A federal judge in California on Friday barred the Justice Department from threatening or coercing election workers to stop processing ballots.
The order issued by U.S. District Judge Trina L. Thompson in the Northern District of California was in response to a suit filed earlier Friday by labor unions seeking to bar the Justice Department from intimidating election workers.
Notably, the emergency order was issued without the Department of Justice weighing in on the case.
“Election Day is around the corner,” wrote Thompson, who was nominated by former President Biden. “Ballots have already been issued. Americans have already begun voting. Workers have already begun processing ballots. Given the consequences of inaction, the Court sees no reason to delay its ruling.”
It also bars the Justice Department from demanding local election officials segregate or not count ballots that the federal government deems may have been cast by ineligible voters.
“This ruling is a victory for the workers who make our elections possible and the communities they serve,” April Verrett, president of the Service Employees International Union, said in a statement Friday night.
The top federal prosecutor in Los Angeles, Bill Essayli, has warned that “any election official who knowingly processes the ballot of a noncitizen is opening themselves to legal jeopardy.”
On Thursday, the Associated Press obtained subpoenas issued to election officials in Los Angeles County. The subpoenas request any documents and communications related to letters sent in July and October by federal officials to state election officials outlining the allegations about noncitizen voters. They also seek any information about efforts to prevent noncitizen votes from being counted. At least three L.A. County election officials have been asked to appear before a grand jury the day after the election.
It is unclear whether the Justice Department intends to bring criminal charges against anyone. The department does not typically subpoena people whom it regards as targets of a criminal investigation to appear before a grand jury.
Outside groups win access to the disputed list
In another Friday ruling, another federal judge ordered the Trump administration to share the disputed list of names with lawyers for the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights and the UCLA Voting Rights Project. They want to examine who is on the list and assess its impact on eligible voters.
It will be the first time that a nongovernmental organization will have the opportunity to evaluate the merits of the list of some 20,000 names. The federal government promptly appealed the decision on Friday evening.
The Democratic candidate for California governor, Xavier Becerra, is an advisor to the UCLA Voting Rights Project.
The two groups sued the Homeland Security Department in early October to prevent it from using federal immigration data to challenge state voter rolls. The lawsuit cited examples in other states where the federal government’s data have been proven to mistakenly include thousands of citizens. It argued that the data-matching methods risk disenfranchising or deterring citizens from voting. On top of that, plaintiffs argued, the lists could disproportionately target naturalized citizens who are legally entitled to vote.
The Justice Department argues that there is just as much to lose if the ballots aren’t separated.
“Every ballot cast by an ineligible voter cancels out the vote of an American citizen,” Kiersten V. Pels, a spokesperson for the department, wrote in an email. “The Department makes no apology for protecting those votes.”
In a separate but related 9th Circuit Court decision on Friday, a panel of judges ruled that federal investigations into illegal voting by noncitizens will remain on hold in nine states until after election day.
The judges, all nominated by Democratic presidents, found that the aggressive and public investigations led some citizens to decide not to engage in election-related activities out of fear of being wrongly targeted.
The judges said the investigations, which are looking into alleged illegal voting in past elections, can resume after the midterms wrap up Tuesday.
Riddle, Mulvihill and Swenson write for the Associated Press. AP writer Swenson reported from New York; Mulvihill reported from Haddonfield, N.J.
A bystander has filmed residents of a condemned building in Peru’s Huancayo throwing flaming gasoline on officials trying to evict them. Nine workers suffered severe burns in the attack.
It was a crowning moment. Netflix appeared to have prevailed in an audacious $82.7-billion deal to scoop one of the industry’s most prestigious studios: Warner Bros. The move seemed to cement Netflix’s status as the ultimate Hollywood gate-crasher and its dominance as the leading new player in media.
Now, nearly a year later, the plotline for Netflix has dramatically changed. The streaming giant lost out to Paramount Skydance in its bid for Warner Bros. Discovery and is facing headwinds on multiple fronts.
That was underscored this week when the streaming giant Netflix began shedding 6% of its workforce, or about 1,000 jobs — believed to be the largest layoff in the company’s history and exceeding the last round of job cuts in 2022, when it reported subscriber declines.
On Wednesday morning, Ted Sarandos and Co-Chief Executive Greg Peters sent a note to employees confirming the job losses, adding that the bulk of the cuts would affect the tech, product, legal and human resources teams.
“Our mission — to entertain the world — is ambitious, and delivering on it requires us to be disciplined about where we prioritize our people and resources,” wrote Sarandos and Peters in the memo obtained by The Times.
The cuts mark the latest reductions across the film and TV industry. Other entertainment and media companies have slashed their payrolls, including Walt Disney Co., Paramount and Sony Pictures Entertainment during a period of economic uncertainty in Hollywood.
But the scale of such downsizing is unusual for Netflix. Industry analysts and insiders chalk up the reversal of fortune to several factors. Although it still dominates the television business, the Los Gatos company hasn’t been able to produce enough new hit franchises to replace culture-defining shows from years past such as “Stranger Things” and “Squid Game.”
At the same time, Netflix faces rising competition from rivals such as HBO Max, Apple TV, Hulu and others that have upped their game. Free, ad-supported streaming platforms such as YouTube are increasingly taking a larger slice of consumer streaming hours. And Netflix’s efforts to diversify its business into new areas such as games have yielded mixed results.
A Netflix building on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles in 2025.
(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)
The upshot: Netflix continues to be the dominant video subscription streaming player with more than 325 million subscribers, but the time that consumers spend on the platform is growing at a slower pace than what investors want. In the first half of this year, consumer watch time on Netflix increased only 2% compared with a year earlier, even as content spending increased 11% to $20 billion this year. Netflix also narrowed its annual revenue forecast last summer, disappointing some investors.
“Netflix’s layoffs show that even the top streaming companies are not immune to stagnation and financial difficulties,” said Ross Benes, senior analyst at research firm Emarketer.
Amid the sobering signs, investors have grown restless. Netflix shares, which closed at $70.57 on Wednesday, have plummeted 42% in the last year. Part of that decline was fueled by anxiety among investors over Netflix’s deal to buy Warner Bros. Discovery, but the share price hasn’t rebounded even after that deal fell apart.
“They need to better prepare their balance sheet and economics since engagement has plateaued,” said Brandon Katz, director of insights and content strategy at Greenlight Analytics.
Katz said that Netflix’s five most-watched English-language scripted summer movie releases in their first eight weeks posted the lowest average hours watched compared with the streamer’s top five summer releases in 2025, 2024 and 2023, citing Nielsen data.
Sarandos acknowledged concerns about engagement at a Bloomberg Screentime event Sept. 30.
“Overall we’re not growing as fast as I want us to, and we’re working on making that move faster,” Sarandos said.
Netflix declined to comment on the layoffs.
“We’ll continue to invest aggressively in high-impact areas to improve our service and further drive growth and innovation,” Sarandos and Peters said in their memo to employees.
In some ways, Netflix has been victim of its own success. It has produced a string of shows and movies that have hit the cultural zeitgeist such as “KPop Demon Hunters” and “Squid Game.” But finding enough new popular shows that continue to drive subscriptions has been a challenge.
“A lot of these major hits are coming to an end at similar times, and they don’t yet really have heir apparents to replace them,” Katz said.
Sci-fi hit “Stranger Things” released its finale last year, followed by the young-adult drama “Outer Banks” and “Emily in Paris,” which ends this year. Netflix also announced that “The Witcher” and “The Lincoln Lawyer” will wrap after their next seasons.
What’s more, the second seasons of some shows with big followings have seen large view drop-offs compared with their first seasons. For example, the fantasy series “Avatar: The Last Airbender” season 1 debuted with 21.2 million views, but views for its second season dropped 59% to 8.7 million, according to Netflix data.
New series from Netflix also haven’t captured as much consumer demand as other competing shows from rival streamers, according to Parrot Analytics.
Last year, Netflix had just one show — the Japanese anime and manga series “Sakamoto Days” — that made it in Parrot’s top 10 list of first season original series on streaming platforms. Parrot’s ranking measures consumer demand in the U.S. and is based on digital interactions such as social media chatter and Google searches. By comparison, Netflix had three titles in 2022 alone: the true crime show “Monster,” the documentary series “Harry & Meghan” and the sci-fi mystery show “1899,” Parrot said.
Sarandos told investors in July that such declines are typical and that second season falloff is slightly improved this year. But popular shows on rival streaming services such as the medical drama “The Pitt” on HBO Max have not seen such declines. “The Pitt” drew even more viewers in its second season than the first.
To diversify its business, Netflix has expanded its programming offerings beyond TV shows and movies to include live sports, such as football and baseball games.
Although live programs have helped to spur significant subscription sign-ups, they still represent just 1% of watch time on Netflix while costing 5% of the company’s content budget, Sarandos has said.
Netflix also has added video podcasts that have helped to boost daytime viewing on the platform, and has made deals with YouTube creators to bring their content to the streaming service.
But some of the new content hasn’t clicked, particularly in games, analysts said. In August, Netflix shut down Hollywood-based Night School, the maker of supernatural adventure game “Oxenfree,” and said it was closing a Helsinki-based games studio.
“They are spending on a lot of things that haven’t necessarily proven to be effective yet,” said Rob Rosenberg, a partner at law firm Moses & Singer and former Showtime Networks general counsel. “It feels a lot like they’re trying to send a message to Wall Street that ‘we’re re-examining how we do business.’”
Meanwhile, Netflix continues to face more competition from rivals such as YouTube, which offers a free, ad-supported version of its video library.
Unlike Netflix, YouTube does not pay for the creation of many of the videos on its platform. Instead, creators or companies upload and produce the programs themselves and YouTube shares ad and subscription revenue.
YouTube’s share of streaming watch time in the U.S. on TVs has steadily increased. In July, YouTube represented 14.2%, compared with Netflix’s 7.8%, according to Nielsen.
The pressure to boost engagement on Netflix has caused tension within the company, particularly between the teams of people responsible for how programs are promoted on the platform and the employees responsible for bringing shows and movies on Netflix, according to people familiar with the matter who were not authorized to speak publicly.
Some blame the content for not being enticing enough, while others contend that the programs could be promoted better on Netflix.
“It’s a bit of a quagmire,” said one of the sources familiar with the matter. “There is a tension when things aren’t working. People tend to point fingers.”
In their staff memo, Sarandos and Peters said Netflix is on track to deliver its full-year forecast and will continue to invest in areas that improve its service and drive growth and innovation.
“Doing that means making focused choices across the business so we can keep delivering for our members, partners, employees, and investors,” they wrote.
Despite the downsizing, Netflix remains highly profitable. In the second quarter, the company generated $3.4 billion in net income, up 9% from a year earlier. Revenue rose 13% to $12.6 billion last quarter, including double-digit revenue growth in all of its regions. Next week, the company will share its third-quarter results.
The streamer is expected to get a boost from new seasons of popular shows — including season 4 of the political drama “The Diplomat” and spy series “Lupin: Part 4,” as well as Thanksgiving Eve and Christmas Day NFL games.
Having new seasons of popular shows such as “Lupin” and “The Diplomat” will help boost Netflix’s engagement, said Alejandro Rojas, vice president of applied analytics at Parrot Analytics.
“The new season is like a catalyst for people to watch the previous seasons,” Rojas said.
On the theatrical side, Netflix also has high hopes for upcoming movies including La Bola Negra, starring Penelope Cruz; and “The Further Mis-Adventures of Cliff Booth” featuring Brad Pitt. Next year, Netflix will release the Greta Gerwig-directed film, “Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew” on Imax screens.
Netflix has not signaled any changes to its strategy for releasing movies or TV shows. But some analysts said it could benefit from having more theatrical releases and by dropping episodes of shows once a week, instead of all at once, to generate more buzz for programs. They also expect that Netflix will be more disciplined in its content spending.
“While the company will expand its sports roles, it’s cutting back at a time when revenue matters much more than subscriber additions,” said Benes of Emarketer. “With pressure mounting, Netflix will look to turn the tide by getting a boost from low-cost content. The battle for top creators will become more pitched.”
Times staff writer SamanthaMasunaga contributed to this report.
“Salaries and pensions increase,” reads a banner held by healthcare workers during Tuesday’s demonstration. (Archive)
Caracas, October 13, 2026 (venezuelanalysis.com) – Hundreds of Venezuelan workers took to the streets on Tuesday to demand that the acting Delcy Rodríguez government address a series of labor grievances.
The mobilization in Caracas was called by healthcare trade unions to deliver a petition at Miraflores Palace. Education and higher education unions likewise endorsed the rally, which had a turnout estimated at 2,000 people.
Venezuelan police shepherded the march through the center of the Venezuelan capital but protesters were ultimately stopped a few blocks from the presidential palace. A commission of union representatives delivered the document, which reportedly collected over 45,000 signatures from healthcare professionals, to Venezuelan government representatives.
“It looks like the plan is to invite foreign capital by offering cheap labor,” FETRASALUD union leader Pablo Zambrano told press. “The Venezuelan workers must struggle to be fairly compensated for their work.”
Protesters echoed a longstanding demand that existing bonuses be converted into wages. The monthly minimum wage was last increased by the Venezuelan government in March 2022 and currently stands at 130 bolívars, around US $0.15. Instead, the Nicolás Maduro and Rodríguez administrations have relied on non-wage bonuses which have no impact on vacation pay, social security contributions, or severance. The income floor for public sector workers was raised to $240/month in May.
The petitions delivered on Tuesday included a demand that holiday bonuses be computed based on workers’ present incomes as opposed to the actual salary. It likewise called for the “professional responsibility bonus,” which ranges from $40 to $170 per month and is discretionally assigned to certain sectors, to be extended to retired workers, and for unions to participate in the drafting of new wage scales.
“Holiday bonuses are fundamental labor rights, and we need to have them based on the real incomes,” said Yilbert Giménez, director of the SINTRACUPEM healthcare workers’ union in Miranda state. “We are also opposed to any regressive reforms on labor matters.”
Pedro Eusse, from the CUTV labor confederation, called on workers’ organizations to unite to “defeat the plan to dismantle labor rights.”
“The government is allied with business elites whose goal is to destroy the working class’ existing social benefits and social security rights,” he told reporters. “We need a broad unity to defeat this plan.”
Labor Minister Carlos Castillo has drawn criticism in recent days over comments that he “relates to business owners” on labor costs.
“Nowadays, as I run a ministry with a significant labor weight on its shoulders and have to calculate payroll every month, I have truly started to relate to business owners,” he said during his keynote address at business association FEDECÁMARAS annual summit on Friday.
Castillo went on to say that he “understood that business owners are not an evil abstraction from ideological manuals” but rather “makers of reality who risk their capital, their mental health, and their daily effort.”
FEDECÁMARAS, the Caribbean nation’s most influential private sector lobby, has actively campaigned for labor reform reducing responsibilities for employers and eliminating the retroactive nature of social benefits and severance pay, which trade unions consider a red line.
Former FEDECÁMARAS President Jorge Roig, who currently serves as a business sector representative in a “labor dialogue” initiative mediated by the International Labor Organization (ILO), recently expressed “optimism” about securing consensus with the Venezuelan government and worker organizations.
Roig argued that the current labor conditions “are not working” and proposed the creation of a Law of Labor and Social Consensus to introduce temporary solutions adjusted to different economic sectors.
Venezuela’s historic Labor Law, approved in 2012 by former President Hugo Chávez, prohibits unfair dismissal and outsourcing, enshrines the world’s third-longest maternity leave, guarantees the right to work for both women and people with disabilities, and extends retirement pensions to all workers, including full-time mothers and the self-employed.
The ruling United Socialist Party (PSUV) also staged a march in Caracas on Tuesday afternoon. Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello claimed that Venezuelan workers are “the bulwark of peace” in the South American country.
“We have delivered a document supporting all the actions by Acting President Delcy Rodríguez and the ongoing dialogue process while also demanding the lifting of sanctions against Venezuela,” Cabello told those present.
This means the driver alone oversees both the train’s movement and door operations, rather than having a second conductor on board.
The dispute centres on the first stage of the new railway, serving six stations between Oxford and Milton Keynes.
Trains on this route will stop at Oxford, Oxford Parkway, Bicester Village, Winslow, Bletchley and Milton Keynes Central.
According to RMT general secretary Eddie Dempsey, the proposals would be a “significant risk” to safety and existing train manager roles.
He added: “RMT will not accept the watering down of safety on the rail network.”
However, Chiltern Railways has rejected the claim that the new services would compromise passenger safety.
Interim managing director Tony Baxter said: “We have run most of our trains with the driver in control of the doors for decades, safely and as approved by the independent rail regulator.
“It also means over 100 new permanent jobs at Chiltern, and no changes to the roles of existing colleagues.”
The operator also stressed that every East West Rail train will have two staff members on board – a driver, and a colleague to look after and assist passengers and check tickets.
The company has said it remains committed to working with RMT to solve the dispute.
What changes will be in place over the weekend?
According to Chiltern Railways’ website, the majority of passengers will “experience a near normal train service”.
There will be no services for Stratford-upon-Avon or Leamington Spa for the entire day.
Passengers will instead need to travel via Dorridge, taking a West Midlands Railway service between Stratford-upon-Avon and Dorridge.
Customers have been assured that tickets will be valid via Dorridge at no additional cost.
A further four long distance services will only operate part of their journeys:
0644 Stourbridge Junction to London Marylebone – will start at Banbury
0819 Stourbridge Junction to London Marylebone – will start at Birmingham Moor Street
1802 London Marylebone to Stourbridge Junction will terminate at Birmingham Moor Street
1932 London Marylebone to Stourbridge Junction will terminate at Banbury
Certain trains in and out of London Marylebone will have additional stops at Wembley Arena for passengers heading to the Girlguiding Big Gig pop concert.
Walt Disney Co. laid off nearly 300 workers this week, the latest wave in an industry-wide consolidation that continues to reverberate throughout Southern California.
Several people close to the Burbank entertainment giant confirmed this week’s cuts, which came as Disney separately offered early retirement packages for older workers. The voluntary separation program is underway, and the number of executives who will exit later this year has not been determined, one of the knowledgeable sources said Friday.
D’Amaro took the reins from former CEO Bob Iger in March, and the former parks chief has begun to organize the company around a “One Disney” approach to break down corporate silos that sprouted with each large acquisition, including Disney’s 2019 takeover of much of 21st Century Fox.
Disney also has been working for the past year to make Disney+ the company’s central streaming hub. As part of that effort, executives have begun to diminish the Hulu service and brand, which sprung to life nearly 20 years ago.
Disney employees are bracing for further cuts. Many expect a significant television division restructuring early next year, which could result in hundreds of layoffs, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Disney’s legal government affairs department also will be downsized, according to a recent internal memo Disney Chief Legal Officer Horacio Gutierrez.
A Disney spokesperson declined to comment.
Disney President Dana Walden, during a Thursday appearance at Bloomberg News’ Screentime media conference in Hollywood, acknowledged the industry turmoil.
Traditional studios and TV networks have shed tens of thousands workers in recent years after the streaming bubble burst and twin labor strikes paused projects.
Production workers in Los Angeles have felt a double-whammy as other states and countries have offered generous tax subsidies that have pulled productions from L.A.
Separately, Warner Bros. Discovery workers are anxious that David Ellison’s planned takeover of their company next week will ultimately result in hundreds of layoffs as the tech scion and his team hunt for $6 billion in cost cuts that they promised investors and prospective debt holders.
The merger will leave the combined company, which will go by the name Skydance, with more than $80 billion in debt.
Walden suggested her company’s cuts would be more modest. She said restructurings were necessary as companies adapt to changing consumption patterns, which have eroded the more lucrative TV economics of yesteryear.
“There is a need to constantly evaluate how you’re structured,” Walden said. “It is extremely painful. We’ve exited colleagues who I’ve worked with for most of my career and it is, in many ways, a harsh reality.”
She described Disney’s voluntary retirement program as a “generous” program to give “long-tenured executives agency and the opportunity to make their own decisions around whether the timing was right to leave.”
“This evolution, it will never stop,” Walden added. “Technology set their sights on our business, and we must survive, and thrive and grow. And that’s what we’re going to do.”
OpenAI has fired three researchers for allegedly mishandling information, including work that involved an external organisation that analyses artificial intelligence (AI) models.
“Our investigation confirmed that these individuals mishandled sensitive information outside established company procedures, violating our policies and breaking the trust essential to our work,” a spokesperson told the BBC.
The ChatGPT-maker did not name the sacked workers, but at least two of them were involved in safety research at the firm.
The firings come as the debate over AI safety and the risks the technology may pose to humanity has intensified in recent weeks.
“We have parted ways with three individuals for violating our policies on accessing and handling sensitive company information,” OpenAI’s spokesperson said.
The BBC understands the former employees were not let go for raising safety concerns but for allegedly mishandling sensitive information.
Concerns over AI safety have made headlines after some researchers and industry executives called for more guardrails around the technology.
OpenAI has come under under intense scrutiny after its models went rogue and hacked several platforms, including Australian government websites.
In an earlier incident an OpenAI system accessed the internet and breached the open-source developer platform Hugging Face.
That incident led OpenAI to conduct a broad review of the activities of its AI models – called agents, which are designed to execute tasks autonomously based on simple instructions.
The AI lab said this week that it has notified more than 100 organisations about incidents involving unauthoritised activity linked to its AI systems.
Being notified “does not mean that any private information was accessed” or that a system was compromised, OpenAI said.
