service

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court decided Thursday that a Catholic charity doesn’t have to pay Wisconsin unemployment taxes, one of a set of religious-rights cases the justices are considering this term.

The unanimous ruling comes in a case filed by the Catholic Charities Bureau, which says the state violated the 1st Amendment’s religious freedom guarantee when it required the organization to pay the tax while exempting other faith groups.

Wisconsin argues the organization has paid the tax for over 50 years and doesn’t qualify for an exemption because its day-to-day work doesn’t involve religious teachings. Much of the groups’ funding is from public money, and neither employees nor people receiving services have to belong to any faith, according to court papers.

Catholic Charities, though, says it qualifies because its disability services are motivated by religious beliefs and the state shouldn’t be making determinations about what work qualifies as religious. It appealed to the Supreme Court after Wisconsin’s highest court ruled against it. President Trump’s administration weighed in on behalf of Catholic Charities.

Wisconsin has said that a decision in favor of the charity could open the door to big employers like religiously affiliated hospitals pulling out of the state unemployment system as well.

The conservative-majority court has issued a string of decisions siding with churches and religious plaintiffs in recent years. This term, though, a plan to establish a publicly funded Catholic charter school lost when the justices deadlocked after Amy Coney Barrett recused herself.

The nine-member court is also considering a case over religious objections to books read in public schools. In those arguments, the majority appeared sympathetic to the religious rights of parents in Maryland who want to remove their children from elementary school classes using storybooks with LGBTQ characters.

Whitehurst writes for the Associated Press.

June 4 (UPI) — A 23-year-old Texas man has been arrested by U.S. Secret Service agents after jumping the wall at President Donald Trump‘s Florida Mar-a-Lago estate, according to reports.

Anthony Thomas Reyes had entered the property early Tuesday and told law enforcement that he was there to “spread the gospel” to the president and marry his teenage granddaughter, Kai Madison Trump, Florida Today reported, citing a Palm Beach Police arrest report.

A Secret Service spokesperson told CBS News in a statement that the suspect had “scaled a perimeter fence and triggered alarms” shortly after midnight Tuesday.

The suspect was taken into custody without incident, the spokesperson said.

Jail records state Reyes has been charged with a misdemeanor trespassing offense and is being held at Palm Beach County Jail on a $50,000 bond. He pleaded not guilty later Tuesday during his first appearance in court.

Trump was in Washington at the time of the incident.

The police report also states that Reyes was arrested and accused of trespassing at Mar-a-Lago on New Year’s Eve.

In April, 58-year-old Adrienne Tajirian was arrested on a misdemeanor trespassing charge for allegedly trying to enter Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club to have dinner with the president.

And in January, Bijan Arceo was arrested on the same charge after allegedly jumping over the outer wall at Mar-a-Lago.

A security zone was erected around Trump’s estate following an assassination attempt on Trump’s life during a campaign rally in July.

Kai Madison Trump is the 18-year-old daughter of the president’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr.

The PG rating has made a major comeback in Hollywood.

It’s strange to remember now, but during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic — when studios were sending many of their family-friendly movies straight to streaming services — there were serious conversations in the movie business about whether youngsters and their parents would ever return to theaters in full force.

Streaming was just too convenient and affordable, compared with a Saturday outing of two parents and 2 1/2 kids, the logic went.

But in recent years, the family audience has proved to be a bulwark for the theatrical movie business.

Disney’s live-action “Lilo & Stitch” topped the domestic box office again over the weekend with $63 million in ticket sales, for a total of $280 million so far. It beat the latest “Mission: Impossible” and the new “Karate Kid: Legends,” both rated PG-13. As of Sunday, “Lilo & Stitch” had crossed $610 million globally.

Warner Bros. and Legendary’s “A Minecraft Movie,” also rated PG, has amassed $423 million in the U.S. and Canada, the best of the year so far. Adding international grosses, its global tally is $947 million.

Nine PG-rated movies have been released in more than 2,000 locations this year, up from six during the same period in 2024, according to industry estimates. Those movies have accounted for 41% of ticketing revenue in the U.S. and Canada this year, compared with 21% a year ago. (The Pixar megahit “Inside Out 2” was released in mid-June of 2024.)

Family films are a boon to studios and theaters at a time when other categories — such as comic book films and one-off dramas and comedies — have been less reliable than they were in the past.

And there’s more to come, including Universal’s “How to Train Your Dragon” remake, Pixar’s “Elio” and DreamWorks Animation’s “The Bad Guys 2.”

Importantly, many of these movies are coming one after the other, which is essential if the industry hopes to re-create the moviegoing habit for current and future generations, especially as social media, YouTube and video games claim more of young people’s attention.

“One of the things that I think the industry has struggled with over the last number of years is just having a regular cadence of movies in the theater,” said Michael O’Leary, head of the trade group Cinema United (formerly the National Assn. of Theatre Owners). “If you’re a young person, and there’s a six-month gap between movies, there’s a lot of things going on, and your attention wanes.”

The focus on PG-rated content stands in contrast with a few years ago, when the PG-13 rating was widely seen as the way to include a broad, “four-quadrant” audience: men, women, old and young. A PG rating tagged a new release as more of a kids movie. PG-13, the label for Marvel and DC movies, had more of a cool factor for teens and young adults.

O’Leary has a theory for why things have shifted, and it has to do with the media consumption habits of today’s very young, known as Generation Alpha, or those who came after Gen Z.

Kids now are more than just digitally native.

They’re aware of new movies and TV shows coming out, in part because of exposure to social media at an earlier age compared with past generations of children. Parents will naturally be more comfortable taking their 7- and 8-year-olds to something like “Minecraft,” because they’re less likely to be presented with objectionable content.

The Motion Picture Assn.’s rating system, though sometimes fraught and misunderstood, is meant as a guide for parents.

“Younger people are inundated with more and more content at an earlier age, and they’ve become, in some ways, more discriminating connoisseurs of what they want to see,” O’Leary said.

Surely there are some parents who take their kids to the movies less often now after the pandemic with the proliferation of at-home entertainment options. But overall, family movies are leading the industry. If the pandemic proved anything, it’s that if you’re a parent, you really can’t spend all your time in the house.

Gen Z — now anywhere from 13 to 28 years old — is clearly doing its part. According to a recent NRG survey, 37% of Gen Zers say they go to the movies more than six times a year, up from 29% who agreed with that statement in February 2023.

Adults, too, might be interested in seeing more PG content in theaters, particularly in the American heartland.

Angel Studios’ animated Jesus film “The King of Kings” performed well (though somewhat ironically, most of Angel’s live action movies are PG-13).

The post-pandemic recovery of the family audience hit a big milestone in 2023 with Illumination’s “The Super Mario Bros. Movie,” which grossed more than $1.36 billion worldwide. That was followed by the success of 2024 sequels such as “Inside Out 2,” “Moana 2,” “Despicable Me 4” and “Mufasa: The Lion King,” which all benefited from multigenerational appeal.

The blockbuster Broadway adaptation “Wicked” was also rated PG, which helped make it a family moviegoing event.

Now, the category is again on a hot streak. Industry analyst David A. Gross declared in a recent edition of his FranchiseRe newsletter, “the production pipeline is full and any loss of audience to streaming during the pandemic is over.”

What hasn’t come back as strongly? Most notably, superhero pictures — one of the pillars of moviegoing for the last couple decades. Before the pandemic, the industry averaged seven superhero movies a year, and those would drive billions of dollars in global revenue, Gross said. Lately, the genre has been significantly thinner and far less consistent.

R-rated horror movies are thriving (look at “Sinners” and “Final Destination Bloodlines”), but other adult-oriented movies are hit and miss.

Increasingly, when studios want to draw a mass audience, that means going younger.

Stuff we wrote

Number of the week

What’s the magic number that will allow Paramount’s $8-billion merger with Skydance to go through?

The Wall Street Journal reported that Paramount was willing to part with $15 million to settle President Trump’s lawsuit against the company over edits to its pre-election “60 Minutes” interview with Kamala Harris.

No surprise, that’s apparently not enough. Trump’s team wants more, the Journal reported. The president wants $25 million and an apology from CBS News, a source told the paper.

Trump’s critics, journalists and 1st Amendment experts say the lawsuit is basically a shakedown. Some anti-Trump lawmakers say a settlement by Paramount could amount to an illegal bribe.

Paramount is awaiting merger approval from the FCC, which is tasked with reviewing the transfer of broadcast licenses. Sources have told my colleague Meg James that the FCC approval process has been bogged down.

The company stresses that it sees the legal dispute and the FCC review as separate issues. No one believes Trump sees them that way.

On Monday, Paramount said it would add three new board members.

Finally …

There’s been an unreal amount of good TV on lately. I’ve been catching up on Nathan Fielder’s “The Rehearsal,” and often can’t believe what I’m seeing.

Also, Marc Maron is ending his podcast after 16 years. I’ve linked to various episodes in this newsletter. Here’s one I’m looking forward to catching up with.

The morning after a man hurled Molotov cocktails at a crowd of Jewish Americans in Boulder, Colo., Rabbi Noah Farkas celebrated the first day of Shavuot in the usual way: He read the Torah about the giving of the Ten Commandments to the Israelites at Mt. Sinai.

But Farkas, the president of the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles, said what was supposed to be a holiday celebrating the establishment of law and order was marred by the weekend violence.

“The community is terrified,” Farkas said outside Temple Ramat Zion in Northridge.

“It’s remarkable to me that those who want to assault us are coming up with ever new and novel ways to do harm to us and to try to kill us.”

Twelve people between the ages of 52 and 88 were burned in the Colorado attack. A man — identified by law enforcement as Mohamed Sabry Soliman, 45, an Egyptian citizen who had overstayed his tourist visa — used a “makeshift flamethrower” to attack demonstrators marching peacefully in a weekly event supporting Israeli hostages in Gaza.

According to an FBI affidavit, the attacker yelled “Free Palestine!” — the same cry uttered by the suspect in a May 21 incident in which two Israeli Embassy aides were shot and killed outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington.

The back-to-back attacks have unnerved many Jewish Americans — particularly as they come just a month after a man set fire to the residence of Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, who is Jewish. A suspect later said the fire was a response to Shapiro’s stance on Israel’s war on Gaza.

“We are in a completely new era for antisemitic violence in the United States,” said Brian Levin, the founder of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism and professor emeritus at Cal State San Bernardino. “We are now at a point of extraordinary national security concern with respect to protecting Jewish communities across the U.S. and worldwide.”

Anti-Jewish hate crimes, Levin said, hit record levels nationally in 2023 and 2024. In 2023, the last year that the FBI has available data, anti-Jewish hate crimes rose 63% to a record 1,832 incidents, Levin said. Last year, religious hate crimes were up significantly in major U.S. cities, Levin said, with anti-Muslim hate crimes rising 18%, and anti-Jewish ones rising for the fourth consecutive year, up 12% to a new record.

“Over the last decade, we’re seeing more mass casualties attacks and they’re becoming more frequent and more fatal,” Levin said. “It used to be that anti-Jewish hate crimes, unlike a lot of other hate crimes, were much more tied to property damage and intimidation. Now were seeing just a slew of high intensity types of attacks.”

The attacks in the U.S. come as United Nations officials and aid groups warn that the situation in Gaza has become increasingly dire, with Palestinians in Gaza on the brink of famine as Israel continues its 19-month military offensive against Hamas militants.

Two weeks ago, Israel agreed to pause a nearly three-month blockade and allow a “basic quantity” of food into Gaza to avert a “hunger crisis” and prevent mass starvation.

On Sunday, Gaza health officials and witnesses said more than 30 people were reported killed and 170 wounded as Palestinians flocked to an aid distribution center in the southern Gaza, hoping to obtain food. The circumstances were disputed. Witnesses said Israeli forces fired on crowds about 1,000 yards from an aid site run by a U.S.-backed foundation, but Israel’s military denied its forces fired at civilians.

Levin attributed the rise in violence in the U.S. to a number of factors, including the Israel-Hamas war and the “increasingly unregulated freewheeling online environment.” Horrifying imagery coming out of the Middle East, Levin said, was amplified on social media by those who ascribed responsibility to anyone who believes Israel has a right to exist, or is Jewish, or wanted hostages to be released.

“What happens is angry and unstable people not only find a home for their aggression, but a honed amplification and direction to it that is polished by this cesspool of conspiracism and antisemitism,” Levin said.

In Los Angeles’ Pico-Robertson neighborhood, the mood was subdued Monday as a smattering of Orthodox families made their way to services to observe Shavuot. Many kosher establishments were closed and armed guards flanked entrances to larger Jewish centers and temples.

On Pico Boulevard, a 25-year-old Orthodox man carried a prayer shawl close to his chest as he headed to a service at a temple just before noon. He had slept just a few hours after staying up all night reading the Torah.

Despite the news of the attack in Colorado, the man — who identified himself as Laser — carried an easy smile.

“It’s a joyous holiday,” he said.

The Colorado attack was horrifying, he said, but it was not anything new and paled in comparison with the feeling that descended on the Jewish community in Los Angeles and across the world after Oct. 7.

“It’s never good to see or read about those types of things,” he said. “We just pray for the ultimate redemption, for peace here, peace abroad, peace around the world.”

At Tiferet Teman Synagogue, a man standing at the door repeatedly apologized to a Times reporter, saying that he would not discuss the event that happened in Colorado.

“I’m not going to invite politics into the community,” he said. “God bless you all.”

Others observing the holiday declined to have their photo taken and many of the businesses were closed. A quiet buzz pervaded Pico Boulevard as Orthodox members of the community made their way to services, many of them trying their best to avoid eye contact.

A Persian Jewish man from Iran said he has always been hesitant about religious violence. The man, who declined to give his name, was on his way to service.

“You always have to keep your eyes open,” he said. “No matter where you are in the world.”

Noa Tishby, an Israeli-born author who lives in L.A. and is Israel’s former special envoy for combating antisemitism and delegitimization, said that many Jewish people were afraid to congregate.

“The Jewish community feels under siege,” she said. “People are removing their mezuzahs from their doorsteps. They’re removing Jewish insignia from themselves, removing their Star of David or hiding it. They’re afraid to go to Jewish events.”

Tishby said that the Colorado attacker appeared to be motivated by antisemitism: the views and beliefs of the victims didn’t matter.

“What if that particular woman that man tried to burn alive yesterday, what if she was a Bibi hater, would that appease him?” Tishby asked, using a nickname for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “The answer is no. He doesn’t know what her political opinions are in America or in Israel. He just burned her because she was Jewish.”

Antisemitism, Tishby argued, was a shape-shifting conspiracy theory that had evolved into anti-Zionism.

“What happened is that the word Zionist is now a code name for Jew,” she said. “We have been warning for decades that anti-Zionism is the new face of antisemitism…. They’re taking all the hate, everything that’s wrong in the world right now, and they’re pinning it on the Jewish state.”

L.A. Mayor Karen Bass was quick to denounce the attack Sunday as “an atrocious affront to the very fabric of our society and our beliefs here in Los Angeles.” In a statement, she said she would call an emergency meeting at City Hall addressing safety and security across the city immediately after Shavuot.

“LAPD is conducting extra patrols at houses of worship and community centers throughout LA. Anti-Semitism will not be tolerated in this city,” she said.

After speaking to Bass on Sunday, Farkas said that he planned to meet in person with the mayor on Wednesday after the Shavuot holiday to have a “real, frank conversation” about antisemitism.

“There is a cycle that we go through where our hearts are shattered and yet we have to keep enduring,” Farkas said. “And it makes us call into question the commitment of our wider community and our government to the safety of the Jewish community.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

When filmmakers say they’re experimenting with artificial intelligence, that news is typically received online as if they had just declared their allegiance to Skynet.

And so it was when Darren Aronofsky — director of button-pushing movies including “The Whale” and “Black Swan” — last week announced a partnership with Google AI arm DeepMind to use the tech giant’s capabilities in storytelling.

Aronofsky’s AI-focused studio Primordial Soup is producing three short movies from emerging filmmakers using Google tools, including the text-to-video model Veo. The first film, “Ancestra,” directed by Eliza McNitt, will premiere at the Tribeca Festival on June 13, the Mountain View-based search giant said.

Google’s promotional materials take pains to show that “Ancestra” is a live-action film made by humans and with real actors, though it’s bolstered with effects and imagery — including a tiny baby holding a mother’s finger — that were created with AI.

The partnership was touted during Google’s I/O developer event, where the company showed off the new Veo 3, which allows users to create videos that include sound effects, ambient noise and speech (a step up from OpenAI-owned competitor, Sora). The company also introduced its new Flow film creation tool, essentially editing software using Google AI functions.

Google’s push to court creative types coincides with a separate initiative to help AI technology overcome its massive public relations problem.

As my colleague Wendy Lee wrote recently, the company is working with filmmakers including Sean Douglas and his famous father Michael Keaton to create shorts that aren’t made with AI, but instead portray the technology in a less apocalyptic light than Hollywood is used to.

Simply put, much of the public sees AI as a foe that will steal jobs, rip off your intellectual property, ruin your childhood, destroy the environment and possibly kill us all, like in “The Terminator,” “2001: A Space Odyssey” and the most recent “Mission: Impossible” movies. And Google, which is making a big bet by investing in AI, has a lot riding on changing that perception.

There’s a ways to go, including in the entertainment industry.

Despite the allure of cost-savings, traditional studios haven’t exactly dived headfirst into the AI revolution. They’re worried about the legal implications of using models trained on troves of copyrighted material, and they don’t want to anger the entertainment worker unions, which went on strike partly over AI fears just a couple years ago. The New York Times and others have sued OpenAI and its investor Microsoft, alleging copyright theft. Tech giants claim they are protected by “fair use.”

AI-curious studios are walking into a wild, uncharted legal landscape because of the amount of copyrighted material being mined to teach the models, said Dan Neely, co-founder of startup Vermillio, which helps companies and individuals protect their intellectual property.

“The major studios and most people are going to be challenged using this product when it comes to the output content that you can and cannot use or own,” Neely said by phone. “Given that it contains vast quantities of copyrighted material, and you can get it to replicate that stuff pretty easily, that creates chaos for someone who’s creating with it.”

But while the legacy entertainment business remains largely skeptical of AI, many newer, digitally-native studios and creators are embracing it, whether their goals are to become the next Pixar or the next Mr. Beast.

The New York Times recently profiled the animation startup Toonstar, which says it uses AI throughout its production process, including when sharpening storylines and lip-syncing. John Attanasio, a Toonstar founder, told the paper that leaning into the tech would make animation “80 percent faster and 90 percent cheaper than industry norms.”

Jeffrey Katzenberg, the former leader of DreamWorks Animation, has given a similar estimate of the potential cost-savings for Hollywood cartoons.

Anyone working in the traditional computer animation business would have to gulp at those projections, whether they turn out to be accurate or not. U.S. animation jobs have already been hammered by outsourcing. Now here comes automation to finish the job. (Disney’s animated features cost well over $100 million to produce because they’re made by real-life animators in America.)

Proponents of AI will sometimes argue that the new technology isn’t a replacement for human workers, but rather a tool to enhance creativity. Some are more blunt: Stop worrying about these jobs and embrace the future of uninhibited creation. For obvious reasons, workers are reluctant to buy into that line of thinking.

More broadly, it’s still unclear whether all the spending on the AI arms race will ultimately be worth the cost. Goldman Sachs, in a 2024 report, estimated that companies would invest $1 trillion in AI infrastructure — including data centers, chips and the power grid — in the coming years.

But that same report raised questions about AI’s ultimate utility.

To be worth the gargantuan investment, the technology would have to be capable of solving far more complex problems than it does now, said one Goldman analyst in the report. In recent weeks, the flaws in the technology have crossed over into absurd territory: For example, by generating a summer reading list of fake books and legal documents polluted with serious errors and fabrications.

Big spending and experimentation doesn’t always pan out. Look at virtual reality, the metaverse and the blockchain.

But some entertainment companies are experimenting with the tools and finding applications. Meta has partnered with horror studio Blumhouse and James Cameron’s venture Lightstorm Vision on AI-related initiatives. AI firm Runway is working with Lionsgate. At a time when the movie industry is troubled in part due to the high cost of special effects, production companies are motivated to stay on top of advancing tech.

One of the most common arguments in favor of giving in to AI is that the technology will unshackle the next generation of creative minds.

Some AI-enhanced content is promising. But so far AI video tools have produced a remarkable amount of content that looks the same, with its oddly dreamlike sheen of unreality. That’s partly because the models are trained on color-corrected imagery available on the open internet or on YouTube. Licensing from the studios could help with that problem.

The idea of democratizing filmmaking through AI may sound good in theory. However, there are countless examples in movie history — including “Star Wars” and “Jaws” — of how having physical and budgetary restrictions are actually good for art, however painful and frustrating they may have been during production.

Even within the universe of AI-assisted material, the quality will vary dramatically depending on the talent and skill of people using it.

“Ultimately, it’s really hard to tell good stories,” Neely said. “The creativity that defines what you prompt the machine to do is still human genius — the best will rise to the top.”

Like other innovations, the technology will improve with time, as the new Google tools show. Both Veo 3 and Flow showcase how AI is becoming better and easier to use, though they are still not quite mass-market products. For its highest tier, Google is charging $250 a month for its suite of tools.

Maybe the next Spielberg will find their way through AI-assisted video, published for free on YouTube. Perhaps Sora and Veo will have a moment that propels them to mainstream acceptance in filmmaking, as “The Jazz Singer” did for talkies.

But those milestones still feel a long way off.

Stuff we wrote

Number of the week

The Memorial Day weekend box office achieved record revenue (not adjusting for inflation) of $329.8 million in the U.S. and Canada, thanks to the popularity of Walt Disney Co.’s “Lilo & Stitch” and Paramount’s “Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning.”

Disney’s live-action remake generated $183 million in domestic ticket sales, exceeding pre-release analyst expectations, while the latest Tom Cruise superspy spectacle opened with $77 million. The weekend was a continuation of a strong spring rebound for theaters. Revenue so far this year is now up 22% versus 2024, according to Comscore.

This doesn’t mean the movie business is saved, but it does show that having a mix of different kinds of movies for multiple audiences is healthy for cinemas. Upcoming releases include “Karate Kid: Legends,” “Ballerina,” “How to Train Your Dragon” and a Pixar original, “Elio.”

“Lilo & Stitch” is particularly notable, coming after Disney’s previous live-action redo, “Snow White,” bombed in theaters. While Snow White has an important place in Disney history, Stitch — the chaotic blue alien — has quietly become a hugely important character for the company, driving enormous merchandise sales over the years.

The 2002 original wasn’t a huge blockbuster, coming during an awkward era for Walt Disney Animation, but the remake certainly is.

Finally …

Watch: Prepping for the new “Naked Gun” by rewatching the classic and reliving the perfect Twitter meme.

Listen: My favorite episode of “Blank Check with Griffin & David” in a long time — covering Steven Spielberg’s “Hook” with Lin-Manuel Miranda.

THE best and worst broadband and mobile providers for customer service have been revealed by the regulator.

All major providers were ranked on how pleased customers were with the service.

1

O2, which has millions of customers was rated below average when it came to customer satisfaction for mobile providers.

The telecoms giant fell below the sector average when it comes to customer satisfaction as it scored 85% and the average is 88% 

Last year, the firm also generated the most complaints, when it had 21 complaints per 100,000 customers.

The second worst ranked mobile provider was Vodafone who had a score of 84% when it came to how pleased users were with it’s service.

The pair were trumped by Tesco Mobile and giffgaff, which both 94% for overall satisfaction.

Tesco Mobile also led in satisfaction with complaints handling and generated the fewest complaints to Ofcom, when it had just four complaints per 100,000 customers.

However, Ofcom said that the average number of complaints reduced in 2024 across all providers.

Elsewhere, the average call waiting time for mobile customers decreased in 2024, from 2mins 24s in 2023 to  1min 52s in 2024.

Ofcom said Lebara had the shortest average call waiting time in 2024 at 15s while O2’s was the longest, at 3min 27s. 

Moving on to broadband and TalkTalk had a lower-than-average overall satisfaction score of 77% and also ranked poorly for complaints handling.

However, NOW Broadband, which is owned by Sky, generated the most broadband complaints to Ofcom at 65 per 100,000 customer.

Virgin Media generated the second highest number of fixed broadband complaints per 100,000 customers, at 56.

While EE was the third most complained-about broadband provider last year with 52 complaints per 100,000.

Plusnet achieved the highest overall satisfaction score at 91%, when it came to broadband.

When it came to landline, Plusnet also had the highest overall satisfaction score at 83%.

Meanwhile, Virgin Media customers were less pleased with the service giving the provider a rating of 67%.

Ian Macrae, Ofcom’s director of market intelligence, said: “Call waiting times have come down for many providers and satisfaction with complaint handling is on the up. 

“And we’re seeing competition in action, with smaller players challenging some of the bigger, well-established providers.”

He added: “But there’s further to go. Not all companies have made the same progress and it’s still taking the industry too long to fix things when they go wrong.”

A Virgin Media O2 spokesperson said: “Ofcom’s report shows that the vast majority of our customers were satisfied with their services in 2024, and highlights some improvements that have been made – including on complaints handling.

“While today’s data relates to the whole of 2024, we know from the regulator’s most recent statistics that the turnaround strategy we implemented in the middle of last year has led to significant improvements, with complaints about Virgin Media and O2 now at their lowest levels for several years.”

They added: “We’re continuing to make real progress through this strategy and we’re committed to giving our customers the best possible experience.”

How to complain about your service

If you’re unhappy with the service you’ve received, you’ll first need to contact your provider’s customer services department and explain the problem.

If this doesn’t resolve the issue, you can make a formal complaint to the company.

You can find details on how to do this on the back of your bill or on the company’s website.

Depending on your complaint type, you’ll be able to contact the customer service team by web chat, telephone or by post.

You’ll need to let the company know what has happened and what you want it to do to put things right.

If a formal complaint gets you nowhere, after eight weeks you can ask for a “deadlock letter” and take your dispute to the appropriate Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) scheme.

These are free to use and will act as an independent middle man between yourself and the service provider when an initial complaint cannot be resolved.

There are two ADR schemes in the UK – the Communications Ombudsman and CISAS. 

Your provider is required to be a member of one of these and you can find out which one your provider is covered by visiting ofcom.org.uk/phones-and-broadband/service-quality/adr-schemes.

Before you can submit your complaint to it, you must have logged a formal complaint with your provider and worked with the firm to resolve it.

You must also have received a so-called deadlock letter, where the provider refers your complaint to the appropriate ADR.

You can also complain if you haven’t had a satisfactory solution to your problem within eight weeks.

To make a complaint fill in the ADR scheme claims form on its website – or write a letter if you’d prefer.

The ADR scheme then bases its decision on the evidence you and the company submit.

If you choose to accept its decision, your supplier will then have 28 days to comply.

But if an individual chooses not to accept the ADR’s final decision, they lose the right to the resolution offer.

If you want to understand what’s going on in the streaming business, go find Elmo and Cookie Monster.

Netflix’s recent deal to stream the upcoming season of “Sesame Street” is, on its own, a major step in the entertainment giant’s effort to become a go-to destination for preschooler programming. At the same time, it’s a useful way to understand one of the media industry’s other big stories of the last week — Warner Bros. Discovery’s re-rebranding of its streaming service back to HBO Max.

First, the deal itself.

Los Gatos, Calif.-based Netflix will begin streaming the beloved children’s show’s upcoming 56th season, along with 90 hours of older episodes, later this year. New “Sesame Street” episodes will continue to air in the U.S. on PBS’ stations and digital platforms, the nonprofit Sesame Workshop’s longtime TV partner (which could use a win amid Congress’ efforts to defund public broadcasting). Episodes will premiere the same day on PBS and Netflix.

The new season will be released in three batches, and will include some format changes and the return of popular segments such as “Elmo’s World” and “Cookie Monster’s Foodie Truck.” Episodes will now be built around one 11-minute story, reflecting the shorter attention spans of younger viewers. The partnership includes a new animated segment, “Tales from 123.” Additionally, Netflix will be able to develop “Sesame Street” video games.

Netflix is welcoming “Sesame Street” to its block after HBO parent company Warner Bros. Discovery opted not to re-up its deal for new episodes, citing a shift in corporate priorities during a period of harsh cost-cutting.

HBO — and by extension, the streaming service known until recently as Max — had been the home of “Sesame Street” for years. The company then called Time Warner inked its deal with Sesame Workshop a decade ago, before AT&T or David Zaslav and his Discovery empire entered the picture.

Having Big Bird appear on the exclusive and adult-skewing “Game of Thrones” network never made much sense, but the deal was a lifeline for Sesame Workshop and kept the show alive, though it raised concerns among parent groups.

After AT&T took over, WarnerMedia launched HBO Max, a much reviled rebranding that was meant to make room for more populist content, including “Friends” and “The Big Bang Theory.” It also allowed for more kids’ programming, such as shows from Cartoon Network and Hanna-Barbera, along with “Sesame Street.”

Then came Zaslav, who stripped HBO from the streamer’s name entirely, leaving it as just Max. Part of the justification of the change was that the name HBO, while well known and respected among fancy people in New York and L.A., was a turnoff for Middle America and those who might otherwise sign up to binge-watch “Dr. Pimple Popper” and Guy Fieri.

The executives were also convinced that the HBO brand, known for “The Sopranos” and “Sex and the City,” was a deterrent for parents.

This was the era when streaming services were trying to be everything to everyone, and were losing billions of dollars trying to catch up to Netflix. Few companies other than Walt Disney Co. and HBO had distinct brands that made sense to people outside corporate conference rooms.

The decision to excise the HBO moniker was widely derided at the time as flawed managerial thinking.

Larry Vincent, a professor at USC Marshall School of Business and former UTA chief branding officer, called it a “classic case of right question, wrong answer” that will go down alongside New Coke in the annals of marketing blunders.

The name HBO has historically stood for quality, to the point that when people try to describe Apple TV+’s boutique streaming strategy, they compare it to early HBO. Last week, in an effective mea culpa during the media business’ big upfront week of presentations for advertisers, the company said the service would be called HBO Max again.

“It just violated everything we know about how you build a premium brand,” Vincent said of the earlier rebrand. “HBO has been at this for 50 years. It connotes a certain level of quality…. What we see now is that this is a reset to going back to the default position, because they realized this was silly.”

The backpedaling move drew howls from social media, journalists and rivals. Even Max’s own X account joined in on the fun. Warner Bros. Discovery executives were bracing for whatever John Oliver would say Sunday night during his show, and the comedian — never shy about bashing his own bosses — did not disappoint.

The decision was an admission of a couple things: First, that trying to be an “everything store” for entertainment was foolhardy when Netflix and Amazon both serve that exact purpose; and second, that it was a mistake to shy away from the brand that makes the streaming offering special.

Casey Bloys, chairman of HBO and Max content, said in a statement that returning to the old name “clearly states our implicit promise to deliver content that is recognized as unique and, to steal a line we always said at HBO, worth paying for.”

As my colleague Stephen Battaglio recently pointed out, when media companies put out new streaming services these days, there’s a tendency to avoid the now-cliche plus sign and stick with the brand name consumers already understand.

For example, Disney’s new $30 a month ESPN flagship service is simply called ESPN (ESPN+ is already taken by a more limited service).

Under Bloys, HBO has continued its tradition of highly regarded original series, with recent examples including the latest seasons of “The White Lotus,” “The Last of Us” and “The Righteous Gemstones.”

The brand confusion is still real, though. I’ve spoken with agents and read publications that should know better that mistakenly think “Hacks” and “The Pitt” are HBO shows, when they’re actually Max originals. That may not be important to consumers, but within the industry and for artists, it matters.

As for preschool-focused programming such as “Sesame Street,” that’s no longer a priority for Warner Bros. Discovery’s streaming strategy. The company has said it now wants to focus on “stories for adults and families.”

People who want shows for their toddlers can find them almost anywhere, including for free on YouTube. Disney+, of course, has troves of kids content, including Australia’s acclaimed and much-watched “Bluey.”

And, increasingly, kids are tuning into Netflix, which is now the land of “Ms. Rachel,” “CoComelon” and “Blippi,” all of which rose to popularity on YouTube. Kids and family programming now accounts for 15% of the platform’s viewership, according to the company. Netflix also has “Peppa Pig” and “Hot Wheels Let’s Race.”

Suffice to say, if you want or need to turn your little ones into couch zombies for a while, Netflix has an increasingly crowded ZIP Code of shows for you.

Stuff we wrote

Numbers of the week

Cable’s consolidation continues with Friday’s announcement that Charter and Cox will merge in a $34.5-billion deal, uniting Southern California’s two major cable TV and internet providers.

The Charter-Cox combination would have 38 million customer homes in the nation, a larger footprint than longtime cable leader Comcast.

Of the many interesting aspects of the deal, this one is particularly relevant to Los Angeles residents — if approved by Charter shareholders and regulators, the merger would end one of the longest TV sports blackouts, my colleague Meg James reports.

Cox customers in Rancho Palos Verdes, Rolling Hills Estates and Orange County would finally have the Dodgers’ TV channel available in their lineups. For more than a decade, Cox has refused to carry SportsNet LA because of its high cost.

New Line Cinema’s horror franchise revival “Final Destination: Bloodlines” won the weekend box office with $51 million in the U.S. and Canada (more than $100 million globally), exceeding pre-release analyst estimates.

The horror genre’s power to draw moviegoers is undeniable. The marketing was clever (complete with morbid 3D billboards), and this series has built-in nostalgic value. The new grisly supernatural teen movie comes 14 years after the previous one, “Final Destination 5.” The audience response has been generally positive.

With a reported production budget of $50 million, this was a no-brainer, and another win for Warner Bros. chiefs Michael De Luca and Pam Abdy coming after “Minecraft” and “Sinners.” All eyes are now on James Gunn’s “Superman,” coming in July.

Finally …

Listen: “Chaise Longue” rock band Wet Leg has new music on the way. Here’s a preview.

May 19 (UPI) — The National Weather Service in Alabama warned Monday that weather radio broadcasts are offline for routine maintenance as severe storms are forecast to hit the state Tuesday.

The weather service said while all watches and warnings will be released over the next few days, the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration’s Weather Radio transmitters will be offline during that time. Severe storms are forecast Tuesday for much of Alabama.

“NWS local offices plan to inform listeners both on-air and on their websites when updates are scheduled,” according to the NOAA Weather Radio website. NOAA Weather Radio is a network of stations that broadcasts warnings and weather information from the National Weather Service. The Advanced Weather Interactive Processing System, or AWIPS, went offline Monday and will remain down through Wednesday.

“Our Weather Radio broadcasts have concluded and will remain unavailable until our system updates are complete,” NWS Birmingham wrote Monday in a post on X. “Weather products will continue to be transmitted via the Internet, weather apps and wireless emergency alerts.”

“During the time of the update, forecast operations will be conducted in conjunction with our service back-up office in Peachtree City in Georgia to minimize any potential interruption to services,” the National Weather Service said Monday. “No impacts to our core services of forecast products and weather watches, warnings and advisories are expected during this period.”

The software updates will impact transmitters across northern and central Alabama. The NWS said its forecast office in Birmingham will remain open and staffed during the maintenance.

Approximately 31 million people from Texas, north to Iowa, could see severe storms starting Monday with forecasts showing strong winds, hail and tornadoes. That risk will shift Tuesday to Louisiana and north into Alabama and Indiana.

The NWS is urging Alabama residents to gather several weather sources — the Internet, weather apps and local emergency management — to ensure they receive all severe weather warnings in order to stay safe over the next few days.

Deadly storms and tornadoes over the weekend hit 10 different states, including Texas, Kansas, Missouri and Kentucky, where at least 28 people were killed.

WASHINGTON — Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said Thursday that federal law enforcement is investigating a social media post made by former FBI Director James Comey that she and other Republicans suggest is a call for violence against President Trump.

In an Instagram post, Comey wrote “cool shell formation on my beach walk” under a picture of seashells that appeared to form the shapes for “86 47.”

Numerous Trump administration officials, including Noem, said Comey was advocating for the assassination of Trump, the 47th president. “DHS and Secret Service is investigating this threat and will respond appropriately,” Noem wrote.

Merriam-Webster, the dictionary used by the Associated Press, says 86 is slang meaning “to throw out,” “to get rid of” or “to refuse service to.” It notes: “Among the most recent senses adopted is a logical extension of the previous ones, with the meaning of ‘to kill.’ We do not enter this sense, due to its relative recency and sparseness of use.”

The post has since been deleted. Comey subsequently wrote, “I posted earlier a picture of some shells I saw today on a beach walk, which I assumed were a political message. I didn’t realize some folks associate those numbers with violence.

“It never occurred to me,” Comey added, “but I oppose violence of any kind so I took the post down.”

Comey’s original post sparked outrage among conservatives on social media, with Donald Trump Jr. accusing Comey of calling for his father’s killing.

Current FBI Director Kash Patel said he was aware of the post and was conferring with the Secret Service and its director.

James Blair, White House deputy chief of staff for legislative, political and public affairs, noted that the post came at a delicate time given that Trump is traveling in the Middle East.

“This is a Clarion Call from Jim Comey to terrorists & hostile regimes to kill the President of the United States as he travels in the Middle East,” Blair wrote on X.

Comey, who was FBI director from 2013-17, was fired by Trump during the president’s first term amid the bureau’s probe into allegations of ties between Russian officials and Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. Comey wrote about his career in the bestselling memoir “A Higher Loyalty.”

He is now a crime fiction writer and is promoting his latest book, “FDR Drive,” which is being released Tuesday.

May 16 (UPI) — Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced Thursday night that DHS and the Secret Service are investigating a since-deleted picture former FBI Director James Comey published online as a threat targeting President Donald Trump.

“Disgraced former FBI Director James Comey just called for the assassination of @POTUS Trump,” she said online. “DHS and Secret Service is investigating this threat and will respond appropriately.”

Comey had published the now-deleted photo to Instagram. It showed shells on a beach arranged to form the numerals “86 47.”

“Cool shell formation on my beach walk,” Comey had written in the caption.

The number 86 is widely used code in restaurants and the hospitality industry meaning an item is either sold out, no longer available or should be removed from a dish. The Merriam-Webster dictionary says it is slag meaning to eject, dismiss or remove.

The number 47 suggests Trump, who is the 47th president of the United States.

The president’s eldest child, Donald Trump Jr., published a screenshot of the deleted post to his X account, describing the image as “James Comey casually calling for my dad to be murdered.”

In a follow-up post on Instagram, Comey explained that he had assumed the shells conveyed a political statement but not one suggesting violence.

“I posted earlier a picture of some shells I saw today on a beach walk, which I assumed were a political message. I didn’t realize some folks associate those numbers with violence,” he said. “It never occurred to me but I oppose violence of any kind so I took the post down.”

FBI Director Kash Patel said in a statement that the FBI is aware of the post “directed at President Trump” and is in contact with the Secret Service.

“Primary jurisdiction is with SS on these matters and we, the FBI, will provide all necessary support,” he said.

UPI has contacted the Secret Service for comment.

Tulsi Gabbard, director of National Intelligence, also described the image on X as Comey issuing “a call to action to murder the President of the United States.”

In an interview with Fox News, Gabbard said Comey should be jailed for it.

“I’m very concerned for the president’s life,” she said. “And James Comey, in my view, should be held accountable and put behind bars for this.”

Comey served as director of the FBI from 2013 until he was fired by Trump during his first term in 2017, during which his office investigated Russian interference into the 2016 election and Hillary Clinton‘s use of a private email server while she was secretary of state.

Airbnb wants to do your hair, cook your dinner, massage your back and possibly photograph your honeymoon. All these services, and several more, are part of a new bid by the company to further expand beyond its roots as a lodging broker.

The company unveiled Airbnb Services — which includes 10 initial categories — while relaunching its experiences program and introducing a new app design at a media event in Los Angeles on Tuesday. Rather than heavily emphasizing lodging, the redesigned app more strongly integrates all of its offerings and encourages more interaction among guests and hosts.

This new approach opens new possibilities for the company and its customers, who could order services and experiences from home or on the road. But this step depends on a lot of behind-the-scenes work. The new services menu — which went live Tuesday with 10,500 offerings — will be offered in 260 cities, and Airbnb vows to protect consumers by carefully vetting those legions of service providers.

Airbnb, born in 2007, grew to challenge the hotel industry and became a giant in the world of hospitality. It first launched its Airbnb Experiences program in 2016, serving as a matchmaker between travelers and people offering their services as specialized tour guides and teachers. But that effort sputtered.

By 2022, many critics on Reddit and elsewhere were complaining that Airbnb experiences were unreliable, and industry website Skift reported that Airbnb had stopped adding new experiences and reduced emphasis on them on its homepage. With this relaunch, company representatives said, Airbnb is aiming to focus more narrowly on distinctive experiences that have been more closely vetted. The company also said it would include more experiences focused on meeting or spending time with celebrities.

To start, Airbnb would offer about 22,000 experiences in 650 cities in 22 categories. To announce the new moves, Airbnb co-founder and Chief Executive Brian Chesky convened hundreds of influencers, podcasters and media in a special-event space in Boyle Heights.

“What if you could Airbnb more than a place to stay?” Chesky asked the audience. “Today we are changing travel again.”

For instance, Chesky said, “Now you can book a professional chef to come right to your home.” The same goes for photographers, personal trainers, massage and spa treatments, hair-styling, makeup and nails. Moreover, “you don’t need to stay at an Airbnb to book these services. You can book them in your own city.”

Chesky said he expects to add thousands of more services over the course of 2025.

In the case of Airbnb Experiences, “we’ve learned a lot about how to make them better,” said Chesky, tacitly acknowledging the feature’s uneven history. As before, the goal is to give travelers an experience that reaches beyond the usual photo-op spots and bus-tour stops.

Stressing small groups, specific themes, Chesky said the new experiences will fall into five categories: history and culture; food and drink; nature and outdoors; art and design; and fitness and wellness. He encouraged anyone who is an expert in their city and has something to share to apply to be a host. Airbnb representatives said the vetting process, which can take up to two weeks, includes online scrutiny of a host’s work history, licensing, education and any awards — along with ongoing attention to guest reviews.

The renewed program also includes about 1,000 Airbnb Originals — adventures in the company of “the world’s most interesting people.” As examples, Chesky cited a mezcal-tasting session in Mexico City with an expert, a class with a ramen master in Tokyo, a dance with a K-pop performer in Seoul and a visit to Notre Dame with an architect who worked on the cathedral’s restoration.

Those offerings feature at least a few celebrity options, which include spending a Sunday with Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes, “learning to throw the perfect spiral” or an anime-intensive encounter called “Become an Otaku Hottie with Megan Thee Stallion.” Airbnb said those initial celebrity experiences are free, offered as a promotion, with guests chosen from applicants.

For the first time, sports fans will be able to subscribe to ESPN without signing up for satellite or cable TV. It will cost $29.99 a month.

The Walt Disney Co. unit announced Tuesday that the new direct-to-consumer streaming service will go by the legacy name ESPN, a sign that the sports media behemoth sees streaming as the future. The launch date will be in early fall.

The standalone service will provide live feeds of all ESPN channels including ESPN2, ESPNU, SECN, ACCN, ESPNEWS and ESPN Deportes. Users will also be able to stream ESPN productions airing on the ABC broadcast network, which include the NBA Finals and “Monday Night Football.”

The service will also be available in a streaming bundle, where consumers can get ESPN, Disney + and Hulu for $35.99. The bundle plan will be available at a discounted $29.99 for the first year.

“It’s going to redefine our business,” ESPN Chairman Jimmy Pitaro said at a press briefing held at Disney’s New York headquarters in lower Manhattan.

The unveiling of the new product is a significant moment for the company. The current streaming service ESPN+ offers the channels, but only to users who have pay TV.

As younger consumers have moved to streaming, they have left behind the cable universe their parents lived with. The new ESPN streaming product is aimed at attracting sports fans who are not buying pay TV.

“Our priority is looking at the 60 million households on the sidelines,” Pitaro said.

Pitaro said the brand name has meaning to younger consumers who spend time with it on social media and digital platforms even if they don’t watch on cable.

ESPN has long received the biggest cut of cable bills and as a result felt the most pain as consumers were giving up their pay-TV subscriptions. The network has managed to offset that revenue loss with increases in ad revenue and cost-cutting.

Under Pitaro’s watch, ESPN has locked up a number of major sports rights deals in recent years that he believes will strengthen the streaming offering. Last year, the company finalized a new 11-year deal to keep the NBA.