Paramount/WBD merger delayed for months as states' lawsuit moves toward trial

Paramount/WBD merger delayed for months as states' lawsuit moves toward trial

fivenewscrypto    juillet 27, 2026   

Paramount Skydance agreed to a longer-term delay of its $111 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, preventing the companies from combining until after a judge rules on the merits of a case in which a dozen states challenged the legality of the merger.

Under a stipulation filed in court today, the states and companies agreed that the merger will not be completed and the firms will not integrate their operations until "five days after the merits determination in these matters," or on June 1, 2027, whichever is earlier. The delay was also agreed to by the Writers Guild of America, which filed its own lawsuit to block the merger. If there is no merits determination by June 1, the plaintiffs could seek a preliminary injunction to keep blocking the deal.

The agreement amounts to "a months-long halt" to the merger, New York Attorney General Letitia James' office said. “Halting this merger while our case proceeds is a critical victory in our efforts to uphold the law and protect the film and television industries," James said.

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Canadian legislator reads out apparent LLM response in floor speech

Canadian legislator reads out apparent LLM response in floor speech

fivenewscrypto    juillet 27, 2026   

Anyone who has used the Internet in recent years is probably used to encountering telltale signs of LLM prompting that lazy users sometimes forget to remove from their AI-generated pabulum. But a Canadian legislator took that idea to an embarrassing new level this week, reading an apparent LLM prompt instruction into the record during a floor speech.

Bill Oliver, a Progressive Conservative Party member of the legislative assembly of New Brunswick, noted in a speech last month that "One of the dangers associated with creating advocacy offices is that citizens often develop expectations that exceed the powers actually granted to those offices." He then went on to say out loud that "here’s a more natural, flowing version of that section that reads like a legislative speech rather than a series of short points," a line with all the hallmarks of an LLM presenting an alternative style option in response to a prompt.

The odd reading went more or less unnoticed at the time, but video of the remarks started spreading around social media networks like Reddit and Threads earlier this week. In Canada, the snafu is now getting mainstream attention from the likes of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and The Toronto Star, the latter of which called it a sign of "a growing divide in our society: between the elites, who are only too happy to delegate their duties to the Borg; and the masses, who find this objectionable."

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Anthropic's Opus 5 is about token efficiency, not a capability leap

Anthropic's Opus 5 is about token efficiency, not a capability leap

fivenewscrypto    juillet 26, 2026   

Today, Anthropic rolled out Opus 5, the newest update for the model that has recently become a popular choice for coding and other software development tasks, among other things.

While this is a noteworthy bump for Opus, it doesn't seem to be an Opus 4.5-level breakthrough in agentic coding performance.

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Roku raises streaming stick prices by up to 60 percent

Roku raises streaming stick prices by up to 60 percent

fivenewscrypto    juillet 26, 2026   

Roku is raising the prices for its streaming sticks and boxes by up to 60 percent.

Roku has updated its website with the new prices. Currently, it is still selling its streaming players at their old MSRPs but lists those prices as sale prices. The new prices are:

• Roku Streaming Stick: $40 (formerly $30)
• Roku Streaming Stick Plus: $60 (formerly $40)
• Roku Streaming Stick 4K: $80 (formerly $50)
• Roku Ultra: $150 (formerly $100)
• Roku Streambar SE: $150 (formerly $100)

Roku is even upping the price for a bundle that includes a Streaming Stick Plus and a one-month subscription to Fox One. As recently as July 20, Roku listed the bundle at $60 with a sale price of $25, according to the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine. Now, the bundle carries an $80 MSRP and $45 sale price.

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RFK Jr.'s handpicked committee approves manufacture of peptides he uses

RFK Jr.'s handpicked committee approves manufacture of peptides he uses

fivenewscrypto    juillet 26, 2026   

In a widely expected move, a committee organized by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has voted to endorse removing restrictions on the manufacture of peptides for human use. Thursday's panel meeting saw a sharply divided group recommend lifting limits on four peptides; votes on three additional peptides are scheduled for today. The move comes despite a continuing lack of evidence regarding their safety and effectiveness.

The move had been telegraphed months earlier as peptide enthusiast and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. took steps to ensure this outcome.

Like proteins, peptides are composed of amino acids that are chemically linked into a chain. Peptides differ merely by length; they're often 10–20 amino acids long, in contrast to proteins, which can be hundreds or thousands. Some of them, such as insulin, are specifically made by targeted processing of a protein into shorter fragments, and the resulting peptide interacts with receptors that have evolved to send signals to cells based on its levels.

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Judge rebuffs Trump admin demand for phone records from NYT reporters

Judge rebuffs Trump admin demand for phone records from NYT reporters

fivenewscrypto    juillet 26, 2026   

After criticism from a federal judge, the Department of Justice yesterday withdrew demands for phone records and grand jury testimony from New York Times reporters who wrote about security concerns related to the Air Force One jet donated to Trump by Qatar.

It was a setback in the Trump administration's attempts to unmask journalists' confidential sources. US District Judge Arun Subramanian "grilled Justice Department lawyers for nearly an hour over their handling of the subpoenas" during a hearing on Thursday, The New York Times wrote.

“Either we can quash the subpoenas, or you could withdraw the subpoenas,” Subramanian reportedly told Sean Buckley, chief counsel for the US attorney in New York's southern district.

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European Union grants US request to restrict satellite images of Iran War region

European Union grants US request to restrict satellite images of Iran War region

fivenewscrypto    juillet 26, 2026   

The European Union has begun delaying the release of satellite images showing shipping lanes near the Strait of Hormuz by 24 hours. The move comes in response to an earlier US government request and coincides with the Trump administration ramping up the war with Iran once again.

The unusual change in the free and open data policy for Europe’s Copernicus Earth observation program was revealed by Space News, which reviewed a copy of the decision made by the Council of the EU on July 13. The ordered delay applies to images taken by Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 satellites and covers the Gulf of Oman region that includes shipping lanes leading to and from the contested Strait of Hormuz.

The US government first requested that the European Union restrict Copernicus satellite imagery on May 26, according to the decision document seen by Space News. That request occurred during a shaky ceasefire period for the war that began on April 8 and ended on July 8, when the US military resumed a broader campaign of military strikes following an announcement by President Donald Trump.

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