US regulators on Thursday approved an $8 billion deal for Skydance to acquire Paramount Global amid tumult in the latter’s news and late night programming on CBS, a leading American broadcaster.Clearance of the acquisition comes after Paramount settled US President Donald Trump’s lawsuit over election coverage on CBS News’ flagship show “60 Minutes,” and a week after CBS canceled “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.” The comedian had blasted the $16 million settlement of Trump’s lawsuit as “a big fat bribe” to win approval of the merger with Skydance. Colbert’s show is slated to end in 2026, and is staple of late-night US television that often mocks Trump.CBS said in a statement the cancellation was “purely a financial decision against a challenging backdrop in late night,” and was “not related in any way to the show’s performance, content or other matters happening at Paramount.”Paramount reached the settlement with Trump this month in a lawsuit the entertainment giant itself had described as meritless.The Republican president had sued Paramount for $20 billion last year, alleging that CBS News’ “60 Minutes” news program deceptively edited an interview with his 2024 election rival, Kamala Harris, in her favor.To promote the show, “60 Minutes” had shown a shortened clip or “tease” of Harris speaking on earlier network programming, and the full quote was aired on the Sunday evening broadcast. Trump objected to the use of the shorter clip.The FCC chair doubled down on the Trump administration’s criticisms of CBS News.“Americans no longer trust the legacy national news media to report fully, accurately and fairly,” Carr said in the statement. “It is time for a change. That is why I welcome Skydance’s commitment to make significant changes at the once storied CBS broadcast network.”- Suspicious timing? -The FCC’s approval of the merger “reeks of the worst form of corruption,” Democratic Senators Edward Markey and Ben Ray Lujan said in a joint statement.”The timing speaks for itself,” Markey and Lujan said.”Paramount settled with Trump on Tuesday and the FCC approved the merger on Thursday.”Markey last week sent a letter to Paramount Global Chair Shari Redstone demanding details about the decision to cancel “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” specifically whether anyone in the Trump administration asked for the show to be cancelled, according to a copy posted at his official website.Colbert said on Thursday the cancellation was not just the end of his show but the end of the decades-old “Late Show” franchise, which has been broadcast continuously on CBS since 1993 and was previously hosted by David Letterman.Trump celebrated the cancellation, writing on his Truth Social platform, “I absolutely love that Colbert got fired. His talent was even less than his ratings.”Trump’s political opponents and other critics drew attention to the timing of the decision.”CBS canceled Colbert’s show just THREE DAYS after Colbert called out CBS parent company Paramount for its $16M settlement with Trump — a deal that looks like bribery,” Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren said on social media platform X.Colbert, once a regular on Comedy Central, made use of humor in his incisive political commentary and succeeded Letterman as the host of “The Late Show” in 2015.The late-night television landscape has long been dominated by satirical comedy shows that blend entertainment with news and political commentary. As a condition of approval, Skydance will put in place an “ombudsman” who will evaluate complaints of bias, according to Carr.”Skydance, which has no DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) programs in place today, has committed that it will not establish any such initiatives at the new company,” Carr said in a release.

Enid Medina Guzman always has candles on hand — not for creating ambiance, but because one of the blackouts that plague Puerto Rico could strike at any time.But she is hopeful the lingering hardship will soon be a thing of the past: solar panels are being installed on her home as part of a community program promoting energy independence.At her house nestled high in the mountains of the lush tropical forests of the archipelago’s central city Adjuntas, “it rains a lot and when there’s a little wind, the power goes out really quickly,” Medina Guzman told AFP.She has lived in Adjuntas, which has a population of about 20,000, virtually all her life. She said blackouts have always been a feature.”Sometimes it’s at night when it’s super hot, and you can’t sleep, you can’t rest,” the 60-year-old said. “It’s difficult.”Puerto Rico is a Caribbean territory of more than three million people that has been under US control since 1898. Its chronic infrastructure woes were exacerbated by 2017’s devastating Hurricane Maria, which razed the island’s already deteriorating power grid.After the massive storm, it took roughly 11 months to restore power across the island.The electrical grid went private in June 2021 in an apparent effort to resolve the problem of perennial blackouts.But outages persist: this past year, Puerto Rico experienced massive blackouts in April and also on New Year’s Eve.”It’s not normal,” Medina Guzman said, as a crew installed the battery that will soon store captured energy from the sun.- ‘Hands of the people’ -Like everywhere in Puerto Rico, Adjuntas went dark during Maria — but in the city’s main square, a pink, 1920s-era house was a beacon of light.It was Casa Pueblo, the nucleus of a grassroots non-profit focused on ecological protection and community support. It became a haven in the storm’s aftermath: the solar panels on its roof meant Casa Pueblo had precious power. People could charge their electronic devices, and crucially plug in medical equipment like oxygen machines.Cell towers and power lines were down, but Casa Pueblo’s community radio station still functioned, becoming a vital source of information in the mountain town.Casa Pueblo came into being in 1980 — the brainchild of a citizens group whose original mission was to thwart a series of planned open-pit mines in the region. They were successful. Over the years, the organization bloomed into a model of bottom-up energy independence, on an island frequently hampered by economic crisis and natural disaster.”Our aspiration isn’t just a technological transition away from fossil fuels to solar. Yes, we need to produce clean and renewable energy, but we are aspiring towards a transformation — a just, eco-social transition,” said Casa Pueblo’s director Arturo Massol Deya, a biologist by training.”That means the energy infrastructure being in the hands of the people,” added Massol Deya, whose parents were the group’s original founders.- ‘Path to change’ -Among Casa Pueblo’s efforts is sustaining a community solar belt that gives vulnerable populations control over their own energy. The group also has distributed solar lamps and solar refrigerators, especially in rural communities.Casa Pueblo has so far helped install solar panels on nearly 300 homes, with over 400 projects in total including businesses. Massol Deya told AFP those initiatives are primarily funded through grassroots donations and philanthropy.Their microgrids — a localized energy system — are interconnected and self-sufficient.And net metering — a billing mechanism that credits consumers for excess power produced from renewable systems — allows Casa Pueblo’s center to sell back what it doesn’t use.That is particularly meaningful given that average Puerto Ricans pay more than double the price for electricity than mainland US residents, according to US Energy Information Administration data.”The traditional model is a unilateral, exploitative, monopolistic, dictatorial model,” Massol Deya said. “They decide the price of fuel and whether they give it to you or not. Sometimes they fail and can’t provide the service,” he said.”This energy insecurity translates to many issues — well, not anymore.”Approximately 10 percent of Puerto Rican households currently have solar panels, according to the energy authority, a number that reflects households with net-metering agreements. There is no publicly available data for structures that operate off-grid.Sergio Rivera Rodriguez is part of a team of academic researchers studying the public health impact of energy security on populations like those in Adjuntas. He told AFP the Casa Pueblo model could be successful elsewhere.”I think it’s making a difference — it’s of course just one municipality,” he said. But “structural changes take years.”Casa Pueblo functions above all, Massol Deya said, because it is a social program that fosters communal control of resources.”The people are doing it,” he said. “This is the path to change.”

A top US Justice Department official spent hours on Thursday grilling Ghislaine Maxwell, the imprisoned accomplice of sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, as President Donald Trump struggles to tamp down a furor over his handling of the explosive case.David Markus, Maxwell’s attorney, said the former British socialite answered every question she was asked during a day-long meeting at a courthouse in Tallahassee, Florida.”She never invoked a privilege. She never declined to answer,” Markus told reporters. “She answered all the questions truthfully, honestly, and to the best of her ability.”Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said he would continue interviewing Maxwell on Friday and “share additional information about what we learned at the appropriate time.”Markus said he was not going to comment on the “substance” of the meeting with Blanche, Trump’s former personal lawyer for his hush money trial and two federal criminal cases.Maxwell, 63, is serving a 20-year sentence after being convicted in 2021 of recruiting underage girls for Epstein, who died in a New York jail in 2019 while awaiting trial in his own sex trafficking case.Earlier this week, Blanche said if Maxwell has “information about anyone who has committed crimes against victims, the FBI and the DOJ will hear what she has to say.”No one is above the law — and no lead is off-limits,” he said.Trump, 79, was once a close friend of Epstein and The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday that the president’s name was among hundreds found during a DOJ review of the so-called “Epstein files,” though there has not been evidence of wrongdoing.Trump filed a $10 billion defamation suit against the Journal last week after it reported that he had penned a sexually suggestive letter to Epstein for his 50th birthday in 2003.Maxwell is the only former Epstein associate convicted in connection with his activities, which right-wing conspiracy theorists allege included trafficking young models for VIPs.The meeting with Maxwell marks another attempt by the Trump administration to defuse anger among the Republican president’s supporters over what they have long seen as a cover-up of sex crimes by Epstein, who was a wealthy financier with high-level connections.- ‘Corrupt deal’ -Democratic Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer said the meeting between Maxwell and a Justice Department official who used to be Trump’s own lawyer smacks of a “corrupt deal so that she can exonerate Donald Trump.”Democratic Senator Sheldon Whitehouse said it raises a number of troubling questions.”Is he really going as (deputy attorney general) or is he going de facto as Trump’s personal criminal attorney, Tom Hagen style?” the senator said in a reference to the Corleone family lawyer in “The Godfather.””Will he promise her a pardon for silence, or for a Trump-friendly tale?” Whitehouse asked.Many of the president’s core supporters want more transparency on the Epstein case, and Trump had promised to deliver that on retaking the White House in January.But he has since dismissed the controversy as a “hoax” and a “witch hunt” and the DOJ and FBI released a memo this month claiming the Epstein files did not contain evidence that would justify further investigation.Epstein committed suicide while in jail and was not murdered, did not blackmail any prominent figures, and did not keep a “client list,” according to the July 7 FBI-DOJ memo.Seeking to redirect public attention, the White House has promoted unfounded claims in recent days that former president Barack Obama led a “years-long coup” against Trump around his victorious 2016 election.The extraordinary narrative claims that Obama had ordered intelligence assessments to be manipulated to accuse Russia of election interference to help Trump.Yet it runs counter to four separate probes between 2019 and 2023 — each of them concluding that Russia did interfere and did, in various ways, help Trump.Epstein was found hanging dead in his New York prison cell while awaiting trial on charges that he sexually exploited hundreds of victims at his homes in New York and Florida.