UK government says it’s likely to challenge $110B Paramount-Warner Bros. merger
London (CNN) — The British government said on Tuesday that it is likely to challenge Paramount Skydance’s takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery, potentially complicating the finalization of the $110 billion merger. The British culture minister Lisa Nandy said in a statement that she was “minded to intervene” in Paramount’s quest to acquire CNN, HBO, the Warner Bros. movie studio and other Warner Bros. Discovery assets, citing concerns about its potential impact on media diversity. “Following engagement with the parties and independent research, my Department has today written to the current and proposed owners of Warner Bros Discovery on my behalf to inform them that I am minded to intervene,” Nandy said in a statement. In the UK, the term “minded to” is used by government officials to announce they will make a move before taking the legal steps to do so. Nandy said she has not made a “final decision on intervention at this stage.” The companies now have a week to respond to her letter. A Warner Bros. Discovery spokesperson declined to comment on Nandy’s statement. A Paramount spokesperson told CNN: “We are grateful for the continued constructive engagement with all interested government bodies and relevant authorities, including in the UK. We are confident that our proposed transaction does not pose any media plurality issues in the UK and remain confident in our stated transaction timeline.”
After mysterious four-month absence, GOP congressman arrives back on Capitol Hill
Westfield, New Jersey (CNN) — One day before Republican Rep. Tom Kean Jr. returned to Capitol Hill for the first time in months, the long-missing congressman sat on the steps of his tidy Tudor-style home in North Jersey, sifting through mail beside his wife. Kean, wearing a gray polo, offered a casual wave and headed inside when he noticed a reporter from CNN on his street. Then, he dispatched a spokesperson for his campaign to deliver a message that his own GOP colleagues have been eager to hear for months. The 57-year-old congressman will be “fully transparent” about his nearly four-month absence when he returns to Washington on Tuesday, spokesperson Harrison Neely told CNN. Upon his return, the two-term Republican is planning to deliver a floor speech that is expected to address his unexplained health condition, according to a person familiar with the plans. He arrived at the Capitol a little before 10 a.m. Tuesday, remaining silent as reporters peppered him with questions. As he prepared to speak, Kean mingled with his colleagues on the floor, receiving handshakes and cheery greetings from Republicans like Rep. Jim Baird of Indiana and Keith Self of Texas, then leafed through what appeared to be prepared remarks. His absence has rattled House Republicans, who are worried it could complicate the GOP’s ability to hold onto a critical swing seat in an already difficult midterm cycle, multiple sources previously told CNN.
NYSE, Nasdaq will be opened from Oval Office for launch of Trump Accounts
(CNN) — The New York Stock Exchange and the Nasdaq will be opened from the Oval Office next week to mark the launch of Trump Accounts, White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett said Monday. “We’re having a big opening bell ceremony next week where Nasdaq and the New York Stock Exchange are going to ring the bell from the Oval for the first time together, and they’re doing that to celebrate the accounts,” Hassett, the director of the National Economic Council, said on CNBC. CNN has reached out to the White House for further details. Families will be able to start contributing to the accounts — which would provide parents of children born between 2025 and 2028 with $1,000 to invest — on July 4. Hassett praised the accounts, which he said give every child born in the US “a stake in the game,” and suggested there’d be a political effect as well. “It’s basically, I think, hard to be a socialist if you have capital, and so my view is that the political effect of this dynamic is going to be enormous,” Hassett said. President Donald Trump and his allies have seized on the recent electoral success of several democratic socialist candidates to create a contrast with the GOP ahead of the November midterms. Trump Accounts are IRA-style savings accounts for eligible children. They are like traditional IRAs in that money in the accounts will grow tax deferred. But the rules for Trump Accounts differ when it comes to contributions, withdrawals and approved uses of the money. Also, the money may not be tapped before a child turns 18.
US job openings much higher than expected in May
(CNN) — The number of available positions in the United States increased for the second month in a row. New data Tuesday showed that the estimated number of job openings ticked higher in May to nearly 7.6 million, from 7.59 million, setting a fresh two-year high in the process, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ latest Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey. Economists had expected the number of job openings to drop nearly 10% in May to around 6.975 million and that the jump in openings in April was likely an overstatement of labor demand. Other measurements of the labor market, including from Indeed and LinkUp, showed that job postings have been in decline since early this year, likely a response to the energy price shock from the Middle East conflict along with “the step-up in uncertainty,” Pantheon Macroeconomics economists wrote in a note this week. Tuesday’s report, however, showed that the April boost might not have been a blip, providing further evidence that the US labor market is not only stabilizing but also is poised for expansion.
The smell of death lingers in Venezuela’s ruined streets
Caracas, Venezuela (CNN) — Venezuela was broken long before two back-to-back earthquakes ripped the country from its foundations last Wednesday. The effects of more than a decade of government mismanagement and economic sanctions are clear at Dr. José Manuel de Los Ríos Children’s Hospital in Caracas, where Dr. Huníades Urbina-Medina can treat only four children at a time in the intensive care unit. “We (once) could receive up to 10 patients” in the ICU, Urbina-Medina said. “But since at least 10 years ago, we don’t have enough personnel, we don’t have enough medicines, we don’t have enough mechanical ventilators.” One of the four patients receiving treatment is a 12-year-old girl who was crushed under several floors of a collapsed building. She is in agony, with numerous life-threatening injuries. Roughly 100 children have been treated elsewhere in the hospital since last week, a fraction of those injured in the earthquakes. The Venezuelan government has updated the casualty toll from the earthquakes only incrementally. Currently it stands at more than 1,700 dead and over 5,000 injured. The US Geological Survey has said there is a high chance that the magnitude 7.2 and 7.5 earthquakes have killed tens of thousands of people. We may never learn the true count; when a similar tragedy struck the state of La Guaira in 1999, the government never released an official death toll.
The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.
