Thirteen people have been killed in an Israeli airstrike on a Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon, the Lebanese health ministry and state media have said.
The drone attack hit a car parked outside a mosque in the Ein el-Hilweh camp, near the southern Lebanese city of Sidon, according to the state-run National News Agency.
The ministry said 13 people died and several others were injured.
It was the deadliest strike on Lebanon since a ceasefire in the Israel-Hezbollah war a year ago.
Image: People gathered next to an ambulance as it entered the Ein el-Hilweh refugee camp. Pic: AP
The Israeli military said it had struck militants operating in a Hamas training compound within the camp, alleging that Hamas was using the facility to carry out attacks on Israel.
Hamas condemned the strike, saying: “The claims and allegations of the Zionist occupation army that the targeted location is a ‘training compound belonging to the movement’ are pure fabrication and lies, aimed at justifying its criminal aggression.”
It said the strike targeted an open sports field used by residents of the camp, adding there were no military establishments in refugee camps in Lebanon.
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The Israeli army said it would continue to act against the group wherever it operated.
Scores of officials from the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah and Palestinian factions have been killed over the past two years by Israeli airstrikes.
Israel and Hezbollah agreed to a ceasefire in 2024 that required Hezbollah not to have any weapons in the south and for Israeli forces to fully withdraw from Lebanon.
Hamas led the deadly attack on southern Israel that killed about 1,200 people on 7 October 2023. Some 251 others were taken hostage.
In the war that followed, when Israel invaded the Gaza Strip, more than 69,000 Palestinians were killed, according to the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry.
The ministry does not distinguish between civilians and combatants but says the majority of deaths were women and children.
Flames and smoke billow from buildings during mass Russian drones and missile strikes on Ukraine’s capital in July 2025, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Oleksii Filippov/AFP via Getty Images
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Oleksii Filippov/AFP via Getty Images
The U.S. deported 50 people to Ukraine this week, a Ukrainian border official said on Tuesday, in what appears to be the single largest such deportation from the U.S. since the country has been at war with Russia.
The flight landed near the Polish border in the early hours on Monday. Since Russia’s invasion in 2022, Immigration and Customs Enforcement has deported 105 Ukrainians in total, with 13 in the last quarter of 2024, according to the latest data available inICE’s publicly available tracker.
The Trump administration originally wanted to send 80 people on the flight, according to Olha Stefanishyna, Ukraine’s ambassador to the United States. That original list also included at least one person that Ukraine had previously been unable to claim as a citizen of the country.
It wasn’t immediately clear why only 50 people out of the group of 80 ended up in Ukraine.
Immigration lawyers have raised concerns that those deported to Ukraine could be conscripted to fight in the war. All men in Ukraine from ages 25 to 60 are eligible to be drafted, though some women and younger people have also volunteered. While U.S. law permits deportations, including to countries that people are not originally from, domestic and international laws prohibit deportations to place where someone may face violence, persecution or torture.
The Trump administration has brokered deals with countries with notorious human rights records or who are facing conflict, including with South Sudan, Libya, Eswatini, Rwanda and El Salvador, to receive deportees from the United States, as it seeks to ramp up mass deportations.
Six of the 8 men deported to South Sudan over the summer are still there, according to their lawyers, while the Associated Press reported that those sent to the other countries have been imprisoned there.
“Currently, border guards have ensured their registration in the border relation for entry into Ukraine in accordance with the rules established by law,” Andrii Demchenko, spokesman for Ukraine’s State Border Service, told NPR. “It is worth noting that Ukraine accepts its citizens in any case.”
The spokesperson said Ukraine would accept any of its own citizens who had been deported from the U.S.
The embassy did not answer questions regarding what would happen to people deported to the country.
“It should be noted that deportation is a widely used legal mechanism provided for by the immigration laws of most countries around the world,” Stefanishyna said in a statement provided to NPR. “It is a routine procedure applied to all foreign nationals and stateless persons who violate the terms of their stay in the United States, regardless of their nationality.”
One migrant first profiled by NPR fought immediate deportation
Eric Lee, an immigration lawyer with a client on the flight, said the detainees include people who have lived in the U.S. since they were children.
“Many have U.S. citizen spouses and children. Some do not even speak Ukrainian, and others are not even Ukrainian citizens, having been born in the Soviet Union before Ukraine existed as a separate country,” Lee said in an interview.
One of Lee’s clients, Roman Surovtsev, was recently transferred through several detention centers in Texas in preparation for the deportation to Ukraine, even as his attorneys continue to fight his removal in court.
According to Justice Department court filings, the administration had intended to put him on the flight. NPR confirmed he ended up not being deported after an immigration court stayed his deportation hours before the flight, while his case was reopened in immigration court.
Surovtsev, who lived in Dallas with his U.S. citizen wife and two children, was born in the Soviet Union. He came to the U.S. as a refugee, but lost his green card when he was a teenager when he pleaded guilty to a carjacking in California.
As NPR has previously reported, the U.S. previously tried and failed to deport Surovtsev to Ukraine, which was unable to provide the necessary travel documents for deportation. For years, Surovtsev completed yearly check-ins with Immigration and Customs Enforcement until he was detained during his visit in August. ICE then tried to give him deportation documents, but those papers were in Ukrainian, a language he does not speak.
His team of lawyers was able to vacate his conviction and move forward with reinstating his green card. Still, Surovtsev has remained in detention.
U.S. District Judge Ada Brown, who was appointed by President Trump, originally blocked Surovtsev’s removal earlier this month through Jan. 13 but reversed her decision a few days later, surprising Surovtsev’s attorneys.
“He is likely to receive his green card once again very soon. And he has also not been given the opportunity to express his fear of being deported to an active war zone,” Lee said.
A DHS spokesperson said in a statement that Surovtesev has already received due process.
“He received full due process and was ordered removed by an immigration judge on November 4, 2014 — over a decade ago,” the spokesperson wrote. “Under President Trump and Secretary Noem, if you break the law, you will face the consequences. Criminal illegal aliens are not welcome in the U.S.”
Tomorrow (19 November) all eyes will be on Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) as the chip giant announces its latest quarterly earnings. Well, I say “all eyes” but in fairness, lots of investors do not care less about the Nvidia stock price.
That could be a mistake, in my opinion.
Nvidia’s earnings: not just about Nvidia!
On one hand, Nvidia clearly matters economically.
This year it became the first listed company in history to command a market capitalisation of $5trn, although that figure has since fallen back to $4.4trn. Even so, it remains the world’s largest listed company by market capitalisation.
But that alone is not why I think the Nvidia stock price potentially has importance for all investors.
Instead, I think Nvidia is systemically important because it is a proxy for the hopes pinned on AI-fuelled growth in recent years.
As Alphabet’s chief executive told the BBC this week, if the AI bubble bursts, he reckons “no company is going to be immune”.
Here’s why Nvidia matters
On one hand, it is clear why Nvidia is a proxy for the AI boom.
Its pricey, specialist chips have been sold in droves as companies including Alphabet scale up their AI expenditure massively. Any significant shift in sales volumes could help signal whether that phase is starting to wind down, or accelerating.
But I think there is more to it than that. Nvidia is not the only chip company. It is also not the only firm that has seen business soar directly due to AI-related expenditure.
However, as well as its massive size (or perhaps because of it), Nvidia has symbolic importance.
The stunning rise of Nvidia has been an integral part of the AI-fuelled tech stock boom in recent years. If Nvidia stock tumbles at some point, I fear the wider sector would also potentially fall.
I like Nvidia’s business. It has proprietary technology, an installed client base with deep pockets, and is massively profitable.
At the current price, though, the Nvidia stock price is too high for my tastes. I do not think it offers me the sort of margin of safety I like, given risks such as a slowdown in AI-related chip expenditure.
Could it fall a long way from here? Potentially yes – although if tomorrow’s results are strong like they have been in recent quarters, maybe it can rise higher still.
But looking back a quarter of a century to the dotcom boom, companies such as Amazon saw their stock prices collapse – only then to rise spectacularly in the following decades. As a long-term investor, that grabs my attention.
Nvidia is a great company and I would happily own it if I could buy the stock at what I see as an attractive price.
For now, I am sitting on my hands. But if it tumbles, potentially triggering a wider market sell-off, I will happily take another look.
While matcha green tea might be a fashionable superfood, boasting numerous qualities that could benefit your wellbeing, for some it can prove remarkably damaging, according to one woman who was recently admitted to hospital. Laura Mae turned to TikTok to share clips from her hospital bed where she was connected to a drip while battling iron deficiency. In footage that has become viral, racking up more than 10 million views, she revealed that her matcha intake is the “likely” culprit behind various symptoms that left her feeling unwell.
“When you realise the matcha you have been drinking every morning is likely the reason your hair is falling out,” she wrote in a caption. Laura Mae went on to detail her ordeal: “Matcha can block your body’s natural iron absorption, which can increase hair loss, brittle nails, and fatigue.”
In a follow-up video she revealed she previously “blamed everything” on her Crohn’s Disease. Nevertheless, after considering her fondness for matcha, everything suddenly “clicked”.
“Once I realised my daily matcha was making iron absorption even harder, it all clicked,” Laura Mae revealed. “Swapping my morning drink was the best change I’ve made.
“Gut health really is everything. Once I changed my morning routine, the symptoms finally started to make sense.”
After being discharged from hospital, Laura Mae shared with her followers: “Not every ‘healthy habit’ is healthy for everybody. For me, matcha was secretly making things worse, especially with absorption already being a struggle.”
She closed: “Once I swapped it out, I noticed the difference in my energy and mood almost immediately. I didn’t realise how much my daily matcha was holding me back until I swapped it for something my body actually thanked me for.”
Supporting Laura’s concerns, Verywell Health cautions that matcha contains tannins and other compounds that can hinder iron absorption. “Matcha is a type of powdered green tea well known for its high antioxidant content,” the organisation explains on their website.
“It also contains a unique combination of caffeine and L-theanine, a natural amino acid that has been shown to help with energy, stress, and focus, often making it a gentler alternative to coffee. [Tannins are] a type of polyphenol that can bind iron in the digestive tract, making it harder for the body to absorb. Because matcha is much more concentrated than regular green tea, it contains more of these polyphenols that will block your body from absorbing iron.”
Meanwhile, Matcha.com also advises: “According to research, matcha tea does contain compounds that may limit the absorption of iron in the bloodstream. If you are concerned about your iron levels and at risk of iron anemia, try to avoid drinking your matcha or green tea after or within an hour of an iron-rich meal or iron supplements.
“This is because the main healthful compounds found in matcha tea will bind to iron and cause both to lose their ability to be as readily absorbed.”
“Twisted Metal” isn’t running out of gas anytime soon: Peacock has renewed the post-apocalyptic action comedy for Season 3, Deadline reports.
There will be a new person behind the wheel, though: David Reed, a veteran of “The Boys” and “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds,” will take over as showrunner in Season 3, replacing Michael Jonathan Smith, who ran the series for its first two seasons.
Based on the classic PlayStation video game series, “Twisted Metal” stars Anthony Mackie as John Doe, a driver in a post-apocalyptic wasteland who has to deliver a mysterious package and avoid deadly obstacles along the way, including a deranged clown named Sweet Tooth. Stephanie Beatriz (“Brooklyn Nine-Nine”) co-stars as fellow survivor Quiet, along with a supporting cast that includes Anthony Carrigan (“Barry”) and Patty Guggenheim (“She-Hulk”).
Debuting in 2023, “Twisted Metal” returned for Season 2 this July. In Season 2, “John and Quiet find themselves entering the deadly Twisted Metal tournament, a sinister demolition derby hosted by a mysterious man known as Calypso,” per the official description. “As they try to survive an onslaught of dangerous new foes and familiar faces alike, including the murderous clown Sweet Tooth, things get complicated for John when he reunites with his long-lost sister, the vigilante Dollface.”
Excited to take another ride with “Twisted Metal”? Drop your thoughts on the renewal news in a comment below.
But the cracks in the friendship began when Adriana made her friends and wedding guests wait for hours, while she took her time getting ready. Alexia and Marysol felt that their friend disrespected everyone. The final straw came when Adriana confessed that she and Frederic had already been married for years (they later divorced).
Nevertheless, a miracle happened at BravoCon 2025 in Las Vegas. After years of not getting along, the three women finally made their peace with each other.
Adriana de Moura gave an update on her relationship with co-stars Marysol Patton and Alexia Nepola after BravoCon 2025
“Something happened last night. I have some news for you,” Adriana excitedly told Page Six Radio on November 17. “Marysol, Alexia and I made up!”
After accusing her of “burying the lede,” hosts Evan Real and Danny Murphy begged for more details. Confessing that she initiated the makeup, Adriana continued.
“I went in like, you know, the green room,” she added. “We kind of first, like, are standoffish, and then [it] started to get crowded. I’m right next to Marysol, so … I said, ‘You look beautiful. Your skin looks glowy.’ She goes, ‘Don’t give me compliments. I don’t want to like you.’”
However, Adriana urged her to talk, so they moved off to another area and started talking. After Alexia joined them, Adriana urged, “It’s time to stop. I mean, where is this gonna get us? … It’s so much better to love than to hate. It weights heavy in your heart, you know?”
Furthermore, Adriana said that the three of them “had a great night … It felt so good to be warm to each other again and talk like friends that we were in the past.”
Now that she’s made peace with her friends, Adriana hopes to be asked back for RHOM Season 8. “I am coming back, hopefully with a mojito in my hand,” she insisted.
But when the hosts asked what Adriana’s former bestieJulia Lemigova thought of the band getting back together, she was quick to respond. “Julia who?” she asked innocently.
After several weeks of rumours and leaked website code that had loyalty enthusiasts buzzing, Hilton has officially pulled back the curtain on the biggest overhaul to its Hilton Honors program in years.
Starting January 1, 2026, Hilton Honors will make it substantially easier to earn Gold and Diamond status, while simultaneously introducing Diamond Reserve, an ultra-exclusive tier designed for its most loyal guests.
If you have a stack of Hilton nights already on the books for 2026, this is the moment to understand what has changed and whether you want to double down on the brand or simply cruise on the status you get from credit cards.
The New Hilton Honors Elite Tier System
From 2026, Hilton Honors will operate with five tiers: Member, Silver, Gold, Diamond, and the new Diamond Reserve.
Status can still be earned in three ways: nights, stays, or eligible spend. But base points will no longer count toward elite qualification. Instead, Hilton will track your annual USD spend on room rates and eligible incidentals, which frankly makes it easier to understand what you’re actually working toward.
The most significant shift is the introduction of Diamond Reserve, a brand-new top tier that represents Hilton’s ultimate expression of loyalty.
You’ll need 80 nights or 40 stays and $18,000 USD in eligible annual spend to qualify. That’s a substantial commitment, but Hilton is promising some genuinely compelling perks to justify the requirement.
Lower Requirements for Gold and Diamond
The broadly positive news is that the bar for “normal” elite status is dropping—and Hilton isn’t cutting any published benefits at Silver, Gold, or Diamond.
(Well, maybe not such good news for those maintaining Gold or Diamond just from holding a credit card, but a definite win for members residing outside North America, where credit cards don’t offer the same shortcut.)
Hilton Honors Silver Status
Silver remains the entry-level elite tier and is unchanged in terms of qualification. You can qualify by:
Staying 10 nights, or
Completing 4 stays, or
Reaching $2,500 USD in eligible annual spend (previously 25,000 base points)
Hilton Honors Gold Status:
Gold becomes meaningfully easier to reach. You can qualify by:
Staying 25 nights (down from 40)
Completing 15 stays (down from 20)
Reaching $6,000 USD annual eligible spend (previously 7,500 base points)
All existing Gold benefits remain unchanged: space-available room upgrades, daily food and beverage credits, and an 80% points bonus on stays.
Hilton Honors Diamond Status
Diamond also gets a friendlier set of thresholds. You can qualify by:
Staying 50 nights (down from 60)
Completing 25 stays (down from 30)
Reaching $11,500 USD annual spend (previously 120,000 base points)
Diamond still comes with executive lounge access where available, a 48-hour room guarantee, breakfast or daily F&B credits, and a 100% points bonus.
For those who historically just missed Diamond on nights, the lowered thresholds are a genuine win. For those relying entirely on premium credit cards that confer Diamond automatically, nothing changes… though you’ll now be competing with more Diamonds at the breakfast table, and a new tier now sits above you.
Meet Diamond Reserve: Hilton’s New Top Tier
Diamond Reserve is where Hilton is making its real statement. This tier is designed exclusively for the chain’s most devoted members, those who treat Hilton properties as their second home.
You’ll need 80 nights or 40 stays plus $18,000 USD in annual eligible spending to reach this status.
To qualify, you will need all of the following in a calendar year:
80 nights or 40 stays,
AND $18,000 USD in eligible annual spend
Unlike regular Diamond status, there are no shortcuts via co-branded credit cards. The existing cards still grant Silver, Gold, or Diamond, but Diamond Reserve must be earned the hard way—through actual stays and spend.
This places Diamond Reserve roughly in line with Marriott Bonvoy’s Ambassador Elite, which requires 100 nights and $23,000 USD in spend. However, Hilton’s version is arguably tougher to reach, as Marriott cardholders can receive elite night credits each year, while Hilton doesn’t offer anything similar.
It’ll be interesting to see if changes to Hilton’s credit cards follow. After all, 80 nights or 40 stays is out of reach for most people. When there’s no light at the end of the tunnel, people stop chasing—and switch brands. I doubt Hilton or Amex will want to let that happen.
Diamond Reserve Benefits
These benefits are genuinely differentiated from Diamond, which helps justify the much higher thresholds.
Key perks include:
Confirmable Upgrade Reward (CUR): One confirmable upgrade when you achieve Diamond Reserve, valid at booking for a stay of up to seven nights, with the ability to lock in a higher-category room or a one-bedroom suite at select properties.
Second CUR or points at 120 nights: At 120 nights, you can choose an extra Confirmable Upgrade Reward or 30,000 bonus points.
Guaranteed 4 p.m. late checkout: Officially guaranteed at all eligible properties, including resorts, which addresses one of the long-standing complaints about Hilton’s elite treatment.
Upgrade priority: Priority for space-available upgrades, with better odds of seeing those confirmed up to three days before arrival.
Premium points earning: A 120% points bonus on paid stays. With a base earning rate of 10 points per $1 USD at most full-service brands, a $100 USD stay would earn 2,200 points for a Diamond Reserve member instead of 2,000 for Diamond and 1,800 for Gold.
Access to Premium Clubs: Complimentary access to Hilton’s “premium clubs”, typically higher-end lounges at brands such as Waldorf Astoria and Conrad, where they exist.
Dedicated customer support line: A 24/7 phone line staffed with agents reserved for Diamond Reserve members.
The Confirmable Upgrade Reward is arguably the headline benefit, as few hotel loyalty programs let you guarantee a suite at booking. However, in my opinion, one guaranteed upgrade per year still isn’t much to get excited about, given the high bar to qualify, though you can earn the second CUR at 120 nights.
Each reward is valid for stays up to seven nights and can be upgraded to a one-bedroom suite at select properties. This alone is genuinely different from anything else in the program—most loyalty programs simply can’t guarantee room types at booking.
Beyond upgrades, Diamond Reserve members receive guaranteed 4 p.m. late checkout at every eligible property. This is a meaningful improvement, considering Hilton never officially committed to late checkout at any tier, even for Diamond members.
Milestone Rewards, Rollover Nights, And Points Earning Changes
Hilton is also slightly tweaking the Milestone Rewards side of the programme, capping the bonuses but adding that extra Confirmable Upgrade option at 120 night milestone.
From 2026, you will:
Continue to earn 10,000 bonus points for every 10 nights after hitting 40 nights.
Receive a one-time 30,000-point bonus at 60 nights.
At 120 nights, choose between 30,000 bonus points or an additional Confirmable Upgrade Reward.
Earn Milestone bonuses up to 180 nights per year, for a total of up to 210,000 extra points annually.
On the flip side, Hilton is quietly closing the door on elite rollover nights. Rollover nights earned in 2025 will still roll into 2026, but that will be the last year the feature exists. From 2026 onward, you start each year at zero for qualification purposes, just like most competing hotel programmes.
Waldorf Astoria Lusail Doha
There is also a devaluation embed in the update. Starting January 8, 2026, stays at Homewood Suites and Spark by Hilton will earn 5 base points per $1 USD, down from the current 10 base points. Elite bonuses still apply on top, but the core earn is effectively halved at those brands.
Lifetime Diamond In A World With Diamond Reserve
Lifetime Diamond status is not going away, but it is losing a bit of shine now that a tier sits above it.
The qualification rules are being updated slightly: Lifetime Diamond still requires 10 years of Diamond status and either 1,000 nights or a spend-based threshold. Instead of needing 2 million base points, members will now be able to qualify with $200,000 USD in eligible spend.
However, Lifetime Diamond members will remain at the Diamond level and will not automatically receive Diamond Reserve. That is a downgrade in relative priority, since they now have an entire tier of heavy hitters sitting above them when it comes to upgrades and special treatment.
My Thoughts On The Changes
It goes without saying that these changes are a mixed bag—probably more negative overall from a miles and points enthusiast’s perspective.
Who benefits:
Travellers without access to co-branded credit cards who earn Hilton Honors Gold or Diamond through actual hotel stays. With lower thresholds, status is more achievable.
High spenders who can reach Diamond Reserve. They’ll enjoy exclusive perks, real upgrade guarantees, and elevated service.
Who loses:
Lifetime Diamond members, since they’re now outranked by a new elite tier.
Those who earn status through credit cards, as they’ve effectively been bumped down the hierarchy.
Guests who relied on rollover nights to help maintain elite status year after year.
Anyone holding Diamond status just from a credit card is likely unimpressed by a new, higher tier they can’t access—at least without changing their travel patterns.
That being said, Hilton Honors rewarding high-spending loyal guests makes sense. From the program’s perspective, this is a rational (and revenue-aligned) evolution and I can’t really fault them for it.
Waldorf Astoria Bangkok
Still, I can’t help but feel the revamp could’ve been more nuanced. Instead of creating a clear gap between “credit card Diamond” and “real Diamond,” Hilton’s decision might just flood the program with even more pure Diamond members, diluting the experience. Meanwhile, Diamond Reserve is so far out of reach for most that it may not feel worth chasing at all.
We’ve seen the “when everyone has status, no one has status” trend creeping in across multiple programs, and Hilton Diamond is now firmly in that camp. Diamond Reserve may help fix that at the top, but if it feels unattainable, many travellers might just check out of the brand altogether.
It’ll be interesting to see whether Hilton or Amex respond with adjustments to their co-branded cards to bridge the gap or risk losing casual loyalty entirely.
Conclusion
Hilton Honors’ 2026 changes signal a clear shift toward rewarding the program’s most committed members while simultaneously making elite status more accessible to regular travellers.
The introduction of Diamond Reserve with its guaranteed late checkout and confirmable upgrade rewards represents genuine innovation in hotel loyalty programming.
While the elimination of rollover nights and the creation of a tier above Lifetime Diamond will frustrate some longtime members, the overall philosophy seems to follow the trend: reward ultra high spenders and make lower status a bit more achievable overall.
If you’re a frequent Hilton guest, these changes are worth understanding before the 2026 calendar year begins, particularly if you’re close to hitting Diamond or Lifetime Diamond status under current requirements.
Paramount Skydance rejected a report that it’s working with a consortium of Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds on a $71 billion offer for Warner Bros. Discovery, calling it “categorically inaccurate.”
Variety reported on Tuesday that David Ellison’s Paramount Skydance is putting together the massive bid in conjunction with Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, the Qatar Investment Authority and the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, citing anonymous sources with knowledge of the matter.
“The information Variety published is categorically inaccurate,” a rep for Paramount said in a statement to The Post. “This is a confidential process, which we respect and, as such, will not be commenting until the process is over.”
David Ellison’s Paramount Skydance denied a report that it is working with a group of Middle East sovereign wealth funds on its bid for Warner Bros. Discovery. AFP via Getty Images
The offer, which would value WBD at about $28.65 a share based on the shares outstanding, is being largely backed by the Ellison family, with Gerry Cardinale’s RedBird Capital also supporting the bid, Variety reported.
The outlet said each of the sovereign funds would contribute $7 billion and Paramount Skydance would lay out $50 billion. The Warner Bros. board previously rejected multiple bids from Paramount for as much as $24 a share, The Post reported last month.
Representatives for the sovereign wealth funds didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
Shares of WBD jumped as much as 6.4% in New York on the initial Variety report before those gains leveled off. Paramount shares rose as much as 3.7%.
WBD, home to HBO, CNN, Warner Bros. film studio and the Food Network, put itself up for sale in October after fielding interest from multiple parties. It has set a Thursday deadline for bids.
Comcast CEO Brian Roberts is expected to make an offer for WBD’s movie and streaming business. Bloomberg via Getty Images
Aside from Paramount, Netflix and Comcast are also expected to make an offer for the movie and streaming parts of the business.
WBD rejected Ellison’s recent $24 a share offer, The Post reported last month. REUTERS
Paramount is believed to be the only party interested in acquiring WBD entirely.
Should a deal go through, a merger between Paramount — home to Paramount Pictures, CBS, Showtime and Nickelodeon — and WBD would reshape the media industry by putting two of the biggest movie studios and two of the most influential news networks under one roof.
WBD CEO David Zaslav favors splitting the company in two and dividing its struggling TV cable networks from its film and streaming business. REUTERS
Ellison’s aggressive push to buy Warner Bros. comes just months after he bought Paramount in August, combining it with Skydance.
While the deal will likely face regulatory scrutiny, President Trump has smiled on it, as The Post previously reported. He’s an admirer of Ellison’s dad Larry Ellison, the low-profile billionaire co-founder of Oracle.
WBD honcho David Zaslav reportedly prefers to split the company in two, separating the company’s lucrative streaming and film assets from its struggling cable TV assets.
We’re glad to see House Republicans set to vote to release the Jeffrey Epstein files — clearing the chamber’s agenda of a ridiculous distraction driven by Democrats’ long, cynical obsession with this red herring.
Even if it becomes law — which requires the Senate to burn time and energy on it — the bill won’t actually force out much new info.
Reps. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) and Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) have relentlessly pushed a measure that still allows for Attorney General Pam Bondi to “withhold or redact” material for a range of reasons, including if she determines that it contains “personally identifiable information of victims” that “would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.”
Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) speaks alongside Reps. Marjorie Taylor-Greene (R-Ga.) and Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) at a press conference on the Epstein Files Transparency Act outside the Capitol building on Nov. 18, 2025. Photo by DANIEL HEUER/AFP via Getty Images
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And as independent journo Michael Tracey pointed out, that leaves a lot of wiggle room: In June, a Department of Justice memo cited “over one thousand victims” to protect in any release.
The nation won’t see a full release of Epstein docs while those victims still live.
At most, we’ll get a bit more of what was revealed in the 20,000-plus pages released last week: more deets on muckety-muck slimeballs who were chummy with Epstein, like fabulist author Michael Wolff, who was emailing with the chronic sex pest like an old pal while goading him to blackmail Donald Trump in 2015.
You won’t see anything like the groundbreaking deluge of scandalous revelations that Democrats (and Epstein-obsessed GOPers like Massie) have suggested will come out if the bill gets passed.
No, this is simply a bid to disrupt the Republican majority.
With no real policies to pitch to voters, Democrats rushed to capitalize, exploiting the media circus to fuel breathless claims about Epstein-Trump dirt.
Epstein, vile as he was, was mainly on the hunt for victims for his own sick pleasure, not procuring teens for the rich and powerful; some fellow pervs (like a certain ex-prince) joined in, but nothing’s come to light to suggest he was running a massive sex-trafficking operation.
Hence the absence of a “client list” or any other smoking-gun document that would expose a global pedophile ring.
Those who believe Team Trump is suppressing the docs to protect the prez forget that the feds have had it all for years.
No way the Biden administration would’ve have sat on real dirt even as it pulled out every other stop to try to destroy Trump before the 2024 election.
There’s no there there. Get this vote done and let the House get back to the people’s business.
Trump and Senate Majority Leader John Thune are conspiring to try to kill the bill to compel the release of the Epstein files in the Senate after it passes the House, likely with an overwhelming amount of support.
Democrats in the Senate do not have the discharge petition tool to force votes on legislation, and the plan cooked up by Mike Johnson and John Thune appears to be for the House to pass the bill, and Thune to bury it in the Senate.
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So what am I to do as a leader in a situation like this? I call my counterpart in the Senate, Leader Thune, and I talked to him through this and shared our deep concerns.
And of course, they share those concerns as well. And so I’m very confident that when this moves forward in the process, if and when it is processed in the Senate, which there’s no certainty that will be, they will take the time methodically to do what we have not been allowed to do in the House to amend this discharge petition and to make sure that these protections are there.
Republicans are trying to run out the clock to make this legislation go away.
