CBS owner Paramount has reached a $16 million settlement with President Donald Trump over his claim that 60 Minutes deceptively manipulated a pre-election interview with Kamala Harris. Trump's lawsuit has been widely described as frivolous, but Paramount seemed motivated to settle because its pending $8.4 billion merger with Skydance needed regulatory approval from the Trump administration.

In a statement provided to Ars today, Paramount said it "has reached an agreement in principle to resolve the lawsuit filed by President Trump and Representative [Ronny] Jackson in the Northern District of Texas and a threatened defamation action concerning a separate 60 Minutes report."

Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) called for a bribery investigation into Paramount. "With Paramount folding to Donald Trump at the same time the company needs his administration's approval for its billion-dollar merger, this could be bribery in plain sight," she said in a statement today. "Paramount has refused to provide answers to a congressional inquiry, so I'm calling for a full investigation into whether or not any anti-bribery laws were broken."

Sens. Warren, Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) previously told Paramount Chair Shari Redstone in a letter that settling the lawsuit could violate the federal bribery law making it "illegal to corruptly give anything of value to public officials to influence an official act."

NPR reported that "Trump declared victory in holding 'the Fake News media accountable for their wrongdoing and deceit,' according to a spokesperson for his legal team, who said Paramount and CBS had no choice but to settle. 'President Trump will always ensure that no one gets away with lying to the American People as he continues on his singular mission to Make America Great Again.'"

Payout to future presidential library

Paramount told us that the settlement terms were proposed by a mediator and that it will pay $16 million, including plaintiffs' fees and costs. That amount, minus the fees and costs, will be allocated to Trump's future presidential library, Paramount said. Trump's complaint sought at least $20 billion in damages.

Paramount also said that "no amount will be paid directly or indirectly to President Trump or Rep. Jackson personally" and that the settlement will release Paramount from "all claims regarding any CBS reporting through the date of the settlement, including the Texas action and the threatened defamation action."

Warren's statement said the "settlement exposes a glaring need for rules to restrict donations to sitting presidents' libraries," and that she will "introduce new legislation to rein in corruption through presidential library donations. The Trump administration's level of sheer corruption is appalling and Paramount should be ashamed of putting its profits over independent journalism."

Trump previously obtained settlements from ABC, Meta, and X Corp.

Paramount said the settlement "does not include a statement of apology or regret." It "agreed that in the future, 60 Minutes will release transcripts of interviews with eligible US presidential candidates after such interviews have aired, subject to redactions as required for legal or national security concerns."

FCC’s news distortion investigation

Trump and Paramount previously told the court that they were in advanced settlement negotiations and are scheduled to file a joint status report on Thursday.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr has been probing CBS over the Harris interview and holding up Paramount's merger with Skydance. Carr revived a complaint that was previously dismissed by the FCC and which alleges that CBS intentionally distorted the news by airing two different answers given by Harris to the same question about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

CBS released an unedited transcript and camera feeds of the interview that show the two clips simply showed two different sentences from the same answer. But Carr wasn't satisfied with CBS's response and has said he would consider the news distortion complaint in the FCC's review of the Paramount/Skydance merger.

Now that Paramount has settled with Trump, it wouldn't be surprising to see Carr end the news distortion investigation and approve the merger. But Paramount has insisted that the "lawsuit is completely separate from, and unrelated to, the Skydance transaction and the FCC approval process."

CBS execs resigned

In April, 60 Minutes Executive Producer Bill Owens resigned and reportedly told staff in a memo that "over the past months, it has become clear that I would not be allowed to run the show as I have always run it, to make independent decisions based on what was right for 60 Minutes, right for the audience." CBS News CEO Wendy McMahon resigned in May, saying it had "become clear that the company and I do not agree on the path forward."

The Freedom of the Press Foundation told Redstone in May that it plans to file a shareholder derivative lawsuit on behalf of Paramount if the company settles with Trump.

"As you know, the prospect of settling has drawn widespread backlash from CBS News employees as well as outside journalists and First Amendment advocates and led to ridicule from late-night talk show hosts," the group's letter said. "Disinterested experts almost unanimously agree that Trump's lawsuit is frivolous. Everyone from US senators to respected financial writers have noted that a settlement could amount to a bribe to Trump and his administration in exchange for their approving and not impeding the Paramount-Skydance merger."

Paramount itself said in a court filing that the "lawsuit is an affront to the First Amendment and is without basis in law or fact." The company's motion to dismiss Trump's lawsuit is still pending, but the case would be closed once the settlement is approved and finalized.

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None of the people being laid off were responsible for the decisions that have led to these layoffs

The post Has Xbox Considered Laying One Person Off Instead Of Thousands appeared first on Aftermath.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Stephen King published several novels under the pseudonym Richard Bachman before being outed in 1984. One of those was The Running Man, later adapted into a star vehicle for Arnold Schwarzenegger. There's a new adaptation on the horizon courtesy of director Edgar Wright (Sean of the Dead, Ant-Man, Baby Driver, Last Night in Soho), and Paramount just dropped the trailer for The Running Man (2025).

(Spoilers for the 1982 book and 1987 movie below.)

King wrote the original novel in just one week. It's set in a dystopian 2025 hellscape (making Wright's film particularly timely), with the global economy in a state of collapse and a totalitarian government ruling the US. The protagonist, Ben Richards, lives in "Co-Op City" with his wife and seriously ill daughter, unable to work because he was blacklisted. So he decides to compete on a deadly game show called The Running Man. He is declared an enemy of the state and given a 12-hour head start before an elite team of Hunters (i.e., assassins) chase after him. He's also required to post videotaped messages every day.

The goal: survive a full 30 days in order to win the grand prize of $1 billion. Of course, no contestant has ever survived that long; the record is 197 hours. But Ben gets a certain amount of money each day he survives, and for each Hunter he manages to kill, so there's still a financial incentive to help his suffering family. Ben ends up doing better than anyone ever expected, but the deck is stacked against him. And King isn't exactly known for indulging in many happy endings.

The 1987 action film starring Schwarzenegger was only loosely based on King's novel, preserving the basic concept and very little else in favor of more sci-fi gadgetry and high-octane action. (For one thing, King conceived of Ben as initially being "scrawny" and "pre-tubercular," not a well-muscled action hero.) It was a noisy, entertaining romp and very late '80s, but it lacked King's subtler satirical tone.

Wright expressed interest in adapting his own version of The Running Man in 2017, and Paramount greenlit the project four years later. Wright and co-screenwriter Michael Bacall envisioned their film as less of a remake and more of a faithful adaptation of King's original novel. This new trailer bears that out, while still including plenty of high-octane action and humor. (We'll see if that faithfulness extends to the novel's bleak ending.) Per the official premise:

In a near-future society, The Running Man is the top-rated show on television—a deadly competition where contestants, known as Runners, must survive 30 days while being hunted by professional assassins, with every move broadcast to a bloodthirsty public and each day bringing a greater cash reward. Desperate to save his sick daughter, working-class Ben Richards (Glen Powell) is convinced by the show’s charming but ruthless producer, Dan Killian (Josh Brolin), to enter the game as a last resort. But Ben’s defiance, instincts, and grit turn him into an unexpected fan favorite—and a threat to the entire system. As ratings skyrocket, so does the danger, and Ben must outwit not just the Hunters, but a nation addicted to watching him fall.

In addition to Powell and Brolin, the cast includes Lee Pace as lead Hunter, Evan McCone; Jayme Lawson as Ben's wife Sheila; Colman Domingo as Bobby Thompson, game show host; Michael Cera as the rebel Bradley Throckmorton; William H. Macy as a man who aids Ben; David Zayas as Richard Manuel; Emilia Jones as Amelia, a hostage civilian; Karl Glusman as a Hunter; and Katy O'Brian and Daniel Ezra as two other contestants on the show.

The Running Man hits theaters on November 7, 2025. Incidentally, King's 1979 Bachman book, The Long Walk—concerning yet another dystopian competition to the death—has a film adaptation coming out on September 12, 2025.

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it's the largest freshwater lake on the planet by surface area, you could lose a couple of smaller countries in there and not even notice. (vs Europe)

on top of that, it's a Northern lake, so the water never really gets warmer than 50 F (10 C) even in the heat of summer, and it's famous for sudden violent storms that destroy ships and buildings alike. this thing has a MASSIVE body count because it's also a major shipping thoroughfare.

tldr it wants to eat you so so bad

kedreeva:

She is also over 1,300ft/400m deep at her deepest. Once she has eaten you, she will not give you back. Lake Superior doesn't give up her dead.

And when Bunjy says "the largest by surface are" what that means is: Lake Superior is a whopping 31,700 square miles (82,103 square km) of water. The only reason she is not an inland sea is because she is freshwater.

She has tides. She has rip currents, like an ocean does. You don't even have to go out on a boat to get got by her, all you have to do is step into her icy waters in the wrong spot. She has ice formations that aren't "icebergs" on the technicality that they didn't calve from glaciers, even though they look and act the same.

(photo by Paul Berger)

She LOOKS like an ocean when you are at her shores. This is from a location on the Minnesota side shore.

(photo by George Ilstrup)

She is huge, icy, and hungry. This makes her very dangerous. Not to be fucked around with, because you WILL find out.

Keep your ass in the shade.