Officials from America and China met for the latest round of trade talks, starting on June 9th, in Lancaster House, a neoclassical mansion near Buckingham Palace. It was commissioned in 1825 by the “Grand Old” Duke of York, whose military manoeuvres have been immortalised in a children’s song. A fitting venue, then, for a trade war of escalations and climbdowns. More
Officials from America and China met for the latest round of trade talks on June 9th-10th in Lancaster House, a mansion near Buckingham Palace. The building was commissioned in 1825 by the “Grand Old” Duke of York, whose military manoeuvres have been immortalised in a children’s song. A fitting venue, then, for a trade war of escalations and climbdowns. More
Paramount Global told employees that it would be reducing its workforce by 3.5% and that the majority of the impacted staff would be alerted on Tuesday.
It’s the latest round of layoffs at the media company as it contends with cord-cutting and prepares to merge with Skydance Media.
Layoffs have been taking place across the media industry in recent weeks, with reported headcount reductions at Disney and Warner Bros. Discovery.
The Paramount Studios in Los Angeles on April 29, 2024.
Eric Thayer | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Paramount Global is cutting its U.S.-based staff by 3.5%, or several hundred employees, in the latest round of layoffs at the media company as it contends with the decline of the traditional pay-TV bundle and macroeconomic headwinds.
The company notified its staff of the impending layoffs on Tuesday morning, according to a memo viewed by CNBC. The memo, which came from the office of the CEO — George Cheeks, Chris McCarthy and Brian Robbins — said the majority of the impacted staff will be notified on Tuesday.
The layoffs also come as Paramount has been in the process of seeking regulatory approval for its proposed merger with Skydance Media, which has been held up by a legal battle between Paramount-owned CBS and the Trump administration over a “60 Minutes” interview with former Vice President Kamala Harris.
Last June the trio of CEOs presented a go-forward plan that had included job cuts and reduced spending. In August, Paramount began the process of reducing its U.S.-based workforce by 15%.
In Tuesday’s memo the CEOs said that the process may also result in some impacts to the workforce outside of the U.S. over time.
“We recognize how difficult this is and are very thankful for everyone’s hard work and contributions. These changes are necessary to address the environment we are operating in and best position Paramount for success,” the CEOs said in the memo.
Layoffs have been taking place across the media industry in recent weeks, with reported headcount reductions at Disney and Warner Bros. Discovery.
Paramount employed roughly 18,600 full- and part-time employees globally as of December, before recent cuts, according to the regulatory filing.
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More Republicans than Democrats get health insurance through the Affordable Care Act marketplace, according to a poll by KFF.
The GOP-controlled House of Representatives passed a massive tax and spending bill in May that makes substantial cuts to health programs for the ACA, also known as Obamacare.
Millions of people are expected to lose health insurance coverage if the bill becomes law.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-South Dakota), from left, Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyoming) and Senator Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) exit the West Wing of the White House on June 4, 2025. The Senate has begun deliberations over President Donald Trump’s massive “Big Beautiful Bill” that narrowly passed the House on May 22, with several Republican senators expressing concerns over its cost as well as cuts to Medicaid and clean energy tax credits.
Photographer: Eric Lee/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Republicans on Capitol Hill are weighing legislation that’s estimated to cut billions of dollars of funding for the Affordable Care Act and cause millions of people to lose their health insurance. Many of their constituents may not be happy about it, polling suggests.
Nearly half, 45%, of adults enrolled in a health plan offered through the ACA insurance marketplace identify as Republicans, according to a new survey by KFF, a nonpartisan group that conducts health policy research.
(More than three-quarters of those Republican ACA users identify as “MAGA” Republicans. Those MAGA Republicans represent 31% of ACA purchasers overall.)
Meanwhile, 35% of Democrats get their health insurance through the ACA, KFF found.
Republicans in the House of Representatives passed a multitrillion-dollar tax and spending package in May estimated to cut about $900 billion from health programs like Medicaid and the ACA, which is also known as Obamacare.
Senate Republicans are now considering the measure, which contains many of President Donald Trump’s domestic policy priorities. Republicans are trying to pass the megabill by the Fourth of July.
If the GOP enacts the legislation as written and doesn’t extend tax credits that lower monthly ACA health premiums, about 15 million people would lose health insurance, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
“A large constituency of Republicans using the programs are potentially facing cuts,” said Audrey Kearney, a senior survey analyst for KFF’s public opinion and survey research program.
The survey was conducted May 5 to 26 among a nationally representative sample of 2,539 U.S. adults, including 247 who have purchased their own health coverage.
Republicans more likely to be self-employed
Health plans offered via the ACA exchanges are primarily for Americans who don’t have coverage through their jobs or via a public program such as Medicare or Medicaid, experts said.
The self-employed fall into this coverage gap — and self-employed Americans tend to lean right, a likely reason more Republicans seem to be enrolled in ACA health plans relative to Democrats, Kearney said.
“Republicans are more likely to be entrepreneurs than Democrats,” according to a 2023 paper published by researchers at Columbia University, the University of California San Diego and the University of Alberta.
About 5.5% of Republicans become entrepreneurs, while that’s true of 3.7% of Democrats, they found.
Many red-leaning states didn’t expand Medicaid
The Affordable Care Act also expanded Medicaid coverage to more households.
However, 10 states haven’t adopted the expansion: Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kansas, Mississippi, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Wisconsin and Wyoming. All voted for Trump in the 2024 presidential election.
Republicans are “more likely to live in nonexpansion states,” John Graves, a professor of health policy and medicine at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, wrote in an e-mail.
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Here’s why this matters for ACA enrollment: “In the non-expansion states, there’s a wider population eligible for the tax credits,” said Carolyn McClanahan, a physician and certified financial planner based in Jacksonville, Florida. She’s a member of the CNBC Financial Advisor Council.
In states that expanded Medicaid, nearly all adults with incomes up to 138% of the federal poverty line (about $22,000 for a one-person household in 2025) are eligible for Medicaid.
In states that didn’t expand Medicaid, a broader population is eligible for subsidies to make ACA health plans less expensive, Graves said. The subsidized exchanges are available for people between 100% and 138% of the federal poverty line, among others.
“Given the heavy subsidies in that income range, and large amount of otherwise uninsured people, that would suggest more GOP-identifying people with low incomes would go the (subsidized) exchange route,” Graves wrote.
The Affordable Care Act has been vilified by Republicans since passage during President Barack Obama’s tenure. However, provisions within the law — such as creation of the ACA marketplaces, coverage for those with pre-existing conditions and the ability to stay on parents’ health plan until age 26 — have broad appeal, said KFF’s Kearney.
As of 2023, nearly 1 in 7 U.S. residents had enrolled in an ACA marketplace plan at some point since 2014, the year in which states rolled out marketplace plans, according to a 2024 report from the U.S. Department of the Treasury.
“Our polling going back years has shown that when you ask about favorability of the ACA itself, Republicans view it as pretty unfavorable,” she said. “However, the actual provisions in it are very popular, and are popular among Republicans.” More
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Monday said he is “retiring” all 17 members of a crucial government panel of vaccine advisors.
Kennedy is removing all members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, or ACIP, which advises the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
It’s the latest move by Kennedy – a prominent vaccine skeptic – to change and potentially undermine vaccinations in the U.S. since he took the helm at HHS.
U.S. Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. testifies before the Senate Committee on Appropriations hearing on the Department of Health and Human Services budget, on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., U.S., May 20, 2025.
Ken Cedeno | Reuters
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Monday said he is “retiring” all 17 members of a crucial government panel of vaccine advisors, a shocking step that could help to sow doubts about immunizations in the U.S.
“A clean sweep is needed to re-establish public confidence in vaccine science,” Kennedy said in an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal on Monday.
Kennedy is removing all members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, or ACIP, which advises the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The group reviews vaccine data and makes recommendations that determine who is eligible for shots and whether insurers should cover them, among other efforts.
ACIP members are independent medical and public experts who make recommendations based on rigorous scientific review and evidence. The CDC director has to sign off on those recommendations for them to become official policy.
It is unclear who Kennedy will appoint to the new group. In a release, HHS said ACIP will still hold a planned meeting from June 25 to 27 to make recommendations. A person familiar with the matter told CNBC that new members will run that meeting.
The advisor overhaul is the latest move by Kennedy – a prominent vaccine skeptic – to change and potentially undermine vaccinations in the U.S. since he took the helm at HHS. Under Kennedy, HHS stopped recommending routine Covid-19 vaccines for healthy children and healthy pregnant women and canceled programs intended to discover new vaccines to prevent future pandemics, among other changes.
Kennedy said Monday HHS will put “the restoration of public trust above any pro- or antivaccine agenda.”
Kennedy added some of the members on the committee were last-minute appointees of the Biden administration and noted that, without ousting advisors from the current group, the Trump administration would not have been able to appoint a majority of new members until 2028.
Kennedy claimed that the panel has been “plagued with persistent conflicts of interest and has become little more than a rubber stamp for any vaccine.”
But all HHS agencies and their advisory panels have had rigorous policies for conflicts of interest, and there have been no related issues for years. All members of federal vaccine advisory committees are already required to comply with regulations around disclosing potential conflicts of interest.
The announcement comes days after pediatric infectious disease expert Dr. Lakshmi Panagiotakopoulos resigned as co-leader of ACIP due to the belief she is “no longer able to help the most vulnerable members” of the U.S. population.
Health policy experts previously told CNBC that a shake-up of the advisory committee could produce politicized recommendations that highlight the harms rather than the benefits of shots. Those recommendations could also create greater distrust in the CDC and Trump administration among scientists and public health experts.
ACIP has also scrutinized vaccine products in the past, in contrast to what Kennedy and other Trump administration figures have argued. In certain instances, the group has recommended more restricted use of vaccines than their approval under the Food and Drug Administration would permit.
For example, the FDA approved Merck’s HPV vaccine for use in women and men ages 9 to 45. But the CDC only recommends its use in patients ages 9 to 26, because there is a lower public health benefit of the vaccine in those ages 27 to 45.
— CNBC’s Angelica Peebles contributed to this report. More
Disney has agreed to pay Comcast $438.7 million to acquire Comcast’s stake in streaming service Hulu.
In 2023 Disney said it would buy Comcast’s remaining stake in Hulu to take full ownership of the streaming service. Disney initially paid $8.6 billion to Comcast.
Since then Disney and Comcast have been in an appraisal process for the remaining payment.
Signage is seen at the 2019 Deadline Contenders Hulu Reception at Paramount Theater on the Paramount Studios lot on April 07, 2019 in Hollywood, California.
Rachel Murray | Getty Images
Disney has agreed to pay Comcast $438.7 million for its stake in the streaming service Hulu, concluding a years-long appraisal process.
In 2023 Disney announced it intended to buy Comcast’s 33% stake in Hulu. At the time, Disney paid $8.6 billion, which reflected Hulu’s guaranteed minimum value of $27.5 billion. The two companies had agreed on that floor in 2019.
Disney’s announcement came as no surprise as it was widely reported by CNBC and others that Disney was looking to take full ownership of Hulu. Disney took two-thirds ownership of Hulu when it acquired Fox Corp.’s entertainment assets.
Following that initial payment, Disney and Comcast entered into an appraisal process that was originally expected to conclude in 2024.
Disney said its appraiser had reached a valuation below the guaranteed floor, while the appraiser for Comcast’s NBCUniversal “arrived at a valuation substantially in excess of the guaranteed floor value.” The process was concluded by a third appraiser on Monday, according to an SEC filing.
The final transaction is expected to close on or before July 24. Disney will record the payment in its “net income attributable to noncontrolling interests,” which will then reduce “net income attributable to Disney” in its fiscal third quarter income statement. It’s not expected to impact Disney’s prior guidance for fiscal 2025 adjusted earnings.
“We are pleased this is finally resolved. We have had a productive partnership with NBCUniversal, and we wish them the best of luck,” said Disney CEO Bob Iger in a statement.
Iger added that the completed acquisition paves the way for “a deeper and more seamless integration” of Hulu and Disney+ content, as well as the upcoming ESPN direct-to-consumer streaming app, called ESPN.
Disney has already begun integrating the two existing services, which are also offered together in a bundle with ESPN+, the current sports streaming offering.
Comcast’s NBCUniversal has been focused on building up its streaming service, Peacock, since it launched in 2020.
“Hulu was a great start for us in streaming that generated nearly $10 billion in proceeds for Comcast and created an important audience for NBCUniversal’s world-class content,” a Comcast spokesperson said in a statement Monday. “We wish Disney well with Hulu and appreciate the cooperative way our teams managed the partnership.”
Hulu had more than 50 million subscribers as of March 29, according to Disney’s most recent earnings report. In total, Disney had 180.7 million streaming subscribers, the bulk of which come from Disney+. Comcast reported in April that Peacock had 41 million subscribers.
Disclosure: Comcast owns NBCUniversal, the parent company of CNBC. More
The Food and Drug Administration approved Merck’s shot designed to protect infants from respiratory syncytial virus during their first season of the virus.
The decision will allow the company to launch the drug, which will be marketed as Enflonsia, ahead of the RSV season that typically kicks off around fall and winter.
Merck’s shot will compete against a similar blockbuster treatment from Sanofi and AstraZeneca called Beyfortus.
Mike Blake | Reuters
The Food and Drug Administration on Monday approved Merck’s shot designed to protect infants from respiratory syncytial virus during their first season of the virus, bringing to market a rival to a similar treatment from Sanofi and AstraZeneca.
The decision will allow the company to launch the drug, which will be marketed as Enflonsia, ahead of the RSV season that typically kicks off around fall and winter and lasts through the spring. Merck said in a release that it expects orders for the shot to begin in July, with shipments delivered before the virus starts to spread widely.
The approval gives doctors a new option for tackling the virus, which causes thousands of deaths among older Americans and hundreds of deaths among infants each year. Complications from RSV are the leading cause of hospitalization among newborns.
“We are committed to ensuring availability of [Enflonsia] in the U.S. before the start of the upcoming RSV season to help reduce the significant burden of this widespread seasonal infection on families and health care systems,” Dr. Dean Li, president of Merck Research Laboratories, said in a release.
Merck’s shot will compete against a similar blockbuster treatment from Sanofi and AstraZeneca called Beyfortus, which was in short supply nationwide during the 2023 RSV season due to unprecedented demand.
Both are preventative monoclonal antibodies, which deliver antibodies directly into the bloodstream to provide immediate protection. But each targets a different part of the virus, making it difficult to compare them directly.
Merck’s shot can be administered to infants regardless of their weight, which the company said may offer convenience in terms of dosing. Meanwhile, the recommended dosage of Beyfortus is based on an infant’s body weight.
Sanofi on Monday revealed an aggressive effort to increase supply of Beyfortus, including a plan to begin shipping the shot early in the third quarter. Last year, Beyfortus booked sales of €1.7 billion ($1.8 billion).
Vaccines for RSV are also available in the U.S. from companies such as Pfizer, GSK and Moderna. But those shots are only for use in adults or in pregnant women. Recently, the FDA paused testing of RSV shots in young children while it evaluates safety concerns.
All of the companies in the market are waiting for a meeting of outside vaccine advisors to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from June 25 to 27, when they will form recommendations for RSV shots and other immunizations.
In the mid- to late-stage trial on Enflonsia, the shot reduced RSV-related hospitalizations by more than 84% and decreased hospitalizations due to lower respiratory infections by 90% compared with a placebo among infants through five months. The shot also reduced lower respiratory infections that required medical attention by more than 60% compared with a placebo through five months.
RSV is a common cause of lower respiratory tract infections such as pneumonia. More
In a conference call Monday, Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav said U.S. sports have not been a major driver for HBO Max subscriptions.
Zaslav said it will be up to Gunnar Wiedenfels and his team to decide where to license TNT Sports rights in the future.
One possibility for Wiedenfels could be to merge TNT Sports with another media company, such as the soon-to-be spun-off Versant.
David Zaslav attends the world premiere of “The Flash”, in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, U.S., June 12, 2023. REUTERS/Mike Blake
Mike Blake | Reuters
Earlier this year, Warner Bros. Discovery Chief Executive Officer David Zaslav ended his company’s long relationship with the National Basketball Association. Now, he may be setting the stage to end his relationship with U.S. sports, altogether.
WBD announced Monday it’s splitting itself into two companies — a concept CNBC first reported had picked up steam in April. One company, temporarily called Streaming and Studios, will consist of Warner Bros. Television, Warner Bros. Motion Picture Group, DC Studios, HBO and HBO Max. The other, currently dubbed Global Networks, will be the rest of the company’s assets: legacy cable networks, TNT Sports, digital products and free-to-air channels in Europe.
Zaslav will be the CEO of Streaming and Studios. Gunnar Wiedenfels, the current Warner Bros. Discovery Chief Financial Officer, will become the CEO of Global Networks.
The divorce raises the question of where live sports right held by TNT will land without Warner Bros. Discovery’s streaming portfolio as part of the same company.
During a conference call Monday, Zaslav said it will be up to Wiedenfels and his team to decide where they’d like to license TNT Sports programming to the Streaming and Studios business — or anyone else —in the future.
Currently, all of TNT Sports appear on HBO Max, Warner Bros. Discovery’s flagship streaming service. Zaslav said U.S. sports haven’t been a major driver of HBO Max sign-ups, suggesting that it may make sense for TNT Sports to consciously uncouple from the streaming service down the road.
“Inside the U.S., sports have been less critical,” Zaslav said on the call with investors Monday. “It’s viewed, but it hasn’t been a real driver for us. So it will continue to be on HBO Max, but the Global Networks business will evaluate over time where the best place for that is.”
HBO Max will continue to license sports for existing deals. Still, Wiedenfels will have options on how to monetize TNT’s future streaming and digital sports rights. He could strike a licensing deal with a different media company for the live sports that appear on the Turner networks (TNT, TBS and TruTV), such as the NCAA’s March Madness, the French Open, NASCAR, Major League Baseball and the National Hockey League.
“The U.S. sports rights will reside at the Global Networks, and its management team will determine how best to monetize the streaming and digital rights over time,” said Wiedenfels. “Internationally, sports will largely coexist, both on linear and streaming, as they do today.”
Or, he could decide to merge TNT Sports with another entity, such as the forthcoming Comcast spinout, Versant. Mark Lazarus, Versant’s CEO, told CNBC Sport last month he was interested in bidding on sports rights to gain distribution heft with pay-TV operators. Acquiring TNT Sports could be a major step in that direction.
If Wiedenfels opts for consolidation, he will have to weigh the tax effects of selling off assets after the separation takes place. While Warner Bros. Discovery noted the split is tax-free, Wiedenfels emphasized on Monday’s call that transactions could begin as soon as the separation occurs, which is expected by mid-2026.
“On the tax side, I said this earlier, I want to be absolutely clear: Once this deal closes, both companies are going to be free and clear,” Wiedenfels said. “There is no minimum time.”
A spokesperson for Versant declined to comment.
Disclosure: Comcast is the parent company of CNBC. Versant will become the parent company of CNBC when the spinout is complete.
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