Jared Kushner’s private equity firm has reportedly stepped back from previous efforts to take over the entertainment giant Warner Bros Discovery, following scrutiny of his involvement.Affinity Partners emerged as a key backer of a $108.4bn hostile bid by Paramount Skydance for control of WBD. Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law and adviser, set up Affinity.Paramount, controlled by the billionaire Ellison family, is attempting to sink a $82.7bn deal WBD struck to sell its storied Warner Bros movie studios, pr ...

The US labor market grew by more than expected last month, recovering some of the damage inflicted by the federal government shutdown, according to official data.An estimated 105,000 jobs were lost in October, and 64,000 were added in November, a highly-anticipated report showed on Tuesday.Jobs growth was higher in November than anticipated by many economists, with a consensus forecast of some 40,000 jobs added.But the headline unemployment rate continued to climb – and hit 4.6%, a four-year high, last mont ...

Ford said on Monday it will take a $19.5bn writedown and is killing several electric-vehicle models, in the most dramatic example yet of the auto industry’s retreat from battery-powered models in response to the Trump administration’s policies and weakening EV demand.Ford, based in Dearborn, Michigan, said it will stop making the F-150 Lightning in its electric vehicle form, but will pivot to producing an extended-range electric model, a version of a hybrid vehicle called an Erev, which uses a gas-powered g ...

The US company behind the Roomba robot vacuum cleaner has filed for bankruptcy protection and agreed to be taken over by one of its Chinese suppliers.iRobot, which is best known for debuting the Roomba vacuum cleaner in the early 2000s, will be taken over by a subsidiary of its main supplier, Picea Robotics.The Roomba maker, which is listed in the US, said it had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in Delaware as part of a restructuring agreement with Picea.iRobot’s earnings have come under pressure in recent y ...

Users of OpenAI’s video generation app will soon be able to see their own faces alongside characters from Marvel, Pixar, Star Wars and Disney’s animated films, according to a joint announcement from the startup and Disney on Thursday. Perhaps you, Lightning McQueen and Iron Man are all dancing together in the Mos Eisley Cantina.Sora is an app made by OpenAI, the firm behind ChatGPT, which allows users to generate videos of up to 20 seconds through short text prompts. The startup previously attempted to stee ...

Walt Disney has announced a $1bn equity investment in OpenAI, enabling the AI start-up’s Sora video generation tool to use its characters.Users of Sora will be able to generate short, user-prompted social videos that draw on more than 200 Disney, Marvel, Pixar and Star Wars characters as part of a three-year licensing agreement between OpenAI and the entertainment giant.A selection of the videos made by users will also be available for streaming on the Disney+ platform.Bob Iger, Disney’s CEO, hailed a deal ...

The US Federal Reserve announced on Wednesday that it was cutting interest rates by a quarter point for the third time this year, as the embattled central bank appeared split over how best to manage the US economy.The Fed chair, Jerome Powell, has emphasized unity within the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), the board of Fed leaders that sets interest rates. But the nine-to-three vote to lower rates to a range of 3.5% to 3.75% was divisive among the committee that tends to vote in unanimity.New projecti ...

Netflix has been hit with a consumer lawsuit seeking to block the online video giant’s planned $72bn acquisition of Warner Bros Discovery’s studio and streaming businesses.The proposed class action was filed on Monday by a subscriber to Warner Bros-owned HBO Max who said the proposed deal threatened to reduce competition in the US subscription video-on-demand market.Some members of Congress have sharply questioned Netflix’s proposal, which is expected to face significant US regulatory scrutiny under antitru ...

The EU has opened an investigation to assess whether Google is breaching European competition rules in its use of online content from web publishers and YouTube for artificial intelligence.The European Commission said on Tuesday it will examine whether the US tech company, which runs the Gemini AI model and is owned by Alphabet, is putting rival AI owners at a “disadvantage”.“The investigation will notably examine whether Google is distorting competition by imposing unfair terms and conditions on publishers ...

David Ellison’s Paramount Skydance is not giving up in its aggressive campaign to acquire Warner Bros Discovery (WBD), launching a hostile bid despite the announcement on Friday that Netflix had agreed to buy the company’s studio and streaming operation.Netflix’s accepted bid valued the company at $27.75 a share, though the entertainment company did not agree to acquire WBD’s traditional television assets, including the news network CNN.Paramount’s all-cash tender offer sent directly to shareholders on Mond ...