Blog

NEW YORK (AP) — A federal judge on Monday ordered Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery to halt their $81 billion merger for at least two weeks, allowing states that are challenging the deal more time to see their case through in court.

Twelve states, led by California, sued to block Paramount’s pending buyout of Warner last week — alleging that such a combination would “extinguish competition” in Hollywood and lead to fewer choices for consumers, particularly moviegoers and cable customers across the U.S.

The states’ top prosecutors called on Warner and Paramount to not close the transaction until after a court had time to fully evaluate their claims. And when the companies refused, they filed for a temporary restraining order — which is what District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín granted on Monday. That opens the door to a potential preliminary injunction that the states are also seeking to effectively block the deal.

“This is a critical first win in our case to ensure this megamerger never sees the light of day,” California Attorney General Rob Bonta said in a statement Monday. “History tells the tale of what happens when a few people have great power over markets that are central to Americans’ lives: fewer opportunities for more people, worse products and services for all people.”

A Warner-Paramount tie-up would bring together two of the five last legacy studios in Hollywood — as well as a host of TV networks, titles filling streaming libraries and news operations. Warner’s HBO Max, fan favorites like “Harry Potter” and even CNN would come under the same roof of Paramount-owned CBS, movies like “Top Gun” and the Paramount+ streaming service.

Paramount, which was bought out by Skydance just last year, has vowed to vigorously defend its acquisition — and touts regulatory greenlights the deal has received elsewhere, including from President Donald Trump’s administration last month.

On Monday, Paramount said the states’ antitrust arguments “are without merit” or “any basis in modern market realities” — and maintained that its merger with Warner will benefit consumers and workers alike. Timing for next steps also falls in line with the company’s previous requests.

Deal is paused for at least two weeks

The temporary restraining order granted Monday halts the deal from progressing for at least 14 days, although the pause could be extended for up to 28 days. The court has set Aug. 3 as a date for a hearing on the states’ preliminary injunction motion, but that schedule could also be pushed back.

The clock is ticking. Ahead of Monday’s decision, the companies proposed wrapping up a preliminary injunction hearing by the end of August, leaving time to make a possible appeal by Sept. 30 — a date on the top of Paramount’s mind because it’s pledged to pay shareholders added “ticking fee” compensation amounting to about $7 million per day if the deal isn’t closed by then.

But the states called such a timeline unprecedented and unfair. They maintain that payments Paramount might have to incur after Sept. 30 were the risk of a decision the company made on its own — and argued in a hearing held Friday that commencing a trial in April 2027 would allow enough time for discovery and presenting proper evidence.

Including billions of dollars in debt, Paramount’s proposed purchase of Warner is currently valued at nearly $111 billion based on outstanding shares.

What the states are challenging

Paramount has repeatedly pointed to tech and streaming companies’ growing reach across the entertainment industry — and argues that merging with Warner would particularly help it compete with bigger rivals like Netflix. Last week, it said the states’ challenge would help shield Netflix and others “who have harmed the market for theatrical exhibition” from meaningful competition.

The states’ case doesn’t focus on streaming. It alleges that a combined Paramount-Warner merger violates federal antitrust law because of what the companies’ combined reach would become across three markets: theatrical movie distribution, theater releases of bigger blockbusters and the licensing of basic cable channels.

Their complaint says a combined Paramount-Warner could control nearly a third of both the theatrical film distribution market as well as basic cable programming. The states argued this would create a “media behemoth” with enough power to both raise prices for consumers and threaten workers’ wages, while reducing production and quality of content.

In terms of movie theater releases, Paramount’s lawyers have pointed to a growing list of blockbuster hits from studios that are not in Hollywood’s “big five,” such as A24 and Amazon’s MGM. The states maintain the core legacy studios — which beyond Warner and Paramount include Disney, Universal and Sony — still make up the vast majority of the market.

Beyond California, states challenging the deal include Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon and Washington.

Other regulatory clearances

Outside of the U.S., Paramount has touted greenlights from regulators in countries like China, Canada and Australia. But regulatory reviews are also ongoing in the European Union and the U.K., which has separately suggested it may intervene.

Meanwhile, the Writers Guild of America has filed its own lawsuit seeking to block the merger. And Paramount faces additional legal fights, including from a shareholder accusing CEO David Ellison and his father Larry Ellison (who is putting up tens of billions of dollars to back the deal for his son’s company) of promising “illegal, private benefits” to Trump in order to get the merger through.

Paramount has repeatedly dismissed such accusations, and the U.S. Justice Department maintained its review was not political.

Still, politics have come into question throughout Paramount’s quest for Warner. Beyond Trump’s relationship with the Ellison family, critics of the deal also stress what new ownership could mean for Warner assets like CNN — a network that has long attracted ire from the Republican president — particularly in light of editorial turmoil at Paramount-owned CBS since Skydance’s takeover.

The contrast between the 12 states’ complaint, brought forth by all Democratic attorneys general, and the federal government’s blessing only underlines all of that further.

“It’s a political merger. It’s the product of the president’s engagement in private business affairs,” New York Attorney General Letitia James said in a webinar about the states’ case last week. She maintained the states had been successful in challenging the Trump administration before and “we’re not finished yet.”

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Autopsy reports rarely come with barbed comments. So eyebrows rose when the autopsy results of 14-year-old Celeste Rivas Hernandez were released with a statement from the Los Angeles County chief medical examiner saying it was “unfathomable” her grieving parents had to wait months to learn how their daughter died.

The autopsy performed on the dismembered body found in a Tesla in the Hollywood Hills had been sealed by a court order in the investigation that led to murder charges for singer D4vd. Dr. Odey Ukpo’s comment with the report was his most pointed effort yet to emphasize his office’s independence from police and prosecutors, as well as his desire to make as much death information public as soon as possible.

D4vd, who has pleaded not guilty, this week faces a crucial preliminary hearing to determine whether there is enough evidence for a trial. Ukpo’s agency, which determined Rivas Hernandez died from stab wounds, plays a major role, as it has in other prominent cases, including following the death of “Friends” star Matthew Perry and the killings of director Rob Reiner and his wife, photographer Michele Singer Reiner.

Ukpo, 46, sat for a recent interview with The Associated Press in the building where he performed autopsies for nearly a decade before getting the head role in 2023. He has always welcomed the celebrity cases that Los Angeles brings, saying the scrutiny they receive and the likelihood of misinformation spreading are strong incentives to do careful, irrefutable work. And they provide an opportunity to show what his office does and what kind of dangers the community may face.

“I should be able to anticipate the strongest arguments or the most interesting questions by the work that I’ve done,” he said. “If I haven’t, then something’s missing.”

“Life is complicated, but death is simple,” Ukpo said.

The medical examiner pushes back on police secrecy

Ukpo doesn’t believe sealing autopsy reports helps police investigations, including in the killing of Celeste.

“That goes completely against our mission,” he said. “It’s so important for us to release the information that she did not die from something natural, she did not die from drugs, she was stabbed. And then we start to look back at what made her vulnerable to be in that situation.”

A court-ordered security hold still seals the Reiner autopsies. Authorities said immediately after their deaths that they had been stabbed by their son, who has pleaded not guilty, but little information has followed. Ukpo said he would discuss the findings — if he was allowed.

“The Reiners’ case is one that’s straightforward,” he said. “It’s unclear to me what sort of information we have that would ruin the case.”

Sometimes there is no good reason for secrecy, he said.

“People say: ‘Why would they get the information out there? Because then the case is just going to go awry.’ But awry? How? What information?” he said, adding: “The killer knows what they did.”

The LA County Sheriff’s Department said in a statement that security holds “are rarely requested and are carefully reviewed on a case-by-case basis to determine whether temporarily withholding the autopsy report is necessary to preserve sensitive investigative information.” It said the reports can contain details “that only the person responsible would know,” meaning detectives can use that knowledge to assess the credibility of witness statements and uncover false confessions.

The Los Angeles Police Department, which handled the D4vd and Reiner cases, did not respond to a request for comment, and the district attorney’s office declined comment.

A change to his title underscores Ukpo’s independence

Ukpo was appointed chief medical examiner-coroner in 2023, becoming the agency’s first Black leader since it was founded in 1850. His staff responds to more than 12,000 sudden, unexpected and premature deaths per year.

The “coroner” part of his title was dropped soon after his appointment and Ukpo supported that change, saying a coroner is usually an elected official — often also the county sheriff — but not a doctor.

“’Coroner’ just kind of confused our purpose and suggested that we were within a law enforcement agency,” Ukpo said. “It’s so important to establish our independence.”

Andrew Bernstein, a longtime New York criminal defense attorney who is not involved in any of Ukpo’s cases, said “buddy-buddy” relationships can easily develop between medical examiners and law enforcement.

“They’re dealing with the cops all the time,” he said. “They’re using the same language.”

That relationship can hurt a prosecutor’s case, he said, because “jurors pick up on that all the time” and may perceive a testifying medical examiner as biased.

But, Bernstein said, “you don’t want so much independence” that the medical examiner makes decisions regardless of the wants and needs of police and prosecutors.

“You don’t want a rock star chief medical examiner,” he said.

Dr. Michelle A. Jordan, president of the National Association of Medical Examiners, told the AP in an email that the organization supports Ukpo’s “determination to maintain his office’s independence from law enforcement” and the authority of forensic pathologists to “provide transparent postmortem assessments and accurate death investigations” that are “free from undue influence.”

How he decided to make autopsies his life’s work

At age 6, Ukpo — who grew up in Anaheim not far from Disneyland — had wanted to be a homicide detective.

But when he met his family physician, he “thought it was really cool how he would work with his hands, do dirty work, work with blood” but “could be very professional in his office, in a suit, in a tie.”

“There you go, that’s the formula for a forensic pathologist,” he said.

Very few medical students want to make autopsies their life’s work. He said with a laugh that declaring his intentions “made for interesting medical school interviews.”

His education included stints at Loyola University in Chicago, at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, and with the medical examiner in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Celebrity autopsies hold meaning beyond LA County

Ukpo performed autopsies on rapper Mac Miller, actor Tommy Lister Jr., and model and actor Kim Porter, the former longtime partner of Sean “Diddy” Combs.

Perry died within months of Ukpo getting the top job, and his office determined the primary cause of death was acute ketamine toxicity.

“Matthew Perry was really an important one to notify people that ketamine is not harmless,” he said.

He said this and all his work is driven by his desire to first and foremost serve the public.

“What I’m trying to shift during my leadership here is to try to focus on community first,” he said. “Death doesn’t just happen for the family, for the individual. When a death happens, it reverberates.”

MIAMI (AP) — Social media influencers Andrew and Tristan Tate will fight extradition to the United Kingdom where the brothers are accused of rape and sex trafficking, their lawyer said Monday, suggesting their arrest in Miami was politically motivated without explaining why.

The Tates appeared in federal court Monday for the first time since their arrest on Saturday and are being held in federal detention. In the coming weeks, a U.S. district judge will consider whether they meet the conditions for extradition. U.S. Magistrate Lauren Louis set another hearing for Monday July 27.

The brothers, through their social media empire promoting wealth, male dominance and misogyny, are among the world’s most polarizing internet personalities.

Normally photographed in tailored suits and fitted shirts, they wore tan jail uniforms and handcuffs during the brief hearing. Neither brother said a word.

Their attorney, Joseph McBride, insisted they should remain in the U.S.

“We are of course objecting to extradition because Andrew and Tristan are innocent,” McBride said after the hearing. “They’ve never done nothing wrong. They shouldn’t be extradited for crimes they did not commit.”

The brothers were surprised when they were arrested, McBride said, adding that the attempt to have them extradited was politically motivated. “There’s no question about it,” he told reporters.

He suggested the Tates’ case “had a lot to do with” former British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s decision to step down, without providing any details, and said it was no coincidence that the brothers were arrested after meeting “friends in Washington, D.C.”

“We went to see our Congress people in D.C. and now we’re getting arrested. This feels political,” McBride said. He didn’t specify who the pair met with or what was discussed.

On Sunday, McBride said he was confident the extradition request would be denied.

Prosecutors in Britain said the new charges relate to four new victims and were brought after authorities received evidence from Bedfordshire Police in southeastern England. The allegations, spanning 2010 to 2017, include rape, assault, trafficking and offenses relating to “indecent images of a child and extreme pornography.”

McBride said none of the latest accusers have been identified, adding “we’d like to know who’s accused Andrew and Tristan of what.”

The brothers are already charged with rape, bodily harm, human trafficking and controlling prostitution for gain relating to three other alleged victims in the U.K. between 2012 and 2015.

Their lawyer said in a statement Saturday that he believed the arrests were “greenlighted by a low-level functionary” at the Justice Department without input from leadership. The Justice Department told The Associated Press that the arrests were approved by leadership of its Criminal Division.

The new allegations are the latest in a long-running international legal saga involving the Tates that has spanned the U.S., Britain and Romania. The brothers have repeatedly denied wrongdoing.

The dual U.S. and British citizens moved to Romania in 2016. They were arrested there in 2022, accused of participating in schemes to lure women for sexual exploitation. They denied those allegations and the Romanian case hasn’t gone forward because of legal and procedural problems.

Last year, they were allowed to leave Romania and flew to Florida.

The former professional kickboxers have millions of followers on social media and are vocal supporters of President Donald Trump.

Andrew Tate, 39, first became known a decade ago when he was a contestant on the U.K. reality television show “Big Brother.” He was booted from the show when a video appeared to show him assaulting a woman.

He has amassed over 10 million followers on X but has been banned from other platforms for violating hate speech guidelines, including YouTube, TikTok and Instagram. He has made widely condemned comments, such as saying women who are sexually assaulted should bear some responsibility for the attacks and sharing graphic descriptions of how he might attack women.

The Tate brothers have consistently denied allegations of abuse and human trafficking, claiming their violent and misogynistic statements have been taken out of context or were intended as jokes.

___

Associated Press reporters Alanna Durkin Richer in Washington, D.C., and John Seewer in Toledo, Ohio, contributed.