Paramount agreed to delay its pending Warner Bros. Discovery merger until next year in order for the lawsuit brought by several state attorneys general to play out in court, according to a Friday filing.

The merger was put on hold earlier this week after a judge granted a temporary restraining order that initially put a 14-day pause on the multibillion-dollar deal with the lawsuit led by California Attorney General Rob Bonta pending.

“Today’s agreement is a significant win because the result is exactly what we have sought from the outset: a direct path to a trial based on the evidence,” a spokesperson for Paramount said in a statement to Fox News Digital. “This is the fastest and clearest way to prove that this transaction is good for competition, good for consumers, and good for creators, a conclusion dozens of competition authorities around the world have already reached.” 

“Plaintiffs’ market definitions bear no relationship to the realities of today’s marketplace and cannot withstand scrutiny. We look forward to proving our case at trial,” the spokesperson added.

PARAMOUNT-WBD MERGER ON HOLD AFTER JUDGE GRANTS TEMPORARY RESTRAINING ORDER

“Our argument against this illegal merger is straightforward: When too few corporations have too much power in markets central to American life, it makes things more expensive, and it makes things worse,” Bonta told Fox News Digital. “Today’s agreement is great news for audiences, movie theaters, and the many people who write, build, and create the art, news, and entertainment so many of us enjoy. We are eager to continue to make our case in court and celebrate another tremendous win in our effort to ensure this unlawful merger never sees the light of day.

Paramount CEO David Ellison is seeking to acquire WBD in a $111 billion deal that was expected to close during the third quarter of this year, but Bonta is leading a group of 12 state attorneys general who filed a lawsuit challenging the merger. The lawsuit claims the megadeal would “lead to higher prices, lower quality, and less content for film and television, harming movie theaters, basic cable distributors, and ultimately, audiences on every sofa and movie theater seat in the U.S.”  

PARAMOUNT ADVISERS PUSH FOR CALIFORNIA EXIT AS STATE SUES TO BLOCK WARNER BROS DISCOVERY MERGER: REPORT

The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District for the Northern District of California, claims that the merger violates Section 7 of the Clayton Act, which holds that mergers that may substantially lessen competition or tend to create a monopoly are illegal. Both sides argued their case last week but Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín waited until Monday to temporarily delay the merger. 

The merger, which was set to close this year, is now being delayed until at least June 2027.

PARAMOUNT ADVISERS PUSH FOR CALIFORNIA EXIT AS STATE SUES TO BLOCK WARNER BROS DISCOVERY MERGER: REPORT

Paramount’s bid to buy Warner Bros. Discovery would be a historic deal merging two major Hollywood studios under one corporate umbrella as well as all of their television networks, including CBS and CNN. Critics of the deal believe such a merger would crush the entertainment industry and lead to mass layoffs — some have also been vocal against Ellison and his billionaire father Larry Ellison, who is heavily financing the deal and a close ally to President Donald Trump. 

Liberal critics in particular also claim that, as a result of the deal, CNN would be given a MAGA-bent to its coverage and it would be run by current CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss, who has been harshly criticized by some media liberals. The Paramount CEO has previously assured that CNN would maintain editorial independence following the merger.

This deal would follow Ellison’s $8 billion purchase of Paramount, merging the studio with Skydance Media.

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Fox News’ Brian Flood contributed to this report. 

Dow swung to a profit in the second quarter as higher prices supported a rise in net sales.

The materials science and chemicals company on Thursday posted a net income of $802 million, or 99 cents a share, compared with a loss of $801 million, or $1.18 a share, in the same quarter a year ago.

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Prince Harry’s decision to stay at Princess Diana’s ancestral home during a recent trip to Britain has drawn fresh attention to the state of his relationship with the wider royal family, with some royal commentators suggesting the choice reflects both a closer bond with his mother’s relatives and continued distance from the Windsors.

Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, revealed to her Instagram followers this week that she, Harry and their children, Archie, 7, and Lilibet, 5, stayed as guests of Harry’s uncle, Earl Spencer, at the Althorp Estate in Northamptonshire during their recent visit to the United Kingdom, after the family was unable to secure accommodation at Buckingham Palace.

What the photos showed

Among the images shared by Meghan was one showing Lilibet walking through Althorp’s tree-lined avenue, near the private island on the estate’s lake where Diana is buried. Ahead of her, Harry and Archie can be seen carrying large bouquets of flowers, which the family laid at Diana’s grave and a nearby memorial. Sources confirmed to the Daily Mail that the images were taken at Althorp. According to People magazine, the visit was described as giving Harry and Meghan’s children an opportunity to spend time somewhere closely tied to their late grandmother, who died in a car crash in Paris in 1997, when Harry was 12.

Expert commentary on the significance of the stay

Royal commentator Richard Fitzwilliams told the Daily Mail that Harry’s choice to stay with Earl Spencer carries symbolic weight given the broader state of relations between the Windsor and Spencer families. “The Windsors and the Spencer’s have a superficially polite relationship. If you look deeper, there is clearly no love lost, memories of Diana will always influence relations between them,” Fitzwilliams said. “The relations between the Royal Family and the Spencer’s have been marked by politeness but not closeness. However, the Spencers definitely appear to be closer to Harry than William.”

Fitzwilliams suggested that Harry’s ties to the Spencer family could provide him with a reliable base in Britain going forward. “The Sussexes have an ally in Britain which they can use as and when they choose to return,” he said. “This almost certainly means that Harry can rely on a base at Althorp when he needs one and this would undoubtedly extend to Meghan and Archie and Lili.” Fitzwilliams added that he believed Harry’s closeness with the Spencers is “likely to cause concern for the Royal Family.”

A precedent from 2024

This is not the first time Harry has chosen Althorp over royal accommodations during a UK visit. During a 2024 trip for the funeral of Diana’s brother-in-law, Lord Robert Fellowes, Harry reportedly turned down an offer to stay at Buckingham Palace in favor of staying with Earl Spencer. Fitzwilliams said at the time that the decision “throws into sharp relief the apparent breakdown in relations not only with his brother, to whom he has reportedly not spoken for two years, but with his father,” adding that the choice “intentionally emphasises his links with his mother’s family.”

A historically strained Windsor-Spencer relationship

Former BBC royal correspondent Michael Cole offered additional historical context, noting that there “never much was love lost between the Spencers and the Windsors.” Cole pointed to Diana’s funeral in 1997, when Harry’s “birth family,” led by Earl Spencer and Lady Jane Fellowes, attended St. Paul’s Cathedral to support Harry while, according to Cole, “the entire Royal Family stayed away.” Cole also recalled a symbolic moment when Diana’s coffin arrived for burial at Althorp, saying Earl Spencer “whipped off the flag that covered it and replaced it with the Spencer standard.” Cole described the moment as illustrative of the lasting divide between the two families, saying “nothing could have illustrated more clearly the gap that will always separate two famous families.”

Harry’s reported consideration of the Spencer name

According to the Daily Mail, Harry previously explored the possibility of changing his family name to Spencer, a move that would have meant dropping Mountbatten-Windsor, the surname used by his children. A friend of Harry’s said he discussed the idea with Earl Spencer during a visit to Britain, but was advised against it. “They had a very amicable conversation and Spencer advised him against taking such a step,” the friend said, citing insurmountable legal obstacles. In the acknowledgments of his memoir “Spare,” Harry thanked Earl Spencer for supporting him through the difficulties he faced following Diana’s death.

A busy and complicated week for the Sussexes

The Althorp stay came during a broader five-day UK trip for Harry centered on Invictus Games events and his charitable work. Harry initially arrived in London alone after a last-minute chaos over his Buckingham Palace invitation, which was reportedly withdrawn hours before his arrival. Meghan later entered the country separately with Archie and Lilibet, amid ongoing security concerns.

Following the family’s European travels, which also included the previously reported stop in Portugal, Harry, Meghan and their children met privately with King Charles and Queen Camilla for tea at Highgrove, the King’s private Gloucestershire residence, marking their first meeting since 2022. Buckingham Palace confirmed the visit only after the family had already left, and no photographs from that reunion have been made public.

Fitzwilliams suggested that future Sussex visits to Britain, including a planned trip for the 2027 Invictus Games in Birmingham, may similarly center around the Spencer family rather than royal accommodations. “Whatever reception they receive from the Royal Family, they can be assured of a warm welcome and moral support from the Spencer’s,” he said, adding that the family “would undoubtedly welcome the opportunity to see them again.”

Buckingham Palace has not publicly commented on the arrangements surrounding Harry’s recent stay at Althorp, and it remains unclear how future visits by the Sussexes to the UK might be structured as questions about the broader state of relations within the royal family continue.

Instagram has begun banning users who post content filmed with Meta’s smart glasses that harasses or exploits unsuspecting members of the public, following mounting criticism over a wave of so-called pickup and prank videos built around secretly recording strangers, particularly women, without their knowledge or consent.

Instagram head Adam Mosseri confirmed the policy change in an Instagram Stories Q&A, first reported by Business Insider. “If you’re posting content that is taking advantage of people and harassing them, like a lot of these pickup line kind of videos that we’ve heard of and seen, then we’re going to take the content down,” Mosseri said. “We don’t want people to be surreptitiously taking videos of other people and harassing them and then posting them on our platform. So we’re trying to fight that in any way we can.”

What kind of content is being targeted

The crackdown covers two main categories of videos that have proliferated on the platform: so-called pickup videos, in which creators approach strangers, often women, in public settings while secretly recording the interaction with hidden cameras built into their smart glasses, and prank videos that typically target service workers, including cashiers and fast-food employees, with content that frequently verges into harassment. Creators have recorded these encounters in a range of public settings, including gyms, airports, bars, stores and public streets, often without the other person ever realizing they were being filmed.

Accounts already removed

Business Insider reported that at least two prominent accounts built around this kind of content, both with more than 1 million followers, have already been deactivated under the new policy. A Meta spokesperson confirmed to the outlet that the accounts were removed specifically for posting harassment content filmed using the company’s smart glasses. Meta has not disclosed how many total videos or accounts have been taken down since the policy went into effect, nor has the company specified precisely how enforcement decisions are being made at scale.

Real accounts of being secretly recorded

The policy shift follows a growing number of firsthand accounts from women who discovered they had been filmed without their knowledge and later found the footage posted online. One woman, 25-year-old social worker Kassy Zanjani, told The Independent that a man wearing smart glasses approached her at a fast-food restaurant in Vancouver, Canada, and struck up a conversation. She didn’t think much of the interaction until a friend later sent her a video of the entire exchange that had been posted to Instagram. “It was very anxiety-provoking being secretly filmed without my awareness or consent, and for that to then be posted in this manner, that I don’t think is rooted in any good intentions,” Zanjani said. “I think he’s purposefully targeting intoxicated women, vulnerable women, to elicit a response from them to use as content.”

In a separate incident reported by People, a woman identified only as Toluwa said she was approached by a man at a Washington, D.C., airport lounge and gave him her phone number after a conversation, only to later discover videos of the same man approaching other women at airports using smart glasses. When she learned her own conversation had also been recorded, the man reached out over text with the footage and asked for her permission to post it. She declined, but the man posted the video anyway. “It blows up and to the point where people are sending me this video,” Toluwa said.

A branding problem for Meta’s glasses

The pattern of secretly filmed encounters has generated unflattering nicknames for Meta’s smart glasses products, including “pervert glasses” and “predator glasses,” terms that reflect growing public frustration with how the devices have been used. That reputational challenge comes as Meta continues pushing smart glasses as a flagship consumer product, making the harassment controversy a notable complication for the company’s broader wearable technology ambitions.

Meta’s technical response to camera tampering

Beyond the new content moderation policy, Meta has also taken steps to address a separate but related problem: users disabling or hiding the small LED light built into the glasses that signals when the device is actively recording. According to a July 7 explainer from Meta, the company’s second-generation glasses will now automatically disable the camera entirely if the device detects that its recording indicator light has been tampered with, whether by tape, film or physical modification.

That change followed reports that a cottage industry had emerged around helping users disable the recording light without triggering detection, with people in at least 30 states reportedly offering the tampering service, according to journalist Joanna Stern. Meta said it actively works to remove advertisements, posts and Marketplace listings that offer these glasses-tampering services.

Limitations of the recording indicator

Even when functioning as intended, critics have noted that the LED indicator light on Meta’s glasses is relatively easy to miss, particularly in outdoor settings with natural light, raising questions about how effective the built-in privacy safeguard has been at actually alerting people that they are being recorded in real time.

A grassroots response as well

The controversy has also spurred independent efforts outside of Meta’s own policies. App developer Yves Jeanrenaud created a free application called Nearby Glasses, which scans for Bluetooth signals emitted by Meta’s smart glasses and sends users a push notification if someone wearing the eyewear is nearby. According to The Independent, the app has been downloaded roughly 78,000 times since launching a few weeks earlier, reflecting significant public demand for tools that can help people detect when they might be recorded without their consent.

While Instagram’s new enforcement policy marks a formal acknowledgment of a problem that has been building for months, Meta has not detailed exactly how consistently or aggressively the policy will be applied going forward, nor whether it plans to expand its camera-tampering safeguards further. With smart glasses continuing to grow in popularity and Meta positioning them as a central part of its future product lineup, how effectively the company balances that growth against ongoing privacy and harassment concerns is likely to remain a closely watched issue in the months ahead.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq ​fell on Friday as investors sold chip stocks on worries about massive spending on artificial intelligence ahead of the next batch of megacap earnings reports, while falling oil prices provided Wall Street with some support even as Middle East hostilities continued.

The S&P 500 ended close to flat but ‌its biggest weight came from ⁠the ⁠S&P 500 technology index, which underperformed the broader market as chip stocks fell.

While investors wait for results from megacaps Microsoft , Amazon.com, Meta and Apple Inc , ​their enthusiasm was weakened by Alphabet’s announcement, late on Wednesday, of a plan to hike capital spending even as it burns cash.

After piling ​into technology stocks in recent years, on the promise of growth from AI, investors have become worried about the need for ever-increasing capital outlays for AI, according to Peter Andersen, CEO of Andersen Capital Management.

“People are thinking, how do we make ​sense of all this spending, and how much more patient do we have ⁠to be before ‌we actually see it translate to actual profits?” Andersen said.

“The fear of missing out is ​becoming more like ​a fear of massive overbuilding.”
Late on Thursday, Intel forecast quarterly profit and revenue above Wall Street estimates ⁠and outlined plans to increase spending over the next two years. Still, the chipmaker’s ​shares sank on Friday along with the Philadelphia SE Semiconductor index.According to preliminary data, ​the S&P 500 gained 3.74 points, or 0.07%, to end at 7,413.30 points, while the Nasdaq Composite lost 157.35 points, or 0.63%, to 24,980.34. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 235.87 points, or 0.46%, to 51,947.52.

Among the S&P 500’s 11 major industry indexes, real estate outperformed during the session. The sector’s leading gainer was Digital Realty Trust, which rallied after it raised its full-year forecast for funds from operations.

Also providing some relief, crude oil futures fell more than 3% while traders booked profits from ‌a massive rally in the last five sessions and after sources said China was pushing to resume stalled U.S.-Iran peace talks. Still, U.S. missiles struck targets across Iran after President Donald Trump vowed “major military punishment” ​for Tehran and ​its Houthi allies in Yemen.

“Whatever the ⁠headlines are involving the conflict right now, that drives oil and then oil drives financial markets,” said Andersen, adding that swings in oil prices can impact consumer and corporate spending.

Also, the Trump administration imposed new tariffs of 10% and 12.5% on ​goods from 60 trading partners, citing lax enforcement of forced-labor bans. The move came as a temporary 10% global tariff expired.

Friday’s data showed that activity in the U.S. services sector accelerated in July, aided in part by spending around the FIFA World Cup and the Independence Day holiday, while the pace of growth in the manufacturing sector eased to the slowest since March.

Among other individual gainers, SLB shares climbed after the oilfield services firm beat expectations for second-quarter profit.