The banners were already changed on Tuesday morning when Skydance’s Paramount completed its massive merger with Warner Bros.

Skydance proudly lists on its website that its newly acquired brands include CBS News, HBO, and, of course, CNN.

CNN’s crew seemingly fears that Bari Weiss — whom Paramount appointed as CBS News editor in chief in 2025 — will be given similar powers to oversee CNN.

The massive $110 billion takeover seemed like it might never happen, even amid claims that Skydance and CEO David Ellison were open to moving their $30 billion in operations out of state if California blocked the deal.

On Tuesday morning, though, the Skydance-Paramount vs. Warner Bros.-Discovery era quickly came to an end, re-emerging as “Skydance,” per the AP.

The merger means the company controls brands like BET, MTV, HBO Max, Comedy Central, and more, all under the same banner.

This will, of course, include popular news programs like “60 Minutes” from CBS, “Anderson Cooper 360” on CNN, and “The Daily Show” from Comedy Central.

Much of the trepidation ahead of the merger has come from CNN, where staffers reportedly fear “programming and personnel changes could be driven by politics.”

RELATED: Mood at CNN is ‘like a funeral’ over looming Paramount takeover

Al Drago/Getty Images

CNN chief media analyst Brian Stelter did not dispute those claims in an interview with the Wrap, but said journalists “value stability just like people in every other line of work.”

A CNN staffer told Variety that it would be “an enormous loss and disruption” to “shuffle leadership for the umpteenth time in the midst — finally — of reshaping the business.”

Another CNN staffer said that there was a strong concern that Paramount executives “don’t know or don’t care” about managing a news corporation for profit, the outlet reported.

“I don’t have glimmers of hope and don’t see reasons for any,” the staffer said, according to Variety.

CNN’s crew seemingly fears that Bari Weiss — whom Paramount appointed as CBS News editor in chief in 2025 — will be given similar powers to oversee CNN. Weiss is seen as too conservative for left-wing outlets, as she has criticized the Women’s March, questioned the idea that America is fascist, and is pro-Israel.

RELATED: Another $30 billion could leave California as state stands in the way of a massive corporate merger

Ron Sachs/Consolidated News Pictures/Getty Images

In a press release, Ellison called the merger “a historic day, not just for Skydance but for our entire industry.”

“Our focus now turns to the future: building a company that empowers creatives, entertains audiences, and rewards shareholders,” he went on.

Last week, Ellison commented that Paramount and Warner Bros. coming together wasn’t a “rewriting” of history, but rather gives the studios “a more powerful engine.”

“We have big goals for Skydance, and we intend to pursue them with passion, imagination, and a willingness to take smart risks,” Ellison added.

To help control all of their new, major entities, Ellison recently announced Ynon Kreiz as his co-CEO.

Kreiz, who was born and raised in Israel, left his post as chairman and CEO of Mattel after eight years to fulfill the new role. He was also the chairman and CEO of Fox Kids Europe from 1997 to 2002.

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

​Paramount, Skydance, Cnn, Cbs news, Warner bros, David ellison, Entertainment, Bari weiss 

After World War II, Britain and America arrived at much different conclusions about national identity, immigration, and patriotism — and according to Winston Marshall, the reason may explain why the two nations are now facing very different cultural futures.

“Today when someone on the left says, ‘You’ve offended me, I look back at them and go, ‘Good,’” Freitas says to the former Mumford & Sons musician, noting that meanwhile, the British are known for politeness.

“Do you think that otherwise very positive attribute has been used to silence the British people when it comes to pushing back against some of these claims?” Freitas asks.

“Absolutely,” Marshall answers. “Politeness is more than that. It’s doing tremendous damage to the country. It’s killing the country. We’re being polite to people and to ideas that don’t deserve politeness, and it’s because of fear of offense.”

“This has largely come from the progressive side. But those are the people with power,” he explains.

“It’s at the expense of the vulnerable people in Britain and that’s where it’s actually no longer acceptable. Very little consideration is given, let’s say, to the victims of the grooming gangs or the victims of mass migration,” he adds.

Marshall points out that just in the last month, there were “two synagogues in London firebombed,” “Jewish children chased down the street by a car,” and “two Jews stabbed in the neck.”

“In the last year, we had two Jews killed by a bloke whose literal first name is Jihad,” he tells Freitas.

“The prime minister is very reluctant to use the word Islamism. And it’s because there’s this fear of offending the Muslim community,” he adds.

Marshall believes this is directly connected to the aftermath of World War II.

“There’s many elements to it. I at the moment am inclined to think that something happened at the end of the Second World War, which is that we all rightly had to deal with the problem of what had just happened and the horrors of the Holocaust and rightly, we said, ‘Never again,’” Marshall says.

While Nazism and facism were now seen as evil, nationalism and religion were put into that category as well.

“Now the Americans learned a different lesson. They learned that American nationalism defeated facism. We should have learned the same thing, and I don’t quite understand how we didn’t,” he explains.

“We took this different lesson, and within that I think there was another set of ideas, which was the slightly later, the progressive, post-structuralist, that postmodernist school of thought, which is … a rehashing of Marxism where instead of it being economic classes, it’s classes based on identity,” he adds.

Start watching Nick Freitas NOW at blazetv.com and use the promo code NICK for $20 off your BlazeTV+ subscription.

​Britain, Islamism, Mass migration, Winston marshall, World war ii, Grooming gangs, Nick freitas, Blazetv show 

The most populous county in Arizona appears incapable of facilitating a federal election without running into problems.

The Maricopa County Recorder’s Office, headed by Republican Justin Heap, revealed on Sunday that thousands of early ballots were mailed out prematurely owing to an alleged vendor error.

‘Maricopa is a very, very dishonest county.’

Heap’s office noted that it was informed on Friday by the vendor, Runbeck Election Services, “that it had mistakenly mailed 3,126 early ballots the previous day, six days before the scheduled October 7 mailing date. The premature mailing was not authorized by the Recorder’s Office, which was notified only after it occurred.”

RES claimed in a statement shared by the recorder’s office that the vote-by-mail envelope mailers were sent to the U.S. Postal Service Business Mail Entry Unit by its logistics team last Thursday. They weren’t supposed to be delivered until this Wednesday.

“These 3,126 packets were processed separately from the primary mailing because they did not qualify for USPS automated mail processing,” said RES. “Non-automation mail requires separate handling and processing before being presented to the USPS.”

RELATED: Here we go again: Ex-USPS worker charged for allegedly tossing hundreds of mail-in ballots in the trash

PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP/Getty Images

RES claimed that the vote-by-mail envelope mailers “had been completed and were being staged at our facility for their scheduled presentation,” but the pallet holding them “was included with mail released that evening.”

“The affected packets were part of the first voter request file provided to RES for processing,” continued the vendor. “They are valid packets, produced from the authorized voter data provided to RES, and are addressed to voters who requested them.”

Jeff Ellington, the CEO of RES, emphasized that the county was not to blame, stating in an interview, “It was pure accident, just a human error,” reported the Associated Press.

“We regret it. But it was by no means intentional,” added Ellington.

Arizona Rep. Abraham Hamadeh (R) noted that “this isn’t their first ‘mistake.’ One error is incompetence. A pattern is a system.”

Hamadeh’s distrust is well-earned.

After all, according to the White House, Maricopa County experienced a significant election data breach just days ahead of the 2020 general election. The federal Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency subsequently characterized that election as “the most secure in American history.”

During the 2022 election, the county had widespread ballot printing and reading issues at voting centers. In the 2024 election, the county not only had mailing and processing problems but saw thousands of registered voters incorrectly flagged as needing to provide proof of citizenship.

A recent investigation found that numerous noncitizens were erroneously registered to vote.

President Donald Trump blasted Maricopa County on Monday over its latest election-related “error,” calling the county “crooked” and suggesting that local officials “should be ashamed of themselves.”

“Maricopa sent out thousands of ballots illegally, and they got caught,” the president told reporters. “Now they’re saying it was an error. Maricopa is a very, very dishonest county.”

The Maricopa County Recorder’s Office noted that “upon consultation with the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office, it was determined that the ballots remain valid and do not need to be voided or reissued. Voters may complete and return them normally. Any ballots received before early voting begins will remain unopened and securely stored until processing begins.”

The Maricopa County Elections Department did not immediately respond to Blaze News’ request for comment.

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

​Midterm election, Arizona, Maricopa county, Abe hamadeh, Donald trump, Stop the steal, Us postal service, Voter fraud, Election security, Politics 

OpenAI says it’s newest artificial intelligence model didn’t quite meet the bar; that seems like an understatement.

A little more than a month after its internal AI attacked another company, OpenAI’s capabilities may be getting out of control.

‘… unsanctioned attack activities more often than the previous OpenAI models.’

OpenAI said this week that it has canceled the release of its latest model, GPT-6.1 Astra, which was expected to come out in October and be capable of handling complex tasks without the need for a human.

As it turns out, the AI took it’s lack of human direction pretty seriously and routinely decided to take matters into its own (digital) hands.

During the testing phase, Astra reportedly showed high levels of deception and a willingness to mislead users about its actions.

The New York Times reported that the AI agent was also willing to go beyond what it was originally asked, without being given instructions to do so.

OpenAI’s head of safety systems, Saachi Jain, said that “for anything regarding safety and alignment, there’s always a trade-off.”

She added, “The new model didn’t quite meet the bar in terms of staying within scope and authorization and how it communicates back to the user about the type of work it’s done.”

Simply put, the AI didn’t seem to be letting the user know what it was doing.

RELATED: Woman asked ChatGPT for spiritual guidance. The bot assumed a creepy identity and dismantled her life.

Heather Diehl/Getty Images

Through its AI Security Institute, the U.K. government just released its own report on GPT-6 Astra, the canceled model’s predecessor that launched this month.

The study said that while inside a simulated, offline environment, Astra conducted a range of unsanctioned attack activities more often than the previous OpenAI models.

The model was caught “creating fake identities, which it used to deceive developers,” posted comments from fake accounts that argued against the results of accurate security reviews, and delivered “malicious payloads to open-source codebases.”

After the research team updated its instructions in the simulation to specify that Astra should focus on specific, listed parts of its environment, the AI still “occasionally” conducted “full supply-chain attacks” on simulated targets.

RELATED: Google’s data-devouring AI wants everyone’s personal information

Heather Diehl/Getty Images

Compared to its predecessors, GPT-5.5 and GPT-5.6 Sol, GPT-6 Astra is far more manipulative and dishonest, nudging critics closer to considering its behavior out-and-out evil.

Astra develops and tests an attack at a rate of 38.8%, over four times more often than GPT-5.6 Sol.

It “influences a human reviewer” more than six times more often, creates a fake identity almost three times more often, and “delivers a malicious payload” almost five times more often than GPT-5.6 Sol.

It should be noted that GPT-5.5 conducted these activities at a near-zero percent rate, although it was tested fewer times due to prioritization on the new models.

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

​Sam altman, Chatgpt, Openai, Gpt-6.1 astra, Tech 

A left-wing commentator had a bizarre explanation for the homelessness crisis in blue cities during a debate on Bill Maher’s show Friday.

Anand Giridharadas, a frequent guest on MS NOW, argued on “Real Time with Bill Maher” that much of the problem of homelessness is because of religious families choosing a Scripture verse over the welfare of their children.

‘We are holding a lot of your people who you failed to love and take care of.’

Giridharadas was reacting to CNN’s Fareed Zakaria, who pointed out that many big cities spend “crazy” amounts of money but have not solved the homelessness crisis.

Although Giridharadas said Zakaria was right to say Democratic-controlled cities privilege the homeless over other residents who have to deal with the fallout from homelessness, he went on to defend blue cities.

“Cities are very unfairly labeled as these problem centers by Donald Trump and others,” he said.

“And one thing is worth remembering. If you look at the population of all people in cities, particularly people who come to cities from elsewhere, but particularly homeless and other vulnerable people in cities, look at youth homeless: A pretty large chunk of those people [who] end up in cities were failed in some other parts of this country,” he added.

“The fraction of youth homeless or LGBTQ, whatever, [is] pretty high,” said Giridharadas.

“So there are a lot of families in this country who fail the first duty of family, which is to love your kids more than any other thing. And there’s a lot of families in this country that look at some verse in some book and their child’s face and choose the verse in the book over their child’s face and drive their children out of Nebraska or out of Florida or out of Idaho,” he added.

“And those kids come to San Francisco, and those kids come to New York, and those kids go to Chicago, and we have friends giving dinners with them. You live in L.A., you are surrounded by people who have those kinds of stories,” Giridharadas concluded. “And so cities — every time someone is sleeping on a subway bench in a city, the rest of America can sort of say, ‘Ugh, look at these cities.’ But we are holding a lot of your people who you failed to love and take care of.”

RELATED: Family of man sought for alleged murder says liberal activist was threatening to release sexually explicit vids

Giridharadas got a lot of applause from the audience for his point.

The Human Rights Campaign estimates that LGBTQ-identifying young people have a 120% greater chance of being homeless than other youth, but a total percentage of LGBTQ people among all homeless is difficult to measure.

Giridharadas previously made headlines when he opined that perhaps Fox News should not exist anymore because its reporting had goaded viewers into committing “terrorism” during the January 6 melee at the U.S. Capitol.

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

​Anand giridharadas, Homeless crisis, Ms now, New york, San francisco, Politics, Bill maher 

A law enforcement sting operation led to the arrest of several men who allegedly tried to pay for underage sex in Alabama.

Among those arrested for alleged human trafficking were a state representative, three people illegally in the country, a school board member, and a public works director.

If convicted of human trafficking, the suspects could face up to 20 years in prison.

Atmore police pretended to be underage prostitutes advertised online and then arrested men at a hotel when they arrived for sex.

“Instead of it being the clientele that you had ordered on the advertisement, it’s numerous law enforcement officers coming out with vests and ‘police officer’ on their shirts, so it’s a big surprise, I’m sure,” Atmore Police Major Chance Thompson said.

Seventeen were arrested in total, but not all were charged with underage trafficking.

Republican State Rep. Brett Easterbrook from Fruitdale is charged with human trafficking and soliciting prostitution after he allegedly sought to pay $500 to a person under 19 years old for sex.

Now-former City of Satsuma School Board President Kory Wesley was charged with human trafficking after he allegedly offered money to a “person known to be a minor.”

Former Public Works Director for the City of Orange Beach Timothy Tucker was charged with solicitation for allegedly seeking to pay an escort $220 for sex.

“Doing the actions that the people did in this operation, while looking at the statute and how it is defined right now, is human trafficking in the first degree,” Thompson added.

RELATED: New York rabbi nabbed in underage sex sting — and brought disgusting item to hotel, cops say

“The distances these people traveled to come to Atmore, Alabama, to get into what they were doing that night,” Thompson said.

If convicted of human trafficking, the suspects could face up to 20 years in prison.

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

​Alabama, Human trafficking, Illegal immigration, Sting operation, Crime 

In October, during my sophomore year of high school, my schedule was: school from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m., football practice 4 p.m. to 6 p.m., and a couple of nights working at the gas station.

And then on Fridays, I’d come home, and my dad would be packing for that weekend’s hunting trip.

This was what every dog craved, every dog dreamed of, the heroic duty they’d been bred for, for tens of thousands of years!

Usually, we’d be joined by my dad’s doctor friends and their kids of a similar age. Forming a caravan, our party would drive the three hours from Portland into the high desert and then onto the land of a rancher friend.

Into the wild

Arriving late at night, we’d continue several miles into a sagebrush and rimrock canyon, the cars and trucks rocking violently up and down, side to side on the primitive road. Often the only thing visible was the swirling dust in the headlight beams in front of us.

We’d camp near a small stream on a flat spot beneath some trees. Once the cars had stopped, we 12- to 15-year-old kids were forced out into the bitter cold to help set up camp. It seemed an impossible task, our hands instantly numb, the darkness impenetrable.

Somehow we did it though — with our dads’ supervision. We gathered the tent stakes, unrolled the canvases, unpacked the folding tables and camp chairs.

When I let the dogs out of their travel cages, they would tear around the campsite, apoplectic with excitement, utterly ecstatic to be in this remote environment, so rich with the presence of undomesticated animal life. New smells, new creatures, so much to explore and investigate.

A dog’s life

Warmed by activity, we pounded the tent stakes in and lifted the formless canvas tents into habitable shapes.

A Coleman lantern was lit. And a fire. If it wasn’t too late, our dads would enjoy a hot toddy and sigh to themselves, happy to be away from civilization, the hospital, their schedules, their wives.

But the dogs were the happiest of all. They too were finally free of civilizational restraint, the bloodless world of kitty litter and doggie treats, leashes and poop bags.

Now they were in the wild, in the realm of predator and prey: wolves, coyotes, deer, and rattlesnakes. And best of all, birds that they could chase through the brush and brambles in furious contests of speed and agility.

The danger, the adventure, the thrill of the hunt! This was what every dog craved, every dog dreamed of, the heroic duty they’d been bred for, for tens of thousands of years!

Bottom of the bag

When it was time to sleep, I would unfold my cot and spread out my sleeping bag in the faint light of a flashlight.

The high desert altitude and bracing cold always left me punch drunk, and by the time I climbed into my sleeping bag, I could barely keep my eyes open.

My father was a heavy-set man in his 40s. Originally from Iowa and of Scandinavian descent, he seemed unaffected by the frigid temperature. He stripped down to his underwear and once inside his sleeping bag, instantly fell asleep and began to snore.

I, on the other hand, was small and slight and was more of a “fetal position at the bottom of my sleeping bag” type of kid.

Desert dreams

Once my bag was warm and I was somewhat comfortable, I’d realize I forgot to piss. Which meant the life-or-death decision: Do I get up and go outside? Or try to hold it through the night?

But no, there was no holding it. I’d better piss. I just had to be tough. I had to be a man. I was on the frickin’ football team for God’s sake, I could get up and take a piss in the cold!

So I flung open my sleeping bag, rolled off my cot, and pushed through the tent flap, exposing my nearly naked body to the knife-like cold outside.

I stepped gingerly through the dirt and sagebrush in my bare feet. I then relieved myself, realizing as I did that it wasn’t that cold, I wasn’t going to die, and that in the moonlight, the desert was vivid and hushed and almost welcoming in its austere beauty.

Layers of ice

It would be very cold the next morning. Even colder than it had been at night. There would be frost on the ground. Water left out would now have a layer of ice.

But somehow, over the course of the night, I’d grown up a little. I’d morphed into someone a little more resilient than the suburban 15-year-old I’d been the day before.

So out I came from the tent, unafraid and without complaint.

The campfire was restarted. Breakfast was made and quietly eaten. Now there was talk of logistics. Where the birds might be. The options for the morning hunt.

The dogs were fed. Extra food for them. They would be having one of the greatest days of their short lives. They would barely be able to walk by nightfall.

Morning has broken

The first morning’s hunt was usually the most energetic. Everyone rested and ready to go. The dogs raced through the brush and over the rimrock, knowing without instruction exactly what to do and when to do it.

Like war, hunting is mostly walking and waiting, and waiting and walking, and wondering if anything will ever happen.

Followed by short bursts of extreme excitement, chaos, noise, and adrenaline when a covey of birds exploded into the air all around you.

RELATED: Defending the last place where men can be men

ABC Photo Archives/Getty Images

Rest and relaxation

We’d return to camp for lunch. And then back out again if the hunting was good. Or if there were no birds, maybe fishing in the afternoon.

Or sometimes, my dad would just take a nap. And I would relax in a camp chair and read a couple chapters of my assigned books for sophomore English: “Huckleberry Finn” or “Catcher in the Rye.”

All parties would be back in camp by dark. If you’d caught or killed anything that day, you cleaned it now. The camp stove would be fired up. Often freshly caught trout would be fried in butter for dinner. If not, there were usually steaks in one of the coolers.

The dogs would have to be attended to. More food. More water. And extra praise and meat scraps, as they were the ones who dove into impenetrable thickets, dashed across precarious rim rock, or chased a pheasant into a treacherous ravine.

Always, the dogs were the heroes of the day and then the thoroughly exhausted warriors of the night.

Arriving back in Portland, late on a Sunday night, I would take a long, hot, deep-scrubbing shower and retire to my warm and comfortable suburban bed.

The next morning, it was back to my warm and comfortable suburban high school. But doing so with a secret and special experience of a type most kids would never have.

​Birds, Dogs, High school, Hunt, Lifestyle, Nostalgia, Portland oregon, High desert, Fathers and sons, Hunting, Blake’s progress 

JD Vance has a message for Texas voters about James Talarico: Look past the Christian rhetoric and pay attention to what he actually believes.

While speaking to a Texas crowd, Vance argued that Talarico’s “real religion” has nothing to do with what you hear in church on Sunday or “the redemptive power of Christ’s sacrifice.”

“It’s about crazy left-wing politics. His real religion is not about Jesus. His real religion is about the radical left in this country,” Vance said, pointing out that Talarico believes it’s “abusive” if you don’t let a 6-year-old start hormones and change his pronouns once he claims to be a girl.

“Nothing in the Bible supports any of this, of course. Now, in my church, and I imagine like a lot of yours, we are taught, for example, that Mary was selected by God to be the sacred vessel because she was, in the words of the archangel, full of grace and blessed among women,” Vance said.

“But in the gospel of James Tala-freako, Mary was not a woman because there is no such thing. She was a pregnant person, and her son was little more than a decent philosopher,” he continued.

Vance then asked what “really motivates a man” to spend all his time “talking about 11-year-old drag queens.”

“A man who wears your religion as a cover will never fight for your values, and he won’t fight for you because he thinks, like so many generations of politicians, Talarico thinks that we are backwards and simple. He’s a man so focused on children and drag, he’s never going to care about our jobs,” Vance said.

“He’s a man who empathizes more with criminals than with the victims. And when you empathize with the criminals more than with the victims, that man is never going to protect your streets,” he added.

BlazeTV host Pat Gray and executive producer Keith Malinak couldn’t agree more with Vance, though Malinak points out that someone else should be following Vance’s lead.

“Why isn’t Ken Paxton delivering these kind of remarks with this kind of energy?” Malinak asks.

Gray notes that “Vance is right” about Talarico.

“He’s so concerned with the trans issue, which is less than 1% of the population,” he says, “but that’s who he’s going to focus on.”

Want more from Pat Gray?

To enjoy more of Pat’s biting analysis and signature wit as he restores common sense to a senseless world, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

​James talarico, Jd vance, Keith malinak, Ken paxton, Pat gray, Drag queens, Transgender, Minors, Texas, Blazetv show