Paramount

Paramount Global has agreed to pay President Trump $16 million to end his lawsuit over edits to a “60 Minutes” interview — a legal tussle that roiled CBS News, spurred high-level departures and threatened to derail the company’s hoped-for sale.

The money will be allocated to Trump’s future presidential library. As part of the deal, Paramount did not offer an apology or express regret for CBS News’ reporting or edits.

“No amount will be paid directly or indirectly to President Trump,” Paramount said in a statement. “The settlement will include a release of all claims regarding any CBS reporting through the date of the settlement, including the Texas action and the threatened defamation action.”

Paramount decided to buy peace with the president rather than wage a costly fight to defend “60 Minutes” and its journalists in court. The move prompted an outcry by 1st Amendment experts who denounced the lawsuit as frivolous and the talks to reach Tuesday’s settlement as a shake-down.

The company’s leaders hope the settlement will clear a path for the company’s sale to David Ellison’s Skydance Media — a deal that needs the blessing of the Federal Communications Commission.

Instead of fast-tracking the review of the proposed Paramount-Skydance merger, the Trump-appointed FCC chairman opened an inquiry into whether edits of the October “60 Minutes” interview with then-Vice President Kamala Harris rose to the level of news distortion.

“The Company has agreed that in the future, ’60 Minutes’ will release transcripts of interviews with eligible U.S. presidential candidates after such interviews have aired, subject to redactions as required for legal or national security concerns,” Paramount said.

The two sides have participated in mediation sessions for the past two months. Paramount said the terms of the settlement were proposed by the mediator. Paramount’s $16 million payment will include Trump’s attorneys fees.

Trump has long maintained last fall’s “60 Minutes” interview was edited to make Harris look smarter to boost her November election chances. CBS denied the allegations, saying the edits were routine.

The unedited footage confirmed that Harris was accurately quoted.

But Trump’s team said the edits caused Trump “mental anguish.” After returning to the White House this year, Trump doubled his lawsuit damages demand to $20 billion.

“Her answer was horrendous,” Trump told reporters last month on the White House lawn. “I would say election-threatening. … Her answer was election-threatening it was so incompetent.”

Trump’s lawsuit called the edits “malicious, deceptive, and substantial news distortion calculated to confuse, deceive, and mislead the public.” The trims, the suit alleged, were “partisan and unlawful acts of election and voter interference.”

CBS has acknowledged editing the interview, which is routine in the news business. Longstanding 1st Amendment interpretations give news producers wide latitude to decide what material to broadcast as long as they don’t distort the information presented to viewers.

Paramount’s controlling shareholder Shari Redstone pushed for a settlement. The Redstone family’s investment firm, which holds the controlling Paramount shares, is juggling more than $400 million in debt and she wanted to facilitate the sale of Paramount, as well as her family’s holding firm, to Skydance.

Family members are counting on their portion of the Paramount sale proceeds. A representative has said Redstone recused herself from decisions dealing with Trump’s lawsuit but the mogul had made clear her desire for a settlement.

The Redstone family controls 77% of Paramount voting shares.

Skydance executives and their private equity partners also agitated for Paramount to end the bickering with Trump to resolve a key headache before the new owners take over.

Paramount, in a statement, said it has treated Trump’s lawsuit “completely separate from, and unrelated to, the Skydance transaction and the FCC approval process.”

It’s been nearly a year since Redstone and fellow Paramount directors approved Skydance’s two-phased $8-billion deal that would hand the company to tech billionaire Larry Ellison and his family.

His son David Ellison is eager to run the company that boasts the legendary Melrose Avenue film studio, Paramount+ streaming service, CBS and cable channels including Comedy Central, Nickelodeon and BET.

Skydance operations and personnel are expected to be folded into Paramount in the second phase of the transaction.

Paramount Pictures studio lot on Melrose Avenue in Hollywood.

(Brian van der Brug/Los Angeles Times)

The deal faces one last regulatory hurdle. Paramount must win FCC Chairman Brendan Carr’s consent to transfer more than two dozen CBS station licenses to the Ellisons. FCC approval has been held up for months.

Skydance and Paramount face an October deadline to finalize the deal or risk its collapse.

Redstone would then have to come up with hundreds of millions of dollars to satisfy her creditors, including Larry Ellison, giving her another reason to favor a settlement.

Her willingness to set aside free speech values prompted push-back from journalists. The nonprofit Freedom of the Press Foundation decried Paramount’s decision to cede 1st Amendment freedoms in an effort to advance the Skydance deal. It vowed to sue Paramount if it settled.

But the deal’s months-long delay was wearing.

Redstone separately disclosed in early June that she was being treated for thyroid cancer.

The saga began last fall when CBS News invited both Harris and Trump to sit down with “60 Minutes,” a campaign season tradition. After initially agreeing, Trump backed out.

CBS went forward with the Harris piece but got into hot water after the network broadcast two portions of her response to a question by CBS correspondent Bill Whitaker. When he challenged Harris about the Biden Administration’s struggles dealing with Israel’s prime minister, Harris gave a three-sentence answer.

CBS’ Sunday morning show, “Face the Nation” aired her first sentence, which was convoluted. The following night, “60 Minutes” ran the second part of her answer, which was forceful and succinct.

Trump and his supporters cried foul, pointing to the discrepancies.

The showdown accelerated a week before the election when Trump filed his lawsuit in Amarillo, Texas. He accused CBS of trying to cover up Harris’ “word salad” to manipulate the results of what was expected to be a tight election.

Trump won decisively, and CBS sought to have the case dismissed.

The network’s lawyers said its journalists were protected by the 1st Amendment. It also argued that the case should be moved from west Texas, where it was heard by a Trump-appointed federal judge. The lawyers sought to get the case moved to a New York court, where CBS and “60 Minutes” is based.

The interview in question didn’t even mention Texas. In February, Trump added U.S. Rep. Ronny Jackson, his former doctor, to the lawsuit as an additional plaintiff. Jackson is a Texas resident.

Tuesday night’s settlement stipulated that Jackson would not receive any money.

Earlier this year, the Texas judge ordered the two sides to present their cases to a mediator. A retired judge who handles complex litigation began hearing the matter April 30.

The controversy stabbed at the heart of CBS News and its legacy of fearless broadcast journalism.

CBS News producers have long maintained they did nothing wrong. Journalists refused to sign any apology, which was long seen as a key demand from Trump and his team.

Inside the company, a pitched battle raged for months.

Vice President Kamala Harris talks to “60 Minutes” correspondent Bill Whitaker.

(CBS News)

In late April, the executive producer of “60 Minutes,” Bill Owens, quit. That prompted longtime CBS newsman Scott Pelley to inform “60 Minutes” viewers the show had faced increased corporate oversight because of Paramount’s desire to win the Trump administration’s approval of the Skydance deal.

“None of our stories has been blocked,” Pelley told viewers. “But Bill felt he lost the independence that honest journalism requires.”

Some corporate executives were furious over Pelley’s public statements, insiders have said.

The Trump dispute also contributed to the departure of Wendy McMahon, the president of CBS News and Stations. She stepped down under pressure in May.

There were other sore points. Redstone, who also serves as the chair of the Paramount board, had also expressed dissatisfaction with CBS News’ coverage of the Israel-Hamas war.

Fallout from the settlement could prompt additional headaches.

Three Democrat U.S. senators warned Redstone that Paramount could face allegations of bribery if it wrote a big check to mollify Trump in an effort to facilitate the FCC’s review of the Skydance deal.

The Wall Street Journal reported that Paramount offered Trump $15 million to make the lawsuit go away, but he declined.

The issue became an unexpected pain point in Skydance’s pursuit of FCC approval to take over the CBS licenses.

Early this year, the FCC’s Carr opened an inquiry into whether the “60 Minutes” edits constituted “news bias” despite a longstanding acknowledgment by the FCC that it had little authority to act on complaints about accuracy or bias of reporters and news networks.

“The agency is prohibited by law from engaging in censorship or infringing on First Amendment rights of the press,” FCC said in guidelines posted on its website. “Those protected rights include, but are not limited to, a broadcaster’s selection and presentation of news or commentary.”

Carr ordered CBS to release the raw footage.

Video of the unedited interview confirmed the network’s account. But the footage also revealed that Harris’ jumbled answer was clipped to its most cogent sentence.

“It is troubling anytime a news organization settles a suit that was plainly winnable,” RonNell Andersen Jones, a 1st Amendment expert and law professor at the University of Utah, said in an interview earlier this year. “It represents lost 1st Amendment ground that didn’t have to be ceded.”

Paramount becomes the latest media company to settle, rather than risk incurring the president’s wrath or face an ugly courtroom confrontation.

Walt Disney Co.’s ABC News in December settled a Trump suit against ABC News and anchor George Stephanopoulos by agreeing to pay $1 million for legal fees and donating another $15 million for Trump’s future presidential library.

The resolution came after Stephanopoulos asserted during an on-air interview that a jury had found Trump “liable for rape” in a civil case. Jurors had actually determined Trump was liable for “sexual abuse.”

ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos.

(Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times)

Some news outlets have fought back, including the Associated Press, which has vigorously defended its reporters’ ability of to cover the president.

Gannett’s Des Moines Register and independent pollster J. Ann Selzer also have battled Trump’s legal challenges to an Iowa poll that overstated Harris’s support. The poll was published just days before the election, suggesting Harris was leading in the Hawkeye state but she lost convincingly.

This week, Trump and his fellow plaintiffs moved to have their federal case dismissed.

The president revised his claims — that the poll’s publication amounted to election interference and violated Iowa’s Consumer Fraud Act — with a new lawsuit in state court.

June 19 (UPI) — Paramount has pulled back on a $35 million settlement with President Donald Trump after he sued the media company over a segment on CBS’ News’ “60 Minutes.”

The lawsuit alleges that the program edited an interview with Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris ahead of the 2024 election to change how she would appear to viewers.

The stalled settlement is holding up a potential $8 billion takeover of Paramount by Skydance, a deal that the two companies negotiated over a year ago.

Despite the legal wrangling, Trump has said he is encouraged by the proposed merger in its current form, and endorsed the deal proposed by Skydance’s David Ellison.

“Ellison is great,” Trump told reporters on the White House lawn Wednesday. He’ll do a great job with it.”

Trump seemed to have connected the delay in the deal to his Paramount lawsuit.

The internal debate over the Trump lawsuit and the way it was being handled prompted CBS News President Wendy McMahon to resign in May, saying in a memo that she and the company could not agree on a path forward.

The Paramount-Skydance deal has been pending review by the Federal Communications Commission since last fall.

President Trump has endorsed David Ellison’s takeover of Paramount Global — an $8-billion merger that has been complicated by his $20-billion lawsuit over CBS’ “60 Minutes.”

On Wednesday, Trump was asked about the hold-up in the federal review of Skydance’s takeover of the storied entertainment company. The question came as reporters clustered around the president on the White House lawn to watch the installation of a flagpole.

The Paramount-Skydance deal has been pending at the Federal Communications Commission since late last fall.

Trump said he hoped the deal goes through.

“Ellison is great. He’ll do a great job with it,” Trump said.

Then he appeared to connect the merger-review delay to his lawsuit against CBS and its parent Paramount over last fall’s “60 Minutes” interview with then-Vice President Kamala Harris.

Trump has maintained since last October that the Harris interview was edited to burnish her chances in the November election. CBS has denied the allegations, saying the edits were routine. The raw footage showed Harris was accurately quoted, but Trump’s team said he suffered “mental anguish” from the broadcast.

“They interviewed Kamala. Her answer was horrendous,” Trump said Wednesday. “I would say it was election-threatening. I would say election-threatening because it was so incompetent.”

1st Amendment experts have called Trump’s case frivolous, but Paramount wants to avoid waging an extensive legal fight. Paramount’s leaders have pursued a settlement to help clear a path for the company’s sale to Skydance — a deal that needs the approval of the FCC.

The mediation process to resolve the lawsuit, filed in a Texas court, has become protracted.

“They are working on a settlement,” Trump said Wednesday. He mentioned that two high-level CBS executives — the head of CBS News and the executive producer of “60 Minutes” — had abruptly departed as the merger review dragged on.

“They’re all getting fired,” he said.

Late last week, Trump’s legal team filed court documents asking for a deadline extension in the discovery process, disclosing the two sides were working to reach a resolution.

Earlier this month, Ellison met Trump briefly while the two men were sitting ringside at a UFC fight in New Jersey, according to video footage shared online. Skydance declined to discuss Ellison’s interaction with Trump.

It marked the second time this year that Ellison chatted with the president at a UFC match. The first was in April.

It’s been nearly a year since Paramount’s controlling shareholder Shari Redstone and fellow Paramount directors approved the two-phased $8-billion deal that will hand the company to the son of tech billionaire Larry Ellison, who is a Trump supporter. The deal will also see the Ellison family buy the Redstone investment vehicle, National Amusements Inc.

Santa Monica-based Skydance intends to consolidate the company that boasts the Melrose Avenue Paramount film studio, Paramount+ streaming service, CBS and cable channels including Comedy Central, Showtime and BET.

Skydance operations and personnel will be folded into Paramount.

The deal faces one final regulatory hurdle: FCC Chairman Brendan Carr’s consent to transfer 29 CBS television station licenses to the Ellisons from the Redstones. This week, the Senate approved Trump’s second Republican appointment to the panel, Olivia Trusty.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Representatives for Paramount and Skydance declined to comment.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Abraham Márquez, a reporter with the nonprofit investigative news startup Southlander, was filming a tense standoff between Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies and immigrant rights protesters in Paramount on Saturday night when he saw a deputy aim a “less-lethal” launcher in his direction.

Sensing a confrontation, Márquez said, he raised his press credential and “kept yelling press, press, press,” even as he turned and began running in the opposite direction. He barely made it a few feet before he felt a stinging pain as first one foam round, then another slammed into his buttocks and his back.

“They just unloaded,” he said of the deputies.

He was nearly struck again a short time later, when deputies riding by in an armored vehicle sprayed foam rounds into a gas station parking lot where Márquez and a KTLA-TV news crew had sought cover, he said. He was shaken, but said that he felt compelled to keep reporting.

“I got hit and whatnot but I’m glad I was there to document it,” he said.

The incident was one of dozens in which journalists have been shot with less-lethal police rounds, tear-gassed, shoved and detained while chronicling the ongoing civil unrest and military intervention in the nation’s second-largest city, according to interviews and video footage reviewed by The Times.

The police actions have drawn angry condemnation from public officials and 1st Amendment advocates. There have been multiple reported instances of reporters not only being struck by projectiles, but also having their bags searched, being threatened with arrest and getting blocked from areas where they had a right under state law to observe police activity.

Among those hit by police projectiles were several Times reporters in the course of covering protests in downtown L.A. over the past few days.

The LAPD and L.A. County Sheriff’s Department have faced criticism and lawsuits over their treatment of news media during past crises, but some covering the recent events say the situation has only gotten worse with the inflammatory anti-media messaging coming from the Trump White House.

“The price for free speech should not be this high,” said Arturo Carmona, president and publisher of Caló News, a news site that covers issues that matter to English-speaking Latinos. “Several of our reporters, several of whom are women of color, have been harassed and attacked by law enforcement.”

In one high-profile case, a CNN reporter was briefly detained by officers while doing a live on-air segment.

In another, Australian TV news reporter Lauren Tomasi was shot in the leg by a less-lethal round by an riot gear-clad officer moments after she wrapped up a live on-air segment. The incident became an international affair, with Australian Prime Minister Tony Albanese calling it “horrific.”

L.A. Mayor Karen Bass said it “sends a terrible message,” and several city councilmembers referenced it while grilling LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell on Tuesday about his department’s response to the protests.

In a statement, the Sheriff’s Department said it was reviewing video footage from several incidents involving the news media to determine whether any of its deputies were involved.

The department said it is “committed to maintaining an open and transparent relationship with the media and ensuring that journalists can safely perform their duties, especially during protests, acts of civil disobedience, and public gatherings.”

“Our goal is to support press freedom while upholding public safety and operational integrity,” the statement said.

LAPD Deputy Chief Michael Rimkunas said that two of the roughly 15 complaints the department was investigating as of Tuesday involved possible mistreatment of journalists — a number that is expected to grow in the coming days and weeks.

Rimkunas said the department decided to launch an investigation of the Tomasi incident on its own, but has since been in contact with the Australian consulate.

A coalition of 27 press and civil liberties advocacy groups wrote to U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem on Tuesday “to express alarm that federal officers may have violated the First Amendment rights of journalists covering recent protests and unrest related to immigration enforcement in the Los Angeles area.”

Multiple journalists who covered the protests told The Times that officers and deputies used physical force or the threat of arrest to remove them from areas where they have a right to be.

In doing so, the journalists said, police were ignoring protections established by state law for journalists covering protests, as well as their own departments’ policies adopted after mass protests after George Floyd’s murder in 2020 and over the clearance of a homeless encampment in Echo Park in 2021.

On Saturday, journalist Ben Camacho was documenting the scene in Paramount, where images of people vandalizing and burning cars dominated the nightly newscasts. Wearing his press pass and with a camera hanging around his neck, he watched in shock as law enforcement opened fire on the crowd with less-lethal munitions, striking Nick Stern, a British news photographer, who crumbled to the ground in front of him.

After helping carry Stern to safety, Camacho said he too was struck by a round in the kneecap.

“I start to screaming pretty much at the top of my lungs,” he said. “It was like a sledgehammer.”

He noted that many people are working on freelance contracts that don’t offer medical insurance, and said officers sometimes brush aside reporters with credentials from smaller independent outlets, which have an important role in monitoring events on the ground.

Some police officials — who were not authorized to speak publicly — said officers try their best to accommodate reporters, but the situation on the street involves split-second decisions in a chaotic environment where they find themselves being attacked. They also contend that journalists from newer outlets or those who primarily post on social media act in adversarial or confrontational ways toward officers.

Los Angeles Press Club Press Rights Chair Adam Rose said he has been collecting examples of officers from local, state and federal agencies violating the rights of journalists — seemingly ignoring the lessons learned and promises made the wake of past protests.

Rose said many of the incidents were documented in videos that journalists themselves posted on social media. As of Wednesday morning, the tally was 43 and counting.

The mistreatment of journalists at the recent protests are part of a “history of ugly treatment by police,” Rose said, which included the 1970 killing of one of the city’s leading Latino media voices, Ruben Salazar, who had been covering a Chicano rights protest when he was struck by a tear-gas canister fired by a sheriff’s deputy.

Even in cases where police abuses are well-documented on video, discipline of the offending officers is rare, Rose said.

With plunging revenues leading to the downsizing of many legacy newsrooms, a new generation of citizen journalists has taken a vital role in covering communities across the country — their reporting is as protected as their mainstream counterparts, he said.

“The reality is police are not the ones who’re allowed to decide who is press,” he said.

Some larger news companies have taken to hiring protective details for their reporters in the field, largely in response to aggressive crowds.

On Saturday, L.A. Daily News reporter Ryanne Mena was struck in the head by a projectile fired by law enforcement during a demonstration in Paramount.

She wasn’t sure whether it was a tear gas canister or less-lethal munition, but said she later sought medical treatment and was diagnosed with a concussion. The day before she was hit in the thigh by another projectile while reporting downtown outside the jail, she said.

Covering a few prior protests had taught her to always be mindful of her surroundings and to “never have my back toward anyone with a weapon.”

“It’s still kind of unbelievable that that happened,” she said of her concussion. “It’s unacceptable that that happened that other journalists were targeted.”

Times staff writers Connor Sheets and David Zahniser contributed to this report.

California National Guard troops arrived in Los Angeles on Sunday in a show of force following scattered clashes between immigration agents and protesters and amid a widening political divide between California and the Trump administration.

The move by President Trump to activate nearly 2,000 guardsmen marked the first time since 1965 that a president has deployed a state’s National Guard without a request from that state’s governor. The decision was met with stern rebukes from state and local officials, including Gov. Gavin Newsom who said the deployment was “not to meet an unmet need, but to manufacture a crisis.”

Newsom’s office on Sunday afternoon sent a formal letter to the Trump administration asking them to rescind their deployment of troops.

“There is currently no need for the National Guard to be deployed in Los Angeles, and to do so in this unlawful manner and for such a lengthy period is a serious breach of state sovereignty that seems intentionally designed to inflame the situation, while simultaneously depriving the state from deploying these personnel and resources where they are truly required,” the letter reads.

On Sunday afternoon, there were tense moments outside a federal detention center in downtown L.A., with officers firing tear gas and nonlethal rounds at protesters.

But other areas that had seen unrest over the last few days, including the Garment District, Paramount and Compton, seemed calm.

It was unclear exactly how many troops were deployed to Los Angeles as of Sunday afternoon. The National Guard’s 79th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, based in San Diego, said Sunday that 300 personnel were on the ground to protect federal property and personnel.

Trump administration officials have seized on the isolated incidents of violence to suggest wide parts of L.A. are out of control. On Sunday, Trump took to social media to claim “violent, insurrectionist mobs are swarming and attacking” federal law enforcement.

“A once great American City, Los Angeles, has been invaded and occupied by Illegal Aliens and Criminals,” he wrote, blaming Democratic politicians for not cracking down earlier.

While officials have not said how long the immigration enforcement actions will continue, Trump told reporters Sunday, “we’re going to have troops everywhere. We’re not going to let this happen to our country.”

Many California officials, who have long been at odds with Trump, say the president was trying to exploit the situation for his political advantage and sow unneeded disorder and confusion.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass called the deployment of federalized troops a “chaotic escalation” and issued a reminder that “Los Angeles will always stand with everyone who calls our city home.”

While most demonstrators have gathered peacefully, some have hurled objects at law enforcement personnel, set garbage and vehicles on fire and defaced federal property with graffiti.

The Immigration and Customs Enforcement operation in Los Angeles over the past week has resulted in the arrest of 118 people, including some who have been convicted of drug trafficking, assault, child cruelty, domestic violence and robbery, according to the agency.

Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin and Republican politicians who support Trump’s immigration actions have characterized the protests as riots intended to “keep rapists, murderers and other violent criminals loose on Los Angeles streets.”

Representative Maxine Waters speak to the media at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Los Angeles on Sunday.

(Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times)

On Sunday morning, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles) addressed roughly two dozen National Guard soldiers posted outside the Metropolitan Detention Center on Alameda Street. She had arrived at the center to inquire about Service Employees International Union California President David Huerta, who was injured and detained while documenting an immigration enforcement raid in downtown Los Angeles on Friday.

“Who are you going to shoot?” Waters asked the solders. “If you’re going to shoot me, you better shoot straight.”

Remnants of tear gas used by law enforcement during protests Saturday lingered in the air around the building, at times forcing Waters to cough. Waters, an outspoken critic of the president, called the deployment of National Guard troops an unnecessary escalation of tensions and accused Trump of “trying to make an example” out of Los Angeles, a longstanding sanctuary city.

Leonard Tunstad, a 69-year-old Los Angeles resident, rode his bike up to the edge of the loading dock where troops were stationed and asked them if they really wanted to be loyal to a president that “had 34 felony convictions.” He said he felt compelled to shout facts about Trump at the guardsmen because he feared the young men have been “indoctrinated against their own citizens.”

Tunstad said he believed the deployment was a gross overreaction by the Trump administration, noting the city has been home to far more raucous protests that were handled by local police.

“This is just a show. This is just a spectacle,” he said.

A Department of Homeland Security officer approached one of the louder demonstrators saying that he “didn’t want a repeat of last night” and didn’t want to “get political.” He told protesters as long as they stick to the sidewalk and don’t block vehicle access to the loading dock there wouldn’t be any problems.

Later, DHS and California National Guard troops shoved dozens of protesters into Alameda Street, hitting people with riot shields, firing pellets into the ground and deploying tear gas to clear a path for a caravan of DHS, Border Patrol and military vehicles to enter the detention center.

Jose Longoria struggled to breathe as clouds of tear gas filled Alameda Street. He pointed to a white scuff mark on his shoe, saying that a tear gas canister had hit him in the foot, causing him to limp slightly.

“We’re not armed. We’re just peacefully protesting. They’re acting out,” Longoria said of the officers.

Julie Solis, 50, walked back and forth along Alameda Street holding a Mexican flag and urging the crowd to make their voices heard, but to keep the scene peaceful. She said she believes the National Guard was deployed solely to provoke a response and make Los Angeles look unruly to justify further aggression from federal law enforcement.

People march toward the Metropolitan Detention Center during an immigration march in downtown Los Angeles on Sunday.

(Luke Johnson/Los Angeles Times)

“They want arrests. They want to see us fail. We need to be peaceful. We need to be eloquent,” she said.

National Guard troops were last summoned to Los Angeles and other Southern California cities in 2020, during the George Floyd protests. Those deployments were authorized by Newsom.

However, the last time the National Guard was called on by a president without a request from a state governor was 60 years ago, when President Lyndon B. Johnson sent troops to Alabama to protect civil rights demonstrators.

Antonio Villaraigosa, former speaker of the California Assembly and a former L.A. mayor, said Trump’s move was “meant to incite more fear and chaos in our community.”

“Trump’s military-style mass deportation ICE raids in California have gone too far, tearing families apart and threatening public safety,” he said in a statement. “The raids at stores and workplaces are wrong, just as it’s wrong to separate families with raids at schools, graduations, and churches.”

In Paramount, a group of camouflaged National Guard troops were stationed in a business park with armored vehicles where a Department of Homeland Security office is located.

Jessica Juarez walked along Alondra Boulevard with a trash bag full of spent tear gas canisters on Sunday morning. Her voice grew hoarse as she helped a group of volunteers clean up after clashes between protesters and law enforcement the day before.

United States Attorney Bill Essayli told NBC in an interview that an officer suffered a broken wrist and others were injured by rocks and cement block pieces that were thrown at them during Saturday’s protest. He said it was “an extremely violent crowd,” but officials are “undeterred.”

An acrid odor still hung in the air from the gas and flash bang grenades law enforcement fired on protesters Saturday, while scorched asphalt marked the intersection outside a Home Depot where federal authorities had staged.

“I’m proud of our community, of the strength we showed,” said Juarez, 40. “It’s like they put so much fear into Paramount and for what? These guys didn’t even clean up after themselves.”

The images of Paramount shrouded in smoke and flanked by police in riot gear are unusual for this community of about 50,000 residents. In many ways, the city became the starting point for the escalating federal response.

“What else do you call it but an attack on Paramount and the people who live here?” said resident and union organizer Alejandro Maldonado. “People in the community were standing up to unjust immigration policies.”

For some, the fight between Los Angeles residents and the federal government is akin to David and Goliath. “It really does seem like they wanted to pick a fight with the little guy,” union organizer Ardelia Aldridge said.

Staff writer Seema Mehta and Brittny Mejia contributed to this report

Burning questions abound ahead of Sunday’s 78th Tony Awards, hosted for the first time by Cynthia Erivo and broadcast live from New York’s Radio City Music Hall.

Will Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ Pulitzer-winning “Purpose” win best play over comedian Cole Escola’s bawdy “Oh, Mary!”? Will George Clooney pull off a win for best performance by an actor in a leading role? Will “Maybe Happy Ending” get a truly happy ending by taking the statuette for best musical? It is, after all, leading the pack with 10 nominations, tied with “Buena Vista Social Club” and “Death Becomes Her.”

This season has been arguably one of the best in recent years for Broadway shows, with fine offerings including “John Proctor Is the Villain,” “Dead Outlaw,” “Real Women Have Curves: The Musical” and “Yellow Face.” Actors hoping to take home a Tony include Darren Criss, Daniel Dae Kim, Mia Farrow, LaTanya Richardson Jackson, Sadie Sink, Sarah Snook, Jeremy Jordan, Conrad Ricamora and Bob Odenkirk.

This year will also feature a 10th anniversary reunion performance by the cast of “Hamilton,” as well as a variety of spirited performances by this year’s crop of musical nominees.

So, how to watch it all?

Criss — who was nominated for the first time this year — and Tony-winner Renée Elise Goldsberry will host a live pre-show, “The Tony Awards: Act One,” which begins at 3:40 p.m. Pacific and can be viewed for free on Pluto TV, by clicking on the “live music” channel.

The main ceremony is scheduled to begin at 5 p.m. Pacific, directly after the pre-show. It will air live on CBS and be available to stream for subscribers of Paramount+ with Showtime. If you’re a regular Paramount+ subscriber, you won’t be able to watch the show until the following day, when it will be featured as a special on-demand option.

If you don’t have Paramount+, fear not. The streamer is offering a seven-day free trial. If you keep the service past the allotted time, it costs $12.99 per month. The regular Paramount+ plan without Showtime — called Paramount+ Essential — costs $7.99 per month.

With new legal muscle, the nonprofit Freedom of the Press Foundation is upping pressure on Paramount Global to abandon efforts to settle President Trump’s $20-billion lawsuit targeting CBS and “60 Minutes.”

Respected Washington litigator Abbe David Lowell this week joined the team representing the New York advocacy group, which has vowed to sue Paramount should it settle with Trump. The group owns Paramount shares.

Lowell, who has represented Hunter Biden, Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, is working on the case with attorney Norm Eisen, a Trump critic who helped House Democrats with strategy during Trump’s first impeachment hearings in 2019.

Eisen is a former ambassador to the Czech Republic who served as White House ethics advisor under President Obama.

Late Thursday, the two attorneys sent a strongly worded letter to Paramount’s chairwoman and controlling shareholder Shari Redstone and other board members arguing that a Trump settlement would cause “catastrophic” harm to the embattled media company.

Hunter Biden (left) with his attorney Abbe Lowell (right) at a House committee hearing last year.

(Jose Luis Magana / Associated Press)

1st Amendment experts have labeled Trump’s lawsuit frivolous. But Paramount leaders are desperate to end the Trump drama and some believe a truce could clear a path for the Federal Communications Commission to approve the company’s $8-billion sale to David Ellison’s Skydance Media.

Paramount needs the FCC to authorize the transfer of the CBS station licenses to the Ellison family.

The prospect of a Trump settlement has carved deep divisions within Paramount, which includes CBS News and “60 Minutes.”

“Trading away the credibility of CBS’s news division to curry favor with the Trump Administration is an improper and reckless act that will irreparably damage the company’s brand and destroy shareholder value,” Lowell said in a statement late Thursday.

“The board is legally and morally obligated to protect the company, not auction off its integrity for regulatory approval,” Lowell said.

The FCC review of Skydance’s proposed takeover of Paramount has become a slog. Skydance and Paramount face an October deadline to finalize the sale or the deal could collapse.

Paramount, in a statement, said that it is treating the FCC review and the Trump lawsuit as separate matters. “We will abide by the legal process to defend our case,” a corporate spokesman said.

Paramount’s lawyers entered mediation with the president’s legal team in late April, but no resolution has been reached. Paramount offered $15 million to Trump to end his suit, according to the Wall Street Journal, but the president rejected the overture and asked for more.

On Thursday, Redstone disclosed that she has been diagnosed with thyroid cancer and is receiving treatment. Last month, doctors removed her thyroid but cancer cells had spread to her vocal chords.

In their seven-page letter, Lowell and Eisen told Paramount’s leaders that, should they approve a Trump settlement to gain traction at the FCC, they would be violating their fiduciary duty to shareholders and potentially breaking federal anti-bribery statutes.

“We believe [a settlement] could violate laws prohibiting bribery of public officials, thereby causing severe and last damage to Paramount and its shareholders,” Lowell and Eisen wrote.

“To be as clear as possible, you control what happens next,” they said.

The admonition follows a similar warning from three U.S. senators — Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) In a May 19 letter, the senators wrote that paying money to Trump to help win clearance for the Paramount sale could constitute a bribe.

“It is illegal to corruptly give anything of value to public officials to influence an official act,” the three senators wrote in their letter.

In addition, two California Democrats have proposed a state Senate hearing to examine problems with a possible Trump settlement.

The senators invited two former CBS News executives — who both left, in large part, because of the controversy — to testify before a yet-unscheduled joint committee hearing in Sacramento.

The California lawmakers, in their letter, said a Trump settlement could also violate California’s Unfair Competition Law because it could disrupt the playing field for news organizations.

Earlier this week, Paramount asked shareholders to increase the size of its board to seven members at the company’s annual investor meeting next month.

The Freedom of the Press Foundation was created in 2012 to protect and defend public interest journalism.

This spring, Lowell left his former major law firm, Winston & Strawn, where he had been a partner for years. He formed his own boutique firm, Lowell & Assoc., with a focus on “public interest representation in matters that defend the integrity of the legal system and protect individuals and institutions from government overreach,” according to its website.

Lowell’s firm also includes lawyer Brenna Frey, who made a high-profile exit from another prominent law firm, Skadden Arps, after it cut a deal with Trump to avoid becoming a target. That law firm agreed to provide $100 million in free legal services.

Last month, Frey appeared on CBS’ “60 Minutes” to air her decision to resign from Skadden Arps.

“I was able to tell my story on CBS’s ’60 Minutes’ because of the independence of a courageous news division, which is what’s at risk now,” Frey said in a statement.

Paramount Global’s efforts to appease President Trump could carry a steep price, and not just financially. As Paramount executives struggle to win government approval for its planned sale, the legal risks and political headaches are spreading — from Washington to Sacramento.

Three U.S. senators have warned Paramount’s controlling shareholder Shari Redstone and other decision-makers that paying Trump to drop his $20-billion lawsuit over an October “60 Minutes” interview with former Vice President Kamala Harris could be considered a bribe.

Scrutiny widened late last week when two California Democrats proposed a state Senate hearing to probe details of the drama that has roiled the media company for months. The senators invited two former CBS News executives — who both left, in large part, because of the controversy — to testify before a joint committee hearing in Sacramento to help lawmakers examine problems with a possible Trump settlement.

“I haven’t seen a president act in this brazen of a manner,” state Sen. Josh Becker (D-Menlo Park) said in an interview. “We’re concerned about a possible chilling effect any settlement might have on investigative and political journalism. It would also send a message that politically motivated lawsuits can succeed, especially when paired with regulatory threats.”

Settling the Trump lawsuit is widely seen as a prerequisite for regulators to finally clear Paramount’s $8-billion sale to Skydance Media, which Redstone has been desperately counting on to save her family’s fortunes.

Trump contends CBS edited the “60 Minutes” interview to enhance Harris’ appeal in the 2024 presidential election, which she lost. He reportedly rebuffed Paramount’s recent $15-million offer to settle his lawsuit, which 1st Amendment experts have dismissed as frivolous.

“This is a really important case,” said Scott L. Cummings, a legal ethics professor at UCLA’s School of Law. “Legislators are starting to raise alarms.”

But whether federal or state politicians could foil a Trump settlement is murky. Experts caution, for example, that it may be difficult, if a settlement is reached, to prove that Paramount’s leaders paid a bribe.

Congress has grappled with such distinctions before, Cummings said. The U.S. Senate acquitted Trump in February 2020 after the House voted to impeach him for allegedly holding up nearly $400 million in security aid to pressure Ukraine to investigate former President Biden and his son Hunter. Major universities and law firms offered significant concessions to the administration this year to try to carve out breathing room.

“We would have to have a lot more facts,” Cummings said. “Bribery requires a quid pro quo … and [Trump and his lieutenants] are always very careful not to explicitly couple the two things together. But, clearly, they are related, right? This is the challenge, legally speaking.”

Even if a Paramount payoff could be proved to be a bribe, it’s unclear who would prosecute such a case.

No one expects the Trump-controlled FBI or others within the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate allegations of bribery. Trump also has a grip on congressional Republicans and the Federal Communications Commission is run by a Trump appointee, Brendan Carr, who in one of his first acts as chairman, opened a public inquiry into whether the “60 Minutes” edits rose to the level of news distortion.

It may fall to state prosecutors to dig into the issue, Cummings said.

Vice President Kamala Harris talks to “60 Minutes” correspondent Bill Whitaker.

(CBS News)

That hasn’t stopped nationally prominent progressive lawmakers from sounding alarms.

U.S. Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) have demanded Paramount provide information about the company’s deliberations or concessions to facilitate a deal with Trump, including whether newscasts were toned down.

“It is illegal to corruptly give anything of value to public officials to influence an official act,” the lawmakers wrote in their May 19 letter to Redstone. “If Paramount officials make these concessions … to influence President Trump … they may be breaking the law.”

Redstone and Paramount failed to respond to the senators’ questions by this week’s deadline, according to Warren’s office.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) has suggested that Paramount executives could be liable for unlawfully paying a bribe if it settles President Trump’s lawsuit against CBS to secure approval of Paramount’s sale to Skydance Media.

(Mark Schiefelbein / Associated Press)

Paramount and a Redstone spokesperson declined to comment.

Lawmakers often express interest in big media takeovers, and Skydance’s proposed purchase of an original Hollywood movie studio and pioneering broadcaster CBS could be an industry game changer. But this time, interest is less focused on vetting the Ellison family or the deal’s particulars and more about determining whether Trump inappropriately wields his power.

Trump has demanded Paramount pay “a lot” of money to settle his lawsuit. The president also has called for CBS to lose its station licenses, which are governed by the FCC.

For more than a month, attorneys for Paramount and Trump have participated in mediation sessions without resolution.

Paramount offered $15 million but Trump said no, according to the Wall Street Journal. Instead, the president reportedly demanded at least $25 million in cash, plus an additional $25 million in free commercials to pump his favorite causes. He also wants an apology.

The latter is a red line for CBS News executives who say they have done nothing wrong, according to insiders who were not authorized to discuss the sensitive deliberations.

Paramount’s leaders have clashed over settlement efforts, according to the sources.

The two California state senators — Becker and Tom Umberg (D-Orange) — hope such fractures provide an opening.

Late last week, the pair invited former CBS News and Stations President Wendy McMahon and former “60 Minutes” executive producer Bill Owens to testify at a yet-unscheduled oversight hearing in Sacramento.

McMahon exited CBS last month under pressure for her management decisions, including resistance to the Trump settlement, sources said.

Owens resigned in April, citing a loss of editorial independence.

“You are being approached as friendly witnesses who may help our committees assess whether improper influence is being exerted in ways that threaten public trust and competition in the media sector,” Becker and Umberg wrote to the former executives. Becker is chairman of the Senate Energy, Utilities & Communications Committee; Umberg heads the Senate Judiciary Committee.

California has an interest, in part, because Paramount operates in the state, including a large presence in Los Angeles, Becker told The Times.

The controversy over the edits began in October after CBS aired different parts of Harris’ response to a question during a “60 Minutes” interview a month before the election. Producers of the public affairs show “Face the Nation” used a clip of Harris giving a convoluted response. The following day, “60 Minutes” aired the most forceful part of her answer, prompting conservatives to cry foul.

Trump filed his federal lawsuit in Texas days before the election, alleging CBS had deceptively edited the Harris interview to boost her election chances, an allegation CBS denies. After returning to the White House, Trump doubled the damages he was seeking to $20 billion. His team claims he suffered “mental anguish” as a result of the interview.

CBS has asked the Texas judge, a Trump appointee, to dismiss the lawsuit, saying the edits were routine.

Since then, the FCC’s review of Paramount’s Skydance deal has become bogged down. Paramount needs Carr’s approval to transfer CBS television station licenses to the Ellison family.

Paramount has said it is treating the proposed settlement and FCC review on the Skydance merger as separate matters.

Experts doubt Trump sees such a distinction.

Trump and his team “essentially are using government processes to set up negotiations that end up benefiting Trump personally in ways that raise corruption concerns,” Cummings said.

Paramount’s decision could open the company to shareholder complaints.

The reason Trump’s CBS “60 Minutes” lawsuit has become such a lightning rod is “because the lawsuit is so ridiculously frivolous,” said Seth Stern, advocacy director for the Freedom of the Press Foundation, which owns Paramount shares and has vowed a lawsuit if the company capitulates.

“This is so transparently an abuse of power — a shakedown,” Stern said.

Media analyst Richard Greenfield of LightShed Partners suggested that Trump’s goal may be about more than his reported demand of nearly $50 million.

“The far bigger question is whether there is any number that Trump would want to settle the CBS/60 Minutes lawsuit,” Greenfield wrote in a blog post this week. “If Trump’s goal is to weaken the press and cause persistent fear of lawsuits that could negatively impact business combinations, keeping the CBS/60 Minutes lawsuit ongoing could be in the President’s best interests.”

UCLA’s Cummings sees another deleterious outcome.

A settlement could “legitimize the narrative that Trump puts out that there’s some sort of corruption within these media entities,” Cummings said. “He could point to a settlement and say: ‘I told you they did something wrong, and they now agreed because they paid me this amount of money.’ ”

“Even though they would be paying to get this deal through,” Cummings said.

Paramount Global chairwoman and controlling shareholder Shari Redstone is battling cancer as she tries to steer the media company through a turbulent sales process.

“Shari Redstone was diagnosed with thyroid cancer earlier this spring,” her spokeswoman Molly Morse said late Thursday. “While it has been a challenging period, she is maintaining all professional and philanthropic activities throughout her treatment, which is ongoing.

“She and her family are grateful that her prognosis is excellent,” Morse said.

The news comes nearly 11 months after Redstone agreed to sell Paramount to David Ellison’s Skydance Media in a deal that would end the family’s tenure as major Hollywood moguls after four decades.

However, the government’s review of the sale to Skydance hit a snag amid President Trump’s $20-billion lawsuit against Paramount and its subsidiary CBS over edits to an October “60 Minutes” broadcast.

Redstone, 71, told the New York Times that she underwent surgery last month after receiving the diagnosis about two months ago. Surgeons removed her thyroid gland but did not fully eradicate the cancer, which had spread to her vocal cords, the paper said.

She continues to be treated with radiation, the paper reported.

The Redstone family controls 77% of the voting shares of Paramount. Since Bob Bakish was ousted as chief executive last year, the company has been managed by a trio of executives who share the title of co-chief executive.

Her father, the late Sumner Redstone, built the company into a juggernaut but it has seen its standing slip in recent years. There have been management missteps and pressures brought on by consumers’ shift to streaming. The trend has crimped revenue to companies that own cable channels, including Paramount.

The COVID-19 pandemic followed by the 2023 writers and actors strikes also took a toll on Paramount and the Redstone family’s private firm, National Amusements Inc., which owns movie theaters.

Paramount cut its dividend to shareholders two years ago, leaving the family in a financial bind.

Financial pressures contributed to Redstone’s decision to entertain offers for Paramount and National Amusements, which holds the Paramount shares.

Nearly two years ago, Ellison and Redstone began talks that culminated last July with an agreement on a multi-phased $8-billion deal that would pass the torch to Ellison.

Redstone wants to close the deal. National Amusements would receive $2.4 billion, which would pay its debts and leave the family with more than $1.7 billion.

She has urged the company to settle the lawsuit Trump filed in October, weeks after “60 Minutes” interviewed then-Vice President Kamala Harris. Trump accused CBS of deceptively editing the interview to make Harris look smarter and improve her election chances, a charge that CBS has denied.

The dispute over the edits has sparked unrest within the company, prompted high-level departures and triggered a Federal Communications Commission examination of alleged news distortion.

The FCC’s review of the Skydance deal has become bogged down. If the agency does not approve the transfer of CBS television station licenses to the Ellison family, the deal could collapse.

The two companies must complete the merger by early October. If not, Paramount will owe a $400-million breakup fee to Skydance.

Redstone, through National Amusements, also owes nearly $400 million to a Chicago banker who loaned the family money in 2023 and tech titan Larry Ellison, who is helping bankroll the buyout of Paramount and National Amusements.

Last week, Paramount nominated three new directors to serve on the company’s board following its July 2 investor meeting.

In a proxy filing, Paramount asked shareholders to expand the board to seven directors, including Redstone and three recruits: attorney Mary Boies (a member of the firm led by her husband David Boies); Silicon Valley venture capital executive Charles E. Ryan; and former Massachusetts trial court judge Roanne Sragow Licht.

They would join longtime board members Linda M. Griego, Susan Schuman and Barbara M. Byrne.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

SKY customers can finally take advantage of a streaming perk months after a dreaded downgrade came into force.

Many TV and movie apps have introduced ads now, with an option to pay extra to remove them.

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In January, Sky customers were warned that their Paramount+ access would now be ad-based.

Sky Cinema subscribers get access to Paramount+ at no extra cost.

However, the change strangely didn’t include an option to upgrade for those wanting to avoid the ads.

But thanks to a new update, Sky customers can now choose an ad-free option instead.

What’s more, customers get money off compared to subscribing directly to Paramount+.

“Finally no ads so I can get back to watching South Park and Nobland with no interuptions!” one viewer wrote on Sky’s forum.

“This is good news,” another commented.

Sky customers can subscribe to Paramount+ standard – which has no ads – for £3 extra per month.

Usually, the standard plan costs £7.99 per month.

For those who want 4K quality as well as a screen allowance boost and no ads, it’s £6 extra.

That’s instead of the £10.99 you would have to pay for it directly.

Sky Cinema costs £10 per month and comes with two free cinema tickets for Vue Cinemas each month.

PARAMOUNT+ PRICES AND PERKS

In November, Paramount+ announced a new pricing structure.

Before then, there was just one standard plan costing £7.99.

Since November, there have been three.

The cheapest is £4.99 with ads, the ability to watch on one device at a time and only full HD quality – you also don’t have the privilege to download shows offline.

Paramount+’s new standard plan is £6.99 per month, allowing up to two concurrent streams in full HD and you can download content to watch on the go.

The premium plan is £10.99 per month, with up to four devices allowed to watch at the same time, as well as 4K UHD, Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos on selected titles.

One fateful October decision to trim two convoluted sentences from a “60 Minutes” interview with then-Vice President Kamala Harris has snowballed into a full-blown corporate crisis for CBS’ parent company, Paramount Global, and its controlling shareholder, Shari Redstone.

President Trump’s $20-billion lawsuit — claiming “60 Minutes” producers deceptively manipulated the Harris interview to make her look smarter — has festered, clouding the future of Paramount and the company’s hoped-for $8-billion sale to David Ellison’s Skydance Media.

The dispute over the edits has sparked massive unrest within the company, prompted high-level departures and triggered a Federal Communications Commission examination of alleged news bias. The FCC’s review of the Skydance deal has become bogged down, according to people familiar with the matter who weren’t authorized to comment.

The agency, chaired by a Trump appointee, must approve the transfer of CBS television station licenses to the Ellison family for the deal to advance.

A lawsuit resolution, through court-ordered mediation, remains out of reach. And last week, three Democratic U.S. senators raised the stakes by suggesting, in a letter to Redstone, that a Trump settlement could be considered an illegal payoff.

Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) warned in their letter that any payment to Trump to gain favorable treatment by the FCC could violate federal anti-bribery laws. Paramount’s dealings with Trump “raises serious concerns of corruption and improper conduct,” the senators wrote.

“Under the federal bribery statute, it is illegal to corruptly give anything of value to public officials to influence an official act,” the senators said.

President Trump during a signing ceremony in the Oval Office of the White House.

(Drew Angerer / Getty Images)

Redstone is desperate for the Paramount-Skydance deal to go through.

Her family’s holding company is cratering under a mountain of debt. Paramount’s sale to the Ellison family would provide the clan $2.4 billion for their preferred shares — proceeds that would allow the Redstones to pay their nearly $600 million in debt — and remain billionaires.

Paramount, Skydance and a spokesperson for Redstone declined to comment.

While recusing herself from granular and final decision-making, Redstone has made it clear that she wants Paramount to settle with Trump, rather than wage an ongoing beef with the sitting president, according to people familiar with the matter but not authorized to discuss internal deliberations.

Figuring a way out of the dispute has divided the company, according to insiders.

For CBS News professionals, apologizing to Trump over routine edits of a lengthy interview is a red line. Tensions have spilled into public view.

Redstone has been cast as the villain. The Drudge Report, created by journalist Matt Drudge, who got his start at CBS in Los Angeles, last month published a photo of 71-year-old heiress, identifying her in all caps as “The woman who destroyed CBS News.”

Two top CBS News executives have resigned. Both refused to apologize to Trump as part of any settlement, the knowledgeable sources said.

Most CBS journalists and 1st Amendment experts see Trump’s lawsuit a shakedown, one seemingly designed to exploit Paramount’s vulnerability because it needs the government’s approval for the Skydance deal.

“Settling such a case for anything of substance would thus compromise 1st Amendment principles today and the broad notion of freedom of the press in the future,” prominent press freedom lawyer Floyd Abrams said.

Paramount has stressed that it sees the Trump lawsuit and the FCC review of the Skydance deal as separate. “We will abide by the legal process to defend our case,” a Paramount spokesperson said.

But “60 Minutes” correspondent Scott Pelley connected the two for viewers during an extraordinary April broadcast, in which he rebuked Paramount management on air at the end of the program. That, according to sources, angered some of Paramount’s leaders.

While “60 Minutes” has received additional corporate oversight, some insiders pointed to Pelley’s acknowledgment that “none of our stories have been blocked.”

All the high-level scrutiny has put Paramount and Redstone in a box, and the Skydance deal looks less certain than it did months ago.

“Who’s going to sign that settlement, knowing that you could be accused of paying a bribe?” asked one person close to Paramount.

Paramount Global’s path to peril began long before the infamous “60 Minutes” edits. The company was diminished by management turmoil and years of cost-cutting, which would eventually force Redstone to find a buyer for one of Hollywood’s most storied studios.

Should New York-based Paramount, which also owns Comedy Central, MTV, Nickelodeon and the famed Melrose Avenue movie studio, fail to complete its sale to Skydance by its October deadline, the deal could collapse.

Paramount then would owe $400 million to Skydance as a breakup fee, putting the company in further dire financial straits. Skydance and its investor RedBird Capital Partners have agreed, once they take over, to inject $1.5 billion into Paramount, helping it pay down some debt.

Redstone would also be on the hook to repay her financiers. Two years ago, a Chicago banker rescued the Redstone family investment firm, National Amusements Inc., with a $125-million equity investment.

The family’s finances were strained after Paramount cut its dividend to shareholders that spring during the Hollywood writers’ strike. The family’s dire financial situation was a leading impetus for Paramount’s sale.

If the deal fell through, Redstone would also have to repay a $186-million loan from tech mogul Larry Ellison. The billionaire Oracle co-founder and father of David Ellison extended the loan so National Amusements could make a looming debt payment.

National Amusements holds 77% of Paramount’s controlling shares, giving the Redstone family enormous sway over Paramount management.

Paramount Chairwoman Shari Redstone in 2023 in New York.

(Evan Agostini / Invision / Associated Press)

Critics privately note Redstone’s role in setting up the company for the current drama. It took nearly a year for Redstone and Paramount’s special board committee to negotiate a deal with Skydance. The independent directors spent months searching for an alternate buyer, adding to the delays that now haunt both sides.

Had the parties reached agreement sooner, the companies could have asked the FCC for approval earlier last year during the less hostile Biden administration.

Instead, weeks were spent haggling over various demands, including having Skydance indemnify Redstone and her family against shareholder lawsuits. In the end, the Ellisons also agreed to help Redstone pay for her New York apartment and private jet after the deal closes, according to the knowledgeable people.

Paramount petitioned the FCC for review in September.

By that time, political environment was caustic for mainstream media companies. Conservatives were upset over ABC News’ handling of the Sept. 10 debate between Trump and Harris after ABC anchors fact-checked Trump in real time, including pushing back on his false claim that Haitian immigrants in Ohio were eating pets.

Trump reportedly backed out of a “60 Minutes” appearance — long a traditional stop for presidential candidates — because CBS intended to fact-check his remarks. Conservatives viewed such formats as a double standard and as an example of how news bias has seeped into major networks’ coverage of Republicans.

“This was an issue we were already sensitive to and focused on,” said Daniel Suhr, president of the conservative Center for American Rights legal group, which filed an FCC complaint against Walt Disney Co.’s ABC after the debate.

At CBS, another firestorm had engulfed the newsroom.

Redstone, who had previously urged news executives to bring more balance to CBS’ coverage, was livid after managers scolded “CBS Mornings” co-host Tony Dokoupil for his sharp questioning of author Ta-Nehisi Coates about Israel during an interview segment. Coates’ book, “The Message,” compared Israel’s treatment of Palestinians to the Jim Crow South in the U.S.

Redstone, who is Jewish and has focused her philanthropy on battling antisemitism in the wake of Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel, publicly rebuked CBS News managers for their treatment of Dokoupil.

The controversial exchange in the Harris “60 Minutes” interview also happened to concern Israel.

“60 Minutes” correspondent Bill Whitaker suggested to Harris that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, was not listening to the Biden administration.

Harris gave a long-winded three-sentence response.

CBS broadcast the convoluted first sentence on its Sunday public affairs show, “Face the Nation,” on Oct. 6. The following night — the anniversary of the Hamas attacks — “60 Minutes” aired only her most forceful and succinct third sentence: “We are not going to stop pursuing what is necessary for the United States to be clear about where we stand on the need for this war to end.”

Conservatives zeroed in.

“CBS created this mess for itself. … The conservative ecosystem was outraged when they saw the two different clips because it vindicated everything,” Suhr said. “Folks had always believed the media was selectively manipulating interviews like that.”

Journalists routinely cut extraneous words to provide clear and compact soundbites for audiences. CBS released a statement saying that it had not doctored the interview. Rather, news producers said they trimmed Harris’ response to cover more ground during the broadcast.

Internally, CBS debated whether to release the full transcript to quell the furor — but it stopped short at first. Some people close to the company have been particularly critical of CBS for not immediately releasing the unedited video.

Trump sued in late October for $10 billion. After he returned to the White House, he doubled his demand to $20 billion.

One of Trump-appointed FCC Chairman Brendan Carr’s first moves was to revive a separate news distortion complaint against “60 Minutes,” which Suhr had filed shortly after the broadcast. The matter had been dismissed by the previous Biden-appointed chair.

CBS and the FCC released the Harris footage in February.

By that time, the controversy had consumed the company.

Last month, Bill Owens, the executive producer of “60 Minutes” stepped down, citing a loss of editorial independence.

“60 Minutes” continued with Trump-critical stories — to the chagrin of people who want the Skydance deal to close.

Less than two weeks after CBS Chief Executive George Cheeks pledged support for his team, Wendy McMahon, the head of CBS News, was forced to go.

“It’s become clear that the company and I do not agree on the path forward,” McMahon told her staff in a note last week.

Insiders note other McMahon decisions, including the introduction of a new “CBS Evening News” format, which has led to plummeting ratings, as factors in her fall. McMahon could not be reached for comment.

Redstone and others hope the mediation with Trump’s attorneys will produce a truce.

But several questions remain: What will it take for Paramount to appease the president? And could the company’s leaders be prosecuted if they pay the president a multimillion-dollar settlement?

In “normal times,” officials might be alarmed by a president’s demand for a big check, said Michael C. Dorf, a Cornell Law School professor.

“These are not normal times, however, so the president will likely be able to get away with soliciting a bribe from Paramount, just as he is getting away with extortion of law firms and universities,” Dorf said.

Staff writer Stephen Battaglio contributed to this report.