Animation is an art of the impossible, though it often settles for the ordinary. Much of what comprises adult animation merely translates into line what might be shown in live action — humans in human settings. Which is fine. Some great shows fit that bill — “King of the Hill” and “Bob’s Burgers,” for example. Still, there are infinite avenues to explore, and so it’s good to have Adult Swim, the network that once produced a series whose heroes are a meatball, a shake and a bag of fries, still making aesthetic trouble.
“The Elephant,” which premieres Friday on the network, and Saturday on HBO Max alongside a documentary on its creation, “Behind the Elephant,” is an animated take on exquisite corpse, the old surrealist game in which three artists contribute the head, torso or legs of a single figure, folding the paper so as not to see what the others had drawn. This project enlists four fab animators over three acts — “Adventure Time” creator Pendleton Ward, Ian Jones-Quartey (“OK K.O.! Let’s Be Heroes”), Rebecca Sugar (“Steven Universe”) and Patrick McHale (“Over the Garden Wall”) — to make something that not only had we not seen before, but none of them had either, until their independently produced parts were put together. All are “Adventure Time” vets, as are Jack Pendarvis and Kent Osborne, who conceived the idea, served as “game keepers,” and share story credit with the animators.
Exquisite corpse was also used in character design. It invariably produces monsters, if amusing ones, which explains why the character — let’s call her The Character — in Ward’s act has a cactus for an arm and a giant pink foot in place of one leg. In the Jones-Quartey and Sugar act, she has robot arms, fishnet stockings and a “music button” in her chest (the city parties when its disco plays), and in McHale’s, a TV for a torso. One regards The Character as the same person in each act, and through changes that occur within each act — identity, death and reincarnation are at the heart of the show. She’s always different, though always the protagonist. (And seemingly female.) Which is not surprising if you’ve ever watched “Adventure Time,” where even every villain is also a protagonist.
Ward takes the first act; Jones-Quartey and Sugar, who are married, worked together on the second; and McHale brings it home with Act 3. Ward’s section is easily recognizable as his work in its mix of the uncanny and the offhand, both from “Adventure Time” and the psychedelic “Midnight Gospel.” Sugar and Jones-Quartey opt for a New Wave angularity far from their usual styles, and McHale cycles through several looks until his Character, who arrives already hoping to get off this wheel of endless rebirth and cease to exist, settles down for a spell in a realistically portrayed city in the snow — New York, I’d say — in conversation with a lonely inventor. McHale also brings in, for just a few seconds, the eponymous elephant in an apropos reference to the parable of the blind men who imagined that animal to be a different sort of beast depending on where they laid their hands.
Each animator (or team) integrates their position in the game — and the nature of the game itself — into their storytelling. Ward’s Character, born onscreen, wonders “What am I? I’m not sure.” In the second section, Sugar and Jones-Quartey have their narrating Character say, “I could feel my existence stretching in both directions, back to the nothingness before anything happened and forward to the nothingness after everything is over. And if everything has a beginning and also a end then this was just the middle.” By virtue of owning the conclusion, and it’s a moving one, McHale brings order to the whole; given the scattered process, and the changes between and within each section, it feels remarkably cohesive and intentional. But metamorphosis is the soul of animation.
If “The Elephant,” described by the network as “a creative experience,” had appeared before it was already published, it would have certainly joined four other animated series — three from Adult Swim — on my list of 2025 favorites. It demands a second viewing, and you’ll want to watch “Behind the Elephant” to learn more. You may want to watch that twice as well.
The top of the tower had disappeared in the mist, but its bells rang clear and true, tolling beyond the abbey gates, over the slopes of frost-fringed trees, down to the town in the valley below. Final call for morning mass. I took a seat at the back of the modern church, built when the Abbey of Saint Maurice and Saint Maurus relocated to this hill in Clervaux, north Luxembourg, in 1910. Then the monks swept in – and swept away 1,000 years. Sung in Latin, their Gregorian chants filled the nave: simple, calming, timeless. I’m not religious and didn’t understand a word, but also, in a way, understood it completely.
Although mass is held here at 10am daily, year-round, the monks’ ethereal incantations seemed to perfectly suit the season. I left the church, picked up a waymarked hiking trail and walked deeper into the forest – and the mood remained. There was no one else around, no wind to dislodge the last, clinging beech leaves or sway the soaring spruce. A jay screeched, and plumes of hair ice feathered fallen logs. As in the church, all was stillness, a little magic.
I’d come to Luxembourg by train, with the notion of finding a frozen fairytale. This tiny grand duchy, about the size of Dorset, has a ridiculous number of castles – as many as 130 (depending on your definition). It’s the legacy of being sited at the heart of western Europe, suffering centuries of incursions. Some of these castles have been restored for visitors; some are places you can stay at (with lower rates off-season). Add in rimy forests, chanting monks and the fact all public transport is free – maybe the most magical thing of all – and my hopes Luxembourg would make an atmospheric winter break were being fulfilled.
My walk ended at Clervaux Castle. It dates from the 12th century, but was destroyed during the second world war’s desperate Battle of the Bulge, which played out in these cold forests in December 1944. The castle has since been rebuilt and now houses the 1950s Unesco-listed photo exhibition The Family of Man. It was almost empty as I moved between the 503 images, taken by the most prestigious photographers of the age, depicting normal people in all life stages, the ordinary rendered extraordinary. There are no captions or locations; each photograph is its own whole story, containing multitudes. It was incredibly uplifting.
Clervaux Castle perched on a rocky promontory above the city, was destroyed during the Battle of the Bulge in the second world war and then rebuilt. Photograph: Pixelbiss/Alamy
You can’t spend the night at Clervaux Castle, but 10 minutes away by (free!) bus is Chateau d’Urspelt, where you can stay. When I arrived, this castle looked Disney-cute, fairy lights dripping from its white-washed turrets. Eighty years ago, it was quite different. The US 1st Battalion 110th Infantry had its HQ here in December 1944, before being overwhelmed by German forces. After the war, Urspelt fell further into ruin, until 2005, when a local entrepreneur decided to restore it and turn it into a smart hotel. I skipped the snazzy spa, and the ice rink sparkling in the courtyard, but relished a fruity Luxembourgish pinot noir in the low-lit bar, which hides like a speakeasy in the castle’s historic cellars.
One of the country’s most impressive castles is Vianden (less than an hour from Clervaux via a free bus), a beast of a bastion, lording over the River Our, on the German border. It was constructed between the 11th and 14th centuries on Roman foundations, altered multiple times, left to rot, then, from the 1970s, painstakingly restored to its medieval pomp. On a pallid winter’s day, it was crowd-free. I rattled around its vast state rooms and marvelled at the layered history visible in the visitor centre, which is built around past excavations.
It’s not just the castle that gives Vianden its fairytale feel. There’s the winding river, the tight-pressed wooded hills and the village itself, with its remnants of 13th-century walls and pretty, cobbled main street. I opted to escape reality entirely in the Ancien Cinéma cafe, a former movie theatre where you can grab a coffee, sit on a couch and watch whatever’s on the big screen, surrounded by film paraphernalia.
The Sherlock room at Château de Clémency. Photograph: Sarah Baxter
My final stop was a castle unlike any other. Chateau de Clémency, close to the Belgian border, is a five-room guesthouse and the 2025 winner of Luxembourg Tourism’s Best Host award. Dating back to 1635, it was only ever a small residential retreat, with no military function. When Pascal Zimmer – former judoka, self-taught tailor and architect, and restorer of historic buildings – bought it 20 years ago, it was a proper mess, in need of either demolition or renovation. He saw the property’s true value and he liked the staircase – “You could say I spent €400,000 on some stairs …” he confessed, pointing out the stone pleasingly worn by 400 years of footfall.
“When you think about castles, you think of Windsor or Versailles. But this is a Luxembourgish castle, not so expansive, not so well done; you can’t restore it in the same way.”
So, to that end, Clémency is Pascal’s own artistic vision. Each room has a different theme, from belle époque “Peggy’s” to the “Roaring 20s”. “Tribute” pays homage to the local steel industry on which Luxembourg’s wealth is built. “My father was a miner,” Pascal said. “He was a humble guy; he’d say all he wanted was a small, clean room. This is a small, clean room.” A patchwork blanket covers the bed, while the bathroom is black polished concrete, a nod to life underground. I stayed in “Sherlock”, a Holmesian fantasy suite; the lounge was a steam-punkish curiosity shop of moody portraits, scientific implements and stuffed cats.
There isn’t much to do in the town of Clémency itself, although that hardly mattered. It was only 40 minutes by public transport (did I mention: all free!) into Luxembourg City, a capital perched on a precipitous rock, like something from a storybook. It was a shorter hop to Bascharage, where I got cosy in D’Braustuff, a gemütlich brewery-brassiere serving Luxembourgish classics – I tucked into a hearty wäinzoossiss (traditional sausage). But when darkness fell, I was also content to stay in my castle with a book – the shelves were full of Agatha Christie and Conan Doyle – and enjoy an alternative winter’s tale.
Katie Pavlich, a longtime contributor to Fox News, is leaving the network to join NewsNation.
Pavlich, a conservative political analyst, will have a nightly 10 p.m ET program starting early next year, the Nexstar-owned cable news channel announced Monday.
Pavlich, 37, will replace Ashleigh Banfield, who held down the time period since 2021. Banfield will partner with the network to create digital true crime content, including a podcast.
Pavlich has spent the last 16 years as news editor of the conservative website Townhall.com. She appeared regularly on cable ratings leader Fox News since 2013, appearing as a guest co-host on “The Five” and a fill-in host on its prime-time programs.
Pavlich becomes the latest Fox News alum to join NewsNation. Leland Vittert, a former correspondent for the network, is NewsNation’s 9 p.m. Eastern host. Chris Stirewalt, who was fired from Fox after the 2020 presidential election, is politics editor for the network.
Veteran cable news host Ashleigh Banfield joined NewsNation in March.
(NewsNation)
NewsNation was launched in 2020 as an alternative to the three major cable news networks at a time when all leaned heavily into opinion programming in prime time. But the network has moved toward political debate since Chris Cuomo became its highest rated host in prime time.
An Arizona native who grew up as an avid hunter, Pavlich is a strong advocate of the 2nd Amendment. She poses with firearms in a number of photos on her Instagram.
Pavlich is the author of several books, including New York Times bestsellers “Fast and Furious: Barack Obama’s Bloodiest Scandal” and “Assault and Flattery: The Truth About the Left and Their War on Women.”
President Trump wants a very different kind of CNN if the cable news channel’s parent Warner Bros. Discovery changes hands.
As details emerge on the battle between Netflix and Paramount over control of the historic movie studio and its streaming and TV assets, Trump acknowledged he’s made it clear he wants new ownership and leadership at the network that has been the prime target in his attacks on the mainstream media over the last decade.
“I think the people that have run CNN for the last long period of time are a disgrace,” Trump told reporters Wednesday. “I don’t think they should be entrusted with running CNN any longer. So I think any deal should — it should be guaranteed and certain that CNN is part of it or sold separately.”
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt echoed Trump’s sentiment Thursday from her lectern after a testy exchange with CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins. “Their ratings have declined, and I think the president rightfully believes that network would benefit from new ownership with respect to this deal,” Leavitt said.
Trump has said he will be “involved” in the government‘s regulatory review of a WBD deal. Injecting the president’s animus toward CNN — which goes back to his presidential campaign in 2016 — into the process has insiders at the network worried that journalistic independence will be sacrificed for the sake of a Warner Bros. Discovery deal.
CNN declined to comment.
A Wall Street Journal report said Paramount Chief Executive David Ellison has signaled to Trump administration officials he would make “sweeping changes” to CNN if his company took control. (A representative for Ellison declined comment.)
Ellison has said he would combine CNN’s newsgathering operations with Paramount’s CBS News, where conservative-friendly Bari Weiss has been installed as editor in chief. Such a move would follow the $16-million settlement Paramount reached with Trump earlier this year resolving a dispute over a “60 Minutes” interview featuring then-Vice President Kamala Harris.
But Trump said he wants to see a new CNN owner even if Netflix prevails. Netflix’s $72 billion offer does not include CNN or WBD’s other basic cable properties. Paramount has countered with a $78 billion offer.
What Trump desires is more favorable news coverage. But pandering to the White House could have a dubious outcome from a business standpoint for the next CNN owner.
The cable news landscape has evolved over the last decade as the country’s politics have become more polarized and tribal.
The trend helped the conservative-leaning Fox News and progressive MS NOW (formerly MSNBC), both of which have seen their audiences grow over that time even as the number of pay-TV homes has declined dramatically.
CNN has tried to stake out the middle ground, although its aggressive coverage of Trump’s first term created a perception it had moved left, especially as more commentary was added to its prime time programs.
CNN already saw the impact of attempting to bring more right-leaning voices to its program under Chris Licht, the executive brought in to run the network in 2022. He was under a mandate from Warner Bros. Discovery Chief Executive David Zaslav, who publicly said the network needed to appeal more to conservative audiences.
The network experienced an immediate exodus of viewers, putting it in third place behind MS NOW. CNN was generating $1.2 billion in profit earlier in the decade. This year, the figure is expected to be in the range of $675 million.
Jon Klein, a digital entrepreneur and former CNN president, said it would be folly for his former network to blatantly court conservatives again.
“You’re not going to convince all those Fox News viewers that suddenly CNN is friendly to them and their way of life,” he said. “These are much older viewers who don’t change their habits so easily. There has been mistrust that has been fostered over many years.”
Klein noted that even upstart right-wing networks that provide unwavering support of Trump — Newsmax and OAN — haven’t made a dent in Fox News’ dominance. MS NOW would be the beneficiary of any rightward shift by CNN, he added.
“It would accelerate the ratings slide and they become completely irrelevant,” said another former CNN executive who did not want to comment publicly.
Fox News does more than provide largely sympathetic coverage and commentary for Trump. Rupert Murdoch’s network has worked at forging a deep connection with viewers, which has made it the ratings leader since 2002.
The lineup of highly paid Fox News personalities is reliably in sync with the audience’s values and the hot-button issues that keep them tuned in. Viewer loyalty has helped the network attract hundreds of new advertisers in recent years, with some integrating patriotic messages into their marketing efforts.
“Fox is an incredibly well-oiled machine,” Klein said.
Klein said CNN and other legacy news organizations are better off focusing on developing an effective digital strategy to insure their future as traditional TV viewing declines, instead of chasing ideological balance.
Attempting to satisfy Trump’s desire for more positive coverage is a slippery slope. While Paramount appointed an ombudsman to CBS News and brought in Weiss — moves aimed at clearing the regulatory path for its merger with Skydance Media — Trump is still lashing out at coverage he doesn’t like.
After a “60 Minutes” interview with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) aired Dec. 7, in which she was highly critical of Trump, the president said the program is “worse” under new ownership.
The only significant move to attract conservative viewers under Weiss is her prime time interview with the widow of slain right-wing activist Charlie Kirk that airs Saturday.
“I think the prevailing wisdom over there is this notion that at least if they stay out of the clutches of Paramount, some rich philanthropist will buy them and they’ll be fine,” said the former CNN executive.
But if Netflix gets WBD without CNN, there is no guarantee it would not end up with a Trump-friendly owner if the network were spun off separately. The rank and file may wish for Laurene Powell Jobs, chair of the Atlantic, but could end up with a deep-pocketed right winger.
CNN Chairman Mark Thompson’s message to the troops is keep calm and carry on. “I know this strategic review has been a period of inevitable uncertainty across CNN and indeed the whole of WBD,” Thompson told staff in a recent memo. “Of course, I can’t promise you that the media attention and noise around the sale of our parent will die down overnight. But I do think the path to the successful transformation of this great news enterprise remains open.”
Trump’s anger toward CNN has become more personal as time has gone on. He has insulted reporters during press briefings and reportedly has told people he wants to see the firing of anchors Erin Burnett and Brianna Keilar.
Oddly enough, it was Burnett’s journalism that provided Trump with video for his most effective commercial of his 2024 campaign.
Burnett conducted the 2020 interview with Kamala Harris where the former vice president expressed her support for providing medical care to prisoners undergoing gender-affirming care. A clip of the segment was used in the commercial that said “Kamala’s for they/them, President Trump is for you.”
FERNDALE, Calif. — Like many of California’s fairs, the one in Humboldt County is a cherished local institution, beloved for its junk food, adorable baby animals and exhibits of local arts and crafts. Rock star chef Guy Fieri, who grew up in town, even turns up to host the chili cook-off.
But along with its Ferris wheels and funnel cakes, the Humboldt County event shares something darker in common with a number of California’s 77 local fairs: It has been racked with fraud and mismanagement.
The fair’s former bookkeeper is due in federal court early next year after pleading guilty to stealing $430,000 from the fair, according to documents filed in federal court. Police had arrested her after catching up with her at a local casino.
Humboldt is hardly an outlier. A Los Angeles Times investigation has found that one-third of the state’s 77 fairs — hallowed celebrations of the state’s agrarian tradition — have been plagued by an array of problems. Workers from at least four fairs have been prosecuted in the last few years for theft, bribery or embezzlement, with more than $1 million stolen, according to a Times review of criminal court filings. State auditors have accused officials at dozens of other fairs of misspending millions more, according to a Times review. Ventura suffered a cash heist, Santa Clara a kickback scheme, and across much of California, public funds have been spent in violation of state rules, including on prime rib steaks and fancy wines while once-proud fairgrounds crumble into disrepair.
A great horned owl performs for visitors during the raptor show at the Humboldt County Fair in Ferndale.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
Drawing on thousands of pages of court filings, audits and public records from more than three dozen counties, along with scores of interviews, The Times identified at least 25 fairs where prosecutors, state auditors or government officials have accused employees in the last decade of misusing taxpayer money, pressuring businesses for bribes or treating public resources as their own. At still more fairs, officials have been called out in government reports or lawsuits for glaring failures of good governance.
Collectively, the fairs bring in more than $400 million a year in revenue, and many fairgoers see them as priceless cultural events honoring California‘s agricultural heritage and their local communities.
But despite their crucial role, The Times found that the state and county leaders overseeing these fairs have often failed to step in — even when problems are glaring or have been denounced by auditors or judges. The state department of Food and Agriculture oversees 52 of the local fairs through district agricultural associations. An additional 22, plus the state fair and two citrus fairs, are in the state’s “network of fairs,” meaning they receive some state funding but are overseen by local governments and nonprofits.
“There needs to be more accountability,” said John Moot, a San Diego lawyer who represented a carnival company that has sued both the San Diego and Orange County fairs — both of which are overseen by the state.
Last year that carnival company, Talley Amusements, was paid $500,000 by the San Diego County Fair to settle a lawsuit that alleged fair officials had engaged in bid-rigging when they went to hand out a multimillion-dollar contract to run rides and games on the midway. A San Diego County judge wrote that the evidence he reviewed “supports an inference of ‘favoritism,’ fraud’ and ‘corruption’ as to the award of public contracts, although no such definitive findings are made herein.”
Local newspapers called on the state to do something. When asked about the case, California officials said only that they continue “to review the circumstances of this case to determine whether further guidance or compliance measures are warranted.”
State officials also took a tolerant stance toward problems that the California state auditor uncovered. In 2019, an audit found that top officials at the Kern County Fair and in the state had allowed “gross mismanagement to continue unchecked for years.” The audit revealed as well that the Kern district agricultural association’s board of directors, appointed by the governor, had feasted on lobster dinners and fine wines paid by fair funds but failed to provide effective oversight. Kern fair officials did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
County leaders and local nonprofits have not always been better stewards. Some have failed to notice or take action as fair officials stole money or allowed fairgrounds to fall into debt or disrepair — even when grand juries warned there were problems.
“Not surprised,” said David McCuan, a professor of political science at Sonoma State University who is well-versed in local fairs. “There are generations of farmers and generations of networks of neighbors, friends and family members [who run these fairs]. They help each other. How business is done is insular. It’s not open or transparent.” At the same time, he said, “fairs are big money.” Put all those things together, he said, and the conditions are ripe for mismanagement and corruption.
Although many county fairs operate without incident, scandals sometimes erupt from the most mundane of matters.
Last year, Shasta County agreed to pay $300,000 to settle a lawsuit brought by a 9-year-old girl and her family after sheriff’s deputies seized her goat. The girl had raised the goat, a floppy eared brown and white guy known as Cedar, as part of the fair’s agricultural program, then changed her mind about watching a beloved animal turn into meat. But fair officials refused to allow her to back out; instead the county dispatched deputies across Northern California in pursuit of the animal, which was eventually butchered.
In a statement, a spokesperson for Gov. Gavin Newsom said “the state recognizes the challenges facing some of California’s fairgrounds and takes concerns about governance and accountability very seriously.”
In a separate statement, the California Department of Food and Agriculture said that “the difficulties uncovered at some fairs” should not overshadow their larger contributions. “These institutions serve as vital community hubs that play a key role in emergency response, as they support local economies.”
Fairgrounds are becoming increasingly important in the state’s disaster planning. During many of California’s recent wildfires, local fairgrounds have served as staging areas for firefighters and other emergency responders. Displaced animals find refuge there. They’ve also served as crucial evacuation centers — about 600 people, for example, lived at the Butte County fairgrounds in Chico for months after the 2018 Camp fire. Fairgrounds have become so essential to disaster response that the state has recently awarded tens of millions of dollars to upgrade facilities such as showers and kitchens that could be used for evacuees.
Yet in many counties, fairgrounds are in a state of disrepair. The Times identified more than a dozen that are plagued by leaky roofs, corroded and unsafe electrical systems, faulty plumbing, dangerously dilapidated grandstands and other unsafe conditions. This is partly because of mismanagement, but also because state funding for fairs has declined in recent years. Fair finances have also been hard hit by the declining popularity of horse racing.
“I think back to how full the fair used to be,” said Jeannie Fulton, gesturing to Humboldt’s half-empty fairgrounds during the August celebration.
“County fairs are still really valuable, but they are mismanaged in a lot of ways. We all see the grounds just deteriorating,” added Fulton, who runs the Humboldt County Farm Bureau. “They need to be run better.”
Mindy Romero, director of USC’s Center for Inclusive Democracy, said fair management may not be the most pressing issue facing state leaders but “there should be some accountability … these people are in charge of large amounts of money, and public trust and public resources.”
A judge, left, tries to decide which Boer goat has the best qualities and features during the Boer goat competition with 4-H club members, right, at the Humboldt County Fair.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
County fairs are “supposed to be a place where everybody can come together, family and friends and you bring the kids … it’s these rituals and communities that we really need to take care of. If a community hears that their local fair is stealing it can make [people] even more distrustful of government,” she said.
‘Capricious abuse of power’
California’s first fair was held in 1854, in what is now downtown San Francisco. It was so popular that the idea quickly spread, to Humboldt County in 1861, to San Diego in 1880 and to Orange County in 1890. (Los Angeles didn’t get in on the tradition until 1922.)
In 1887, the state Legislature, anxious to harness and regulate the explosion of fairs, created district agricultural associations, mini state agencies that manage the fairgrounds in each county and are run by boards appointed by the governor.
California is a dramatically different place than it was in 1887, but the governance structure of fairs largely remains. The 52 district agricultural associations each put on a fair, guided by boards appointed by the governor.
The 25 other fairs in the state’s network of fairs follow a similar program. The goal is for fairs to pay for themselves through admission prices, contracts with vendors and other sources of revenue, but they also receive state funding. District agricultural associations get about $2.6 million a year from the state’s general fund; an additional $5 million from sales tax revenue at the fairs is handed out each year to all 77 fairs in the network.
Each of the fairs strives to reflect its particular community. In Nevada County, the rides and food vendors set up beneath towering pine trees, and a central attraction this year was a model-train exhibit showcasing the historic derailment of circus cars. The Los Angeles County Fair, one of the state’s biggest, is known for its preposterous combination of junk food: deep-fried Oreos and pickles; corn wrapped in Cheetos; chicken sandwiches with funnel cake buns. The Calaveras County Fair features a frog-jumping contest, a nod to Mark Twain’s famous short story.
In small rural counties, said Jeff Griffiths, an Inyo County supervisor who is president of the California State Assn. of Counties, the fairgrounds serve as a “social and cultural hub” for the community all year.
“They are our event space,” he said. “We don’t have SoFi Stadium. Concerts, car shows, dances, on and on, they all happen at the fairgrounds.”
Lavish expenditures have for decades been part of the mix. A 1986 state audit blasted the entire fair system, detailing state funds spent on parties, meals and expensive custom belt buckles, along with other misuses of state funds. These include improper contracting — a problem that continues to plague many fairs.
Five years ago, Ventura Flores was pleased when the Santa Clara County Fairgrounds hired his firm — 4 Diamond Security — to provide security as public health officials ramped up a massive COVID-19 testing and eventually vaccination operation at the fairgrounds. It was the middle of the pandemic, and 4 Diamond had little other work.
A performer with Animal Cracker Conspiracy high-fives Ryder Lang, 7, next to his friend Abigail Fielding, 6, both from San José, after entering the Santa Clara County Fair in San José.
(Nhat V. Meyer / Bay Area News Group)
When he got the job, however, the fair’s event’s director, Obdulia Banuelos-Esparza, informed Flores that he would have to slip her cash in secret if he wanted to keep his contract, according to a statement of probable cause produced by the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s office.
After he refused, Flores said, Banuelos-Esparza began to complain about the work his guards were doing, accusing them of shirking their duties and sleeping on the job. Flores said he doubted the accusations but also feared he would lose the job if he didn’t pay, according to the statement of probable cause.
Flores, who did not respond to emails and calls from The Times, told investigators that he began giving Banuelos-Esparza between $2,500 and $4,000 a month, continuing for more than a year until sometime in the fall of 2021, when he said he stopped paying her. Then fair officials, who had told him they would be renewing 4 Diamond’s contract for another six months, instead terminated it, according to the statement of probable cause.
The Santa Clara County district attorney began investigating the scheme in 2023, following a whistleblower complaint. In 2024, after reviewing Banuelos’ bank records, the district attorney charged her with extortion and bribery, issuing a statement that the fairgrounds should be “where our community goes for fairs, festivals, and fun. Not felonies.”
There had long been warning signs: A 2019 Santa Clara County grand jury report uncovered “financial reports lacking in accuracy and transparency, violations of local bingo regulations, questionable tax reporting practices” and other problems. The grand jury also called out “a relaxed level of scrutiny and oversight” by the county.
After Banuelos’ conviction, the district attorney released another statement, declaring the midway now “free of corruption.”
“Ride the Ferris wheel, see the farm animals, eat the food and have fun knowing our fair is safe,” he said.
Santa Clara’s fair is not the only one that has strayed from accepted contracting rules. State audits in recent years have called out more than a dozen fairs, including those in Santa Barbara and Turlock, for violating state policies by handing out money without signed agreements or competitive bidding.
In Fresno, officials required some vendors doing business with the Big Fresno Fair to also make donations to a foundation associated with the fair, according to a 2022 state audit. The foundation then purchased more than $21,000 in gift cards that it gifted to fair employees, along with more than $68,000, according to the audit.
In a statement, fair officials said that the fair and its board of directors “took the findings of the audit very seriously” and made corrective actions that satisfied the state. The statement added that the fair plays a vital role in the community: in addition to the fair itself, the fairgrounds host 250 events each year and are used during fires and other emergencies.
In San Diego, after Talley Amusements filed its 2022 lawsuit alleging bid-rigging, several fair officials testified in sworn depositions that Talley had actually won the bid, but that a top fair official had pressured them to change the scores to award the contract to a different company. One fair official also testified that she had shredded the original scoring documents.
Fair officials, however, admitted no wrongdoing, with a spokesperson in 2023 calling the allegations of bid-rigging “hogwash.” In a counterclaim filed in San Diego Superior Court, the fair accused Talley of submitting “a sham bid” that might have compromised public safety. In a statement, fair officials said that they agreed to settle the suit only because it was cheaper to do so than litigating it in court.
An ‘inside job’ safe heist
Every year, local fairs in California handle millions of dollars in cash — sometimes without the most basic of safeguards.
In the summer of 2022, a man working at the Ventura County Fair gave some accomplices a hot tip: A safe in the fair’s office was packed with more than half a million dollars in cash.
Alexander Piceno, who worked at the Ventura County Fair, was arrested and charged and pleaded guilty — along with three burglars — to stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars.
(Ventura County District Attorney’s office)
On the night of Aug. 10, Alexander Piceno, 30, who worked for a company processing cash for the fair, left the front door to the state’s 31st District Agricultural Assn. unlocked. He also left instructions on how to open the office safe, according to prosecutors. Two burglars walked in, loaded up $572,000 in paper bills (which weighed upward of 50 pounds), and jumped in a car headed back to Los Angeles.
Police quickly realized they were dealing with an inside job, and four conspirators including Piceno were later arrested and charged, and pleaded guilty to felonies, according to the district attorney. Most of the money, however, was never recovered; prosecutors said they seized $6,100 and a used pickup truck purchased with proceeds from the crime.
The Times, reviewing state audits, grand jury reports, lawsuits and criminal filings, found allegations of theft or inappropriate use of public resources at more than a dozen fairs, including those in San Joaquin, Monterey,Yolo, Inyo, Fresno and Tulare counties.
In Orange County, according to a 2018 state audit, officials at the 32nd District Agricultural Assn. caught an employee embezzling more than $9,000 in ticket sales but failed to report the crime to the state as required. The audit also noted that fair officials had spent more than $220,000 on catering without explaining a clear business purpose. In a statement, fair officials said that “issues cited” in the audit “have been addressed” and “new policies are in place regarding meals.” The statement added that all audits since have been “free of any issues.”
September 2022 photo of fairgoers on the opening day of the Tulare County Fair.
(Ari Plachta / Sacramento Bee)
In several cases, including in Stanislaus County, public money went for fancy meals for the board members who are supposed to be watching over the fair’s operations. State audits sometime read like restaurant menus, with references to prime rib, salmon, ribeye steak and fine wine. It is one of many perks board members enjoy, which also often include free tickets for themselves and friends to concerts, dinners and the fair itself.
State auditors also found plenty of gifts to staff, including bowling nights and credit card charges (with and without required receipts) for flowers, gift cards and even clothes.
One employee at the Stanislaus fair spent thousands of dollars on clothes, which he told state auditors he bought for himself and members of the maintenance staff to wear during fair events. But the audit also found that other members of the maintenance staff members “do not recall receiving these items.”
‘The fair got off scot-free’
September 2017 photo of turkeys competing in a race during the annual Kern County Fair in Bakersfield.
(Mark Ralston / AFP / Getty Images)
In Kern County, the state’s 15th Agricultural Assn. has put on a fair every year since 1916, except for two years during the Great Depression and in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Held in Bakersfield, in the heart of California’s farm belt, the fair has an operating budget of about $10 million and welcomes around 350,000 people each year, according to officials.
To pull it off, the fair has a permanent staff of about 20, and hires about 500 temporary employees during the season. But investigators from the state auditor’s office found that some of these workers appeared far from wholly committed to their fair duties.
In a 2019 audit, investigators found that several employees maintained second jobs — which they performed not in their spare time, but while clocked into their posts at the fair. “Several witnesses told us that Employee A and the other employees left work for almost the entire day nearly every day for weeks or even months at a time,” the audit said.
The fair’s board of directors and chief executive had their own issues, auditors found, among them a taste for expensive dinners and bottles of fine Cabernet, paid for with fair credit cards despite rules against it. In addition, auditors found that at least one of the dinners, which included six board members gabbing together across a table, may have violated the state’s open meeting law that forbids a quorum of a governing body without public notice. Over a three-year period, the audit found, the Kern County fair “spent $132,584 on credit card purchases for which [it] had no supporting receipts.”
Auditors reserved some of their harshest criticisms for the lack of oversight by state officials that they said had allowed all of these “improper governmental activities.”
The audit reported that the department’s Fairs and Expositions branch did not conduct a single compliance audit of the more than 50 fairs under its purview from 2011 to 2017.
The audit generated a series of outraged headlines in newspapers around the state, many of them focused on the fine food and wine that board members and the CEO, Michael Olcott, had feasted upon. Olcott did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
The audit’s release did not bring about many substantive changes in the leadership at the Kern County Fair. Six years later, the CEO remains in his post, as do most of the board members who oversaw the fair back then. In a statement, state officials said they “worked with the fair’s leadership to implement corrective measures, including stronger financial controls, enhanced segregation of duties, and updated board and staff training on state contracting and accounting policies.” Officials also said they continue to “monitor the fair’s progress through periodic reviews and ongoing technical assistance.”
After the audit, the Kern County district attorney opened a case against the fair’s maintenance supervisor, accusing him of recycling scrap metal from the fair and pocketing the proceeds. The case is set to go to trial next year. The maintenance supervisor, Joe Hebert, maintains his innocence. He said that he is being scapegoated.
“Recycling scrap metal was part of my job and I had permission to do it,” Hebert said. “I could walk away and plead to a misdemeanor and I’m not going to do it,” he said.
Mark Salvaggio, a former Bakersfield City Council member who served on the Kern County fair board for several years ending in 2014, said he was outraged at the outcome of the audit. “The fair got off scot-free,” he said.
After the state auditor released its Kern County report, the California Department of Food and Agriculture threw its own auditing team into high gear. The division has released more than 15 audits since 2020 — after years of doing few or none.
A series of blistering reports have been issued, followed in some cases by radical changes in personnel.
In a statement, officials said they are “committed to ensuring transparency and accountability at California’s fairs.” Officials noted that audits check for compliance with state policies, and that the oversight program has been reestablished after being “drastically reduced” because of funding cuts during the Great Recession.
But some local officials say the audits, although they may be exposing examples of misspending, sometimes unfairly tarnish fair officials who often struggle to run vital community events with little training in government accounting and contracting rules.
“This is a very unique business that isn’t found anywhere else in state government,” said Corey Oakley, the CEO of the Napa Valley Expo. “We have live animals, corn dogs, flowers, drag queens, horse racing, tractors, destruction Derby …”
Griffiths of the California Assn. of Counties said he thinks the state should either fully fund fairs and “make them viable, or they should turn them over to local communities so we can run them.”
“They have to follow state requirements, but there is none of the benefit of state funding that comes with that,” he said. Meanwhile, he added, “the deferred maintenance on these things is outrageous. They’re falling apart.”
‘I pray we can keep this alive’
Bella Gantt uses her feet as she performs her blindfolded archery show for visitors at the Humboldt County Fair in Ferndale. Gantt is the only person in the world who performs a blindfolded archery show using her feet.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
In Humboldt, where the fair is in the state’s network of fairs but not directly overseen by the state, Fair Board President Andy Titus said he is desperate to make sure his local fair survives. His is the oldest continuously operating festival in the state but is reeling from the double blow of embezzlement and the loss of horse racing. The fairgrounds are also in tough shape; in 2023 the fair had to perform emergency repairs to make its grandstands safe enough for people to sit in them.
“I’ve loved this fair since I was a little kid,” said Titus, a local dairy farmer who said he grew up showing animals at the fair and now helps his children do the same. “I pray we can keep this alive.”
The fairgrounds sprawl across a flat coastal plain near the Victorian-era town of Ferndale. A few miles away, the cliffs of California’s Lost Coast rise up and white-capped waves pound into miles of empty beach. In a county with more trees than people, many residents say their yearly visits to the fair help them gather as a community in a part of California known for its isolation.
Nina Tafarella stole more than $430,000 from the Humboldt County Fair, according to a federal criminal complaint, and has pleaded guilty to embezzlement charges.
(Humboldt County Sheriff )
But the beloved fair has not been well-run for some time, according to federal district court records in San Francisco. At the beginning of 2021, it was in “total chaos,” as one manager would describe to an FBI agent.
The organization was 15 years behind on auditing its books, and the state was threatening to cut off its funding. The fair also lacked a bookkeeper, a secretary and other assistance. Even the office itself was in disarray, with “approximately a year worth of backlogged mail and files on the floor,” an interim manager would later tell the FBI, according to an agent’s report of his interview with her filed in federal court.
The manager turned to Craigslist for a bookkeeper who could help make sense of the disorder, and found Nina Tafarella.
At this point in her life, Tafarella was recovering from an addiction to prescription painkillers, was drinking heavily and was in a state of stress and occasional seeming mania, according to a sentencing memo her attorney filed in federal court. She was also deep in the grips of a compulsive gambling problem, which got so bad that she started lying to her friends about how much time she was spending at casinos.
But she was cheerful and helpful and she was charging only about $35 to $40 an hour for her time, far less than a certified public accountant might have cost the fair. She was hired.
It all came crashing down at a nearby dance studio. Tafarella had also worked there and had stolen a little more than $20,000. But unlike the fair, the owner of the studio noticed and filed a police report.
After learning of that on Nov. 8, 2022, the fair called in an outside financial expert, who took a quick look at the books and discovered the ghost payroll scheme. Fair officials shut down Tafarella’s access to their bank accounts and by Nov. 15, when Tafarella was next due at work, an FBI agent was at the fair offices.
She was arrested and later pleaded guilty to five counts of wire fraud.
“Everybody was shocked,” Titus said. “She was always very friendly when you saw her.”
In filings to the judge overseeing her sentencing, Tafarella said she has now stopped drinking and gambling and that it “makes me sick” to think about what she has done. Still, in asking for a reduced sentence, her lawyer also argued that if the fair had been better run, it might have been able to protect itself from Tafarella’s schemes.
“Remarkably, the fair association’s own witnesses admitted that the Board was not financially savvy and had little to no idea about the state of the fair’s finances,” Tafarella’s lawyer wrote. Instead, “they solely entrusted Ms. Tafarella, who was suffering from visibly anxious, drinking too much, acting erratically, and reliably to be found at the casino, with the fair association’s finances.”
Titus, whose job at the fair is volunteer, said he has been working almost around the clock ever since to try to save the operation, which saw smaller crowds this year, partly because the lack of horse racing.
“It’s sad,” said Robin Eckerfield, a 72-year-old educator from Fortuna, who said she goes to the fair every year to sample the food, look at the crafts and catch up with old friends. She couldn’t help but notice the reduced offerings this year, a result of the fair’s dire circumstances.
The crowds were small enough that even on the day of the famous chili cook-off, celebrity chef Fieri could walk through the fair mostly unmobbed.
Fieri, who said he got his start as a chef with a pretzel cart at the fairgrounds as a kid, said he returns whenever he can to support it.
While handing out the trophies, Fieri delivered an impassioned speech to the paltry but enthusiastic crowd about the importance of supporting the annual event.
“We all love the fair,” he told the small crowd. “This is our fair. We have to keep it going. We have to keep it alive.”
Dec. 10 (UPI) — The United States has blacklisted a network of four Colombians and four entities accused of recruiting former Colombian military personnel to fight in Sudan’s civil war.
The sanctions were announced Tuesday by the U.S. Treasury, which said the network was aiding the Rapid Support Forces, a breakaway paramilitary unit that has been accused of committing ethnic cleansing and genocide in the nearly 1,000-day-old conflict.
The RSF has been waging war against the Sudanese Armed Forces since April 2023. According to the Treasury, the RSF has recruited hundreds of former Colombian military personnel since September 2024.
The Colombian soldiers provide the RSF with tactical and technical expertise. They serve as infantry, artillerymen, drone pilots, vehicle operators and instructors, with some even training children, according to the Treasury.
“The RSF has shown again and again that it is willing to target civilians — including infants and young children. Its brutality has deepened the conflict and destabilized the region, creating the conditions for terrorist groups to grow,” John Hurley, undersecretary for the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, said in a statement.
Colombian soldiers have aided the RSF in its late October capture of El Fasher in North Darfur following an 18-month assault, while committing alleged war crimes along the way, including mass killings, sexual violence and ethnically targeted torture.
The Treasury identified and sanctioned Alvaro Andrew Quijano Becerra, a 58-year-old retired Colombian military officer, who is accused by the United States of playing a leading role in the network from the United Arab Emirates. His Bogota-founded International Services Agency was also sanctioned for seeking to fill drone operator, sniper and translator roles for the RSF via its website, group chats and town halls.
Colombia-based employment agency Maine Global Corp., Colombia-based Comercializadora San Bendito and Panama-based Global Staffing S.A. were the other three entities sanctioned.
The other three individuals blacklisted were Claudia Viviana Oliveros Forero, Quijano’s 52-year-old wife; Mateo Andres Duque Botero, 50, the manager of Maine Global; and Monica Munoz Ucros, 49, Maine Global’s alternate manager and manager of Comercializadora San Bendito.
“Today’s sanctions disrupt an important source of external support to the RSF, degrading its ability to use skilled Colombian fighters to prosecute violence against civilians,” State Department spokesperson Thomas Pigott said in a statement.
Sanctions freeze U.S.-based assets of those named while barring U.S. persons from doing business with them.
Tony Dokoupil is expected to move from mornings to evenings at CBS News.
Dokoupil, currently the co-host of “CBS Mornings,” has signed a new deal to take over as anchor of “CBS Evening News,” according to several people briefed on the matter who were not authorized to comment publicly. One person said an announcement is expected as soon as this week.
A representative for CBS News declined comment. Dokoupil, 44, did not respond to a request for comment.
The news division’s signature program is expected to return to a solo anchor format after pairing John Dickerson and Maurice DuBois over the last year. Both Dickerson and DuBois are departing CBS News later this month.
The appointment of Dokoupil would not point to a major change in direction at the program. Dokoupil, who has been with CBS News since 2016 after three years at NBC, became co-host at CBS Mornings in 2019.
Bari Weiss, the recently appointed editor in chief at CBS News, reportedly expressed a desire to bring in an outside name, including Bret Baier, the Washington-based anchor at conservative-leaning Fox News. CNN’s Anderson Cooper was also discussed internally, but he chose to sign a new deal with his network.
The Free Press, the digital news site co-founded by Weiss and acquired by Paramount, vigorously defended Dokoupil last year when he was at the center of controversy over an aggressive on-air interview he conducted with author Ta-Nehisi Coates last year.
Dokoupil was admonished in an editorial meeting for how he questioned Coates about his new book, “The Message,” which examines the Israel-Gaza conflict. CBS News leadership said on the call that the interview did not meet the company’s editorial standards after receiving a number of complaints from staffers.
A recording of the meeting was posted on the Free Press site.
“It is journalists like Tony Dokoupil who are an endangered species in legacy news organizations, which are wilting to the pressures of this new elite consensus,” the editors of the Free Press wrote on the matter.
Shari Redstone, the former majority shareholder in CBS News parent Paramount, also publicly expressed her support for Dokoupil at the time. She said CBS News executives made “a bad mistake” in their handling of the matter. Both executives who led the editorial call, Wendy McMahon and Adrienne Roark, are no longer with the network.
Paramount is refusing to accept defeat in the Warner Bros. Discovery auction, launching a $78-billion hostile takeover of its rival Monday after being spurned last week in the bidding.
The move comes four days after Warner’s board unanimously selected Netflix as the winner.
Paramount has beefed up its offer with backing from Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds, including Saudi Arabia, a Chinese firm and President Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner’s investment firm Affinity Partners, according to a Monday regulatory filing.
The presence of a member of the president’s family in a proposed corporate takeover, which includes news channel CNN and the historic Warner Bros. properties, immediately complicates an already fraught regulatory picture.
Last week, Netflix had offered $72 billion — or $27.75 a share — for a big chunk of the company: Warner Bros. film and television studios, which hold the rights to Batman, Bugs Bunny and Harry Potter, the expansive lot in Burbank and HBO and HBO Max. Additionally, Netflix would take on more than $10 billion in Warner Bros. debt for a total deal value of $82.7 billion.
Paramount, backed by billionaire Larry Ellison’s family, had entered the final week of the auction with a $25 a share, all-cash offer for all of Warner Bros. Discovery, according to people involved in the auction who were not authorized to comment. In the final hours, Paramount upped its offer to $30 per share — but still came away empty-handed.
Paramount confirmed Monday that it submitted its $30-per-share offer just a few hours before Netflix was announced as the winner.
“We never heard back,” Paramount Chairman and Chief Executive David Ellison told CNBC on Monday morning. “We’re really here to finish what we started.”
Despite the decision by Netflix and Warner Bros. Discovery to pursue a deal, Paramount is directly appealing to shareholders to vote on their offer in what is commonly known as a hostile takeover.
Historically, hostile takeover bids are difficult to pull off, but there have been some notable exceptions, including Elon Musk’s $44-billion acquisition of the company formerly known as Twitter in 2022. Two decades ago, Comcast failed in a hostile takeover bid for Walt Disney Co.
Warner Bros. Discovery said Monday that its board would “carefully review and consider Paramount Skydance’s offer in accordance with the terms of Warner Bros. Discovery’s agreement with Netflix.”
Warner’s board remains supportive of Netflix’s bid, the company said. Shareholders will receive recommendations from the Warner board within 10 business days. The company has long wanted the auction to be wrapped up by Christmas.
“Warner Bros. Discovery stockholders are advised not to take any action at this time with respect to Paramount Skydance’s proposal,” the company said in a statement.
Paramount began its pursuit of Warner in mid-September. It is now bypassing Warner’s board, management and bankers and appealing directly to shareholders in a hostile takeover effort. In a statement, Paramount said its bid was a “superior alternative” to Netflix’s, which will face a rigorous and lengthy antitrust review.
Netflix co-Chief Executive Ted Sarandos said Paramount’s move was “entirely expected.”
“We have a deal done and we are incredibly happy with the deal,” Sarandos said at a UBS conference, adding that he believes Netflix’s takeover of the historic company would be great for shareholders, consumers and Hollywood workers. “We’re superconfident we’re going to get it across the line and finish.”
Already, the biggest weakness in Netflix’s deal was concern that the tech company may not be able to win regulatory approval. The company has more than 300 million streaming subscribers worldwide, and adding HBO Max would more than double the number of subscribers for competing video-on-demand subscription services.
In a statement, Paramount called Netflix’s offer “inferior,” one that would expose Warner shareholders “to a protracted multi-jurisdictional regulatory clearance process with an uncertain outcome.” Paramount has long counted on its warm relationship with President Trump to smooth the regulatory process, at least in the U.S.
Warner Bros. Discovery continues to believe that Netflix submitted the best offer.
Netflix is not buying Warner’s basic cable channels, including CNN, TBS, Food Network and TLC, and Warner figures it can spin off those assets into a separate company, Discovery Global, that would be worth about $3 to $4 a share.
When adding the Discovery Global value with Netflix’s price of $27.75 a share, Warner believes that its shareholders will come away with more than $31 a share for the company — more than what Paramount has offered.
Netflix offered a cash and stock deal. On Friday, the company said it would take a year to 18 months to gain the necessary regulatory approvals. Paramount is banking on investors being concerned about a possible regulatory fallout with the Netflix deal.
“Look, we’re sitting on Wall Street, where cash is still king,” Ellison told CNBC. “We are offering shareholders $17.6 billion more cash than the deal that they currently have signed up on Netflix. We believe when [Warner shareholders] see what is currently in our offer, that that’s what they’ll vote for.”
Since mid-September, Paramount has submitted six bids for all of Warner Bros. Discovery.
Trump said Sunday that Netflix’s deal to buy Warner Bros. Discovery “could be a problem” because of the size of the streaming service’s combined market share. Trump said he “would be involved” in his administration’s decision whether to approve any deal.
Paramount said its $30 per share, all-cash offer represents a 139% premium to Warner’s $12.54 stock price on Sept. 10, the day before Paramount’s pursuit was leaked in the media. With the absorption of Warner’s cable channels and its heavy debt load, the Paramount deal would have an enterprise value of $108.4 billion.
That’s roughly what AT&T paid to buy the company, then called Time Warner Inc., in 2018 after spending nearly two years fighting in court with the first Trump administration.
A federal judge finally cleared the way for AT&T’s takeover, but after three years the phone company wanted to flee Hollywood and made a deal with Discovery’s David Zaslav, allowing his smaller company to take over in 2022.
“The Trump card is the best card Paramount-Skydance has but it could backfire in multiple directions,” New Street Research media analyst Blair Levin said Monday in a note to investors. “As they say in Hollywood, ‘stay tuned.’”
Warner and Netflix could claim that Trump’s Justice Department, if it seeks to intervene, was trying to squash their deal simply because of politics. The inclusion of Kushner in the deal also could open the door to conflict-of-interest arguments.
“Courts, and the public, in the past, have regarded Presidential involvement in antitrust challenges as problematic,” Levin wrote in his note.
Paramount’s 11th-hour offer for Warner contained “opaque” details about its financing, a person involved in the auction who was not authorized to speak publicly told The Times over the weekend. The fuzzy nature of Paramount’s backers gave the Warner board pause in contrast to the Netflix offer, which spelled out its financing, the person said.
In a Securities & Exchange Commission filing Monday, Paramount disclosed that Larry Ellison’s family has provided an $11.8-billion commitment. An additional $24 billion would come from three sovereign wealth funds from Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Abu Dhabi.
The controversial Chinese tech firm Tencent would provide an additional $1 billion, Paramount said. It said RedBird Capital Partners, an investor in Paramount, and Kushner’s Affinity Partners would also provide an undisclosed level of debt financing.
When asked about his son-in-law’s involvement in the Paramount bid, Trump told reporters at the White House: “I don’t know. I’ve never spoken with him about that. He’s really trying to work on Gaza.”
Should Paramount prevail, it would confront a heavy debt load that would bring more layoffs in an industry already reeling from downsizing. “As with Netflix, Paramount’s expected hostile bid for WBD raises significant concerns for our members and the industry,” a spokesperson for the Directors Guild of America said in a statement.
Just like with the AT&T deal for Time Warner, the Trump administration may not have the final say. If the U.S. Justice Department sues to block the Netflix deal, the matter will go before a federal judge.
However, Paramount hired Trump’s former antitrust regulator — Makan Delrahim — in the hope of steering a successful regulatory review. Delrahim joined Paramount in October as its chief legal officer.
“We believe our offer will create a stronger Hollywood. It is in the best interests of the creative community, consumers and the movie theater industry,” David Ellison said in a statement. “We believe they will benefit from the enhanced competition, higher content spend and theatrical release output, and a greater number of movies in theaters as a result of our proposed transaction.”
Paramount’s tender offer is set to expire Jan. 8, 2026, unless it’s extended.
Shares of Warner Bros. jumped 4.4% on Monday to $27.23. Paramount gained 9% to $14.57 a share while Netflix lost 3.4% to $96.79.
Times staff writers Wendy Lee and Stephen Battaglio contributed to this report.
