Crypto.com Arena.
Paramount Skydance Chief Executive David Ellison made his case directly to theater owners Thursday, pledging to release a minimum of 30 films a year from the combined Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery company during a speech at the CinemaCon trade convention in Las Vegas.
“I wanted to look every single one of you in the eye and give you my word,” Ellison said in a brief on-stage speech, adding that Paramount has already nearly doubled its film lineup for this year with 15 planned releases, up from 8 in 2025.
He also said all films will remain in theaters exclusively for 45 days, starting Thursday. Films will then go to streaming platforms in 90 days. The amount of time that films stay in theaters — known as windowing — has been a controversial topic for theater owners, as some studios reduced that period during the pandemic. Theater operators have said the shortened window has trained audiences to wait to watch films at home and cuts into theater revenues.
“I have dedicated the last 20 years of my life to elevating and preserving film,” said Ellison, clad in a dark jacket and shirt with blue jeans. “And at Paramount, we want to tell even more great stories on the big screen — stories that make people think, laugh, dream, wonder and feel — and we want to share them with as broad an audience as possible.”
Ellison’s CinemaCon appearance comes as more than 1,000 Hollywood actors and creatives have signed a letter opposing Paramount’s proposed acquisition of Warner. Supporters of the letter have said the deal would reduce competition in the industry and “further consolidate an already concentrated media landscape.”
Some theater operators have also questioned whether the combined company could achieve its goal of releasing 30 films a year, particularly after the cost cuts that are expected after the merger closes.
“People can speculate all they want — but I am standing here today telling you personally that you can count on our complete commitment,” Ellison said. “And we’ll show you we mean it.”
The speech came after a star-studded video directed by “Wicked: For Good” director Jon M. Chu that was shot on the Paramount lot on Melrose Avenue and showcased directors and actors including Issa Rae, Will Smith, Chris Pratt, James Cameron and Timothée Chalamet that are working with the company.
The video closed with “Top Gun” actor Tom Cruise perched atop the Paramount water tower.
“As you saw, the Paramount lot is alive again,” Ellison said after the video. “And we could not be more excited.”
