The newly formed media corporation Paramount Skydance has acquired The Free Press, an online news and commentary outlet co-founded by Bari Weiss, who will join CBS News as editor-in-chief.

Weiss launched The Free Press in 2021 with her wife, Nellie Bowles, and her sister, Suzy Weiss. They have presented the publication as a heterodox alternative to the legacy news media and a bulwark against “ideological narratives,” particularly on the political left.

The acquisition is one of Skydance chief David Ellison’s most significant early moves to reshape the news unit at Paramount, which he acquired in a blockbuster $8 billion deal earlier this year.

In seeking federal approval of the merger, Skydance vowed to embrace “diverse viewpoints” and represent “the varied ideological perspectives of American viewers.” The company also pledged to install an ombudsman at the nearly 100-year-old CBS News operation.

“This partnership allows our ethos of fearless, independent journalism to reach an enormous, diverse, and influential audience,” Weiss said in a news release. “We honor the extraordinary legacy of CBS News by committing ourselves to a singular mission: building the most trusted news organization of the 21st Century.”

The Free Press has roughly 1.5 million subscribers on Substack, with more than 170,000 of them paid, according to Paramount Skydance. The Financial Times estimated that the publication generates more than $15 million in annual subscription revenue. NBC News has not independently verified that figure.

“Bari is a proven champion of independent, principled journalism, and I am confident her entrepreneurial drive and editorial vision will invigorate CBS News,” Ellison said in a statement. “This move is part of Paramount’s bigger vision to modernize content and the way it connects — directly and passionately — to audiences around the world.”

The acquisition talks between Ellison and Weiss were first reported in late June by Status, a media industry newsletter. Ellison is the son of billionaire tech mogul Larry Ellison, the co-founder of the software firm Oracle.

Weiss co-founded The Free Press after quitting the opinion section of The New York Times. In a resignation letter that was published online, Weiss decried what she characterized as the “illiberal environment” at the newspaper.

The Free Press earned wide attention in April 2024 after it published an essay from Uri Berliner, a senior business editor at National Public Radio who accused his employer of organizing around a “progressive worldview.” Berliner then resigned from NPR and joined The Free Press.

The publication’s regular stable of columnists includes Tyler Cowen, an economist and podcaster; Matthew Continetti, the author of a book about the evolution of American conservatism; and Niall Ferguson, a British-American historian.

CBS News has repeatedly found itself in the national spotlight in recent months. President Donald Trump filed a lawsuit last year against Paramount accusing “60 Minutes” of deceptively editing an interview with then-Vice President Kamala Harris.

CBS denied the claim. Paramount settled Trump’s lawsuit for $16 million.

The Federal Communications Commission is still investigating whether CBS engaged in “news distortion.” The commission is chaired by Brendan Carr, who was appointed by Trump at the start of his second term.

YouTube said Monday it would settle a lawsuit brought by President Donald Trump for more than $24 million, adding to a growing list of settlements with tech and media companies that have amassed millions of dollars for Trump’s projects.

Trump sued after his YouTube account was banned in 2021. After the Jan. 6 riot, YouTube said content posted to Trump’s channel raised “concerns about the ongoing potential for violence.” His account was reinstated in 2023.

Monday’s settlement makes YouTube the last major tech platform to settle a lawsuit with Trump, who similarly sued Meta and Twitter for banning his accounts in the aftermath of Jan. 6. Meta, the owner of Facebook and Instagram, settled for $25 million, while Twitter, since renamed X, settled for about $10 million.

A notice of settlement for Trump’s lawsuit against YouTube details that $22 million of it will go toward building a new White House ballroom. Trump has touted that the addition will have room for 900 people, and the White House has said it could cost $200 million to build.

Other plaintiffs that joined Trump’s suit, such as the American Conservative Union and a number of other people, will get $2.5 million of the settlement.

In addition to tech companies, many major media outlets have settled lawsuits with Trump over the past year.

In July, Paramount Global settled with him for $16 million after he took issue with a “60 Minutes” interview with Kamala Harris that aired on CBS.

In December, Disney settled with Trump over a lawsuit in which he accused ABC and anchor George Stephanopoulos of defamation in an interview with Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C. Disney paid Trump’s future presidential library $15 million as part of the settlement.

Disney came under pressure from the administration again when it recently suspended “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” for nearly a week after two major station owners threatened to stop airing the show. One of the station owners, Nexstar, is seeking clearance from Trump’s Federal Communications Commission chairman for a $6.2 billion merger.

The other station owner, Sinclair, is reportedly considering a merger, which the FCC would also need to approve.

Trump is also suing The Wall Street Journal over its reporting about his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, and he recently sued The New York Times for $15 billion. A judge struck down that lawsuit, though Trump could refile it.

Electronic Arts, maker of video games like “Madden NFL,” “Battlefield,” and “The Sims,” is being acquired for $52.5 billion in what could become the largest-ever buyout funded by private-equity firms.

The private equity firm Silver Lake Partners, Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund PIF, and Affinity Partners will pay EA’s stockholders $210 per share. Affinity Partners is run by President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner.

PIF, which was already the largest insider stakeholder in Electronic Arts, will be rolling over its existing 9.9% stake in the company.

The commitment to the massive deal is inline with recent activity by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, wrote Andrew Marok of Raymond James.

“The Saudi PIF has been a very active player in the video gaming market since 2022, taking minority stakes in most scaled public video gaming publishers, and also outright purchases of companies like ESL, FACEIT, and Scopely,” he wrote. “The PIF has made its intentions to scale its gaming arm, Savvy Gaming Group, clear, and the EA deal would represent the biggest such move to date by some distance.”

Electronic Arts would be taken private and its headquarters will remain in Redwood City, California.

The total value of the deal eclipses the $32 billion price paid to take Texas utility TXU private in 2007.

If the transaction closes as anticipated, it will end EA’s 36-year history as a publicly traded company that began with its shares ending its first day of trading at a split-adjusted 52 cents.

The IPO came seven years after EA was founded by former Apple employee William “Trip” Hawkins, who began playing analog versions of baseball and football made by “Strat-O-Matic” as a teenager during the 1960s.

CEO Andrew Wilson has led the company since 2013 and he will remain in that role, the firms said Monday.

“Electronic Arts is an extraordinary company with a world-class management team and a bold vision for the future,” said Kushner, who serves as CEO of Affinity Partners. “I’ve admired their ability to create iconic, lasting experiences, and as someone who grew up playing their games — and now enjoys them with his kids — I couldn’t be more excited about what’s ahead.”

This marks the second high-profile deal involving Silver Lake and a technology company with a legion of loyal fans in recent weeks. Silver Lake is also part of a newly formed joint venture spearheaded by Oracle involved in a deal to take over the U.S. oversight of TikTok’s social video platform, although all the details of that complex transaction haven’t been divulged yet.

Silver Lake has also previously bought out two other well-known technology companies, the now-defunct video calling service Skype in a $1.9 billion deal completed in 2009, and a $24.9 billion buyout of personal computer maker Dell in 2013. After Dell restructured its operations as a private company, it returned to the stock market with publicly traded shares in 2018.

By going private, EA will be able to reprogram its operations without being subjected to the investment pressures and scrutiny that sometimes compel publicly held companies to make short-sighted decisions aimed at meeting quarterly financial targets. Although its video games still have a fervent following, EA’s annual revenues have been stagnant during the past three fiscal years, hovering from $7.4 billion to $7.6 billion.

Meanwhile, one of its biggest rivals Activision Blizzard was snapped up by technology powerhouse Microsoft for nearly $69 billion in 2023, while the competition from mobile video game makers such as Epic Games has intensified.

After being taken private, formerly public companies often undergo extensive cost-cutting that includes layoffs, although there has been no indication that will be the case with EA. After jettisoning about 5% of its workforce in 2024, EA ended March with 14,500 employees and then laid off several hundred people in May.

The deal is expected to close in the first quarter of 2027. It still needs approval from EA shareholders.

EA’s stock rose more than 5% before the opening bell.

Charlie Javice, the founder of a startup company that sought to dramatically improve how students apply for financial aid, was sentenced Monday to more than seven years in prison for cheating JPMorgan Chase out of $175 million by greatly exaggerating how many students it served.

Javice, 33, was sentenced in Manhattan federal court for her March conviction by Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein, who said she committed “a large fraud” by duping the bank giant in the summer of 2021. She made false records that made it seem the company, called Frank, had over 4 million customers when it had fewer than 300,000, Hellerstein found.

The judge said Javice had assembled a “very powerful list” of her charitable acts, which included organizing soup kitchens for the homeless when she was 7 years old and designing career programs for formerly incarcerated women.

In court papers, defense lawyers noted that Javice has faced extraordinary public scrutiny, reputational destruction and professional exile, “making her a household name” in the same way Elizabeth Holmes became synonymous with her blood-testing company, Theranos.

Defense attorney Ronald Sullivan told Hellerstein that his client was very different from Holmes because what she created actually worked, unlike Holmes, “who did not have a real company” and whose product “in fact endangered patients.”

In seeking a 12-year prison sentence for Javice, prosecutors cited a 2022 text Javice sent to a colleague in which she called it “ridiculous” that Holmes got over 11 years in prison.

Hellerstein largely dismissed arguments that he should be lenient because the acquisition pitted “a 28-year-old versus 300 investment bankers from the largest bank in the world,” as Sullivan put it.

Still, the judge criticized the bank, saying “they have a lot to blame themselves” after failing to do adequate due diligence. He quickly added, though, that he was “punishing her conduct and not JPMorgan’s stupidity.”

Sullivan said the bank rushed its negotiations because it feared another bank would acquire Frank first.

A prosecutor, Micah Fergenson, though, said JPMorgan “didn’t get a functioning business” in exchange for its investment. “They acquired a crime scene.”

Fergenson said Javice was driven by greed when she saw that she could pocket $29 million from the sale of her company.

“Ms. Javice had it dangling in front of her and she lied to get it,” he said.

Given a chance to speak, Javice said she was “haunted that my failure has transformed something meaningful into something infamous.” She said she “made a choice that I will spend my entire life regretting.”

Javice, sometimes speaking through tears, apologized and sought forgiveness from “all the people touched or tarnished by my actions,” including JPMorgan shareholders, Frank employees and investors, along with her family.

Javice, who lives in Florida, has been free on $2 million bail since her 2023 arrest.

At trial, Javice, a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business, was convicted of conspiracy, bank fraud and wire fraud charges. Her lawyers had argued that JPMorgan went after Javice because it had buyer’s remorse.

In her mid-20s, Javice founded Frank, a company with software that promised to simplify the arduous process of filling out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, a complex government form used by students to apply for aid for college or graduate school.

Frank’s backers included venture capitalist Michael Eisenberg. The company said its offering, akin to online tax preparation software, could help students maximize financial aid while making the application process less painful.

The company promoted itself as a way for financially needy students to obtain more aid faster, in return for a few hundred dollars in fees. Javice appeared regularly on cable news programs to boost Frank’s profile, once appearing on Forbes’ “30 Under 30” list before JPMorgan bought the startup in 2021.

Javice was among a number of young tech executives who vaulted to fame with supposedly disruptive or transformative companies, only to see them collapse amid questions about whether they had engaged in puffery and fraud while dealing with investors.

In their pre-sentence submission, prosecutors wrote that they were requesting a lengthy prison sentence to send a message that fraud in the sale of startup companies is “no less blameworthy than other types of fraud and will be punished accordingly.”

Prosecutors added that the message was “desperately needed” because of “an alarming trend of founders and executives of small startup companies engaging in fraud, including making misrepresentations about their companies’ core products or services, in order to make their companies attractive targets for investors and/or buyers.”

President Donald Trump on Thursday announced a new round of punishing tariffs, saying the United States will impose a 100% tariff on imported branded drugs, 25% tariff on imports of all heavy-duty trucks and 50% tariffs on kitchen cabinets.

Trump also said he would start charging a 30% tariff on upholstered furniture next week.

He said the new heavy-duty truck tariffs were to protect manufacturers from “unfair outside competition” and said the move would benefit companies such as Paccar-owned PCAR.O Peterbilt and Kenworth and Daimler Truck-owned DTGGe.DE Freightliner.

Trump has launched numerous national security probes into potential new tariffs on a wide variety of products.

He said the new tariffs on kitchen, bathroom and some furniture were because of huge levels of imports that were hurting local manufacturers.

“The reason for this is the large-scale ‘FLOODING’ of these products into the United States by other outside Countries,” Trump said, citing national security concerns about U.S. manufacturing.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce urged the department not to impose new tariffs, noting the top five import sources are Mexico, Canada, Japan, Germany and Finland “all of which are allies or close partners of the United States posing no threat to U.S. national security.”

Mexico is the largest exporter of medium- and heavy-duty trucks to the United States. A study released in January said imports of those larger vehicles from Mexico have tripled since 2019.

Higher tariffs on commercial vehicles could put pressure on transportation costs just as Trump has vowed to reduce inflation, especially on consumer goods such as groceries.

Tariffs could also affect Chrysler-parent Stellantis STLAM.MI, which produces heavy-duty Ram trucks and commercial vans in Mexico. Sweden’s Volvo Group VOLVb.ST is building a $700 million heavy-truck factory in Monterrey, Mexico, set to start operations in 2026.

Mexico is home to 14 manufacturers and assemblers of buses, trucks, and tractor trucks, and two manufacturers of engines, according to the U.S. International Trade Administration.

The country is also the leading global exporter of tractor trucks, 95% of which are destined for the United States.

“We need our Truckers to be financially healthy and strong, for many reasons, but above all else, for National Security purposes!” Trump added.

Mexico opposed new tariffs, telling the Commerce Department in May that all Mexican trucks exported to the United States have on average 50% U.S. content, including diesel engines.

Last year, the United States imported almost $128 billion in heavy vehicle parts from Mexico, accounting for approximately 28% of total U.S. imports, Mexico said.

The Japanese Automobile Manufacturers Association also opposed new tariffs, saying Japanese companies have cut exports to the United States as they have boosted U.S. production of medium- and heavy-duty trucks.

A group of the country’s top economic leaders, including every living former Federal Reserve chair, filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court on Thursday in support of Fed governor Lisa Cook, who President Donald Trump is seeking to remove.

The group, led former central bank chiefs Alan Greenspan, Ben Bernanke and Janet Yellen, said that “allowing the removal of Governor Lisa D. Cook while the challenge to her removal is pending would threaten that independence and erode public confidence in the Fed.”

The bipartisan group, which also includes former Treasury Secretaries Robert Rubin, Larry Summers, Hank Paulson, Jack Lew and Timothy Geithner, added that “the independence of the Federal Reserve, within the limited authority granted by Congress to achieve the goals Congress itself has set, is a critical feature of our national monetary system.”

As the U.S. central bank, the Federal Reserve is part of the U.S. government and its leaders are put in place by elected officials, but it also retains a considerable amount of independence that is meant to allow it to make decisions purely out of economic concerns rather than political ones.

The former economic officials said that an erosion of Fed independence could result “in substantial long-term harm and inferior economic performance overall.”

The Supreme Court is considering whether Trump has the authority to fire Cook, who has been a target for the White House for weeks as part of a broader pressure campaign to push the Fed to more aggressively cut interest rates.

Cook’s attempted removal stems from allegations of mortgage fraud, made in August by top Trump ally and Federal Housing Finance Authority Director Bill Pulte.

Cook has repeatedly denied the allegations and has not been charged with any crime. Documents reviewed by NBC News in mid-September appeared to contradict Pulte’s allegations.

Two courts have so far blocked Cook’s removal, leading Trump to ask the Supreme Court a week ago to allow him to fire her. In a court filing, Solicitor General D. John Sauer said a judge’s ruling that blocked the firing constituted “improper judicial interference.”

In a filing to the Supreme Court on Thursday, Cook’s lawyers said that ‘she committed neither ‘fraud’ nor ‘gross negligence’ in relation to her mortgages.’

Cook asked the court to deny Trump’s attempt to remove her while the case is argued.

The White House has repeatedly maintained that Trump “lawfully removed Lisa Cook for cause.”

The brief filed Thursday is a who’s who of the country’s top economic minds. Former Fed governor Dan Tarullo is also listed as a signatory to the brief, as well as the economists Ken Rogoff, Phil Gramm and John Cochrane.

Glenn Hubbard, Greg Mankiw, Christina Romer, Cecilia Rouse, Jared Bernstein and Jason Furman, a group who served as top officials on the White House’s council of economic advisers during Republican and Democrat administrations, also signed the brief.

None of the officials who signed the filing have served in either of Trump’s administrations.

Trump is the first president in U.S. history to try to remove a sitting Fed official.

‘There is broad consensus among economists, based on decades of macroeconomic research, that a more independent central bank will lead to lower and more stable inflation without creating higher unemployment — thus helping to achieve the Federal Reserve’s statutory objective of price stability and maximum employment,’ the officials said in the brief.

‘The Federal Reserve walks a careful line in pursuit of its goals.’

They noted that ‘elected officials often favor lowering interest rates to boost employment, particularly leading up to an election.’

‘Although that approach may satisfy voters temporarily, it does not lead to lasting gains for unemployment or growth and can instead lead to persistently higher inflation in the long-term and thus ultimately harm the national economy.’

The former Fed chairs and economic officials, in their filing, highlight a notorious case of political pressure on the Fed:

‘In the early 1970s, President Richard Nixon famously exerted political pressure over then-Chair of the Fed Arthur Burns to lower unemployment by reducing interest rates. During this period ‘the Fed made only limited efforts to maintain policy independence and, for doctrinal as well as political reasons, enabled a decade of high and volatile inflation.’ This contributed to an ‘inflationary boom’ and deep recession that took years to bring back under control.’

SEATTLE — Amazon has reached a historic $2.5 billion settlement with the Federal Trade Commission, which said the online retail giant tricked customers into signing up for its Prime memberships and made it difficult for them to cancel after doing so.

The Seattle company will pay $1 billion in civil penalties — the largest fine in FTC history, and $1.5 billion will be paid to consumers who were unintentionally enrolled in Prime, or were deterred from canceling their subscriptions, the agency said Thursday. Eligible Prime customers include those who may have signed up for a membership via the company’s “Single Page Checkout” between June 23, 2019 to June 23, 2025.

The Federal Trade Commission sued Amazon in U.S. District Court in Seattle two years ago alleging more than a decade of legal violations. That included a violation of the Restore Online Shoppers’ Confidence Act, a 2010 law designed to ensure that people know what they’re being charged for online.

Amazon admitted no wrong-doing in the settlement. It did not immediately respond to requests by The Associated Press for comment Thursday.

Amazon Prime provides subscribers with perks that include faster shipping, video streaming and discounts at Whole Foods for a fee of $139 annually, or $14.99 a month.

It’s a key and growing part of Amazon’s business, with more than 200 million members. In its latest financial report, the company reported in July that it booked more than $12 billion in net revenue for subscription services, a 12% increase from the same period last year. That figure includes annual and monthly fees associated with Prime memberships, as well as other subscription services such as its music and e-books platforms.

The company has said that it clearly explains Prime’s terms before charging customers, and that it offers simple ways to cancel membership, including by phone, online and by online chat.

“Occasional customer frustrations and mistakes are inevitable — especially for a program as popular as Amazon Prime,” Amazon said in a trial brief filed last month.

But the FTC said Amazon deliberately made it difficult for customers to purchase an item without also subscribing to Prime. In some cases, consumers were presented with a button to complete their transactions — which did not clearly state it would also enroll them in Prime, the agency said.

Getting out of a subscription was often too complicated, and Amazon leadership slowed or rejected changes that would have made canceling easier, according to an FTC complaint.

Internally, Amazon called the process “Iliad,” a reference to the ancient Greek poem about the lengthy siege of Troy during the Trojan war. The process requires the customer to affirm on three pages their desire to cancel membership.

The FTC began looking into Amazon’s Prime subscription practices in 2021 during the first Trump administration, but the lawsuit was filed in 2023 under former FTC Chair Lina Khan, an antitrust expert who had been appointed by Biden.

The agency filed the case months before it submitted an antitrust lawsuit against the retail and technology company, accusing it of having monopolistic control over online markets.